On "Sanpin" wine culture from the misunderstanding of wine culture
—— Interview with Pan, manager of Centennial Liquor Co., Ltd.
In recent years, with the increasing competition in liquor market and the gradual advancement of China's entry into WTO, as a representative of traditional industries in China, how to face challenges and participate in the competition. Cultural marketing has become an important means of competition, and there are more and more topics about wine culture. Various wine promotion activities often appear in front of consumers in the name of "cultural wine", and experts, scholars and the general public also show strong interest in wine culture, which seems to be a traditional culture in China. But what is wine culture and its characteristics, especially in the new century, there are different views and even some specious understandings on how to give new content to wine culture. With this question, the reporter recently visited Mr. Pan, the manager of Centennial Wine Co., Ltd., who is famous for producing famous cultural wines such as "Centennial Solitude" and "Centennial Celebration".
After learning of the reporter's purpose, Mr. Pan got straight to the point and talked: "At present, the competition in the liquor market is becoming increasingly fierce, and there are many kinds of promotional activities, including many activities with the theme of wine culture. This is a good thing, understandable. However, the problem is that because of the narrow understanding of wine culture, or the deer is a horse, the arrogant person has it, and the far-fetched person has it, the wine culture has lost its original meaning, and it has fallen into the misunderstanding of commercial speculation, which also makes the public's cognition of wine culture have a great deviation. On the surface, the dispute between traditional liquor and new liquor broke out at the beginning of this year is a dispute over liquor production technology, but behind it, it reflects a different understanding of liquor culture. This situation cannot but be worrying. "
Mr. Pan emphasized that every time, every country, every region and even every enterprise has its own unique wine culture. However, as a cultural concept, the basic meaning of wine culture should be concrete and unified. Wine culture is born of wine, and wine is the material carrier and soil of wine culture. Without wine, it is not wine culture, and only wine can't be called wine culture. Only wine has cultural attributes can it be called wine culture. However, wine culture is not a simple addition of wine and culture, but an organic combination of wine and culture, which is the sum of material wealth and spiritual wealth created in the process of wine production, sales and consumption. The main body of wine culture is people, producers, sellers and consumers. It is precisely because of people's continuous creation that wine culture can be enriched and developed. Without people, wine culture is neither possible nor necessary. In other words, wine culture, as a cultural form, is associated with people's creative work, exists to meet people's material and spiritual needs for wine, and embodies cultural concern for people. Based on this, and considering people's different cultural needs in the production, sales and consumption stages (quality is emphasized in the production stage, brand is emphasized in the sales stage, and taste is emphasized in the consumption stage), we might as well take "quality, brand and taste" as the internal "index" of wine culture. Among them, quality is the core, brand is the soul, and taste is the level. Only by meeting the basic requirements of these three aspects and realizing the organic unity of the three aspects can it be called wine culture in a complete sense (that is, quality+brand+taste = wine culture).
First, the misunderstanding of "quality"
The first is the misunderstanding of "quality". The "quality" of wine refers to color, aroma, taste, texture and so on. Although these are all related to the origin and production history of wine, they are mainly related to the advanced degree of technology and the scientific and technological knowledge contained in the production process. However, some people overemphasize the so-called "good mountains and good water make good wine" and absoluteize some material conditions in wine producing areas, such as water quality and air. Some people take the history of wineries or wine cellars as evidence of wine quality, and even "seek the source" from old paper piles and folk stories, or invite some "cultural relics experts" and "authoritative departments" to "archaeology", "excavation" and "appraisal" in order to climb up to relatives with the ancients who died for a hundred or a thousand years, and call it endless wine culture. The development of wine has already gone through the stages of "workshop wine" and "industrial wine" and entered the stage of "scientific wine". Some material conditions can be created through scientific and technological means, and it is not necessary to rely on the weather to eat. The apotheosis of "good mountains, good water and good wine" is as irrational as the so-called "going into wasteland and leaving unruly people", which not only shows that its ideology is still in the era of agricultural economy, but also may mislead the development of wine industry. If "geographical determinism" makes sense, "historical determinism" obviously has no basis. The United States has a short history, but now it is very developed, and China has a long history, but it is obviously backward at present, which is enough to explain the problem. Of course, there is no denying the importance of history to wine culture, but it is said that in the era of knowledge economy, clinging to history or even being complacent has no future. Only by constantly adopting new processes and technologies can the intrinsic quality of wine be truly improved. This is true for new wines, and so is it for traditional wines. Instead of focusing on improving the technological content of wine, immersed in finding the so-called "land of feng shui" and "eating history", the final result is not difficult to imagine.
