"It's better for me to die than to be alive!"
No one thought that this sentence would be said by Li Jingwei, the founder of the once popular national brand "Jianlibao" drink.
On April 22, 2013, the "Prince of Gymnastics" Li Ning attended his memorial service, and could not hide his grief on the spot, tears like tears, several times unable to hold himself, shouting: "Boss, go well!" ”
Turning back the clock, in 1984, Chinese athletes made a splash at the Los Angeles Olympics and caused a sensation in the world.
Subsequently, an article "China's magic water swept Los Angeles" made the Jianlibao drink that Chinese athletes like became famous in the international community and became a well-known beverage brand in the 80s of the last century.
So what happened between Li Jingwei and Jianlibao? Let him say such painful words before he dies?
Difficult life and noble help
In 1939, Li Jingwei was born in Guangdong, and when he was still in his belly, his father lost his life on the battlefield, and his mother took Li Jingwei, who was not long born, alone and lived a life of hiding and starvation.
In order for her son to survive the smoke of gunfire, the mother had to send the young man to an orphanage with tears in her heart.
Li Jingwei, who grew up in an orphanage, learned from a young age that only by being willing to endure hardships could he survive in turbulent times.
At the age of 10, Li Jingwei began to work odd jobs. He connected water pipes, repaired electricity, and worked as the smallest apprentice in a pungent, smelly, lethal printing shop.
As a result, he had never even seen what the academy was like, but he learned to read by hard work and encouragement.
To make a living, he crossed the streets to set up a stall to shine his shoes, and while shining his shoes, he met a local leader.
The kind leader, looking at the smart and capable Li Jingwei, felt that he was a manufacturable talent, so he introduced him to the winery as a team leader.
In this way, Li Jingwei took a few young men and carried heavy rice wine to restaurants near Foshan and Guangzhou, and sold them one by one.
In just over a month, he mastered all aspects and processes of the winery operation.
For a while, the orders of the distillery plummeted, and Li Jingwei was appointed as the deputy director of the distillery to take over the heavy responsibility of product research and development and sales.
Li Jingwei often lights up and boils oil and thinks hard all night, and finally developed a brand new production line and developed a new beer.
Since then, the sales of the distillery have skyrocketed, and the director has also looked at him differently.
In 1983, Coca-Cola came to China aggressively, and in one year it covered half of the domestic beverage market, at that time, only Pepsi could compete with it.
In the same year, the state threw an olive branch to the beverage industry, hoping that Chinese have its own sports drink brand so that our athletes can have a better performance.
In that year, the Guangzhou Sports Research Institute developed a new type of sports drink, which can allow athletes to recover their physical strength in the shortest possible time, and it is suitable for ordinary people.
Hearing this news, Li Jingwei decided to research a new electrolyte-containing beverage so that everyone can drink it.
But he was a layman, so he asked people everywhere, and he finally found a suitable partner, Ouyang Xiao.
Ouyang Xiao worked at the Guangdong Sports Research Institute, where he was responsible for the research and development of new beverages, and Li Jingwei was responsible for production and sales, with a profit of 50 percent per person, and the company was quickly up and running.
With stubborn persistence, create the era of canned drinks
After signing the agreement, Ouyang Xiao soaked himself in the laboratory all day, and after more than a year and hundreds of experiments, he finally developed the formula successfully.
Subsequently, the two named the product "Jianlibao".
Within a few days, the trademark unique to Jianlibao was designed and immediately registered for industry and commerce.
All the work is carried out in an orderly manner in his planning.
But the headache problem follows, what can the product be produced in?
At that time, Li Jingwei was optimistic about cans for filling, and in the eyes of the consumer groups at that time, the packaging of beverages with cans must be very high-end products.
But in China, there is no production line for cans, and many people persuade him to abandon this idea, but Li Jingwei's stubbornness in his bones does not agree.
He began to travel around the country, but fortunately a Hong Kong company agreed to produce a small number of cans for Jianlibao first.
Then, he found out the address of Pepsi's production company, so he used the other party's production line to unknowingly put the drink into the can.
In this way, everything is ready, but how to sell "it"?
Li Jingwei thought of a way to send Jianlibao to the AFC meeting without receiving any money, so that the product could be displayed in front of the sports committee.
However, the other shareholders of the company unanimously opposed his proposal, and everyone felt that the new product had not earned a penny, and it was necessary to send a large amount of money first.
