Marketing

For the water heater industry, Vantage entered late but started quickly. In 1994, China's water heater market was turbulent, which was the peak period of development of the water heater industry. At that time, there were as many as 400 to 500 large and small water heater manufacturers in the country. Some well-known domestic brands also split up. There were even many international brands entering one after another. Market competition was tantamount to a hand-to-hand battle. Even in such a fiercely competitive market environment, driven by its core product, stoves, which is the first domestic brand, Vantage water heaters have been growing at a rate of 30% every year since 1994. By 1999, Vantage water heaters had entered the top ten leading brands in China's water heater industry. In some areas such as Guangdong and Beijing, Vantage water heaters ranked among the top three or two in the industry with obvious advantages. On July 1, 2000, after the State Administration of Light Industry and the Domestic Trade Bureau banned the production and sale of direct-discharge water heaters, at the initiative of Macro, Vantage quickly formed a forced-discharge promotion alliance with Macro to guide the entire industry towards safe and healthy water heaters. direction development. Both companies have achieved a win-win situation, and the sales growth rate of Vantage water heaters has reached over 40%.

(2) Marketing strategy analysis

l Brand

The founders of Vantage had advanced brand awareness when they founded Vantage. They discovered that all the brands at that time Gas stoves did not pay attention to the brand image, and the products lacked differentiation, so they persuaded the board of directors to allocate 30% of the only 1.2 million start-up funds and hired a professional image design company, Guangzhou Tianlang Advertising Company, to introduce "CI planning" to the company, with a green The main color is superimposed with the first letter V of Vantage (Advantage), as the logo of the company and brand. The company's sales, publicity and other office supplies are all "CIS" in accordance with the standards. Vantage's elegant and high-grade image quickly It has been recognized by consumers. Although it is 20 more expensive than similar products, it is still often out of stock. Over the years, in order to build the "Vatti" brand, Vantage was the first in the industry to introduce CI strategy, established a VI system with strong visual impact, and determined the business philosophy of "creating high-quality products and serving the society", making it unique to Vantage. The "high-quality products" have won a relatively stable market share, thereby establishing a market image as an excellent brand of Chinese stoves.

l Channel

The correctness of the channel strategy determines the success or failure of the enterprise. Around 1994, most gas appliance companies adopted a multi-regional agency system, and some manufacturers even openly or covertly supported cross-selling in order to pursue short-term sales. This was a short-sighted marketing behavior. Cross-selling, also known as reversed goods and red goods, is a marketing phenomenon in which dealers and branches at all levels in the distribution network are driven by profits to sell the products they distribute across regions. In order to obtain abnormal profits, malicious channeling of goods that deliberately dumps products into markets outside one's own jurisdiction causes huge harm to enterprises. It is mainly reflected in the fact that it disrupts the price system of the entire distribution network and easily triggers a "price war." Dealers lose confidence in products, lose enthusiasm, and eventually give up distributing the company's products, while chaotic prices will cause the company's products and brands to lose the trust and support of consumers. Ignorance, laissez-faire and inability to deal with cross-selling goods will cause the distribution network that the company has worked so hard to establish to collapse. The multiple agents in the region are an important reason for the cross-selling of goods. In order to prevent cross-selling among dealers and protect the interests of dealers, Vantage has resolutely implemented the general agent system since its establishment. That is to say, we insist on setting up only one general sales agent in a region and establish a marketing network with high loyalty. 80% of Vantage's more than 200 agents across the country have been there since the beginning. In terms of market protection, Vantage has also done a relatively good job. In order to prevent the intrusion of counterfeit and shoddy products on Vantage, Vantage pioneered the use of a product "ID card" system, equipping each Vantage stove with a special "ID card". This ID card has an anti-counterfeiting mark and is printed during production. There is a memory stored in the company's computer. If consumers want to identify the authenticity of the product, they only need to send the "ID card" to Vantage Company. If the product is counterfeit, the manufacturer will notify the consumer immediately.

In addition, Vantage also allocates 1 million yuan every year to set up a consumer protection fund. If it is found to be fake, Vantage will assist consumers and relevant management departments with funds and manpower to fight against counterfeiting.

