The cafe in the office

As one of the world's largest food producers, Mars not only has a good reputation in areas such as chewing gum, candy, chocolate and pet care, but also sees the diversity of beverage needs in the workplace. Mars launched an innovative single-cup filtration system in 1984-a hot drink system that can make different flavors and quickly meet the needs of different tastes. The original idea came from John Mars, a member of the Mars family and one of the founders. At that time, Mars sold chocolates and candies in Britain, one of the most important channels was vending machines. John Mars found that people usually have a drink with a cup of chocolate after buying it, which gave him the idea of selling drinks through vending machines. The idea evolved step by step into what is now Mars's beverage system.

Although Mars Beverage has long been known to office workers in the United States, Britain, Japan and other places, its annual global sales have exceeded 1 billion US dollars, and the beverage system covers more than 100000 offices around the world, but few Chinese know about it before. The brand, which officially entered the Chinese market on March 11, 2014, is ready to begin to occupy the pantries in office buildings of major companies. In the face of this emerging market, Mars Beverage President Xavier Unkwick showed confidence at the launch ceremony: "China's high-end office hot drink market is growing at an average annual rate of more than 20%, and the market size is expected to exceed 5 billion yuan in 2018. Therefore, the Chinese market will become one of our development priorities."

The battle between tea and water

What is special about Mars drink is that it is almost exclusively found in the workplace. Focusing on B2B channels also puts forward higher requirements for Mars drinks-we must pay attention to both the needs of the company and the needs of consumers. So Xavier Unkwick's thinking is not only to satisfy the different tastes of all drinkers, but also to find ways to make companies willing to pay for such a hot drink system. After all, this is a free service for employees, and the buyers who really pay for the system are the companies.

How to make a company attractive to employees? High income, long annual leave, a training program and a cool office can all be bonus points. Mars drinks, on the other hand, think that employees may also be attracted by a hot drink within reach. This is the thinking logic and sales strategy of Mars drinks. It hopes to reach a consensus with its customers that people are the most valuable asset for all enterprises.

The rise of the Internet in the 1990s changed everything in the office. The first is to break the cubicle, and the more interactive and free office space becomes more popular, which provides conditions for smoother and efficient communication between employees. When employees get together, they need to have a drink, which is very common. Drinks will become a tool for better cooperation among employees. " Xavier Unkwick told reporters. Therefore, office culture is also the research area of Mars Beverage, which has worked with the American furniture and interior designer Herman Miller for a long time to explore the future development trend of the office. While companies are making offices and desks smaller and smaller in order to cut costs, they are creating more collaborative and interconnected space for employees. In Xavier Unkwick's view, small talk in the office pantry may lead to an idea where the environment, equipment, and even the taste of a drink have a significant impact on productivity.

Mars Beverage's important challenge is how to attract Starbucks employees back to the office to enjoy drinks. According to a survey by a consulting firm in Europe and the United States, 22% of employees spend an average of 14 minutes a day going out to buy drinks. Xavier Unkwick calculates that if an employee spends nearly 20 minutes a day going out for coffee, there will be more than 10 hours a year for coffee. For a large company with about 3000 employees, it will lose huge productivity every year. "I'm either at Starbucks or on my way to Starbucks." This catchphrase generalizes the current situation of the rapid infiltration of coffee culture in China. If you look at the Starbucks on the ground floor of the office building, you can see how much Chinese office workers now rely on their coffee. Xavier Onkwick realized that his biggest competitors were more retailers like Starbucks, Costa and Pacific Coffee than the equipment suppliers that supplied the company with coffee makers.

How to convince employees to go back to the office to use Mars Beverage system? In addition to being a free service, they have access to a variety of flavors in addition to coffee. For the company, it is to leave employees in the office, improving production efficiency. According to Bobby Chacko, global chief marketing officer of Mars Beverage, this is a win-win situation: "We have even created a favorable situation for the entire coffee industry, and retailers of other brands have to find ways to develop more flavors so that people can drink different flavors at work. So everyone is benefiting from the overall situation. "

Coffee retailers naturally will not give up the vast market for corporate coffee services. Pacific, Starbucks and Costa have launched their own capsule coffee machines in the market one after another, targeting the majority of business owners. Pacific Coffee relies heavily on B2B business. It set up the Corporate Coffee Department as early as 1995 and first launched its own capsule coffee machine on the market in 2011. This kind of coffee, which is ground in a capsule, is between freshly ground coffee and instant coffee in terms of quality and price.

