Famous Chinese Cigarette Brand Gets Two New Members

Source from:  fjtic.com.cn 04/14/2005

Shishi (The Stone Lion) – a famous Chinese cigarette brand family of Xiamen Cigarette Factory in southeast China's Fujian Province – has got two members as a result of the adoption of a strategy by the local tobacco industry to reform the structure of its existing cigarette brands to significantly strengthen its capacity. The two new members of the Shishi brand family are formerly known as the hinge-lid Chenxiang (Eaglewood) of Xiamen Cigarette Factory and the soft-packaging Fujian of Longyan Cigarette Factory in the same province. On April 18, both will make their debut at the wholesale markets in Fujian under the brand name of Shishi. Both the manufacturing and commercial sectors of the tobacco industry of Fujian have made sufficient preparation for the conversion of Chenxiang and Fujian into new members of Shishi. Besides advertising in a traditional way, many regional tobacco companies in the province have held symposiums of retailers to inform them of the conversion. Both Xiamen and Longyan Cigarette Factories inserted explanatory notes into the last batch of Chenxiang and Fujian they produced. Shishi is one of the two national-level famous and high-quality cigarette brands of Fujian Province, with the other being the Seven Wolves of Longyan Cigarette Factory. After development over the past decade, Shishi has become a well-known high- and medium-grade cigarette brand in China with distinctive characteristics. On March 3, the manufacturing and commercial sectors of the provincial tobacco industry held a meeting on reforming the structure of existing cigarette brands, mapping out strategies for the development of competitive brands and reforming the structure of existing ones, as competition at tobacco markets in China has turned increasingly intense since China's entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001. According to the meeting, the provincial tobacco industry, on the basis of stabilizing the production and supply of cigarettes of existing high-grade members of Shishi, will gradually extend the coverage of Shishi to cigarette products with medium and low retail prices, in efforts to realize expansion of the Shishi brand family as soon as possible. On the basis of investigation and extensive solicitation of opinions, the manufacturing and commercial sectors of the provincial tobacco industry decided to start the implementation of the strategy to reform the structure or existing cigarette brands by converting Chenxiang and Fujian into new members of the Shishi brand family. Respectively with a retail price of 3 yuan (36 U.S. dollars) per packet and 2.5 yuan (30 U.S. dollars) per packet, the hinge-lid Chenxiang and the soft-packaging Fujian used to account for one-third of the total cigarette sales in Fujian Province. "This decision was made on the basis of fully considering risks at the marketplace, because the conversion is the first step, and also a crucial step, in implementing the strategy to reform the structure of existing cigarette brands," a well-informed source with the provincial tobacco industry said. Both as decades-old famous cigarette brands of Fujian, Chenxiang and Fujian are highly influential in the province, with a large number of faithful consumers. Therefore, in the conversion of them into new members of the Shishi brand family, both will keep their original flavor, their previous pricing and the original style of packaging despite the use of the new brand name, with their original characteristics and styles to remain unchanged. The only visible change in the packaging will be the replacement of the registered trademark sign of Chenxiang or Fujian by that of Shishi. As a result, the formula of leaf tobacco and support raw materials, the manufacturing technology, the process of manufacture and the process of storage of both will remain unchanged. "This is intended to sufficiently respect the sentiment and habit of consumers," a source with Fujian Provincial China Tobacco Industry Corporation said. Both Xiamen and Longyan Cigarette Factories are among the 36 key Chinese tobacco manufacturers designated by the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration. Enditem