---
title: "Founded Less Than 2 Years, Daily Dark Chocolate 'Hard Bars' Against Foreign Giants like Dove, Ferrero, Snickers!"
description: "If we count the subcategories in the FMCG field that have long been dominated by foreign giants, chocolate and coffee come to mind. This article focuses on chocolate. When you think of chocolate, brands like Dove, Ferrero, Snickers, and Hershey's come to mind. Are there domestic chocolate brands? There are, like Golden Monkey and Le Conte, but they have either been sold off or are struggling in lower-tier markets. Domestic chocolate brands seem to have never stood tall..."
author: "秦淮"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2021-03-13"
language: "en"
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# Founded Less Than 2 Years, Daily Dark Chocolate 'Hard Bars' Against Foreign Giants like Dove, Ferrero, Snickers!

> If we count the subcategories in the FMCG field that have long been dominated by foreign giants, chocolate and coffee come to mind. This article focuses on chocolate. When you think of chocolate, brands like Dove, Ferrero, Snickers, and Hershey's come to mind. Are there domestic chocolate brands? There are, like Golden Monkey and Le Conte, but they have either been sold off or are struggling in lower-tier markets. Domestic chocolate brands seem to have never stood tall...

If we count the subcategories in the FMCG field that have long been dominated by foreign giants, I think chocolate and coffee are the ones. Today we talk about chocolate.
When you think of chocolate, who comes to mind first? Dove, Ferrero, Snickers, Hershey's—probably just these.
If you think further, are there domestic chocolate brands? It seems there are, like Golden Monkey and Le Conte.
**But now these two brands are either sold off cheaply or lukewarm, barely surviving in lower-tier markets. Domestic chocolate brands seem to have never stood tall, remaining in silence.**
This silence was completely broken in July 2019. A dark horse, the new brand "Daily Dark Chocolate" (每日黑巧), achieved over 100 million yuan in transaction volume within 12 months of launch.
Not only that, it also achieved several impressive results:
> **1. Ranked first in black chocolate sales at Hema nationwide;**
>
> **2. On Tmall's 11.11 in 2020, ranked first in sales growth in the chocolate category, and third in overall chocolate category sales;**
>
> **3. The new Black Milk product sold 500,000 pieces on its first day (8.18), ranking second in Tmall's overall snack category sales;**
>
> **4. The Weibo topic #每日黑巧# has over 600 million reads;**
>
> **5. Named by independent media as the youngest brand contributing to sustainable development in 2020, appearing on the same list as world-class brands like Starbucks and IKEA.**
Not only that, recent media reports show that Daily Dark Chocolate has completed two rounds of financing exceeding 100 million yuan each, with investors including iQIYI, marking iQIYI's first investment in a consumer goods brand.
Such growth speed is astonishing.
Recently, New Distribution had the honor of an in-depth exchange with Ms. Lin Xi, co-founder of Daily Dark Chocolate. As a startup brand in a field long suppressed by foreign capital, how did it rise abruptly?
After the exchange, upon careful examination, we found that Daily Dark Chocolate's approach differs from conventional innovative consumer brands. It started with a "high-profile, high-impact" strategy, continuously building brand momentum and occupying high ground in the market. Why would a new brand do this, and what is the logic behind it?
**-01-**
**5 Years of Overseas Food Brand Agency Experience**
Daily Dark Chocolate's parent company, LANDBASE, was founded by Lin Xi and another founder, Ethan, at the end of 2013. It has always adhered to the corporate mission of "making every day happier." Initially, its core business was agency and operation of overseas food and beverage brands—simply put, it was an importer and agent for imported food and beverages in China.
According to Lin Xi, over the past 5 years, we introduced young, high-growth foreign brands to China, operating them from 0 to 1, building knowledge and capability reserves. In this process, we covered almost every category in food and beverages, from juices, puffed snacks, biscuits, chocolate, tea, coffee, alcohol, baby food, and so on.
The accumulation of 5 years of experience allowed them to gain rich experience from upstream overseas supply chain layout to offline channel construction.
