Is it luck or calculation to customize the public taste?

At this time, it is the beginning of March in Beijing, and the information of spring is spreading in the streets.

The ready-to-drink coffee provided by Wenlong He entered the China market in 2009, and together with instant coffee, ground coffee and catering coffee, it constitutes the coffee business segment of Nestle Group. China is also the largest market for Nestle's global ready-to-drink coffee business.

This spring, Wenlong He and his team plan to use the new taste of Sakura Shufulei coffee as a touchstone, and they want to recruit new coffee users with this new taste.

Almost all catering enterprises are thinking about a question: What tastes do consumers like every year?

The root of fast-moving market competition gradually returns from the external stimulation of marketing to the product itself. When users and enterprises gradually reach a * * * understanding of this, the "taste" that can refresh the market and bring consumers a new experience becomes an important factor that determines the success or failure of enterprises in the current season.

From bosses slapping their heads and pushing a product to consumers in the digital age, the taste innovation process of a bottle of beverage has quietly changed.

Nestle practice

Earlier, a dealer in Northeast China said at a meeting in Wahaha that the melted ice cream was delicious. This is the inspiration of Wahaha's most heavyweight product, Nutrition Express. In 20 13 years, the annual income of Nutrition Express exceeded 20 billion yuan. Today, eight years later, this achievement is definitely one of the best in the industry.

More than a decade ago, the inspiration of new products might inspire R&D managers, marketing directors and even business owners to chat once or twice. But now, this kind of "one or two chats" must have enough figures to prove it.

Wenlong He's coffee is a blend of cherry blossoms and Shufulei. How did it come from? In the early days, Nestle made a physical survey of consumers, such as inviting consumers to blindly test different tastes, fragrances, bitter and sweet directions, so as to select consumers' favorite tastes. Nowadays, with the development of e-commerce and social media, some inspiration comes from interactive platforms. Moreover, because Nestle's business is spread all over the world, and its categories span different fields such as food and candy, it is also a channel to copy the successful experience of other categories and regional markets to new coffee products.

The inspiration of Nestle Sakura comes from the success of Starbucks Sakura series products in Japan. With the help of the special ritual sense of Japanese cherry blossoms, Starbucks planned the ground coffee and seasonal limited drinks of the cherry blossom series in Starbucks stores. Therefore, based on this, Wenlong He team brought the cherry blossom elements to China. Mo Ni Wei, senior brand manager of Nestle's ready-to-drink coffee business, added that in consumer research, a bite of coffee and a bite of cake are what many consumers want, so under the main taste tone of cherry blossoms, a new taste of Shufulei was added. After more than a year of research and development, Nestle launched this new coffee this spring.

In addition to maintaining diversified inspiration channels, Nestle's ready-to-drink coffee is also accelerating to a new speed. Peng Zhixin, the head of Nestle's ready-to-drink coffee business, introduced the ready-to-drink coffee as an example. In 2009, the first silky latte was introduced to the market, mocha, caramel and hazelnut flavors were introduced eight years before and after 20 17, three cold-extracted products were introduced in 20 18 and 20 19, and sugar-free silky latte was introduced in 2020. In the past two years, the enrollment rate in Shanghai has obviously accelerated. "In order to quickly respond to the market situation, we even made some preparations for the taste in advance. For example, we will reserve the taste, such as knowing the changes of the raw materials used in the taste in advance, so that when the back-end decides to make products, the research and development speed can be advanced. " Peng Zhixin revealed that Nestle's ready-to-drink coffee has as many as twenty or thirty flavors.

Posture formed by taste.

In the research and development of new flavors, there are always absolutely leading classic cases. About 20 15, the unified competition with Master Kong has found a new taste. How about adding a little salty taste to a fruity functional drink? 20 15, the words of the sea enter the market. According to AC Nielsen's data, the product ranks among the top ten juice products in China only eight months after its launch. "Haizhiyan 2065438+the high multiple growth in the first half of 2005 made Uni-President juice business outperform the overall juice growth in China", and Uni-President spoke highly of this new product. In 20 15, with Xiaoming's participation, the two brands contributed more than 2.5 billion yuan to Uni-President. Of course, due to the follow-up of other enterprises, Haizhiyan's income has gradually declined, which is another story.

