---
title: "Giants Everywhere, Why Can These Brands Turn the Tide and Break Through?"
description: "The new consumption track, where brands rise and fall in rapid succession, has finally shed its illusory prosperity. After the smoke clears, a few occupy the heights while most face defeat. This article explores why some brands successfully break through in red oceans dominated by giants, while others are consumed by the Matthew effect, using case studies of Daily Dark Chocolate, Enoulite, Taishan Beer, and Langdi Calcium."
author: "New Distribution"
publisher: "New Distribution"
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published: "2022-08-01"
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# Giants Everywhere, Why Can These Brands Turn the Tide and Break Through?

> The new consumption track, where brands rise and fall in rapid succession, has finally shed its illusory prosperity. After the smoke clears, a few occupy the heights while most face defeat. This article explores why some brands successfully break through in red oceans dominated by giants, while others are consumed by the Matthew effect, using case studies of Daily Dark Chocolate, Enoulite, Taishan Beer, and Langdi Calcium.

The new consumption track, where brands rise and fall in rapid succession, has finally shed its illusory prosperity. After the smoke clears, a few occupy the heights while most face defeat.
In recent years, questions about the methodology of the new consumption track have never ceased—why can some brands successfully break through in the red ocean dominated by giants, while others are devoured by the Matthew effect? Why can some stand out in the brand melee, while others are essentially "holding a funeral" for their brands with large marketing budgets? Although there have been countless answers in the past, it is clear that most have been disproven.
We must admit that the "art era" of emotional mutation in the new consumption track has ended, and the rational "science era" is descending. We need to discard tinted glasses and the halo of new consumption to summarize calm and objective answers.
Today, we have selected several highly representative "breakthrough brands" and hope to find valuable lessons from their success trajectories.
**01 Daily Dark Chocolate: Taking a Different "Health" Path to Break Through the Siege of International Giants**
Many industries appear to be besieged by giants, but in reality, they are fraught with crises. If emerging brands can be the first to identify the industry's "weakness," they may become the "divine move" that overtakes on the curve.
The most typical example is the chocolate sector.
Chocolate is an imported product, long dominated by international players, with domestic brands largely unknown. **_Mars, with its Dove, M&M's, Snickers, and other brands, holds a 39.8% market share, dominating the market; Ferrero ranks second with 17.8%, followed by Nestlé, Hershey, and Mondelez with 9.7%, 8.6%, and 3% respectively, with international brands collectively holding over 90% of the market share._ **
But don't be intimidated by these numbers. Another reality is that in the post-pandemic era, while consumption of leisure snacks across all categories has increased significantly, only chocolate has "decreased instead of increased." In 2020, the domestic chocolate retail market size was 20.43 billion yuan, a decrease of nearly 2 billion yuan compared to 2019. As low-sugar, low-fat, low-calorie, and additive-free gradually become the new direction for young consumers' snack choices, chocolate, which is high in sugar, calories, and fat and not healthy enough, has been gradually abandoned by the market.
Although it may not be on the verge of collapse, it is enough for new brands to leverage and change the landscape. Daily Dark Chocolate seized this opportunity.
With unique vision and keen market perception, Daily Dark Chocolate rode the low-sugar and low-calorie consumption trend, precisely entering the market with dark chocolate as a sub-segment. Its products feature 0 white sugar and are enriched with high-fiber quinoa and nuts, reducing consumers' "guilt" about sugar intake, and vigorously promoting the health benefits of dark chocolate, including "can eat during weight loss." At the same time, it cleverly uses the product name to suggest the "daily" consumption scenario and frequency, solving the problem of low chocolate purchase frequency to a certain extent.
Of course, in addition to the precise grasp of the new health, low-sugar, and low-calorie trend, Daily Dark Chocolate's success also benefits from its precise product and marketing strategies.
Daily Dark Chocolate almost every year launches new products that young people love based on market consumption preferences. Its first product, Chuncui Dark Chocolate, which focuses on 0 added white sugar and high dietary fiber, was well-received upon launch. In 2021, it launched the oat milk dark chocolate series, and in the first half of this year, it launched the healthy snack "Corn Dark Chocolate Crisp" and co-branded new products like dark chocolate oat milk.
In addition, new categories such as Daily Silky Cocoa Mask, Dark Chocolate Cone, and Daily Dark Chocolate co-branded blind boxes also prove that Daily Dark Chocolate is constantly breaking the "chocolate boundary," expanding new consumption scenarios, and exploring more possibilities.
