Reporter | Wu Rong
Edit | Ya Han Xiang
Around 2018, with the help of e-commerce platforms, social networks and traffic dividends, in the seemingly very congested consumer goods field, a group of new players who have received tens of millions of large-scale investments have emerged, focusing on segments, relying on subtle insights into the market, they have found a living space, and began to call the traditional big brother brand.
After 3 years, in 2021, this batch of new Leap Forward brands bid farewell to "crazy growth" and came to the watershed of development. Judging from the dimensions of sales performance, brand voice, industry influence and word of mouth, there are not too many brands in the scenery, and there are not a few players who are temporarily frustrated.
Bain & Company began tracking 46 new brands in 2018, and by 2021 it found that only 17 brands continued to maintain good momentum, while the rest stagnated or faded out of the public eye.
At this year's "Double 11" shopping festival, you can also find their difference performance.
Banana, Book-by-Book, Ximuyuan and Babycare are winners, the first two in the Tmall Double 11 turnover of more than 100 million yuan, Ximuyuan increased by 947% year-on-year double 11, babycare in the baby and child list ranked first. In addition, Huaxizi, Colorkey, usmile, etc. maintained the momentum of development last year.
These brands are not so lucky. Wang Satfeng fell nearly 70% to only 1.429 million yuan compared with last year's double 11; ramen sales were close to the same period last year; the main control card surface of the "super zero" In November, the best-selling products sold in the Tmall flagship store had only 3,000 pieces of monthly sales; Wonderlab had long disappeared from the sky.
In a longer time dimension, the decline of some new consumer brands has already emerged.
Guotai Junan Securities research data show that in the field of convenient fast food, Plum Ziqi, Zi Hi Pot, Ramen Said, Mo Xiaoxian fell by 5%-17% year-on-year in the first half of this year; in terms of snacks, the good shop and the three squirrels fell by 33% and 14% respectively; Wang Fengfeng expressed regret, falling by more than 50% year-on-year in the second quarter and the first half of the year; in addition, the sales growth rate of the coffee brand Shiju and beauty care Girlcult, Flower Print, Little Odin and Perfect Diary also declined to varying degrees.
Ramen said
From "0 to 1" seems to rise easily, but the road from "1 to 10" is difficult to ascend to the sky. 3 years a hurdle, so what is the "hurdle" that hinders these new consumer brands?
First, the external environment has changed. For example, the traffic and epidemic dividends are no longer there, and the capital is no longer carnival.
In this wave of new consumer brands, Tmall has played a key role as a platform party. However, compared with previous years, its double 11 large-cap traffic this year fell by more than 30%, and other electrical commodity stations such as Douyin divided up a lot of traffic. In the context of the fading and diversion of online traffic dividends, pseudo-rigidity needs to be gradually exposed. Taking the non-rigid products such as healthy meal replacement super zero and Wonderlab as an example, without the willingness of consumers to try new, the natural performance is silent, Wonderlab not only reduces the circle of friends advertising screen, but also shifts the focus from meal replacement shakes to probiotic products.
There are also brands that choose to start going offline.
Three and a half tons, banana or bossie, etc. have all run to the offline store, in addition to building a brand, enhancing exposure, or want to break through the online traffic restrictions and obtain new customers.
Banana inner line offline stores
The dividends from some accidental factors have not been able to continue.
Take the convenience of fast food brands, the epidemic dividend has not been able to continue to this year. Ramen said that in 2020, ramen said it was the only instant ramen brand to enter the Tmall FMCG top 10. It sold 250 million yuan in 2019 and raised its target to 1 billion yuan in early 2020. However, in the second quarter of this year, its sales growth rate fell rapidly by 28%, and the performance of Double 11 was also as mentioned earlier, which was disappointing.
The frenzied consumer goods investment boom became rational in the second half of the year, which meant that some brands had no money to burn. According to statistics, the number of investment and financing events in the new consumption field from July to October was 153, 127, 109 and 111 respectively; in October, although the investment and financing events were the same as the previous month, they had dropped by 27% compared with July.
Second, stripped of these external factors, the model of new brands also has limitations.
"Establish a brand to obtain sales qualifications to design products to find a foundry to produce OEM", with the help of such an asset-light model, many new consumer brands can be established quickly. After years of development, the relatively mature supply chain, logistics, talent and other infrastructure in the Chinese market have provided conditions for their birth.
In recent years, the trend of "fast fashion" in the consumer industry has also forced them to adopt such a way of playing: faster production cycle, stimulating more demand, thereby increasing the frequency of consumption, at the same time, in order to more accurately grasp the trend, produce more products to put on the market, quickly draw conclusions, and carry out survival of the fittest.
However, such a low threshold may be a "trap".
Lack of investment in research and development and innovation, too dependent on or imitation of a certain rapid popular elements, resulting in a large number of chain home products replication, competitors flocked to, a time of serious homogenization, market competition has become more and more intense. Whether in the field of sparkling water, low-grade wine, mouthwash, or tea bags, we can find such a new brand that pays a terrible price.
For example, after the peach oolong becomes a hit, as long as you search on Taobao, you will find similar models close to 20 pages, with more than 1,000 related products. The freshness of the explosive models is constantly being consumed, the speed of new product research and development is even less, coupled with the weak supply chain, it is difficult for such new entrants not to encounter the end of elimination.
Focusing on short videos and social platforms, obsessed with short-term traffic play (especially the marketing methods of heavy star traffic artists) is the basic appeal of most new consumer brands from the 0-1 stage, the essence lies in breaking the circle, achieving rapid conversion, and also in accounting to the capital side with better data.
However, once the stimulation of stars is lacking, it is difficult for sales not to face declines. Bubble water brand KellyOne official announcement Wang Yibo endorsement, its product "angry meow" monthly sales of only 1,000 + pieces, after the official announcement, with Wang Yibo starred in several short films, angry meow sales soared to 10,000 pieces, lack of frequent marketing this month, sales recovered to 4,000 + pieces.
Sparkling water brand KellyOne's angry gel
In fact, consumers generally have a hard time having high loyalty.
According to Nielsen research, only 8% of consumers consider themselves absolutely loyal to their brand. If you want to stand firm and go on for a long time, the important thing is not to look at the product packaging and publicity photos, not to say how dazzling the marketing is, not to say how much the initial financing amount of the brand is established, but to do a good job of the product, otherwise it will be difficult to constitute a long-term repurchase.
That is to say, only by shifting from the traffic war to the brand war and the product war can the new consumer brand truly usher in the second half.
In 2021, some brands began to enter the layout stage from "1 to 10". They began to explore how to make the "traffic dividend" into a "retention dividend", let the "net red brand" become a "long red brand", silently cultivate internal skills, including attaching importance to scientific research, strengthening product innovation, self-built factories to find a stable supply chain as support, etc., Heytea, Perfect Diary and Yuanqi Forest are among the representatives. For example, Yuanqi Forest has laid out five major factories for five major urban clusters in North China, East China, South China, Central China and Southwest China, and the total production capacity of these factories will reach 5 billion bottles of beverages in the future.
From 2021 onwards, the emergence of new consumer brands is still the same, but the shuffling cycle is bound to accelerate, who can survive 3 years and continue to grow, now is the time to test the real skill.