Research on Brand Construction of Geographical Indication of Agricultural Products in China under the Background of Rural Revitalization

Yajing REN Jinghua YANG Shuo CHEN Fengying GONG

Abstract Geographical indications of agricultural products carry the unique product value accumulated in history. Relying on them to build regional brands is a powerful way to achieve stable income increase of farmers and sustainable development of agriculture. This paper summarized the development of geographical indications of agricultural products in China, and reviewed the development status of overall growth, significant regional differentiation and uneven categories. On the basis of affirming the necessity of brand building of agricultural products, this paper concluded the branding dilemma of the loss of geographical indication resources, weak supervision and insufficient investment of agricultural products in China. Therefore, this paper introduced the idea of "new three Pin and one standardization", and further built a three-stage branding path of "germplasm discovery, quality control, and brand promotion". Based on this, a combination strategy from attaching importance to germplasm quality to formulating brand strategy and enhancing brand competitiveness was proposed. The staged branding construction provides new development ideas for the branding of geographical indications of agricultural products in China, draws out a reference plan for the development of China’s regional characteristic agricultural industry, and lays a solid support for the revitalization of rural industries.

Key words Geographical indication of agricultural products; Brand; New three Pin and one standardization; Construction path

Received: June 6, 2022  Accepted: August 7, 2022

Supported by Sciences Science and Technology Innovation Project of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (ASTIP-IAED-2021-01).

Yajing REN (1995-), female, P. R. China, master, devoted to research about rural development.

*Corresponding author. E-mail: yangjinghua@caas.cn.

China’s long-standing farming civilization has nurtured rich, diverse and unique agricultural resources, laying a solid foundation for the revitalization of rural characteristic industries. In 2021, the Central No. 1 document has repeatedly proposed to strengthen the certification and management of geographically indicated agricultural products in the development of rural industries that enrich the people, and to create local well-known agricultural product brands［1］. The geographical indications of agricultural products with high added value and strong industrial relevance play an important role in realizing the rural revitalization strategic goals of improving agricultural quality and efficiency, continuously increasing farmers’ income, and ensuring rural stability and beauty. Faced with the shortage of demand for a large number of high-quality agricultural products brought about by the transformation and upgrading of the consumption structure and awareness of Chinese residents, branded agricultural products have become a new consumption hotspot. It has become an inevitable trend to insist on promoting agriculture by quality and strengthening agriculture by brand, to transform characteristic resources into market value by building regional high-quality brands relying on the geographical indications of agricultural products, and to deal with the increasingly competitive agricultural product market taking branding as a starting point.

Development Status of Agricultural Geographical Indications

As a powerful way for building rural regional brands, agricultural geographical indications refer to the unique agricultural product marks named in the form of "region+product", which are registered and managed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of the state and are protected by law. The geographical indication of an agricultural product indicates the source of a specific region. As a regional business card, it is difficult to copy and irreplaceable, and has both high brand value and strong market competitiveness. It has become the priority of agricultural development in various countries. After years of development, China’s agricultural product geographical indication work has achieved remarkable results.

The overall number has grown significantly, with significant regional differences

The number of registrations is increasing year by year. From the promulgation of the Geographical Indication Management Policy of the Ministry of Agriculture in December 2007 to June 2021, as shown in Fig. 1, the statistical results of nationally announced products showed that the number of GI registrations for agricultural products in China increased from 121 in the first batch to 3 454, a leap of 28.5 times, with an average annual growth rate of 29.4%, showing an overall trend of rapid growth.

The number of provinces and cities differed significantly. Shandong Province ranked first with 351 geographical indication registrations for agricultural products, and the number of geographical indication registrations in traditional agricultural provinces was relatively high. The top five provinces such as Sichuan and Hubei registered a total of 1 088 items, accounting for about 31.50% of the national total. In addition to Beijing, Shanghai and other municipalities directly under the Central Government, Jilin, Tibet, Hainan and other provinces reported less than 50 GIs of agricultural products, and the number of registrations in some provinces was obviously insufficient.

