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

The post Children’s Eye Care Supplement Market Booms in Zoom-School Era appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

What is a postpartum center? 

In China, there is a traditional practice of postpartum confinement, or zuoyuezi (literally “sitting the month”), where new mothers stay indoors for a month and eat specific foods and follow certain practices meant to restore their energy and health. 

In the past, it was common for the woman’s mother or mother-in-law to come stay with her for the month and take care of her and the baby, but in modern society the family may be living apart or the grandparents may not be able to take off of work and come stay the entire time. 

This is why postpartum centers started cropping up. These centers are like a mix between a hospital and a cushy hotel. Depending on the center, they offer a wide range of services such as teaching the mother how to breastfeed, how to wash and diaper the baby, etc. They also provide food specifically designed for postpartum mothers. 

A Rapidly Growing Industry

According to a report on postpartum centers (2016-2022年中国月子中心行业研究与投资前景分析报告), the scale of China’s postpartum center market in 2010 was 1.02 billion RMB, while in 2014, the number reached 4.2 billion and in 2019, the market was valued at 15 billion RMB. The number of postpartum centers in China is growing rapidly. In 2013, there were 550 centers and in 2018, it grew to 4,050 centers. 

And there is a lot of room for growth. Compared with other areas in Asia, such as South Korea and Taiwan, where the penetrance rate is 60% and 70% respectively, the penetration rate in China is only at 5%. 

Leading Brand

Among those postpartum centers, one of the top runners is Saint Bella (圣贝拉). It has become many celebrities’ go-to place after giving birth. The brand was founded in 2017. For the past three years, its satisfaction rate is 99.1% and it often ranks TOP 1 on many lifestyle platforms or mommy-baby apps. 

The average amount per order at Saint Bella is 160k RMB ($24.7K) (note: the average amount in the confinement industry is around 40k to 100k RMB), and over 80% of families choose to have other services provided by Saint Bella other than taking care of the mommy and baby, such as postpartum recovery and asking nurses to provide postpartum-related service at home. These extra services cost around 30k RMB for a household.

Postpartum service usually costs a lot and people don’t need it most of the time. When choosing brands or postpartum centers, people tend to go for those top runners, and that kind of explains why Saint Bella is able to maintain such a high price.

Why is Saint Bella able to achieve such success?

Promotion 

By providing high-quality and thoughtful service, Saint Bella has become many celebrities’ choice for a postpartum center. These celebrities’ lives while staying at Saint Bella shows up on Weibo’s hot topic ranking board sometimes. This helps the brand get lots of attention.

The brand also has large-scale offline activities every year. In 2020, it created an exhibition called “Me Before U”, which showed the journey from being pregnant to giving birth to a baby. The exhibition was held at three cities, including Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu (成都). The brand invited many celebrities and KOLs to attend the show. 

To reach its target audience of high net-worth individuals, Saint Bella partners with high-end jewellery brands such as Mikimoto, Chaumet, and Cartier to sponsor and promote the event, and it often holds the event at luxury hotels such as the Peninsula Hotel, Rosewood, Park Hyatt and the Waldorf Astoria. The customers that Saint Bella targets match with these jewelry brands’ and hotels’ consumers. It helps to improve Saint Bella’s image as well. 

Authority

In 2018, just a year after the brand was founded, Saint Bella was invited by the government to take part in establishing regulations for the mommy-baby industry. This made consumers regard Saint Bella as an authority and because of its role, the brand is able to learn the most updated regulations in the industry.

Establish training colleges 

Saint Bella works with ACI (American Certification Institute) to obtain the training courses for those carers, and it also works with high-profile hotels in China to provide professional training for its employees. It is the only confinement center in the mainland of China that has a complete training system. 

Postpartum centers are just a starting point 

Saint Bella belongs to PrimeCare International (贝康集团), which is a nursing care institute. PrimeCare’s management team is highly-educated and most of them were senior executives at major companies such as Alibaba, ByteDance, Didi, and Ogilvy. Such a management team is very rare in the postpartum industry. The team brings a fresh perspective and business know-how to the healthcare industry.

PrimeCare chose postpartum centers as a starting point and they plan to expand their business to other niches such as baby education and elderly care.

