[Chinese liquor network] In the liquor lake, "fighting for the third" is a long-running classic drama.

01 Does provincial bronze make sense?

At the Olympics, who remembers who the bronze medal is?

However, in the Baijiu lake, "fighting for the third" is a long-running classic drama.

This is because the eldest and the second are as secure as Mount Tai, and only the third has a chance to fight for a moment.

It's a marketing gimmick, but it has value.

Recently, two reports of the same media have staged a hand-to-hand fight of "Guizhou liquor third".

On July 2, 22 days ago, the same newspaper, the same page, also published the article "Among the Guizhou liquor TOP3 precious liquor to win the market", and pointed out that Guizhou liquor has entered the "Maoxizhen" era.

Judging from the title of the report, both articles have the words "top three" and so on. Guizhou Daily is impartial, and the two sides are not conciliatory.

From the perspective of Guo-Tai, Guizhou Daily chose to focus on "comprehensive strength" as the point of view, from the aspects of brand value, production area status, number intelligence, and so on, praised Guo-Tai as the third Guizhou liquor.

Guotai's brand value is one of the key points. Guizhou Daily mentioned that in 2021, the brand value of Taiwan exceeded 100 billion in "Huazun Cup". In 2023, with a brand value of 206.268 billion yuan, Guotai ranked tenth in Chinese liquor and third in Guizhou liquor.

Back to Zhenjiu, Guizhou Daily demonstrated the gold content of Zhenjiu "Guizhou Third" from three perspectives: revenue scale, producing area advantage and brand building ability.

In contrast, after the listing of Zhenjiu Li Du (6979.HK), the company of Zhenjiu brand, there are more data to prove. The article mentioned that in the first year of listing, Zhenjiu achieved revenue of 4.58 billion yuan, an increase of 19.9%. In terms of product system, channel system and service team, Zhenjiu has built a good foundation and continued to make efforts.

02 There was no significant difference

For Guotai, which failed to go public, the lack of clear and transparent company data has become the biggest obstacle to establishing the third "human set" of Guizhou liquor.

The company has not released revenue figures for two years in a row. A series of public opinion events such as the cancellation of IPO, annual report disputes, and dealer conflicts are widely circulated in the industry.

In 2018, Guotai began A vigorous A-share listing plan. However, the fact is that Yan Xijun's family-style ownership structure and the relationship between dealer holdings are difficult to pass the review of the CSRC.

Three years later, in June 2021, Guotai officially announced the withdrawal of its IPO. The dream of listing eventually turned into a bubble, and it was the dealers who hoarded a lot of goods in order to sprint to the market that ultimately bore all the consequences. As a result, the contradiction between the country and the dealer has existed for a long time.

A year later, Guotai has not released public revenue data. This has become the biggest weakness in the "hard fight" with the precious wine.

For the "fans" of National Taiwan's 2023 revenue data, opinions in the industry vary.

Among them, there are many versions of 2 billion yuan, 5 billion yuan, 7 billion yuan and 15 billion yuan. Industry insiders generally believe that the revenue of national Taiwan in 2023 is about 4 billion yuan.

If this speculation is accurate, the revenue data of Guotai and Zhenjiu are in the same echelon.

The two sides are also neck-and-neck in terms of production capacity.

Guotai has an annual output of 56,000 tons of authentic Daqu sauce-flavor liquor and more than 80,000 tons of stored vintage base wine. The production capacity of Zhenjiu high-quality sauce wine is more than 41,000 tons, and the storage capacity of wine is 90,000 tons. There is little difference between the two sides.

In recent years, the strength of Zhenjiu cannot be underestimated. "Guizhou locals can feel the strong development momentum of Zhen wine in recent years."

In addition, in marketing, Zhen wine can be said to spend money without pain, committed to shaping influence.

Sales and distribution expenditure in 2023 was 1.63 billion yuan, compared with 1.34 billion yuan in 2022, an increase of 21.2%. Outpacing revenue growth over the same period.

What can be seen on the street is that Zhen wine is linked with literature, sports, art and other circles by means of food research institute, high-end tasting meeting, joint marketing, etc., in order to achieve broken circle communication.

Although the government does not publish data, it is difficult to convince. However, it is certain that in the above core data, Zhenjiu and Guotai are half equal, and the two sides have not opened a significant gap.

That is why Guotai is also eager to claim to be the third oldest.

03 A play of the absurd

Third, there are still differences, but whether it is Zhen wine or national Taiwan and the entire industry, there is no doubt about the first two Guizhou liquor.

In 2023, the revenue of Kweichow Moutai is 147.694 billion yuan, and the revenue of Xijiu is 26.835 billion yuan.

In the view of the industry, for brand standing, the liquor industry likes to compete for ranking, which is not a rare thing.

Looking across the country, the "liquor Lao third" station has long had a variety of rankings such as "Maowuyang", "MaoWulu" and "Maowufen". The brands are also keen on the pursuit of various pre-attributive ranking types of "Hong Kong wine first" and "sauce wine second".

From the perspective of the market consumer, the liquor ranking represents the brand power, that is, the "face" of the drinkers.

Liquor has strong gift, social and financial attributes. To a certain extent, ranking will be widely radiated into its consumption attributes.

This is the most intuitive expression of the strength and grade of the wine brand. Brand awareness, channel building, distribution, marketing, etc., will become smoother.

Reflected in the value of their products, distributors will be more willing to pay and take goods, and consumers will buy more alcohol, affecting revenue and cash flow.

At the level of capital investment, behind the ranking, it reflects the growth of brand wine enterprises.

The growth of liquor enterprises is one of the key evaluation criteria of the capital market and investors, and naturally it has become the usual means of liquor industry marketing.

Once you "win", you can gain brand potential energy several body positions higher than your competitors.

More importantly, when the concentration trend of the industry is obvious, sales and revenue flow to the head wine enterprises, the head camp has long been "solidified".

From this point of view, it is understandable why Jinjiu and Guotai fought for the "third".

This means is conducive to stabilizing the market position, awakening or extending the high-end brand market image of wine enterprises, and increasing brand revenue with a higher position.

According to the author's knowledge in the industry, most people hold a wait-and-see attitude toward the "third dispute" between Guotai and Zhenjiu.

A small number of people affirmed the advantages of "fighting for the third" for brand development. As mentioned above, brand standing is the only way in the development. From the back to the front, from the third to the first, always take this step.

Most people believe that in the weak economic recovery and the depression of the wine industry, who is the third Guizhou liquor, there is not much need to fight.

After all, no matter how fierce the competition for ranking, it is difficult to change the status quo that wine is not selling well.