The regional distribution was relatively uneven. The regional distribution of geographical indications of agricultural products is shown in Fig. 2. The average regional registration in the central provinces was as high as 144.8, followed by the west and northeast, and the lowest was only 95.2 in the east. This distribution is mainly based on the fact that the central region has a good agricultural resource base and an effective agricultural supporting system, so the overall development is relatively balanced, and the number of registrations in each province exceeded 100.   There was a certain gap in the number of registered geographical indications in the western and northeastern provinces. Among them, the number of registrations in Tibet, Jilin and other provinces was too low, which affected the overall registration development. However, their relatively complex environmental and climatic conditions also achieve the advantages of characteristic agricultural resources, and the development potential of agricultural geographical indications is huge.

The geographical indications are mainly vegetable and fruit agricultural products, and the category distribution is uneven

Relying on the advantages of rich and diverse agricultural resources, China’s registered geographical indications are divided into three categories: planting industry, animal husbandry, and aquaculture. Among them, the planting industry accounted for 77.26% of the total registrations of agricultural product geographical indications in China. The proportions of tea and medicinal materials, which are widely recognized in the consumer market and have outstanding product characteristics, were also relatively high. Sugar, spices, flowers and other geographical indication categories that are generally promoted for planting or neglected in product characteristics accounted for a relatively small proportion. The proportions of different species in animal husbandry and fishery were quite different. The proportions of meat products and aquatic animals were relatively high, while the proportions of egg and milk products were not ideal, and the development was slower than that of international similar famous and special products (Fig. 3).

As shown in Fig. 4, by the end of 2021, the number of registered geographical indications for vegetables and fruits in Chins had reached 1 514, accounting for more than half of the planting category. From the geographical distribution of registration, Shandong Province ranked first, with fruits and vegetables accounting for 12.15% and 9.09% of the total, respectively. Other provinces with a larger proportion were Sichuan, Shanxi, Henan, Hubei, Jiangsu and other provinces where the combined proportion of fruits and vegetables exceeded 10%. Taking Guangxi, Xinjiang and other provinces as examples, there was a large gap in the number of registered vegetables and fruits due to geographical constraints. In addition, the major fruit provinces represented by Hainan Province did not pay enough attention, and the registration proportion was only 1.86%. Among the vegetables, melons, solanaceous fruits, edible mushrooms, and onions and garlic, which are durable and have distinctive characteristics, accounted for a relatively high proportion, while the registered quantities of bulk leafy vegetables and beans were relatively small.

Agricultural Biotechnology2022

Brand Construction of Agricultural Geographical Indications

Since 2005, the research on geographical indications of agricultural products in China has grown from scratch, and the popularity has gradually increased. Liu et al.［2］ discussed the economic and management issues of Gannan navel orange branding in China from the aspects of advantages, disadvantages, opportunities and challenges. Xie et al.［3］ highly affirmed the important role of agricultural product geographical indication certification in the development of melons and vegetables in China, such as resource mining, quality and safety assurance, and improving market competitiveness. Li et al.［4］ took the branding of agricultural products as a way to realize the cultivation of local agricultural products, and provides a reference for the construction of provincial agricultural product brands. Chen［5］ took geographically indicated agricultural products as a breakthrough direction, and promoted the branding of regional agricultural products to realize agricultural transformation. Xu et al.［6］ and Hu［7］ affirmed the value of agricultural geographical indications and proposed effective ways to promote regional agricultural economy. Pang［8］ analyzed the implementation of geographical indication brand strategy and put forward corresponding countermeasures and suggestions. Taking the yellow-feather broiler as an example, Deng［9］ put forward an effective path for the brand construction of broiler enterprises based on the idea of excavating the heritage to the dynasty property of brands. Based on the perspective of the revitalization of the rural vegetable industry, Liu［10］ analyzed the development status and existing difficulties of the vegetable industry, and affirmed the necessity of brand consumption to improving the quality of vegetable products. Liu［11］ used the Interbrand method to quantitatively evaluate the brand value of the geographical indications of garlic at the county scale, so as to clarify its brand development value and its important role in the implementation of the rural revitalization strategy. Wang［12］ evaluated the development of geographical indication brands and accelerated the construction of Chinese brand agriculture with the enhancement of brand competitiveness. Most of the existing research focuses on the necessity of branding and its development dilemma, and lacks the overall planning scheme at the national level and the systematic thinking of the branding construction process.