Of course, launching the proprietary "Daily Dark Chocolate" brand was not solely due to the agency experience and discovering the market opportunity behind chocolate. Rather, the two founders, both with finance backgrounds, conducted rigorous professional global and domestic market research and analysis before entering the chocolate market.
1. Chocolate is the largest category in global snack foods, with a 4 trillion global market, and chocolate accounts for 18%;
2. Benchmarking Japan, functional chocolate developed rapidly in 2016. Health-oriented and segmented chocolate occupied shelves, all from local brands, while in the Chinese market, which is the most referenced, segmented and functional chocolate is still blank.
3. Currently, chocolate shelves are occupied by global food giants, with zero Chinese brands. Compared to other categories, the chocolate track has very high brand concentration and is a strongly brand-driven category, requiring particularly high brand mind-share building capability.
Foreign brands have been deeply rooted in China for many years, but most are global giants. They benefit from but are also constrained by large and rigorous operating mechanisms and processes. Facing the rapidly changing Chinese market, they have not made significant changes in the past.
Lin Xi joked, **We are "China's hope of the whole village." With powers plundering, the market needs Daily Dark Chocolate.**
In July 2019, Daily Dark Chocolate entered the market with the dark chocolate category, continuing the brand mission of "Chocolate Makes Everyday Better," and launched the "Chun Cui Xiao Fang" professional-grade dark chocolate series. Outsiders might think dark chocolate is not the mainstream of the chocolate market, so why launch such a segmented product at the beginning?
Because in Lin Xi's view, the dark chocolate category has dual labels of "snack food" and "functional food" among chocolate consumers, and dark chocolate users also have the "elite" label. This is a fast-growing healthy segment.
Since Daily Dark Chocolate aims to build a great and lasting brand in the chocolate category, seizing the "high ground" of this category is a must, and we have a complete and clear path.
With "dark chocolate" as a foundation, in August 2020, Daily Dark Chocolate launched the first domestic milk chocolate series featuring "0 added" white sugar and high cocoa content, officially entering the mass market.
**-02-**
**Large-Scale Media Investment to "Smash" Out Brand Mind-Share**
As mentioned earlier, Daily Dark Chocolate's approach differs from other new brands; it started with a "high-profile, high-impact" strategy. Let's first look at what exactly it did:
1. Signed THE9-Liu Yuxin as spokesperson. Ranked first in the artist endorsement voice list in August, with over 600 million cumulative reads across the internet;
2. Sponsored top variety shows like "The Rap of China," "Non-Daily Party," "Trend Partner," and "Youth With You 3," plus iQIYI hardcore advertising positions;
3. Product placement in the annual fashion drama "Sheng Zhuang," and over ten TV dramas in 2021 and 2022;
4. Sponsor of major fashion events like "ELLE," "Marie Claire," "Esquire," China Film Festival, Shanghai Fashion Week, etc.;
5. Regular guest in live-streaming rooms of top e-commerce anchors like Li Jiaqi and Viya, and appeared on Luo Yonghao's Douyin live-stream debut, selling about 390,000 boxes in one session.
Celebrity endorsements, variety show collaborations, film and TV placements, fashion sponsorships—these were previously the tactics of giants. Such lavish spending actually appeared on a new brand less than two years old.
Some might say it's because they have money.
But in Lin Xi's view, that's not the case. It's because the category determines that to truly become a chocolate brand, Daily Dark Chocolate must do the above actions.
Lin Xi explained, **Chocolate is one of the few categories in food and beverages where consumers have extremely strong "brand mind-share." Similar categories include alcohol, coffee, and tea. Unlike instant food, where early marketing can be traffic-driven, consumers have an absolute brand decision tendency when it comes to a piece of chocolate.**
If we only consider traffic, it's unlikely to truly build brand mind-share. So we need to do all these omnichannel media investments. We hope to establish a three-dimensional, differentiated overall brand perception of chocolate.
**Occupying consumer category mind-share at the fastest speed is what Daily Dark Chocolate urgently needs to do now.**
Of course, compared to beauty and skincare or beverage tracks, other chocolate giants invest relatively less in media. This naturally gives us advantages in cost and terms.
