---
title: "From 400,000 to 8.5 Billion: You've Tasted Its Flavor, but Never Heard Its Legendary Story"
description: "Author: Li Dongyang Source: Chief Marketing Officer (ID: cmo1967) Original Internet Marketing First Media! Introduction: From beginning to end, a kingdom is not built in a day. From obscurity to household name, from bad timing to standing alone, from 400,000 to 8.5 billion. Strong Group owns multiple sub-brands including Crystal Love, cici, Good Times, and Youlemei. It is not only the largest producer and seller of instant seaweed and milk tea in China, but also the world's largest professional producer and seller of jelly pudding. Since its founding in 1993, Strong has written a legend in China's food industry over 23 years."
author: "李东阳"
publisher: "New Distribution"
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published: "2016-08-03"
language: "en"
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# From 400,000 to 8.5 Billion: You've Tasted Its Flavor, but Never Heard Its Legendary Story

> Author: Li Dongyang Source: Chief Marketing Officer (ID: cmo1967) Original Internet Marketing First Media! Introduction: From beginning to end, a kingdom is not built in a day. From obscurity to household name, from bad timing to standing alone, from 400,000 to 8.5 billion. Strong Group owns multiple sub-brands including Crystal Love, cici, Good Times, and Youlemei. It is not only the largest producer and seller of instant seaweed and milk tea in China, but also the world's largest professional producer and seller of jelly pudding. Since its founding in 1993, Strong has written a legend in China's food industry over 23 years.

> Author: Li Dongyang
>
> Source: Chief Marketing Officer (ID: cmo1967) Original Internet Marketing First Media!
Introduction: From beginning to end, a kingdom is not built in a day.
From obscurity to household name, from bad timing to standing alone, from 400,000 to 8.5 billion. Strong Group owns multiple sub-brands including Crystal Love, cici, Good Times, and Youlemei. It is not only the largest producer and seller of instant seaweed and milk tea in China, but also the world's largest professional producer and seller of jelly pudding. Since its founding in 1993, Strong has written a legend in China's food industry over 23 years.
1
## ******************From Nothing to Something: How a Legend Was Born******************
**If the timing is right, it's a job change; if the timing is wrong, it's a pitfall**
Strong Group was founded in 1993. Before that, its founder Li Yongjun, who had a background in food engineering, was a technician at a dairy factory in Shenzhen. He went to work and got off work on time every day. Life was stable but lacked creativity and surprises.
Jelly originated from the Western dessert pudding, made from fruit juice and seaweed extract. It is delicious, sweet, and attractive. Since the launch of China's first local jelly product in 1985, it has been a hot seller in the market, with supply falling short of demand. In the 1990s, Shenzhen's industry began to develop, with countless factories of all sizes, among which jelly factories were the most typical.
Against this backdrop, Li Yongjun saw the infinite development potential of the jelly industry. So he quit his nine-to-five technician job, pulled in his two brothers, and after raising 400,000 yuan in startup funds, he took steps toward the future jelly kingdom.
**You're not even married yet, where did you get a 'Xi Zhi Lang'?**
At first glance, "Xi Zhi Lang" sounds like a Japanese brand name, but in fact, this playful name comes from the transliteration of the English word "strong." It is said that the speaker has no intention, but the listener takes it to heart. Who would have thought that a casual "tease" would name the jelly kingdom 20 years later?
In the early days of the venture, the Li brothers named their product "strong," hoping on the one hand that their company would grow step by step, and on the other hand that children, the main consumer group, would be healthy and strong. However, using an English name directly would limit the development of the company and product to a certain extent, because the average English level of people at that time was not high. If consumers couldn't easily pronounce the name, it would inevitably hinder market promotion. Therefore, the brand name became the first stumbling block for the Li brothers.
His son kept saying "strong" every day, which puzzled his mother, who didn't understand English. "You're not even married yet, where did you get a 'Xi Zhi Lang'?" the mother asked casually. This question immediately woke the dreamer. Xi Zhi Lang, which sounds foreign yet has a Chinese flavor, was exactly the name he had been searching for.
**What if the timing is bad? What matters is 'substance'**
Although the name was settled, it seemed to come like a gust of wind: jelly production enterprises in Guangdong sprang up overnight. This made Strong face "bad timing" as soon as it was born. How to stand out in the fierce industry competition? The Li brothers began to think.
Strong positioned its main consumer group as children and innovated based on children's psychology. The most prominent manifestation was the difference in packaging compared to traditional jelly. The 200g large package containing a variety of fresh fruits not only met children's needs for multiple flavors but also took into account the "special situation" of children being greedy.
