The former cake king, can you still roll in?

Image source @ Visual China

Wen | Fast Knife Finance, the author | Zhu Mo

When the absurd is refracted into reality, any impossible bizarre bridge becomes real.

Good Fury, Sweet Star, Dandelion, Heart Shore... Who would have thought that these "cottage" cake shops with a strong taste actually have a common "predecessor" - Holly Lai.

As a domestic baking leader, Hollywood once had stores all over the country, with a direct chain of up to 1,000 stores. At its peak, Holly sold more than 2 billion yuan in the coming year and could sell 30 tons of birthday cakes and bread every day.

However, it is this national brand that has accompanied the growth of a generation, but in recent years has been caught in various negative storms. First, the founder Luo Hong was accused of being obsessed with photography, which led to the stagnation of Holley's development; then because of internal contradictions, the co-founders were separated and cut, and the brand was renamed in a large area, making a lot of noise; just last year, Holly lai was also involved in the death of the "Adventure King" in Tibet, and could only call the police to stop the rumors.

In addition to internal worries, there are also external troubles. According to relevant data, the current market size of the mainland baking industry is about 230 billion yuan, and the future potential market space can reach 470 billion yuan, which is the second largest baking market in the world after the United States.

Under the wind outlet, the entrants can be described as the successor. The "aura" on the head of Holly is becoming eclipsed by the pursuit of the back waves.

Lan Yin, the cake king of the past, can he still roll in?

01 Unintentionally inserting willows on the road of entrepreneurship, the internal franchise system laid the bane

The opportunity to start a business often comes from the inspiration between the electric light and flint, and the story of "Holly" begins in this way.

In 1991, in order to celebrate her mother's birthday, Luo Hong ran through almost all the cake shops in Ya'an City, Sichuan Province, but finally returned disappointed, and the huge city could not buy a satisfactory cake. Disappointed, a bold idea came to mind: why not open a good-looking and delicious cake shop yourself.

Luo Hong quickly put her ideas into action, and the "Xililai" (the predecessor of Holly lai) cake shop was officially opened, and the fashionable decoration style and new and delicious pastries made the business quickly catch fire.

By chance, Luo Hong's brother returned to Ya'an from Nanjing to visit his relatives, and was surprised by the cake shop opened by Luo Hong, believing that its standard was not inferior to that of some sign shops in first-tier cities, and advised him to boldly go out. After detailed discussion, Luo Hong set the location in Lanzhou, because cake desserts are still rare in the great northwest, and the market demand is large and there are few opponents.

In 1992, Luo Hong resolutely sold the house, staked all his belongings, and opened the first Hollywood cake shop in Lanzhou. Along with the founders of the brand, there are two brothers and friends who have generously donated money to Luo Hong.

On the eve of the opening, seeing that the renovation is nearing the end, the load-bearing wall of the store has suddenly collapsed, and all the previous investment is about to be destroyed. Fortunately, with the full efforts of everyone to remedy, Hollywood's first store was opened as scheduled.

On the opening day, there was a scene of explosion in Hollywood, and the clerk was in a hurry to resist the counter with two thick wooden sticks to prevent it from collapsing. Lanzhou Holly Lai was a great success, and its sales in the first year reached more than 2 million yuan.

By 1999, Hollyoaks had opened chain stores in more than a dozen cities across the country, ranking among the top players in the domestic baking industry.

However, the crisis came unexpectedly. In the northeast market, due to people's superstition that "99" birthday is unlucky, few people buy cakes this year, and Hollywood has suffered a large loss. At present, Luo Hong had to break his wrist, and nearly 1,000 employees were laid off eight hundred.

After painfully thinking about it, Luo Hong found the "golden key" to break the game - the internal franchise system. Luo Hong divides the Hollylai stores across the country into different areas by region, and hands them over to different co-founders to operate independently (employees who have worked in Hollylai for more than 8 years and have excellent performance can also apply to join), as for the costs and benefits, franchisees can be accounted for separately.

In Luo Hong's view, this kind of "endogenous" expansion can not only inspire people's hearts, but also incorporate the product quality of each store into the unified quality control requirements. After all, the baking industry is of a special nature, once the franchise is released, it is easy to produce uneven taste, hygiene, and production levels, as long as there is a problem, it is difficult to save the reputation.

