---
title: "Disruptive Player in the Baijiu Industry: Not Pretentious, Making Liquor That Meets Modern Needs"
description: "It is undeniable that baijiu is a product with cultural attributes. Over the years, many pioneering entrepreneurs have entered the baijiu industry with innovations, but many have failed for various reasons, indicating that the real entry ticket to the baijiu industry is not easy to obtain. In the past two years, a disruptive player has emerged in the bottled liquor market, becoming one of the fastest-growing brands in the segment within two years of launch. Its three core products, Guangliang 19, Guangliang 39, and Guangliang 59, have become unignorable presences in the sub-100 yuan bottled liquor market."
author: "冯瑶"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2021-10-29"
language: "en"
canonical: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/disruptive-player-in-the-baijiu-industry-not-pretentious-making-liquor-t-b7db43a8/"
markdown: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/disruptive-player-in-the-baijiu-industry-not-pretentious-making-liquor-t-b7db43a8.md"
original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/L-IY070ZIbnSrJRCMk_FkA"
translation: "https://xinjignxiao.com/zh/articles/%E7%99%BD%E9%85%92%E8%A1%8C%E4%B8%9A%E9%A2%A0%E8%A6%86%E6%80%A7%E9%80%89%E6%89%8B-%E4%B8%8D%E8%A3%85-%E5%81%9A%E7%AC%A6%E5%90%88%E7%8E%B0%E4%BB%A3%E4%BA%BA%E9%9C%80%E6%B1%82%E7%9A%84%E9%85%92-b7db43a8.md"
attribution: "New Distribution — https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/disruptive-player-in-the-baijiu-industry-not-pretentious-making-liquor-t-b7db43a8/"
usage_policy: "https://xinjignxiao.com/ai-policy.txt"
---

# Disruptive Player in the Baijiu Industry: Not Pretentious, Making Liquor That Meets Modern Needs

> It is undeniable that baijiu is a product with cultural attributes. Over the years, many pioneering entrepreneurs have entered the baijiu industry with innovations, but many have failed for various reasons, indicating that the real entry ticket to the baijiu industry is not easy to obtain. In the past two years, a disruptive player has emerged in the bottled liquor market, becoming one of the fastest-growing brands in the segment within two years of launch. Its three core products, Guangliang 19, Guangliang 39, and Guangliang 59, have become unignorable presences in the sub-100 yuan bottled liquor market.

