"Taiwan Good Rice": Brand Experiment of "Fine Agriculture" Concept

CARD China Agricultural Brand Research Center, Zhejiang University; Farmers Daily 2013-08-12

by taking the road of "fine agriculture" branding, many agricultural products in Taiwan have formed dominant brands. Among them, the brand development of "Taiwan Haomi" is more successful, and its brand communication strategy and method are also very representative.

High value-added strategy of "fine agriculture"

the peasant association is the main form of social life of Taiwan farmers, an important subject of agricultural product production and marketing, and the main body of agricultural product production and branding. In the 1980 s, when Taiwan's agriculture was facing transformation, the peasant association put forward the idea of "fine agriculture. The strategy of "fine agriculture" does not place too much emphasis on high yield, but rather on efficiency. It achieves the highest income with the least or the most economical input, uses all kinds of agricultural resources efficiently, and obtains economic and environmental benefits. It can be said that the formation of high added value of agricultural products brand is the essence of "fine agriculture.

At the end of the 20th century, the original small-scale peasant development model made Taiwan's rice industry in a bottleneck, and Taiwan's accession to the WTO (WTO) in 2002 brought a huge impact to Taiwan's rice farmers. Since March 2002, the Taiwan Farmers' Association has established a rice grading system. In order to cope with global competition, to effectively distinguish locally produced rice from imported rice, and to improve the quality image and market competitiveness of local rice, in the early 21st century, Taiwan launched the "CAS Taiwan Good Rice" certified by the government ".

"CAS Taiwan Haomi" has the following characteristics:

first of all, you need to obtain the qualification of manufacturers to participate in high-quality rice processing. Manufacturers that have obtained CAS quality certification must pass the factory working environment and processing management evaluation standards recognized by CAS quality rice. The standard includes six items: factory environment, warehouse facilities, mechanical equipment, quality control equipment and personnel, quality management and health management.

Secondly, in terms of packaging, the Agriculture and Food Department uniformly designed the common style and logo of "Taiwan Good Rice" to create a high-quality image of the product. The product packaging is positioned as vacuum packaging to ensure the stability of product quality.

Third, in terms of quality, "Taiwan Good Rice" adopts fine varieties selected by agricultural experts to suit Taiwanese tastes to ensure that it is the seasonal high-quality rice planted in the high-quality rice planting area planned by the government. The milling process of the rice is also subject to strict quality control and meets the required quality standards before it can be sold on the market.

Nowadays, every peasant association that produces high-quality rice has its own brand. After passing the CAS quality certification of the peasant association, it uses the "Taiwan Good Rice" logo together when retaining the original brand, forming a relatively unified image and realizing the Taiwan region. Brand integration of "Taiwan Good Rice.

"Good rice" features a variety of activities

by hosting and participating in a series of brand activities, "Taiwan Haomi" enables consumers to have more access to "Taiwan Haomi" and spread it from all aspects of enhancing brand awareness, cognitive quality, brand association and brand loyalty.

(1) Quality Taiwan Rice Expo. Every autumn, the "quality Taiwan Rice Expo" held by the Taiwan Farmers' Association is an annual event in the rice industry in Taiwan. The Expo is generally held in October every year, for farmers, grain merchants and general consumers, with more than 10,000 participants. The theme of the 2008 Expo is "rice is not rice". 46 rice exhibitors and hundreds of "Taiwan good rice" products are "show" health preservation, "show" packaging and "show" eating through on-site interactive promotion, creative rice teaching and other activities. In 2010, the Expo created "Happy Mibo F4". The four lovely scarecrows were marked with four English words FASION, FINE, FRESH and FUN respectively, giving the traditional product of rice a fashionable and lovely element.

(2) Taiwan's "Top Ten Classic Rice" selection activities. The selection of the "Top Ten Classic Good Rice" in Taiwan began with the township-level rice quality competition in 1995, and the first Taiwan rice quality competition was held in 2004. In 2007, the Taiwan Farmers Association changed the rice quality competition to the selection of "Top Ten Classic Good Rice" and selected good rice throughout Taiwan. The winning farmers will not only receive high bonuses, but the rice will also be purchased at a full price increase. The good rice brand of the winning farmers can be widely spread.

