The Brand Promotion Strategy for the Small and Medium-Sized Beverage Enterprises in China

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1 The Brand Promotion Strategy for the Small and Medium-Sized Beverage Enterprises in China ZHAO Hui, ZHANG Wensong School of economics and management, Beijing Jiaotong University, P.R. China, Abstract: With the improvement of people's income and living standards, the market demand for consumer goods is expanding, and a large number of foreign large-scale fast-moving consumer goods groups are rapidly splitting the piece of cake. Domestic small and medium-sized beverage enterprises are confronted with an urgent and significant issue what kind of brand strategy should be adopted to meet the challenge for the survival and development? Firstly, it briefly introduces the theory from the two aspects of the content of brand promotion and the characteristic of the beverage brand. Secondly, it analyzes the present situation and problems of our country's small and medium-sized beverage enterprises in brand promotion. Finally, it proposes the brand promotion path and strategy for the small and medium-sized beverage enterprises. Keywords: the small and medium-sized beverage enterprise, brand promotion 1. Introduction With the deepening of economic globalization, our country's small and medium-sized beverage enterprise has achieved full development relying on the resource and cost advantage. However, because of the intense market competition, these advantages are gradually disappearing and the majority of the small and medium-sized beverage enterprises are in crisis. By promoting the brand to guide consumption, the brand building should be compatible with the large environment, so that the brand is in "active" state. At present, our country's small and medium-sized beverage enterprises brand building are still in the initial stages of brand building. There are still many obstacles and risks in the brand-promoting road, and there is still a long way to go. 2. The Content of Brand Promotion Brand promotion is to improve brand awareness and reputation through a series of measures, and then enhance the viability and development. As a result, the enterprises improve the control and profitability, and the consumers are satisfied. In theoretical circles, many Chinese scholars have not raised professional concepts and theories about the brand promotion, but some scholars have proposed a brand structure, and brand support system to explore the issue of brand promotion and development in their new publications. From the brand-related factors, brand promotion includes the following aspects [1] : 2.1The promotion in brand awareness and reputation Brand awareness has become a major factor which attracts consumers to buy and an important prerequisite which maintains the brand. The brand loyalty is that the consumers trust in the quality of products and services. 2.2 The promotion in brand image It is the consumer's description and evaluation about the brand in minds. Besides the quality and service, it is comprehensive information which also includes the enterprise's reputation and so on. The consumers can form the emotional resonance and brand identity as well as the appearance from the distinctive brand image. 2.3 The promotion in brand competitiveness 707

2 It refers primarily to the ability to expand and dominate the market. Only the products consolidate the sales market, can it keep competitive forever. 2.4 The promotion in brand value It represents the consumer's brand recognition, which reflects comprehensive strength of the brand. The higher the brand value, the higher the consumer's loyalty. The products can steadily occupy the market. To solve the problems in brand promotion, companies can build the brand support system which is composed of four layers. The core layer is the brand's core value which is the focus in brand promotion; the inner is the products and services which are the basis in brand promotion; the surface is the brand-marketing strategy which is an important method in brand promotion; the outer is the brand management system which integrates a variety of forces to conform with the brand development strategy. By understanding the brand support system, the businesses will not only create a famous brand, but also promote the brand [2]. 3. The Characteristics of Beverage Brands Beverages as fast-moving consumer goods have their own characteristics, as well as the commonalities with other consumer goods: 3.1 The beverage consumption is seasonal Due to the climate and consumption habits, beverage sales have greater regional differences. In general, in the similar level of income, beverage consumption is relatively higher in areas of high temperature. From the seasonal beverage consumption, in addition to the summer, the holiday is also a consumer season. Such seasonal consumption habits are difficult to change, even though most consumers drink throughout the year, but the amount of drinking is related to the temperature more or less. 3.2 The beverage is alternative There are many alternative foods such as fruits, cold drinks, beers, drinking water and bottled water. They have an effect on the demand for beverages according to the fluctuations in the price and popularity. 3.3 The beverage is convenient to buy The purchase of beverage products is impulse, and it is not sensitive to the recommendations of the surrounding people. Based on personal preferences, the appearance of packaging, advertising promotion, pricing and the point of sale play an important role in sales. At the same time, the brand awareness is also a very important factor in sales. Therefore, the beverage brand-building elements are the connotations and characteristics, and then its goal is to make consumers "experience". Imported brands such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi form an extraordinary appeal to consumers in brand connotations and qualities. Coca-Cola conveys "a happy, relaxed way of life", and Pepsi-Cola promotes "self-expression, eager to get more from life" since The Problems of Our Country's Small and Medium-Sized Beverage Enterprises in Brand Promotion In recent years, with the development of the market economy, our country's small and medium-sized beverage enterprises are springing up like mushrooms. However, the current situation in the brand development is still significantly lagging behind manufacture. Despite the large number of enterprises, but the scale is generally small and simple. It is very difficult to form a national market appeal. Problems are as follows: 4.1 Weak awareness in the core value of brand 708