In marketing, Daily Dark Chocolate has played with various popular tactics. Besides announcing Wang Yibo as the global brand ambassador, it also sponsored top fashion magazines, the China Film Festival, Shanghai Fashion Week, and other fashion events, firmly linking its brand with youth, fashion, trend, and health.
In brand promotion, Daily Dark Chocolate has formed a strategic cooperation with Focus Media, the largest elevator media in China, bringing its oat milk dark chocolate series to the top 20 cities across the country for saturation attacks on mainstream audiences, continuously promoting the product features of "0 white sugar, 0 milk, pure plant-based formula" and the brand proposition of "pure plant-based formula, a new generation of healthy chocolate." The cooperation with Focus Media helped Daily Dark Chocolate break free from the label of "internet-famous brand" and establish mind share among the mainstream public.
**_According to data, since Daily Dark Chocolate's ads appeared on Focus Media, brand searches quickly surpassed head competitors. In just two months, cumulative ad exposure exceeded 2 billion, and Baidu search index increased by 926% year-on-year, winning more free natural traffic for the brand. During the Double 11 period that year, Daily Dark Chocolate topped the Tmall dark chocolate category sales, with total online sales across all channels increasing by 350% year-on-year._ **
Through product differentiation and marketing scale, Daily Dark Chocolate successfully equated chocolate with healthy snacks, completely overturning the traditional chocolate industry's perception. Within less than two years of launch, it became the top emerging brand in the Tmall dark chocolate category. Recently, Daily Dark Chocolate announced that it completed two consecutive rounds of financing exceeding 100 million yuan in the second quarter of 2022, showing great development potential.
More importantly, against the backdrop of 90% of the market share being monopolized by foreign capital, Daily Dark Chocolate's breakthrough has a benchmark effect on China's chocolate industry and even the new consumption track—**finding industry development gaps and taking a different path in tracks where giants cannot perfectly cover, attacking where they cannot defend, is one way for new brands to break through.**
**02 Enoulite: Breaking Through the Maternal and Infant Red Ocean to Build China's First Brand in Infant Complementary Food**
Many industries appear to be red oceans where old giants are firmly entrenched and new brands are constantly emerging, but in certain sub-segments, there is a lack of leading brands that can occupy the mainstream public's mind. If the latecomers can keenly find the breakthrough point and name to trigger an industry revolution, they may be able to sweep through like "overthrowing the local tyrants and dividing the land," unifying the market.
For example, the maternal and infant industry, which is growing at a compound annual growth rate of over 15% and is extremely popular.
Despite the broad prospects, the maternal and infant industry still hides many development shortcomings, the most typical being the complementary food sector. **Although new domestic complementary food brands have been emerging in recent years, the market is still occupied by international giants such as Heinz, Gerber, and Little Freddie.**
In addition, market education in the complementary food industry is not thorough enough, and authoritative guidance standards and scientific, healthy, and safe complementary food product solutions are also scarce. More importantly, no emerging brand has successfully reached the masses and become the first choice in mind. This gives Enoulite, which has been deeply involved in complementary food for 12 years, an opportunity to break through.
In 2019, Enoulite, from the perspective of "promoting the comprehensive popularization of the staged feeding concept for complementary food in Chinese families," jointly established the "China Infant Complementary Food Staged Feeding Science Popularization Guidance Working Group" with the Children's Nutrition Committee of the Chinese Maternal and Child Health Association, and initiated the writing project of the "China Infant Complementary Food Staged Feeding Guidance Manual."
In 2020, Enoulite, together with the Chinese Maternal and Child Health Association and multiple experts in children's nutrition, comprehensive pediatric medicine, and child health care, officially launched the "5-Stage Precision Feeding System." This scientific, revolutionary, and creative feeding system divides the complex and diverse complementary food products for new parents, helping consumers choose complementary food at different stages simply, efficiently, and at a glance, creating a worry-free and scientific new parenting experience. Enoulite's carefully crafted five-stage complementary food products thus smoothly entered the market.
In the same year, the "China Infant Complementary Food Staged Feeding Guidance Manual" was also officially released, reshaping the scientific feeding standards for infant complementary food.
To better educate the market, Enoulite has also put effort into publicity.
Under the new trend of content-based maternal and infant marketing, Enoulite has delved into different social platforms, using various content forms, combined with live streaming, Douyin challenges, Xiaohongshu KOL seeding, and other methods to accumulate initial brand power.
However, since online seeding cannot help the brand form a broad social voice, and with traffic dividends increasingly peaking, to further break the circle and reach the mainstream public, Enoulite chose to saturate the national Focus Media elevator screens, reaching consumers through high-frequency exposure in elevators of residential and office buildings they pass daily, and using the catchy slogan "Enoulite 12345" to seize the public's mind. Under the high-saturation offensive in 12 major cities across the country, the Enoulite brand quickly broke through the circle.