After extensive market research, Strong began to work on its brand proposition. Only when its brand proposition is widely recognized by consumers can it occupy the market and ensure product sales. Therefore, Strong took the lead in advertising, emphasizing "Jelly pudding, Strong" in its ads, so that when consumers think of jelly pudding, they first think of Strong, making it synonymous with jelly pudding.
2
## ******************Grow, My Jelly Kingdom******************
Many people think that Strong only has the Strong jelly product, but in fact, Crystal Love jelly, cici jelly drink, Happy Time chocolate, Good Times seaweed, and Youlemei milk tea are all citizens of the Strong jelly kingdom. In particular, Good Times and Youlemei often make consumers mistakenly think they are independent brands.
**The Good Times That Belongs to You and Me**
Seaweed is a natural marine food with high protein, high vitamins, and high mineral content. Its green and pollution-free characteristics coincide with contemporary people's demand for natural and healthy leisure food. After finding such a market gap, in early 2005, Strong welcomed its "Good Times."
Leveraging the group's capital advantages, Strong introduced the world's most advanced seaweed processing production line. With the organic promotion of the brand name, the product broke through the 100 million yuan mark within less than a year of launch, instantly revitalizing the stagnant domestic seaweed market. At that time, different brands and flavors of seaweed quickly appeared, and from then on, a new chapter in the domestic seaweed industry officially began.
**Only What Is Held in the Palm Is the Warmest**
In 2007, the domestic milk tea market showed an unprecedented boom. Strong, which has always been fond of developing sub-brands, assessed the situation and decisively joined the milk tea competition.
Unlike jelly products, Strong positioned the main consumer group of milk tea as young people. Therefore, both the product name and the choice of spokesperson were tailored to the preferences of young people. Hence, Jay Chou's affectionate confession-style advertisement "You are my Youlemei" came into being. When Jay Chou, singing softly, stepped off the stage and held a steaming cup of milk tea to say this line, it warmed the hearts of countless viewers.
**According to statistics, in 2013, more than 1.8 billion people drank Youlemei milk tea, with sales exceeding 3 billion yuan.**
3
## ******************Extreme Advertising, Visible******************
Strong spends nearly 90% of its budget on advertising. Due to the large number of ads, the public often thinks that its advertising investment is the highest in the industry, but in fact it is not. Strong pursues advertising art, so its masterful ads often achieve the effect of small budget and big returns.
**Consistent Style Is Basic**
Natural visuals, bright colors, warm atmosphere, and beautiful music are the unified style of Strong's series of advertisements. Through subtle influence, consumers have already remembered this style, and even mistake similar-style ads for Strong's ads.
**I Want Both Looks and Temperament**
Strong is very strict in selecting advertising spokespersons and actors. In addition to meeting the general aesthetic standards of the public, they must also have a healthy, positive, and sunny temperament.
**One Person, One Theme Song**
Each of Strong's advertisements has its own theme song. The beautiful and melodious tunes, combined with simple and popular lyrics, can be quickly spread among the public. The more they hear and sing, the higher the brand influence naturally becomes.
**Catching the Trend Train**
Keeping up with trends is a major feature of Strong's advertising. In 1998, when "Titanic" was showing nationwide, Strong launched the "Crystal Love" creative advertisement based on it, which became popular across the country overnight, making Crystal Love products a token of love for young people.
5
## ******************A Consistent Brand Heart: A Kingdom Is Not Built in a Day******************
A brand contains multiple factors such as corporate culture, philosophy, and personality. It is the core of an enterprise and represents its conscience. The value of a brand can only be reflected after it is spread.
As a leisure food enterprise, it is difficult to survive in the market for a long time solely by product processing technology. Only by organically integrating products with deeper emotions and culture can it stand firm. To this end, Strong strives to move consumers through family affection, spread the Chinese cultural concept of respecting the elderly and caring for the young, and skillfully transplant the brand impression of mass consumer goods and humanized emotional characteristics into consumers' cognitive minds. While effectively expanding its market base, it brings higher attention to its products.
Brand communication focuses on consumers' psychological cognition rather than the product itself, which allows Strong to establish an irreplaceable brand concept in a field of substitutable products.
With a keen market sense and careful cultivation of the enterprise, Strong's market share has been growing since 1998, reaching a peak of 70% market share.
To date, Strong has established modern production industrial parks in four locations: Yangjiang, Guangdong; Baoding, Hebei; Suining, Sichuan; and Lishui, Nanjing, covering a total area of over 1 million square meters. It has set up more than 40 branches and offices in over 20 provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions across the country. Its products are exported to Europe, America, Southeast Asia, and other overseas regions. It ranks among the top 500 Chinese brands and has become an out-and-out jelly kingdom.
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