3 Most companies are too concerned with the product sales to formulate long-term brand strategy. While some companies have realized the importance of the brand, they neglect the cultivation of their own brands, because of the asset specificity and other factors. In this way, it is difficult to form a core competitive advantage in brand value as the lack of long-lasting promotion and maintenance in brand. 4.2 The brand image is poor The brand position which implements the brand strategy is the most basic question. Suitable positioning can highlight the characteristic to meet the individual needs of consumers. Our country's small and medium-sized enterprises often focus only on beverage sales and the market scale, ignore the brand position, relax quality control, reduce the investments of new products and services, enabling the brand loses its vitality. 4.3 The means of brand communication is single The brand-marketing awareness of the small and medium-sized beverage enterprises is weak, only occasionally through the media and advertising. They focus their efforts on a single trade fair and television media advertising, having no effect. Relatively low cost of modern Internet, endorsements, sponsorships and other channels are rarely used by the small and medium-sized enterprises. In addition, they place over-reliance on the advertising, even regarding advertising as the only means of building the brand at the expense of product performance, packaging and distribution channels. 4.4 The brand management departments and professionals are lacking Besides some technical and managerial personnel, the senior talents who understand the brand planning and public relations are also in need. Talent is a company's greatest advantage. As small and medium-sized beverage enterprises are small, limited financial resources, coupled with the inadequate attention, often no specific brand management agencies and personnel, so that the planning level is not high,brand operating is blind, leading to the brand building be blocked. 5. The Brand Promotion Strategy for Our Country's Small and Medium-Sized Beverage Enterprises 5.1 The path in brand promotion Brand awareness and brand image decide brand value which forms the customer's brand loyalty, thereby promoting the brand's competitiveness. These four aspects are complementary and promote each other. This structural relationship can provide the following paths for small and medium-sized beverage enterprises in brand promotion: The promotion in brand awareness and brand image Small and medium-sized beverage enterprises should learn to use multi-means of marketing strategy to promote the brand awareness. It can increase product sales in the market, and then quickly open up the market. As well as doing professional business, the enterprises should appropriately diversify to adapt to the complex environments which can decentralize operational risks. In the choice of marketing channels, our small and medium-sized enterprises should abandon the traditional marketing concept, using modern Internet, endorsement, sponsorship and other channels to promote their products and brands. According to actual situation, they should flexibly use the newspapers, magazines, televisions, network, trade fairs, staff promotions and other forms. They also should keep a good relationship with distributors and retailers to open sales channels. Taking into account the interests of both sides, their own brands can be promoted at the same. The promotion in brand image enhancement relies on companies to optimize products and services. Fast-moving consumer goods, particularly the beverage, updates quickly. Sizing up the situation, small and medium-sized beverage enterprises should timely develop new products and projects with high-tech. By adjusting the system of high-middle and low-middle products, it can maintain the brand loyalty in mainstream consumers to protect existing market share. In services, apart from the simple home delivery, 709

4 product maintenance and other activities, the enterprises should be good at providing consumer-marketing education information on product knowledge, so that customers can understand the product features and learn to use the product. To serve as a starting point, enterprises should form a perfect service operation mechanism which adapts to market competition and needs of the times. In this way, as the improvement of service level, the brand will naturally be promoted The promotion in value of the brand itself For the small and medium-sized beverage enterprises, the core value positioned in rational aspect does not have a comparative advantage. Taking into account emotional factors, businesses should meet the consumer's experience and value proposition from the perceptual and symbolic point of view. The small and medium-sized enterprises should cultivate special culture and establish a brand image based on brand culture, so that the target clients will form cultural identity and emotional resonance. After the positioning of the enterprise's core value, it should uninterruptedly disseminate and protect core value of the brand, in the design of products and services, packaging, quality, pricing, advertising, marketing and so on. Only in this way can form a lasting brand appeal, promote intangible value of the brand [3]. The path in brand promotion shown in Figure 1: In short, the growth and upgrade process of the brand is that consumer's quality awareness, brand identity, brand affect, brand experience, brand association and brand loyalty improve and strengthen continuously [4]. The promotion in brand is a system which needs to start from the product and service, complemented by various means of marketing strategies. They should strive to promote brand awareness and brand image, so as to achieve the purpose of promoting brand value, and ultimately upgrade the strong brand. multi-means of marketing brand awareness competitiveness optimization of products and services brand image value of the brand establishing of core value value of the brand itself loyalty Figure 1:The path in brand promotion 5.2 The strategy in brand promotion As the market environment and the competitive position are different, resources are subject to constraints, our country's small and medium-sized beverage enterprise should choose a different strategy which is suited to their own situation to develop and grow in brand promotion Specialization Brand Promotion Strategy Our country's small and medium-sized beverage enterprise relatively suits to the production of small quantities and many varieties, so the market positioning should be personalized and unique, as far as possible to achieve the product differentiation and high-class. The enterprise should focus investments in the market segment which can be able to effectively implement its expertise, and take the road of professional and intensive management to provide customers with unique products and services. The enterprise should step up product development and set up a core business, increase market share, specialize in finess, in order to become bigger and stronger [5]. This process of creating brand is in fact 710

