After the death of Zong Qinghou, the founder of Wahaha Group, the turmoil of "'supporting' Wahaha and 'stepping on' Nongfu Spring" continued to ferment, and even went beyond the scope of business.
For many years, the low-key farmer at the helm of Nongfu Spring, Zhong Sui, is now caught in an unexpected dispute. Because he understands people's hearts too well, because he knows too well what he will face next, he has to prove himself.
However, the past has made waves, and the "water war" of the century more than 20 years ago has been fought to this day, which is likely to be a turning point in the fate of Nongfu Spring. More than 20 years later, it was discovered that behind the water war was nothing more than a marketing game in which capital was well versed in human nature.
Nongfu Spring, which has experienced **, has changed from "a little sweet" to "a little bitter".
Zhong, who was besieged, also changed from "a little money" to "a little hanging".
The Farmer and the Snake?
Unexpectedly, Zong Qinghou passed away, and in this atmosphere of remembrance, the sales of Wahaha's official stores skyrocketed, and many products were sold out, and they continued to be on the hot search.
But Nongfu Spring was dumbfounded - its sales were facing a cliff**. Since February 28, Nongfu Spring's sales performance has declined significantly for 5 consecutive days, and the daily sales have fallen by more than 90%.
The reason is that recently, there have been many claims on the Internet, the most prominent of which is: Zhong Sui, the founder of Nongfu Spring, backstabbed Wahaha.
On March 3, 2024, Nongfu Spring's official Weibo released the article "Zhong Sui: I have three things with the elder Zong". In this article, Zhong Sui expressed his reverence for the elder of the sect many times, and also disclosed his first pot of gold for the first time, as well as helping Zong Qinghou to develop eight-treasure porridge products.
In addition, Zhong mentioned whether he used to be "Wahaha**" and whether he was canceled because of "rushing goods", but he only used the sentence "I have never received a salary in Wahaha, let alone been fired for rushing goods". (Rushing goods, also known as restocking, channeling, refers to the distribution network at all levels of the best merchants, branches, etc. driven by interests, so that the distribution of products across the regional sales, resulting in chaos, so that other dealers lose confidence in the product, consumers lose trust in the brand marketing phenomenon.) ）
The appearance of this sentence caused dissatisfaction among some people, who began to question whether Zhong's attitude was too perfunctory, and further exposed the so-called "black material".
For example, some people picked up the nationality of Zhong's son, and said that if Zhong's company was handed over to his son in the future, it was uncertain about the direction of Nongfu Spring and whether it would still be a real national enterprise.
For example, it has been pointed out that Nongfu Spring's Oriental Leaf Bottle is printed with Japanese elements.
In the verbal criticism of netizens, Zhong Sui has become a character of "ungrateful", "farmer and snake" and "Jingri", which has received widespread attention and negative impact.
Nongfu Spring first entered the drinking water war in 1997. At that time, the pure water market was still the world of Wahaha and Robust. Wahaha, in particular, has almost mastered the right to speak on pure water, and has a crushing trend for other products.
And Doll Ha is indeed Zhong's former owner. Before setting up his own portal, Zhong was the chief merchant of Wahaha Children's Nutrition Oral Liquid in Guangxi and Hainan.
According to the report of the early years, Zhong Sui at that time saw that the price difference between different regions was profitable, so he sold low-priced products from Hainan to Zhanjiang, Guangdong, but a series of "wool" operations caused him to lose his qualification as the general **.
This incident became a charge of his "ingratitude".
In this regard, Zhong made a special clarification in the article.
Zhong said that he joked at a sales meeting of Nongfu Spring: At that time, Wahaha, which we did not sell in Hainan, was probably sold to Guangdong, and if it is put to this point, it will be recognized as rushing goods, and said that he has never received a salary in Wahaha, let alone been fired for rushing goods.
In Zhong's view, it is ironic to look at the problems of the past from the current perspective.
