---
title: "Domestic Sodas Make a Collective Comeback: Those Familiar Tastes Are Back"
description: "In the last century, domestic soda factories sprang up like mushrooms, with eight brands—including Arctic Ocean, Bawangsi, Wuhan No.2 Factory, and Chongqing Tianfu—being the most famous. These old brands left unforgettable youthful memories for many middle-aged and elderly people, bringing endless joy and symbolizing aspirations for a better life in an era of simple material living. After a glorious history, they were once forgotten, but in recent years, they have been returning to the market."
author: "于斌"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2021-12-14"
language: "en"
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# Domestic Sodas Make a Collective Comeback: Those Familiar Tastes Are Back

> In the last century, domestic soda factories sprang up like mushrooms, with eight brands—including Arctic Ocean, Bawangsi, Wuhan No.2 Factory, and Chongqing Tianfu—being the most famous. These old brands left unforgettable youthful memories for many middle-aged and elderly people, bringing endless joy and symbolizing aspirations for a better life in an era of simple material living. After a glorious history, they were once forgotten, but in recent years, they have been returning to the market.

Source: Yujian Column (ID: yujianzhuanlan)

In the last century, domestic soda factories sprang up like mushrooms after rain. Among them, eight soda brands—including Arctic Ocean, Bawangsi, Wuhan No.2 Factory, and Chongqing Tianfu—were the most famous. Their products left unforgettable youthful memories for many middle-aged and elderly people. In that era of simple and not-so-rich material life, these old-brand sodas brought endless joy and carried people's aspirations for a better life.

**Once Had a Glorious History**
**But Were Once Forgotten**

Since Coca-Cola entered the domestic market in 1979, the good days of old-brand sodas sitting back and reaping profits gradually came to an end. Although there were many reasons for the silence and disappearance of domestic soda brands, the main reason was that their way of thinking failed to keep pace with the times.

Initially, the products of the two major cola giants had to be shipped from overseas, and the accumulated costs made their retail prices at the terminal not cheap. For example, in the early 1980s, a bottle of Coca-Cola cost 2-3 times more than Arctic Ocean soda, and only a few people could afford it at that time.

So the impact of foreign brands was not strong at first. But as the two cola giants gradually lowered their initially high prices through advertising promotions, in-store activities, investment in factories, and channel layout, the market share of old-brand sodas was greatly affected, and many enterprises' operations deteriorated.

But the more fatal blow came from the joint ventures in the early 1990s, when several major domestic soda brands each cooperated with the two cola giants.

Originally, they hoped to gain access to multinational companies' capital, technology, and advanced management experience. Unexpectedly, the cola giants only wanted to control the joint ventures by increasing their shareholding, thereby further squeezing the living space of old-brand sodas. The cola giants even forbade the continued production of these brands' sodas.

Under internal and external difficulties, domestic soda brands began to retreat step by step. Except for a few brands that gritted their teeth and persisted, most eventually disappeared from people's sight. For example, after Asia Soda formed a joint venture with Pepsi in 1992, the brand was shelved and production halted. It was not until 2002 that the Guangzhou State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission regained the brand through difficult negotiations.

After Guangzhou Xiangxue Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. took over in 2009, Asia Soda began to accelerate its development. Over the decades, with the gradual expansion of Pepsi and Coca-Cola, they have now occupied more than 80% of the domestic carbonated beverage market share.

In the past decade, many old soda brands that had experienced various setbacks and once disappeared have reappeared in the beverage world. Besides Arctic Ocean, brands such as Shenyang Bawangsi, Qingdao Laoshan, Wuhan No.2 Factory, Chongqing Tianfu, and Tianjin Shanhaiguan have also returned to the beverage market, but the precious time and development opportunities lost cannot be recovered.

**Old Brands Stage a Comeback Wave**
**The Long-Missed Tastes Are Back**

In recent years, domestic soda sales have shown a gradual upward trend. Data from Qianzhan Industry Research Institute shows that in 2019, the domestic carbonated beverage industry ended years of stagnation, with output exceeding 18 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 5.8%. Last year, output approached 20 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 6.8%.

In recent years, driven by the national trend (guochao) and the health-conscious concept of sugar-free consumption, famous soda brands that were popular in the last century, such as Arctic Ocean, Wuhan No.2 Factory, Laoshan Cola, and Guangzhou Asia, have returned to people's视野 after years of silence and ups and downs.

These former soda brands have reawakened people's memories and consumption enthusiasm with nostalgia. For example, on the day Arctic Ocean soda was launched 10 years ago, 3,000 boxes were sold out immediately. Four years ago, Hankou No.2 Factory sold 50,000 bottles of soda in just 3 days.

**Domestic soda brands are also catering to young consumers' preferences and aesthetics, actively improving appearance design and internal flavors.**

For instance, Hankou No.2 Factory soda highlights two features: extracting real fruit juice and not adding sucrose, positioning its products as healthy happy water. Taigang Soda's packaging changed from dark green glass bottles to cans and plastic bottles, and its flavor changed from lemon to sweet orange and cola. Domestic soda brands represented by Genki Forest have also launched products without sugar, fat, and low-calorie options.

The high-profile return of domestic soda brands has also attracted the attention of various capital sources. Not long ago, Bingfeng Soda submitted an IPO prospectus to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, planning to list on the main board and raise 670 million yuan. If all goes smoothly, this Shaanxi-produced soda with a history of over 70 years, carrying the beautiful growth memories of several generations, will become the first domestic soda brand to go public.

