At one time, hairy belly was equal to Ba Nu, durian pizza was equal to Le Caesar, and stewed goose expert was equal to Chen Pengpeng...

Relying on the extremely focused explosive products, these brands have opened up a blue ocean of their own in the fierce market competition. Precise positioning and focus made them feel like no one, riding horses and riding to the dust, leaving many competitors far behind. With the scale of less than one hundred stores, Ba Nu dared to challenge Haidilao, the industry leader with more than 1,200 stores, and wrote the legend of the mangy arm and the triumphant victory.

However, when people talk about their successful positioning, they find that these brands have begun to abandon their original positioning, withdraw the sharp knives of explosive products, and begin to embrace the big category:

The first is Banu. The classic slogan "Service is not our feature, but hairy tripe and fungus soup" has been changed to "Not excessive service, pay attention to everything".

Chen Pengpeng Braised Goose Restaurant also abandoned its position as a goose expert and changed to Chen Pengpeng Chaoshan cuisine. Jiuguo Yitang once focused on pickled cabbage fish, but now it has given up focusing and changed to Jiuguo Yitang Chongqing home-cooked rice.

Le Caesar Pizza, an expert who once focused on durian pizza, has now downplayed the focus of durian pizza and has begun to return to the big category of pizza.

...

Faced with these changes, some people have begun to question whether the explosive product strategy is outdated? As the pioneer of explosive menu planning, combined with the results of my research on explosive products in the past few years, I can tell you with certainty that the strategy of explosive products will not be outdated, and we must look at it with a developmental perspective. With this question in mind, let's think about what explosive products are and how companies can make strategic plans for explosive products.

ONE

Principles and characteristics of explosives

When talking about explosive products, many people first think of Xiaomi. At the beginning of its birth, Xiaomi relied on a smartphone with an extremely cost-effective price to harvest a group of enthusiasts. It also achieved brand success due to strategic focus, and then relied on the same method of focusing on explosive products. A series of products formed the Xiaomi ecosystem, which made the Xiaomi I see today.

The most typical case in the catering industry to talk about explosive products is Baru. Relying on the ultimate explosive product of Maodu, it stood out in the fierce hot pot competition and created an industry legend. In addition to Banu, there are countless examples of brand influence through explosive product shaping, Agan Guokui, Taier Pickled Cabbage Fish, Chef Fei Chili Fried Pork, Huang Jihuang, Awu Yellow River Big Carp, Yang Jixing Smelly Mandarin Fish, Tian Teacher braised pork, Le Caesar durian pizza, Chen Pengpeng Braised Goose Restaurant... For a while, the concepts of creating explosive products, developing large single products, and one meter wide and 10,000 meters deep became the consensus of the industry. Overnight, the focus became A must-have product bible for every family.

Why explosive products are easy to succeed? From the perspective of positioning, this is closely related to people's minds:

1. A person's mental capacity is limited. In the past, we talked about the Seven Laws of Mind, saying that consumers can only remember less than seven brands. In fact, as the market changes, people can finally remember only two. This is called the "Law of Duality." Since the mental capacity is limited, if you want to be remembered, you have to be the first to focus on a certain type of product.

2. Mind favors first. Think about the famous question, which is the highest peak in the world, and what about the second peak? Think about who was the first to land on the moon in human history, so what about the second one? Who was China’s first Olympic champion, and what about the second? Being number one is a great way to make it easier to remember. In the existing cognitive category, it is difficult to sprint first. For example, if you want to be No. 1 in hot pot, you have to surpass Haidilao, and it is difficult to get to the top. However, it is not difficult and easy to remember, and doing so will not cause the industry boss to be alert and siege. This is the cleverness of Banu.

3. The mind is greater than the facts. We often say that facts are better than eloquence, but in reality, wisdom is often greater than facts. For example, Banu said that his hairy belly is the best. Will anyone object to it? Most people who oppose it should be in the same industry. No ordinary consumer has the energy to eat the hairy belly of all hot pot restaurants to compare whether Banu is the best. Because other people didn't publicize it, but Banu did it, and he also made a bunch of certificates of trust to prove his statement, so the audience gradually accepted this fact. Banu has been chasing after the industry leader, and gradually pushed himself into the second position of the industry. Although it is not necessarily recognized in the industry, it does not hinder its revenue growth year after year.

