Source: 21st Century Business Review (ID: weixin21cbr) Areca nut with cigarettes, boundless power? Banned! Kouwei Wang, which heavily advertised on shows like "Street Dance of China" and "Yunnan Worm Valley," has encountered a regulatory blow. In mid-September, the National Radio and Television Administration issued a notice to immediately stop promoting and selling areca nuts and their products through radio, television, and online audiovisual programs. This is the first national-level ban on areca nut advertising. Two months earlier, several Chinese citizens were arrested for bringing areca nuts into Turkey, drawing domestic attention. Under Turkish law, arecoline in areca nuts is considered a hallucinogen and classified as a drug. This controversial fruit has supported a 100-billion-yuan industry and spawned a 10-billion-yuan leader. Born in Hunan, Kouwei Wang has become China's largest areca nut food manufacturer in 21 years, with its next goal being 100 billion yuan in revenue. Now, with its marketing reach cut off, the areca nut giant's troubles are just beginning. The 10-Billion-Yuan Areca Nut King In Hunan, there are many areca nut brands and fierce competition, but Kouwei Wang leads in sales by a wide margin. According to market research data, in 2020, Kouwei Wang Group's sales reached 25.5 billion yuan. In the high-end areca nut market above 50 yuan, the "Hecheng Tianxia" brand under Hunan Kouwei Wang Group holds over 70% market share, meaning that out of every ten packs of high-end areca nuts sold, seven come from Kouwei Wang. At the end of the last century, Guo Zhiguang, a poor rural boy from Yiyang, Hunan, started working with his father after junior high school. He learned areca nut production in factories and later opened his own areca nut shop, which failed miserably, but his entrepreneurial spirit only grew stronger. In 2000, Guo founded Kouwei Wang with only 25 yuan left in his pocket, using his rural home as a factory and hiring relatives and neighbors as employees, personally making the areca nuts. He differentiated by flavor, creating a unique coffee-flavored areca nut that quickly opened the Yueyang market in Hunan. Between 2002 and 2003, he captured 95% of the Yueyang market. Since then, Kouwei Wang's production bases have multiplied, and the company has expanded beyond the province to increase its national influence. (Guo Zhiguang) According to the official website, Kouwei Wang Group now has 8 production bases, covering nearly 1,000 mu (about 66.7 hectares), with nearly 30,000 employees. Three years ago, its national sales outlets and windows exceeded 1 million, enabling delivery to merchants within half an hour nationwide. Kouwei Wang has its own principles for channel control: franchise dealers must not only pay a deposit but also exclusively sell Kouwei Wang products, pay cash before delivery, and products are uniformly priced nationwide. Guo Zhiguang also pioneered the high-end line, overturning the positioning of areca nuts among consumers. Once, areca nuts sold for only 1 yuan a pack, with rough packaging, mostly sold "lying down," and were considered a niche product in the Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan-Yiyang area of Hunan. "Before 2000, people always thought areca nuts were like chewing gum, not fit for elegant occasions. I never believed that; I wanted to make areca nuts a high-end product," Guo insisted. Kouwei Wang pioneered vertical packaging for areca nuts, with the best performer being the high-end brand "Hecheng Tianxia" launched in 2014, which became the sales leader in Hunan within two years and sold 800 million packs in six years. Behind the so-called "high-end" positioning is the huge profit from high prices. Areca nuts costing a few yuan per kilogram can be processed and sold for over 100 yuan per kilogram. For example, the sub-brand "Hecheng Tianxia" has multiple price points, including 30 yuan, 50 yuan, and 100 yuan per pack. Furthermore, since areca nuts are classified as food, they only pay food taxes and do not have to pay heavy taxes like addictive tobacco products. Kouwei Wang's ambitions go beyond this. In 2018, Chen Yi, then president of Kouwei Wang Group, publicly stated: "The board has set a goal to develop Kouwei Wang into a 100-billion-yuan enterprise in the next decade, and then go global. We are currently actively laying out overseas markets." Crazy Advertising Advertising is Kouwei Wang's most important sales weapon. In 2017, a line