2024-08-13
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Text | Dong Wuying
Recently, the dispute between Oriental Selection and Jiang Xiaobai has attracted widespread attention.
On the evening of August 8, in the Oriental Selection live broadcast room, anchor Tian Quan suddenly compared and commented on Jiang Xiaobai products when promoting a certain liquor product, saying that Jiang Xiaobai "is not liquor": "If you look at the packaging of Jiang Xiaobai now, there are no words 'baijiu' on it because it is not allowed" and "If you buy Jiangjin Xiaoqu (Jiang Xiaobai is the representative of Jiangjin Xiaoqu liquor), there will be no this label (the small gold label of "pure grain solid-state fermented liquor"), because it is not solid-state distilled, so it cannot be considered solid-state (fermented) wine."
As soon as this statement was made, Jiang Xiaobai quickly responded strongly. Tianquan and Dongfang Zhenxuan subsequently apologized, but Jiang Xiaobai did not accept it.
Founded in 2012, Jiang Xiaobai once became an "Internet celebrity" in the Chinese liquor industry with its popular marketing copy. In 2019, Jiang Xiaobai achieved a revenue of nearly 3 billion yuan.
However, according to brokerage data, Jiang Xiaobai's liquor revenue declined in 2020, and its share of the small liquor market fell from 20% in 2019 to 0.5% in 2020.
In recent years, Jiang Xiaobai has stopped disclosing its revenue, and its revenue has become a mystery. In media reports, topics about Jiang Xiaobai "disappearing" and "fading from its glory days" are common. What happened to Jiang Xiaobai?
After anchor Tian Quan made the above remarks, Jiang Xiaobai officials immediately responded.
In an official statement, it stated that all liquor products under Jiang Xiaobai Liquor Industry adopt the pure grain solid fermentation brewing process, with only water and sorghum as the brewing raw materials, and the product implementation standard is the national standard of Xiaoqu solid fermentation liquor code-named GB/T26761 (superior grade). The brewing raw materials, brewing process (pure grain solid fermentation), and implementation standard (GB/T26761) of all liquor products of Jiang Xiaobai Liquor Industry are clearly marked on the product packaging, without any concealment or misleading behavior.
While releasing the statement, Jiang Xiaobai also attached the certification certificate for pure grain solid-state fermented liquor.
According to Jiang Xiaobai's official website, Jiang Xiaobai currently has Jiang Xiaobai series, low-alcohol series, Jiangji Winery series and Luxi series products. Among them, the Jiang Xiaobai series includes Jiang Xiaobai 40-degree, 46-degree and 52-degree liquor products, Jiang Xiaobai Fruit Cube and Xinhun Shaojiu.
Except for Jiang Xiaobai Fruit Cube and Xinhun Shaojiu which are fruit-flavored wines and fruit wines, on e-commerce platforms, the bottles of Jiang Xiaobai 40-degree, 46-degree, and 52-degree liquor products are all marked with words such as "solid-state liquor", "Xiaoqu solid-state liquor", and "original-flavor fragrant liquor".
Tianquan and Dongfang Zhenxuan later apologized. Tianquan posted on Weibo that "the Jiang Xiaobai I mentioned during the broadcast was Jiang Xiaobai's fruit wine, not Jiang Xiaobai's baijiu. Jiang Xiaobai's baijiu is of course baijiu." However, Jiang Xiaobai did not accept the apology letter, believing that its apology was not sincere.
According to national standards, Jiang Xiaobai's 40-, 46- and 52-degree liquor products are all solid-state fermentation liquors. However, the quality and taste of Jiang Xiaobai liquor products have frequently attracted controversy.
In November 2021, at the "Really Delicious" Jiang Xiaobai 10th Anniversary Workshop Meeting, Jiang Xiaobai founder Tao Shiquan bluntly stated that he had made four mistakes in the past ten years. One of them was, "We did not deal directly with the rumors, misunderstandings and prejudices from the outside world. (Some people) think that we don't even have a winery, that we are a shell company, and that we are blended wine. This is an obvious misunderstanding and rumor."
In addition, Jiang Xiaobai is also controversial in terms of taste. Tao Shiquan said, "Many people think Jiang Xiaobai is not tasty and is very unpalatable. They will not drink it even if it is given to them."
In Jiang Xiaobai's official flagship store on JD.com, the product review page for Jiang Xiaobai 40-degree Friends frequently shows negative reviews such as "the taste is very bad and bitter at first", "it's very hard to drink", and "the wine taste is too light and has no aroma".
Jiang Xiaobai was founded in 2012, and it has been 12 years since then. In March 2012, the Jiang Xiaobai brand debuted and launched its first pure sorghum liquor - "I am Jiang Xiaobai".
According to statistics, the liquor industry was thriving in 2012, with output continuing to increase until 2016, when it reached its peak of 13.584 million kiloliters, after which it gradually declined.
When Jiang Xiaobai was founded, the liquor market through traditional channels was still very hot. Although the topic of "younger liquor" had existed for a long time, there was a lack of brands and products targeting the young people's market.