5 the process that enterprises do fine brand and build brand economy. Through the specialization of production, the business can focus on the industry characteristic and regional advantage, so that the brand impact will gradually expand. Since the JDB Group introduced the first pot a red cans Wong Lo Kat in 1995, with a unique consumer perspective, the consumer concept of "removing fire" and specialization production and management methods in the field of herbal tea, it had been occupying the sales regions of Guangdong, Guangxi and southern Zhejiang in six or seven years. Then, after the repositioning of the brand, with the theme of "preventing lit" beverage, it began to attack the national market. The sales of red cans Wong Lo Kat in 2003 grew nearly four-fold over the last year's sales, from l million in 2002 to 6 billion, and quickly out of Guangdong Province. By successful brand positioning and communication, red cans Wong Lo Kat which has a long history and the strong Lingnan characteristics, has made significant gains. The sales of Wong Lo Kat in 2007 grew up to 90 billion, ranking first in the canned beverage sales market of the country Cluster-type Brand Promotion Strategy As small and medium-sized beverage enterprises are small, it is difficult to obtain scale economies of compared with large enterprises. Independent specialization can't sustain the competitive advantage in the highly competitive and unstable environment. Therefore, small and medium-sized enterprises located in the same region can join together, relying on the relatively stable division and cooperation and criss-cross network relationships, and form a spatial aggregate for the coordination and organization of the industry 6. With the development of inter-firm division and cooperation, social resources can be more fully utilized, at the same time, due to the externalization of internal division, enterprises can more quickly expand the production scale and cut costs. In this way, because of similar enterprises in the industrial aggregate, the regional brand will have considerable size and more competitiveness, so that small and medium-sized enterprises will also maintain a durable brand effect in large measure. Harbin dairy beverage production had grown slowly from 1995 to Since 2001, with the improvement of urban incomes and quality of life, the upgrade of consumption structure, demand for dairy beverages has gradually increased. With rich resources and geographic advantages, through a series of overall reform and integration of resources, the City of Harbin has formed the country's most important dairy beverage industry clusters during the past 10 years. Through the infrastructure of relevant service system and raw materials base, while the leading enterprises such as Long Dan, Venus, and Nestle rapidly develop and grow, they also play an important role in promoting the improvement of the dairy beverage industry in the regions, achieving remarkable results and the great social and economic benefits. 6. Conclusion In China, small and medium-sized beverage enterprises have become an integral part of economic development, and play an important role in the fast-growing economic tide. For them, the brand promotion is an arduous task, but not out of reach, as long as the effort can be done. The international financial crisis has put pressure and challenge on the enterprises, and those enterprises which have the core brand competitiveness will perform wonderfully. Because pressure can be turned into motivation, challenges and opportunities are often co-exist, as long as the confidence, a positive act, it is convinced that a large number of national enterprises with a brand influence will certainly emerge after the Ebb Tide. References [1]. Wang Lei, Zhou Meihua. Theory of domestic brand promotion [J]. Business Studies, 2008, (08): [2]. Zhang Qi. Study of our enterprise brand promotion [J]. Jiangsu Business Discussion, 2005, (07):

6 [3]. Xu Ruiping, Sun Wei. Value and strategy of brand promotion [J]. ModernpEnterprise, 2003, (12). [4]. Sun Yongjun, Li Weining. Brand building and upgrade path for small and medium-sized enterprises[j]. Jiangsu Business Discussion, 2009, (05): [5]. Jiang Renliang. Strategy choice of small and medium-sized enterprises marketing in China [J]. Northern Economy, 2005, (03): [6]. Wang Chunhe and Zhang Jing. Regional brand strategy for small and medium-sized enterprises [A]. Chinese Enterprise Management Research Association Annual Report,