Let every kind of "better" happen to usher in a better era.

Once upon a time, consumers in China who "purchased from all over the world" only selected the finest, largest, and most costly products. The consumption power represented by the 400 million new middle class has contributed to the trillion-yuan market of China's high-end consumption. However, as the tide of the times ebbs and a new economic cycle approaches, rational cognition assumes a dominant position in decision-making. They no longer simply believe in the status symbol conferred by the LOGO, but begin to trace whether the brand behind the LOGO has enhanced their quality of life.

Expensive does not necessarily imply good. Nevertheless, the much-criticized excessive low price will undoubtedly harm Chinese brands and industrial chains - this macro-consumption logic shift is also driving the Chinese dairy industry in the crisis stage to seek ways to break through and save itself.

In fact, the consumer market of Chinese dairy products is encountering unprecedented challenges. According to Nielsen IQ data, in the first three quarters of 2024, the full-channel income of dairy products decreased by 1.8% year-on-year. Although the figure seems small, it indicates that a traditional market that has experienced decades of brilliant growth and has become saturated is shrinking at an accelerated pace.

The crisis in the dairy industry is reflected in the macro data. According to the data of the China Dairy Industry Association, the situation of excess raw milk in 2024 is more severe than that in 2023. Due to the continuous decline in the purchase price of raw milk, the milk price and cost have experienced the first inversion since the records of the national dairy cattle system.

This is not only a change in consumer preferences brought about by the external macro environment, but also a trend of price involution within the dairy industry, thereby compressing the profit space of industry leaders. Just as Gao Fei, the president of Mengniu Group, mentioned at the China Dairy Industry Conference in July this year, "The Chinese dairy industry is facing the most severe challenges since 2008. The fundamental reason for the current passive situation is not the objective environment, but three subjective factors that have long plagued the development of the industry."

From insufficient category diversification, to the contradiction of supply and demand balance, to the low resilience of the industrial chain, Gao Fei, the president of Mengniu Group, analyzed the problems faced by the current dairy industry from the perspective of an industry leader with great insight. And creating new categories led by scientific research, shaping a new industry empowered by digital intelligence, and cultivating new business forms through model innovation are the "three axes" given by the new leader of Mengniu Group who has just been in office for 100 days.

For the "insufficient categories", Gao Fei proposed the solution of "scientific research-led, creating new categories" to promote the transformation from "basic nutrition supply" to "big health";

For the "supply and demand contradiction" in the dairy industry, Gao Fei suggested promoting the transformation of the industrial chain decision-making mechanism from "static planning and artificial scheduling" to "dynamic optimal decision-making assisted by AI", and stimulating the potential of the industrial chain's efficiency by breaking through technical bottlenecks;

For the "insufficient resilience of the industrial chain", Gao Fei believes that in addition to relying on scientific research and technical forces, long-term improvement should also be achieved through model reconstruction and business form innovation, and respective solutions are given from the breeding end, production end, and sales end one by one.

When there is an excess of raw milk, discounted promotions have become the key words of the era of consumption, and everyone is competing to lower prices in order to survive. However, from a long-term perspective, the industry involution caused by excessive price reduction is not sustainable. It not only makes the entire industrial chain lack the profit for sustainable development, but also erodes consumers' loyalty to the brand.

In fact, when consumers become more rational, it does not mean that they have lost their self-concern for a healthy life. High-end, organic - these value labels are still the key anchors for them to purchase a bottle of milk. Just when bad money drives out good money, the Chinese dairy industry, which is eager for change, is still seeking "better" development. As the pioneer that initiated the high-end trend of the Chinese dairy industry, how can Telunsu break the development shackles of the current dairy industry and get through the consumption winter of this era?

Building a "better" content field, how does Telunsu support every "better"?

In 2024, the trend of price involution has spread to thousands of industries. When "seeking growth", "seeking sales" and even "seeking survival" have become the mainstream narratives of the entire consumer industry. In the past, those high-brow TVC stories and the star endorsement budgets that simply emphasized the so-called tone but could not see the conversion have been sharply reduced.