For example, in beauty and skincare, competition for media resources is fierce, and prices rise accordingly. In the chocolate category, the absolute investment amount of big brands is much lower than other categories, and they focus more on offline channel marketing. At this time, media platforms can give us surplus traffic, which won't affect other clients and can also enrich the category structure.
In addition to the so-called big media, Daily Dark Chocolate is also a KA merchant on various emerging social media platforms. Through a multi-pronged approach, it ensures that young consumer groups can see and learn about Daily Dark Chocolate everywhere.
**In addition to brand momentum, Daily Dark Chocolate is also relentless in channel layout.**
Besides online Tmall and offline Hema, which are conventional channels for new brands, Daily Dark Chocolate's private domain and offline channel layout is also exceptionally fast.
According to Lin Xi, **As of now, Daily Dark Chocolate has entered mainstream convenience stores and some regional convenience stores nationwide, such as 7-11, FamilyMart, Tangjiu and Jinfu in Shanxi, and Hongqi Chain in the southwest. At the same time, with the help of Alibaba's Ling Shou Tong platform, the total number of offline terminals for Daily Dark Chocolate has reached over 100,000.**
Online, Tencent is also building Daily Dark Chocolate as the next Perfect Diary case. Through official accounts + communities + mini-programs, it has accumulated over 70,000 users.
These are the achievements of Daily Dark Chocolate in less than 2 years since its founding.
**-03-**
**Internal Comprehensive Capability + External Environmental Dividends**
Looking back at Daily Dark Chocolate's growth over more than a year, Lin Xi reflected that for a new brand, in the 0 to 1 stage, having just one strength might be enough.
For example, strong marketing capability, channel capability, or supply chain capability. With one capability, the brand can stand out and achieve sales of over 100 million. Through online traffic tactics, achieving the 100 million goal is relatively not difficult.
But in the 1 to 10 stage, it tests not just a single capability but comprehensive capabilities, especially in organizational development, branding, continuous product innovation, supply chain, and channel capabilities. Missing one makes it hard to cross this stage.
Fortunately, the past 7 years of brand operation experience and resource accumulation have allowed the team to master brand operation methodology in market practice, build a learning organization, and clearly know where the market breakthrough points are.
Of course, besides capabilities, Daily Dark Chocolate also rode on external environmental dividends.
**1. Macro environment:**
The inclusiveness of the post-95s Generation Z towards domestic brands, and the cultural confidence brought by economic improvement. In the past, post-80s consumers basically recognized foreign brands, "worshipping foreign things." But now post-95s and post-00s also think Chinese brands are cool.
This is the basic soil for innovative brands to survive.
**2. Micro environment:**
**First, the emergence of new social media.** Previously, building brand awareness might take 20 years, but now, Perfect Diary achieved listing in 3 years; Genki Forest's valuation was 12 billion three months ago, and three months later, it's over 30 billion.
This was completely impossible before, and capital markets didn't look at consumer goods because the cycle was too long. But due to the efficiency of new media, our contact with consumers is almost zero distance, shortening the cycle.
**Second, foreign giants find it difficult to regain young people.** Lin Xi told me that if you look closely, you'll see that in the chocolate category, big brands still use traditional tactics, especially in content creation and social media operation and investment. This gives Daily Dark Chocolate, which is agile in decision-making, more acute insight into new consumer groups, and better understanding of young people, the opportunity to capture new groups.
For us, in this category, the cost of grabbing existing users both inside and outside the platform is relatively low, but our greater value is attracting new groups and creating incremental market.
Speaking of the future, Lin Xi said that in the dark chocolate category, Daily Dark Chocolate will continue to deepen its efforts. In the future, the parent company will also build a brand matrix, focusing on the wellness market, and layout other categories.
Once "Daily Dark Chocolate" becomes a healthy, fashionable, and young chocolate brand in consumers' minds, the future brand extensibility will bring greater and more imaginative space. We look forward to Daily Dark Chocolate carving out a bright path in a market full of foreign giants like Dove and Ferrero!


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