Mr. Fish's Brand Transformation Road

Apple peripheral products, as fashionable consumer goods, have become a highlight of the current electronics exhibition. In the past, when participating in exhibitions, Yu Xiaofeng was actively looking for overseas buyers as a supplier. In June of this year, at the Electronic Product Purchasing Fair held by Global Sources in Shanghai, Mr. Yu Xiaofeng, General Manager of Shenzhen Zifeiyu Culture Communication Co., Ltd., changed his identity and became a buyer, having the right to speak in the development of the enterprise.

From passively accepting orders from overseas buyers, to taking the initiative to become an own product brand and sales brand of fashion electronic accessories, which is rooted in the vast market in inland China, Yu Xiaofeng took the lead in capturing market opportunities. "Now the market in this industry is huge and chaotic, and when there is no winner in the market, it is the best time to build a brand. A good brand can give consumers a sense of security, and a brand that is creative and willing to work hard on product details will eventually It will be popular with consumers."

Yu Xiaofeng's forward-looking vision was confirmed at the exhibition. "Mr. Fish's booth has attracted a wave of domestic and overseas merchants. Brands and distributors in South Korea, Hong Kong and Europe have recognized our brand and cooperation model." Yu Xiaofeng said, "We have upgraded to the two ends of the smile curve and invested in Most of the energy is devoted to R&D, design and brand marketing, and small products can also make a big market."

Why do you want to be a brand?

Please tell us about your entrepreneurial experience?

Yu Xiaofeng: Before 2003, I mainly worked as a regional agent in the mainland. At that time, the agent was a Shenzhen brand U disk. After doing it for a while, I feel that there is not much room for market development. On May 18, 2003, I was full of longing to go south, hoping to come to Shenzhen to seek greater development.

My business didn't go well. The initial capital of 120,000 I brought from home was quickly exhausted. By the spring of 2004, an overseas order gave us hope. In the following years, we opened a factory in Gangxia, and the scale of the factory continued to expand with the increase of overseas orders.

With the increasing demand for fashionable electronic consumer goods such as Apple mobile phones and Samsung mobile phones in China, we see great potential for the development of fashion electronic accessories in China. In 2011, I founded the Mr. Fish brand with the core of "enjoying a free life", hoping to make it the No. 1 brand of fashionable electronic accessories in China.

You will create the Mr. Fish brand as the starting point for your second venture, from simple electronic accessories processing to brand sales. What changes have taken place in your business philosophy?

Yu Xiaofeng: Since the European debt crisis in 2011, overseas buyers have increasingly strengthened their cost control. Unbranded low-price competition leads to continuous compression of product profits. The overseas market situation is unclear, but there is a large demand for domestic trade. The establishment of its own brand is of great significance for domestic promotion.

The era of "Made in China" relying solely on price to win is over. The key to today's Chinese electronics companies to regain their competitive advantage is to build a brand to improve their core competitiveness.

Last year, I participated in the Global Sources Brand Forum, which was attended by large overseas buyers and representatives of hundreds of suppliers. I was impressed by a quote from Mr. Pei Kewei from Global Sources. He said that in the establishment of a brand, the company's leader must personally participate in the entire process, from start to finish.

Being a brand, especially a brand like ours that takes culture as the carrier, the company's executives and CEOs must be personally involved. This is a prerequisite. Otherwise there will be no soul. In the busiest stage, I can only rest for a few hours a day. I have to spend time with the team to make planning and promotion plans, including the brand planning plan. Many times I write it myself.

At the specific operational level, the first point is that the positioning of the brand must be clear. Since the day I started the brand, I have been thinking about what a brand is and the positioning of the brand; second, the unique value of the brand. Where is the difference between you and others, where is the advantage, and whether this advantage can be transformed into a winning situation.

Two key points of brand positioning

American positioning master Trout said that the first step in positioning is to understand the situation of competitors. Please tell us about the current state of competition in the domestic fashion electronic accessories industry? What is the brand positioning of Zifeiyu?

Yu Xiaofeng: The current competition in this market is not too fierce. Apple series products are mid-to-high-end products in consumer electronic products, and consumers who buy Apple products are more willing to spend money on related accessories. Mr. Fish mainly produces iPhone, iPad protective cases, Samsung series protective cases, wired headphones, iPhone accessories and other products. In China, there are many competitors who can compete with Mr. Fish products, but there are basically no competitors who can achieve such a level of brand culture as Mr. Fish.

The Mr. Fish brand is positioned at the young Chinese group. We are committed to providing fashionable, original and imaginative electronic accessories to the target group, so as to realize their yearning for a fashionable and free life.

In 2011, the Mr. Fish trademark was registered, and in May 2012, the Mr. Fish brand was officially launched. We spent a year and two months to prepare for the brand operation. Mr. Fish's product strategy has been adjusted twice in response to changing fashion trends. In the first stage, everything is for Apple. Apple's market share continues to rise with the launch of its new products. We firmly believe that those who choose Apple products will also choose Mr. Fish. In the second stage, in 2012, the main focus was on fashion electronic accessories dominated by Apple and Samsung brands, and the most popular domestic brand electronic product accessories series. The first stage, Mr. Fish Apple brand fashion electronic accessories accounted for 60%, other brands accounted for 40%. In the second stage, Apple brand and Samsung brand fashion electronic accessories each account for 40%, and the remaining 20% are fashion electronic accessories for domestic mobile phones such as Microsoft, ZTE, Huawei, Xiaomi, and Oppo.

What differentiates the Mr. Fish brand?

Yu Xiaofeng: Personalized R&D design and brand marketing are the main features that distinguish us from our competitors. Mr. Fish established its own product brand and sales brand, which formed the basis of our brand development.