4. The mind-hate is complicated. Many brands also promote explosive products, but series of products, such as Shaanxi’s Eight Bowls, and Xi’an also have the famous Chang’an Eight Scenic Eyes, which are very distinctive, but they are difficult to remember because they are too complicated. Many bosses want to push the product and worry about gains and losses, so they have come up with some "Four King Kong", "Eight Features" and "Twelve Must-Points". The results have not been remembered, because people's minds and hates are complicated. Our Chang'an food stall in Xi'an has a Chang'an twelve flavor. I guess many of their staff can't remember their twelve flavors, and how can they be remembered by customers.

Because of this, creating explosive products can make your products stand out, make your brand unique, and easier to be remembered and recognized by consumers. Therefore, explosive products have become the only way for catering people to make products.

From the brand level, the creation of explosive products helps to achieve the focus of core products, shape the sense of value, and increase the profit point. At the same time, it is easier to build a product moat and to shape the brand. From a market perspective, explosive products can reduce the cognitive difficulty of customers, make it easier to seize the minds of users, and focus on the origin of the brand. Therefore, we have seen that the success of these brands mentioned above is essentially a strategic victory obtained by Explosive Focus.

TWO

Brand development cycle

A topic is often discussed on the Internet: Is McDonald’s selling rice dishonest? Is KFC's main business selling snail noodles dying? In traditional perception, KFC McDonald’s should sell fried chicken burgers, but in fact, in the process of brand development, the market environment faced by different stages of development is different, and the brand development goals are also different, so the positioning of products and categories It is also different.

We summarize the development of catering brands into five stages:

The first stage: the origin period. The development goal of the original brand is to focus on the original market and the original population. At this stage, the brand should build a model store, find the point of differentiation, and sell its differentiation to the original customer through marketing and operation, and get their recognition. The goal of the explosive product strategy at this stage is to achieve single product focus and attract original customers through products.

We see Baru, who is the main pusher of the stuffed belly, Le Caesar, who is the main product of durian pizza, and Chen Pengpeng, who focuses on the stewed goose. At this stage, they are all aimed at grasping the origin of the crowd to quickly establish market awareness and form their own unique differentiated positioning. .

The second stage: the expansion period. The core goal of the company during the expansion period is to continue to strengthen the strategic results of the first phase, continue to open stores, replicate model stores in a larger area, summarize the success rules of model stores, and build a prosperous store system. The core of Wangdian is still explosive products. Through the drainage of explosive products, potential customers can be quickly locked. Through the diffusion of the original customer group, more customers will be attracted to become the main customer group, and the spread and diffusion of the brand can be realized.

The third stage: the offensive period. Catering companies in the offensive period need to make long-term brand strategic planning. It is said that a soldier who does not want to be a general is not a qualified fighter. At this stage, the business goal of the company is to strengthen its brand influence and strive to become the first brand in the region. With the expansion of the brand, the coverage of the customer base is also expanding. It is difficult for a single explosive product to meet the needs of all customer groups. The insufficient influence of a single explosive product will reduce the store’s ability to attract customers. Therefore, the explosive product strategy should be based on a large single product. Shift to an explosive product system and achieve more customer coverage through a differentiated explosive product strategy.

The fourth stage: maturity. The brand goal in the mature stage is to move from regional leadership to national layout. At this stage, the brand strategic goal is to build national influence. Therefore, products must also consider the integration of the overall brand identity and regional characteristics, and continue to integrate regional gourmet characteristics. Enrich product system. At this stage, the explosive product strategy should also extend from the creation of explosive product ladders to the use of explosive product thinking to reshape the entire product system, from product system planning, menu structure design, product development, product design, to product marketing and promotion. Rethink with explosive thinking. We talk about the primary brand selling taste, the ultimate brand selling products, and the most advanced brands selling ideas. How to let the concept of explosive products guide product practice is the core goal of the company's product strategy at this stage.

