What can a catering brand ultimately look like? The current Wenheyou can be said to be a reference. Asia's largest lobster restaurant, "Disney" in the catering industry, Changsha food landmark... Wen Heyou has too many labels. Outsiders regard this place as the "local version of Wangfujing Street", a place that is even more beautiful than the Changsha Fire Palace, with more than a thousand digits at every turn.

Wen Heyou is also on the hot search from time to time. On May 1st last year, Changsha Wenheyou Hisense Store issued 16,000 numbers on a single day, setting a new record for the catering industry. During the National Day last year, Wenheyou once again boarded because of queuing for nearly 20,000 tables and queuing for 12 hours. Wen Heyou became popular on Weibo and became a veritable name card of the city of Changsha.

It is worth mentioning that Wen Heyou's annual income has already exceeded 100 million yuan, and Haidilao's effectiveness is not lost to that of Haidilao. In February of this year, Wen He You received nearly 100 million investment from Canadia Capital. According to data from NCBD (Meal Collection), Wenheyou’s senior salon shrimp restaurant ranks first in the “Top Ten Most Popular Crayfish Brands in China in the First Half of 2020”. Wenheyou can be said to be a god-like brand, textbook-like. Business Case.

So, how did Wen Heyou evolve from a local catering brand to a well-known online celebrity catering brand in the country? How awesome is its popular logic? Today, let’s start with this super new species in the catering industry!

ONE

 Break away from old marketing thinking

Out of the "catering + cultural and creative" innovation path

Wenheyou was born in 2011, and entered the tourist market with "one store, one product". It opened direct stores, museums, and art galleries in the Wuyi business district of Changsha. Heyou's black-printed signboard.

In 2015, Wenheyou repositioned itself as a catering company, and officially embarked on the road of "catering + cultural creation" as a cultural enterprise. While expanding the category, the mature snack standard store will be expanded outside the province in the form of direct operation + franchise; while expanding the business, it is committed to building a brand incubation platform.

1. Excavate excellent cultural IP and shape the brand story.

Wen Heyou invited more than 20 local classic snack merchants in Changsha, including Aunt Mao’s Chicken Feet, Li Dai Tofu Nao, Zhengge Beef Skewers, etc., to use Wen Heyou’s mature brand incubation capabilities to tell the story of traditional old craftsmanship. story.

For example, "The grassroots star of the late night stall-Fried snails really owns a shop", "The legend of the barbecue industry that has changed 30 berths-Fengtonghui finally takes root here", the experience of these merchants has been Wenhe Friends are packaged into stories, which not only empowers traditional brands, realizes their branding and corporateization, but also helps them cultivate inheritors, so that the classics will not disappear in the torrent of the times.

In addition to the four major Changsha specialty snack brand series, Wen He You also incubated MĀMĀCHÁ, Wen He You Old Changsha Takeaway, Hand Toast at around 6 o'clock, and Zhuoyi pastry brands, and acquired Xiangchun Restaurant. At this point, Wenheyou's entire line of snacks, supper, tea, baking, breakfast, dinner markets, and catering categories have been covered all day.

In addition, Wenheyou continues to explore new brands and cultural content, such as cultural and creative products, MV shooting, and micro-film shooting, so as to create exclusive brand connotations. For example, with the opening of Guangzhou Super Wen He You, Wen He You filmed a related documentary "Street Chef" to record the attitude and life of food makers in the market.

2. Build a cultural platform, create a communication carrier, and strengthen the brand's exclusive personality.

Cultural output is also an important part of Super Wenheyou's creation of super IP.

Nowadays, the Internet has developed into an important carrier of information transmission. While spreading the brand based on the Internet, Wenheyou has also integrated a group of artists, cultural associations, and cultural practitioners to create a platform for regional cultural display, such as Wenheyou’s internal commentary. The ancient bookstore, the laugh workshop on the fifth floor, etc., continue to spread and build the brand image. These community cultures, which are different from other shopping malls, enrich the cultural connotation of Wenheyou. While stimulating the desire of existing customers to spread, they also attract customers of different formats to shop for consumption.

Through story shaping and cultural platform construction, Wenheyou has formed a unique cultural label and brand connotation, further improved the "catering + cultural and creative" business model, and also achieved the effect of enhancing brand potential.

Wenheyou is no longer a simple catering brand, but more like a new brand with a shopping mall business operation model. Once this model goes through its market space, it will also open up.

TWO

 Cross-industry joint construction of multiple composite formats

Scenario marketing penetrates the consumer threshold

Why can super writers and friends always attract a lot of popularity?

Nowadays, food and beverage consumption is no longer purely eating, but more attention to the experience process. "Eat first with mobile phone" has become a new dining etiquette; food or environment with high value and novel experience has naturally become a new selling point of catering.

Wen Heyou's two stores in Changsha and Guangzhou are known as street food museums that travel through time and space. The "streets and alleys" all show the vivid old time of the city. The time-honored food stalls encountered by chance make people even more like travel An immersive experience. For citizens, it is possible to relive memories of the past here, and for tourists, it is also a new tourist landmark to experience the historical and cultural charm of the city.

Take Changsha Super Wenheyou as an example. In 2018, Wen Heyou received strategic investment. In the same year, the Hisense store with an investment of 100 million opened, Wen Heyou entered the lobster category and entered the "night market economy" at full speed.