Li Jingwei did not have time to take care of this, and after a series of bold operations, 200 boxes of eye-catching Jianlibao appeared at the AFC meeting.
Since then, Jianlibao has become a symbolic drink of the Chinese Games.
The 1984 Olympic Games were successfully held in Los Angeles, which was also the first time that Chinese athletes appeared in the Olympic Games.
In order to make the product debut, Li Jingwei also fought, and he gambled all the company's last 200,000 funds in the form of sponsoring the Olympic Games.
The slightest carelessness in this bold decision will plunge the entire enterprise and himself into the abyss of disaster.
Fortunately, Chinese athletes won 15 gold medals that year, and countless silver and bronze medals, and the Chinese women's volleyball team hit the United States team, which had been far ahead.
For a time, the media chased mainland athletes relentlessly. A Japanese reporter found that mainland athletes were drinking the drinks of Jianlibao cans, and the reporter wrote an article with an open brain: "Relying on "magic water" to attack quickly? article.
After the article was adapted by the mainland "Yangcheng Evening News", it was widely spread again. At the same time, Jianlibao is also "extremely popular" and is called "Oriental Magic Water" by the media.
However, the Olympics also brought bad news for Jianlibao.
After the competition, Chinese athletes hand-picked Jianlibao for the Olympic drink, which also meant that they needed to sponsor 260,000 yuan a year, but the company's sales were just beginning to appear, and Li Jingwei only had tens of thousands of yuan left in his hands.
In order to save expenses, Li Jingwei slept in the basement of the guest house on business trips, and did not dare to exceed 2 yuan per meal.
In addition, Jianlibao's winery is a state-owned enterprise, and the sponsorship is borrowed by loans, and Li Jingwei is a bottomless black hole in his heart.
In the end, he had to resist the pressure alone, cut first, and sign a sponsorship order.
In the following two years, the sales volume of Jianlibao continued to rise, becoming the leading functional drink in China, and the sales volume exceeded 100 million.
In 1987, in order to compete for the cooperation of the National Games, Li Jingwei took out 2.5 million yuan with blood and capital to defeat Coca-Cola, which bid 1 million, and won the exclusive right to drink at the National Games.
During the National Games, Jianlibao's advertisements were overwhelming.
At the closing ceremony, the staff uniformly distributed Jianlibao's clothing, and all the visitors also held Jianlibao's drinks in their hands.
After the National Games, dealers struck while the iron was hot, and two hours later, the order reached 200 million yuan.
Three years later, at the Beijing Asian Games, Li Jingwei once again became the first national enterprise with the highest amount of sponsorship with a bid amount of more than 10 million yuan under the competition of many enterprises.
Orders poured in like a tidal wave, and within a few days, the company received nearly 750 million yuan in orders.
After that, Li Jingwei even hit CCTV with the advertisement of Jianlibao, and the down-to-earth advertising slogan hit people's hearts: If you want to be in good health, please drink Jianlibao.
Adhere to the original intention of the brand, and do not be surprised in the face of temptation
In 1989, when the development of Jianlibao fell into a bottleneck period, Li Jingwei did not think about tea and rice, and thought about how to break the deadlock and improve performance.
On the other side, Li Ning, the prince of gymnastics, is looking for his own way to transform. One day, when Li Jingwei saw Li Ning, his inspiration suddenly flashed:
Invite Li Ning to join Jianlibao, create a sports brand belonging to "Li Ning", and at the same time, invite Li Ning to become the brand spokesperson of Jianlibao, so as to kill two birds with one stone.
Unexpectedly, the two hit it off.
In April 1989, Li Ning officially joined Jianlibao, registered the "Li Ning" brand trademark, and Li Ning Sportswear Company was officially established.
Li Ning has previously had experience in the promotion of the Olympic Games, and after entering the clothing sports industry, the first batch of sportswear was selected as the designated clothing by the 11th Olympic Games, and the generous, trendy style and people-friendly price were quickly favored by the public, and at the same time drove the sales of Jianlibao.
In 1994, the overall sales of China's health care products industry reached 30 billion yuan, becoming the fastest growing industry in China.
Interests blind some people's eyes, and a group of black-hearted merchants exaggerate the efficacy of products and deceive consumers to accumulate wealth from them;
More unscrupulous businesses break the bottom line of survival, packaging health care products as miracle drugs that cure all diseases, and carry out large-scale false transmission.