Read more: 破解连锁化难题，圣杯拉如何突破月子中心天花板？

The post Chinese Women are Flocking to Postpartum Centers after Giving Birth appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

Adopt A Cow is a four-year-old Chinese diary brand that surpassed two diary giants Yili (伊利) and Mengniu Dairy (蒙牛) to become the TOP1 in the diary product category during this year’s Double 11.

How did Adopt A Cow grow so quickly in such an intensive market?

High-Quality Cows in a High-Quality Environment

The brand raises its own cows from birth because it believes that only when a cow is being raised well, its milk will be delicious.

Here’s an example, let’s name the cow “Meow”. Meow’s father comes from America. The team saved his sperm in an extremely cold environment and has it shipped to China. After artificial insemination, a female cow carries a baby, which is Meow. 

After 9 months, Meow is born. Meow lives in her own room until she is weaned from her mother’s milk. At the same time, she will be marked with a series of numbers, for example, 190002, meaning she is the second cow born on this farm in 2019. 

After this date, Meow’s life is tracked carefully. Her profile will record when she was vaccinated, her weight, her steps (it’s like WeRun) and her times of rumination. Meow also has periodic physical examinations, massages and relaxation treatments. On average, her food costs 80 RMB per day. In hot summers, Meow can also enjoy smart spray to cool down. 

A New Approach to Selling Milk

When the brand was founded in 2016, the offline market was saturated and dominated by products from either Yili or Mengniu Dairy. It would cost lots of time and energy for Adopt A Cow to break through the offline market, so the brand chose to focus on selling online. To date its Tmall store has over 6.2M followers. 

To get consumers to become more loyal and to purchase larger amounts of milk, Adopt A Cow introduced its annual card or seasonal card service. Consumers who purchase a card can receive a month’s worth of milk on a date every month, and the brand makes sure that those milk are produced within 40 days before the receiving date. 

A seasonal card costs 297 RMB and an annual card costs 1,188 RMB. This business model is welcomed among customers with a repurchase rate of 52%.

Building Trust With Customers

Customer Feedback Groups to Develop New Products

Adopt A Cow values customers’ opinions. Recently, it announced that it would soon launch A2 dairy products. 

The health effects of milk may depend on the breed of cow it came from. Currently, A2 milk is marketed as a healthier choice than regular A1 milk. Proponents assert that A2 has several health benefits and is easier for people with milk intolerance to digest. Right now, approximately only 30% of the world’s dairy cows are A2, and most of them are located in western countries such as New Zealand. 

In September, prior to this announcement, when Adopt A Cow was studying the A2 dairy industry, the brand leveraged its WeChat Official Account to invite more than 1,000 customers to express their needs and concerns. It also invited customers to offline meetings to see and test its new products. 

From this communication, Adopt A Cow learned what issues are bothering Chinese mothers, (who are the largest consumer group for milk). Most of them expressed concern about how to choose the right diary for their babies after ablactation and what will not cause adverse reactions in their babies. 

Customers Actually “Adopt” a Cow

The brand is being fun by naming itself “Adopt A Cow”. This is easy to remember and eye-catching. And with the name, the brand is really helping customers to adopt a cow. Customers will receive images and growing information of the cow that they adopt regularly. 

Livestreams and Farm Visits

Many Chinese consumers still don’t trust domestic dairy brands because of what happened in 2008 with the fake formula scandal. To gain consumers’ trust, Adopt A Cow livestreams its farm, the environment where those cows grow up and the progress of milking to its customers. It also sets the 26th of every month as an open day for customers to visit its farm, taste its products and give suggestions and feedback.

Read more: 刚拿下双11旗舰店第一，认养一头牛又推出高端A2牛奶新品！这次它要放什么“大招”？

The post Adopt A Cow: The Four Year Old Chinese Diary Brand That Ranked #1 on 11.11 appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

Ecommerce livestreaming has become very popular in China due to COVID-19. According to a report published by Ali Research & KPMG China, in the first half of 2020, there were over 10 million live streams and the number of active live streamers exceeded 400 thousand. In total, the number of viewers was over 50 billion.

The report also forecasted that in 2020 the overall scale of live e-commerce will reach 1 trillion yuan and the penetration rate will reach 8.6%. In 2021, the scale of live streaming e-commerce will be expanded to 2.0 trillion RMB and the penetration rate will reach 14.3%.

