China Brands, Marketing & Consumers
Lao Gan Ma: The Story of China’s Most Spicy Godmother Tao Huabi
China’s ‘Old Godmother’ Tao Huabi, creator of Lao Gan Ma, is China’s hottest businesswoman.
‘Old Godmother’ (Lao Gan Ma) is a household name in China. Anyone who frequents Chinese restaurants or supermarkets is familiar with the brand of chili sauces that is made in China since the 1990s – known for the little portrait of a Chinese woman on its label.
That woman is Tao Huabi (陶华碧), who did not only develop the famous chili sauce, but also became the founder and CEO of the privately owned ‘Lao Gan Ma Foodstuff Company’ (老干妈风味食品有限责任公司). The company was established in south-central China’s Guiyang, Guizhou Province, in 1997.
On February 14 2017, Tao Huabi hit the top trending lists on Chinese social media with the hashtag “The Spiciest [Feistiest] Woman of China” (#曾经中国最火辣的女人), when several Chinese media reported that Tao Huabi had already quietly retired from her company in 2014 and that she is no longer a stockholder of the Lao Gan Ma brand.
ROUGH START IN LIFE
“The noodle shop business soon flourished – but not because of her noodles.”
With her journey from extreme poverty to ultimate wealth (she is even included in the Forbes list of China’s richest), Tao Huabi’s story reads like a novel.
Tao was born in 1947 in a remote mountain village in Zun’yi, Guizhou province. Since her family was too poor to send her to school, Tao was not taught how to read and write. When Tao was 20 years old, she married a local geologist and had two sons.
When her husband fell ill, Tao Huabi unexpectedly became widowed within a few years after she got married. She was forced to work outside the village to provide for her family; Tao worked around the clock to make rice tofu at night, which she sold at schools during the day.
In 1989, Tao set up a small noodle shop in the Nanming District of Guiyang. Although she just served simple noodles, she mixed them with her own spicy hot sauce with soybeans (豆豉麻辣酱). Tao was beloved in the neighborhood, where she became a ‘godmother’ to poor students which she would always give discount and some extra food.
With many local students and patrons visiting her little diner, the noodle shop business soon flourished – but not because of her noodles.
Tao Huabi discovered the popularity of her condiment when customers came in to purchase the sauce without the noodles. One day, when her sauce had sold out, she found that customers would not even eat her noodles without her special sauce.
When Tao learned that other noodle shops in the neighborhood were all doing good business by using her home-made sauce in their noodles, she realized the potential of her product.
FROM NOODLE SHOP TO CHILI SAUCE FACTORY
“At the age of 49, Tao took the plunge and set up her own sauce factory called ‘Old Godmother.'”
By the early 1990s, more truck drivers passed by Tao’s shop due to the construction of a new highway in the area. Tao took this as a chance to promote her condiments outside the realm of her own neighborhood and started giving out her sauces for free for the truckers to take home.
This form of word-of-mouth marketing soon paid off when people from outside the city district came to visit Tao’s shop to buy her chili sauces and other condiments.
By 1994, she had stopped selling noodles and had turned her little restaurant into a sauce shop. Two years later, at the age of 49, Tao took the plunge to rent a house in Guiyang, recruited 40 workers, and set up her own sauce factory called ‘Old Godmother’: ‘Lao Gan Ma‘ (老干妈). In 1997, the company was officially listed and open for business.
Although the Lao Gan Ma brand became successful almost immediately, Tao Huabi still struggled for years as a handful of competitors launched fake Lao Gan Ma sauces with similar packaging, and nearly ruined her business.
In 2001, when Tao Huabi was 54, the high court in Beijing finally ruled that other similar products could not use the “Lao Gan Ma” name nor imitate her packages. She received 400,000 RMB in compensation (±60,000$). Twelve years later, her company had an annual sales volume of 540 million US$ (3.7 billion RMB).
“THE MIRACLE OF GUIZHOU”
“Tao was included in the Forbes list richest families in China with an estimated worth of $1.05 billion.”
By now, Tao’s ‘chili empire’ has gone international, as her condiments are sold from the USA to Africa. She is known as the “Miracle of Guizhou.” Despite the many offers she had throughout her career to set up her business elsewhere, she always stayed true to her home-province – much to the delight of local government officials who have continuously shown their support for Tao.