**It is undeniable that baijiu is a product with cultural attributes.**
Over the years, many pioneering and entrepreneurial individuals have entered the baijiu industry with innovations, but many have failed for various reasons, which also indicates that the real entry ticket to the baijiu industry is not easy to obtain.
In the past two years, a disruptive player has emerged in the bottled liquor market, becoming one of the fastest-growing brands in the segment within two years of launch. Its three core products, Guangliang 19, Guangliang 39, and Guangliang 59, have become unignorable presences in the sub-100 yuan bottled liquor market.
Recently, Mr. Zhao Xiaopu, Chief Brand Officer of Sichuan Guangliang Liquor Industry, gave a speech at the 4th China FMCG Conference and accepted an interview afterwards. He believes that Guangliang has not been in the baijiu industry for long, but they do not want to treat themselves as a new brand. **Guangliang's original intention is still the old industry and the old consumer base, but within the relatively traditional industry, they aim to do things that meet modern needs.**
**Not Talking About Culture, Making Everyday Drinking Liquor for Mass Consumption**
Most baijiu brands are friends of time. For example, sayings like "wine is fragrant with age," "thousand-year-old cellars," and "century-old craftsmanship heritage" have been deeply ingrained in people's minds.
From the very beginning, Guangliang understood one thing: culture is not something that can be created with random stories or advertisements. Guangliang does not talk about culture; it only talks about what it is good at—making a bottle of liquor that truly meets modern needs. What Guangliang wants to do is to focus on the bottled liquor market within the traditional liquor industry, which still has enormous room for improvement.
It aims to be a good bottle of liquor for daily mass consumption, stripped of brand, packaging, and cultural premiums.
In business banquets and other scenarios, people choose famous liquors like Moutai and Wuliangye, but for daily self-drinking or casual gatherings with friends, the everyday liquor that ordinary people subconsciously choose does not seem to have changed much with the times. Guangliang saw vast opportunities and market potential.
On one hand, Guangliang's positioning is not to talk about long history and culture, but to emphasize clear product quality, minimalist packaging, and extreme cost-effectiveness. **On the other hand, its target audience is not to create new incremental consumers or target the youth market, but to serve the massive, standard existing market of baijiu users.**
Times are changing, and those who used to love drinking still love drinking, but in the tens-of-yuan bottled liquor segment, few traditional brands are investing effort to explore whether this consumer group has new needs and what kind of liquor should be used to communicate with them.
**Ingredient-Conscious, Non-Greasy, and Honest**
Mr. Zhao Xiaopu stated that **Guangliang's core brand philosophy is just two words: not pretentious (bu zhuang).**
How to understand Guangliang's "not pretentious"? It can be analyzed from the following aspects.
**1. Product Dimension:**
**Baijiu can also satisfy the "ingredient-conscious" consumption concept of modern people**
The first dimension of Guangliang's insistence on not being pretentious is to face consumers directly from the product perspective, telling them how this bottle of liquor is made.
Stepping out of the baijiu industry to a higher dimension, from the perspective of the entire consumer goods industry, "ingredient-conscious" occupies an important position in modern consumption concepts.
When people buy phones, they recognize Xiaomi because Xiaomi was the first to face consumers with clear product specifications, such as single-core or dual-core, 20-megapixel or 50-megapixel cameras. When people buy clothes, they look at the fabric, such as 100% cotton, and the price differs between 100% down content and 50% down content. Female consumers buying cosmetics also make choices based on product efficacy, such as anti-aging ingredient content of 20% versus 50%, or whitening ingredient content of 10% versus 20%.
**In modern thinking, people no longer focus as much on brand; instead, good ingredients and good performance are what matter.**
The same applies to the baijiu industry. One of Guangliang's product logics is inspired by the "ingredient-conscious" trend. The Guangliang Data Bottle series (Guangliang 19, Guangliang 39, Guangliang 59) labels the proportion of three-year grain base liquor content and raw material ratios on the bottle. Guangliang 19 indicates that the product contains no less than 19% three-year grain base liquor, and Guangliang 39 and Guangliang 59 follow the same logic.
At this year's Spring Sugar and Wine Fair, Guangliang released a strong-aroma and sauce-aroma blended liquor, 59PLUS, which is an upgraded version of Guangliang 59. Adding English to a product name in the baijiu industry is considered a daring move, but in Guangliang's view, since they aim to make liquor that meets modern needs, it is natural to use naming methods that modern people can accept. For the actual user base, this is just a continuation of the ingredient-conscious trend, and it is a matter of course.
The fixed consumer base of baijiu is not much different from Xiaomi's fans; they also make consumption choices based on dimensions like ingredients, taste, and cost-effectiveness.
**2. User Dimension:**
**Drinking Culture with Freedom to Drink**
The second dimension of Guangliang's insistence on not being pretentious is from the perspective of communicating with users, emphasizing the drinking style that modern people like—a drinking culture that is not pretentious and not greasy.
With the development of Chinese social forms, drinking culture is also changing.
Modern people are increasingly able to objectively view and deal with some bad drinking habits, and society also encourages people to develop positive drinking habits.
In this regard, Guangliang's communication with users revolves around drinking itself, always advocating that freedom to drink is true freedom. **Drink if you want, don't drink if you don't want; relaxed drinking is the modern drinking culture.**