As the industry has matured, we can see several key categories of consumers emerging based on different behaviors. Here are six of the key ones:

The Stockpilers

• This group is good at persuading themselves that if they don’t get it now, it is a loss for them. They also believe that those products will be used sometime in the future.This is actually the biggest consumer group on Taobao live stream. Most of them are females and moms.
• They are usually encouraged by offers such as “buy one get one free”, “the first one is ¥59, the second one is ¥39 and the last one is free”.

Group purchasing or Pinzu (拼组)

• For example, the live stream has a special offer, buy 3 sprays and get 1 free. So in total, you will get 4 sprays. But because you are too late, you didn’t get to buy them.
• So you go to this live streamer’s Weibo fan groups, and see there is another person selling the extra sprays that they don’t need. And you guys meet at a second-hand platform such as Xianyu (咸鱼) and you buy it from him/her, so in the end, you still get the spray, with a lower price than what is on the market.

The Fangirls

• There are two types. The first one is called “collective immigration”. Their idols are working with a brand and the idol appears as a guest in the live stream so they all come to watch and support. It is unlikely they will return to that live stream as they are only there to support their idol.
• The second type is permanent. For example, some of Austin Li’s followers watch his live stream simply because they like him. They have followed him for a long time as his career as taken off and they see themselves as his loyal fans and supporters.

Adventurers

• This group love the excitement that unknown things bring to them. For example, blind boxes.
• They are pursuing limited or hidden collections.

Sankeng Girls (三坑少女)

• Keng, in Chinese means traps. The phrase sankeng girls refers to three traps/obsessions common among young: Hanfu (汉服), Lolita clothes and JK or Japanese schoolgirl clothes.
• Girls who have the hobby of dressing up in these clothes, can’t help spending money on them or buying corresponding props, cosmetics, and accessories.

Point Collectors

• Most of them like playing online games and they imagine Taobao live streams as a game for them to collect Taobao user points.
• Alibaba has gamified live stream rooms so that viewers can earn points and move up in levels through purchasing items in the stream, watching the stream for a certain amount of time, commenting in the stream, etc.
• These points can be used for discounts, free items, etc.

Our takeaways:

The majority of viewer types we’ve mentioned are shoppers that are sensitive to prices and are easy for FMCG brands to target.

But for higher-end brands who want to avoid having their brand reputation cheapened by discounting, they can use other tactics such as offering free samples, personalization,12-months interest free payment plans. Limited edition or exclusive collections are also a great way to target the “Adventurers” group.

Talking about samples, it is usually easy to get them in western countries if you ask sales associates for them, but in China, this is not the case. Most of the time, consumers need to purchase them, or if you have good relationship with the sales person, s/he might give one to you. So free samples are are great bonus for consumers in China.

Read more: 当代年轻人直播购物迷惑行为大赏

The post 6 Types of Live Stream Shoppers You Need to Know appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

Why does this matter? Show works with a LOT of brands and many of his advertisements have been turned into scandal-related memes. If you read Chinese you should check out the article below and look up the scandal, many of the memes are hilarious! 

The Losing Brand: 
Ironically, the day before the scandal broke out, a yogurt brand called Just Yogurt (纯甄), part of Mengniu Dairy (蒙牛), officially announced Show as its ambassador, and even bought Weibo’s opening screen for this collaboration. They have also put ads in WeChat Moments. In the ads, Show was asking “What is the thing that you are most proud of?” Netizens poked fun at Show replying “I have two cell phones”. Just Yoghurt quickly changed its opening screen ambassador to another celebrity Zhao Liyin (赵丽颖). 

Accidental Winner:
L’Oreal accidentally became a winner in this scandal. On the same day that Grace Chow posted about her and Show’s relationshhip, L’Oreal had purchased a spot on Weibo’s hot topic ranking board to promote its eye cream which could help ease dark circles. As I mention above, Grace Chow’s post revealed Show often stayed up very late with other girls, and he does have very dark bags under his eyes. Naturally, netizens were praising L’Oreal for choosing the perfect timing to promote its product. 