Necessity of branding construction

For the same type of products, the prices are very different. The gap between different geographical indications of agricultural products in popularity and market share is still very obvious. Zhangqiu green onion and Xinjiang Korla pear and other agricultural product brands have formed a brand scale, and the overall development momentum is improving, while Mizhi red onion and Xinjiang Andier melon have not yet gained brand awareness, and the gap in prices and the market is further widened. It is difficult to exert the agglomeration effect and linkage effect of brand value in the same region. Therefore, it is difficult to exert the agglomeration effect and linkage effect of brand value in the same region.

High-quality brands have insufficient conversion power and the market is limited. A product is not the same as a brand, and a high-quality brand with long-term vitality can drive one party to become rich. The rapid increase in the number of landmark registrations demonstrates China’s development of characteristic agricultural resources to a certain extent, but the number of registrations is not equivalent to high-quality brands. As shown in Fig. 1-Fig. 2, the distribution of the number of top 100 brands and the number of geographical indication registrations in various provinces were significantly different. In the 2020 list of the top 100 iconic brands of agricultural products in China, 72 brands in western provinces ranked the list, far more than the sum of the eastern and central regions. Among them, Sichuan Province ranked first in China with 30 and above, while Shandong Province, which had the largest number of geographical indication registrations, only showed three brands in the top 100 brands list, indicating that a large number of registered geographical indications have not been transformed into high-quality brands.

The competitiveness of existing brands is weak, and exports are hindered. Compared with the world-renowned famous and high-quality special products in developed countries and foreign exchange earned by export, China’s agricultural product geographical indications mainly depend on domestic consumption market, and the export competitiveness is obviously insufficient. With the continuous expansion of the connection with the international agricultural product market, a large number of foreign high-quality agricultural products have poured in. A series of famous and special products such as Musang King durian in Malaysia and prunes in France have seized the market of mid-to-high-end agricultural products, while the export of China’s superior-quality Xinjiang plums and uniquely-cultivated vegetables such as mushrooms, Toona sinensis and jicama has been hindered due to problems such as food quality and safety compliance and low popularity of agricultural products.

Branding dilemma

Loss of agricultural resources

The environments of producing areas change. Different soils, climates and water quality will form different ecological circles and breed agricultural products with different qualities. If the unique germplasm resources leave the original ecological environment, germplasm decline and quality decline will occur. In recent years, factors such as engineering construction pollution and extreme weather fluctuations have exacerbated the deterioration of the ecological environment of agricultural production areas, resulting in the continuous reduction of product competitiveness.

The breeding technology is rigid. The geographical indications of agricultural products in some regions have entered the misunderstanding of development, blindly pursuing the original characteristics of the origin, and the limited scale is out of touch with the market. In addition, breeding optimization lacks funding and scientific research and technical support, and the development has fallen into a vicious circle of "inflexible germplasm and insufficient investment", resulting in the inability of product quality and output to meet consumer demand, difficulty in adapting to changes in the consumer market, and the decline or even disappearance of some geographical indications of agricultural products.

Three is a crisis of historical heritage. In recent years, the intergenerational flow between urban and rural areas, the hollowing out of rural areas and the aging of the labor force have intensified, and traditional local culture is facing a crisis of inheritance. The geographical indication industry not only increases farmers’ income, but also relieves the aging pressure of rural labor force and protects and inherits local culture. With the inheritance crisis, many geographical indications of agricultural products have fallen into the dilemma of industrial inactivation and outflow of talents.

