FMCG Case Study

Revive Chinese Traditional FMCG Brands among Young Consumers with Internet Mindset

Chinese traditional brands are brands that endure for a long history, inherit traditional technique, reflect the unique Chinese culture and enjoy highly reputation. According to Chinese Ministry for Commerce, there are thousands of traditional brands in the Chinese market. Among these brands, about 700 have been certified by the Ministry of Commerce as “Laozihao (old traditional brands)” by 2014. These brands are mainly in the medicine, food, retail and clothing industry (Huang & Xie, 2008).

However, despite their old history and high reputation, this group of brands is facing a crisis in current times. As explained by Business Marketing Association (2003, para.1), “a brand is a work in progress requiring constant vigilance, care, and protection”. Many Chinese traditional brands obviously don’t view branding as a continuous process. They rely on the existing brand equity and refuse to change according to social need. Gradually they become irrelevant and forgotten by consumers.

Only 10% of the traditional brands are able to maintain relative large scale production and gain profit (Xiao & Ran, 2007). Yunnanbaiyao and Wanglaoji are two examples of this group. They started with a similar background as the most well-known Chinese medicine brands. In the recent decades, Yuannanbaiyao expanded into the Fast Moving Consumer Goods industry with new products like toothpaste, shampoo and body wash, etc. Wanglaoji repositions its famous herbal tea as a daily beverage to maintain the body in good condition. They took the risk to reinvest in old brands with new products, and their efforts are taking the companies to a new level. However, these two companies are ...

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...nspired by the successful cases that using Internet mindset, the author would like to research on whether Internet mindset is feasible to help traditional Chinese brands revive in young consumers. If so, what should they pay attention to and how can they implement this

To find out how traditional Chinese brand should do to revive in young consumers using Internet mindset, we need to look at the background and reasons why traditional brands have faded away, the emerging new consumer demographic and behavior, the background and impact of Internet mindset, and also the evaluation criteria for brand performance. Through a literature review on the previous studies that are done on these topics, we can get a better understanding of the problem at hand and find out a way to test the feasibility of utilizing Internet mindset to revive traditional brands in young consumers.