SuperMonkey is a fitness gym founded in 2014 in Shenzhen. At the moment, it has covered top-tier cities including Beijing, Shanghai and its birthplace.

Business Model

SuperMonkey’s business model appeals to many white collars. You don’t have to buy an annual card nor a seasonal one to have the training, instead, you pay each time whenever you feel like visiting. In some way, this helps people save money, as most of them pay a large amount of money but only visiting the gym once or twice. On the flipped side, for consumers who have unlimited passion to work out, it is a big number if they pay each single time.

Prices of SuperMonkey range from 89 RMB to 109 RMB. It used to be less, which was 69 RMB, SAD. As a newcomer, you can get a discount of 30 RMB and that makes it 59 RMB to join. If you share the mini program, you will also have further bonuses of 10-25 RMB as discounts. But still, I think this is a bit expensive.

Automatic Check In

What also makes SuperMonkey different from other gyms is the fact that no staff is required to be there. This is because everything is robotic. Once you make the payment successfully, you will receive a WeChat notification with a password. The password is used to open the entrance door to the gym, and the door to the training room that you’ve booked. There are many activities that consumers can choose from. For example, Body Combat, Zumba, Body Step, Body Jam etc. After the training, people will take a selfie picture together in front of the mirror. Later, the image will be embedded in another notification message to your WeChat. People like to save these images and post them online to show off that they went to a SuperMonkey class.

I am getting fond of this business model, though I have to pay every time. But actually, because of it, I pay and I work out, it feels like the money is totally worth it, and the sense of accomplishment is growing! What are other interesting facts about SuperMonkey? Check out our video to find out more about one of China’s most popular fitness companies.

Video footage source: 我调查了北京最帅的超级教练

The post Why Are Chinese White Collars Obsessed with SuperMonkey Gyms? appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

On July 22, Hong Xing Erke posted on Weibo saying the company donated 50 million RMB for Henan. The post has 9.5 million likes so far and it quickly became number 1 on the hot topic ranking board.

What happened? Why did Hong Xing Erke’s donation receive such overwhelming passion from people? What can brands learn from the situation?   

On The Crazy Night of Hong Xing Erke’s Livestream 

According to Huitun Data (灰豚数据), a Taobao livestream monitoring platform, the average views of Hong Xing Erke’s livestream during the past 6 days before its Weibo announcement was only 11k, while the views on July 22 reached 2 million. The sales amount that it achieved that night (10 million RMB) was way more than what it had done on the day of 618 Shopping Festival.  

The craze continued to July 23. The number of viewers rose to 7.5 million and received more than 50 million likes, which was way more than top live streamer Viya’s performance that day.  

In the livestream, many products were quickly out of stock. And because there were too many people watching, the livestream froze sometimes, and was not able to load images of products.  

Live streamers were telling viewers to shop rationally, and to only buy what they need. But viewers were too enthusiastic, and they wouldn’t listen to live streamers. When the live streamer told them that if the shoes don’t fit their feet, they can return them. And people responded to her saying, if their shoes don’t fit their feet, that’s their feet’s problem not the shoes’, and they will make their feet to fit their shoes.  

Viewers were even asking when Hong Xing Erke would start selling their down jackets, that the air conditioner is making their home so cold. And if the brand doesn’t prepare to sell down jackets, they can just send them ducks and they will start pulling out feathers and making their own.  

One man said he bought a whole set of clothes for his son offline at a Hong Xing Erke store and his son didn’t like them. He said he decided to change a son.  

I mean, this is really crazy! For the first time ever, I saw so many people support a brand! And not even a trendy one.  

Why Hong Xing Erke?  

This is because of contrast, in two ways. 50 million RMB isn’t a small number, yet you didn’t see the news on Weibo’s hot topic ranking board. Instead, the ranking board was filled with “xyz celebrities donated 500k or 1M RMB for Henan” and other companies’ contributions. However most of these companies, bought themselves onto the ranking board to promote their brands. So, they gave money, but they wanted to be praised for it, so it didn’t seem sincere. Compared with them, Hong Xing Erke donated 50 million but it was being low-key and other that posting on its own Weibo account it wasn’t trying to promote itself for donating.  

The other comparison comes from the most liked comment in Hong Xing Erke’s Weibo post, saying the company was about to bankrupt but still made such generous donation. In 2020, the revenue of Anta, a domestic sports giant, was 35.5 trillion RMB, while Hong Xing Erke earned 2.8 trillion, yet they both donated the same amount of money.  

Being low-key and being generous quickly gained the brand lots of attention and consumers’ sympathy, respect and trust.  

Hong Xing Erke Has Been Underperforming in Recent Years  

The brand was founded in 2020 in Fujian Province. Its slogan shows great ambition: To Be NO.1, yet from its performance during the past several years it seems it still needs to work a lot harder to achieve this goal.  

With the competition from international players such as Nike and Adidas, together with the growing popularity of other domestic sportswear brands such as LiNing and Anta, Hong Xing Erke has been struggling to keep up. Many cite its lack of creativity. For a long time, people linked its shoes with plagiarism and outdated fashion.  

To combat this, instead of improving products and marketing, the brand changed markets, targeting lower tier cities. The average prices for its products range from 150-400 RMB, which is also more affordable compared with other sports brands.  

Brand Livestreams Have Become a Forum for People to Express Their Feelings  

From the Xinjiang Cotton Scandal (when many people were flocking to Nike and H&M’s livestream to criticize them for what they have done), to KANS’ livestream and to Hong Xing Erke’s livestream, we can see that livestreaming has become a platform for consumers to express their feelings towards brand’s responses to cultural events.  