On the surface, the marketing budget competition between brand and effect seems to have returned to effect advertising. However, looking globally, even in the context of a counter-cyclical macro economy, Zhang Jing, the global partner of Bain & Company and the chairman of the Digital Business in the Greater China region, mentioned in the industry white paper "Return to the Essence and Start Again" that in recent years, some global leading brands have "counter-intuitively" returned to brand advertising in the global digital boom.

Based on the golden investment ratio of 6/4 between brand and effect, effective brand advertising can further reduce the cost of effect advertising for both big brands and start-up brands. And pure effect advertising is almost a "chronic suicide". This is because, with the more diversified consumption entrances brought by social media, the precipitation of brand assets has become the mainstream consensus in the marketing industry. Brands that now emphasize more on "word-of-mouth" and "private domain positions" are eager to build a longer-term relationship with consumers.

The true long-termism in the marketing industry is not to all in on brand advertising or effect advertising, but for the brand to be the friend of consumers and become the friend of time. Just like Telunsu, which targets the intellectual crowd, naturally knows that content is a filtering funnel, and conducts in-depth value communication through brand stories with high information density, thereby reaching the minds of these consumers who are eager for spiritual and soul collisions.

In this year's May Fourth Youth Day season, "Better Starts with Questions", jointly created by Telunsu, Yitiao and Fudan University, is a highly representative communication case.

Through the confusion and anxiety raised by young representatives such as He Tongxue and Xia Meng, and allowing professors from the School of Philosophy of Fudan University to answer questions from a rational perspective of the humanities and social sciences. It can be seen that in the stage where young people are confused and uneasy about themselves and the future, Telunsu abandons the鸡血式 slogan of "Tomorrow will be better", and responds to their inner desires by bringing the perspectives of more humanities and social science scholars like Liu Qing and Wang Defeng into the public eye.

When contemporary youth who are trapped in confusion gain a new perspective, a kind of era anxiety and emotion can be alleviated in the field constructed by Telunsu between different generations. And philosophy is no longer just an empty and abstract "metaphysical" concept, but brings practical theoretical guidance to life.

In addition to targeting the era emotions, Telunsu also jointly created the "Better Growth" series of short films with figures. It takes the twenty-four solar terms as the core context, and in important seasons such as the Summer Solstice, Major Heat, Beginning of Autumn and Beginning of Winter, it invites celebrity guests from all walks of life to interpret their "better" in their hearts.

The former director of the Palace Museum, Shan Jixiang in the Summer Solstice episode, the singer Chen Hongyu in the Major Heat episode, the performing artist Chen Peisi and the young actor and director Chen Dayu in the Beginning of Autumn episode, and the professor of the Chinese Department of Fudan University, Liang Yongan in the Beginning of Winter episode - Telunsu enriches the value connotation of "better" step by step through the story of better growth that is full of life thickness told by them.

It can be said that from better questions to better growth, Telunsu has always been based on the core brand spirit of "better" to integrate the perspectives and viewpoints of thousands of people.

Through the resonance and collision at the level of soul and thought, and with the vision of the intellectual group to traverse the economic cycle, it breaks the myths and confusion of the public . This value vision that is not afraid of cyclical fluctuations allows the society to form an ideal consensus and longing that "Nothing can stop 'better' from happening." The "better" value conveyed by Telunsu lies in this - collecting the "betters" of thousands of people, so that more people believe in the power of "better".

However, Telunsu is not limited to era emotions and macro narratives, but also builds a brand field where it goes both ways with users in the natural field. In addition to jointly creating content with external content forces, after continuously cultivating the ESG organic industrial chain in the desert oasis for 4 years, Telunsu has created its own brand content through art performances such as speeches, photography, and concerts.

The desert oasis story of Telunsu starts with a land speech. On August 2, Yi Yangqianxi, the brand spokesperson of Telunsu, from a third-party perspective, tells how the Ulan Buh Desert has witnessed the blooming of desert creatures across thousands of years. With the humanistic and geographical short film "The Miracle of the Desert", Telunsu gets rid of the top-down brand information output, allowing the public not only to witness the transformation of Ulan Buh from a desert to an oasis, but also to feel Telunsu's brand proposition of "Desert · Organic Makes the Earth Better" through the natural inspiration of "deeply rooted".

