On April 8, 2025, Chubang, the core brand of Zhongju Hi-Tech (600872.SH), officially announced Nicholas Tse as its brand ambassador. This move quickly became a hot topic in the condiment industry, attracting widespread attention.

Initial Success of Celebrity Strategy

Over 200 Million Brand Exposures in One Week

Analysis reveals that "Chubang + Nicholas Tse" is a precise decision with high alignment between brand tone and target audience.

Nicholas Tse has achieved remarkable success in his acting career, having portrayed numerous classic roles. Over the years, his dedication and professionalism have won widespread recognition.

At the same time, Tse has deep expertise in the culinary field. With his passion for cooking and dedication to research, he holds the title of "Friend of Michelin," making him a well-respected and talented artist in the culinary circle.

Many of Tse's notable traits complement Chubang's brand image of pursuing high quality and focusing on cooking and seasoning, making him the ideal choice for Chubang's celebrity endorsement strategy.

Tse's massive fan base in the entertainment and culinary circles highly overlaps with Chubang's core customer profile. The announcement quickly attracted significant attention, successfully converting Tse's fan traffic into interest and discussion about the Chubang brand.

The "Nicholas Tse Endorses Chubang" event quickly became a hot topic highly watched by both the condiment industry and consumers. Data from communication monitoring shows that within one week of the announcement, "Nicholas Tse endorsement" brought over 200 million brand exposures to Chubang. The significant communication effect fully demonstrates that Chubang's celebrity strategy has achieved initial success.

The promotional campaign for Nicholas Tse's endorsement of Chubang did not stop there. Three weeks later, Tse held a large-scale concert after a 20-year hiatus, and the news quickly went viral across the internet. The concert not only sold out but also drew huge crowds, creating a phenomenal communication effect.

The concert's popularity and the brand endorsement created a strong communication resonance. Chubang's official social media actively interacted with fans, once again reaping a wave of endorsement traffic dividends. During the concert, Chubang's brand information was further disseminated through Tse's influence, deepening brand awareness among both live audiences and fans following online.

This series of events shows that Nicholas Tse, as Chubang's brand ambassador, has fully unleashed his commercial value, providing strong support for Chubang's brand communication. He not only brings exposure through his own traffic but also endorses Chubang's brand quality with his professional image in the culinary field, helping Chubang more effectively reach target consumer groups and enhance brand awareness and reputation in the market.

Performance Rises Against the Trend

Chubang's Reform Results Gradually Emerge

During the critical period of Chubang's brand strategy transformation, its parent company Zhongju Hi-Tech released its 2024 annual report, demonstrating a positive development trend.

According to the annual report data, in 2024, the company achieved annual operating revenue of 5.519 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 7.39%; net profit attributable to the parent company excluding non-recurring gains and losses reached 671 million yuan, a significant year-on-year increase of 27.97%; net cash flow from operating activities reached 1.088 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 29.20%.

Particularly noteworthy is that Zhongju Hi-Tech's net profit attributable to the parent company excluding non-recurring gains and losses reversed its decline for the first time in nearly four years. This data change marks a significant improvement in the profitability of the condiment business after bold reforms by the new management team.

In recent years, the FMCG industry has seen intensified competition in the existing market and a trend of consumption downgrade. Although Chubang, as a leading enterprise in China's condiment industry, has ranked second in soy sauce sales for many years, it has inevitably been affected by the market environment.

Coupled with the previous complex equity disputes and some remaining issues to be resolved, Chubang faced many challenges in its development. However, Chubang has demonstrated strong operational resilience in a complex market environment.

In terms of brand influence, facing consumption downgrade, condiments are daily necessities. Chubang, with its deep national brand recognition and product advantages, has firmly secured a place in the market.

Although consumers are more pragmatic in their purchasing behavior, they still maintain high loyalty to products with reliable quality and trusted brands. Chubang has seized this consumer psychology to maintain its market position.

In channel construction, in 2024, Chubang comprehensively optimized its channel layout, further sorting out and improving its relationship with distributors. According to data released by Zhongju Hi-Tech, the company added 470 net new distributors in 2024, bringing the total number of distributors to 2,554 at the end of the period. The expansion of channels provides strong support for product market coverage and helps improve product market penetration.