It is also thanks to the rejection of external franchises that Holly's development in the baking industry is a thousand miles ahead. From 2002 to 2004, Hollywood won the double crown of national mooncake and cake sales with strong strength, and became a "big Mac"-like existence.

However, success is also Xiao He, and defeat is also Xiao He. At that time, Luo Hong did not expect in his dreams that this new system that would turn the tide of the tide would become the "fuse" of future divisions.

02 In the crisis, internal contradictions intensified, and parting ways became an inevitable end

In 2003, after Hollywood's headquarters moved from Shenyang to Beijing, Luo Hong, who believed that everything was on the right track, decided to "let go" of the cake business and turned his personal focus to his former love- photography.

This is also the most controversial part of Luo Hong's body. China's first generation of well-known private entrepreneurs still maintain a state of diligence to this day, while Luo Hong is just the opposite, and even some "do not do the right thing".

In order to "get out" as soon as possible, Luo Hong found an experienced professional manager for Hollywood, responsible for controlling the daily affairs of the company, and she plunged into the world of photography.

Hollywood's new helmsman did three things: first, to introduce Western management; second; to cut expenses; and third, to accelerate the pace of expansion.

The results proved that none of the three fires of the new official burned correctly, but injured the roots of Hollywood: some stores were only a ballpoint pen, and they had to apply in writing to their superiors; after the personnel was reduced, customers could not get timely service when they entered the store; the Lantern Festival rushed to sell tangyuan, and the whole box was pulled outside the store to drink, completely disregarding whether the quality was damaged after thawing.

An angry old customer wrote to Luo Hong, saying that Hollywood still did not keep it and became a black heart store. Many guests prefer to take a long detour to buy cakes rather than choose Holly.

Most importantly, the crazy opening of the store in a race-like manner has made personnel training, service quality, product standards, etc. misaligned, and can only watch competitors such as Weiduomei, 85 degree C, and Yuanmai Hill catch up later.

In 2007, Luo Hong, who returned to Hollywood, announced at the staff meeting that all expansion would be stopped and that a large stack of operating manuals that were provided as sunflower treasures would be burned.

In order to resolve the crisis, the Hollyoaks team in Japan, and finally invited The Mano Nakayama, known as the "Father of Semi-Cooked Cheese", to join and launched the semi-cooked cheese star products, and Holly Lai was once again popular in the market.

After several ups and downs, the contradiction between Luo Hong and the co-founder also began to intensify. Since 2010, Luo Hong has spent a lot of financial and material resources, and after three times to tear down the construction of the "Luo Hong Photography Art Museum", not only can not bring economic benefits, but also lose tens of millions of dollars a year, need to use the profits of good profits to fill this vacancy, a long time, naturally caused dissatisfaction.

The overwhelming last straw is that in 2017, Luo Hong decided to formulate a new operating standard for Holley Lai, and played the slogan of "brand upgrade": store decoration, products, services and other standards must be uniformly improved, and all Hollywood bakery chain stores in the country must implement this new standard.

However, the new standard means that the comprehensive cost and product price increase, not every regional market can adapt and bear, is bound to suffer losses. Several of the precinct's co-founders argued over the extent of the renovation and decided to go their separate ways.

At the end of July 2019, Holly Lai began a large-scale brand name change across the country. The Hollylai brand under Zhongyuan Company was renamed "Holly" brand in Jilin, Tieling, Jinzhou, Datong, Yantai, Jiamusi, Jining, Chifeng and other places; Hollylai in the former Jiangxi region was renamed "Dandelion"; Hollywood in south China and northwest China was renamed "Sweet Star", "Mazfang", "Xin'an" and other brands respectively; and the North China region, where Hollylai's base camp is located and the strongest strength, is still in the hands of Luo Hong.

At this point, Holley came to completely "split the family". Luo Hong issued an announcement that the internal franchise system has been lifted, and the stores in the area managed by several co-founders will operate independently and no longer belong to Hollywood.

The good brand has been changed beyond recognition, and the original "cake king" has also become a "cake soldier", so Hollywood has been included in the case of "infighting and dissolution".