The promotion of the staged feeding concept and the Focus Media saturation helped Enoulite's brand voice and influence continue to surge. **_According to data, in the first half of this year, the industry as a whole had basically no growth, and Tmall infant complementary food even saw a negative growth of -9%. However, Enoulite was able to rise against the trend, with offline growth of 42%, Tmall growth of 43%, and JD.com growth of 51%, surpassing international giants Little Freddie, Gerber, and Heinz to become the top complementary food brand._ **
Recently, Enoulite announced a strategic cooperation with Focus Media to jointly promote the brand's continued leadership in the domestic complementary food track, comprehensively build regional leadership and national influence, and continuously strengthen the mind positioning of "staged complementary food = Enoulite."
Like Enoulite, seizing broad prospects while **decisively triggering an industry revolution and reshaping industry standards, making oneself the maker and executor of new standards, and establishing the brand's authority and mainstream influence, is also an effective breakthrough method for emerging brands.**
**03 Taishan Beer: Facing Death and Reborn, Daring to Transform, and Launching a Surprise Attack on the Five Giants**
Of course, not all brands can enter from the side. Under the Matthew effect, many companies are deeply mired in the quagmire of giant encirclement. **_For example, the beer track, dominated by the "five giants" of China Resources, Tsingtao, Budweiser APAC, Yanjing, and Carlsberg, leaves little room for other small and medium brands._ **
**_After years of low-price competition and mergers and acquisitions, the domestic beer industry structure is highly concentrated. As of 2020, the "five giants" accounted for 73% of sales and 65% of retail market share in the domestic beer market, leaving small and medium brands to survive in the cracks._ **
Taishan Beer, once sold due to poor management, has been forced to transform over the past decade or so. The key to its successful breakthrough lies in its forward-looking layout more than ten years ago and its bold and decisive brand strategy thereafter.
In 2010, Taishan Beer, which had been sold to Hucai Group and was confined to Shandong, began its forced transformation under the pressure of the giants' war. Chen Chengwen, the head of Hucai and a "layman" in the beer industry, unexpectedly noticed ale beer, which was popular among a small group of people at the time. This beer has a rich malt flavor and aroma, and compared to industrial beer with long shelf life and bland taste, its biggest feature is "freshness."
Chen Chengwen keenly observed the consumption needs of young people and successfully seized the differentiated path of "fresh beer," thus giving birth to Taishan "7-Day Fresh." Raw pulp, freshness, and a shelf life of only 7 days are the core advantages of Taishan Raw Pulp. However, due to the short shelf life and high frequency of replenishment, many distributors were unwilling to stock it, so Taishan Beer built its own specialty stores and logistics projects.
Despite the huge investment, it is precisely because of this that Taishan successfully broke through the layers of blockade by the giants and built its own channel network. Thanks to its production capacity and channel advantages, Taishan Raw Pulp became the first beer brand to provide consumers with "30-minute fresh delivery" service.
Differentiated products + direct-operated channels + self-owned logistics—Taishan Raw Pulp relied on these three axes to cut through thorns and expand all the way.
By the end of 2021, Taishan Raw Pulp channels had spread to 28 provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions including Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, covering 169 cities, with more than 2,300 stores. In 7 years, Taishan Raw Pulp achieved a compound annual growth rate of 33.5%, accounting for 60% of domestic sales of similar products, and forcibly tore open a gap under the encirclement of the five giants, representing small and medium brands.
Since then, Taishan Raw Pulp has decisively embarked on a comprehensive transformation and upgrading path.
To adapt to the rising new retail trend, Taishan Raw Pulp launched the "Taiyue Plan" at the end of last year, building a digital middle platform base to comprehensively improve operational efficiency, while setting the strategic goal of "thousands of cities and ten thousand stores."
In brand building, Taishan Raw Pulp has also undergone a comprehensive upgrade and focused on shaping its brand image. On the one hand, it invited well-known basketball coach Du Feng as spokesperson, seizing the strong correlation between beer and sports; on the other hand, it signed a three-year brand strategic cooperation with Focus Media to detonate the differentiated advantages of fresher beer and 30-minute fresh delivery among 400 million urban mainstream consumers, greatly enhancing brand momentum.