According to Zhong's entrepreneurial history, in 1993, he founded his own health care product company, Hainan Yangshengtang Pharmaceutical, which became famous by producing "Yangshengtang Turtle and Turtle Pills". In 1996, Zhong Sui then founded Zhejiang Qiandao Lake Health Hall Drinking Water ***
Why did Zhong choose to sell water? Speaking at the 2004 China Enterprise Growth Forum, he said: "I have chosen an industry where the sun never sets, and you always have to drink water, and it is impossible not to drink water. ”
It is this "sun never sets" industry that has helped him climb to the top of the rich list step by step.
Journalist-turned-Zhong Zhang
In the business of selling water, it is not easy to defend the country, and it is even more difficult to fight the country. Evergrande entered the game with a high profile that year, but in the end it could only return in defeat. We've found that just throwing money at it doesn't work to sell water.
But Nongfu Spring did it. Marketing is an unavoidable topic for the rise of Nongfu Spring, because the marketing road that Nongfu Spring has walked can be described as huge and full of bloody taste.
"The best marketing is event marketing. Zhong Sui, who has been a reporter in "Zhejiang **" for five years, knows this well and is not afraid to compete fiercely with the market.
In 1999, Nongfu Spring announced that it would stop producing pure water and only produce natural water and mineral water containing minerals, taking the initiative to open up a new track in such a narrow track.
A year later, Zhong took the initiative to spark a dispute between pure water and natural water, vigorously promoting the concept that "pure water is not beneficial to health". According to him, only natural water that contains minerals is good for health. In order to strengthen the concept of natural water, Nongfu Spring also used animal and plant experiments and cell experiments to support its statement, and guided the public to participate in the discussion from a seemingly scientific point of view and with the help of **.
This is equivalent to Zhong Sui's own efforts to challenge thousands of pure water manufacturers across the country, and also attracted Wahaha Zongqing to personally lead the fight against Nongfu Spring.
Zong Qinghou asked Zhong angrily: "Narcissus grows better in dung water, is dung water better than pure water?" ”
In fact, it is difficult to figure out the difference between pure water and natural water, and it is even impossible to conclude whether the tiny amount of minerals in natural water is really good for health.
But this is how easy it is for a successful event to capture people's minds. This turn-of-the-century water war finally hit the pure water market hard, and Nongfu Spring's "natural water" image went out of the circle.
After this battle, the pure water market represented by Wahaha has fallen rapidly.
According to Zhong, in the end, Zong Qinghou shook hands with him in the presence of the main leaders of Hangzhou at that time. To this day, Zhong still insists that the mineral elements in water are essential for human health.
There are many wonderful parts of the follow-up water battle.
We know that once a company that sells water spreads the slightest bit of news that it is not beneficial to health or even harmful to health, it will be a huge and even irreversible crisis.
For example, in 2008, Master Kong was caught in the "Water Source Gate" incident. At that time, Master Kong claimed that his brand of mineral water "came from high-quality water sources", but it was discovered in the factory** that the source of his mineral water came from tap water, and minerals were added to it.
However, an investigation showed that the ** person in Master Kong's water source claimed to be a student of Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, and was later found to be a manager of Nongfu Spring. When ** approached the manager for an interview, he said "I can't answer".
In 2009, Nongfu Spring began to use overwhelming advertisements to emphasize that "it comes from high-quality water sources and never uses tap water" and "we are just the porters of nature".
Later, the water quality dispute between Nongfu Spring and Cestbon was also a similar incident, and the two sides even started a lawsuit. In the end, although Cestbon won, Nongfu Spring staged successful "event marketing" and "viral communication" in this confrontation, which is tantamount to the brand's best advertisement.
Targeted
I often walk by the river, how can I not get my shoes wet. Reality will not only develop according to the marketing script written by Nongfu Spring itself.
In 2013, Nongfu Spring was accused of limiting harmful substances to its products even more than tap water standards. But for Zhong Sui, it was not difficult to deal with ** at that time.
At that time, there were many reports on Nongfu Spring, but Nongfu Spring only singled out "**Accusing it of opening up a news record of criticizing a company." Subsequently, it was revealed that "* was found to be cooperating with a company to operate a bottled water sales business.
