Marketing Strategies Research At The Third-fourth Level Beer Market

Beer is one of the fast moving consumer goods enjoying a relatively broad massfoundation. With the development of the economy and the improvement of people’sliving standard, the output and sales volumes of China’s beer also feature constantincrease. Since2002when China outran America as the champion in beer production,it has been in the first place in the world for the tenth consecutive year; with theimprovement of people’s material condition, China’s beer markets can be furthertapped. From the perspective of the concentration and market share of China’s beerindustry, competiveness between beer companies is becoming increasingly intense.Foreign brands are also flowing into Chinese markets and grabbing market shareswith local companies with the policy of opening-up to the outside world deepens. Inthe meantime, domestic beer companies of large scale begin to expand and mergerother small companies while enterprises in the second tier are caught between attacksfrom both home and abroad. From the perspective of beer markets, the developmentand competitiveness of the markets in the first and second tiers has already shapedinto form and the markets are being saturated, so it is very difficult to further increasethe sales volume; however, the small cities, counties and towns with lowerconsumption ability, i.e. the markets in the third and fourth tier, are becoming hotmarkets for the beer producers. Against this backdrop, this thesis aims to offer somestrategic proposals for marketing in these areas, combining the current marketingtheories and based on the analysis of the market environment, demand characteristics,competitive structures.The major research methods adopted here include theory interpretation and casestudy. Based on the analysis of such marketing theories as the4P Marketing Theory,market segmentation theory and other theories related to beer industry, this paperprovides the environmental analysis and the theoretical explanation of issues ofmarketing strategies on the third and fourth tier markets, and tries to give reference tobeer companies combining the analysis of the specific case, which integrates theorywith practice.There are seven parts in this thesis: the first part is introduction, talking about theresearch background, objective, significance and methods as well as technical routesand innovative points. The second part is theoretical overview, introducing relevanttheories including enterprise environmental analysis, market segmentation and4PMarketing theories as well as the current research on beer industry, which laystheoretical foundation for this paper. The third part classifies the current situation andthe beer market and gives a brief analysis on China’s beer industry to have the generalknowledge of the industry. Then the paper segments China’s beer markets,introducing the object of study, namely, the third and fourth tier markets and analyzesthe strategic meanings of this segmentation. The fourth part is about the analysis ofthe third and fourth tier markets, including the characteristics of the demands and competition and the difficulties. This part lays foundation for the proposal of themarketing strategies in the following part. Part five illustrates the marketing strategiesof the beer markets in the third and fourth tiers, including strategies of products,pricing, channel, promotion and management. Part6is case study, choosing SheyangCounty in Jiangsu province, a third tier market, as the object of study. This partanalyzes the existing problems regarding Tsing Tao Beer on the market and putsforward the marketing mode of trinity, which is the application of theories mentionedin the former parts. Part seven is conclusions and summary of this paper.The objects of study of many domestic researches on beer marketing are mainlylimited to a specific producer or city, seldom covering the third and fourth tiermarkets, so this study has its originality. This research is of great importance to thebeer industry under intense competition, which not only enhances the marketingperformance of the beer industry, but also can be used for reference for the marketingof other fast moving consumer goods in the third and fourth tier markets.