03 Light armor to reshape the brand power, howlli can reach the peak again

A stone stirs up thousands of waves, and the "disintegration" of Hollywood is no less questioned by the outside world.

It is true that brand development will generally follow the principle of optimality, strengthen the main brand to form a synergy, and this move will undoubtedly disperse the value of the main brand and cause a chain reaction.

But on the other hand, Hollywood, which is lightly packed, has also taken this opportunity to get rid of the fate of brand aging and embark on a unique path of rejuvenation.

In October 2019, Holly Lai and Xicha jointly launched a number of new products such as "Succulent Grape Edelweiss Cheese", and the full range of products brought more than 740,000 pieces and 4.1 million pieces of hot sales.

After tasting the sweetness of Hollywood, it has cooperated with brands such as Ah Hua Tian, Tangerine Duo, Xiaoma Baoli, RIO, Bubble Mart, etc., intensively exporting co-branded products, involving catering, beauty, blind boxes and other fields. While the popularity of the product remains high, the audience is also expanding.

At the same time, Hollyoaks has also made sufficient efforts in the transformation of stores and walked in the forefront of the trend. In May 2019, Hollywood, which has not expanded into a new city for a long time, opened a new theme store "Holiland Pink" into Shanghai Qibao Vanke Plaza.

The store is based on pink and white, and the fresh romantic princess style comes to the face. With the dream theme, Hollywood also carefully launched special pastries such as Peach Princess, Frog Prince, Elf Rabbit, etc., accurately touching the high points of young people, and instantly praised.

In May 2020, Holly Lai left another son in Shanghai, the pure gray space concept store comes with a sense of scientific and technological futurism; in June 2021, Holley Lai's "One Nine Nine Two" national tide theme store debuted in Chengdu; in September 2021, Holley Lai waved in Nanjing, focusing on the futuristic style of "experimental temperament".

The highly impactful form of presentation is refreshing at the same time, but also breaks the inherent impression of Hollywood, giving it a variety of images.

Although the themes are different, it is not difficult to find that these innovative stores of Hollywood have not landed in their deeply cultivated base camps, but the layout of the relatively blank southern market, the intention is self-evident.

In recent years, the baking industry has long been everywhere in the Red Sea, the boundaries are becoming more and more blurred, and various opponents are emerging in an endless stream. There are not only Paris beitian and bread new languages opened in the business circle for white-collar people; there are also the main communities, serving the elderly, such as Wei Duomei, Longfeng Chengxiang, etc.; as well as the emergence of new tea brands such as Xicha, Naixue, and Lele Tea, making "tea drink + baking" a new consumption scene, constantly diverting the customer flow of baking stores.

Now, even the new retail giants are targeting this market. In December 2020, the country's first Hema baking workshop landed in Shanghai, providing more than 100 kinds of bread every day, making the baking industry even more "inner roll" to an unprecedented extent.

Fortunately, as a veteran baking giant, Hollywood's advantages are still obvious, it has three domestic first-class large-scale modern food industrial parks in Beijing, Tianjin and Shenyang, with a mature and advanced supply chain, and it is not an overnight achievement to do this, and the Internet red brand cannot complete the transcendence of Hollywood in a short period of time.

In terms of national recognition, Holly Lai also has a high reputation, and has repeatedly been listed on the "Top Ten Brands of Chinese Baked Desserts", with both classic taste and creative products, and there is no mentality of standing still and eating the old.

It is worth mentioning that on July 26, 2019, Luo Hong has stepped down as the legal representative of Beijing Holly Lai Food Co., Ltd. and handed over the authority to his two sons, Luo Hao and Luo Cheng, injecting different vitality into Holly.

Where misfortune and blessing depend, where blessings and misfortunes lie. Looking back at the development process of Hollywood, although it has gone through great ups and downs, it can overcome dangers every time, or even go to a higher level.

This time, on the "new battlefield" where it was put to death and reborn, whether Hollywood can regain its peak, time will give the answer.

Resources:

Commercial real estate headline "Hollywood: a wolf of the north, to kill the south by going out of the circle of theme stores?" 》

Financial breakfast "Hollywood to "loose gang"? What happened to this "net red" from Sichuan? 》

Sales and management "Cake King "Hollywood" scattered, separated, renamed, confused road ahead"