Poor quality control

Quality cannot be guaranteed. Quality is the premise for upgrading the consumption structure. For a long time, problems such as low production standardization, poor quality control ability and weak brand awareness in traditional agriculture in China have affected the transformation and upgrading of agriculture. The potential main mid-to-high-end and export consumer markets of agricultural geographical indications with a long history of advantages have higher requirements for product quality standards, and the existing regulatory quality standards have not been met in time. In addition, it also faces many problems such as unreasonable market coverage, lack of unified and efficient planting and breeding standards, and difficulties in storage and transportation.

The ideas of supervision are unclear. To ensure the high-quality development of the agricultural product geographical indication industry, it is necessary to build a practical and effective supervision and management system. The existence of a large number of small farmers in the agricultural industry cannot avoid the tragedy of the commons, and it is necessary to formulate strong quality control measures. China attaches great importance to the quality supervision and management of geographical indications of agricultural products, but the pattern of full participation in quality supervision has not yet been formed, and it has not been possible to control quality problems in the bud. In addition, consumers’ feedback on product quality cannot be communicated and improved in a timely manner, and a timely and effective internal and external cooperation supervision system has not been formed as a whole.

Management mechanisms overlap. The geographical indications of agricultural products are managed by the Ministry of Agriculture, the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, and the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, etc. The overlapping cause waste of resources and cannot fulfill their own regulatory responsibilities. At present, a large number of small and micro enterprises, cooperative organizations and other small-scale business entities in the geographical indication agricultural industry lack unified standards and market management, and free-riding and shoddy goods for quality goods are not uncommon. Local governments and industry associations participate in support management, and it is difficult to make overall planning due to unclear powers and responsibilities.

Insufficient investment in construction

Investments in marketing are insufficient. Even if the wine is fragrant, operators are also afraid of a far distance. At present, there is a phenomenon of emphasising creation and neglecting promotion in the branding construction of geographical indications of agricultural products in China. The existing business model is rigid, and some geographical indication products are facing the dilemma of disappearing from generation to generation. The awareness of agricultural product brand marketing is insufficient, and the government capital investment is more concentrated in the support and protection stage, and the attention to brand marketing is far from enough. However, small business entities in the agricultural product industry lack long-term brand strategy awareness, and resources cannot be effectively integrated.

The awareness of brand maintenance is weak. In the fierce market competition environment, an effective marketing strategy in the early stage can help a product to expand the market rapidly, but the brand maintenance in the later stage is often ignored, and the brand development plan is too brief, and it is difficult to establish long-term contact with consumers in the market. Taking fresh agricultural products such as Yangcheng Lake hairy crabs as an example, there was a lot of marketing investment in the early stage, and a marketing strategy consistent with the product tone that could highlight the product’s advantages was formulated, so that the product gained greater popularity, but the lack of attention to brand maintenance in the later period, uneven quality, frequent fake and poor quality commodities, make the brand image dusty. Popularity does not equal loyalty. How to maintain consumers’ loyalty to a brand for a long time and steadily improve the reputation of the brand is particularly prominent in homogeneous products.

Paths of Branding Construction of Geographical Indications of Agricultural Products

The branding idea of "new three Pin and one standardization" for geographical indications of agricultural products

The Central Rural Work Conference proposed to further promote the structural reform of the agricultural supply side, and accelerate the cultivation of varieties, quality improvement, brand building and standardized production. In March 2021, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs in the Implementation Plan for the Promotion of "Three Pin and One Standardization" in Agricultural Production required the implementation of the improvement action of the new "three Pin and one standardization" for agricultural production to comprehensively improve the quality of agricultural development［13］. The concept of the whole process of agricultural production is put forward, and from the perspective of standardized management of the whole industry chain, the three Pin and standardized production are systematically concentrated in all aspects of agricultural production. The idea of phased construction is highly consistent with the advantages of agricultural product geographical indications, the characteristics of germplasm resources, the need for quality assurance, and the goal of building regional brands. Based on this, this paper proposed a three-stage idea of "germplasm, quality and brand" to build a new path for the branding of agricultural geographical indications.

