The Zen of Sriracha’s No-Marketing Approach

Almost 20 years ago, I remember an acquaintance of my father’s mentioning that this new Vietnamese hot sauce was the best hot sauce he’d ever had. Back then, no one outside of pho house enthusiasts and Asian foodies knew about Sriracha, so we didn’t pay much attention.

Fast-forward to now. Sriracha has a manufacturing facility that pumps out 72 thousand bottles of “rooster sauce” every day. By keeping prices low and quality high, they’ve has not only managed to make money hand-over-fist, they’ve also grown a dedicated fan base that makes everything from YouTube tributes to Halloween costumes that celebrate the beloved condiment.

The real kicker is that Huy Fong Foods, the parent company behind Sriracha and two other hot sauces, has never invested a single penny towards marketing their spicy Kryptonite. In a digital era when content marketing is ranked the number one most important area for marketing spend, and when marketing automation is already separating good marketers from great marketers, this seems improbable.

In fact, until late 2014, Huy Fong’s website looked like it had been preserved intact from 1995. Fortunately, they finally updated it.

The 30-year “overnight” success

For a marketer, the company’s success is mindboggling. Huy Fong has seen the sort of exponential growth that an entire content marketing department would have been hard-pressed to achieve.

But it’s also important to see the forest for the trees. Just because Huy Fong didn’t rely on marketing doesn’t mean content marketing and marketing automation aren’t enormously important. They had to wait 20 years before their hot sauce really picked up, and another 10 before it finally blew up. That’s the cost of not relying on any marketing – lots of lost time. Had David Tran seen the value of marketing back when he started making his millions, he could have grown Huy Fong much faster, and the hot sauce giant could be 10x bigger than it is today.

The fact that he didn’t doesn’t make his strategy right — it just gives marketers like us a very interesting case study to learn from. I think there are 5 things that a marketer can glean from Huy Fong’s slow-but-steady, no-marketing approach:

1. Word of mouth is easily the best type of marketing.

2. Early adopters will market a great product for you, free of charge.

3. Marketing speeds up selling, but doesn’t guarantee a sell.

4. A great reputation guarantees a sell.

5. A great product is the fastest way to a great reputation.

For those of us constantly surrounded by marketing and its tools, Huy Fong’s no-marketing success story is a great reminder of the intrinsic value proposition of good marketing, as well as what marketing can’t accomplish without a great product behind it.

Have any thoughts on Sriracha’s incredble no-marketing approach or how marketing might learn from them? Sound off below.