In terms of KANS’ and Hong Xing Erke’s cases, one of the reasons why they’ve received massive support from consumers is that they both quickly responded in the correct manner to a trending public affair.  

A recap of KAN’s case – It was evoked by a top Chinese celebrity Kris Wu’s scandal. Before the scandal, Kris represented many international brands such as Louis Vuitton, Bvlgari, Porsche, and many FMCG giants such as detergent brand Liby and instant noodle Master Kong. KANS was not as eye-catchy as the other brands that Kris represented.  

However, it is the first one that bravely stood out and said it would terminate its partnership with Kris. Compared with some of the brands that hesitated to do so, KANS’ quick reaction earned itself attention and favorable impression. Together with the push from its two live streamers that night, KANS has greatly promoted itself from the PR crisis.  

Back to Hong Xing Erke’s case. Its low-key and generous behavior encouraged many people to support the brand in its livestream. What also impressed consumers was that the live streamer kept telling them to shop rationally, and don’t buy anything not needed.  

Both brands’ CEOs went to their livestream afterwards, to express their gratitude and to show their faith in Chinese brands. Having CEOs show up in livestream somehow personalizes brands and it makes sure that brands are leveraging the sudden attention.  

Read more: 鸿星尔克低调捐款5000万，网友冲进直播间”买买买” 

捐款5000万”被倒闭”的鸿星尔克，劝网友”理性消费”，直播卖货破亿？

鸿星尔克低调捐款，200万网友冲进直播间”野性消费” 

The post Chinese Sports Brand Hong Xing Erke Sees Surge in Popularity After its Donation to Henan Flood Relief appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

So how did yoga pants become publicly accepted in China?

While the rise of athleisure and growing interest in sports and fitness has fueled some of this change, one of the main drivers behind Chinese consumers’ acceptance of yoga pants, especially in lower-tier cities, was the re-framing and re-naming of yoga pants by top fashion bloggers into just another type of pants, removing the athletic connotations.

Let’s take a closer look.

Lululemon Drove Popularity in 1^st Tier Cities

The brand entered the Chinese market in 2016, with the athleisure trend. Many of China’s 1^st-tier fashionistas knew about the popularity of Lululemon abroad and were quick to embrace the brand. Plus, because of Lululemon’s fashionable design, for example, its pants don’t show underwear lines and they have a butt-lifting effect, people start wearing those pants in public places. Around this time, fitness also started becoming trendy in China, mainly among white-collar workers in 1^st-tier cities. Wearing yoga pants showed you were part of that trend.

Giving Yoga Pants a New Name Helped Them Go Mainstream in China

But at that point, yoga pants were still only being worn by a small group of people. One of the limiting factors keeping them from going mainstream was the price (we’ll talk more about that in a moment). The other was the name “yoga pants” or “exercise pants”.

This name signaled that one needed to be exercising in order to wear them. But at that time, the vast majority of women in China, especially in lower-tier cities, didn’t have the habit of going to gyms or doing yoga. This means they didn’t have a reason to wear yoga pants.

So in 2016, popular Taobao fashion influencer Eve Zhang (Zhang Dayi) gave them a new name: Shark Skin Pants or Shayu Ku (鲨鱼裤). The name described the look and texture of shiny, thick yoga pants and the tightening and slimming effect they have.

Because it is such a fashionable and easy-understanding name, it took off. Many Taobao stores started following Eve and referring to their yoga pants as shark pants.

Now with the new name, wearing yoga pants was no longer confined to a specific occasion. People started wearing them with their everyday looks.

They really went mainstream in 2020. I remember in winter last year, I saw so many girls wearing them on the street. Girls love matching shark pants with an oversized hoodie or a sweater on top. They also wore long socks with a pair of sneakers.

Top Chinese celebrity Yang Mi (杨幂), whose street looks influence fashion in China, wore shark pants in one of her airport looks, causing them to become even more viral. But the funny thing is that she was wearing Lululemon’s yoga pants when the picture was being taken.

Nowadays there are many KOLs promoting yoga pants such as Douyin influencer Hu Chuliang (胡楚靓). Hu launched yoga pants in her store last year. She managed to sell 253 million RMB worth of yoga pants within the first year.

Mass production makes prices affordable

Now alongside the new name, another key reason why yoga pants were able to go mainstream was that they became cheaper. At around 800 RMB a pair, Lululemon is expensive which made it hard for the trend to spread to the mainstream.

Before 2016, only a few factories in China produced yoga pants. But after Eve Zhang introduced the name shark pants and the trend started taking off, some factories spotted the potential popularity of yoga pants and started transforming their business.

For example, a factory called Mutuzhe (沐途者) used to mostly produce swimwear (80-90%) and yoga clothes (10-20%), and most of its products were sold overseas.

With the history of producing swimming wear, Mutuzhe easily shifted its business into yoga pant production for the domestic market. Because the needs for yoga pants grew dramatically, Mutuzhe opened another two new factories in 2018 and 2020.

To create ordinary yoga pants, it doesn’t require expensive materials and high-end technology. It only costs around 45 RMB to produce one pair, and that’s why there are many cheap yoga pants on Taobao or Pinduoduo.

E-commerce platforms are speeding up the yoga pants trend

Besides the new name and lower prices, e-commerce and social channels such as Taobao Live, Douyin, Kuaishou and Pinduoduo really helped spread the trend to lower-tier cities.

Live streaming has become a key sales channel for yoga pants, especially those that promise slimming or lifting effects. Unlike skincare products, which require days to see its effects, or bras, which are not appropriate to wear outside publicly, yoga pants, on the other hand, are easy to show viewers their effect.