The nearly 5,000-square-meter lobster hall spans 7 floors, and the appearance of each floor is designed with a sense of age. Only by climbing up the stairs can you see another atrium with a larger space. The second floor is the "Forever Street" composed of 20 local snack merchants, and the fourth and fifth floors are cultural spaces such as theaters, bookstores, and exhibition halls. The flow of people naturally flows up and down in different shops, creating a comfortable sense of spatial flow.

The biggest highlight of such a space is that the outdoor scene is placed indoors, and the discotheque, photo studio, barber shop, foot bath city, and King of Fighters arcade are integrated into it to meet the needs of people's daily life, allowing diners to instantly return to the streets and lanes of the old Changsha in the 1980s. Lively scene. Since then, Wen Heyou's reputation has risen, and his status has been established in one fell swoop. The Hisense store built by international brands has also left the local time-honored Huo Palace and other catering brands beyond the reach.

Super Wenheyou's scene layout logic is similar to that of shopping malls, it creates a space where you can "walk around", which greatly increases the sense of exploration and stay time, and also brings more consumption, unlike its "cultural complex." The positioning is very suitable.

In addition to the shocking feeling in the space, the large amount of detail filling in the interior also makes the whole design highly restored, and people have an immersive sense of real experience when walking.

The clothes drying on the balcony, the recordings played by the radio, the clothes hanging in the closet, and the bed where you can lie down at any time, completely create the appearance of a community where people live in real life. Some of these settings can also interact with people, such as a mailbox in the Guangzhou store that can be opened to listen to Cantonese. These detailed settings enhance the sense of interactive experience and make the existence of this old community more real.

Wenheyou seems to have built an independent time and space, folding the memory of the city into a three-dimensional box. What people consume is the noisy bustling experience and the instant social bargaining chips, which is by no means nothing in the old days.

The characteristics of market life in the 1980s and the strong scene conflicts are in line with the "retro" pursuit of contemporary young people's aesthetics. In the fledgling stage of Wenheyou's culture, the ultimate scene experience has become Wenheyou's core barrier, allowing it to win many modern catering brands.

THREE

Ride the Internet Marketing Express

Achieve a super influencer

In addition to shaping the business model and scene style, Wen Heyou has also made great efforts in marketing.

Because of being in Changsha, Wen Heyou has a unique propaganda advantage. In 2013, it was invited to "Everyday Upward", which was the first "out of the circle".

Since then, entertainment programs such as "the more you are more happy" and "The Twelve Ways of Feng Taste" have also come to your door. Many stars who come to Hunan to record variety shows will patronize Wen Heyou and take pictures to commemorate Wen Heyou. Wen Heyou's popularity continues to increase. The title of "a literary friend, half an entertainment circle" gradually started.

This year, Changsha Super Wenheyou attracted more celebrities to visit. It is the first stop of the variety show "Brother Full of Vigor" created by Hunan Satellite TV. It is a retro disco party venue for "Sisters Riding the Wind and Waves", and it is also the place for Zhang Yixing's MV "Grandma" "The location of the filming.

The path of Wen Heyou's popularity in the past two years is more like a celebrity product, while the popularity of the past two years is more dependent on short video platforms such as Douyin.

Like the initial Weibo repost activity, they launched a collection of likes on Douyin to encourage consumers to share text and friends on Douyin. According to statistics, there are nearly 100 topics about Wenheyou on Douyin, with hundreds of millions of views.

For brand marketing, the most important thing is to do a good job of content, and users will naturally take the initiative to promote it. And Wen Heyou also owns a lot of content. For example, the "Finding the Street Chef" series launched by its Douyin account some time ago, it will make the process of finding and inviting the super Wen Heyou merchants, as well as the stories and characteristics of these merchants. It is very interesting to spread as content.

Of course, the popularity of Wenheyou in recent years has also been driven by social communication. Because of its distinctive features, it has become a landmark in Changsha. Many Internet celebrities will go to check-in, short videos and live broadcasts naturally. Wen Heyou has not spent a penny on hard marketing so far, but because of Wen Heyou’s accumulated popularity and social communication among post-90s and post-00s generations, Wen Heyou has been at the forefront of consumption upgrades.

It can be seen that the exposure of TV and online channels is extremely important for the regional brand Wenheyou. A large number of tourists flock to Wenheyou, making this super internet celebrity.

Summarize

Nowadays, Wen Heyou is already a beautiful business card of Changsha. In my opinion, Wen Heyou's popularity is promoted by accidental factors as well as achievements by certain factors.

However, although Wenheyou's "catering + culture" business model is better than many catering brands, there are still many areas that need continuous innovation and improvement.

The composite cultural innovation created in the 1980s promoted the spread of folk culture and folk food in the metropolis, but while attracting many consumers to check in, it often led to many people being a "one-click experience". Old Changsha Wen Heyou’s nostalgic style is less indifferent; Wen Heyou’s food is also mixed, and has encountered many negative reviews; and each region has a different market culture, Wen Heyou’s scale expansion, if you only want one click Type copy, and then paste all parts of the country, it will be destined to be an enclosure.

It is undeniable that Wen Heyou is a rookie under the consumption upgrade, but this era has too many business cases that quickly fall into popularity. Is Wen Heyou just the mark of this era? Time to verify!