Read more:
罗志祥人设崩塌，蒙牛品牌“受伤”，企业到底如何选代言？
罗志祥周扬青分手上热搜：蒙牛「躺枪」，欧莱雅「躺赢」
罗志祥今早第2次道歉，段子手们的文案绝了！哈哈哈哈

Taobao CEO Jiang Fan and Ruhnn’s Top KOL Zhang Dayi Accused of Having an Affair by Fan’s Wife

On April 17th Taobao CEO Jiang Fan’s wife posted on Weibo tagging famous KOL and CMO of KOL incubator Ruhann Zhang Dayi (Eve) and warning Zhang to stay away from her husband. Her post quickly went viral and although it was quickly deleted the damage had already been done and Ruhnn’s stock price dropped 7%. Neither the company nor Zhang responded to the allegations. Fan quickly issued an apology, not admitting or denying his behaviors, but instead apologizing to everyone at Alibaba for the disruption and negative press that he has brought the company.

Aside from the fact that it is an affair, why is this so scandalous? Well Ruhnn and Zhang’s MASSIVE success have relied heavily on both Taobao and Taobao Live Streaming, which Fan runs. Zhang’s stores have repeatedly made it into the top women’s apparel store lists during 11.11. And prior to Ruhnn going public on NASDAQ last year, Alibaba had invested in the company.

Read More:
网红张大奕的“瓜”里藏着什么样的资本局
大公司头条：淘宝总裁蒋凡道歉，阿里将启动内部调查；沙特主权基金海外抄底，买入英超球队、邮轮公司和石油公司

Quarantine Ends = Uptick in demand for wedding and pregnancy products

I’ve heard some reports about an increase in people filing for divorce after the COVID-19 quarantine lifted, but not all couples hated their time stuck together. Many couples were forced to be apart for several months and came back from quarantine wanting to get married ASAP. 

• On April 8, the first day of Wuhan being free, 171 couples registered for marriage.
• On Tmall, during April, sales of diamonds grew 82%; sales of xitang (喜糖 the candy Chinese trandtionally hand out as part of their wedding announcements) grew 68%, and sales of red packets or hongbao grew 129%.
• On ecommerce platform 1688, the number of people looking for wedding dresses is 3 times more than usual.
• Wedding photographers in Suzhou are fully booked in May, and if couples want to have a shoot on weekends they need to wait until August.

This article points out that fitness and weight loss brands should take note of this trend because before a wedding or photo shoot couples typically want to lose weight and get in shape. 

For couples that were already married, there are predictions that we are going to see a huge uptick in pregnant women soon. There is a joke that was trending online in China, saying that after a few years, kids will ask their dads why there are so many children in their class born in October and November. And their dads remain silent for a few seconds and say: “The story begins with a bat…”

An increase in pregnancies and births will lead to increased demand in ancillary products. 

Read more:
报复性消费不会来了？你去婚姻登记处看看
报复性消费不会来了

Esprit Closing Stores in China

Not all brands made it through COVID-19. Starting at the beginning of April, apparel brand ESPRIT’s Tmall home page started a buy 2 get 80% off sale. Offline stores such as the ones in Beijing were spotted with sales as steep as buy 10 get 90% off. It is expected that the brand will close all of its stores in China by June. 

Read more: ESPRIT内地门店将在年中全面关闭，清仓折扣低至0.5折

China Marketing Podcast Episode 70: The massive growth of e-commerce livestreaming during COVID-19

This week’s episode discusses China’s ecommerce livestreaming industry. As mentioned in episode 69, this industry has experienced massive growth due to COVID-19. In fact, leading ecommerce livestreaming platform Taobao Live reported that in early February, livestream sessions on the platform had increased by 110% year over year.

Today, Lauren explains the ways in which the industry has grown and changed. She also shares specific examples and case studies that have been seen over the past several months.

Topics include:

• How famous streamers adapted their product offerings
• The creative (and sometimes odd) ways that many traditionally offline businesses began using livestreaming
• Thoughts on WeChat’s and Xiaohongshu’s newly launched livestreaming functions
• Will the trend continue after COVID-19?

Listen on Spotify and iTunes

The post Wanghong Grace Chow Reveals Ex Luo Zhixiang’s Scandalous Lifestyle appeared first on China Marketing Insights.