For example, a Chinese yoga clothes brand molyvivi, which was just founded in 2020 managed to achieve over 5 million RMB sales through its livestream. It has a store on Pinduoduo, and the best selling pants in the store are only 49 RMB.

Key Takeaway

While price, sales channel, and product quality are all important – sometimes these alone are not enough to make a new trend take off. Cultural factors need to be considered as well. Reframing yoga pants as shark pants changed consumers’ perception and made them a product anyone could wear at any time. This case study is important to keep in mind when bringing any product to the China market. 

Read more: 下沉的【瑜伽裤】|趋势分析

The post How Yoga Pants Finally Became Popular in China, Even in Lower-Tier Cities appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

Tmall turns out to be the main battlefield for most brands. This year, it attracted 250k brands to join, which was 2.5 times the scale of 2020. Among them, 8,200 brands participated in the Tmall 618 shopping festival for the first time. A lot of brands used the holiday not only as a chance to boost sales, but also as a chance to test out new products. In fact overall there were 1.4 million newly launched items.

Today’s article stems from a report published by Alibaba’s Alimama marketing platform. The report shares 618 case studies from 100 global and Chinese brands. Here we’d like to highlight 10 of the Chinese brands included in the report and share their results.

For brands that we didn’t mention in our previous articles, we will start close monitoring them.  Subscribe to our newsletter and stay tuned!

1. Breo (倍轻松) – Massage Devices

Breo is a Shenzhen-based brand founded in 2000. It is well-known for its massage devices which combine traditional Chinese medicine with advanced technology.

What makes the brand known to the public is its ambassador Xiao Zhan (肖战). He has 29 million followers on Weibo. Xiao once had a massive scandal for allowing his followers to start an Internet war with a platform that presented Xiao’s image negatively. He was criticized by news outlet People’s Daily (人民日报), the mouth of Chinese government.

Even though many thought his career must be ruined from the scandal, after laying low for a while, Xiao magically recovered and has begun working with numerous brands. The most buzz-about one is his appointment as ambassador for Li Ning (李宁), a Chinese sports brand that is often compared with Nike. Xiao is definitely a person that is always in the spot-light and Breo has benefitted from it. During 618, the number of new customers grew 150%. Its neck massage device, eye massage device and scalp massage device all ranked TOP1 in their corresponding product category on Tmall.

2. Xiao Mi (小米) – Technology

Xiao Mi is first known for its mobile phones. It successfully expands its business categories into digital home appliances. Like its phones, the prices of its appliances are more affordable compared with other products in the same category.

During the 618 shopping festival, Xiaomi’s sales on Tmall broke 3 billion RMB. On June 1, an hour after the first round of 618 began, its sales were already higher than its sales from the whole first day last year.

3. Xiao Xian Dun (小仙炖) – Supplements

Chinese people have always been very focused on anti-aging, and birds’ nest supplements are seen as one of the most effective supplements.

During the 618 shopping festival, Xiao Xian Dun ranked TOP1 on Tmall in the birds’ nest category. The number of customers that purchased its annual set grew 113% year-over-year. The annual set, which has 336 bottles, cost 27,591 – 84,405 RMB.

You may wonder why there is such a big price disparity for one set. This is because Xiao Xian Dun doesn’t want to scare its customers with extremely high prices. So it has different portions for several sets, such as the 100g x 336 bottles, 70g x 336 bottles or 45g for each bottle.

Live streaming played a huge role in Xiao Xian Dun’s success. In total, its brand-run live streams contributed 21 million RMB in sales during the 618 campaign.

4. Adopt A Cow (认养一头牛) – Food & Beverage

Adopt A Cow is a Chinese diary brand that managed to surpassed two giants, Mengniu Diary (蒙牛) and Yili (伊利), and ranked TOP1 in its category during last year’s Double 11.

24 hours into the presale of this year’s 618 shopping festival, Adopt A Cow achieved over 13 million RMB in sales on Tmall, which was already more than the total sales amount during last year’s presale. It also gained a lot of new followers during this year’s shopping holiday, helping its Tmall store to pass the 10 million followers milestone. In terms of the amount of average per order, it improved 120% compared with the same time last year.

Why has the brand been so successful? To compete with Mengniu and Yili, Adopt A Cow introduced a new way to approach its customers. It is also building relationship with customers through customer feedback groups, livestream and farm visits and allowing customers to actually adopt a cow.

5. Genki Forest (元气森林) – Food & Beverage

Not long ago, we just wrote about Genki Forest’s scandal. Genki Forest is a soda water brand known for its super healthy ingredients with zero sugar and low fat. But it turns out the brand was misguiding its customers to think it’s zero sugar which in fact, it contains sugar.

However, it seems that consumers quickly forgot the scandal, or maybe they have chosen to ignore it because they love the brand’s drinks too much. During 168, Genki Forest managed to obtain 20 million new customers. It ranked in the TOP 10 in the beverage industry during presale period. Its 618 advertisements also helped the brand increase traffic to its Tmall store by 30%.

6. Toffee (奶糖派) – Underwear

We’ve talked a lot about Ubras, which is a young and fast-growing domestic underwear brand. It’s best known for its one-size-fits-all bras. Well, Toffee is the opposite. Instead of targeting the masses with a one-size-fits-all product, Toffee specifically targets large-chested women.

The brand distinguishes itself with its thoughtful designs and the close relationship with its end users. During the 618 shopping festival, it managed to grow its number of Gen Z customers by 645%. Only 40 minutes after the sale began, the sales amount already surpassed what it achieved in a whole day last year.

