"In 2016, only 36.1% of adults were able to brush their teeth twice a day."
This is the data pointed out in the Healthy Oral Action Plan (2019-2025). If you search carefully according to this topic, you can get nearly 100 million results in search engines, most of them pointing to a variety of different answers and popular science. In terms of knowledge, there is also a question with more than 25,000 traffic, which is asking "why do you have to brush your teeth sooner or later" .
It is not difficult to see that the correct oral care method and health awareness have not yet been fully popularized in the current Chinese market, and there is even a long way to go. But judging from the amount of discussion caused by the small matter of "brushing teeth", the user's awareness of oral health care is awakening. With the advent of the new era of consumption, people's consumption concepts are constantly updated, and the attention to oral health has reached an unprecedented height, which has catalyzed the rapid growth of oral health-related consumption fields and ushered in a new growth dividend.
In recent years, the entire oral care industry has experienced a large amount of capital and hot money influx, and has faced a three-way confrontation with international brands, traditional leading enterprises and cutting-edge brands, and has gradually entered a period of stable development. But the early battlefield full of gun smoke left two treasures: one is that the old pattern was broken, the industry began to have new opportunities, and it really "warmed up"; The other is that brushing your teeth is a trivial matter that is easy to ignore, and it has become one of the health major issues that people care about at the moment.
At present, the "oral economy" is in full bloom, of which electric toothbrushes are thriving. In the entire electric toothbrush vertical category, domestic brands have broken the high barriers in the market that were once established by leading foreign companies, successfully won the home field back into their hands, and also brought more possibilities to the industry. From user education to changing the industry pattern, to domestic brands to grasp the main consumer home, China's oral care industry is changing rapidly, embarking on the journey of incubating "oral consumption super brands".
Electric toothbrush industry disruptor: usmile from "dark horse" to "elder"
Electric toothbrushes are becoming a new demand for Chinese users.
According to the "Online Oral Track Research" released by Baiguan Technology, in the first three quarters of 2021, the total sales of oral care-related fields reached 20.1 billion yuan, of which the online GMV of the electric toothbrush category on the two major e-commerce platforms of Jingdong and Taobao was 6.625 billion yuan, accounting for 80% of the consumption of oral appliances. It is not difficult to see that the gap in oral health care knowledge of nearly 70% of users in the market is being filled, while stimulating the overall vitality of the industry and driving the growth of related consumption scenarios. With the popularization of oral care knowledge, many oral health segments including mouthwash, toothbrush, baby oral care products, etc. are making efforts, and the entire industry is booming.
Now, electric toothbrushes have become standard for most young people. But if you pull back five years ago, manual toothbrushes still account for almost 98% of the consumer choice in the market, and in the remaining 2% of electric toothbrush choices, users only recognize international brands.
When usmile entered the market, it was faced with such a situation. Before there are international big names entering the game first, and then there are thousands of factory brands, the pattern in the market seems to have been very stable, is a typical super Red Sea market. As a new consumer brand, what kind of road to take to open the market and find the key to communicate with consumers is an urgent problem for USMILE to solve.
At that time, the domestic manufacturing industry had many years of experience in OEM for big-name electric toothbrushes, and it was not difficult to make an electric toothbrush that could attract users at a "low price", and it was difficult to go on in the long run in the industry. From the moment it entered the market, usmile understood that selling products does not mean being able to gain a foothold in the industry. If you want to stand out, you need to build a moat that can withstand the test of all aspects.
"Returning to product innovation and continuing to create value for consumers" has become the spiritual core of USMILE.
If you want to do a good job, you need to have core production and research technology and a strong supply chain system. But for the industry situation five years ago, the industrial chain from upstream to downstream is not advanced, most of the upstream supply chain operates in OEM mode, and the technical reserves are not enough to support brands to solve problems through innovation. In the face of a decade of homogeneous product technology and the technology patent of the international brand card neck, for usmile, there is only one way to break the trend: independent research and development. Only independent research and development can redefine the products and technologies of "electric toothbrushes", get out of the industry dilemma of "OEM", and become an enterprise with core technology.
In the five years since entering the industry, usmile has developed self-developed motor and circuit chips, breaking the long-standing competitive barriers built by international big-name enterprises on the technical side. Recently, usmile has also developed the latest generation of patented sine wave drive technology, which effectively improves the cleaning power of electric toothbrushes and removes plaque, and also allows many peers to have benchmarking technology as a reference. According to public reports, after continuous deep cultivation in the field of technology research and development, usmile has more than 300 patents. Its unique extreme cleaning technology, disruptive energy consumption technology, "45-degree Pasteur electric toothbrush" and multi-segment oral care scene products have brought scientific oral care products to consumers.
If before 2018, the electric toothbrush market was the world of international brands, and domestic brands stood at the waist to compete, then after this, the domestic brands represented by USMILE officially began to exert their strength, so that the capital market and users also saw the strength of China's oral care brands and became the "dark horse" in the market. With the continuous deepening since then, after only two years, the market pattern has changed. Through the survey of Huajing Industry Research, it can be seen that since 2020, the market share of foreign brands as a leader has begun to decline, and domestic brands have begun to rise. Among them, usmile is the most prominent performance, according to Tmall platform data, during the 618 period in 2021, usmile became the first new brand of Tmall FMCG with sales exceeding 100 million, and ranked first in the market share of Tmall in the three categories of oral care, electric toothbrush and toothbrush; During the Double 11 period of the same year, the official flagship store of usmile once again ranked first in the sales of oral care brands, from a dark horse to the elder of the dental industry.
