Chapter 815 Bus Advertisement
The final result of Coca-Cola was recognized by Song Yuanchao, who immediately decided to adopt Formula No. 1. However, Formulas No. 2 and No. 3 also have their merits and can be used as alternatives in the future based on different market reactions when tested in the market.
As for Sit's cola brand, Song Yuanchao had already thought about it. Now the most famous cola brand in China is Tianfu Cola, followed by Laoshan Cola and Happiness Cola, plus Shaolin Cola which was just launched last year.
In addition to these cola brands, a variety of cola products will emerge like mushrooms after rain, such as Sufangzhai Cola, Chrysanthemum-flavored Thirst Cola, 2.68-liter giant Hongrun Cola, OK Cola, Shuangkou Cola, Deyi Ginger Cola, Coke, Lip-moving Cola, and the only difference between them and Coke Day, etc.
These various cola brands were basically short-lived, but there was one cola that left a deep impression on people, and that was Very Cola.
Fanta is a very influential cola brand in China. Unfortunately, it appeared too late. It was not until 1998 that Fanta was born. At that time, Coca-Cola and Pepsi had completed their layout in China and began to conquer the market in a big way. Fanta was born at the wrong time. If it had been born ten years earlier, perhaps things would have been completely different.
Song Yuanchao decided to register Sit's cola products under the brand name Feichang Cola and to carry out professional packaging design.
Song Yuanchao attached great importance to this product, and once Sit started producing cola products, it would inevitably come into direct competition with the two major colas and would be regarded as a strong rival.
Song Yuanchao had considered this issue. He was well aware of the strength of his opponent and the consequences of doing so. However, market competition requires courage and determination. This step must be taken. Even if Sit does not take this step, once the two major cola companies have established themselves in the Chinese market, they will also launch an attack on Sit.
Song Yuanchao had felt this when he was bidding for the sponsorship of the National Games. This was one of the reasons why he decided to quickly launch Coca-Cola products. As the saying goes, the best defense is offense. Sit still has an advantage in the carbonated beverage market. If it doesn't use this advantage now, will it wait until its competitors grow stronger?
After deciding on the cola product, Song Yuanchao asked about the research and development progress of the tea beverage.
Zhan Linhong had been prepared for this. She told Song Yuanchao that according to the company's requirements, the R&D center currently has three main research directions for tea beverages: oolong tea beverages, iced black tea, and iced green tea.
Among them, oolong tea drinks have been available in China as early as 1981. The most famous brand is Suntory's oolong tea, which was the first to pioneer tea drinks in China and also launched new products such as sugar-free tea.
As for the latter two categories, they were specially requested by Song Yuanchao. In history, iced tea products first appeared in 1993 and were launched by Xuri Sheng. In 1996, Master Kong's iced black tea products came out. Relying on its unique packaging and taste, it quickly became the darling of the market and occupied half of the iced tea market.
Speaking of the ice tea market, Song Yuanchao is very clear about the scale of this market. Compared with cola products, the ice tea market is no less than that of cola products. In addition, the product direction of the two major cola companies has always been in the carbonated beverage category, and they have not paid much attention to ice tea products that suit the taste of Oriental people.
Even though the two major cola companies later saw the booming iced tea market and launched similar products one after another, sales were not very good and they eventually had to give up this market.
Competition in the carbonated beverage industry will be extremely fierce in the future. Even though Sit Company has the convenience and advantages in the current market, Song Yuanchao is still not completely confident when facing such strong opponents as the two major colas.
But the tea beverage market is different. This is the advantage of Chinese people. Although the two major cola companies have also launched tea beverage products, they eventually gave up this market due to various reasons such as poor local conditions. If Sit enters from this angle, the possibility of success is much greater.
More importantly, apart from Suntory's oolong tea, there are no other tea beverage products in the country. Once Sit completes its tea beverage layout first, it will be invincible.
At the R&D center, Song Yuanchao listened to Zhan Linhong's detailed report on the research and development of tea beverages, tried the tea beverage flavors that were currently under preliminary development, and put forward some suggestions.
Zhan Linhong carefully recorded the suggestions put forward by Song Yuanchao, and will make adjustments and improvements during the research and development process.
After leaving the R&D center, Song Yuanchao was in a very good mood. Now that the cola formula has been determined, the next step is a series of work for Sitter to officially enter the cola market.
Song Yuanchao did not plan to continue producing cola pulp in Nanjing, but to move it to Gusu.
There was a new drinking water plant built by Sit in Gusu. The drinking water plant in Gusu was the largest branch built by Sit outside Jinling in the past two years, and its scale was larger than the two branches in Shanghai and Yanjing combined. In addition, there were old friends in Gusu, and with their connections, plus Gusu's geographical location and convenient policies, it was much better than setting up a factory in Jinling.
The new cola pulp production plant is right next to the drinking water plant. The land has been selected long ago and the construction is almost complete.
