After an epidemic suddenly visited the world, many companies in the construction and ceramics industry felt that their business was deteriorating and life was becoming more difficult day by day. Of course, because the epidemic has eliminated some small and medium-sized enterprises, some large companies and brands may have a more prosperous life than before and gain more market share. This is the so-called "increased industry concentration."
In order to increase performance and survive in the ever-changing market, some construction and ceramics companies have begun to realize that they need to build their own brands, cultivate their own loyal users, and build their own user base.
However, contrary to expectations, in the terminal market, the brand's influence is minimal...
Consumption downgrade
Waist brands are in an embarrassing situation
Recently, through multiple visits to the market, the author discovered another very interesting phenomenon: in high-end home building materials stores, such as Red Star Macalline, Easy Home and local high-end stores, each store is deserted, and the entire store is deserted. It is difficult to see consumers in shopping malls; but in the building materials wholesale market, which has a poor shopping environment and mainly sells low-end products, there is an endless stream of consumers coming to the door, and on average there are a few orders of business every day.
This phenomenon reflects the downgrading of consumer consumption. Taking the Fuzhou market as an example, judging from the per capita wage data of Fujian Province in 2020 released by the Fujian Provincial Bureau of Statistics on May 25, 2020: the average annual wage of employees in urban private units in Fujian Province in 2020 is 58,631 yuan, equivalent to a monthly average The salary is 4,886 yuan; the average annual salary of urban non-private unit employees in Fujian Province in 2020 is 88,149 yuan, which is equivalent to an average monthly salary of 7,346 yuan.
As for the validity of the indicator of average annual salary, everyone knows it and there is no need to elaborate. According to the author's field visits, the average salary for ceramic tile sales positions in Fuzhou is around 7,000 yuan/month, while the average salary for administrative, logistics, and financial positions is around 5,000 yuan/month. Behind the lack of income growth is the fact that housing prices in Fuzhou's urban area are high. Relevant data shows that the housing price in the main urban area of Fuzhou is more than 30,000 yuan per square meter, and in the suburbs it is close to 20,000 yuan per square meter.
According to Fuzhou City’s 2020 mortgage policy: 20% down payment ratio and 5.15% mortgage interest rate. We assume that the total price of an 80-square-meter house in Cangshan District is 1.68 million yuan, and the down payment is about 330,000 yuan, which is equivalent to more than 3 years of savings for a ceramic tile salesperson with an average monthly salary of 7,000 yuan. This is really what if homeNo support. If you don’t have six wallets, you can’t afford a house... And this is the best situation: 2020 is the year when housing prices in Fuzhou have fallen. The average house price in Fuzhou this year is 30,000 yuan/㎡, which means that it was almost the same last year. It is easier to get ashore than this year. Let’s not talk about the specific price of housing prices this year. Just look at bank loan restrictions. The increase in mortgage interest rates has already blocked a large number of consumers. For example, the mortgage interest rate in Zhengzhou has exceeded 6% and is heading towards 7%.
House prices are so high that consumers’ budget for decoration will inevitably be compressed after buying a house, so the budget for ceramic tiles will naturally be squeezed again and again. As a result, the low-end wholesale building materials market has naturally won the support of a large number of consumers by virtue of its low price.
What is the relationship between consumption downgrade and corporate brand building? To put it bluntly, the consumption downgrade has no impact on top brands. It is a good thing for low-end brands, but it is a bad thing for waist brands. For waist brands, dealers entering the wholesale building materials market will lower the brand's style, which cannot be justified by manufacturers; entering high-end home building materials stores requires finding ways to make up for the competitive disadvantages of product prices, which will test one's own store management skills. Therefore, judging from the market research, the waist brand cannot improve the brand height in terms of publicity and promotion; in terms of sales, the product price cannot go down, and there is no price advantage; it is stuck in the middle, and the market share is occupied by leading brands and low-price brands. , it is common for dealers to be replaced or eliminated in the end.
