Chow Tai Fook store
This article is reprinted with permission from Inspur Studios
"No three gold, no marriage", Chinese traditional concept, there are some important occasions in life, it is always indispensable to wear gold and silver.
Of course, the pursuit of precious metals by human beings is not lacking in pure love of beauty, or the purpose of investment preservation.
Whenever there is such a time, some people will be worried. It's not that the money in the pocket is not enough, but looking around, the whole commercial street is almost full of jewelry stores with the surname Of Zhou, Chow Tai Fook, Chow Sang Sheng, Chow Tai Sang, Zhou Da Fu, Zhou Bai Fu, Zhou Jinsheng, Chow Tai Fat...
Go into the store and take a look around, not only the product categories are highly similar, but even the shopping guide is uniformly dressed in black professional dress. Look left and right, half a day do not know which one to buy.
Why are so many jewelry stores surnamed Zhou? What is the relationship between these brands with the surname Zhou?
Who exactly is surnamed Zhou
Dazzling jewelry brand surnamed Zhou
Most people's intuition is that the surname Zhou must be related to the name of the person, most likely referring to the founder's surname.
I'm sorry, you only guessed a little bit right.
In fact, the vast majority of these jewelry stores called "Zhou XX" are not surnamed Zhou. For example, the founder of Saturday Fu is surnamed Li, the founder of Zhou Jinsheng is also surnamed Li, Zhou Baifu was founded by the Zhang family, the current controller is surnamed Ye, and the founder of Zhou Dafa is surnamed Ren.
Saturday Fu founded the surname Lee
Looking back at history, the earliest jewelry brands with the surname of "Zhou" are actually only Chow Tai Fook and Zhou Shengsheng.
As early as 1929, Zhou Zhiyuan, a native of Shunde, Guangdong, together with another friend, founded a gold shop named "Chow Tai Fook", and the official claimed to have borrowed two words from the traditional congratulatory phrase "Five Blessings Linmen, Great Wealth and Great Nobility", hoping that customers could associate status, wealth and good luck.
Subsequently, Zhou Zhiyuan's family moved to Macau due to the war, and the Golden Shop also moved. In the 1940s, Chow Chi Yuen developed the bank's business in Hong Kong, and the business grew bigger and bigger, and the first branch on Queen's Road was upgraded to the head office, and since then Chow Tai Fook has become a Hong Kong brand.
Today, Chow Tai Fook is not surnamed "Chow", but "Zheng", that is, the Zheng Yutong who is called the four richest people in Hong Kong along with Li Ka-shing. Zheng Yutong originally worked in Chow Tai Fook, because he had the brain to do business and was valued by Zhou Zhiyuan, became a door-to-door son-in-law, and has since embarked on the peak of his life.
In the 1960s, Mr. and Mrs. Zheng Yutong cut ribbons for Wannian Jewelry and provided a picture on the official website of Chow Tai Fook
Outdoor advertising bar
Zhou Shengsheng appeared a few years later than Chow Tai Fook, and the founder was named Zhou Fangpu, also from Shunde. But don't think about it too much, he is not related to Zhou Zhiyuan. The name Zhou Shengsheng, according to the official interpretation, refers to the image of "the cycle repeats, the life is endless".
Coincidentally, like Zhou Zhiyuan, Zhou Fangpu also moved his family to Macau during the war and spread the gold to Hong Kong. Later, his two sons split up, and Zhou Shengsheng was also divided into two. Among them, one of the two-bedroom houses has listed the brand operation, and the store has opened from Hong Kong to the whole country, and the other has changed its name to "Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao ZhanZhousheng", rooted in Hong Kong and Macao.
Zhou Junling, Zhou Junlian and Zhou Junren established Zhou Shengsheng Financial Bank Co., Ltd. in Hong Kong
To say that the real surname "Zhou" jewelry brand, in fact, there is another one, but it is a few decades later than Chow Tai Fook and Chow Sang Sheng.
At the end of the last century, a company called Zhou Dasheng appeared in Shenzhen, and the founder was also surnamed Zhou, that is, the brand name looked a little related to Chow Tai Fook and Zhou Shengsheng. So far, Zhou Dasheng has not officially made an explanation, but in an interview, a senior executive revealed that the company name is from the "I Ching" "Heaven and Earth Of Great Virtue Yuesheng", which means that the greatest morality between heaven and earth is to love life [8].
From this point of view, it is a coincidence that Chow Tai Fook, Zhou Shengsheng, and Chow Da Sheng are all surnamed "Zhou", so what about the other "Zhou XX"?
In fact, if you look closely, you will find that their names also have a special feature: they are inseparable from the three words of greatness, blessing, and birth.
Either use two words to arrange and combine, such as Zhou Shengfu and Zhou Fusheng; or take only one word and add other words to form a new word, such as Zhou Dafa and Zhou Duosheng. Fuzi is the most popular, there are Zhou Baifu, Zhou Xifu, Zhou Huafu, Zhou Xiangfu, Zhou Ruifu, Zhou Jinfu.
After half a day, the original jewelry store with the surname Zhou had to learn to compose words first.
"Week xx", go to war
Not only are the names similar, but the origins of some brands are also confusing.
For example, Zhou Jinsheng, whose official website introduced himself as a Hong Kong company, entered the mainland in the 1990s. However, in a document submitted to the Hong Kong Trademark Registry, the founder, surnamed Lee, mentioned that he founded the brand in 2005 and only entered Hong Kong the following year.
What is more interesting is that Zhou Jinsheng, who claims to be a Hong Kong enterprise, failed to successfully register a trademark in Hong Kong because of zhou shengsheng's opposition. At that time, Zhou Shengsheng directly accused Zhou Jinsheng of plagiarizing his own trademark.
This case is not unique. In fact, since Chow Tai Fook and Chow Sang Sang entered the mainland market 20 years ago, the "war" around trademarks between jewelry brands surnamed Zhou has never stopped.
In order to manage the brand image, Zhou Shengsheng only opened direct stores
On the judgment document online, enter the keywords of "Saturday Blessing", "Trademark" and "Infringement", and you can find 178 cases.
Among them, "Saturday Fu" sued "Saturday Fu", because the registered company behind the two brands, one is Hong Kong Saturday Fu Jewelry International Group Co., Ltd., the other is the Hong Kong Saturday Fu Gold and Diamond Jewelry Group, do not look carefully, can not distinguish at all.
There are also some "head iron" brands, which in turn accuse the plaintiffs.
A few years ago, Saturday Fu took Guangzhou Zhou Baifu to court, saying that the other party used his trademark on the product without permission. Chow Pak Fook was not convinced, and directly accused in court that Saturday Fook's becoming a famous brand stained the light of Hong Kong's Chow Tai Fook and should not be protected by law.
As a result, Chow Lost, and the charges against Sat Fook were not recognized, but the dispute did not end.
Hubei Yichang Zhou Baifu jewelry store
Some people found that the founder of Saturday Fu was actually a Li brother from Chaoshan and did not have the surname Zhou, and the official did not explain this. In the early days of publicity, Saturday Fu also had the labels of "founded in the early 18th century" and "Hong Kong brand", but in Hong Kong, the "Saturday Fu" company you can find was first registered in 2009. Today, the official website of Saturday Fu also has no shadow of "Hong Kong".
Hong Kong has always been one of the epicenters of the jewellery trade in Asia and indeed in the world
Shenzhen sample released globally
Shenzhen sample on the shelves in Hong Kong. Big Book City website
The full text was published on the "Jade Art" WeChat public platform.