This move helped Taishan Beer's brand influence achieve an exponential leap, with "7-Day Fresh" and "28-Day Fresh" becoming products popular across the country, especially well-received among young people. Last year, Taishan Raw Pulp beer sales increased by 30%, achieving double-digit growth for five consecutive years, accounting for 60% of domestic sales of similar products.
In the Chinese beer market, which was previously dominated by industrialized lager beer and characterized by obvious homogenized competition, Taishan Beer took a different path with ale craftsmanship and short-shelf-life raw pulp, and through channel and logistics layout, broke through the giants' blockade, moving onto an independent and autonomous fast track of development.
Compared with the industrial beer giants that are difficult to turn around and have solidified consumer impressions, Taishan Beer successfully broke through with a light cavalry, becoming the new beer choice for more young people. **Accurately perceiving new consumption demands and daring to transform, boldly laying out channel networks, and decisively hitting the "vital point" of the giant python in brand strategy—this is the unique success secret Taishan Beer has contributed to the industry.**
**04 Langdi Calcium: Rooted in Localization, Establishing the Differentiated Positioning of "National Calcium"**
With the rise of the national trend, the current consumer market is no longer the era of "foreign monks chanting scriptures better." If domestic brands can establish localization strategies in product development and brand positioning based on local characteristics and consumption trends, it is also a major path to break through the encirclement of international giants.
For example, **_in the calcium supplement field, where the retail market size in China is as high as 20 billion yuan, most of the market share in the past was occupied by foreign brands such as Caltrate and D-Cal. Langdi Calcium's successful counterattack against giants is closely related to its local differentiated competitive strategy._ **
Langdi Calcium products were launched in 2009, providing sufficient and reasonable calcium supplementation for people of all ages, suitable for children, pregnant and lactating women, menopausal women, and the elderly, and helping prevent and treat osteoporosis.
To better promote the market and break the monopoly of giants, Langdi Calcium established the "National Calcium" positioning strategy in 2017. Based on the differences in Chinese people's dietary habits, lifestyle habits, physical characteristics, and calcium needs, it ultimately created a calcium supplement more suitable for the Chinese physique with a scientific ratio of 500mg elemental calcium: 200IU vitamin D3, and since then has jumped to become the most prescribed calcium supplement by clinicians.
Compared with international giants like Caltrite, Langdi Calcium's biggest advantage is that its products are more suitable for the Chinese physique, and its image cleverly mobilizes the national common sense of "one side of the water and soil nurtures one side of the people," making the brand naturally close to users and laying an unbreakable foundation for the brand's conquest.
To deepen public awareness, Langdi Calcium chose to reach a billion-yuan strategic cooperation with Focus Media in publicity. The slogan "Calcium more suitable for the Chinese physique" strongly covered more than 300,000 Focus screens, reaching 400 million urban white-collar middle class and mainstream consumers, achieving a big explosion of brand and market terminals. Especially during the epidemic, when many companies braked urgently, Langdi Calcium did the opposite, seizing the market, building the brand, and gaining share ahead of time, further consolidating mind share and expanding the market.
**_Under the three axes of localized products, national positioning, and high-frequency publicity, Langdi Calcium successfully defeated international brands such as Caltrate and D-Cal, and has held the top position in hospital calcium for many years, becoming China's "Calcium King." According to industry analysis, Langdi Calcium's retail market sales potential is expected to reach 6 billion to 8 billion yuan._ **
Undoubtedly, its localization strategy has been instrumental in surpassing international giants to become "China's No.1 Calcium."
**05 Conclusion**
What subverted traditional media was not another media form, but Toutiao with its technological algorithms; what dealt a heavy blow to the three major telecom operators was not another telecom company, but the free instant messaging software WeChat.
Just like the disruptive innovation in the internet world, almost all the breakers and revolutionaries in the new consumption track have also emerged from the margins, fighting their way out of insignificant markets and tracks. Large companies that are in the mainstream and have achieved success often find it difficult to detect, let alone resist.
**Creating new categories, opening new tracks, attacking where they cannot defend, and quickly occupying the mainstream public's mind with explosive media—this is almost the common answer for emerging brands that are still thriving in recent years.**
Those who over-rely on traffic without paying attention to brand building, those who have no differentiated product value and do not focus on R&D, and those who blindly compete with giants in the same track under the banner of national trend—all have, without exception, become dying or even abandoned by the times.
It is clear that those who intercept channels are merely "assassins," while those who occupy the source are the "revolutionaries." Just as the "royalists" cannot save the country in the end, only the revolutionaries can open a new path. The same is true for the new consumption track.
If there is no revolution at the source, no matter how flashy and arrogant the latecomers are, they will ultimately be unable to break through.


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