Under the impact of the epidemic, layoffs, salary cuts, and even the
company's bankruptcy are nothing new. In the "wailing", the "maverick"
Wei Long came to a wave of contrarian operations. During the epidemic,
Weilong raised the wages of its employees, and after returning to work,
they increased their salaries by an average of 30%, and planned to
recruit 1,000 more workers for the Luohe factory in Henan.
How
did Weilong sell a fifty-dollar spicy strip on such a scale? Behind the
physique of Weilong Internet celebrity, what kind of organization and
system are supporting it? What enlightenment does this bring to today's
market? Behind the glory, quality problems are frequent and competitors
are eager to try. What kind of dangers and hidden worries does Weilong
have?
Weilong's founder Liu Weiping is from Pingjiang.
Weilong
Spicy Tiao was originally produced in a small workshop. Liu Weiping
will bring artificial meat and bean curd from his hometown, plus the
true traditions of his mother's dry sauce, to make products that are
"slightly sweet, slightly spicy, refreshing, and full of aftertaste",
which has received good response in the market. But the product at that
time was not the Weilong Spicy Tiao of today. The invention of Weilong
Spicy Tiao started with Liu Weiping's experience of eating noodles.
Once,
he accidentally bought a bowl of beef tendon noodles, and it tasted
very good. After inquiring, Liu Weiping found a small workshop and saw a
simple extruder for producing beef tendon noodles. He hurriedly paid
the deposit and asked the owner to improve the mold. After a week, the
product came out. They added some caramel and chili noodles to make "eel
sticks" that looked a bit like unagi, which was later called "
spicy sticks" by the people.
Around
2002, after improving equipment, the production of Weilong spicy beef
tendon noodles soared. In 2003, Liu Weiping registered the "Weilong
Weilong" trademark, and "Weilong Hot Strips" was officially born.
At
that time, there were many manufacturers of spicy noodles, all of which
were small workshops. But Liu Weiping didn't want to make a fuss. He
not only registered the trademark, but also changed the transparent
packaging of spicy strips to aluminum foil packaging, and generously
started the popularization of spicy strips.
He hired a large
number of farmers to push the land, and put posters and flags from the
supermarket to the small stalls. He also instilled spicy knowledge into
the common people through small street advertisements, writing soft
articles, and giving lectures on health knowledge.
Preliminary
market testing and expansion with ground-based promotion is not only
economical and affordable, but also has immediate results. Weilong soon
opened the Luohe market and began to expand to Zhengzhou, Henan
Province, and even the whole country.
In 2014, Weilong
invested a lot of money to establish the third production base of Weilai
Foods, and the production line of dry crispy noodles and konjac was
completed and put into production. Weilong adopts a fully automated
aseptic production workshop with food
Multihead WEIGHER,
and specially invited a professional team to take photos in the
production workshop. As the photos became popular on Weibo, more and
more consumers are paying for Weilong's clean, hygienic and modern
products.
In November 2015, Weilong Hot Strips appeared on
Amazon.com. Weilong has become another Chinese seasoning "luxury" after
Lao Ganma, earning enough attention at home and abroad.
In
2014, at a time of crisis of trust in the spicy strip industry, Weilong
cooperated with the live broadcast of the factory when completing the
renovation of its own
WEIGHER for spicy sticks,
and “washed white” the “junk food” spicy strips; in October 2015,
Weilong imitated "Trojan Dragon" Shooting spoof videos; Double 11
launched activities to find Scorpio around the theme of childhood
food... These activities quickly doubled Weilong’s sales, but more
importantly, Weilong established an emotional connection with users
through nationwide marketing and successfully crossed over Close the gap
between the brand and the user.
Today's users are no longer
satisfied with the boring action of buying things, but care more about
the sense of value the product brings. The consumption of luxury goods
is exactly this logic. Users buy not only a bag, but also the emotional
and value interactions in it. In the era of word-of-mouth communication,
only products that can trigger users to share can form a closed sales
loop. In an era related to elements such as bad taste, funny, and
entertainment, the continuous successful marketing two or three times a
year keeps Weilong active in the eyes of consumers.
In
general, Weilong has been relatively stable since its establishment.
Behind the creation of its internet celebrity physique, it is actually a
concentrated expression of user thinking. Through the continuous
creation and upgrading of production lines and products, thanks to the
fully automatic packaging machine, Weilong is also rectifying the name
of La Tiao, while also constantly building its own barriers to
competition in this low-end field. At the same time, through the
matching of people and goods, online and offline integrated sales
methods, and deep-level user emotional interaction, it provides a good
example for the industry.