Maybe you don't know who is the richest person in Taiwan, but when it comes to the advertising slogan of "Want Want Gift Package, Li Wang People Are More Prosperous", you must be familiar with it, the chairman of Want Want Group, Cai Yanming, who once lowered his identity in order to obtain rice fruit manufacturing technology, still won the richest man in Taiwan in the case of serious asset shrinkage.
In 2014, Want Want's stock price hit a record high, but after that, only endless suffering awaited it.
In the two years from 2014 to 2016, WangWang's performance fell sharply, and its market value evaporated by HK$100 billion.
Throughout the history of this Taiwanese brand, how has it successfully attracted countless consumers with small retail food? Touch the quality, discover the future, please watch the 100,000 brand stories "Want Want: From Magic Advertising to Not Doing Business"
In 1962, a friend of Cai Yanming's father, Cai Ashi, established a company engaged in canned foundry and export in Yilan County, Taiwan.
In 1976, the company's operating rights transferred to the hands of Cai Ashi, only 20 years old Cai Yanming volunteered to participate in the operation of the company, due to lack of experience, in the early stage suffered a lot of losses, after the launch of the "langwei squid silk", Cai Yanming's hasty decision led to the company's tragic loss of NT$100 million.
During that time, as long as others looked at him more than two times, he felt that people were laughing at him, and he suffered from depression and once wanted to jump off a building to commit suicide.
In 1979, his father, Cai Ash, founded his own brand "Want Want", intending to re-open up the Snack Market in Taiwan.
After tasting the bitter fruit of failure, Cai Yanming finally ushered in an opportunity to prove himself again.
At that time, Taiwan's rice resources were excessive, and Cai Yanming believed that if he did the Japanese rice fruit business, he should be able to win back a city.
To this end, he visited President Shujisaku of Japan three times in two years, hoping to have the opportunity to cooperate with him.
Under his soft grinding hard bubble, "Wang Wang" finally got the authorization of rice fruit production technology, and "Wang Wang Xianbei" was also born and achieved great success, once occupying 90% of the Taiwan market, forcing the old food factory to unify and Yimei to withdraw from competition.
Since then, Want Want has successively launched new products such as "Wangzai Milk Candy", "Lang Wei Xian", "Snow Moon", "Wangzai Small Steamed Buns", "Wangzai Snow Cake", "Wangzai Milk", "Wild River Strawberry Pie", "Wangwang Fried Beans", "Wangzai Rice Cheese Thick Crisps", "Boring Pie Rice Beans" and so on have achieved good results.
In the 1980s, when Taiwan's economy was booming and developing rapidly, "want want" undoubtedly became a trend.
In 1992, Mr. Tsai's business in Taiwan was in full swing, and he set his sights on the mainland across the river.
After the first factory in Hunan was completed, 300 containers of rice nuts were signed and sold on the spot, and the agreement was all payment to delivery.
Therefore, want want Taiwan factory 24 hours to step up production, the rice fruit from Taiwan to the mainland, did not expect that when the delivery of the mainland dealers but asked for payment after selling.
Seeing that the food was about to expire, in a hurry, Cai Yanming sent this batch of food to Shanghai, Nanjing, and other places for students to try, and the children loved it after eating, Cai Yanming then seized the opportunity to cast a "you want me want everyone want" advertisement, and finally generated 250 million yuan in revenue.
In 1994, more than 200 food factories joined the "Miguo War", including Master Kang, who was also from Taiwan.
Fierce competition has reduced the price of rice nuts from the initial 50 yuan per kilogram to 30 yuan.
In the face of this unreasonable price shock, Cai Yanming reduced the price of his products to 1 kg and 5 yuan in one fell swoop, and his fierceness and mentality of cutting grass and roots surprised other manufacturers.
In the end, in this almost crazy price war, "Want Want" cut down countless competitors, and its status as the boss of the rice fruit food industry could no longer be shaken.