Toffee also successfully gets itself enter the TOP 10 in the underwear category on Tmall and it is the TOP 1 in the large chested bras category.

7. Urban Revivo – Apparel

While many international fast fashion brands’ results in China are declining, Chinese brand Urban Revivo is thriving. And it’s not only succeeding in China, but also doing well abroad in many international markets.

During 618, just 11 hours after the shopping festival began, its sales amount already surpassed the sales that it took 3 days to achieve last year. Statistics also show that, the number of customers between the ages of 18-24 grew 8% this year.

8. Warm Studio or Guliang Jiji (古良吉吉) – Bags

Warm Studio or Guliang Jiji was founded in 2012 in Hangzhou, China. The brand’s Chinese name comes from the names of the creators of the brand who also happen to be a couple. Jiji, she is the designer of the brand, and Guliang, who oversees the business side of things, aka, everything else except design.

The price of Warm Studio’s bags are on the pricier side for a Chinese bag brand, almost that the entry lux level. They are sold between 500-2700 RMB. Those bags are very recognizable either in terms of their materials, texture or their designs. I bought a very tiny one which can only store airpods inside, and I was very surprised by how the bag looks and feels. It surpassed my expectations. This is my favorite Chinese bag at the moment!

During the 618 shopping festival, the number of its Gen Z customers on Tmall grew 670%, and its active customers grew 145%. In terms of ROI, it improved 90%.

9. Boohee (薄荷健康) – Food & Beverage

Boohee first started as a platform that provide healthy consultations but now it has expanded into products, specifically, meal plans. Its Tmall flagship store sells low fat, low sugar food, such as chicken breast, pre-made meals, etc. 

Just an hour after the 618 shopping festival began, the brand’s sales already surpassed what it did last year for a whole day. It has also successfully lowered the cost to attract new customers to the store, and its ROI improved 15% this year.

10. KEEP – Fitness

KEEP is first known as a fitness app. It was founded in 2015. I use it a lot as it has many tutorials for different levels and different body parts that you want to target. To enrich its monetization methods, KEEP sell peripheral products on its Tmall store, including clothes and fitness equipment.

An hour after 618 began, it managed to sell more than what it did last year in a day. By 23:59 on June 1, the GMV of KEEP grew 104% compared with the same time last year. Its JD Tmall store’s GMV achieved great progress, with 323%. Not only domestically, the brand’s sales grew over 50% when it comes to international orders.

Read more: 618收官，最值得看的TOP100营销案例|alimama超级秀可思Vol.05

The post 10 Chinese Brands That Excelled on Tmall During This Year’s 618 Shopping Festival appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

Over the past several years, “light food” has become very popular among young people in China. A search for light food on Xiaohongshu brings up over 190K results. A light food diet is essentially just healthy eating – low salt, low sugar, low oil meals with a focus on protein and vegetables.

A Growing Business

While some people will make their own meals, many people who want to eat light are busy and would rather order takeout. According to Qichacha Database, there are now around 10k light food companies in China. Based on the light food consumption report published by Meituan (美团) in 2019 (轻食消费卡大数据报告), the amount of light food orders increased 98% compared with the same time in 2018, and the number of light food retailers on Meituan grew 58%. Euromonitor Consulting expects that by 2022, the scale of Chinese light food market will reach 12M RMB.

Why is this diet trend so popular in China?

In China, there is a phrase referring to having light food or salad, which is “eating grass”. The phrase contains sympathy and self-irony. Despite the fact that having “grass” is not a pleasant thing in most people’s minds, they are still willing to pay for it. Because behind this is people’s growing anxiety towards their bodies.

Read more about appearance anxiety here: Appearance Anxiety Driving Chinese Consumers to Take Loans to Pay for Cosmetic Procedures

A report published on May 11, which is Obesity Prevention Day, showed that 54.3% of Chinese women feel they are too fat. And while many women want to lose weight there is also a growing number of skinny people that are pursuing a curvier body type.  

Body related hot topics on social media also increase people’s body anxiety. For example, at one time, there was a challenge where people were crazy enough to see if they can reach around their back and touch their belly buttons. There was also a test to see if the width of your waist can fit into A4 paper. Those who can do these “challenges” post their evidence on social media which gives other pressure and body anxiety, and many people start choosing to go on a diet and eat light food after seeing these images.

Who is embracing the diet trend in China?

According to the report published by Meituan, among light food consumers, 62% of them are post-90s, and 26% of them are post-80s. Female consumers take up 70%.

That’s the statistics back in 2019. I haven’t found the latest light food consumer demographic reports, but based on my personal observation, consumers in those top tier cities are more open to light food. They embrace it as a way to guide them to a healthy lifestyle. City dwellers show great commitment to having light food, regardless of young or old.

On the other hand, in lower tier cities, most light food consumers are people who work out frequently. Their expectation for having such food is very pure: lose and control weight. The majority of them are young people, because for the older generation in lower tier cities, they can’t accept having such food while paying higher prices.

Why light food is expensive?

Light food is often very simple, yet the price for a portion of light food is typically three times the price of a hamburger.

It should be cheap theoretically for these reasons:

1. The industry has lower threshold to enter. For people without any light food management background or even dining background, they can still enter the industry with simple training. Besides, a light food restaurant requires simple processes to go through to receive a business license.
2. Lower input cost. There are two options to open a light food restaurant. One is by opening your own store and the other is to open a franchisee store. The franchisee fee is between 80k to 180k RMB, which is way lower than opening a hotpot franchisee store or a milk tea franchisee store. It costs no more than 200k RMB to open a light food restaurant in first tier cities.
3. Light food is easy to cook. This food is light because they are either steamed food or boiled food. A chief only needs to select ingredients, cook simply, place them nicely on a bowl or a plate, and pour sauces on it.