The "three-stage" path for the branding construction of agricultural geographical indications

Germplasm excavation stage

High-quality and exclusive germplasm resources are the basis for the branding of the vegetable and fruit type of agricultural products. Compared with ordinary agricultural products, geographically indicated agricultural products have distinctive regional characteristics, and they have special requirements for growth environment, planting and cultivation, and picking methods, so as to ensure the uniqueness of the products. Due to the difficulty of replicating natural growth conditions, geographical indications of agricultural products have a natural monopoly at the germplasm stage. Taking all kinds of high-quality tea as an example, the unique hilly terrain and abundant natural conditions of light give birth to its unique quality. In addition, with the rise of environmental awareness and health concepts, consumers pay more attention to the ecological environment of the source of agricultural products and related products. Just as the international export market of agricultural and sideline products in areas of nuclear pollution and environmental degradation has repeatedly been restricted, the long-term prospects of raw and rough-processed agricultural products with excessive nitrite content are bleak. Relying on the advantages of natural superior origin resources and healthy ecology rich in various trace elements, the geographical indications of agricultural products are favored by consumers by leveraging the increasingly mainstream concept of natural healthy consumption in the global market (Fig. 5).

The long history and culture add unique added value. As an important carrier of traditional culture, the geographical indications of agricultural products integrate and retain local customs and habits, and often make these products have physical symbols. In particular, some national characteristic geographically indicated agricultural products carry national cultural feelings. Represented by Jinhua ham, the eating habits and production and lifestyles that have been passed down in different regions for a long time, and the exclusive cultivation and processing methods created by the wisdom of the ancestors, have deepened this feature and achieved their own unique flavor and quality to form a strong brand competitiveness.

Quality control stage

High quality standards and strict supervision and management maintain the brand life of geographical indications of agricultural products. If the business coverage is too wide or too small, it will increase the difficulty of quality control of geographically indicated agricultural products.   If the scope is too small, it is difficult to form an effective market, and it is impossible to carry out standardized and large-scale production. A too-broad scope may lead to the tragedy of the commons, and too many participants will increase coordination difficulties, which in turn increase the difficulty of product quality control. The relative transportation cost of geographically indicated agricultural products and the difficulty of storage also affect their quality. Agricultural products with high unit prices and good storage tolerance, but not easily deteriorated, have a wide circulation range, and the sales market is broader and the cycle is longer. Some products with low unit price are not resistant to storage and have relatively high transportation costs, and they can only be sold nearby. A strong brand influence cannot be formed due to the short cycle, large loss and difficulty in expanding.

To ensure the quality of agricultural products with geographical indications, it is inseparable from the application of new technologies to ensure accurate control of each link. Strictly standardized production will be implemented in the whole process of germplasm cultivation, farming mode, agricultural product processing, transportation and packaging, so as to realize the traceability of products from field to table. In addition, the conditions for effective quality control such as standardized production process and product index setting, inspection standards, and equipment renewal are inseparable from the necessary technical support (Fig. 6). In addition to comprehensively considering the impact of objective conditions on the quality of agricultural geographical indications, it is still necessary to exert the long-term impact of the subjective and systematic supervision concept system on product quality.

Brand building stage

Brand building is the final link to realize the branding of agricultural product geographical indications in the consumer market. The geographical indications of agricultural products have the advantages of marketing starting point such as unique germplasms and inherent popularity, and the standardized production of the whole process is throughout, but blindly "admiring oneself" and abandoning brand promotion and being out of touch with the mainstream market will make the products vanish in the endless stream of products. The product information is transmitted to consumers’ minds by means of marketing and leaves a good initial impression, and then the high-quality brand image is continuously solidified to build consumer loyalty to the brand. Under the conditions of market economy, accurate and effective marketing strategies can make products stand out in the competition of the same type of agricultural products, and amplify their differences to achieve high quality and high price. To build a truly high-quality brand, it is necessary to achieve effective brand maintenance and make the quality standards of agricultural products clearer, and as a "strong point" of China’s intellectual property rights, it drives the overall improvement of the agricultural product market (Fig. 7).