Among them, the annual income of some enterprises is as high as 1 billion yuan.
As the leader of the beverage industry, Jianlibao has the opportunity to make a lot of money from it, and even the once unknown beverage brand can make a lot of money in the health care market.
The senior management of Jianlibao also suggested that the company should follow the market trend, if it does not catch up with the trend, the affected is directly the national agent, which will be detrimental to the company.
Li Jingwei also struggled, but finally listened to his inner voice and canceled advertisements exaggerating the efficacy of the product.
Although Jianlibao is getting bigger and bigger, he has always stuck to his original intention, because he wants to:
Create a "national brand" with the same brand strength as Coca-Cola, and resist all behaviors that harm the brand.
In 1997, China's health care market was plagued by accidents, and a large number of enterprises collapsed, and only two brands were spoiled, one of which was Jianlibao.
At that time, Jianlibao's sales reached 5.5 billion yuan, ranking first in the beverage industry, but in the end, why did Jianlibao fall to the point of disappearing? Why did Li Jingwei end up with hatred!
The enterprise declined, and a generation of kings left with hatred
Originally from 1997, there have been many contradictions within the company.
Previously, the company's major decisions were made by Li Jingwei alone, and the shareholders had always been afraid that he would cover the sky with one hand and wanted him to hand over real power.
In 1997, after Li Jingwei established the Jianlibao Building, the conflict between the two sides broke out completely, and since then, the company's capital chain has been broken.
In 2001, Jianlibao's sales fell sharply, workers' wages could not be paid, and even the factory faced a crisis of shutdown.
However, the company's internal contradictions have not been effectively resolved, and the entire Jianlibao Group is facing a situation of falling apart.
At that time, the senior management of Jianlibao actually made the decision to sell Jianlibao to a food company in Singapore, and Li Jingwei slapped the table on the spot and strongly opposed it.
This is a brand that he painstakingly built, how can it be handed over to others, Li Jingwei refused to hand over business information, he did not want to give up Jianlibao.
So, he went around looking for friends to borrow 200 million yuan, and also sold his family property, raising a total of 450 million yuan, intending to acquire Jianlibao and become a major shareholder.
But other shareholders were afraid that Li Jingwei's money would come from unknown sources and refused to sign the contract.
Just when Li Jingwei was at a loss, "child prodigy" Zhang Hai found Jianlibao Company and was willing to buy Jianlibao for more than 300 million yuan, and he also said:
"I didn't buy Jianlibao to make money, it came entirely from my own patriotic feelings, and I didn't want national enterprises to fall into the hands of foreigners."
These high-sounding words touched everyone present, including Li Jingwei.
At the beginning of 2002, Jianlibao sold it to Zhang Hai for 75% of the equity of 338 million yuan, and just when everyone was immersed in reviving the glory of Jianlibao, a thunderbolt on a sunny day shattered his dream.
Zhang Hai was arrested by the police for making false accounts, and Jianlibao also fell to the bottom.
After learning the news, Li Jingwei sat directly on the ground, looking up to the sky with tears and being very distressed, unable to say a word.
He recalled that the bits and pieces of his founding of Jianlibao are still vivid, but now he can only watch it die little by little.
A few days later, Li Jingwei was admitted to the hospital with a cerebral hemorrhage.
In 2007, Zhang Hai still sold Jianlibao to Taiwan's United Group, and no one would have thought that the leading national brand in the beverage industry would become a niche brand in Taiwan.
In the following years, Jianlibao experienced a long wait, and finally returned to the embrace of Jianlibao Group in 2016.
But Li Jingwei can no longer see it.
On April 22, 2013, Li Jingwei passed away, and his last words before his death were: "It is more comfortable for me to die than to live."
Li Jingwei's life was full of ups and downs, losing his father in his mother's womb, and after his mother sent him to an orphanage, in order to support himself, he began to work at the age of 10.
As an adult, Li Jingwei created the era of cans, functionality and branding of Chinese beverages, enlightened the brand thinking of Chinese enterprises, and lit the torch of Chinese sports marketing.
But the successes and sorrows and joys of the past, fortunate and unfortunate, everything ended silently like this, and it is difficult for anyone to remember...
Life is sea, late years, whose life can be complete?
-END-
Author: Your silhouette
Edit: Leftover grass
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