So why light food is not affordable to everyone?

1. High requirement for ingredients. Since light food is not cooked with complicated processes, and little to no oil, it maintains the original flavor of its ingredients. If the food is not fresh, it can be easily distinguished. How to maintain the freshness of ingredients? An effective way is to have those food transported by cold chains, and this adds extra cost.
2. High commission rate taken by takeaway platforms. The average commission rate taken by Eleme (饿了么) is 20% for light food retailers. The platform usually charges its retailers 15-20%, so you know light food retailers’ rate rank high on the platform. On Meituan, the rate is as high as 23%. High commission rate leaves small profits for retailers and they can only raise prices of their products to make up the gap.
3. Vendors are investing more to attract new consumers and maintain old ones. As we mentioned before, the number of light food retailers is increasing sharply in China. This means more competition. To differentiate their stores from others, retailers are investing more on the ingredients, the packaging and the quality of their service. All of these add to the price that consumers pay for in the end.
4. Vendors know consumers will pay a premium. Consumers want this specific type of food and they will pay more to get it rather than eating another type of food that is cheaper.

Light food is a trend. It has history in China and it is being accepted as a healthy lifestyle. On the other hand, plant-based meat might not. As it is very new and many people still don’t like paying a large amount of money for this not-tasty fake meat.

Traditional restaurants are joining the industry

Many traditional restaurants spot this trend and they are adding light food as an option for consumers. For example, Pizza Hut opened a light food restaurant in Beijing. McDonald’s launched its Ciabatta collection featuring light food in February 2021. At the moment, only Shanghai and Ningbo (宁波) offer these menu items, since McDonald wants to see how consumers react to its light food in these two cities first.

Chinese traditional noodle restaurant Xibei Youmian (西北莜面) opened its first yogurt dining restaurant in the CBD of Beijing in 2019. Its target consumers are young people including white collars. Founder of Xibei, Jia Guolong (贾国龙), said this was their experiment and testing of the light food market. But in early 2021, the Beijing store closed down. It appears consumers couldn’t accept the high price of its yogurt, which was 3-4 times higher than the usual price on the market.

Though light food is known for having a higher price than regular food, brands also need to figure out the acceptable price range for consumers.  

Read more: 中国女孩的身材焦虑，养活了这门40000亿的“昂贵生意”

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轻食消费越来越受青睐——今天你“吃草”了吗

The post Body Anxiety Driving China’s Latest Diet Trend: Light Food appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

China’s Oral Care Market Less Developed

In recent years, China’s oral care market has started to take off. For a long time, China’s electric toothbrush market has been less developed than western countries. Compared with a 42% penetration rate in European and American markets, China’s electric toothbrush penetration rate is not even 10%.

If a Chinese consumer spends 100 RMB on oral care products, nearly 90 RMB will be spent on toothpaste and traditional toothbrushes. However, in western countries, 50% of oral care spending is on electric toothbrushes, mouth wash and dental floss.

With such tremendous room for growth, let’s dig into usmile’s marketing strategy and see what it has done to conquer the Chinese market.

Usmile’s Social Media Channels

Though usmile didn’t start to take off until the recent two years, the first few years weren’t wasted. In fact, those years of promotion helped build the foundation and widespread awareness that helped the brand finally gain momentum.

WeChat Official Account

In China, if a new-born brand with no awareness solely relies on Tmall, it will find it very hard to grow unless it has a huge budget for promotion. This is because Tmall’s search engine prioritizes stores that have high sales volume. With little budget, usmile had to figure another way to promote its brand.

That was back in 2015, which also happened to be the time when lots of WeChat KOLs were growing quickly. Usmile’s team found that at that stage, KOLs were cautious when choosing brands to work with and they tend to have close relationship with followers. usmile sent its toothbrushes to WeChat KOLs and let them have a try. If they approve of the quality of the product, KOLs would recommend usmile to their followers. In total, usmile worked with over 100 KOLs and that’s how the brand created its first group of followers.

Xiaohongshu

As the traffic on WeChat started becoming hard to obtain, usmile marched to a new platform: Xiaohongshu. That was 2017 which was very early days for the platform and the majority of posts were real customer experiences and not sponsored.

In its Xiaohongshu content, usmile promoted two key features: its toothbrush’s design and its lower price compared with Oral B and Philips. These two points turned out to be appealing for Xiaohongshu’s female users, and it made usmile’s marble pillar toothbrush become its hero product. In 2018, this single product achieved over 100M RMB in sales and on last year’s 618, one marble pillar toothbrush was sold in every 2 seconds.

TV Show Sponsorship

Last year usmile sponsored a popular Chinese drama Go Ahead (以家人之名). But it didn’t do a simple product placement. Instead, it had one of the main leads, male idol Song Weilong, grow up to become a dentist and work at a usmile dentist’s office. Consequently, all the main characters also start to use usmile products throughout the show.

Usmile Solved Customers’ Electronic Toothbrush Complaints

Better battery

The majority of plugin electronic toothbrushes have poor batteries that lose their charge easily. I charged mine (not from usmile) every three days and it is kind of annoying when I’m in the middle of burshing my teeth and the toothbrush goes silent and stops vibrating.

Spotting this issue, usmile updated its battery to increase the amount of time it can last. From comments that I read on social media, some people can even go half a year without charging it and this impresses lots of customers.