But the advantage of Mars drink is that it can offer hundreds of flavors to a company's employees at the same time. "there are no companies like us that can provide coffee, tea and chocolate with a single cup of single serve." Xavier Unkwick analyzes the current competition pattern in this way. Mars Beverage, which includes several own brands of Aitka Grinding Coffee, Beyou original Leaf Tea and Dev Hot Chocolate, currently has 18 product lines launched in China, which can produce hundreds of flavors through different combinations. Coffee alone has four flavors with different roasting degrees and tastes, and more hot drinks can be made with milk and tea.

The secret in the cup

All this is due to Mars' patented technology-a single cup filter system for making hot drinks. Each beverage bag is sealed in a closed light and vacuum environment, and is provided with a filter. When they are put into the hot drink machine, the unique sealing process allows each drink to be filtered directly into the cup through a separate package. Unlike ordinary machines, it does not cause a string of flavors when preparing different drinks, such as residual chocolate that may mix into the next cup of coffee.

Its cleverness is that when companies buy machines, they must also buy matching beverage bags. Xavier Unkwick interprets it as a "razor model": "Men's razors are not expensive, constantly changing blades are the point of creation of greater profits." Mars drinks even give away free hot drinks for some big companies. These big companies often need Mars to provide them with decades of hot drink service, coupled with the large number of employees, the consumption of beverage bags is very large.

The machine can brew out a hot drink every 40 seconds and recycle 24 beverage bags at a time, providing an average of about 50 to 70 people per machine, so it needs to be set up on different floors and areas of the office. The height of the machine is about 432 mm, which is the "best height" designed after many repeated experiments. "this height can be adapted to almost all office pantries and their cabinets." Bobby Chaco told reporters. The inspiration comes from various aspects: on the one hand, it depends on how the office employees use the machine to understand their experience; on the other hand, it is to observe their favorite tastes and do a series of taste tests; the third is to understand their needs from executives. Bobby Chaco believes that administrative and logistics staff are often overlooked when doing product research: "they take care of the food and drink of office workers, and our products provide convenience for employees and make their work more efficient." instead of having to equip different machines with different drinks. Our machines can do everything. "

Entering the Chinese market, Mars Beverage is also exploring Chinese taste preferences. From the feedback collected so far, Dev's hot chocolate is the most popular flavor in China, which is in line with the global market. In mature markets such as the United States and Japan, Mars Beverage's marketing department already has more detailed consumer insight and analysis results. Matcha, which is popular in Japan, has been introduced to the local market by Mars drinks, while black tea has become the main product in the London market. For coffee-loving Americans, East Coast and West Coast tastes even have different tendencies. People on the east coast of the United States prefer light and soft coffee, while residents of the west coast prefer deep-roasted coffee. "We will take these factors into account when developing drinks and make different recipes." Bobby Chaco told reporters, "as for the Chinese market, we will observe what is consistent with the international market and which is special." At the same time, look at the changes in the retail market to see what new flavors are available. "

The latest good news for Xavier Unkwick is that Mars Beverage has become a hot drink sponsor of the Boao Forum for Asia in 2014. Just last year, the list of sponsors was Starbucks. Perhaps the organizers of the Boao Forum for Asia seem to find that Starbucks, which has only three counters, is not a pleasant experience for thousands of participants-a break may be only 20 minutes. People spend a long time waiting in line to buy a cup of coffee. Installing Mars Beverage systems in venues, lounges and media centres seems to ease the situation. "We didn't sell our products to Boao, it chose us on its own initiative. It finds that our beverage systems with different tastes can meet the needs of different people for different tastes. " Hu Kaiping, general manager of Mars Beverage China, told reporters.

Xavier Unkwick is so bullish on the Chinese market that he even thinks that by 2020, China will become the second largest market for Mars drinks in the world, even if the brand has just entered the Chinese market. When he first came to China five years ago, he found that people were still used to drinking instant coffee, but now coffee shops are everywhere. In addition to the evolution of coffee culture, he found that the needs of the company also developed and began to talk frequently about the importance of talent and productivity. "China is developing so fast that Shanghai five years ago cannot be compared with what it is now. If you have been away for a year, you may not even know China." Xavier Unkwick said.