DIARY: Stories we could tell... When niche means selling to a billion

Admittedly, selling milk for what it contains - vitamins, minerals and other boring bits - is so yesterday now that China has joined the space age.

So the Inner Mongolia company reckons marketing milk as the tipple of choice for astronauts - even if China's first, Yang Liwei, only spent his time navigating the earth - will have its cartons flying off store shelves.

Hence Mengniu rolled out its 'Special milk for China's astronauts' promotion, which has been airing on prime-time programmes on national broadcaster China Central Television.

Whether it's bravura or simply patriotism, Mengniu's chutzpah - the dairy giant did start life with a few cows - is paying off.

Sales have been soaring so much that supermarkets in the country are planning to order more as well as other daily used products designed for astronauts.Which goes to prove that Diary knows little about marketing...specifically, about marketing to China's masses.

With just one astronaut to its credit, it should have been safe to assume that Mengniu had taken niche marketing to the extreme.

Then again, Diary never reckoned with the patriotism of mainlanders who are as justifiably proud of Yang Liwei's feat as they are of Yao Ming's hoop skills.

So, if it's not too late, Diary too wants to get in and milk China's space mania by trademarking the astronaut's name or Yang's Shenzhou-5 spacecraft.

After all, with the manufacturing mecca of Shenzhen across the border and a clever agency to work with, there's no telling what Diary can turn out.Flip-flops, umbrellas, baseball caps, T-shirts...designed for the astronaut waiting to burst out of China's regular Joes.