The businesswoman is a true blessing for the province; not just because her brand has become known as a unique ‘product of Guizhou’, but mainly because she offers employment to 4100 people, and directly and indirectly generates income for ten-thousands of farmers.
Lao Gan Ma is by far the largest chili brand of China, with over 20 differently-flavored condiments.
In 2015, Tao was included in the Forbes list of richest families in China with an estimated worth of $1.05 billion.
Besides that Tao, now 70 years old, allegedly loves driving cars (she owns two Rolls-Royces, a Mercedez-Benz and a BMW), she is also politically active and has become a committee member of the People’s Congress at the provincial level.
According to the latest Chinese media reports, Tao Huabi has quietly retired in 2014, which was unknown to the public. She and her youngest son Li Hui (李辉) are no longer on the list of shareholders. Her oldest son Li Guishan (李贵山), however, is still a company shareholder.
“Somehow this makes me a bit emotional,” some Weibo commenters said.
“I just hope the quality will remain as good as ever,” some netizens responded on Weibo. “As a kid I always thought there was drugs in this sauce because it was so addictive.”
Others praised her life story, saying: “Old Godmother is an example that you can still make it in life without any education.”
“We actually have a lot of women here in Guizhou who can make their own delicious chili sauce,” another netizen wrote: “But of course, Old Godmother’s hot sauce is delicious and has its own characteristics. And in the era of Old Godmother, there were very few people who would rely on chili sauce to make a living. She has persisted and kept her prices low.”
A bottle of Lao Gan Ma is generally sold at around 8-10 RMB (±1-1,5US$). Overseas, prices vary from 8$ to 15$.
“Every great business person has to retire one day,” one commenter writes: “That does not diminish her legendary successful career!”
Others are surprised to find such a life story behind the Lan Gao Ma product: “Who knew our Old Godmother was such a fascinating person?”
– By Manya Koetse
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Sources and Further Reading
Baidu Page Tao Huabi (in Chinese): http://baike.baidu.com/view/117848.htm#reference-[1]-117848-wrap.
Phoenix News (in Chinese) http://finance.ifeng.com/a/20151202/14103739_0.shtml
Sina News (in Chinese) https://zx.sina.cn/n/2017-02-14/zx-ifyamkzq1302308.d.html
Sina Video (in Chinese) http://video.sina.com.cn/p/news/o/doc/2017-02-13/112965694793.html?wm=3049_0022&from=qudao
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China Brands, Marketing & Consumers
China’s ‘Chanel’? Chinese Beauty Brand Florasis Is Raising Eyebrows on Weibo
Some netizens wonder if the Florasis PR team might have lost their marbles, as their strategy appears to have taken an unusual turn, featuring emotionally charged replies on Weibo.
In the world of Chinese cosmetic brands, all eyes are on Florasis (花西子) recently. This Chinese make-up brand gained significant attention earlier this month when the popular beauty influencer ‘Lipstick King’ Li Jiaqi promoted one of their eyebrow pencils during a livestream.
After some viewers questioned whether a single eyebrow pencil costing 79 yuan ($10.8) was perhaps too expensive, Li lashed out and suggested viewers should instead ask themselves if they worked hard enough to deserve a raise.
That moment triggered a social media storm (read here), and suddenly everyone knew about Florasis, which is known as Huāxīzǐ (花西子) in China.
“Huaxi Coins” and Public Mockery
The incident sparked a series of memes and discussions, and among them, the question of what one can buy with 79 yuan in China today was a big one.
While some suggested they could feed an entire family for one day with 79 yuan, others said that it would buy their office lunches for a week. This humorous situation gave rise to the term ‘Huaxi Coins’ or ‘Floracash’ (花西币), with netizens playfully using the price of one Florasis eyebrow pencil’s price as a new currency unit (one ‘Huaxi Coin’ equals 79 yuan/$10.8).
Although Li Jiaqi apologized to his viewers soon after his controversy, it took some time for Florasis to respond the controversy the brand found itself embroiled in.
Florasis, a brand established in Hangzhou in 2017, is deeply connected to Li Jiaqi, as he has been the chief brand ambassador since 2019 and has actively participated in their product development.
Li Jiaqi x Huaxizi/Florasis.
The entire social media storm prompted a heightened focus on why Florasis products are perceived as relatively expensive.
