Many memories of old sodas begin not in advertising, but in summer. Home from school, a large icebox at the mouth of the roadside commissary, a bottle of glass, a bead and a cold finger. The names of the arctic ocean, ice peaks, asian sands, xianshan cola, mountain customs, tianxico cola, were not “love”, were daily, bought a bottle after a meal, and smelled readily at the door。
Strangely, these old sodas don't fade. A lot of people feel the same way, like in previous years. When you think about it, you've changed into coca-cola, pepsi, shelby, fanta. The names are also those of the drinks, the city or the city, the shelf, the hotel, the taste habits of young people and the whole beverage industry。
Old soda suddenly fades out of the annual session, not because they're so hard to drink, or because chinese don't drink sweet soda overnight. The true weight of the past lies in a larger set of industrial and channel capabilities. In the 1990s, many local soda plants came up with the same thing: joint ventures, restructuring, shifting production lines and switching channels. The capacity to fill local sodas, wholesale networks, catering relationships, terminal locations, were taken over by a stronger and more standardized brand system. The plant was still there, the equipment was there, and the distribution network was not gone, but the freezer was not the same soda。
This step is particularly harsh because it is not the taste, but the door. The drink looks like a small business, and the final piece is never better, and the family story is better, who works faster to the terminal, who can make the bottle cheaper, who can make the dealer more willing to push, who can put the freezer into more convenience stores, restaurants, fast-food restaurants and shops. Coca-cola and pepsi-cola are the best places, not just brand size, but they make a nationalized system of production, bottled, distribution, cooler, terminal and promotion. The coke you saw in xi'an, beijing, guangzhou, shenyang, tasted like it, packed like it, priced like it, and consumers hardly had to rediscover it。
That's the problem with the old soda. A lot of brands can fight on their own territory, they don't work when they come out. The reason is realistic. First, a single product line, which has been sustained for decades by one or two classics, has been adequate in the past and has become increasingly inadequate in the future. Second, brands are too localized to be remembered by off-site consumers or willing to pay for unfamiliar tastes. Thirdly, the chain of restaurants, modern merchants and convenience systems have come together, and the past has been a little out of step with the wholesale, familiar and regional rhetoric. Fourthly, coke holds the most prominent place in the lives of young people, where the casseroles, fast foods, cinemas, football games, advertising, popular culture are all staged。
The years when the old soda was really squeezed out were essentially the return of the local brand from “essentials of life” to “local memory”. These four words are very gentle, and they are very cruel in business. Once you have only memory, no size, no new terminals, no stable national supply, the brand will be trapped in the memories of the older generation. The young man didn't mean to ignore you. He didn't even know you in the freezer。
It's slow to turn. In these years, the domestic soda came back and came back in different positions. They don't go hard on all the scenes with coke, but they start from where they're most sure. Beijing has the arctic ocean, xi'an has ice peaks, guangzhou has asian sands, wuhan has the hanguchi ii plant, and the main kilns in inner mongolia are driven out by large glass bottles and table views. You'll find that the first thing that comes to mind when the domestic soda comes back to life is not a write-up machine or a western fast food chain, but a barbecue stand, a hotpot, a noodle shop, a night market, a tourist block, a local restaurant. This is not the second place to go, it's the smartest way。
As long as a bottle of beverage is tied to some kind of living scene, the price will not be limited to the cost of ingredients. You sit by the barbeque, you put a large kiln on the table; you travel to beijing, you take a bottle of the arctic ocean at the alley; you go to xi'an and you eat boulders and meat clips, and you light a can of ice. You bought it, not just to get thirsty, but to get a sense of pairing, a sense of place, a sense of ease. Once the soda has changed from a “standardized commodity on the shelf” to a “temperature group on the table”, its pricing logic has changed。
This is also a strange thing for many: the old soda disappeared because it was more powerful than coke; now that the old soda is back, why is it more expensive than coke
You know, it's not like you can end with a word of "love."。
First look at the hardest floor, size. Coca-cola and pepsi have done a great deal of work in the chinese market over the years, and have matured in bottle loading, production, distribution and end management. The more sold, the lower the unit cost, the greater the promotional space. They are also able to afford advertising, cooler and channel costs on a national scale. A bottle of coke looks cheap, and behind it is a huge sale to press down costs。
