Recently, Hong Kong’s veteran dessert shop “Xu Liushan” was issued a winding-up order by the Hong Kong High Court because of its inability to repay its debts, demanding that all assets be sold and cashed out to repay debts, and the company’s operations were terminated. Hearing this news, many people were surprised and sighed.
In fact, Xu Liushan’s decline has already begun. Since 2015, Xu Liushan has changed owners many times, and there have been problems with poor management and continued decline in sales and turnover rates. By 2020, Xu Liushan has been revealed that nearly 150 stores in Mainland China have been cancelled, and more than 20 stores in Hong Kong have been closed. From March 2020 onwards, Xu Liushan was exposed again because of rent arrears and was sued by multiple owners.
Many people drank the milk tea in their hands. When they saw the news, they suddenly remembered that they hadn’t eaten Xu Liushan’s signature mango dessert for a long time, and Xu Liushan was a time-honored brand. Dessert shops have gradually disappeared in our lives.
In the past, Xu Liushan was also very beautiful. Xu Lau Shan was founded in 1960. At first he sold traditional herbal tea and tortoise jelly. Later, the mango series of desserts became popular in Hong Kong and became a famous Hong Kong-style dessert shop.
From standing proudly on a branch to falling into the dust, Xu Liushan’s failure in management is actually a brand aging problem that many brands are facing.
What is brand aging?
Any brand has its life cycle, which is the incubation period, the naive period, the growth period, the maturity period and the decline period. When a brand enters a period of decline from its maturity period, it indicates that the brand is aging, which is manifested in the continued decline in sales, market share, reputation and customer loyalty of high-profile brands in market competition.
Brand aging is not only related to the brand itself, but also related to consumer perception. Consumers’ psychology changes over time. When a brand begins to be ignored and forgotten by consumers, and its products and image make consumers feel old, it means that it is beginning to age.
Whenever you mention Xu Liushan, everyone may say, “Ah, I know it, it’s not the one that sells mango desserts…” But if you ask: ” Have you eaten recently?” Everyone would shake their heads and say, “I haven’t eaten in a long time.” Over the past few years, due to the decline in performance, Xu Liushan’s number of shops has been declining. During its heyday, Xu Liushan had close to 300 stores worldwide. So far, its official websiteThe page shows that there are only 10 stores left. Xu Liushan has gradually faded out of our lives.
On Dianping, the only two Xu Liushan in Guangzhou scored 3.74 and 3.87 respectively; while Xianyuxian, an established dessert shop in the same industry, scored both. Above 4 points. Many netizens said that the waiters were indifferent and the prices of desserts were high, but the quality was getting worse and the price-performance ratio was low.
In fact, not only Xu Liushan, many time-honored brands are facing the problem of brand aging.
According to data from the Ministry of Commerce, the average duration of my country’s time-honored brands is 140 years. Only 10% of the time-honored brands operate smoothly, and 40% can only maintain a breakeven. 50% are in a state of barely maintaining operations or losing money.
While performance is declining, many old brands are also experiencing word-of-mouth crisis. For example, the 163-year-old Goubuli steamed buns have accumulated a lot of negative word-of-mouth because of the product price and quality are not equal.
Some old brands are aware of the problem of aging and actively seek to rejuvenate their brands, but they also encounter obstacles. For example, Wangwang, an established snack food giant, has never exceeded its revenue since peaking in 2013. In recent years, Want Want has continued to launch new products and do cross-border marketing. Although there is a certain degree of enthusiasm and became a wave of Internet celebrities, the most popular products are still some old products, and it is difficult to produce new explosive products.
Causes of brand aging
French marketing professor Jean-Marc Lehu, through a qualitative study in 2004, discovered three factors of brand aging from a corporate perspective. Reasons: target market, products or services provided by the company, and brand communication. The following will analyze the reasons for the aging of the Xu Liushan brand from these three perspectives.
1. Target market
Because the old brand has been established for a long time, with the development of the times, the main consumer groups of the brand and their consumption needs Will change. And if the brand does not revise the target market in time and update the brand positioning, the products and services will be difficult to retain and attract customers because they do not meet the needs of consumers, and sales will decline accordingly.
The Baidu Index shows that the main consumer group of desserts is women aged 20-39, accounting for 81% of the dessert consumer group. They like to try new sweet varieties. In addition to delicious desserts, they are also increasingly pursuing low sugar, low fat, high value, and a better overall consumer experience.
At the same time, Generation Z is growing into the largest consumer group in China in the future. They have been greatly influenced by technology products such as the Internet since their birth. Gen Z, who grew up in such a special era, also have unique consumer attitudes, such as pursuing self-expression, having social needs based on the same interests, focusing on multi-dimensional experience of consumption and high cost-effectiveness, like trying new things, focusing on health, and having a strong patriotism. enthusiasm. We can see how consumer demand will change in the future from the consumption attitude of Generation Z.
