The archive · Marketing & Growth · Marketing decision · 2018
Zhong Xue Gao's ¥66 'Pink Diamond' sells out in 15h, launching premium Chinese ice cream
A new brand's single ¥66 limited popsicle sold out 20,000 units in 15 hours on Double 11, turning 'expensive' itself into its launch strategy.
Zhong Xue Gao (钟薛高)
What it had to solve
In 2018 Chinese ice cream was a low-price street business — a stick had cost about ¥1 for fifteen years — while Häagen-Dazs and other foreign brands owned the premium tier. Ad man Lin Sheng, who had already turned Modier and Zhongjie 1946 into viral ice-cream brands, founded Zhong Xue Gao in March 2018 and needed a way to make a new, high-priced Chinese brand famous fast.
How it works
In March 2018, advertising veteran Lin Sheng founded Zhong Xue Gao in Shanghai — the name is a homophone for 'Chinese-style ice cream' — and designed the product as a roof-tile-shaped stick with a 'hui' pattern, a biodegradable paddle and no stabilizers. His target: a domestic premium tier that did not exist. For fifteen years a street popsicle had cost about ¥1, while high-end ice cream in China meant Häagen-Dazs and other foreign brands.
On Double 11 2018, before the brand even had a distribution network, Lin Sheng released its first product: the 'Ecuador Pink Diamond', a ¥66 limited run of 20,000 pieces sold online, shipped in foam boxes with dry ice. Around it he orchestrated Xiaohongshu seeding, KOL reviews, pop-up shops and cross-brand collaborations, making the price — absurd for a popsicle — the hook of every story.
The run sold out in 15 hours and accounted for 10% of Tmall's ice-cream category sales that day. Zhong Xue Gao finished first in Tmall's ice-cream category on 2018 Double 11 and kept the Double 11 crown for four consecutive years, topping Häagen-Dazs in 2020. The 'Hermès of popsicles' label stuck, and the launch became the template for China's marketing-led new-consumer brands.
Why it lands
- The price was the hook: ¥66 for a popsicle was so absurd it generated coverage no paid campaign could buy, and the sell-out proved the positioning rather than just claiming it.
- Scarcity did the selling: a fixed 20,000-piece run created urgency and made 'sold out in 15 hours' a permanent part of the brand story.
- It picked the one battlefield with no opponents: online, in winter, at a premium price — everyone else was fighting over street-corner fridges in summer.
- The product matched the story: Chinese-tile shape, a name meaning 'Chinese-style ice cream', and a biodegradable paddle gave the luxury claim a consistent identity instead of a random gimmick.
What it did
The 20,000 Pink Diamonds sold out in 15 hours and accounted for 10% of Tmall's ice-cream category sales that day. Zhong Xue Gao took first place in Tmall's ice-cream category on 2018 Double 11, then held the Double 11 ice-cream crown for four straight years (2018–2021), topping Häagen-Dazs in 2020. The ¥66 price itself became the story — media nicknamed the brand 'the Hermès of popsicles' — and 'expensive' became its calling card.
What you can take
Price can be the product when a category is undervalued: one scarce, expensive item creates news, and the news establishes the positioning that the rest of the range then sells against.
Since then
The launch made Zhong Xue Gao the standard-bearer of China's marketing-led 'new consumer' brands: four straight Tmall Double 11 ice-cream crowns (2018–2021), beating Häagen-Dazs in 2020. The same high-price positioning later backfired: the 2022 'ice-cream assassin' (雪糕刺客) backlash made the brand a symbol of hidden high prices, and by late 2023 it was cutting staff and failing to pay salaries. In March 2024, 'Zhong Xue Gao price cut from ¥60 to ¥2.5' topped Weibo's hot list and the company and founder became judgment debtors — a collapse read as a cautionary tale about marketing-built brands.
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