Replace traditional charger with USB charger

Another issue that bothers consumers about electronic toothbrushes is how it charges. For mine, I have to take its charger everywhere. Since I am in China, that’s okay. But back when I was an international student in Australia and in UK, I had to get a new charger every time I went back to China during summer break because the outlet sizes are different, and the charger could not fit. And then I would buy one for China, but by the time I got back the next year I couldn’t find it.

Many young Chinese people had this issue when traveling abroad. To fix this issue, usmile replaced the traditional charger with a USB charger. In this way, the usmile toothbrush shares the same charging line with everyone’s phones. It’s easy to find USB charging ports everywhere and it also plugs into charging banks. This makes it convenient for customers to charge their toothbrushes.

Prevent the handle from moulding

When we brush our teeth, it is unavoidable that the toothbrush will be exposed to water. If we dry it right after brushing teeth and the environment is not wet, the handle stays fine. But on most occasions, we are in a rush to go to work or go to school and over the long run, the handle gets mouldy. usmile improved the materials used for the outer layer of the handle to make sure that it won’t get mouldy easily.

Usmile Developed a Wide Range of Oral Care Products Beyond Toothbrushes

Usmile noticed that, in the Chinese market, no brands prodivided a full range of oral care products. usmile saw this market opportunity and started developing other products such as and oral irrigator, toothpaste, mouth wash, dental floss and other products.

Usmile’s goal is to cover customers’ entire oral care routine and its hero product, electronic toothbrushes, are just a window for customers to learn about the brand.

Issues That Usmile Needs to Deal With

There are comments saying the noise that usmiles’ electronic toothbrush generates is too loud and they will only recommend people who live alone to buy it. Otherwise, using it will wake your family up. This seems a bit exaggerated though.

But still, with the growing post-90s and post-95s, who understand better of the importance of mouth care and are willing to spend more on it, the mouth care business will have its golden age coming up. 

Read more: 爆款密码｜拥挤赛道，如何用情怀、美学、科技击中新人群内心？

“嘿科技”火遍朋友圈，usmile如何写这部国产品牌进化论？

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Of course where there’s a problem – there’s a market for solutions, especially when consumers want to treat the symptoms and not the root of the problem. What do I mean by that? Well there is a saying in China that people are using the most expensive eye cream while staying up late. 

According to media outlet Global E-businessmen, China’s sleep economy has surpassed 400 billion RMB. It is expected that by 2030, its scale will be over 1 trillion RMB. The sleep economy can be classified into three categories: hardware (such as bedding and machines), software (such as sleeping apps) and medicine (health and supplement). Other than these traditional products and services, in China there is also a lulling business. This is a service where you pay someone to talk to you until you fall asleep.

Let’s take a look at the different segments: 

Sleep Economy Segment 1: Hardware & Bedding

Simple bedding is no longer enough, people want the latest technology that will enable the optimum sleep. Whenever you open a Taobao bedding store or visit offline stores, you will find that many brands are introducing their “black technology” to customers. This includes features such as “artificial intelligence”, “anti-microbial” or “protect your spine”.

In the Chinese bedding market, there is no one dominating the market. Well-performing brands are SLEEMON (喜临门), Healthcare (梦百合), Suibao (穗宝) and Kuka Home (顾家). Among them, SLEEMON is the top one and on last year’s Double 11, it ranked NO.1 in its category on Tmall. There are a few international brands that are popular in the market, such as MUJI, IKEA, ZARA HOME and Sheridan.

Other than bedding, people are also seeking help from other hardware products such as eye masks and earplugs. Steam eye mask is a big winner as it can heat up by exposing to the air and keep warm for 15 minutes. I have tried it and the temperature was very comfortable for eyes and for falling asleep. The product maintains a double digit growth in its sales volume online.

Sleep Economy Segment 2: Sleeping Apps

The cheapest way to try and resolve sleeping issues is to download apps. For example white noise apps with various sounds such as stove fire, sea waves and rain to calm people down and help them to fall asleep quickly. Many of these apps can even monitor users’ sleeping performance.

A popular sleeping app in China is called Snail Sleep (蜗牛睡眠). It is estimated that the average time that a user in Shanghai used the app was 45.7 hours a month. Ways for those apps to monetize are either by charging users for specific sound or selling beddings and related sleeping products on the app.

You can tell China’s sleep economy is really growing because top Chinese podcast platform Ximalaya FM also has a sleep section. Users can choose from hundreds of sounds to make their own custom white noise sounds. Some of them are common noises such as wind in trees or waves, while there are also lots of unique ones such as farmer’s market, Guangzhou night market, and Tianjin train station. To each their own! 

However, user data privacy is a key issue that hinders those apps’ development. Snail Sleep once got warned because of collecting and using users’ personal information illegally.

Sleep Economy Segment 3: Supplements & Aromatherapy

Melatonin has become a familiar term among Chinese people, especially among post-90s and post-00s. During last year’s Double 11, the number of people from these two groups who bought melatonin was 4x the number that bought it in 2019.

One of trendy GenZ focused Chinese supplement brand Buff X’s core products is its Buff X Sleep featuring the supplement GABA.

Accompanied with these supplements are sleeping spray, aromatherapy and essential oils. According to Tmall Global, from January to August in 2019, the number of post-90s purchasing international sleeping related products grew 118%, which covered 62% of the total consumer amount.

Lulling Experts’ Income Reaches Over 10k RMB A Month

If all the methods that we have mentioned don’t work for you, no worry, there is a service you may have never tried. It’s called lulling experts, meaning a person talking to you in a soothing voice until you fall asleep.

