Market leadership in a single summer

Unilever
has been present in China for almost 100 years and is the company behind a wide range
of well-known consumer brands such as Dove, Knorr,Wall's, Omo, Lux, Haze-line and
Lipton. Wall's, the world's best-selling ice cream, was launched in Beijing in the summer
of 1994. Six months later, Wall's (China) broke the sales record for the first six months of
any start-up Unilever ice cream operation. In just one summer, it managed to outsell all
domestic ice cream brands, Using branded refrigerated vending cabinets in com-bination
with a strong point-of-sale programme and relatively modest advertising support, the
Wall's brand quickly became well known throughout Beijing.
Encouraged by this
success,Wall's rapidly expanded to the 70 largest urban clusters in China. It was a
defining moment for the brand because it gave Wall's a first-mover advan-tage. But it was
also a leap of faith as the company did not have time to acquire sufficient knowledge about
each of the different regional markets, Between 1994 and 1999, the company built and
rebuilt operations in many territories where it faced operational con-trol issues due to a
hasty roll-out, In 2000,Wall's took its second defining step by deciding to move from a
distribution-push to a brand-led business model, It was the right thing to do, Since
2001 ,Wall's has been the top-selling ice cream by volume in every area where it has
decided to operate.Wall's is currently market leader in all key urban ice cream mar-kets in
China, holding a 30-40 per cent value share in Beijing and Shanghai.