Geographical indications of agricultural products are born in the small-scale peasant economy as regional public products. How can they avoid the tragedy of the commons and enhance market competitiveness? The objective premise of brand building is laid relying on natural and high-quality germplasm resources, and high and reliable product quality determines the life of brands, and implementing accurate and effective brand promotion strengthens brand competitiveness. Based on this, the three-stage path of "germplasm-based, quality first, and brand as king" walks out of the branding road of regional agricultural geographical indications, and exerts the branding effect, providing a feasible path reference for the value chain of derivative products and the promotion of upgrading the agricultural industry (Fig. 8).

Countermeasures and Suggestions on the Branding of Agricultural Geographical Indications

Building a solid brand foundation based on germplasms with quality first

The natural advantage of germplasms is that they can obtain a relative monopoly in market operation and obtain profits above the product premium. At present, the deterioration of the ecological environment and health problems have attracted more and more attention, and consumers’ ecological awareness and health awareness have been continuously enhanced. Facing the increasing domestic demand for high-end agricultural products and the fierce competition in the international market, the quality construction of agricultural product geographical indications will be a comprehensive project.

① It is necessary to cultivate brand awareness and do a good job in basic protection. First of all, it is necessary to strengthen the cultivation of brand awareness, carry out general education on the intellectual property rights of agricultural products, and let the participants realize the advantages and importance of the branding of geographical indications of agricultural products.   Secondly, related departments should have an in-depth understanding of the basic situation of local characteristic agricultural products, comprehensively inspect the development needs of geographical indication products, scientifically evaluate local agricultural resources, explore and cultivate local characteristic agricultural industries, and provide key support for potential sunrise industries.

In addition, supporting and improving the construction of relevant service facilities, improving the talent and technology introduction system and ensuring the implementation of special funds are all necessary. Related departments can reasonably plan the business coverage of agricultural product geographical indications, coordinate the relationship between various business entities, and achieve characteristic retention and quality control, so as to form an effective market for agricultural product geographical indications. It is necessary to do a good job of ecological and environmental protection measures in the origin, encourage the inheritance of local traditional culture, and integrate the concept of healthy ecology. It is possible to promote the overall development of local areas by fully mobilizing the enthusiasm of multi-party participation, integrating relevant industries to form agglomerations, and making a good combination of agricultural branding.

② Policies and regulations should be improved, and the market environment should be optimized. At present, there are still a large number of products that have not been registered and managed in the country. Therefore, it is necessary to further simplify the registration application procedures, encourage relevant entities to take the initiative to register, issue corresponding management documents for the geographical indications of agricultural products that have been registered, improve relevant laws and regulations, improve and standardize production processes and standards, and clarify the quality accountability system. Every link should be checked and did well.

Relying on emerging technologies, introducing excellent scientific research results, improving the standardization level of production, and gaining market competition advantages, we will promote the high-quality and efficient supply of agricultural products, so as to better meet the social demand for high-quality agricultural products. Related departments can strengthen the market management of geographical indications of agricultural products, crack down on counterfeit and shoddy products, disclose relevant information in a timely manner, and maintain brand image. It is necessary to improve the sense of responsibility and professionalism of supervisors, increase income and treatment reasonably, and stimulate enthusiasm for work. It is also necessary to attach importance to cooperation, give play to the leading role of industry associations and governments, attach importance to the self-protection of the industry market, and support cooperation between internal and external parties to avoid malicious competition. Regional leading enterprises that meet certain standards can be encouraged to build their entire brands on the basis of geographical indications, so as to achieve synergy and complementarity. The policy should encourage the enthusiasm of local enterprises for brand building, and related departments can learn from Japan and other foreign experience to actively support and strengthen local agricultural leading enterprises, and reduce brand externalities and free-rider behaviors through industry internalization.