It is very similar to the job that we mentioned in our previous article: virtual boyfriend. They work in the same way. You can search for such services on Taobao and there are options for you to choose, such as chatting/talking for half an hour, for two hours, for a month etc. Those experts are often classified into 4 levels. If you choose the highest level, half-an-hour talk may cost you 150 RMB, and if you want the service to continue for a month, then it will be over 30k RMB.

But the grey area of this service is also getting noticed and some of the platforms and stores have been published for stepping over the line.

A cheaper option are podcast platforms like Ximlaya that we mentioned above that have audio live streaming. Many of them have sleep live streams which are similar to the lulling experts, but just not as personalized. 

Maybe the best way to cure insomnia is to do exercise for at least half an hour a day or to quit playing on mobile phones before bed. What do you think? 

Read more: 争抢千亿生意！3亿国人花式治失眠，哄睡师月入过万

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ffit8 protein bars became the category NO.1 after one year of establishment

ffit8 is a fledging Chinese meal replacement brand (founded in 2019) with protein bars as the signature product. The brand’s name represents future food, fast food, and fashion food. ffit8 sold 10.5 million pieces of protein bars in 2020, with total sales reaching RMB 117 million.

During the 2020 618 Mid-Year Shopping Festival, ffit8’s monthly sales in JD, Tmall, Xiaomi Youpin, and other channels exceeded RMB 10 million, becoming the online No.1 brand in the meal replacement bar sector.

During the 2020 Double 11 Shopping Festival, it secured first place in five sales lists, including “Tmall Protein Bars and Meal Replacement Bars,” “Xiaomi Youpin Meal Replacement Foods Sales,” “JD Protein Bars Sales,” “Tmall New Brand Nutrition Digestive Biscuits” and “Tmall Healthy and Delicious Biscuit List.” Such a brilliant market performance helps ffit8 gain a foothold in the domestic protein bar category as a top-notch brand.

In July and November 2020, ffit8 successively obtained two rounds of financing, with each worth tens of millions of yuan.

ffit8 Figured Out China’s Untapped Protein Bar Market

ffit8 stands out because it starts with protein bars, a category that has long been untapped in the Chinese market. Protein bars have been all the rage across Europe and the United States. The opportunities presented by the West and East innovation lag phenomenon precipitate the popularity of ffit8 in the Chinese market.

Before ffit8, the Chinese market has almost no explicit recognition of protein bars. The only similar one is energy bars and nut bars represented by Snickers and BE-KIND. However, energy bars are very different from protein bars. The main ingredients of energy bars are a large amount of chocolate and sugar. The high energy comes mainly from high carbohydrate water, but not high protein content.

Human beings living in modern society have got rid of the problem of “energy shortage”. On the contrary, “energy surplus” often plagues modern young people. Excess energy brings obesity and a host of health problems.

Modern people also lack enough protein. An Outline for China’s Food and Nutrition Development (2014-2020), issued by the General Office of the State Council, suggests that Chinese people should aim for a daily protein intake of 78g per person, compared with only 58g per person per day. The “High Protein” concept epitomizes great potential, especially in recent two years due to Chinese consumers’ increasing healthy awareness aroused by the epidemic.

ffit8 Made Protein Bars Appeal to a Mainstream Audience

ffit8 also redefined the target consumer group of protein bars. Protein bars introduced from abroad used to be niche products only for the fitness group. In comparison, ffit8 aims to pass on protein bars’ high protein and low sugar traits to a wide range of young people and sedentary workers. It positions itself as “the first protein bar for young people” and underscores the nutritional supplement concept instead of muscle building function. The “Protein bar for the masses” position injects greater impetus for the brand’s growth.

A broader consumer base demands more receptive tastes. ffit8’s protein bars are available in banana, coconut, and other popular flavors. It also found through consumer research that Chinese consumers, especially male consumers, prefer salty flavors. Therefore, it offers various savory protein bars, from beef to salted egg yolk and Sichuan spicy hotpot, ahead of the curve to break the traditional sweet logic of western-style protein bars.

ffit8 also leverages technology to remove most of the lactose to fit Chinese people’s lactose intolerance. It has set a goal to become a protein company and create convenient protein-fortified food products for China’s younger generation.

ffit8’s marketing offers a reference way

Engaging in Luo Yonghao’s live-streaming

In 2020, when live-streaming swept the country, ffit8 chose to collaborate with Luo Yonghao, the internet celebrity and also the founder and chief executive of smartphone company Smartisan, as its live-streaming debut. The live-streaming set a record of selling more than 45,000 boxes of ffit8 protein bars.

Crossover collaboration with variety shows

ffit8 launched the co-branding beef-flavored protein bars with China’s first hip-hop TV show, The Rap of China (中国新说唱). It also rolled out the Sichuan hot pot flavor by collaborating with the pop-culture reality show Fourtry (潮流合伙人). The collaboration helps ffit8 reach young people in the hip-hop and street wear circles and boost social media fame.

Festival marketing

Recently, the brand launched the Women’s Day limited version called “you are so beautiful today.” The new rose walnut flavored protein bar adds female-friendly ingredients, including fish collagen peptide, conifer cherry, red rose petals, walnuts, red beet without the extra sugar. It meets women’s multiple needs of weight management, beautifying, and nurturing, and is a stellar example of combining festival with production innovation.

This article was originally published on ChemLinked.

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The majority of consumers purchasing meal replacement products are females under the age of 35, and the largest consumer segment are those aged 25 and under, also known in China as post-95s. Most of these consumers are located in 1st and 2nd tier cities. Post-95 females are very willing to try out new products that will help them improve their appearance and control their weight. 

