The drinking water market was already a highly competitive market with many homogeneous products in place before Nongfu Spring was born. In 1997, Nongfu Spring made its debut on the market, and in the face of the fierce competition, it gained a deeper understanding of consumers' demand for high-quality water resources. Starting from the intuitive perception of drinking water, it designed a slogan of "Nongfu Spring tastes a bit sweet", which differentiated the brand from the competitors and established a unique consumer perception. Based on this, Nongfu Spring ranked the third market share of China’s packaged drinking water market in 1998, and a “three kingdoms” situation is appeared in the drinking water market.
At that time, Nongfu Spring had already occupied a considerable position in the market and began to compete head-on with its competitors. In 2000, Nongfu Spring published an experimental report, showing that "drinking purified water for long-term consumption is harmful to health", And it announced that it would completely stop producing purified water. By this mean, customers formed a conception of higher demand for water resources. On the other hand, it directly separated itself from the traditional purified water brands. The slogan goes that "We do not produce water. We're porter of nature", by which Nongfu Spring made itself a representative of "natural water" and once again, distinguished itself from competitors.
Afterwards while many brands in the market chose to add some minerals into the purified water, Nongfu Spring began to publicize "natural weakly alkaline water". During that time, Nongfu Spring accelerated the propaganda of the "weakly alkaline" concept, emphasizing that "weakly alkaline water" contains more diversified natural mineral elements so it is more beneficial to human health. It distinguished itself from its competitors once more. The product positioning is based on the competition experience with its counterparts, as well as in line with the social context, market environment and consumer demands in different stages, which serves as an important basis for the success of its brand positioning.
Emerging as a leading brand of the industry, Nongfu Spring stepped into the fruit juice market with Farmer's Orchard in 2003. Farmer's Orchard is positioning itself as mixed fruit juice of three different kinds. It conveys the concept of supplementing multiple nutrients instead of being singe flavor. And with the classic slogan “shake before drinking”, it upgrades the product and the brand in an all round way. It strengthens the feature of natural fruit and vegetable juice and takes the first step of differentiation strategy.
Then, Nongfu Spring continuously launched a variety of new products. For instance, Water Soluble C100, a fruit juice meeting the daily needs of vitamin C. Tea π, a unique Fruity Tea Drink, catering to young consumers' values. Oriental Leaf, an original tea drink that builds up a sense of healthy tea. And of course, the Scream Energy Drink and Victory Vitamin Water. All these indicate that Nongfu Spring makes constant efforts to penetrate deep into the consumption trend, innovate the products and remain active in the young consumers’ group.
The brilliant achievements of Nongfu Spring come first from its successful product positioning. Nongfu Spring shoulders the mission of providing products and services for human life and health. Its products are not only in line with the healthy and natural product concept, but also trusted by consumers for the high quality. What comes next is the successful brand positioning. Nongfu Spring works with other platforms to carry out touching emotional marketing. It endeavors to spread the "natural water" to a broader scope so that more people can enjoy the gift of nature, and at the same time, strives for innovation along with the trend of times.
From "Nongfu Spring tastes a bit sweet" to "we’re just porter of nature". From the positioning of natural water and weakly alkaline water, various marketing activities to excellent product quality and after-sales service, all these stand as the winning trump of Nongfu Spring to maintain the leading position in the industry.