In product layout, Chubang precisely positioned itself in the health track, fully leveraging product advantages and continuously launching new products to capture market share. In 2024, a total of 29 new products were launched, covering soy sauce, oyster sauce, chicken essence powder, cooking wine, and other categories. Among them, Chubang's 30% Less Salt Premium Light Soy Sauce performed outstandingly. With the support of Nicholas Tse's endorsement, this product became the first promoted product after the endorsement.

Due to the high overlap between Tse's fan base and Chubang's target users, the promotional slogan "Health is key, remember to reduce salt" successfully converted traffic into actual sales with the help of over 200 million exposures, laying the foundation for Chubang to further expand its user base.

Celebrity Chef Helps Upgrade

Brand Image Transformation

Nicholas Tse's appointment as Chubang's brand ambassador not only brought attention but also had a broad and positive impact on brand upgrading.

Since 2024, Chubang has been committed to reshaping consumers' perception of the brand, shifting from the previous single impression of "Chubang = soy sauce" to a new image of "Chubang = kitchen condiments."

To this end, Chubang created the "2024 Chubang Family Festival" IP, building a multi-scenario, multi-level product supply system around healthy seasoning products such as "less salt" and "organic."

Driven by the core product Chubang soy sauce, the "less salt" series of condiments has become a new performance growth point. In 2024, Zhongju Hi-Tech sold 723,500 tons of soy sauce, accounting for 61.44% of condiment revenue; chicken essence and chicken powder, and edible oil accounted for 13.89% and 11.67% respectively. The industrial structure is gradually developing from single to diversified and healthy.

In 2025, Chubang continues to make efforts to improve its brand image by integrating food culture to enhance user experience, thereby achieving further brand upgrading. As the first Chinese "Friend of Michelin" in the century-long history of the Michelin Guide, Tse's identity injects professional food genes into the Chubang brand.

Tse's endorsement not only becomes an intangible asset of the Chubang brand, integrating into Chubang's food culture, but also brings product premium and consumption scenario upgrades, positively impacting consumers' purchase impulse and usage experience.

For example, when consumers see a bottle of less-salt soy sauce and imagine it in the hands of a Friend of Michelin, then placed in their own kitchen, they will have different experiences and associations with its color, aroma, and taste, greatly enhancing the product's added value.

From Condiment Sales

to Food Solution Provider

"Creating a New Chubang" is an ambitious strategic blueprint that Zhongju Hi-Tech is continuously advancing. This strategic goal determines that Chubang will inevitably continue to focus on the food market, deeply develop the commercial B-end, and achieve the transformation from "pure condiment sales to providing food solutions", opening up broader development space in the catering and commercial fields.

(Chubang leverages Nicholas Tse's influence to carry out communication activities)

Nicholas Tse's endorsement will help Chubang break through the boundaries of traditional condiment marketing, accelerate penetration in the B-end and catering market, and effectively improve brand cooperation conversion rates. With the "Chef Nic" food IP created through "Chef Nic," Tse has established a professional image as a "food explorer" in the global Chinese community.

This image helps Chubang enhance its brand height in the catering industry and change the traditional impression of condiment enterprises as "behind-the-scenes suppliers."

Currently, Chubang is rapidly building the cognitive label of "professional catering solution provider" from multiple aspects to attract cooperation from B-end customers such as chain catering enterprises and hotel groups. In addition, Tse's international influence and the overseas layout of the "Chef Nic" IP provide strong strategic support for Chubang's expansion into the overseas Chinese food market.

From the series of events surrounding Chubang's official announcement of Nicholas Tse as brand ambassador, it is evident that Chubang's multi-dimensional layout in brand marketing, product placement, channel expansion, and strategic transformation is beginning to show results.

In the highly competitive condiment market, Chubang has injected new vitality into its development through precise endorsement decisions, continuous product innovation, effective channel optimization, and clear strategic transformation.

In the future, whether Chubang can further consolidate its advantages in the market with these measures and achieve the strategic goal of "creating a new Chubang" deserves continued industry attention. Its development path also provides reference experience for other condiment enterprises and even FMCG companies, offering certain reference value in brand building, market expansion, and strategic planning.