Second, the misunderstanding of "brand"
The second is the misunderstanding of "brand". Now, more and more people have realized the importance of brand. For enterprises, brand is image, brand is flag and brand is profit. However, how to manage brand culture is controversial. Strictly speaking, a brand is a combination of popularity and reputation, and both cannot be neglected. In the past, enterprises mostly took improving quality as the main development means, and insisted on the so-called "good wine is not afraid of the depth of the alley", ignoring the effect of advertising. Nowadays, many enterprises spend a lot of money on advertising, but they don't pay enough attention to the internal quality of wine. Others value names, packaging, etc. As a brand itself, it deliberately strives for novelty, novelty and even sensory stimulation. Brands such as gold, silver, monsters and immortals are flying all over the sky, and the packaging and appearance are becoming more and more gaudy, which is outrageous. All this is a one-sided understanding of the brand. Brand is essentially a product market positioning problem. Only by finding the right market and positioning correctly can we determine the cultural orientation of the brand, endow the product with more cultural connotations and establish a real brand image. The formation of a brand must be based on strengthening market research, fully studying consumers' psychology and consumption habits, accurately subdividing the market and correctly pricing. Otherwise, the brand will become water without a source and a tree without a root. Now some enterprises are not working hard on market research, but are keen on becoming famous overnight and doing some superficial articles, which is counterproductive. There are many lessons in this respect, which are worth studying seriously. Undeniably, brands also have external problems, such as name and packaging. But the form must be determined by the content, and the accurate positioning of the product must be the premise. Only in this way can we give names, packaging and other cultural and spiritual connotations. In a word, managing brand culture is a systematic project, and we can't lose sight of one thing and lose sight of another, let alone put it improperly.
Third, the misunderstanding of "taste"
Finally, there is a misunderstanding of "taste". "Taste" and "taste" are different. The former refers to the humanistic height and level of something, mainly focusing on its social value, such as "a program has a high artistic taste", while the latter refers to "trying to taste", mainly emphasizing personal feelings, such as "the wine quality is excellent after expert tasting". As a medium of emotional communication, spiritual expression and cultural propaganda, wine embodies people's value orientation. When drinking, everyone's taste can and should be different, but the taste is high and low. "Relieve one's sorrows by drinking" and "Relieve one's sorrows by drinking" are not at the same level, nor are "expressing feelings by drinking" and "punching", not to mention "making friends by drinking" and "bribing by drinking"! It can be seen that many people mistake "taste" for "taste" in their lives, which leads to the low overall taste of wine culture. It should be pointe out that enterprises also bear unshirkable responsibility for this. Some enterprises have obvious marketization color in guiding consumption. For example, excessive promotion of the social utility of wine, so-called gift giving, or emphasis on high-grade and supreme, imposes a kind of imperial spirit and hierarchical concept on consumers, as if drinking XO is a nobleman and drinking Erguotou is a poor man, which is misleading to people's consumption psychology. We believe that people don't know much about wine culture at present, and enterprises should take it as their responsibility to promote wine culture, further improve the taste of public wine culture and make due contributions to the development and prosperity of wine culture.
Finally, Mr. Pan pointed out that on the one hand, the above misunderstanding is related to people's low level of understanding of wine culture, on the other hand, it is also related to the fact that the market economy is still in its primary stage. In order to develop China's wine culture, we must face up to these misunderstandings and try our best to overcome them. The main tasks are to increase the scientific and technological content of wine, clarify the market positioning of wine and improve the cultural taste of the public. Only in this way can China wine have hope, and can calmly cope with the coming impact and challenge of foreign wine.