Behind the Brand: Sriracha's Story & Seamless Branding

Sriracha. Just reading the word elicits a visual & emotional response. It’s synonymous with Asian cuisine in America. A staple in pop culture. A shining example of the American dream come to fruition.?

Sriracha.

I thought ‘behind the brand’ was the proper intro for this piece because Huy Fong’s Sriracha is more than a condiment. There are hundreds of Srirachas in the world, yet Huy Fong’s is easily the most recognizable. It’s the most popular hot sauce brand in America, outselling the tried and true Tabasco (the epitome of overrated). In 2019, Huy Fong’s Sriracha accounted for 10% of the entire hot sauce market at $150 MILLION in revenue. They’ve got the sauce!

Brand to Bottle

The bottle is simple, but oh so recognizable. A clear casing that lets the vibrant, california-grown red jalapenos shine through. A rooster takes center stage, surrounded by labels in different languages. A little green cap tops it all off.?

David Tran is the founder of the Huy Fong Foods and the iconic Sriracha. A refugee from Vietnam, he moved to America in the late 70’s and opened up shop.?

“We love spicy foods, but the hot sauces here were not as tasty as what we had in Vietnam,” said Tran of his inspiration.?

From my perspective, what makes Huey Fong’s Sriracha special is that the product speaks on behalf of the brand, and its story. While most people don’t realize it, everything about this product and its packaging is incredibly personal. The parent company was named after the ‘Huey Fong’, the Taiwanese boat that Tran and his family boarded to escape Vietnam.?

Tran designed the bottle himself, even after himself. When he first started making Sriracha, he was bottling it in recycled baby food jars and selling them to local restaurateurs. Before finding success and moving on to the iconic bottle, he started slapping the rooster on the front of every jar because he was born in the year of the rooster. The green cap is meant to resemble the stem of a chile, alluding to the fact that they use fresh peppers. He featured labels in 5 different languages on the front of the bottle for one simple reason - to help people from different backgrounds understand the product.?

The creator of such a successful, iconic brand must be a marketing genius. Right? Well, no. Not intentionally, at least. Huy Fong Foods has no sales team, trademarks, and spends $0 in advertising.?

This doesn't mean that they don’t know how to market.?

Marketing ≠ ‘Marketing’

Many conflate the term marketing with a killer creative team, spending millions in advertising, going viral, etc. This is a misunderstanding. It’s called marketing because the goal is to increase the market share of your product.?

There’s many means through which this can be done.?

Here’s how David Tran did it.?

1. Create Something You’ll Love

David Tran created Huy Fong’s Sriracha because he couldn’t find hot sauces he liked at local grocery stores. He wasn’t trying to start an iconic brand or necessarily even start a business. He was trying to create a product that he’d use himself, and in doing so realized that other people may use it as well. And they did.

That’s the true essence of entrepreneurship. Creating something that people want to use.?

This leads me to the next point

1. Growing the Market

It’s easier to make an impact as a small fish in a pond rather than the ocean. As Peter Thiel says, “The thing that’s always a big mistake is going after a giant market on day one… it normally means there’s going to be too much competition.”?

David Tran’s success directly arose out of the point made above. He couldn’t find the sauce he wanted anywhere else; there was no market for it. So, he created it.?

Now, nearly every major condiment brand has their own Sriracha.

Huy Fong’s Sriracha has grown from a small fish in a pond to a shark in the ocean.?

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