Zou Zhendong, a professor at the School of Journalism and Communication of Xiamen University, is reviewing this **war**price: This is the "Jianghu grievance method" of the ** battle of heads-up PK, and it is a kind of ** extrication technique. The problem of black and white finally evolved into a feud between a company and a **.
Hit the whole industry with a new concept and get out of the circle, hit the opponent with the best and become famous, coupled with a series of seemingly very heartfelt advertising fills, the "a little sweet" porter Nongfu Spring finally gradually occupied the largest market share in the countryAfter securing the No. 1 position in 2012, it has not come down since. In 2022, Zhong became the richest man in China.
Today, the share of the former overlord Wahaha in the drinking water market has been continuously eroded, leaving 22%, which is only a fraction of Nongfu Spring.
It's just that I didn't expect that more than 20 years later, the water war of the century would be turned over again, and this time Nongfu Spring became the target of public criticism and was placed on the opposite side of Wahaha.
Today's ** field is also very different from before, we have long passed the era of only reading newspapers, since the power of communication and the speed of emotional fermentation of netizens, so that the marketing master Zhong Sui is also uneasy.
He understands that it is too terrible for a brand to let the ** ferment and lose the hearts of the people.
But this time, even if Zhong Sui personally issued a clarification, it would be difficult for Nongfu Spring to get out of trouble in a short time. Netizens are frantically unleashing their emotions about capital and marketing manipulation, which directly affects their purchasing decisions and brand loyalty.
The turning of the water
For Wahaha, the biggest goal set in 2023 is to regain the lost position of bottled water. At the National Dealers Conference, Zong Qinghou had put forward a new requirement to "restore the water market", and from now on, it will be fully distributed.
In fact, as early as December 2021, Zong Fuli spoke at the 2022 National Sales Work Conference on behalf of Wahaha Group, proposing to start a "water turnaround", choosing three sets of combination punches around Asian Games marketing, "laboratory scientific research water", and channel construction.
Therefore, we can often see a saying that Wahaha is the "royal water" of the laboratory, the "hard currency" in the laboratory. Pure water is also still using business wisdom to promote itself from a scientific point of view.
In fact, the profits of aquatic products are very attractive, and selling water is an ultra-low-cost industry. That's why brands continue to invest in this area. Taking Nongfu Spring as an example, the gross profit margin of a bottle of water is stable at more than 50%.
Among them, the largest cost of sales comes from packaging. Packaging materials such as PET, cartons, labels, and shrink film used to produce bottles can account for more than half of the cost of sales. That's why some people jokedZhong is the richest man in China who sells bottles.
The company's location is Qiandao Lake in Zhejiang, which is the first source of water for Nongfu Spring and the largest output so far, with a production capacity of 6.83 million tons. Although the cost of water itself is not high, the scarcity of water sources creates a high barrier to the industry.
Over the past 20 years, Nongfu Spring has laid out 12 major natural water sources across the country, achieving the effect of occupying the king of land, including Changbai Mountain in Jilin, Lingwu Mountain in Hebei, Danjiangkou in Hubei, Wanlv Lake in Guangdong, etc. Most of these water sources are mined by Nongfu Spring.
According to the relevant regulations, after obtaining the water intake permit, a certain amount of water compensation fee needs to be paid every year. When these costs are spread evenly over each bottle of water, the cost of the water itself is almost negligible.
Therefore, even if Nongfu Spring lowers the price on a large scale, it is far from being called "selling water at a loss".
The drinking water industry has always been full of ups and downs, entrepreneurs in the business drama of the ambition, in the later development, some of them grew into the light of the private economy, some fell into the trap of fate.
More than 20 years ago, Zhong said loudly: "What is the mainstream? More people does not necessarily mean the mainstream, it does not mean that you have the right to speak, you have mastered the big **, your voice is big, your voice is more, you are the mainstream. The real mainstream is to grasp the direction of the flow of public opinion. ”
More than 20 years later, is Zhong still mainstream?
Through fermentation, many netizens completed the encirclement and suppression of Zhong Sui, ushering in a carnival-like catharsis. This may be an option, but it is not the most appropriate choice. You might as well let the product return to the market, let the emotions return to rationality, and let the bullets fly for a while.