Author: Xiaoshidai
Despite the slowdown in the snack market[1], Hsu Fu Chi, a well-known snack brand, has been growing for four consecutive years with its innovation-driven and stable growth strategy.
Recently, Hsu Fu Chi has reproduced new measures in its marketing strategy, and its newly launched Milo sports power biscuit series officially announced that it has joined hands with sports star Yi Jianlian as the brand spokesperson, taking the lead in the field of sports strength biscuits. Let's take a look.
spokesman
Recently, Hsu Fu Chi officially announced that former Chinese professional basketball player Yi Jianlian has been appointed as the spokesperson of Milo Sports Power Biscuits.
As a basketball player, Yi Jianlian has won 7 championships in the Chinese Men's Basketball Professional League and has been named the MVP of the finals many times. In addition to basketball games, he also pays attention to youth basketball education, actively participates in social welfare activities, and brings positive energy to young people with his excellent basketball skills and perseverance in sportsmanship.
Obviously, Milo Sports Power Biscuits are highly compatible with the image characteristics of sports star Yi Jianlian. As an outstanding representative in the field of basketball, Yi Jianlian's personal image is closely related to sports and energy, which coincides with the brand concept of Milo. Through the cooperation with Yi Jianlian, the brand can not only naturally and appropriately emphasize the product characteristics and achieve a deep connection with the sports scene, but also accurately target Yi Jianlian's huge fan base, further expand to a wider market of basketball fans and sports enthusiasts, and achieve effective communication and market penetration of brand information.
At the same time, with the European Football Championship in full swing and the Paris Olympics just around the corner, "sports" has become one of the hot themes of this summer. In this warm atmosphere, the collaboration between brands and sports stars not only cleverly capitalizes on the current sports craze, but also effectively uses this high-profile period to create more association space for new products, increase their market exposure and awareness, and stand out from the fierce competition.
Channel strategy
Compared with Yi Jianlian, a veteran in the basketball industry, Milo Sports Power Biscuits is still a "newcomer" in the field of Chinese biscuits.
In May this year, Hsu Fu Chi introduced Milo Sports Power Biscuits and debuted in the Chinese market. According to the brand, this biscuit is suitable for a variety of sports scenarios, with a professionally designed Activ-go formula, high calcium, rich in iron, containing vitamin B2, and adding malt extract to concentrate the nutritional essence of barley, which can provide delicious and nutritious before and after exercise. At the same time, there are 8 kinds of biscuits inspired by sports equipment such as volleyball and basketball.
Although it has only been on the market for just over a month, Milo Sports Power Biscuits has opened up various channels and launched 4 different specifications of products to meet the characteristics and needs of different channel terminals.
It is particularly noteworthy that when the product first entered the market, it strategically focused on high-end warehouse membership stores such as Sam's Club, which have grown rapidly in recent years, and customized exclusive packaging solutions through insight into the consumer preferences of its large packaging and family sharing packs. Since its launch, the new product has accumulated more than 2,000 consumer reviews on the Sam's app platform, of which 97.3% have received positive reviews, verifying the successful combination of this precise market positioning and high-quality products.
According to the brand, the product is still in the process of accelerating the distribution of goods, and it is expected to fully cover offline sales and online e-commerce channels. Relying on the important strategy of Hsu Fu Chi's deep cultivation of channels, it is believed that Milo Sports Power Biscuits will quickly open up market channels.
Seize the market
In addition to the official spokesperson, Hsu Fu Chi said that the company has developed a series of marketing plans to further help Milo Sports Power Biscuits quickly seize market share.
First of all, Hsu Fu Chi will make full use of the peak season of summer vacation tourism to spread on high-speed rail and other media. According to the "2023 Summer Vacation Travel Market Report" released by Ctrip, orders for summer high-speed rail travel increased by 51% compared to the previous two months. And parent-child customers are the absolute main force of summer travel. Hsu Fu Chi's promotional strategy for Milo Sports Power Biscuits accurately aligns with the peak summer travel season and effectively reaches the target audience with families and children as the main composition.
Secondly, after August, Hsu Fu Chi will focus on marathon marketing, strongly bind the sports scene, and let at least 360,000 target consumers taste Milo sports power biscuits in a sports environment through product sampling, and immerse themselves in the product positioning of providing delicious and nutritious products before and after sports.