In 1996, in order to avoid Taiwan's complicated listing procedures, Cai Yanming chose to list Want Want in Singapore. However, Singapore's stock market trading was too cold, and in 2007, at the suggestion of investment banks, Cai Yanming decided to switch to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
On 28 May 2007, he privately lent US$850 million to a consortium of 12 banks for the acquisition of 26.35% outstanding shares of Singapore-listed China Want Want for the completion of privatization and conversion to H shares.
This is undoubtedly extremely risky, because he has to endure a loan interest of up to $150,000 per day, and the longer it goes, the worse it is for him.
It took only 200 days from the withdrawal from Singapore to the landing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and Want Want's market value increased from US$3.5 billion to US$5.1 billion.
In the same year, the financial incident Liba Case occurred in Taiwan Liba Group, and Want Want began to purchase the shares of the group's subsidiaries one after another, and invested in Youlian Product Insurance, a listed company under Liba Group, in the form of capital increase, and changed its name to Want Want Youlian Product Insurance.
The following year, Want Want Group entered the media field, and Cai Yanming took over the management rights of all the media under the Zhongshi Media Group in Taiwan through acquisitions.
At that time, the operation of Zhongshi Group was dismal, and Cai Yanming's theory that "the more time points that do not make money, the better the opportunity to invest" was indeed confirmed in the future.
He drastically integrated the internal structure of China and The Times, opened up the originally independent media, greatly mobilized the joint combat capabilities of its media, and changed the previous "free atmosphere".
In 2009, Want Want Group invested in Hong Kong Asia Television and founded a new newspaper in Taiwan, Wang Pao, a series of actions that allowed Tsai Yanming's media wealth to accumulate.
In 2014, China Want Want, a listed company under Want Want Group, had revenue of US$3.775 billion (equivalent to approximately RMB24.16 billion), of which the dairy and beverage business revenue was US$1.785 billion (RMB11.46 billion), accounting for 52.8%. As of December 31, 2014, Want Want has about 8,000 dealers, 359 business outlets, 36 production bases and 87 factories in Chinese mainland.
In 2016, Cai Yanming overpowered Gou and once again won the position of Taiwan's richest man.
Recalling the failure of his first business, the richest man with the courage to do so said, "After success, you don't know when you will fail."
Today's results are too exaggerated, and when you wait for the day when you go down a little bit, how do you face people? ”
Industry insiders said Cai Yanming was "a bit like Zong Qinghou."
One sells rice fruits by one bag and one bag, and becomes the "richest foreigner in Hurun in 2012" with a net worth of 50 billion yuan; One sold drinks from bottle to bottle and became the richest man in Chinese mainland in 2012 with $10.5 billion.
On the surface, these two people began to start a business in the early 90s of the last century into the traditional food FMCG industry, the founders have been in place for more than 20 years of stable management time, the same is the marketing strategy of the countryside surrounding the city, good at channel operation, are reflected in the actual value side of the industry after the financial crisis, on the one hand, they are extremely low-key and introverted, but on the other hand, they are overbearing and ambitious, and the management style is more centralized.
In 2017, Wangzai Milk, which has an annual revenue of more than 11.4 billion yuan, launched an 8L oversized box that shocked everyone, but later the official said that it was just an April Fool's Day joke.
However, the repeated pushes about 8L Wangzai milk on Weibo have made many fans believe that it is true.
To this end, Want Want Group also really launched 8L of Wangzai milk after 1 month, but it was 64 small packages, which was once again madly complained by netizens.
In the past 20 years, although Wang Wang has achieved extraordinary results, he is not immersed in the sun.
Since entering the mainland in 1992, Want Want has not yet established its own strong sales network, and as competition in the food industry becomes increasingly fierce, the disadvantage brought about by this weakness may become the fatal weakness of Want Want.
"Don't make them too perfect, be a little broken, and give them the opportunity to learn more."
Perhaps for Cai Yanming, who once educated his children in this way, the "blank space" in the development of Want Want is also a clever trick for him.