The archive · Product Ideas · Product decision · 2017–2018
Luzhou Laojiao's Wanwei perfume: a baijiu giant's pink scent tops Weibo and sells out
In 2017 the 400-year-old baijiu maker quietly listed a pink 139-yuan EDT perfume; blogger reviews turned it into a Weibo hit and it sold out.
Luzhou Laojiao (泸州老窖)
What it had to solve
China's baijiu industry faced an aging drinker base, and Luzhou Laojiao's stated strategy was to 'fashionize' the liquor business to court young consumers, especially women. Liquor itself was a hard sell to that audience, so the brand needed a product young people would actually talk about.
How it works
By 2017 China's baijiu makers faced a well-known problem: their drinkers were aging, and young consumers had little reason to touch a 52-degree spirit. Luzhou Laojiao's answer was a strategy it called 'fashionizing the liquor business' — building a lineup of products young people, especially young women, would notice, starting with a perfume.
The brand had tested the idea once: at Tmall's September 2016 global wine festival it launched a limited eau de toilette with scent brand Scent Library. In August 2017 it went further and listed its own perfume, 'Wanwei' (顽味), a 30ml floral EDT in a pink bottle with a pink tassel, priced at 139 yuan. It was sold on its own or bundled with a case of the peach-flavoured wine Taohuazui, quietly, with no advertising campaign.
The quiet launch became a loud one in February 2018, when beauty bloggers posted reviews. Viewers ran with the absurdity: jokes about 'strong-aroma versus sauce-aroma' scent notes and 'will I be breathalyzed?' filled Weibo, and on February 6 the perfume hit the platform's hot search list. On Luzhou Laojiao's official mall the 208 listed bottles sold out and the item was pulled from Tmall and other wine channels, while the official account joked about waking up to find its perfume a hit.
The Wanwei bottle became the reference point for China's liquor-crosses-categories wave: a product whose very incongruity did the marketing, generating hot-search-level attention without a paid campaign. Luzhou Laojiao went on to repeat the move with baijiu ice cream in 2019 and a third perfume in 2025.
Why it lands
- The category distance made the product newsworthy — nobody expects a baijiu brand in a perfume aisle.
- The pink, feminine design deliberately targeted young women outside the liquor category.
- User jokes ('is it strong-aroma?', 'will I fail a breathalyzer?') spread the brand name further than any paid ad.
- Bundling with Taohuazui gave the viral moment a buyable funnel, not just a topic.
- A quiet launch plus organic blogger reviews carried authenticity that paid media could not buy.
What it did
The 208 units listed on Luzhou Laojiao's official mall sold out, and the product was delisted across Tmall and wine e-commerce channels, with buyers asking when it would restock. More importantly, the memes and hot-search moment made a centuries-old liquor brand the internet's topic of the day.
What you can take
When a brand crosses far enough beyond its own category, consumers write the campaign: the joke itself becomes the reach, and the product's only job is to be worth joking about.
Since then
Wanwei sold out its official-mall stock and was delisted, and the viral moment fed Luzhou Laojiao's 'fashionable baijiu' push. The company kept crossing categories — 52-degree baijiu ice cream with Chicecream in 2019, and a third perfume, Jiaoxiang Qingcheng (窖香清橙), in 2025 — while the 2017 bottle stayed the reference case for liquor brands chasing young consumers. Later reporting noted the pink bottles were also resold at inflated prices by scalpers, and the category was widely copied by other spirits makers.
Sources
- 泸州老窖出了款香水居然卖爆了 (Luzhou Laojiao's perfume surprisingly sells out)
- 浓香还是酱香？泸州老窖跨界卖香水 (Strong-aroma or sauce-aroma? Luzhou Laojiao crosses into perfume)
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