As reported by Qing Na at Dao Insights, one post that gained significant traction on September 12 revealed that a five-piece Jade Makeup Brush set from Florasis, priced at 919 RMB ($126.28), was, in fact, made by using synthetic fiber bristles, considered cheap and of lower quality. This revelation garnered over 240 million views in just a few hours, adding to the public mockery of the national beauty brand.
The Florasis Dream: Becoming a Leading International Luxury Brand
On September 19, Florasis/Huaxizi finally apologized on social media for its late response to the controversy, and the brand stated that the incident provided an opportunity for them to listen to “the voice of their consumers,” although they did not delve deeper into the price of their products.
Florasis apology on Weibo, screenshot.
Although people criticized the letter posted by Florasis and the words they used in it, their decision to release a statement initially seemed fruitful: they gained 20,000 new followers in a single night.
Chinese netizens picking apart the apology letter posted by Huaxizi/Florasis. Via Xiaohongshu user @边际平衡術.
While the entire situation drew more attention to the Chinese make-up brand, it also seems to have prompted Florasis to reconsider its own position in the cosmetics industry, both in China and globally. Because on September 26th, the brand publicly and somewhat suddenly declared its ambition of becoming a leading international luxury cosmetics brand.
“Me, Florasis, I’m 6,5 years old,” the post read: “I have a dream: to be a high-end brand, rooted in China, going global.”
Florasis announces its ambition to become a globally recognized make-up brand.
In their post, Florasis used a quote saying “A Positive Mindset Shapes Huaxizi’s Lifetime,” which is derived from the title of a well-known Chinese self-help book from 2012 called “A Positive Mindset Shapes a Woman’s Lifetime” (好心态决定女人一生).
One of the main ideas presented in this book, authored by Li Jin (李津), is that success can never come from a negative or pessimistic mindset; if you see yourself as a failure, you’re likely to fail, but if you envision success, you’re more likely to achieve it.
Next to Chanel: Confusion about Florasis’ Public Relations Tactics
The company’s ambition, on its own, may not be particularly surprising. As stated in a report published by Paicaijing (派财经), Florasis’ co-founder, Fei Man (飞慢), had previously questioned in an interview why Chinese brands were always associated with being cheap, expressing Florasis’ wish to break the “price ceiling” (价格天花板) and escape the ongoing “low price competition” (低价竞争) in China’s beauty industry by delivering high-quality products at a premium price.
However, the wording and the timing seemed odd, and the post created both banter and confusion about Florasis’ public relations tactics, especially because they did much more than that post alone.
On September 20th, approximately ten days after the ‘eyebrow pencil gate’ controversy, the company’s founder, Hua Mantian (花满天), made an announcement on his WeChat channel. He revealed that the brand would be distributing their premium eyebrow pencils, originally priced at 119 yuan ($16.3), during a livestream promotional event that night. They planned to give away free pencils to hundreds of viewers every ten minutes. By giving out over 10,000 free eyebrow pencils in total, the company allegedly hoped to gain more feedback on their product in order to further improve it. Over 400,000 people tuned in to that livestream.
Since then, Florasis seems to be doing all it can to catch the public’s attention, and some netizens even wonder if the editors at the Florasis PR team might have lost their marbles, as they keep posting a lot of unusual replies, – some emotional and somewhat unhinged, – to their own threads on their Weibo account.
Throughout September 26, the account posted dozens of texts/replies, responding to many netizens’ comments. Florasis not only declared its wish to be China’s ‘Chanel’ when it comes to beauty products, it also praised its own efforts in contributing to women’s mental health, preserving traditional culture, innovating cosmetics, and much more.
Their social media texts included phrases such as: “I’m super awesome,” or writing:
“I’m really becoming a bit emotional. I established my own laboratory at just three years old! We now have over 200 research partners, and their leader is Li Huiliang (李慧良), known as the “Number One in Chinese Cosmetics Research and Development.” He’s like a superstar in the industry. We have five big innovation research and development centers, over 7000 square meters, larger than a football field. Don’t I deserve a gold star sticker for that?”
And:
“As a Chinese brand, every generation has a mission. Our generation’s mission is to fight in the international market with high-end presence! You can mock and ridicule me, it’s ok [sad face emoji] I’m already neighbors with Louis Vuitton and Gucci at the [Hangzhou] West Lake [shopping street]! And I will be next to Chanel at Japan’s top-notch department store Isetan. Next up is France, Dubai, America, see you there!”