At the beginning of its establishment, Jiang Xiaobai targeted the young people's liquor market, and promoted the slogans such as "youthful liquor", "youthful new liquor", "liquor brand for young people" and "young people's first sip of liquor". It communicated with young consumers in the form of Jiang Xiaobai's quotations, and "I am Jiang Xiaobai, life is simple" has become Jiang Xiaobai's iconic and most widely circulated quotation.
In 2015, with the rise of mobile Internet and self-media, Jiang Xiaobai's expression bottle became a hit. With heartfelt copywriting on the bottle, the expression bottle product became a carrier for expressing young people's attitudes and behaviors like Weibo and WeChat Moments, and quickly became popular on the Internet platform.
In 2016, Jiang Xiaobai began to embed itself in various film and television products, hold music festivals, open street tavern pop-up stores, release animations, release singles, etc. Through online and offline linkage marketing and the use of new media interactions such as WeChat H5 and WeChat Weibo, it achieved excellent marketing results.
With large-scale marketing, Jiang Xiaobai's sales exploded rapidly. According to official data, Jiang Xiaobai's revenue reached 50 million yuan in the first year after its establishment, and its revenue in 2017 reached 1 billion yuan. In 2018, its revenue more than doubled, exceeding 2 billion yuan. By 2019, Jiang Xiaobai achieved a revenue of nearly 3 billion yuan.
But at the same time, Jiang Xiaobai's development problems also began to emerge. In 2018, a person claiming to be an internal employee of Jiang Xiaobai revealed that Jiang Xiaobai's sales in the first half of 2018 had fallen sharply, the company's internal employees were underpaid, the turnover rate was relatively high, and management was chaotic.
At the end of July 2018, the Beijing News and other media also reported that some distributors and retailers reflected that Jiang Xiaobai’s sales had begun to decline since the price increase in early 2018, and the emergence of a large number of imitation brands and similar wines also "threatened" Jiang Xiaobai’s market share.
Jiang Xiaobai no longer discloses its revenue since 2020. According to Huafu Securities, Jiang Xiaobai's liquor revenue has declined since 2020 due to changes in the ready-to-drink consumption scenario, an increase in competitors in the market, and a lack of focus within the company. Its share of the small liquor market has dropped from 20% in 2019 to 0.5% in 2020.
As of now, Jiang Xiaobai has not received an official response to the drastic changes in sales and market share in 2020.
One of the main reasons for Jiang Xiaobai's past success was its unique positioning, which captured the young people's market. However, as the market changes, Jiang Xiaobai is also facing fierce competition in the young people's market.
On the one hand, since 2014, low-alcohol products such as pre-mixed cocktails and fruit wine have exploded. These products generally have an alcohol content of only 3 to 5 degrees, and the taste is closer to that of beverages, which are sought after by young consumers. In addition, the rise of the market for ready-made beverages such as coffee and milk tea has also, to a certain extent, seized the liquor market in the ready-to-drink scenario.
On the other hand, Jiang Xiaobai is also facing fierce competition in the small wine market. For example, Langjiu launched the Xiaolangjiu product as early as 2006, Wuliangye also launched the Waizui small wine product in 2015, and Luzhou Laojiao also has products such as Tequ small wine.
In addition, in the light bottle wine market, Jiang Xiaobai also needs to deal with competition from traditional players such as Fenjiu, Niulanshan, and Red Star. Compared with these wine companies, Jiang Xiaobai's brand influence and product quality need to be improved. How can it break through?
Since 2018, Jiang Xiaobai has entered the low-alcohol wine market, first launching fruit-flavored wine products such as Fruit Cube, and launched the "Meijian" brand in 2019, focusing on green plum wine products. According to official data disclosed by Meijian, its total retail market size in 2023 will exceed 2.5 billion yuan, and according to industry estimates, Meijian's revenue in 2023 will reach 1 billion yuan.
According to the JD platform, the current price of Meijian brand's classic product Baimeijian 330ml*6 bottles is 168 yuan, and the price of a single bottle is 28 yuan.
At present, there are many low-alcohol fruit wine brands on the market, and the problem of product homogeneity is more prominent. For example, in the green plum wine market where Meijian is located, there are well-known brands with outstanding cost-effectiveness such as Kunzhu, Bulaotan, Guyue Longshan, and RIO, as well as a large number of white-label green plum wine products, and the market competition is relatively fierce.
According to the latest data, in January and February this year, Meijian's overall sales increased by 39% year-on-year, and e-commerce increased by 48.6% year-on-year, still maintaining a relatively fast growth.
Jiang Xiaobai disclosed on its official website that it owns leading brands in both the traditional liquor industry and new liquor beverages. Its "Jiang Xiaobai" is the preferred liquor brand for China's new generation of consumers, and "Meijian" is the number one brand of Chinese green plum wine.
Whether the Meijian brand can continue to grow and help Jiang Xiaobai regain its former glory remains to be verified.
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