Coating Brand Competition: Began to Enter “Black Iron Age”

With the arrival of the multi-polarization of the paint market, the original living environment that coating companies are familiar with has become unrecognizable, and all aspects of corporate operations have had a new interpretation. Changes in the living environment have led to changes in the pattern of paint brand growth.

The growth of the new brand has drastically increased the paint industry's rapid development over 30 years since the reform and opening up, which has created a beautiful scene in which the paint industry flourishes. At the same time, the paint industry has become increasingly fierce due to the increasingly mature coatings industry. , advertising campaigns, brand wars, promotional campaigns and other marketing tools to make the paint industry filled with smoke. The severe competition in the paint market has caused many brands of paint companies to be in a state of confusion: classic personnel adjustments in the recent period, Dulux’s marketing system changes, and easy-to-own owners in China... The “black iron era” of the paint industry has come.

According to the description of Greek mythology, the era of black iron was a time of chaos. Morality, ethics, and knowledge all entered a very low level. Wars spread everywhere. This point is in line with the current status of the paint industry.

With the arrival of the “Black Iron Age”, two new trends have emerged for the growth of a brand, especially emerging brands:

First, the market environment is highly mature, and the space for horizontal marketing and vertical marketing is more subdivided. The scope of competition is more extensive, content of competition is deeper, and competition is more intense. This point we can clearly see from the competition behavior among brands, the single-dimension competition means such as "price war", "advertising warfare", and "promotional warfare" commonly used by paint companies are being competed by "supply chain". "Customer loyalty competition" and "strategic network competition" are replaced by three-dimensional competitive means.

Second, the cost of brand growth has risen. This can be understood in terms of two levels. First, there is a growing number of brand media, unit media costs are rising, media effects are constantly declining due to high information, and media coverage of emerging brands is generally cold (except for advertising. Or with advertising,) Second, the cost of access continues to climb.

Therefore, with the change of the living environment, the cost of the new paint brand growth has increased dramatically, and it is less and less possible for them to achieve the success of the current first and second-tier brands.

Channels into the rise of new brands The key person in charge of Southern Paint said that in recent years, the channel brand has been a hot topic in the industry. The evolution of the channels will surely continue to shuffle the cards. Those channels that ultimately survive and continue to grow will inevitably be channel providers with rich product categories, large terminal areas, and multiple outlets. Even to a certain extent, strong dealers will take channels to make manufacturers gradually control the right to speak to upstream suppliers (manufacturers). From the pattern of the paint market in Guangdong and elsewhere, we have gradually discovered the emergence of such signs.

After nearly three years of observation by the HC reporter, in addition to the creation of channel brands, the paint industry has another trend: the brand that has transformed from an “agent” to a “manufacturer” shows a trend that is unique and active in the paint market. The degree surprised many paint companies. Therefore, if manufacturers want to insulate the channel dealers from letting them snatch their own channel interests, the direction of future channel development and vendor integration is a good trend. This is the third relationship between vendors, and it is also a higher level relationship. The so-called vendor integration, his core keywords are "strategic integration", "upstream and downstream integration", "interest community", in the specific form of expression, joint-stock companies, associates is a form of expression. The best representative of this model in the coatings industry is the Mei Tuoshi Group. In the last year’s reform of the Garrison system, some distributors were consolidated into subsidiaries. . In this model, the problem of potential contradictions between vendors is solved better, and the two parties are completely interest communities. To achieve the best combination of various competitive elements in the market and to play the best combat effectiveness.

A careful analysis of the brand growth from “agents” to “manufacturers” will reveal that they all have the advantages of channels and networks, and rely on their own channels and manufacturing advantages to place the key focus of brand growth on the establishment of terminal profit models. Of course, the "winning of the terminal" is already a golden rule in the growth of the brand, but in fact, many brands understand the terminal as a platform for promotion, and do not mention the high degree of a brand strategy. This is the question that paint manufacturers should focus on to consider in the future development!