In Shaanxi, Bingfeng Soda, along with cold noodles (liangpi) and roujiamo, is a must-try food for locals and tourists alike, affectionately called the "Sanqin Set Meal." In addition, Arctic Ocean also plans to go public through the shell of Dahaotech.

Last year, Hankou No.2 Factory completed two rounds of financing, with total financing exceeding 100 million yuan. With the support of capital, domestic soda brands can complete equipment updates, technological improvements, digital transformation, marketing network upgrades, and brand image enhancement. At the same time, enterprises can use their refreshed overall image and sales methods to break through regional restrictions and further expand domestic market sales.

Compared with the domestic carbonated beverage market's annual sales scale of over 700 billion yuan, domestic soda brands still have significant growth space. Last year, the total domestic carbonated beverage output was about 20 million tons, while many old-brand beverages' production capacity was only about 100,000 tons, and the overall share of old-brand beverages was less than 10%. Of course, gaps also mean growth opportunities. In recent years, we have been pleased to see domestic enterprises accelerating their pace of catching up.

**Nostalgia Alone Is Not Enough**
**Only by Following Trends Can They Reach a Broader World**

It is undeniable that old-brand sodas carry heavy history and deep memories, but facing a saturated and fiercely competitive market, the road to recovery for domestic soda brands is bound to be arduous and long.

Besides playing the nostalgia card, domestic sodas must **follow trends, actively cater to young people's fashionable, healthy, and diversified consumption concepts, and actively use various brand marketing methods to occupy the C-position of internet-famous sodas**. Only in this way can domestic soda brands return to the mainstream camp in the shortest time and firmly hold a place.

"Yujian Column" believes that the current problems of old-brand sodas mainly include the following two points:

**First, the sales scope is too narrow, and the regional label is too obvious.** For example, Asia Soda is basically only loved by Guangzhou people. Bingfeng Soda's prospectus shows that 80% of its sales revenue comes from the Shaanxi market. Arctic Ocean is better in this regard, but it is mainly concentrated in Beijing, Hebei, and East and Southwest China.

If sales regions are too concentrated, in the long run, being confined to one corner will limit a brand's overall development. Therefore, enterprises must break the inherent impression and traditional pattern that a soda brand is only sold in a certain region, strive to develop products and flavors that are widely accepted by the public, and actively expand the broader domestic market and even overseas markets.

**Second, prices are generally high.** When domestic soda brands re-emerged, they mainly relied on nostalgia as a selling point, attracting many fans in a short time, but many brands' products are generally priced high.

For example, Arctic Ocean's canned and glass-bottled sodas are priced between 4.5 and 6 yuan. Hankou No.2 Factory's 275ml bottled soda is priced at 8.8 yuan. Tianfu Cola's 550ml bottled soda is priced at 4 yuan.

In contrast, Pepsi and Coca-Cola's 500ml bottled sodas are priced around 3 yuan. The main reason is that these old brands' production capacity and sales volume are still low, resulting in persistently high production, promotion, and sales costs...

If this situation continues for a long time, when nostalgia and heat fade, it will definitely affect consumers' sustained purchase enthusiasm, because compared with nostalgia, the wallet may be more practical for ordinary consumers.

"Yujian Column" believes that nostalgia is important, but it is not the only necessary option. Healthy consumption concepts, popular appearance and packaging, and diversified marketing methods are all essential elements for carbonated beverages to win consumer favor in the future.

Therefore, on the one hand, domestic soda brands must stay close to consumer needs, accelerate product upgrades and iterations, and through a series of comprehensive innovations and upgrades from taste, appearance, packaging to marketing models, they can quickly open up market sales and win opportunities for accelerated development.

On the other hand, in addition to traditional offline channels, they must also use various social marketing and internet marketing models to strive to create various traffic acquisition channels.

For example, around product features and selling points, create topics and discussions about guochao soda on social media platforms such as Weibo, Toutiao, and Douyin, fully utilizing the social interaction attributes of these media to continuously raise product heat and attention.

At the same time, they can also collaborate with other fashion brands, cultural IPs, top influencers, internet celebrity anchors, and KOL experts for cross-border cooperation, hold various trendy promotional activities, and use their respective advantages to jointly attract traffic. In short, they must use trendier ways to cater to the trendy market.

In addition, the impact of the increasingly popular guochao trend in recent years cannot be ignored. According to Baidu's 2021 Guochao Pride Search Big Data, from 2011 to 2020, the search heat for guochao increased more than fivefold. Nearly half of the people who pay attention to guochao are young people born after 1990. Currently, whether online or offline, various products with traditional cultural elements are prevalent.

Old-brand sodas can take advantage of this trend by deeply exploring the historical and cultural connotations behind brand stories to shape a new brand image, thereby organically integrating fashion elements with traditional culture, and achieving breakthroughs in both brand and channels by catering to the guochao consumption trend.

**Conclusion**

History seems to always move from one cycle to another. Domestic sodas, which have accompanied the growth memories of several generations, **once went from glory to silence, and now they are on the long road to revival.**

After decades of stagnation and hardship, these old brands need to cater to people's personalized consumption needs and use trendier ways to capture the attention of young consumers today.

**Are you "watching" me?**


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