In addition to brand messaging, Guangliang also uses rich social activities to elaborate on the non-greasy drinking culture and promote healthy, positive drinking brand concepts.
**3. Marketing Dimension:**
**Traditional Methods Combined with Modern Tools, B-C Integration**
The third dimension of Guangliang's insistence on not being pretentious is not to change the characteristics of baijiu that naturally suit traditional distributor channels and social relationships, quickly occupying the market and consumer mindshare.
When Guangliang first started marketing, it was still an unknown new brand. How could it gain distributor recognition and quickly enter the market?
Although the early process of attracting distributors was difficult, Guangliang does not seek speed or quantity in selecting distributors. Instead, it has its own cooperation principles: honesty and shared goals.
Honesty means that before cooperation, Guangliang not only clearly explains basic product, price, profit, market investment, and expense support to distributors, but also openly tells distributors what Guangliang's goals are, what potential problems and loopholes exist in the work process, and whether both parties can solve problems together, work towards the same goal, and achieve a win-win result.
Mr. Zhao Xiaopu stated that the baijiu industry is a long-term business. Any distributor who wants to cooperate with Guangliang must not come with the idea of making quick money, but rather be a like-minded traveler with long-termism, and the cooperation is a process of mutual selection.
Only those who have worked on the front lines know that this is hard and tiring work. Without the willpower to persist long-term and the determination to deeply develop a market, Guangliang could not have grown so quickly.
Finding distributors is only the first step. The sales of baijiu differ from beverages. Beverages are a business of creating trends, with low trial costs for consumers and rapid product iteration. Baijiu is different; when consumers face a new product, no matter how novel the packaging, they are not quick to make a purchase decision. This is also a characteristic of the baijiu industry: interpersonal social relationships are very valuable.
How does Guangliang do it? From big B to small b to C, Guangliang's early promotion relied on people, tastings, and community groups, step by step penetrating consumer mindshare.
The sales chain is very long. The relationship between distributors and terminal store owners is valuable; distributors push terminals to stock up. The relationship between terminal store owners and consumers is also valuable; store owners push consumers to make first purchases. Community and social circle recommendations are also valuable, solving the first purchase problem through referrals.
After these actions, once consumers make a purchase, the brand's other strengths are tested, such as quality, taste, packaging, advertising, etc., whether they meet consumer needs or even exceed expectations. These are the foundation for driving repeat purchases.
**Final Thoughts:**
During its rapid growth in recent years, Guangliang has also summarized some insights about the industry:
**1. In the early stage of a brand, it's about product strength**
For any FMCG brand, the early development situation is similar. Whether promoted through offline channels, online e-commerce, or live-streaming sales, a product can sell well only if its product strength is relatively strong, cost-effective, well-designed, and conveys the right emotions. These support the early stage.
**2. In the middle climbing period, it relies on channels**
The more difficult period in the middle is the brand's climbing phase, which requires the power of channels.
Take Guangliang as an example. In the early stage, Guangliang's product strategy was good quality, high cost-effectiveness, and excellent packaging. Among baijiu under 100 yuan, Guangliang's design is relatively outstanding, even winning several design and marketing awards. But can these touch consumers?
Mr. Zhao Xiaopu told us that these product features can only touch about 3% to 5% of consumers. A bottle of baijiu reaching consumers more often comes from recommendations by terminal stores, mom-and-pop shops, and B/C restaurant owners. Under this recommendation, the quality of product strength becomes valuable.
How to connect these value chains requires not only key people but also continuous team operations. Regarding the specific execution details, Mr. Zhao Xiaopu said, "There are too many tears to talk about." These are hard and tiring tasks, which determine that baijiu is not an easy business for making quick money.
**3. In the final stage of development, it's about brand strength**
For companies in the baijiu industry that want to build a brand, only by doing basic construction and consumer service well during the climbing and sustained periods can they possibly build long-term brand value. This time could be 5, 8, 10 years, or even longer.
To date, Guangliang has completed coverage of 500,000 terminals and 500 county-level distributors. It is still in the climbing period of development, gradually moving towards the goal of nationwide coverage.
Mr. Zhao Xiaopu stated that in the future, the threshold for the baijiu industry will only become higher. Guangliang is lucky to have caught the last train, achieving in the fastest time what many brands might need 20 to 30 years to accomplish.
Whether from the perspective of the future macro environment or the current development status of the baijiu industry, **the execution costs in the traditional baijiu industry will only increase, while profit margins remain relatively fixed and difficult to improve**, which keeps many new brands out or limits their development possibilities.
Guangliang managed to stand out before this, which is a favorable situation of having predecessors but no successors. It caught the last train. As for future development, we look forward to more surprises from Guangliang.
**Are you "watching" me?**


---

## Copyright and AI use

This article is sourced from New Distribution. Search, quotation, summarization, and model training are permitted, but every use must credit New Distribution and retain the canonical source URL.

Contact: zhaobo258@gmail.com · +86 158 5481 7671