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At the heart of MìLà is storytelling.
The modern Chinese food brand uses design, film, influencer marketing and more to tell a story that honors its heritage while taking it into the future.
“There’s a bag of dumplings on top of the soup [a picture of] my mother and her friend who helped us assemble dumplings at the restaurant at the very beginning,” shares MìLà co-founder Jennifer Liao Restaurant influencers host Shawn Walchef. “It’s a really personal touch.”
Liao and her husband Caleb Wang are co-founders of MìLà, which provides restaurant-quality dishes that will be enjoyed at home. The brand began as a brick-and-mortar store in Washington state, but in 2020 it expanded to sell frozen products directly to consumers. It currently offers a selection of soups, sauces, pastas, stickers and ice cream.
Part of MìLà North Star’s storytelling led to a strong partnership with Uncle RogerSimu Liu and others, which helped them share their journey with much more people.
Rebranding to MìLà
Liao and Wang’s restaurant concept was called Xiao Chi Jie, or XCJ for short. Due to difficulties with marketing, especially web optimization, and customers’ difficulty pronouncing the name appropriately, the couple decided to rebrand to include a more personal touch and a name that was easier to communicate to loyal customers.
“We didn’t actually rebrand until [March 2023]” says Liao. “We wanted to choose a name that was more representative of us.”
They liked the name Mila for their daughter, but as a substitute it became the name of a different kind of baby: their growing food company was reborn as MìLà.
“It basically means sweet (mì 蜜) and spicy (là 辣), which perfectly fits the concept of food,” Liao says. “We loved how personal it was to us; it meant something in Chinese and English. It embraced this duality, this “third culture” element for us, which is vital for us in getting the name.”
After rebranding and finding investors, they hired actor and writer Simu Liu as chief content officer. “Many Asian kids like me grew up being teased for the taste, look and smell of food that other kids weren’t familiar with,” Liu said during her collaboration with the brand. “MìLà demystifies Chinese cuisine and creates an inclusive conversation about third culture in a way that I am excited to be a part of.”
Moreover, he added: “The dumplings with MìLà soup gained my parents’ approval.”
According to Liao, MìLà must have an organic connection and similar goals if it collaborates with a person or brand.
“We’ve talked to a lot of different celebrities and public figures, and you can see that sometimes it’s not appropriate,” he says. “I think that’s really realistic in a partnership… And if you feel like there’s a thread, keep at it.”
When it comes to connecting with their online audiences, Liao and Wang took surveys on Instagram to discover what their core audiences want to see. They learned that some followers love enticing food photos, but a significant percentage enjoy watching behind-the-scenes, unscripted videos of co-founders in motion running their company.
“It allows us to tell the story of who we are in a different way and gives us behind-the-scenes pieces that are unpolished and not necessarily about the content of the food or recipes,” Liao says.
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