Much of the domestic soda is not available. Even though these years have been hot, many brands remain regional and national. They are common in some cities and leave their home camps, with the density of the goods to be laid, the rate of turnover, and the end controls falling. The unit cost cannot be reduced if the goods are sold less quickly. The amount is not large enough, logistics, storage, trunks, terminal displays, wear and tear, and the samples are distributed into the sale price。
Look at the wrapping. A lot of domestic sodas are particularly fond of glass bottles for reasons that are not complex: it tastes more old in the hand, it feels better in the ice, it feels more at the table. The problem followed. The weight of the bottle is high, transport costs are high; the cost of managing the bottle is to be recovered as soon as the chain is long; and it can be sold across the region with problems of empty reflows, breakage and stringing. You drank a bottle of domestic soda in the hotel that looked good, and the price was actually loaded with the packaging and recycling system。
And the formula. In domestic soda, a lot of products are not the same as traditional cokes. Some will add juice, others will emphasize the taste of orange juice, some will retain a stronger local flavor and some will share it with the owner. Coke formulations are classic industrial products of high maturity and re-use in globalization, with extreme stability and extreme efficiency in long run. In order to distinguish itself from a coke in the past few years, domestic soda tends to make it more obvious that “more like a juice” “more local” tastes “better”. A change in composition, a change in packaging and a change in positioning will naturally change the cost structure。
More importantly, the domestic soda has learned a little bit over the years: not fighting with coke. The strongest of these are standardization, coverage and control of price bands, and the national soda is simply differentiated. You sell global happy waters, i sell the smell of the city itself; you roll prices in the convenience store freezer, i roll through restaurants, night nights, the literary tour, social sharing scenes. In this way, the price anchor of domestic soda is no longer always staring at a bottle of 500 ml coke, but rather “in this scene, consumers are willing to pay for this taste”。
You stand in a convenience store and you think that 330 ml of domestic soda can be sold taller than coke; you sit in a restaurant and you find that a lot of people don't hesitate. Because it's cheaper than who, and who. Once prices enter the scene, they will not be subject only to the formula cost。
There is also a reality that is often overlooked: coke has been doing “low unit prices, high turnover, strong promotion” for many years. Large packagings, multi-packages, festival promotions, re-entry and freezer subsidies put terminal prices at a competitive level. Most domestic sodas can't keep hitting like this. They have to keep profits, cover the costs of the store, and continue to do regional expansion and branding, and it is naturally difficult for prices to reach the level of coke。
There is a deeper change behind this. Old sodas disappeared that year, suggesting that local brands could not maintain channels; domestic sodas were now more expensive, but they finally learned how to find a place for themselves. A brand would be tired if it could always be seen at low prices. It's a sign that brand values are coming back。
By the way, no one can survive this price. Consumers are now sober, tasteless, packaged and priced with nostalgia, and will soon be seen by the market. You go around a lot of cities and you know that the real leftovers of domestic soda are not just old stories, they have to have a sense of stability, they have to be connected to local restaurants, they have to give young people a chance to take pictures, repurchase them, and they have to sustain more intensive supplies. It brings back the first bite, leaving the second, the third and the next one willing to buy。
So the old soda suddenly disappeared, not in a taste contest, but in a rewrite of channels and industrial capabilities. The domestic soda today is more expensive than the japanese coke, and not simply the word “nationally produced.” rather, it is more expensive in terms of size, packaging and scenery, and it is no longer simply selling thirst, but selling local taste, table mix, and brand identity。
After all, the price of a bottle of soda is increasingly like a mirror. When it's cheap, whose system it's bigger; when it's expensive, who it's worth. The most true judgment is not complicated for ordinary people: if you want to buy another bottle, it's worth it; if you only buy a picture once, it's still a wind。
Which old soda do you have in your city? If it's more expensive than coke now, will you keep paying