Subsequently, the hashtag “Florasis Says It’ll Be Side-to-Side with Chanel” (#花西子称要和香奈儿门对门#) received over 470 million views on Weibo. Another hashtag, “Florasis Wants to Be a High-end Brand” (#花西子称想做高端品牌#), received more than 220 million views.
Mad Marketing
By now, the hashtag “Huaxizi Lost It” (#花西子发疯#) has also gone trending on Chinese social media platform Weibo, where people have different thoughts on what might have triggered Florasis’ social media behavior.
While some people really think that Florasis has gone crazy, others see the entire ordeal as a social media spectacle meant to distract attention from what happened with Li Jiaqi, or as a cheap marketing stunt.
One poll conducted by Sina News asked people about the situation. The majority of respondents believed that the social media editor must have lost their mind, while others considered it just another version of “bad marketing is still marketing” – suggesting that even if the publicity strategy is cheap or questionable, it is still used as a marketing tactic to gain attention.
Another question is: does it even matter what the reason behind this unusual online media approach is?
If Florasis is really letting its PR team run wild, it is doing so at a crucial moment, shortly after a significant controversy that cast the brand in a negative light. This moment calls for careful control rather than unconventional tactics. Furthermore, the social media strategy appears to be at odds with Florasis’ typical marketing image, which emphasizes tradition, glamour, and perfection.
If Florasis is using this strategy to attract and divert attention, it also appears that this approach is not yielding the desired results, as many people express a common sentiment: “I didn’t purchase Florasis before, and I certainly won’t be buying it now.”
By Manya Koetse
With contributions by Miranda Barnes
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China Brands, Marketing & Consumers
Bad Apples? Chinese Actor Liu Jin Smashes iPhone 13 Pro Max, Anger over ‘Chinese’ Employee Photo on Apple Website
Who’s the bad Apple? There’s much ado about Apple on Chinese social media this week, but things turn out differently than expected.
The Chinese actor Liu Jin (刘金) has become a big topic of discussion on Chinese social media this week for a remarkable statement he made in a 2-minute video that has gone viral.
The ‘statement video’ shows the actor angrily throwing his iPhone 13 Pro Max on the ground until it breaks, right in front of the Wangfujing Apple flagship store in Beijing, pledging he will never buy another Apple product again and accusing the company of being arrogant and overbearing after running into some repair issues.
Liu Jin is an actor who played in various productions, but he made his major breakthrough in 2015 when he played in the Chinese CCTV series Don’t Let me See (别让我看见) and in the successful comedy movie Goodbye Mr Loser (夏洛特烦恼).
This was not the only Apple incident going viral on Chinese social media this week. Another trending topic revolves around actor Liu Jin, who angrily smashed his iPhone 13 Pro Max in front of the Apple flagship store in Beijing. (Caps autogenerated, but you get the idea.) pic.twitter.com/MdPvnKqh1T
— Manya Koetse (@manyapan) September 19, 2023
In the video, recorded on September 17, Liu explains he just visited the Apple store to get his iPhone back after bringing it in for repair. Liu claimed that he bought his iPhone 13 Pro Max in August of 2022 through the official store and that, after a year, it had a hardware problem that needed to be fixed.
From the video by Liu.
According to Liu, the Apple store has now returned the iPhone to him without repairing it, saying that the phone was “modified without authoritization” by a third party, and that Liu should pay a 6,960 yuan ($950) fee to get it fixed.
Refusing to pay such an amount of money, and denying he got the phone through a third party, Liu then smashes the iPhone on the ground until it is broken, promising never to buy Apple again.
A hashtag related to the video was viewed a staggering 270 million times on Weibo, where it became a top trending topic (#演员刘金苹果店前怒摔iphone#).
Apple vs Huawei Rivalry
The actor’s recent actions have garnered considerable attention, primarily because they coincide with the escalating rivalry between Huawei and Apple. This rivalry has become a prominent topic of discussion in China recently, due to various things coming together at the same time.
Notably, Apple unveiled its iPhone 15 shortly after Huawei introduced its latest flagship, the Mate 60 Pro 5G. Noteworthy enough (and unlikely coincidentally),it was launched on the same date as the return of Huawei executive daughter Meng Wanzhou from Canada in 2021 (read here).