③ The technology should be strengthened to achieve full support. Intensive and standardized production reduces costs and achieves both scale and quality assurance. A large amount of investment in the use of new storage and transportation equipment, the use of big data, cloud processing and other technologies and popularization and promotion of two-dimensional codes, barcodes and other methods can be adopted to achieve comprehensive technical support, to ensure product characteristics, and to make the geographical indications of agricultural products inseparable from the image identification of high-quality agricultural products. Actively introducing and developing new testing equipment can realize the traceability of all links from the field to the dining table, and finely control the quality supervision to each link, making the source traceability of geographically indicated agricultural products more mature and feasible.

④ More participants can be encouraged to achieve multi-party supervision. The agricultural industry is characterized by long initial investment and slow income, and small-scale operation is the main business form. It requires multi-channel integration of resources, rational distribution of landmark brands, and encouraging leading industries with relatively strong expansion capabilities to establish a joint mechanism with small and medium-sized enterprises to form a community of interests connecting geographically indicated agricultural product brands, which enhances the ability to deal with risks and simultaneously gathers wisdom, innovation and development. In terms of funding sources, in addition to government funding support, social capital inflows and individual farmers’ shareholding are encouraged. By such, while reducing the local financial burden, the connection with the market will be more closely, and farmers will have a stronger sense of participation, and cooperation will be more efficient.

As a third-party agency that communicates with production and sales, government and enterprises, and geographical indication applications, industry associations can build a unified communication platform based on this, hire professional teams to assist in the strengthening of brand certification, supervision, promotion and other links, and create a transparent service platform to better utilize information advantages and reduce resource waste caused by poor information. In addition, a comprehensive supervision mechanism in which the government, the market, and consumers participate in certification supervision and standards are more stringent and perfect.

Enhancing brand competitiveness through brand strategy and effective maintenance

In today’s information explosion, the role of brand strategy on product sales cannot be underestimated. Based on this, enterprises can increase the marketing of regional brands, integrate modern marketing concepts, clarify brand positioning, grasp the target market, and put forward a targeted marketing plan based on this. It is necessary to do a good job of brand after-sales in multiple channels and forms, and build the geographical indication of agricultural products into a century-old brand of sustainable development.

① Enterprises should summarize experience and give full play to their advantages. With the help of the brand marketing experience of local leading enterprises, the advantages of geographical indication popularity, reputation and loyalty can be brought into play, and existing consumer groups can be stabilized and new markets can be opened up while delivering product information. On the basis of clarifying the business entities and development models of regional brands, relying on local advantages, related departments can encourage and support regional large-scale operations to add distribution points, so as to expand brand sales areas, radiate local and surrounding areas, and achieve the best coverage of offline agricultural products and create word of mouth advantage. Based on different agricultural product categories, enterprises can carry out the research and development of a series of branded products to fill the vacancies in the growing mid-to-high-end consumer market, keep up with popular trends such as the concept of natural health and nostalgia, develop new products in multiple lines, and develop a sales network for products through multiple channels, forming a regional brand agricultural product sales market at multiple different levels with entity and network linkages.

② Strategies should be determined according to specific products and regions. Based on the gap between different geographical indication resources in the region and the existing development level, to solve the development problems of different geographically indicated agricultural products, combined with local subjective and objective needs, a targeted and differentiated brand development strategy can be adopted. Meanwhile, enterprises should draw on the development experience of famous agricultural products such as France and Japan, actively cooperate with scientific research units, and give full play to the advantages of talents, so as to provide more scientific opinions from a professional perspective and make the brand building work more reasonable.