According to the "2023 Blue Book of Chinese Road Running Events" released by the Chinese Athletics Association, in 2023, a total of 622 marathons (including half marathons) will be held across the country, with a total scale of 3.445 million people. Milo sports power biscuits are deeply implanted in the marathon, intending to seize the traffic password of the sports industry and strongly bind it to this specific sports scene, which may also bring broader development potential to this product.
In addition, Hsu Fu Chi is planning to combine its well-known public welfare project "Share Nutrition, Share Love" Fuman Campus brand public welfare activities with Milo Sports Power Biscuits to give new connotations to the brand public welfare activities. According to reports, the brand plans to send Milo sports strength biscuits to students in remote areas as a nutritional supplement meal between classes, and plan Milo sports classes, carry out sports activities such as Milo Cup basketball games, and strengthen the association between Milo sports strength biscuits and sports scenes. Hsu Fu Chi also ensured that every student covered by the program would receive this special daily supplement during the semester, which fully demonstrated the brand's sense of social responsibility and deep concern for the healthy growth of young people.
It can be seen that since the advent of Milo Sports Power Biscuits, Hsu Fu Chi has rapidly laid out channel laying and marketing strategies, and has built a solid support system for the comprehensive promotion of new products. As the relevant person in charge of Hsu Fu Chi said, in 2024, the company will make efforts in "nutritious snacks".
Subdivide the track
Behind the high hopes of the "Milo Sports Power Biscuit" is Hsu Fu Chi's expansion decision based on deep market insights.
On the one hand, in the post-epidemic era, the public's health awareness has been improved, and their enthusiasm for participating in sports activities has increased. According to the 2022 National Fitness Trend Report [2], 67.5% of people aged 7 and above in mainland China participate in physical exercise at least once a week, an increase from 2014, indicating the positive development of the national fitness trend. This provides a solid demand soil and a wide range of potential consumer groups for the marketing of sports strength biscuits.
On the other hand, the Milo brand has a broad market base. The Milo brand originated in 1934 and was developed by Australian food scientist Thomas Mayne. Originally conceived as a nutritional supplement, Milo quickly became popular worldwide, especially in Southeast Asia, as part of family breakfasts. Milo's name comes from the energy myth of the ancient Greek Milo of Croton, which symbolizes nutrition, energy, and exercise. The product is loved by consumers for its unique chocolate malt powder formula, which is mixed with milk or water for drinking.
After decades of development, the nutrition, energy and sports symbols carried by the Milo brand have been deeply rooted in the hearts of consumers, which has also laid a solid brand recognition foundation for the successful promotion of the new Milo Sports Power Biscuits.
In the field of snack foods, the biscuit category occupies a pivotal position, and the market is large and diverse, however, the market for power biscuits designed for sports scenes has yet to be explored.
In view of the growing consumer demand for nutritional and sports supplements, coupled with the deep market foundation and influence of the Milo brand, the launch of Milo Sports Power Biscuits is undoubtedly Hsu Fu Chi's "ambition" to seize the opportunity and quickly occupy the emerging market segment.
This strategy not only helps the brand to open up a blue ocean in the highly competitive biscuit market and achieve breakthrough growth in the existing market, but also injects strong new impetus into the sustainable development of Hsu Fu Chi, which is expected to open a new chapter in brand growth.
In fact, Hsu Fu Chi's strength in the field of biscuit production should not be underestimated. According to Nielsen's market data, in 2023, Hsu Fu Chi's bulk pastry sales ranked first in the bulk market, demonstrating its market dominance. The company has a diversified product line covering pancakes, wrap cakes, sandwich pancakes, wafers, soda crackers, crackers, etc., thanks to excellent production technology, it continues to meet a wide range of consumer needs.
The introduction of Milo Sports Power Biscuits is not only a powerful expansion of Hsu Fu Chi's existing biscuit product matrix, but also an important symbol of its "ambition" of market expansion and category innovation, and another firm "pace" on the road of sustainable growth of the brand.
The company is also full of confidence in the development prospects of this new product, and said that Milo Sports Power Biscuit is one of Hsu Fu Chi's key strategic new products this year, "We are confident that it will exceed 100 million in the first year of listing, and the future goal is 1 billion"!
[1] Source: https://www.iimedia.cn/c400/93207.html
[2] Source: http://health.people.com.cn/n1/2022/0802/c14739-32491985.html