Blowing up baijiu: Campari believes China’s trademark liquor must go down the cocktail route to hit international success
Baijiu may be China’s most well-known local liquor, but in terms of international recognition it has quite a ways to go before becoming a staple in pubs and bars around the world, particularly in western markets.
“Alcohol in general is an important part of many society’s cultures and as a social medium, and when moving from localisation to globalisation it is common for all these firms to want to showcase the uniqueness of their local products and to tie these to a meaningful lifestyle,” Campari China Managing Director Pauline Cha told the floor at the recent Food and Beverage Innovation Forum (FBIF) 2024 in Shanghai, China.
“For instance, the French have associated champagne with elegance and romance; the Scots have tied whiskey with premium consumption, and Italy has established aperitifs as a mode of relaxation or an appetiser – all of which represent consumer demands for a higher quality of life.
“Baijiu is in fact the liquor that has the highest amount sold worldwide in terms of quantity and is a standard in China, led by Chinese consumption with IWSR 2022 data showing that whiskey and brandy sales combined is not even 1% of baijiu consumption locally – but there still remain challenges for this liquid to break past traditional consumption and move to the global stage.
“There is great potential to be unlocked here, and many Chinese brands have already done this – look at local chilli brand Laoganma which has successfully established itself in many markets, if they can do it baijiu has all the potential in the world to do so too.”
In order to go global though, Cha highlighted two core factors baijiu needs to fulfil before hitting the international spotlight, namely emerging in a format that all consumers in most market will find acceptable, as well as being able to integrate itself into consumers’ daily use and consumption.
“The main challenge we faced here was in terms of the consumption occasion for baijiu, as in China this is usually considered an accompaniment to meals and drunk straight, whereas in the West liquor is usually consumed after meals instead,” she said.
“As such, we realised we needed to find other ways to integrate into more international dietary habits – and found that we could draw many parallels with tequila, which is also a strong alcohol and was previously just the national liquor of Mexico like baijiu is to China before making it big.
“The main pathway by which tequila became globalised and mainstream as a staple in every bar was by using cocktails such as margaritas and the Tequila Sunrise.
“From this, we surmised that the cocktail strategy is one of the best ways to expose baijiu to new audiences in a format that they are familiar with, which will significantly improve their acceptance to it.”
Birth of the Wugroni
Campari thus combined its cocktail expertise based on deep experience with items such as negroni and the Aperol Spritz with baijiu from local giant Wuliangye, blending these to create the ‘Wugroni’ which is essentially a negroni made with baijiu instead of gin.
“The key to this whole strategy is really to remember to respect the various cultures in the various markets, and what matters to consumers,” Cha added.
“Every market has its own values and culture – and the idea is to target these and local consumption habits with this innovation, such as creating cocktails to reach local consumers via a new cocktail platform for a traditional spirit.”
