---
title: "Sishijiu Fang: A New Species in the Liquor Industry Making Baijiu Full of Imagination"
description: "A group of outsiders crossed over to stir up Chinese baijiu. Is it really a foregone conclusion that traditional famous liquors dominate the mid-to-high-end market? Perhaps it was, but a special liquor company has suddenly made the answer uncertain. What makes this company special? First, it was founded in 2015 when others avoided baijiu, a typical contrarian investment. Second, its shareholders are all natural persons, numbering 49, hence the name 'Sishijiu Fang'."
author: "陈思廷"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2021-12-03"
language: "en"
canonical: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/sishijiu-fang-a-new-species-in-the-liquor-industry-making-baijiu-full-of-a094185a/"
markdown: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/sishijiu-fang-a-new-species-in-the-liquor-industry-making-baijiu-full-of-a094185a.md"
original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/FCpkEEJdBEFmvv8MjOmqlg"
translation: "https://xinjignxiao.com/zh/articles/%E8%82%86%E6%8B%BE%E7%8E%96%E5%9D%8A-%E9%85%92%E4%B8%9A%E6%96%B0%E7%89%A9%E7%A7%8D%E8%AE%A9%E7%99%BD%E9%85%92%E5%85%85%E6%BB%A1%E6%83%B3%E8%B1%A1%E5%8A%9B-a094185a.md"
attribution: "New Distribution — https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/sishijiu-fang-a-new-species-in-the-liquor-industry-making-baijiu-full-of-a094185a/"
usage_policy: "https://xinjignxiao.com/ai-policy.txt"
---

# Sishijiu Fang: A New Species in the Liquor Industry Making Baijiu Full of Imagination

> A group of outsiders crossed over to stir up Chinese baijiu. Is it really a foregone conclusion that traditional famous liquors dominate the mid-to-high-end market? Perhaps it was, but a special liquor company has suddenly made the answer uncertain. What makes this company special? First, it was founded in 2015 when others avoided baijiu, a typical contrarian investment. Second, its shareholders are all natural persons, numbering 49, hence the name 'Sishijiu Fang'.

