Herbal Craze
Global Entrepreneur February 20, 2010
As Chinese people have gradually updated their consumption and the wide spread of the 'LOHAS' lifestyle, traditional Chinese medicine is widely accepted in food and beverage. The entry barrier is not high for multinational company to quickly adapt themselves to the growing new needs of Chinese consumers.
A new door has opened for those companies. One of the key success factors of domestic players is the 100 years long brand name or the so called 'secret ingredient'. "Many multi-national companies realize that there's a tremendous market for the products with TCM ingredient, though TCM or herbal concept is quite hard to play with. Marketing strategy is as important as product R&D. To compete with industry incumbents, you need to have a differentiated positioning and strive to meet the consumers' emotional needs in your branding campaigns, " said Bruce Liu, Principal of Monitor Group China.