Flipping the industry landscape: usmile's industry feeds back and reinvents
As a leading player in the industry, usmile is well aware that only by constantly returning to consumer demand and making the industry's standardization and transparency guidelines clearer can we bring innovation to the oral health care market.
To understand what users need, you must first understand what stage your industry is developing to, and sort out the problems that still need to be solved. After more than five years of concentrated improvement of the integration of the industry chain and innovative kinetic energy investment, usmile participated in the China Home Appliance Association to cooperate in the formulation of the "Electric Toothbrush" group standard, the brush head vibration frequency, bristle swing, antibacterial properties and other 20 performance parameters and test methods of electric toothbrushes were standardized, providing a reference for the product development and design and quality control of electric toothbrush enterprises, improving the uneven condition of electric toothbrush products on the market, and promoting the adjustment and optimization and upgrading of product structure. It has promoted the healthy and orderly development of the industry. Through the subdivision of the development stage of the industry and the redefinition of the industry standard, the brand can clearly position its own development and further promote the development of the industry.
In addition to constantly observing the development of the industry and providing innovation momentum for the industry, usmile has also invested a lot of energy in another aspect: to make the new generation of consumers pay more attention to oral health.
In terms of communication channels with users, usmile has made a lot of attempts. "We can't let 'consumer-centric' just be a corporate culture hanging on the wall", everything still has to return to the needs and pain points of users in oral health care.
So, what do today's consumers really need?
Usmile re-segmented the user population. For the different needs of users of different ages for oral care, starting from the oral care needs of the mass population, young people, orthodontic groups, niche oral care needs, etc., with cleaning, whitening, maintenance and other professional oral health knowledge as different focuses, the health awareness and life attitude of oral care penetrate out of the circle.
At the same time, in order to enhance the awareness of scientific oral care for the whole people, usmile has united domestic and foreign general practitioners of oral medicine, doctors of stomatology and orthodontic experts to jointly define the three stages of oral care for Chinese people and advocate the three steps of scientific oral care. The "Three Care Steps" are easy to understand, so that consumers can use the products one by one; The "three stages of care" is to provide advanced product combinations for oral care for the diversified use scenarios of different consumers.
After becoming the industry's leading brand, the market continues to put forward new requirements for USMILE. On the one hand, as a brand focusing on the field of oral health, usmile needs to continuously upgrade the brand research and development capabilities, so as to promote the overall development and innovation of the industry. On the other hand, at the moment when the goal of "improving the oral health of the whole people" is the goal, the demand in the vertical market has become more diversified, the user's life attitude and concept are changing, and many choices are placed in front of usmile.
Especially in consumer goods industries such as electric toothbrushes, the market often exceeds demand. But in usmile's view, the core that brands need to do well, if they want to go more steadily, they must return to the redefinition of "scientific oral care methods", and through the supply-side innovation of oral care products, so that oral health awareness can take root in the health consciousness of the younger generation. Only the continuous rise of users' health awareness can bring the possibility of long-term service of enterprises in the market.
Incubate "super brand" usmile
In many industries, domestic brands are gradually growing and occupying an increasingly important position. But few companies, like local brands in the oral care industry, have taken back their home ground while educating users on oral health knowledge in a market that is almost monopolized by international brands.
Cutting-edge brand versus international brand, is the hottest topic in the past few years, capital blessing, brand entry into the hundreds of thousands, the final victory is very few, in this burned 6 years of oral "battle", there is no doubt that usmile is a Stand out Chinese brand, but also a successful incubation of China's oral care industry super brand in the new consumption era.
From the product side, the long-term accumulation of independent research and development capabilities and supply chain management capabilities allows USMILE to quickly respond to new needs in the market, thereby accelerating product iteration and brand upgrading. On the user side, usmile's insight into user needs allows brands to penetrate in different circles, which drives the awakening of users' oral health awareness from the side. On the industry side, usmile has promoted the overall development of the industry through the restructuring of the industrial chain and the redefinition of industry rules.
At present, usmile is establishing a global dental laboratory, and wants to dig deep into the user needs on the road to the popularization of oral health awareness of the whole people, the unknown areas of the industry that need to be explored, and the oral care products waiting to be developed.
Looking at the growth path of USMILE, if you want to make a good brand, you often need to pay attention to three levels: pay attention to the polishing of its own products and the accumulation of technology, pay attention to the changing needs of users, and pay attention to the overall development trend of the industry. As a locally incubated super brand, usmile has been steadily engaged in product polishing and innovation, technology accumulation, user demand insight and industry drive. Professional, scientific, diverse... The market has attached many labels to usmile, but each label cannot fully summarize its core competitiveness based on the head of the industry, nor can it define who usmile has become and who it will become.
The oral care industry is not a fast track, and brands need to have strong patience to polish products while constantly educating the market. The competition with international big names will not stop, and the education of the market cannot be relaxed, but fortunately, usmile has embarked on the road of super branding, although the challenges will continue to increase, but as long as it maintains its sensitivity, innovation and user-oriented foundation, the future will also go out of more possibilities. 【Advertisement】
(Article reproduced in 36Kr public number)