At the moment when consumers' preferences are changing rapidly, it is more difficult to develop new flavors and the market life of new products is also shortening. Even so, creating a drink that can lead the industry to new tastes is still worth a fight. In 2020, Yuan Qi Forest aimed at the zero sugar bubble water vertical track and launched multi-flavor bubble water, which stirred up the beverage market last year.

Yuan Qi Forest, a upstart in the beverage industry, is committed to becoming an Internet company that subverts tradition. The gene of the internet is to know the changes of consumers' preferences in real time through digital means and respond quickly. Online and new channels have provided a feasible foundation for Yuan Qi Forest's Internet product logic. Zong Hao, vice president of Yuan Qi Forest, said: "A product with a new taste can be completed within one quarter from research and development to delivery to users." . The backflow mechanism from the consumption end to the production end is not only fast but also flexible.

For a time, Yuan Qi Forest always heard the voice from consumers: Can you make a bubble water with litchi flavor? These users are concentrated in the three northeastern provinces. After some investigation, it is found that there is a litchi-flavored drink in Northeast China called Pearl Krabs, which is full of childhood memories. So in order to pay tribute to the classics, Yuan Qi Forest introduced litchi-flavored soaking water, which was only aimed at the Northeast. Later, it was found that users were enthusiastic about buying and purchasing, and it was only promoted to the national market last year.

Whether a new flavor can be popular in the current season depends on two factors: one is the leading position of a few enterprises, and the other is the imitation of most other enterprises. The former R&D director of a well-known domestic beverage company summed up in a public sharing that there are six types of new products in the beverage field: omni-directional, improved, imitation, expansion, cost and redefinition. Among them, imitation refers to the imitation production of existing products in domestic and foreign markets, which is called the company's new products. This is very common in the beverage industry, after all, the industrial and technical threshold of the beverage industry is not high.

Classic or change?

There are as many as ten kinds of bubble water tastes in Yuan Qi forest, and the market popularity varies. According to the data feedback, white peach is the trump card. Zong Hao said that every time a new flavor is introduced, it means grabbing the share of the ace flavor. Do you want to remain the ace, or do you want to keep innovating, even if the new taste doesn't sell well?

The user-oriented decision of Yuan Qi Forest is, what do users want to meet the needs of different scenarios? This feeling is fluid, not fixed, and the product structure should also be accurately grasped, and the ability to solve problems in the flow. The analysis of the data side also shows that users like to choose the soothing taste of white peaches when accompanying meals at noon, and are willing to buy sour plum juice or cucumber flavor when having dinner at night, especially eating hot pot.

"None of our products are finalized, so we can make adjustments at any time according to the core needs of users," Zong Hao said.

Unlike Yuan Qi Woods, Nestle is definitely not a "fast" company in the industry. Peng Zhixin, who has worked in Nestle for nine years, understands the relative slowness as follows: "The testing of each product, the content of the product, the continuity of taste and the manufacturing process of packaging will be very strict. So every time a new product is released, these controls are needed. Now we will be slower. " But Peng Zhixin also expressed Nestle's desire to respond to the market more quickly.

In the second half of this year, Wenlong He and Peng Zhixin's team will also launch a new taste of ready-to-drink coffee. Nestle's mission of providing ready-to-drink coffee is clear-recruiting new customers. In their judgment, compared with other coffee categories such as instant coffee and ground coffee, instant coffee is most suitable as the first cup of coffee for a specific consumer group, thus cultivating consumers' habit of drinking coffee.

"The average total coffee consumption in China is still very low. We consume about ten cups per person per year, which is one tenth and one twentieth of that of Japan and South Korea. Including the most developed coffee market in Shanghai, there are more than 3,000 cafes, and the density is still very high, but it is per person 100 cup per year, which is about a quarter of that in Japan. So in fact, there is still a lot of room for development. " Wenlong He said.