After the establishment of the Mr. Fish brand in 2011, we positioned ourselves as a fashionable electronic accessory. We paid close attention to the changes in consumer demand in product development and found that young people have an urgent need for personalized accessories. Cultural illustrations are applied to electronic accessories, attracting consumers to buy our products with unique brand culture and products. Mr. Fish has accumulated more than 50 hand-painted drawings, and has successively launched Yu Yu series of illustrations, Christmas series of illustrations, creative series of illustrations, and pirate series of illustrations.

We also have a unique business model. In terms of channel layout, Mr. Fish chooses commercial centers, IT markets, bookstores, cinemas, coffee shops and other places where young people like to consume to build image stores and image counters. The contact points and channels of the company provide products and services for the fashionable young people. For example, the Mr. Fish Mr. Fish terminal retail standard store brand has entered three cinemas in Chongqing and has been welcomed by partners and consumers. Another example is the cooperation between the Mr. Fish brand and Zhengzhou Xinhua Bookstore to establish a shop-in-shop, expanding brand awareness and driving Bookstore popularity.

Transformation from a manufacturing company to a cultural company

Zifeiyu has just founded the brand one year ago. What difficulties did you encounter during the brand incubation period? How was it successfully overcome?

Yu Xiaofeng: If you look at the history of high-end brands, you will find that they have unique brand stories. It's not easy to discover a brand story, we focused our creative team to create Mr. Fish's brand story. The brand story we create reflects the connotation of the brand. More than 100 years ago, a young man named Fish became a painter on the streets of England. He deeply loves this profession, Fish has been working hard for his dream all his life, his painting skills are getting more and more skilled, and his works are loved by people. In the 1980s, another rising star of the Fish family, JFish, grew up. He was a product designer and achieved excellent results in the field of products. In honor of his grandfather, J Fish founded Mr. . Fish brand, he decided to use his own efforts to complete a family's dream.

With the connotation of the brand, exquisite hand-painted drawings are needed to interpret the spirit of the brand. This is a painful process. It took us a year and two months to produce more than 50 hand drawings. For each series of hand-painted drawings, the creative team first selects a complete set of scripts, each series is a creative story, and then goes through five stages of drafting, revision, retouching, line art and coloring. The pirate series of five hand-painted drawings is a collection of 10 pieces The members of the creative team focused on two months to complete the final draft. Unlike other electronic accessories manufacturing counterparts who pursue simple OEM orders, we have a persistent pursuit of Mr. Fish's brand culture and unique products.

Our hand drawings are beautiful, but how to perfectly reflect it on the product is another big problem. According to the style of each series, we choose different materials, special craftsmanship and realization methods. Take the Pirate series as an example, this series has a total of 5 pictures. At that time, a factory that cooperated with the Mr. Fish brand was working on a special process for more than half a month. The person in charge of the factory even went to consult the master of the equipment manufacturer in person, and finally succeeded in making it. The sample of the first picture was obtained, and the samples of the next five pictures were all successfully trial-produced. After a breakthrough in special craftsmanship, we started mass production of our own branded Viking product line.

We continue to encounter difficulties in developing channels. In the beginning, we started as a direct-operated store and then as a franchise store. However, market feedback shows that the traditional franchise model is not ideal. We adjusted our thinking in time. At this stage, the expansion of Mr. Fish's sales brand network mainly focuses on direct sales stores and cooperative direct sales stores. It is different from the traditional franchise stores that manufacturers only display products and provide simple services of supply and replenishment. Stores and cooperative direct-sale stores provide comprehensive guidance and services, including specific plans for marketing activities, new product launch plans, store design and store management.

When developing channels, we constantly adjust our strategic direction to win the favor of the market and consumers. From a processing factory to a cultural brand, what successful experience does your company have?

Yu Xiaofeng: The transformation from manufacturing to cultural brand is a very big leap. There are two main thresholds for our "second entrepreneurship": First, starting from the design of trademarks, establishing a complete set of brand identity and support system. Through design elements such as "Mr. Fish", we convey the entrepreneur's business philosophy, the company's vision and philosophy to customers and suppliers. Creating "Mr. Fish's Brand Story" shows the continuity and connotation of Mr. Fish's brand development.

Second, it is not easy to be a sales channel for electronic fashion accessories. There are difficulties, but we have to persevere. Only when the marketing channel construction is in place can the brand plan be fully promoted. We establish different model markets in different regions, copy the successful business model to other stores, and quickly spread. We have a very important strategy in channel laying, which is store-in-store, which we call the "Spark Plan". When we are negotiating with the provincial franchise. We require franchisees to strive to open image stores next to landmark buildings and establish a brand image. The consumers they face are mainly high-end business customers. For example, the Southwest flagship store is located in Kunming Shuncheng Shopping Center, which is very high-grade, and the brands that are stationed are well-known luxury brands at home and abroad. Then we will choose suitable medium and high-end consumption places as the carrier to settle in our image cabinet, fully contact with consumers, and form a brand effect. Of course, we also have terminal stores that are relatively close to the people, such as the student store in Hefei, and we will also provide low-to-medium-priced products for the student consumer group.

Our transformation represents the pursuit of small and medium-sized enterprises in Guangdong. Many processing plants are transforming into brands, but not all of them can succeed, and the success rate is very low. We believe that branding, creative planning and market channel building are all very important. We used to be a factory and understood products. Now we are doing cultural creativity, marketing strategies, and understanding the market. This allows us to have the ability to respond quickly to the market and stand at the front end of the industrial food chain. Mr. Fish injects creative fashion products into cultural connotations, and then introduces them into corresponding carriers, connecting them with consumers' lives to resonate.