in Jia Ling's sketch, "A blind date is like chewing areca nuts; you have to chew one by one to know which one suits your taste," brought Kouwei Wang into the view of TV audiences. Since that year, Kouwei Wang has been the title sponsor of Hunan Satellite TV's Spring Festival Gala for three consecutive years, deeply binding the relationship, and also invited famous host Wang Han as brand spokesperson. The crazy advertising even dared to "operate against the wind" under the ban. In 2019, the Hunan Areca Nut Food Industry Association ordered all areca nut production enterprises in Hunan to stop advertising immediately. As a member, Kouwei Wang gave up sponsoring the Hunan TV Spring Festival Gala. However, just three months later, Kouwei Wang circumvented the "restricted zone" and launched marketing activities on short video platforms. Kouwei Wang also broke into popular variety shows and web dramas, extending its marketing reach to younger audiences. In the recently popular web drama "Yunnan Worm Valley," you can see the slogan "Escape to victory, thanks to refreshing Kouwei Wang"; in the fourth season of Youku's variety show "Street Dance of China," dancers say while dancing, "Quick refreshment, chew Kouwei Wang areca nuts." Kouwei Wang has also cooperated with platforms like Tencent Video, Youku, and Mango TV, securing total title sponsorship for variety shows such as "Happy Comedians 5," "Wild Kitchen," and "This! Is Slam Dunk." In terms of concept packaging, Kouwei Wang guides toward "healthy products." In 2013, CCTV named areca nuts as carcinogenic, causing a major industry shock. At that time, Kouwei Wang had already made a name in the industry, and the company had to respond to doubts, emphasizing product safety and health through production process innovation. "The arecoline in areca nuts, after chewing in the mouth, produces nitrosamines that affect the oral mucosa," but then a Kouwei Wang executive changed the subject: "However, no relevant institution has defined how much areca nut consumption leads to disease." The Original Sin of the Fruit Is Kouwei Wang really as "safe and healthy" as the group executives claim? A novice describes that areca nuts have a sweet minty taste, very cool, and after chewing a few more times, you feel suffocated, "as if you can't breathe." A veteran who has chewed for over ten years says that after becoming addicted, the body no longer has the initial symptoms of fever, dizziness, and skin redness, but without eating, you feel nauseous and your throat itches. "Either you don't eat, or you can't stop." Areca nuts are produced in tropical regions and cannot survive in the dry north. Nearly 100 million (person-times) areca nut consumers in China are mostly concentrated in the south, especially Hunan Province. Ask how much Hunan people love areca nuts? A local saying answers: "Areca nut with cigarettes, boundless power." Data from the 2011 "Epidemiological Study on Edible Areca Nuts in Hunan" shows that the chewing rate among Hunan residents is 38.42%, meaning that out of every 10 Hunan people, nearly 4 chew areca nuts. According to the Hunan Areca Nut Food Industry Association, areca nut food production enterprises in the province have cumulatively driven related industries to over 50 billion yuan. The corresponding cost is that oral cancer patients in Hunan have surged 20-fold in 10 years. As early as 2003, the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer classified areca nuts as a Group 1 carcinogen, placing them in the same category as tobacco, alcohol, and arsenic in terms of carcinogenic power. In 2018, experts from the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at Xiangya Hospital of Central South University published a research report. The report predicts that by 2030, the cumulative number of areca nut-related oral cancer patients in Hunan could exceed 300,000, causing cumulative economic losses of over 30 billion yuan; nationally, it could exceed 1 million cases, with conservative estimates of cumulative losses exceeding 200 billion yuan—enough to offset its economic contribution to society. Kouwei Wang, as it expands, cannot avoid the hidden concerns of addiction and carcinogenicity. Previously, despite the industry repeatedly falling into public opinion storms, Kouwei Wang, as a representative enterprise, managed to survive. This time, with national intervention in areca nut advertising, Kouwei Wang must finally face its original sin. Are you "watching" me?