******A group of outsiders crossed over to stir up Chinese baijiu**
Is it really a foregone conclusion that traditional famous liquors dominate the mid-to-high-end baijiu market? Perhaps it was, but a special liquor company has suddenly made the answer uncertain.
What makes this company special?
First, it was founded in 2015 when others avoided baijiu. In 2015, Chinese baijiu was still in deep adjustment, and even Wahaha's investment in Lingjiang Guojiu was struggling. This was a typical contrarian investment.
Second, its shareholders are all natural persons, numbering 49, hence the company name 'Sishijiu Fang'.
Third, most of the 49 shareholders are IT business elites, almost all outsiders to the baijiu industry.
At that time, no one could have imagined that Sishijiu Fang, which exuded an amateurish aura from head to toe, would profoundly affect the Chinese baijiu industry six years later. Perhaps even few of the 49 founding shareholders could have imagined it.
Previously, Sishijiu Fang was very low-key, rarely advertising publicly and not entering mainstream baijiu sales channels. The public knew little about it, making it seem mysterious. It looked like Sishijiu Fang just wanted to be a niche brand within its circle.
However, some numbers gradually brought it into the public eye: since its founding six years ago, it has achieved a compound annual growth rate of 116%, with sales exceeding 1 billion yuan in fiscal year 2019 and over 2 billion yuan in fiscal year 2020.
**In just six years, a new mid-to-high-end baijiu brand completed the leap from 0 to 2 billion yuan,** which is indeed hard to imagine. This high-speed growth rate is difficult to see through and even harder to understand.
Sishijiu Fang, a sixth-grade student in Chinese baijiu, has reopened the imagination space for Chinese baijiu with such achievements. It has proven that in the baijiu industry, even in the mid-to-high-end market where traditional famous liquors are most concentrated, there are still opportunities and space.
Sishijiu Fang's innovation and staged success have given great encouragement to baijiu entrepreneurs. At the same time, because of such cases, Chinese baijiu is full of vitality and attractiveness.
******Supporting Sishijiu Fang's 2 billion with user-centricity**
The dominance of traditional famous liquors in the mid-to-high-end baijiu market is not just talk.
According to data from listed baijiu companies in the first three quarters of 2021, 17 of the 19 listed companies achieved double-digit growth. The combined revenue of Moutai and Wuliangye alone reached 124.3 billion yuan, accounting for nearly 30% of the entire industry's market share. This does not even count other Chinese famous liquors and regional famous liquors.
So, what is the competitive logic of famous liquors?
The competitive logic of famous liquors is to establish product premium space through continuous refinement and dissemination of history, culture, craftsmanship, origin, and fermentation pits, shaping a brand value hierarchy that makes consumers look up to and worship high-end brands.
Then, through business social drinking scenarios, consumers gain the experiential value of high-end products.
This is a powerful closed loop. By building the brand and raising prices to increase value, then monetizing through business social scenarios, manufacturers' profits continue to grow, and consumers gain face value experience.
Can Sishijiu Fang compete with famous liquors following this logic? Obviously not. Sishijiu Fang found a brand logic that goes against the grain.
To maintain noble brand value, traditional famous liquors must continue heavy advertising investment, need multi-level channels for distribution, and need continuous price increases to meet the price increase expectations of all levels of channels. They have to distance themselves from consumers to maintain mystery and the brand hierarchy.
**Sishijiu Fang chose internet thinking, userism, and getting closer to users. This is a competitive logic completely opposite to that of famous liquors.**
In the classic 4C marketing theory system, it is user-value-centered, communicating with users through the brand, and providing users with products and services that maximize value in the most convenient way.
**First, look at the product level.**
The baijiu products on the market are mixed, especially sauce-flavored liquor, which is full of fakes. When users cannot tell the difference, they naturally vote with their feet. How does Sishijiu Fang solve this problem? It educates users over the long term to identify good and bad liquor scientifically, whether it is pure grain liquor, and deeply involves users, enhancing user cognition through diverse user experiences.
At the same time, over six years, Sishijiu Fang invited more than 100,000 users to visit and experience the Moutai town distillery, lifting the veil of mystery and returning the right to know to users.
**Second, look at the sales level.**
Based on the model of crowd-creation, community, and social interaction, Sishijiu Fang connects users online and offline, with the core of creating value, straightening out relationships, and solving problems. It deeply involves users in experiencing, learning, sharing, and empowering.
**Third, in terms of consumer culture.**
The brand culture core of Sishijiu Fang is the way of 'faith and righteousness', advocating a consumer culture of mutual respect, toasting, discussing philosophy over wine, and making friends through wine, truly achieving heart-to-heart interaction and a happy life.
In offline community gatherings organized by Sishijiu Fang, it often encourages everyone to take turns bringing a glass of wine, speaking in turn, sharing cognitive surplus, and experiencing the good life of good wine, tea, food, and goods.
▲ Mr. Zhang Chuanzong, Founder of Sishijiu Fang
Zhang Chuanzong believes that Sishijiu Fang's major contribution to the baijiu industry is user thinking. "Users need high-quality products, so we adhere to quality and make good products; users need high cost-performance, so we empower efficiency with technology; users need good experiences, so we continuously provide better user experiences. We are close to users, make friends with them, and user supremacy is our soul and foundation."
After six years of insisting on making friends with users, Sishijiu Fang has built more than 5,000 new retail terminals nationwide through crowd-creation, community, and social methods. This includes 2,000 new retail experience stores and 3,000 non-store terminals.
Based on the new retail system built around userism, Sishijiu Fang has created a basic foundation to compete in the baijiu world.
Jiang Nanchun, founder of Focus Media, used 'new and old, light and heavy, fast and slow' to evaluate how Sishijiu Fang achieved today's results.
**The so-called 'new and old'** means using new thinking, new models, and new culture to operate the market on one hand, while adhering to original production areas and brewing techniques on the other.
**The so-called 'light and heavy'** means the light part is using internet thinking and crowd-creation models to quickly complete the construction of 5,000 new retail terminals, while the heavy part is investing all financing into heavy-asset production capacity construction.
**The so-called 'fast and slow'** means pursuing extreme speed in user response, system construction, and innovation iteration, but having enough patience and persistence in pursuing results, not afraid of being slow or waiting.
******Inheritance and innovation, creating a new species in the liquor industry**
With 600 million yuan in Series B financing, sales exceeding 2 billion yuan, and a large-scale basic foundation, can Sishijiu Fang rest easy?
Fang Hongbo, chairman of Midea Group, once publicly stated, "We used to talk about moats, but now I say absolutely, no company has a moat anymore."