Xu Liushan has been focusing on desserts of the mango series since he launched the signature product “Mango Sago” in 1992, and the price is higher, with an average price of 25% per capita. Around yuan. Although the price is high, the products and services provided make consumers feel increasingly worthless. In public comments, many consumers commented that Xu Liushan’s desserts have become expensive and unpalatable, the attitude of the service staff is also relatively cold, and the overall consumer experience is poor. In addition, the new products launched by Xu Liushan in recent years have not kept up with the changes in current consumption trends. Compared with competitors in the same industry, such as Manji Dessert and Hey Tea, Xu Liushan’s new products are not high in appearance. Nor does it meet the needs of low-sugar, low-fat and healthy consumption.
In general, Xu Liushan did not pay attention to the changes in consumer demand and made corresponding changes, resulting in his own products and services that could not meet the new consumer demand. Therefore, it is difficult for Xu Liushan to attract new customers, and old customers are slowly losing.
2. Products or services provided by enterprises
Products and services are the core competitiveness of a brand. The innovation and improvement of products and services must always comply with changes in consumer demand. Consumer needs are not static, which requires brands to actively innovate products and services to adapt to new consumer needs. However, old brands tend to ignore changes in the external environment, stick to traditional product services and business concepts, and lack innovation, leading to aging products and frequent problems in management.
The catering industry is an industry that needs to innovate, adapt to the changing tastes of the times, and cater to the preferences of the public. However, although Xu Liushan has also worked hard to follow the consumer’s preference to developNew products, but the product iteration speed is slow, unable to continue to attract consumers. Regrettably, even though Xu Liushan has launched innovative products such as oil citrus tea and sweet-scented osmanthus dumplings, he did not do enough in publicity and promotion, and the product design was not attractive enough, and ultimately did not become a hit.
New Osmanthus Products Left: Xu Liushan Right: Xicha Tuyuan Network
In addition, Xu Liushan’s shop decoration design is not fashionable enough, and still maintains a more traditional The decoration style is a bit outdated when compared with emerging brands such as Honeymoon Desserts. 
Left: Xu Liushan Right: Honeymoon Dessert Tuyuan Network
’s classic products and store image, while maintaining the brand’s reputation and image, it will also solidify consumers’ perception of the brand The cognition makes consumers feel that the brand is losing vitality and becoming stale and aging. And innovative products, if they can’t get the attention of consumers, they won’t be able to bring the brand back to life.
Xu Liushan’s pace of innovation has slowed down, but its competitors are catching up without stopping. In recent years, the new-style tea market has been extremely hot, and emerging tea brands such as Heycha and Naixue’s tea have also begun to grab the dessert market. According to CNB Data’s “2020 New Tea Drinks White Paper”, the market size of new tea drinks in 2021 is expected to exceed 110 billion yuan. In addition, new-style tea brands are actively expanding and extending their categories. Desserts and teas are rapidly developing. Traditional desserts such as sago dew and yangzhi nectar have evolved into cups of tea. The boundaries between tea and desserts are becoming more and more blurred. As consumers have more diverse choices, Xu Liushan’s traditional desserts have become increasingly uncompetitive. 
Yang Zhi Ganlu left: Xu LiuShan Right: Naixue’s Tea Tuyuan Official Weibo
In terms of business methods, although the franchise model adopted by Xu Liushan can quickly expand at a low cost, due to poor management of franchisees, the franchise stores and The quality of products and services of directly-operated stores is quite different. This is why when Xu Liushan entered the mainland market and expanded rapidly, he also faced the problem of declining reputation and constant negative reviews. With the rapid development of the Internet, many catering companies are actively using social media to carry out marketing and digital transformation of enterprises. Xu Liushan is relatively backward in these aspects.
3. Brand communication and marketing
In the past, brand communication mainly relied on the word-of-mouth effect brought about by interpersonal communication. In today’s highly developed era of the Internet, old brands are not good at using the Internet for marketing. They enrich their brand image and connotation while conducting publicity and promotion, resulting in insufficient communication with young consumers. Therefore, people have not updated the brand awareness of the old brands, and gradually forgotten them.
Xu Liushan is not only unfamiliar with the latest marketing methods, but also has little investment in traditional marketing, which makes it difficult for him to gain wide attention from consumers and solidify his brand image.
Although Xu Liushan has also opened mainstream social media accounts such as official Weibo and WeChat public accounts, his brand influence is weak. As of June 28, 2021, Xu Liushan has only more than 20,000 followers on Weibo, while its rivals Manji Dessert and Xianyuxian have 150,000 and 280,000 followers. Correspondingly, Xu Liushan’s new product launches and Weibo for promotion and promotion have received very few fans likes and reposts.
