Wang Mazi livestreamed 21 hours of garlic smashing after rival's knife broke

In July 2022, a customer whose Zhang Xiaoquan (张小泉) kitchen knife broke while smashing garlic was told by the brand's customer service that its knives weren't designed for that use — a routine complaint that turned into a national controversy once screenshots went viral, because smashing garlic with the flat of a cleaver is a near-universal home-cooking motion in China, and the company's response read as blaming the customer for using a knife normally.

Wang Mazi, an old-name Chinese knife brand that hadn't livestreamed on its Douyin channel since mid-June, restarted it the moment the Zhang Xiaoquan story broke and devoted an entire 21-hour, 45-minute session to one activity: smashing garlic, repeatedly, on camera, with its own knives, alongside a running claim that any knife that broke doing it would be replaced.

Answered the rival's broken knife with a 21-hour livestream of its own garlic smashing, riding the trending topic before the window closed.

The live demonstration directly answered the viral claim, making the brand relevant to the trending story.

The 21-hour marathon created a spectacle that attracted viewers and earned media coverage.

The replacement pledge turned the demonstration into a bold proof of quality, reinforcing trust.

Launching immediately captured the attention window before the news cycle moved on.

When a competitor fails publicly at a specific task, demonstrate your product doing that exact task live, while the story is still trending.

The livestream drew roughly 450,000 viewers over its 21-hour run, generating substantial earned media coverage of Wang Mazi by name across major Chinese outlets purely as a side effect of the Zhang Xiaoquan story; direct sales conversion was modest by comparison — about 989 units sold for roughly 82,500 yuan in the stream itself — making the win primarily one of free attention and brand association rather than immediate revenue.