The number of brands in the meal replacement and weight loss market has more than doubled since 2018 and is a mix of Western and Chinese brands, with some of the popular Chinese meal replacement brands being Miss Zero, Dongchi, Wonderlab, and Easy Fun and brands such as ChocDay and Yuanqi Senlin who are known for their sugar free products.

When it comes to choosing meal replacement and weight loss products, the report identifies four key trends of popular brands: 

1. Low sugar, low carb
2. Packed with superfoods
3. Trendy, convenient packaging and localized flavors
4. Provide professional meal plan consultation

Sugar Free and Low Carb

Low sugar and low carb diets have been a very popular trend in China in 2020. A search for “low sugar” on popular social media platform Xiaohongshu has over 120K results and low carb has over 60K results. Consumers are interested in low sugar diets not only to lose weight but because a low sugar diet is believed to help with anti-aging. 

According to the report, the top 3 best-selling sugar free meal replacement products in China in 2020 were Miss Zero’s three-day calorie burn meal plan (三日燃卡餐), Slimfast shakes, and Dongchi’s 21-day sugar free meal plan. 

High Nutrition Foods

Top foods and ingredients that consumers are seeking out include oats, inulin, marine collagen peptides, white kidney beans, chicken breast, and red dates. 

Chicken breast has become very popular among health-conscious post-95s, especially those into fitness who are looking to have a more defined body shape. Protein bars have also become popular among these young consumers in 1st tier cities. 

Trendy, convenient packaging and localized flavors

Young consumers want it all – healthy, low calorie, and delicious. But their definition of delicious is different than western consumers and many Chinese brands that are catering to local tastes are finding success. For example, while the traditional chocolate meal replacement shake is a best-seller, flavors such as milk tea, red bean, and matcha are also very popular among post-95 consumers. 

For pre-packaged meals, products inspired by Chinese food tend to do well, such as pepper chicken, pickled vegetable soup, mapo tofu, etc.

When it comes to packaging, consumers definitely care about design. They want it to look good, and be convenient. Single serving, easy to grab and go packaging is attractive. 

Professional Meal Plans and Meal Plan Consultants

Consumers want results, and as such, purchasing meal plan sets has become very common. Three-day meals sets are the most popular. 

Additionally, brands that offer professional meal plan and weight loss consultants to customers are seeing an impact on repurchase rate and positive reviews. For example, Chinese meal plan brand Miss Zero offers professional nutrition consultants that can help consumers figure out the best meal plan to meet their goals. 

Among online reviews, around 80% of those that mention “nutrition consultants” are positive. 

Where the Industry is Headed 

The meal plan and diet product industry is expected to continue experiencing rapid growth in 2021. Brands will continue to develop products that meet the key concerns of Chinese consumers. Besides weight loss, some of the top needs include: aid sleep, women’s health, improve Qi and blood, healthy skin and hair, help with digestion. 

Read more: Z世代的餐盘新“食”尚：要好吃、要曲线、也要健康

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/npDUvnNI_b8stRH–p0pwg

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In an attempt to prevent children from developing shortsightedness, many parents are choosing to give children eye-protecting supplements such as lutein or algal oil DHA. And many of them are learning about these supplements from social media platforms such as Douyin, Weibo or Xiaohongshu.

According to an eye health report (中国眼健康白皮书) published by the National Health Commission in 2020, the percentage of shortsightedness among Chinese teenagers is 53.6%. 

Among those with shortsightedness, those that have it by age 6 is 14.5%, by primary school it’s 36%, by junior high school it’s 71.6%, by senior high school it’s 81% and by university it’s 90%.

International Supplement Brands are Benefiting from the Trend  

According to statistics from Tmall Global, in 2020, the trade volume of children’s supplements was 10 times higher than 2019, and the number of international brands in the market grew nearly 100%.

Take, for example, the Australian supplement brand Blackmores. In the past, it used to focus heavily on supplements for pregnant mothers. In 2020, based on Tmall’s analysis of consumers and related trends, the brand readjusted its product categories and started developing eye care supplements for children. Its children’s algal oil DHA became a viral product on Tmall International Super Brand Day (天猫国际超级进口日) in January 2021, with sales volumes 100 times higher than normal. 

Another example comes from a German brand called Doppelherz. It entered Tmall Global at the end of December 2020. On January 15, it launched a children’s eye care brand and achieved over 500k RMB sales in a single day.

Post-90s Mothers Leading Consumption Upgrade Trend

Behind the lucrative children’s supplement market is the consumption upgrade trend among post-90s and post-95s mothers. For international brands that want to enter the market, it is important for them to target this group of consumers.

According to a mommy-baby report published by Tmall Global and CBNData (进口母婴消费趋势白皮书), the number of post-90s mothers is growing rapidly and they tend to spend more than other groups when buying child related products. This is because consumers in this group have a higher educational background and they tend to have more awareness about health products and supplements. 

To reach this group, international brands such as Nature’s Way and Blackmores work with children’s educational companies such as Xueersi (学而思) and English learning agency EF (英孚英语) to launch children’s eye care boxes. When customers buy the gift box, their children will be given free English classes.

Future Growth

According to iimedia (艾媒咨询), the mommy-baby industry reached 3.49 trillion RMB in 2019 and it is expected to reach 7 trillion RMB in 2024. Consumer demand is becoming more niche. 

Today mothers are looking for eye care supplements, but in the future they may be looking for supplements specifically for teeth or for lips.

Read more: “神兽”放假，90后宝妈们买出了一个蓝海市场

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