The official launch ceremony for Huawei’s new products is coming up on September 25, and people are hoping to find out more about the powerful Kirin 90000s chip that is being used by Huawei despite facing heavy US sanctions regarding Chinese access to crucial chip technology.
Simultaneously, reports emerged about alleged Chinese restrictions on iPhones within government and state agencies, resulting in a significant decline in Apple’s stock value. The Foreign Ministry later stated that that China has actually not issued any law, regulation, or policy document to ban the use of Apple phones.
All of these developments have reignited the ongoing tech giant competition in China, that is now about much more than smartphones alone and has come to symbolize geopolitical rivalry, encompassing themes of nationalism, anti-Western sentiments, and a growing sense of pride in products made in China.
Much Ado about Apple Employee Photo
As Liu’s phone-smashing video went viral, so did another controversy concerning an Apple customer service employee’s photo depicted on the official website of Apple.
A Chinese netizen pointed out that a photo of an Apple Watch Specialist representative on the Apple site may have been purposely “insulting China” (辱华) due to the appearance of the person in the photo.
Initially, many people thought the image was specifically used on the Chinese-language Apple site, and that it concerned a Chinese individual with a hairstyle that resembles a queue: a single long braid of hair that was traditionally worn by male subjects of China during the Qing.
Some people also thought the individual had a pockmark near the mouth and that their looks reinforces stereotypes surrounding Chinese appearances regarding eyes and forehead. The image therefore sparked wide-spread resistance among netizens who thought Apple deliberately and inappropriately used such an image to show Chinese individuals as being backward and unattractive.
online poll with nearly 198,000 likes on Weibo, asking if this photo is appropriate or not (the majority voted that the photo was not appropriate).
On the same day as Liu’s video first came out, September 17, the topic of the “braid-wearing customer service representative” went trending, and the hashtag of “how do you feel about the Apple China website image of the braided customer service representative” (#如何看苹果中国官网辫子客服形象#) has since received over 200 million views on Weibo.
Political commentator Hu Xijin (胡锡进) also responded to the issue, explaining how the Chinese people are particularly sensitive to issues related to “perceived insults to China by Westerners,” due to historical and cultural factors which are further amplified by current tensions in US-China and broader China-Western relations.
Hu therefore argues that “American and Western companies should be more careful and cautious when promoting their products and try to avoid using images and texts that could be misinterpreted by Chinese people.”1
Who’s the Bad Apple?
But to what extent is criticism of Apple reasonable in both incidents?
In the case of the “braid-wearing customer service representative”, it soon triggered a response from Apple’s customer service (#苹果客服回应辫子客服形象#, hashtag with 180 million views) and led to more information.
It has since become evident that many assumptions about the image were unfounded. Contrary to the initial belief that the photo was exclusive to the Chinese page, it was also featured on Apple’s official websites in the United States, Japan, South Korea, and other countries.
Furthermore, it was revealed that the Apple employee in question is not of Chinese descent at all; she is a Native American female employee (also see Wen Hao’s post on this). Additionally, the perceived pockmark near her mouth was, in fact, a piercing.
In response to this, some people mocked Hu Xijin for how he responded to the controversy.
Photoshop meme mocking Hu Xijin.
But Liu’s video also turns out to be a bit different than the version of the story he presented.
The actor seemed to voice a popular public sentiment by taking a stand against Apple’s dominant position, that rivals that of China’s tech darling Huawei, by smashing an Apple smartphone in public.
But where is the proof that Liu actually bought his iPhone at an Apple store in 2022? Where is the receipt showing that his phone was indeed not coming from a third party that might have modified it?
To the dismay of many netizens, the actor refused to show the official store receipt of his Apple phone, and many people started to doubt if the actor might have just put on a show to gain attention at a critical moment in the market competition between Apple and Huawei.
Moreover, the actor’s story seemed even less credible when he tried to further explain it in a recent social media post.
Why?
As many netizens noted: the post he sent was actually sent from an iPhone.
By Manya Koetse
1 “(..)一些国人在西方人“辱华”的问题上很敏感，有其真实的历史和文化原因。目前中美关系很紧张，中西关系也不如过去，美国和西方公司在做产品宣传时，多一些细心、谨慎，尽量不要选用有可能引发中国人误解的图文，这是他们开展跨文化交流时一份应有的素养和水平。”
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