This work was finalized last year when Sit decided to launch the cola project and began preparations. Now, these tasks are almost completed, and with the final formula of cola determined, it won’t be long before Sit’s Extra Cola can be officially put into production.
In the following days, Song Yuanchao stayed busy in Jinling. Apart from the most important preparations for the National Games promotion, he was also preparing for the packaging, subsequent production and sales of Feichang Cola.
The busy time passed quickly, and by the time the packaging was finalized and the trial production was successful, it was already the end of September 1987.
Lu Jun got married on National Day and called Song Yuanchao a few days ago to remind him not to forget to come early.
On the phone, Lu Jun told Song Yuanchao that he had already contacted his old dormitory classmates. Except for Lu Hairong who was still abroad, everyone would come at that time, and they could take this opportunity to get together.
This time, when attending Lu Jun's wedding, Song Yuanchao greeted Lin Yan in advance and originally wanted to take Lin Yan with him, but Lin Yan said that she couldn't leave for the time being. In addition to taking care of the children, she also needed to take care of things at the advertising company. The advertising company has developed very rapidly in the past two years. Now, this advertising company has become a well-known advertising company in Shanghai and even in the whole country. Several new advertisements have been a great success, the customer base has continued to increase, and the revenue has been extremely good.
These days, Lin Yan and Li Xiaoyun are negotiating with the Shanghai Bus Company. The main content of the negotiations is to obtain body advertising on all Shanghai buses.
Today's advertising channels are still very limited compared to those of ten or twenty years ago. Apart from media advertising such as newspapers and television, common advertising is nothing more than print advertising, mainly on billboards.
But from the perspective of overall advertising effectiveness, the role of print advertising is no less than that of media advertising such as newspapers and television, and the benefits of print advertising are quite good. The revenue of a billboard in a good location can be considerable in a year. However, there are many requirements for the application, establishment and approval of such billboards. Not to mention that all advertising companies are eyeing this piece of fat meat. Even if they can get it, its coverage will be limited.
For this reason, Lin Yan and Li Xiaoyun referred to the Hong Kong model and directly targeted the buses throughout the city.
Bus advertising has actually existed for a long time. You can see it in many old Shanghai photos. In international cities like Hong Kong, bus advertising is also a very common phenomenon.
However, the initial bus advertisements were simply advertising banners hung on the bus, with both ends of the banners tied to the doors or handles with ropes. Not only was it unsightly, but it could also easily fall off while the bus was driving, causing safety issues.
After the 1990s, with the emergence of professional inkjet printers, large-scale inkjet-printed bus body advertisements replaced the original banner advertisements, which made bus advertisements very popular in China.
At present, large-scale inkjet printing equipment is not perfect, and direct inkjet printing is not practical. However, this problem is easy to solve. Don't forget that the advertising company has a deep cooperation with Shanghai Film Studio. There is no shortage of artists at Shanghai Film Studio. In addition to the staff of the studio, there are also artists from the cooperating cinemas.
In today's cinemas, every time a new movie comes out, the large posters are hand-painted by artists. The effect of hand-painted works is in no way inferior to the spray-painted effects of more than ten years later. There is absolutely no problem in relying on these artists to produce car body advertisements.
In this way, Lin Yan and Li Xiaoyun contacted the Shanghai Bus Company in order to combine the current bus advertising in Hong Kong with the current bus advertising in Shanghai, and directly proposed to the other party the requirement to contract all the bus body advertising in the city.
This application attracted great attention from the bus company. Although the bus company is a state-owned enterprise, due to the public service nature of the bus company, to be frank, it is also financed by the government. At present, the bus company has not yet undergone restructuring to become self-financing and partially independent of the government to adopt an independent management model, as it did many years later. Therefore, the company has always been tight on finances, and the income of its employees is not very good.
The advertising company's proactive contact gave the bus company a surprise.
From the perspective of the bus company, if they can contract or rent the bus bodies to advertising companies, they can get a lot of money. This income is a complete surprise, almost like pie in the sky.
But the leaders of the bus company also have concerns about this matter. After all, there is no precedent in the country. Even if there have been examples of hanging banner advertisements on buses before, they were usually arranged by administrative arrangements of higher-level departments and were not commercial operations. The expenses were often just some insignificant subsidies.
Now it is different. Once the cooperation with the advertising company is launched, it becomes a pure commercial behavior. Will such behavior touch on some sensitive issues? As a leader, although the bus company is enthusiastic , he also has concerns. Without the approval of the higher authorities, he dare not make a decision.
To this end, the bus company, on the one hand, showed enthusiasm in its contact with the advertising company, but on the other hand, it told the advertising company that they could not make the decision on this matter and must seek the opinions of higher-level departments.
Lin Yan and Li Xiaoyun were also secretly working on this matter, using their connections to find people to get the connections. If they could get a document approving the matter from the higher authorities, then this matter could proceed smoothly.
