# Chasing vitality forest By [ZachariasWill](https://paragraph.com/@zachariaswill) · 2022-03-08 --- The weather is getting warmer, but new consumer brands have not ushered in spring. Disadvantageous expansion, high costs, and internal entanglement in the industry… From tea drinks to Chinese snacks, the business problems of more and more new consumer brands are constantly exposed. However, new consumer brands have to face not only operational problems, but also covetous old brands. Not long ago, the international giant Coca Cola came out that it would take the initiative to attack the vitality forest, and even said that “it is necessary to eliminate the bubble water in the vitality forest this year”. At the beauty track, Estee Lauder, YSL and other international brands have also begun to make efforts to develop new products online and enter new fields, reducing the dimension of new beauty retail brands that are popular on the Internet. Facing the new consumer brands in the development dilemma, and the new categories and new markets successfully established, the old brands are ready to move. 1. Coca Cola: feeling the vitality of the forest to cross the river 2. Before the vitality forest became popular, the bubble water field was not warm. Even Paris water, which is deeply loved by petty bourgeoisie youth, is difficult to win more consumers’ favor because of its slightly bitter taste and twice the price of carbonated drinks. It was not until 2016 that Yuanqi forest pushed the concept of “sugar free” that it successfully re established the category cognition of bubble water among young people. 3. The emergence of new products in the FMCG market is a common thing, and with Coca Cola’s FMCG giant status, we don’t need to pay too much attention to new brands and new products. However, as Yuanqi forest counterattacks with its health demands and becomes a phenomenal best-selling drink, Coca Cola can no longer listen to it. 4. During the “double 11” festival in 2021, Yuanqi forest beat Coca Cola and Pepsi to the top of the list of carbonated beverage stores. In the list of beverage brands, Yuanqi forest also ranked second only to nongnongshan spring. In terms of scale, the sales volume of Yuanqi forest in 2021 has reached 7.5 billion, about 1.2 billion US dollars. 5. Although compared with Coca Cola’s annual revenue of 38.7 billion US dollars, the revenue scale of Yuanqi forest is only 3% of that of the other party, the growth reflected by Yuanqi forest in the past period of time is enough to make Coca Cola have a strong interest in soaking the whole track in sugar free gas. 6. In fact, as a beverage giant starting with “syrup + carbon dioxide”, Coca Cola has long been aware of the awakening of health awareness in the consumer market. Since 2018, Coca Cola has tried to acquire to expand its non carbonated category, and also launched the “0 sugar” version of coke and Sprite early. However, on the track of sugar free carbonated drinks, Coca Cola has not been able to break through the minds of consumers. 7. In the fourth quarter and the whole year of 2021, Coca Cola’s revenue in the non-alcoholic ready to drink beverage sector increased, but the classic Cola is still the main source of revenue. In this context, vitality forest has sprung up, which just opened a way for Coca Cola’s “0 sugar” products to break through. 8. Moreover, on the premise that Coca Cola has not got rid of its dependence on the revenue of sugar containing carbonated products, the consumption boom of “sugar free gas soaking in water” was set off by Yuanqi forest, which also had a significant impact on the basic market share of Coca Cola itself. 9. According to Euromonitor data, carbonated beverages were the largest category of soft drinks in the world in 2020, but the market share has decreased from 36.91% in 2016 to 35.28% in 2020. In the past five years, the demand of the consumer market has generally begun to change to the demands of “sugar free and low sugar”. In the face of the continuous contraction of the stock market that may be caused by the continuous advocacy of “sugar free” health concept by “vitality forest”, even Coca Cola, which is expensive as a century old brand, it is time to do something. 10. Channel hunting, vitality “failure” 11. As a signal to officially enter the sugar free bubble water track, Coca Cola introduced the popular super net red product bubble water brand AHA into China in February last year. This bubble aquatic product, known as 0 sugar, 0 calorie and 0 fat, tries to grab the young people who like to soak in water from Yuanqi forest with its fashionable packaging design and the characteristic flavor of “fruit + tea”. 12. However, due to the category cognition and brand advantages of Yuanqi forest in the establishment of bubble aquatic products, the acceptance of AHA among young consumers is not high. However, products have never been the only weapon for Coca Cola to dominate the consumer market, and the core competitive advantage of FMCG giants has always been channels. 13. As a typical FMCG, bubble water is mainly purchased through offline channels such as convenience stores and supermarkets, and Yuanqi forest has achieved rapid popularity through a large number of goods distributed in convenience stores in the early stage. Last summer, in order to increase the construction of offline channels, Yuanqi forest began to launch intelligent Internet connected freezers, which squeezed the offline retail space of FMCG giants such as Coca Cola and nongnongshan spring, which once triggered a comprehensive counterattack by nongnongshan spring. 14. At that time, Nongfu mountain spring launched the activity of “God of wealth from heaven”: as long as the owner displays a bottle of bubble water of Nongfu mountain spring in the freezer of Yuanqi forest, he can get a bottle of Nongfu Changbai snow mineral water with a retail price of 3 yuan for free. In addition, if you put farmer spring bubble water in the freezer of other competitors, the shopkeeper can get a bottle of 550 ml farmer spring with a retail price of 2 yuan for free. In some areas, nongnongshanquan directly bought out the goods of Yuanqi forest and made it “disappear” from the offline terminal. 15. Although the outcome of this “freezer war” has not been announced, the financial report data of nongnongshan spring shows that the sales volume of its soda bubble water product exceeded 600 million yuan in 2021, and this product has only been on the market for nine months. As for Coca Cola, according to Zhan kunjie, chairman and CEO of its board of directors, at the performance meeting, “the quarterly growth of the Chinese market is strong, especially Zero sugar Coca Cola has doubled compared with the fourth quarter of 2019, and the improvement of revenue management and e-commerce business have also contributed to the growth in China.” 16. It should be noted that although Yuanqi forest occupies the brand category advantage, even if the brand launches new products, it is difficult to be recognized by consumers in a short time. However, it is not difficult for a group of old brands with strong channels to make the vitality forest disappear from the market. 17. In addition to sales terminals, competition in supply chain channels is also intensifying. Previously, insiders disclosed that the supply of erythritol, the main sugar substitute raw material of Yuanqi forest, was “cut off”, resulting in a serious shortage of goods. By June 2021, it had led to a loss of 1 billion yuan 18. --- *Originally published on [ZachariasWill](https://paragraph.com/@zachariaswill/chasing-vitality-forest)*