The fifth stage: the recession period. Brands entering the recession period are mainly reflected in the difficulty of integrating brand tonality with the current mainstream consumer groups. The core products of the brand do not conform to the consumption concepts of current consumers. The specific manifestation is a decline in performance, a slowdown in store expansion growth, or a negative growth in performance. At this time, it is necessary to consider how to find a second growth curve for the brand while keeping the brand's core assets unchanged. Specific to the product link, it is necessary to develop new sub-categories based on the original categories, or to find new categories, develop new explosive products, and focus on new customer groups.

THREE

The evolution of explosive strategy

The origin period is the starting point of the brand's explosive product strategy. Some brands explored a single explosive product in the original product system, created the ultimate differentiation, and quickly built up consumer awareness through differentiation, focusing on the original customer. For example, Banu focuses on the single product of Maodu, Brother Zhou focuses on the big-sword waist slice, and Le Caesar focuses on the durian pizza. The brand has accumulated a large amount of product experience and data in the original operation, and can selectively focus on the market feedback, user feedback, and the research and development capabilities of its own team to form an explosive product strategy.

There are also some brands that have taken the hot product route from the beginning, creating a strong brand through a single hot product, such as Chef Fei's hot pepper fried pork, Huang Jihuang three-juice stew pot, and Chen Pengpeng Goose Meat Restaurant, all of which are examples of a single hot product to create a brand.

Origin brand has a limited scope of influence, and can achieve precise positioning of customer groups in a small area. The influence of a single explosive product is enough to realize a popular store of explosive products.

With the expansion of the brand scale, from the origin period to the expansion period, the customer group is also expanding, and the demand for products from customers is also increasing. In the case that a single explosive product cannot meet all the needs of customers, the explosive product strategy has gradually changed from A single explosive product evolved into an explosive product system. For example, Banu’s 12 major guardians of the hairy belly, Senior Brother Zhou’s eight must-order dishes, and Chef Fei’s 12 specialty dishes are all extensions and supplements to a single explosive product.

When the brand enters the offensive period and gradually enters the mature period, at this stage, the brand should continue to expand its territory, open stores in more regions, and attract more consumer groups to eat, which is what we usually say should break the circle and break the market. Circle means the further expansion of the customer base, which means the diversification of consumer demand. At this time, the original tool for shaping differentiation-focusing strategy, will gradually become a restrictive factor restricting development, so it has become an imperative new choice to focus on large single products to embrace large categories.

Therefore, we have seen Le Caesar weaken the positioning of durian pizza, Chen Pengpeng returned to Chaoshan cuisine, Jiu Guo Yitang repositioned Chongqing home cooking, including fast food giants such as KFC McDonald’s, and gradually changed consumers’ perception of their inherent fried chicken burgers. Knowing that the product line has been expanded to more categories, because only in this way can we embrace a larger market and allow the brand to achieve greater growth.

Do these brands, who abandon large single products and embrace large categories, abandon the explosive product strategy?

Of course not. As we said before, brands that have entered the mature stage have a deep understanding of the explosive strategy. They think more about how to use the explosive thinking to make products and apply the explosive strategy to the product system. Build, and upgrade iteration of product structure. For example, in Xibei, it is difficult to say whether its hot products are noodles, beef bones, or toon noodles. In its product system, every product is a hot product, but it is for different seasons and different times. Different product marketing focuses.

Catering brands in the mature period should use a larger product structure to embrace the different needs of different consumers, seek common ground while reserving differences, and find a balance between change and unchanged in the development and change. This is also a manifestation of the maturity of the explosive strategy.

Summarize

Many people's understanding of explosives is focusing, but in fact focusing is only at a specific stage. After the brand has developed to a certain level, it is necessary to continuously realize the extension and update iteration of explosive products. The evolution from large single product to explosive product system is the ultimate method of explosive product strategy. The charm of explosive products is not a trick to eat fresh all over the world, but to be able to embrace the market at any time, gain insight into consumer demand, find what consumers think in their hearts, and use an appropriate way to satisfy it.