According to CBN Data, Naxue’s domineering jade oil orange tea has dominated Naxue’s sales list since its launch in March 2021, accounting for sales of its tea products. It was more than 20% than it was once, and a wave of “oil tangerine fever” has been set off on major social platforms. In fact, Xu Liushan had already launched oil citrus tea long before Naixue’s tea, but consumers knew very little about it and failed to raise the enthusiasm. This is because Xu Liushan only released the information about the new product launch on the WeChat public account. As of June 28, 2021, the push has only been viewed 9,445 times. Xu Liushan did not publish this information on Weibo (his Weibo was stopped in July 2020), and it is difficult to find a trace on other marketing channels, which caused the scope of Xu Liushan’s promotion and promotion to be very limited, and the effect was not satisfactory. .
In contrast, Nayuki’s tea can be said to have mastered the essence of Internet marketing. Various crossWith joint names, celebrity endorsements, and cultural output, Nayuki’s tea is very popular, not only attracting consumers’ attention, showing a vibrant brand image, but also feeding money bags. 
How do old brands stay alive?
Regarding how to deal with the problem of brand aging, past scholars have proposed brand activation strategies. After summarizing the relevant research on brand activation, the main There are two types of brand activation strategies: innovation strategy and nostalgia strategy.
1. Innovation strategy
The enterprise adopts innovation strategy and can construct new brand recognition and brand association through new brand design and positioning. Give new vitality to old brands and open up new consumer groups. There are three main strategies for innovation strategy in product and service design:
(1) Upgrade: Improve the quality of existing products, improve production technology, and increase the cost-effectiveness of existing products.
Xu Liushan should focus on improving the current business model and supply chain management in response to the problem of product quality decline and low cost performance, and pay more attention to the training of employees, so as to improve products and service quality. Only when consumers feel value for money can they re-establish a positive reputation, retain old customers and win over new customers.
(2) Expansion: Attach new service items to existing products and tap new functions and uses of existing products, thereby increasing the frequency of consumer use of existing products.
Xu Laushan can make adjustments on the basis of existing products, adding low-sugar and low-fat product options, so that consumers will not have the burden of gaining weight when enjoying desserts. In terms of service, the upgrade speed of the store should be accelerated. High-value and comfortable store decoration and design can not only attract more new consumer groups to the store for consumption, but also bring a better quality and more dimensional consumer experience. For example, Nayuki’s tea’s Nayuki Dream Factory, with its high-value and interesting store decoration, attracts many consumers to visit and become aTake pictures and check in and promote sales.
(3) Extension: Use the current brand to launch new products or new brands, but the new products and new brands should have a higher degree of fit with the original brand positioning.
Xu Liushan has to find out his brand positioning, determine the target customer group and his own differentiated characteristics. For example, you can sell mango-based desserts, supplemented by other fresh fruits, to speed up product innovation and iteration. At the same time category expansion and brand extension, for example, to develop fresh fruit cakes, ice cream and other products that fit the brand positioning; it can also enter new retail, sell brand peripheral products, and develop packaged desserts, thereby breaking the relatively single consumption of desserts Scene limitation.
When using the above strategies, we must always consider the changes in consumer groups and their needs. Today, when the Z generation is gradually becoming the dominant force in consumption, Xu Liushan needs to fully grasp them Unique consumer demand can be favored by them.
The innovation strategy adopts innovative communication strategies in brand communication, that is, to create a new and unique brand image and change consumers’ old brand associations. Xu Liushan needs to learn the latest marketing methods and expand his brand influence on social media. For example, Xu Liushan can also use cross-border co-branding with well-known brands to develop creative products while also enabling consumers to generate new brand recognition; he can also create his own IP culture by cooperating with content IP. Thereby enriching the brand cultural connotation, creating a more innovative and dynamic brand image, and reducing consumers’ old and old-fashioned brand associations of Xu Liushan.
2. Nostalgia strategy
The long history and cultural heritage of the old brand and the business reputation established in a long period of time have great commercial value. The essence of a brand, and can evoke the nostalgia of consumers and produce a sense of intimacy. The enterprise adopts nostalgia strategy, mainly to copy or improve the function of old products, and adopt nostalgic communication strategy to promote the traditional cultural concept of the brand.
Therefore, Xu Liushan can use retro marketing to tell the story of Xu Liushan’s brand, present the cultural heritage of the old brand, and stimulate people’s nostalgia for Xu Liushan’s desserts. Resonate. For example, a Xu Liushan dessert museum can be established to tell the cultural heritage story behind each dessert and strengthen the emotional connection between Xu Liushan and consumers.
Conclusion
In today’s market competition, emerging brands are becoming more and more In the market structure, old brands are gradually feeling the anxiety of brand aging. Facing the aging of the brand, the old brands must not hold the mentality of “laying flat”. They must try to “roll” by “roll” and adopt appropriate strategies to activate the brand, so as not to become the next Xu Liushan.
(The author Wang Zihan is a 19th-level undergraduate of Business Administration from the School of Management, Sun Yat-Sen University; Zhu Renhong is an associate professor of the School of Management of Sun Yat-Sen University and the academic director of the MBA Center. Management” “Business and Management Communication” and other courses.)