In order to prevent vicious price competition caused by cross-selling goods, Vantage must sign an "Anti-dumping Market Protection Agreement" before signing a contract with dealers every year, and deduct 3 from each batch of goods as a market protection fund. Vantage has taken many measures to prevent dealers from channeling goods. For example, put a "Send to a certain place" label on the product packaging; use a product coding system to assign four different codes to each product. All codes are entered into the computer archive. For any product anywhere, just enter one of the codes and you can immediately find out the source of supply, date of manufacture, destination and person in charge. In addition, Vantage always adheres to the concept of "growing together with customers" and focuses on relationship marketing. Vantage's price system is divided into general agent price, secondary distribution price and retail terminal price. The three-level price setting is clear and unified across the country, ensuring that dealers have a gross profit of 10%. The interests of dealers are guaranteed. Vantage also attaches great importance to cultivating relationships with dealers. When dealers come to Vantage headquarters, they will receive a VIP-style reception, with free food and accommodation, and their requirements will be met as much as possible. High satisfaction and a strong sense of group belonging make Vantage’s Dealers regard Vantage's business as their own.

l Advertising

Vatti paid great attention to advertising at the beginning of its business. The annual advertising cost is about 40 million. In order to quickly create a brand, Vantage has set up a "Vatti Gas Appliance" brand in the "Home Appliance Corridor" where home appliances gather - the Guangzhou-Zhuhai Expressway not far from Macro and Shenzhou. Large billboards and residential wall advertisements were put up along the Beijing-Guangzhou Railway at a price of 1.8 yuan per square meter, from Guangzhou to Shenyang. This extremely low-cost local method has had a great publicity effect. At the end of 1999, Vantage implemented the "Walking with Giants" plan and spent more than 2 million to sign a 2000 planning agency contract with the famous multinational advertising company McCann Guangming Company to re-adjust the development ideas of the Vantage brand. McCann Guangming Company upgraded the positioning of Vantage from the original "Vatti Gas Appliances, China's Premium Products" to "China's Leading Brand of Gas Appliances", clearly expressing its leading position. The core advertising slogan was changed from the original "Good products are naturally welcomed" , updated to "Good Fire, Good Life", which shows more noble taste and further highlights the brand difference of Vantage.

l Event Marketing

Vatti is good at using event marketing to increase the company's own visibility and create a good corporate image. As of the end of October 2000, Vantage's public relations agency has implemented and successfully operated the following event marketing-

----Separation of Two Powers

----Vatti Enterprise History

----The world's largest stove production base

----Macro Vantage Alliance

----Olympic Vantage/fully assist Chinese Olympic athletes Compete for the first gold medal of the century (the execution plan has been fully implemented, and the cooperation with the Chinese Shooting Team has been finalized, but it has not been implemented for some reason)

----Technology Vantage

----Vantage Service Brand

----Others, etc.

Among them, the "separation of two rights" (ie. The separation of corporate ownership and management rights, bosses taking a back seat, and professional managers taking over) has been very successful. From the end of February to mid-March 2000, Vantage's public relations agency used its strong media planning and operation capabilities to successfully operate the "separation of two rights" news reports with the help of traditional media, Internet news websites and other channels. In less than a month, *** published 21 news reports on this incident on six websites and 14 major newspapers or magazines across the country, with the number of words in the reports exceeding 50,000 words. Discussion areas were opened on two large websites, which attracted widespread attention from all walks of life. Vantage became the focus of the media at this stage.

Xinhua News Agency, China News Service, China Business News, China Business Times, Southern Weekend, Yangcheng Evening News, Information Times, Securities Times Financial Weekly, Investment Herald, Shanghai Evening News, Chinese Entrepreneurs, Business Circle, Sina.com, NetEase, 21CN website, Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou media such as Yitang.com have published long special topics on the Vantage "separation of power" incident in prominent positions. Guangzhou TV Station and Guangdong TV Station Pearl River Station also reported it in economic news at the same time; Beijing and Guangzhou Powerful newspapers and media went deep into the company and conducted special interviews with the core figures of the incident - Vantage's move was considered "the first of its kind to separate the management rights and ownership of private enterprises." After the first stage of media public relations, the visibility of Vantage Enterprises has been effectively improved. Vantage Enterprises and its products have attracted the attention of dealers and consumers, and even important departments such as CCTV and Zhongshan Municipal Government have taken the initiative to conduct in-depth corporate research, interviews and reports. The Vantage phenomenon has aroused the attention and attention of economic circles and related scholars across the country, triggering a recent wave of media speculation about private enterprises and professional managers. After a series of event marketing, Vantage's popularity has been greatly improved. According to the survey results released by the Development Research Center of the State Council in December 2000, the domestic enterprise popularity of Guangdong Vantage Group in 2000 increased by 20 percentage points from 20 at the beginning of the year to 40.8."