(3) Taiwan "pure good rice" activities. In 2005, the Taiwan Farmers Association used modern DNA identification technology, combined with the CAS Excellent Agricultural Products Development Association, the Food Industry Development Research Institute, and Taiwan rice suppliers to launch a promotion of "Pure Taiwan Rice. Show the origin, variety and grade of rice through activities, and establish consumers' willingness to contact and purchase "Taiwan good rice.

(4) "small farmers, big public welfare" activities. During the activity, 5784 children from 21 elementary schools in Taiwan were allowed to work as small farmers to plow the fields, plant rice, harvest, and learn to make rice by themselves. Taking primary school students as potential consumers and the main force of future consumption, cultivating their rice consumption habits and conveying to them the concept of good rice in Taiwan have achieved the dual effects of education and marketing.

(5) "My One Mu Field" activity. "My One Mu of Land" is a public welfare activity organized by a Taiwanese shopping website with the slogan "Support for Taiwan's Good Rice in 2010. The purpose of this activity is to create a sense of closeness between people and the land and between people and agriculture. Enterprises or individuals "adopt" rice fields through the "My One Mu of Field" activity, subsidize the funds needed by farmers to farm, and participate in rice planting.

humanized symbol system

taking advantage of Taiwan's talent advantages in design, "Taiwan Haomi" has created a complete set of visual system for itself by the designer, and its packaging expression is more sufficient. Exquisite packaging breaks the impression of low quality of traditional agricultural products packaging, and reflects the characteristic agricultural culture and brand personality of Taiwan through packaging, making agricultural products have higher added value and more competitive. The "Taiwan Haomi" brand has humanized positioning such as traditional packaging for traditional family consumption, small packaging for young people's hobbies, and special gift box packaging for weddings.

In 2005 and 2006, the Taiwan Farmers Association held the "Taiwan Good Rice" gift box packaging design competition. Through the competition, it not only enhanced the popularity of "Taiwan Haomi", but also formed a more systematic visual image of the brand's external symbol image, making "Taiwan Haomi" present a high-quality, high-grade and refined image.

Expert comments

first of all, the agricultural product branding mechanism with the peasant association as the main body is worth learning. Farmers can integrate high-quality agricultural products and use regional advantages to integrate and spread brands. Among them, the most critical role of the peasant association is to formulate a strict quality control system and adopt a flexible brand supervision method, so that the brand planning of agricultural products can be carried out under the premise of high quality. At present, there is a phenomenon that the government takes the main body to manage the brand of agricultural products in mainland China. This mechanism does bring good results in the early stage of branding, but there are also problems such as lack of market orientation, lack of innovation, and insufficient resilience in administrative operations.

Secondly, the design of packaging and other symbol systems has brought great advantages to the spread of Taiwan's agricultural products. "Taiwan Good Rice" makes a big fuss on packaging, mapping the high quality of products with excellent packaging, and even distinguishing consumers, consumption time and consumption space, and consumption functions with packaging. However, some agricultural products in mainland China are originally of good quality, but it is difficult to have a good market because of the lack of beauty and humanization of the packaging, let alone the creation of brand personality.

Third, creative brand communication activities should be carried out in a timely and appropriate manner, and should be carried out in a targeted manner according to product characteristics. A series of brand communication activities carried out by "Taiwan Haomi" are all based on the characteristics of rice. At first, when the brand awareness was not high, the "Quality Rice Expo" was launched to allow consumers to have close contact with high-quality rice through experiential marketing; and with the continuous improvement of brand awareness, it also launched rice gift box packaging competitions and "small farmers," Big Charity "," My Yimu Field "and other activities to find contact points with consumers emotionally; the 2010 Taiwan Quality Rice Expo launched the" Happy Mi Bo F4 "four cartoon images, attract the attention of young people. This kind of brand communication activities launched at the right time, place and people can enable a brand and consumers to communicate from multiple angles in different time and space, forming a humanized relationship.

Man of Feeding