From language to vision, it is a further step in the concrete transmission of information. On August 19, Telunsu jointly created the Ulan Buh · Land Image "Flower of the Desert" micro-documentary with the French top photographer Paul Rustot. With the documentary, a text that promotes human rationality in a perceptual form, Telunsu not only shows the broad charm of Ulan Buh through a series of works, but also conveys the brand belief that "As long as you want to see flowers, flowers in the desert will always appear".

From online viewing to offline visiting, Telunsu has achieved the closed loop of the entire brand story through omni-channel content. On the 818 Member Day, Telunsu also invited consumers to visit and experience the ecological environment of the Ulan Buh Desert. At the same time, Telunsu also used a small pumpkin as a medium to convey the story of Telunsu's organic ecological cycle industrial chain through the Pumpkin Grand Gift event on Member Day.

It can be said that this traceability marketing of "Going to the Ulan Buh Appointment" by Telunsu is not only about whether a glass of milk is healthy and delicious, but also allows consumers to personally feel that Telunsu has built a sustainable ecological cycle through the integration of "agriculture, culture and tourism". From what is seen, felt, gained to believed, Telunsu's balanced efforts between commercial production and ecological protection have created a solid and lasting value recognition in the minds of consumers.

If the Ulan Buh Desert Oasis has become a brand field where Telunsu goes both ways with users, then milk packaging in the form of art co-branding and IP co-creation has become the key for Telunsu to jump out of the price involution in the dairy industry.

In 2024, when everyone is competing to lower prices in exchange for survival, Telunsu still adheres to the sense of value necessary for a high-end brand. It jumps out of the price involution in the dairy industry through art co-branding and IP co-creation. Because Telunsu knows that preferential promotions can indeed increase sales in the short term, but in the long run, the sense of value brought by the brand and products is the key to maintaining consumers and achieving long-term development.

It can be seen that from the once centralized television media to the current decentralized social media, when user touchpoints are becoming more fragmented and decentralized, how brands can influence user minds through penetrating and interactive communication, Telunsu provides a typical brand sample.

Whether it is jointly creating content with external forces such as Yitiao and figures, or building content based on its own industry such as the Ulan Buh Desert Oasis, what brand content should do is to participate and co-build like Telunsu, rather than being top-down and one-sided preaching. This marketing method has a special term in today's era: omni-channel content marketing

It emphasizes not only full-channel coverage, but also high-quality content in different forms. In such a communication field based on high-quality content, Telunsu not only completed the trust building of consumers, but also implanted the "better" brand concept into the minds of consumers through higher-dimensional communication such as art, humanities, and film and television.

Be a Better Self: Consumers and the Dairy Industry Alike

What exactly does "better" mean? Is it a yearning for an ideal life or a requirement for one's own standards?

In today's consumer society where prices return to values, the conspicuous consumption represented by LOGO is gradually disappearing, and the status symbol brought by material goods has been greatly weakened. But this does not mean that the aspirational class described by Elizabeth Currid-Halkett no longer pursues "better", but they spend their money on places that others cannot see, such as education, health and cultural consumption.

These highly educated, high-end consumer groups who define themselves by cultural capital rather than monetary income are exactly the users that Telunsu aims to target. Because the value that Telunsu conveys, "Encouraging everyone to pursue a better self", is the era belief that these groups have been carrying out throughout their lives. In a sense, as the first high-end brand in the Chinese dairy industry, Telunsu has initiated the high-end trend of the Chinese dairy industry by meeting consumers' demand for high-end milk.

The development of the Chinese dairy industry can be divided into two stages. The former is that the dairy industry has entered a white-hot competition, and the price war caused by milk in the industry has been continuously escalating, resulting in a compressed profit space and even a "milk cheaper than water" dark iron age.

A historical reference is Europe. In 2024,