l Service

Vatti's service tenet is "Vatti service, comfort and health, safety and security". Since 1999, Vantage has established green service teams in major and medium-sized cities and regions across the country, equipped with tools and special vehicles, and recruiting professionals from local areas. Technicians are trained and become team members after passing the assessment. They are uniformed in company-standard color work clothes and overall standardize a series of behavioral standards and language to ensure the high-level service quality of the green service team. Vantage provides one-year free warranty and 24-hour free technical consultation. Life-long maintenance, timely (limited time response) service. The service team has set up a 24-hour service consultation hotline, 24-hour door-to-door free service, 365-day uninterrupted service, and provides high-quality services to customers. Excellent reputation has improved customer satisfaction and loyalty.

l Internet Marketing

While making full use of traditional marketing tools, Vantage also uses the advanced Internet to engage in electronics. Business, promote Vantage's products and services to the world, and further increase the value of the "Vatti" brand. With the rapid development of network information technology, Vantage Company registered the domestic and foreign domain names of the Vantage Group as early as 1996, and created an early Vantage web page. In order to promote enterprise reform and development, transform traditional businesses and improve competitive advantages, at the end of October last year, Vantage's decision-makers announced the launch of the 2000 business plan to enter e-commerce and build an authoritative industry professional portal. The "Vatti Group e-commerce website" jointly developed by Vantage Group and the world-famous e-commerce service provider Meishang.com was officially launched. The Vantage website uses the industry's most popular FLASH dynamic production technology in page image design, color application, and page. The content and hierarchical structure reflect the foresight of technology and the convenience of application, and are simple and elegant. In terms of interactivity, the website uses dynamic technologies such as Java, Asp, and Com to realize the website ordering function based on the three-layer structure. * Set up five main modules and more than 20 columns to comprehensively display the modern corporate style of Vantage Group through modules such as group overview, franchising, Vantage philosophy, shopping system, and customer service, allowing users to quickly and detailedly understand the latest information of the company online. News, latest product information. The Vantage website establishes information search, customer relations, product quotations, franchises, online shopping, purchase plans, inventory, accessories plans and after-sales services to conduct business communication and online communication with dealers more quickly.

(3) Enlightenment and Thoughts

Vatti, originally founded by seven farmers in Xiaolan, Zhongshan, has developed to this day. Become a powerful group company.

Looking back on the history of Vantage, from a marketing perspective alone, we believe that the essence of its success lies in:

l Strong and advanced brand awareness As early as 1992, when Vantage was founded, Vantage’s entrepreneurs had In order to achieve brand awareness, even though funds were not sufficient, they still spent a lot of money to create the Vantage brand. This was rare at a time when companies generally lacked marketing concepts and brand awareness. It is Vantage's emphasis on brand building and huge investment in advertising. After years of cultivation, the Vantage brand has finally become a strong brand in China and is loved by consumers.

l Effective and strict channel management Channel management has always been a headache for many manufacturers. The quality of channel management is directly related to the vital interests of the manufacturers. Vantage's effective protection measures for the market and strict supervision and management of channel dealers have enabled Vantage's distribution network to develop stably and healthily.

l Superb event marketing capabilities. Event marketing uses events to create "news hot spots" to attract the attention of the public, so as to widely promote itself, communicate effectively with the public and potential consumers, and shape the company's good reputation. image purpose. Many domestic companies are keen on hype and sensationalism, which may increase the company's reputation in the short term, but arouse the public's resentment. The result is that the gain outweighs the loss. Vantage has done quite well in this regard. Vantage's promotional information is authentic and credible, and can bring tangible benefits to consumers. As a result, while the company's popularity continues to rise, so does its image. The powerful event marketing capabilities not only allow many consumers to understand and love Vatti, but also save enterprises a lot of advertising costs.

l Provide high-level services to customers “Customer is God” should not just be an empty slogan put forward by companies to sell products or services. Many domestic companies do not have a strong sense of service, and their after-sales services are not in place, leading to customer complaints. If they do not provide customers with satisfactory services, it is difficult to cultivate customer loyalty. For enterprises facing the market economy, it is inevitable to transition from product marketing to service marketing. Vantage truly regards customers as "food and clothing parents" and always provides customers with high-quality services before, during and after sales. It was established solely to serve customers. The Green Service Team has 2,000 members and an annual expenditure of 8 million yuan.

We believe that today, as products and services become increasingly homogeneous, marketing has begun to enter the era of "brand marketing" and "service marketing". In the future, customers will increasingly use "brand" and "service" ” as a reason for its purchase. Vantage has advanced the awareness of "brand" and "service", thus winning the trust of customers, establishing a good image of the company, and creating the first brand of domestic stoves. We believe that in the future, with the support of the two marketing tools of "brand" and "service", Vantage will move towards a more brilliant tomorrow.