During the visit to the market, the words of a ceramic tile dealer were shocking. "In fact, in the minds of consumers, there are no mid-to-high-end brands. Except for leading brands such as Marco Polo, Mona Lisa, Nobel, and Dongpeng, which have a certain popularity in the terminal, the others are all miscellaneous brands."
Two levels of differentiation
Weak brand awareness in the end market
The reason for the embarrassment of waist brands lies in the downgrading of terminal consumption, while the problem faced by high-end brands is the serious polarization of consumer groups, which is of course also the result of consumption downgrading. Customers who can afford high-end brands will still walk into high-end stores, while customers who can’t afford them will only walk into small stores in wholesale markets...
Let’s take Fuzhou as an example. Although the local housing purchase pressure ranks among the top ten in the country, there are still many people who can afford housing prices without significantly reducing their quality of life. This group of people is naturally the base of high-end brands, and the market has proven that most of them will choose to go to high-end home building materials stores instead of wholesale markets......;
This may seem like good news, but unfortunately, the reason why they choose high-end stores is not because the company has successfully built its own brand and has its own loyal customers. In fact, they just want to buy a product for peace of mind. Quality assurance.
There was a real case a few months ago, which was once on the Baidu hot search list. A buyer spent hundreds of thousands of yuan on products from a leading ceramic tile brand. As a result, something happened to these products... The buyer said bluntly in an interview with the media: "I thought xxx was a big brand, but the quality The service is guaranteed, and you can buy with peace of mind. Who knew the result would be like this, so why would I spend a lot of money on brand-name products?”
Although this is just an example and cannot be generalized, to some extent it also reflects a problem when companies currently build their own brands: current brand building only involves marketing promotion, but products and supporting services are not. Didn't keep up. Product quality and service are the factors that consumers value most.
As a building materials product, ceramic tiles are not inherently associated with luxury goods. The reason why consumers are willing to spend a lot of money to buy high-end brand ceramic tiles is because in their minds, as a big brand, the quality and service of its ceramic tiles are relatively guaranteed. of. The reason behind consumers' pursuit of security is that ceramic tiles, as a main decoration material, have caused headaches for Chinese people in the past two decades and they are afraid of being cheated. Therefore, they do not hesitate to spend more money to save themselves trouble. To put it bluntly, the purpose of consumers choosing high-end brands is to spend money to buy peace of mind and peace of mind.
After seeing this, it is clear that many consumers buy branded goods not because of brand awareness, nor because they have a soft spot for a certain brand, but because the brand has strong marketing efforts in the market and has a certain reputation. I feel that it must have strength and credibility, and spending money to buy myself peace of mind... This concept is still very popular among high-end brands.
So the current situation is that "enterprises build brands, but terminals do not recognize the brands. Big and small brands are all miscellaneous brands." If we really want to talk about a brand recognized by consumers, it may just be the dealer's "personal brand".
……
In the Fuzhou market, or in a market with pan-retail channels such as retail and assembly as the core, the dealer's "personal brand" is far more important than the "brand" created by the company. Let's take Fuzhou as an example. The Fuzhou market has begun to experience a certain degree of "market solidification", with very few new entrants. Nowadays, the ceramic dealers in Fuzhou are all old dealers who have been rooted in the local area for many years. It can be said that this has always been the case in the past.Some dealers are doing it, and it will basically be these people doing it in the future.
Building ceramics companies often build brands that are used to attract investment in the industry and are oriented to the B-side; only a few companies build brands that are oriented to the C-side. In other words, the current role of brands is mainly to help companies attract investment, and at the terminal they still rely on the personal IP of dealers. If a company hopes that consumers will have brand loyalty, it will be irresponsible to the company and its employees. The consumer is like a green tea girl. She will follow whoever treats her well and gives her more "cheap".
We welcome discussion.
(Author: Huajian Yiju)