In today's business world, industry boundaries are severely blurred, as proven by Sishijiu Fang, whose founding team comes from the IT world. All business changes in various industries also show that moats have disappeared.
Without a traditional moat, corporate strategy must be clear enough to go far. On November 30, Sishijiu Fang held its 3.0 strategic upgrade launch conference in Shanghai, where founder and CEO Zhang Chuanzong announced the core 3.0 strategy: **"Adhere to quality, empower with technology, and put users first."**
In Zhang Chuanzong's plan, starting from July 1, 2021, the company plans to complete the 3.0 strategic development phase in three to five years, which he calls 'Flying Dragon in the Sky'.
▲ Mr. Zhang Chuanzong, Founder of Sishijiu Fang
The basic goal of the 3.0 phase is to expand production capacity to 50,000 tons in the next 3-5 years, make the brand move from niche to public, form a strong and complete system from front-end to middle and back-end, and become a benchmark for new species in the Chinese liquor industry. The core of becoming a new species in the Chinese liquor industry lies in the 12-character strategy: "**Adhere to quality, empower with technology, and put users first**".
So what major actions will Sishijiu Fang take in the 3.0 strategic phase? It can probably be summarized by these twelve characters: "**Adhere to quality, empower with technology, and put users first**".
**First, on the production side, adhere to quality.**
After in-depth research on brewing, the Sishijiu Fang team found that the best transformation for liquor is to adhere to ancient methods, stick to tradition, and do a good job of inheritance.
The sauce-flavored liquor brewed by ancient methods is very particular, such as adhering to the core production area of Moutai town, the traditional 12987 process, and three parts brewing, seven parts storage. Only in this way can a true sauce-flavored liquor be brewed. At the product process level, the 3.0 strategy of Sishijiu Fang emphasizes the importance of adherence, persistence, and inheritance.
To ensure quality, Sishijiu Fang exhausts its existing resources and plans to build two single-unit annual production capacity of 10,000 tons in the core area of Moutai town. To build a larger distillery, Sishijiu Fang first starts with high-end talent, forming a dream team.
At the launch conference, Sishijiu Fang solemnly announced the appointment of Sun Yue, former vice chairman and president of Luzhou Laojiao Group, as chairman of the liquor business. When talking about why he joined Sishijiu Fang, Sun Yue, a famous liquor industry leader, said he had been thinking about who is most likely to achieve a breakthrough in Chinese baijiu today. He found the answer in Sishijiu Fang, believing it is a company that truly belongs to the future.
▲ Mr. Sun Yue, Chairman of Sishijiu Fang Liquor Industry
Sun Yue believes that a company's success depends on sales in the short term, brand in the medium term, and quality and culture in the long term. His mission at Sishijiu Fang is to calm down, polish bit by bit, return to the essence, brew a good bottle of liquor, and make the IP of 'good brewer' land and be worthy of the name.
Although Sishijiu Fang is young, it is rapidly becoming a large company. Sun Yue has served as vice president of marketing at Tsingtao Brewery Group and vice chairman and president of Luzhou Laojiao Group. His extremely rich group management experience will make Sishijiu Fang's path to becoming a large company more stable.
Previously, Sishijiu Fang also invited Liang Bangchang, one of the doyens of the Chinese liquor industry, as chief technology officer, and Chen Mengqiang, a master of Chinese baijiu craftsmanship, as chief engineer.
The addition of the best talents in the Chinese liquor industry has given Sishijiu Fang a huge boost at the product level.
At the launch conference, Sishijiu Fang's full product line (Taidou, Zongshi, Xiake, Yibootian) was unveiled, and the Taidou liquor big single product strategy was announced.
The four upgraded products, with Taidou liquor as the core, not only ensure and continuously upgrade the quality of the liquor body but also enhance the sense of value and recognition in product packaging design.
**Second, empower with technology.**
Sishijiu Fang plans to gradually implement user digitalization, channel digitalization, marketing digitalization, and production intelligence over three years, based on industrial internet to connect front, middle, and back ends and achieve efficient response.
Through technology empowerment, it will connect production, supply chain, sales, and users, realize the reconstruction of people, goods, and scenes, and create a new retail system formed by tens of thousands of new retail terminals. At the same time, Sishijiu Fang also plans to embrace traditional channels and jointly build a new retail system.
**Third, put users first.**
Sishijiu Fang has come this far because of users, and its gene is user thinking.
The so-called user thinking means you respond to the call of users, deeply explore and meet their real needs. When users say they need a fast horse, you can deliver a car. That is true insight into user needs.
**The first point of user supremacy is product extremism, being a good brewer.** The Taidou liquor launched at this conference underwent deep closed testing of 500,000 bottles and 25 million cups over the past year before being released to the market.
Products like Sishijiu Fang's, with extensive user participation, must have good quality, otherwise they will definitely be abandoned by the market. Therefore, the spirit of obsessing over products has become the starting point for all actions under the principle of user supremacy.
**The second point of user supremacy is getting closer to users.** Sishijiu Fang originated from users and achieved success through users. It does not need to distance itself from users to maintain mystery.
On the contrary, Sishijiu Fang will hold more frequent experience activities around user experience in the future. In Zhang Chuanzong's words, it aims to be the company closest to users.
**The third point of user supremacy is that users are not static, and Sishijiu Fang's user experience design is not static either.** It is also a process of discarding the old and embracing the new. In the past few years, Sishijiu Fang has absorbed the essence from Huawei's employee stock ownership, Xiaomi's fan economy, and OPPO/VIVO's manufacturer-dealer integrated new business concepts, experiencing, participating, and co-creating with users.
Adhering to inheritance and boldly innovating, Sishijiu Fang's 3.0 strategy clearly defines the boundary between 'change' and 'unchanged'. It is not change for the sake of change, but appears more calm and mature strategically.
The so-called new species is itself an organism that grows every day, changes every day, and iterates and improves itself every day. The brand moves from niche to public, channels flow from inland rivers to the sea, and products integrate from innovation to mainstream. Zhang Chuanzong believes that corporate strategy needs to continuously evolve.
When will Sishijiu Fang's 3.0 strategy be considered successful? In addition to quantitative indicators, it will be successful when it can enter the public eye with a clearer image and be remembered by the public.
For those focused on researching and reporting excellent FMCG brand cases, if you need to communicate, you can long press to add WeChat. When adding, please indicate your company, position, and name.
**Are you 'watching' me?**


---

## Copyright and AI use

This article is sourced from New Distribution. Search, quotation, summarization, and model training are permitted, but every use must credit New Distribution and retain the canonical source URL.

Contact: zhaobo258@gmail.com · +86 158 5481 7671