Brand promotion strategies should be precisely formulated by region. For the geographically indicated agricultural products such as tea, sugar and spices, for which the origin environment is difficult to reproduce, large-scale production is difficult to achieve and the brand management is small coverage relatively, a small and precise route can be adopted. In this circumstance, different products of the same type can be subdivided to strictly control the quality, avoid OEM marketing damaging word of mouth, and maintain the high-quality tonality of brand characteristics. As for the geographically indicated products such as fruits and grains with relatively large output and relatively low unit price, requiring production conditions which are easy to meet, it is necessary to strictly delineate the scope of production, optimize germplasms, update technical equipment, and reduce relative transportation costs and storage difficulties, so that the market can be expanded taking advantage of high quality and large scale. In addition, for some fresh products with small output and high unit price, cold chain logistics construction can be actively carried out to ease the pressure on export sales, expand brand influence with the advantages of product scarcity and simultaneously promote the healthy development of high-end agricultural products. It is necessary to encourage and guide enterprises to take innovation and technology as a breakthrough point, deeply integrate production, education and research, and use scientific and technological innovation to do a good job of double insurance of product scale and quality. Small-scale high-quality agriculture can be combined with large-scale high-quality large-scale agriculture, and inspection systems such as agricultural product traceability mechanisms should be improved to raise industrial standards to achieve integration with the international market. New products should be developed to meeting people’s higher consumption needs while leading and creating agricultural products market consumption trend.

③ It is necessary to promote channel innovation and joint marketing. By the end of 2020, there were 309 million rural netizens in China, and the mobile Internet penetration rate had exceeded 60%. The acquisition of consumer information is more enjoyable, and the purchase method is extremely convenient to further stimulate consumer desire. In the face of new consumption patterns and huge consumer groups, in terms of platform building, policies can be formulated to support the cooperation between local enterprises and large enterprises, and the existing mature Internet can be used to establish a circulation model, so as to independently build an e-commerce platform. The establishment of online direct sales stores for agricultural products and the customization of special agricultural products can be combined to realize the long-distance radiation of the geographically indicated agricultural product sales network. Making use of the cold chain storage and convenient modern logistics and distribution system can facilitate the efficient circulation of convenient information and product logistics.

A modern brand marketing system can be established. Online and offline, soft and hard wide echoes and linkages can expand the influencing scope of regional brands, and enhance the value of brand reputation. We can make full use of the characteristics of high popularity and moderate popularity of mobile devices such as mobile phones in rural areas, and expand sales channels by using B2B models, live broadcasts, etc.; software registration and small program punch-in and other platforms can be adopted to communicate information to form a stable consumer group; and soft implantation of streaming media such as short videos and official accounts can be also adopted. In addition, we should operate the IP core of geographical indications, and expand more areas around the brand characteristics, such as packaging accessories, pop-up activities, etc., to increase the added value of products and create a regional brand agricultural group with geographically indicated brands as the core. Agricultural products enterprises should change their business thinking and seize the relatively blank opportunities in the high-end market. "Government+leading enterprises+farmers" should jointly drive development, reduce internal competition, decrease waste of resources and low-end ineffective supply, and achieve geographically indicated products of high quality and good prices. The geographical indications of agricultural products should "go out" and actively participate in domestic and foreign trade fairs and expositions, and they can be used as high-quality cultural business cards to strive to create a high-quality and characteristic brand image, give play to the role of geographically indicated agricultural products in driving exports, and realize the internationalization of agricultural product geographical indication brands.

④ Humanistic construction should be conducted to improve brands. The profound cultural heritage supports the building of a sustainable agricultural brand, and the cultural protection of the origin cannot be ignored. The timeless brand culture visualizes the products of geographical indication enterprises, and enriches the content of product competition with humanistic connotation, thereby showing more charm. Century-old "time-honored brands" are the result of painstaking maintenance from generation to generation, and after-sales of brands that is often not valued is the key to helping brands establish a long-term reputation. The sustainable development of brands requires the establishment of a special agency to supervise and maintain the brands in the later stage, to ensure that the feedback channels are smooth and effective after-sales, so that geographically indicated brands of agricultural products become a credibility carrier of quality and safety, and inject strong consumer confidence into consumers.

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