Image source @ Visual China
Wen 丨 Pole Business, Author 丨 Liu Shanshan, Editor 丨 Cindy
After tearing off the "pseudo-Japanese" label and betting on the national tide, the "most cattle ten yuan store" Mingchuang excellent product tried to let the market see some new hope.
On March 3, MINISO premium announced its results for the second fiscal quarter ended December 31, 2021. According to the financial report, its total revenue is 2.77 billion yuan and domestic revenue is 2.05 billion yuan. The biggest bright spot was the net profit of 210 million yuan and a net profit margin of 7.7% in the fiscal quarter, a new high in the past seven quarters since the outbreak of the epidemic.
However, the new high profits have not been able to sweep away the decline in the capital market. On March 4, 2020, Minchuang Premium Products opened down 4.38%, and the latest stock price was reported at $9.524 per share, with a total market value of $2.918 billion, down more than 50% from the issue price of $20.88 on the day of listing on October 15, 2020.
Source: Miniso Premium Financial Report
The capital market has not paid for the new high profits, stemming from the complete failure of the high-speed expansion model of Mingchuang Premium Products - only 174 new stores were added in Q2 2022, and the latest number of global stores was 5045, which was still half a distance from the KPI set by founder Ye Guofu. Since charging franchise management service fees to franchisees is an important source of Revenue for Mingchuang Premium, under the background of slowing store expansion and low gross profit of offline stores, the important source of Revenue of Mingchuang Premium is likely to fall into growth stagnation.
The above-mentioned move towards the national tide is regarded as the second growth curve of Mingchuang Excellent Products. In fact, there are many brands that hold the same idea: when the national tide industry upgrade comes, those new consumer brands that have been accused of "pseudo-Japanese", from listed companies Mingchuang Premium Products and Naixue's tea, to the yuanqi forest that has not yet been listed, are accelerating to tear off the "pseudo-Japanese" label in 2021, trying to seize the new wave of consumption with this "whitewashing". So, can Mingchuang Premium Products successfully tell the story of the national tide that is interested in the capital market?
01. Change from "pseudo-Japanese" to "new national tide"
"You see that the logo of the door of our downstairs store has been changed Chinese, and it will be felt everywhere for the next period of time." In early January this year, Ye Guofu said so in an interview with "Late Point".
Ye Guofu's statement means that in order to prove that Mingchuang Premium is a Chinese brand, it is necessary to speed up the elimination of those controversial "Japanese genes" in 2022 , including store logos to "メイソウ名創品品", and "Shunya Miyake" will not appear as co-founder.
Ye Guofu (right) and Shunya Miyake
This kind of misleading has made Mingchuang Premium's crazy store road extremely smooth. In 2019, Ye Guofu revised the realization time of the Wandian plan to 2022. In late December 2021, the official website of Minchuang Premium released the news that its global store number officially exceeded 5,000, and it has stores in 100 countries and regions around the world.
With the crazy expansion of Mingchuang premium stores, more and more consumers have also realized that the main "Japanese brand, global chain" of Mingchuang excellent products is actually a complete "pseudo-Japanese", and the goods are produced in China, and most of the stores are located in China. At the same time, many of the goods in the Mingchuang premium store have been accused of copycats and plagiarism.
These doubts have caused a serious decline in the reputation of Mingchuang Excellent Products, reflected in the market that both performance and stock prices are sluggish - from February 2021, the stock price of Mingchuang Excellent Products has begun to continue to plummet, and the value of Ye Guofu, who once appeared on various rich lists, has also fallen all the way.
According to the financial report data, Mingchuang Excellent Products has been "bleeding" for three consecutive years, with total revenues of 9.395 billion yuan, 8.979 billion yuan and 9.072 billion yuan, and net losses of 290 million yuan, 260 million yuan and 1.429 billion yuan, respectively.
Starting from 2021, Ye Guofu led Mingchuang Excellent Products to find new business stories, began to tear off the "pseudo-Japanese" label, and moved closer to the national tide in all aspects of channels, products and brands.
On the marketing channel, Mingchuang Excellent Products began to vigorously layout online, entered the Taobao that was once despised, opened a flagship store on Tmall and tried to live stream with goods.
On the brand, Mingchuang Premium products began to remove Japanese signs in some stores and replace them with Chinese logos. However, from the current point of view, many stores across the country are still Japanese signboards, and it will take time to replace them all.
The most important exploration is the launch of the tide play shop TOP TOY. TOP TOY business is regarded as the second growth curve of Mingchuang Premium, which has been written into the financial report for two consecutive quarters - according to Ye Guofu's development ideas, TOP TOY will use the influence of cooperative IP to directly confront the "first stock of tide play" Bubble Mart.
In addition, Through the parent company, Mingchuang Premium also launched the "WOW COLOUR" offline beauty collection store, focusing on domestic beauty and makeup brand aggregation. The latest news shows that "WOW COLOUR" received hundreds of millions of dollars in Series A+ financing in January this year.
All kinds of actions are actually the same purpose: to accelerate the separation from the "pseudo-Japanese system" and embrace the thighs of the national tide. Judging from the latest financial report, although it is difficult for Mingchuang excellent products to re-enter the altar, it is also a cardiotonic agent, at least in terms of net profit, it has harvested a new high since the epidemic.
02, why the collective return to bet on the national tide
"From the trademark to the packaging is the Japanese style, and the actual origin and sales market are in China, the brand is 'pseudo-Japanese'." Chinese food industry analyst Zhu Danpeng has said so.
In addition to Mingchuang premium products, there are not a few brands that take the "pseudo-Japanese" style.
As early as 2002, Marumei labeled its own products as "Japanese goods", and the products were promoted with "founded in Showa 54" and "Japanese eye care experts", and the founder Sun Huaiqing frequently appeared in the Japanese name "Kobayashi Keio". It was not until 2008, when Professional Counterfeiter Wang Hai cracked down on counterfeiting, and the China Consumer Association began to pay attention to it, that Marumi admitted that it had no direct relationship with Japan and was an "authentic Chinese brand".
After 2013, starting with Mingchuang Premium Products, many new consumer brands have moved closer to the "Japanese". For example, Genki Forest, before the sparkling water drink packaging, the use of the Japanese word "気" instead of the Chinese "gas" word. There is even a yogurt with the "Hokkaido 3.1" logo, which makes many consumers mistakenly think that it is from Japan.
"The first share of new tea drinking" Naiyuki's tea, from logo to packaging, uses "Naixue tea", whether it is the hiragana "の" or the English name Nayuki, the Japanese style is obvious.
Many local new consumer brands have become "pseudo-Japanese", there are complex reasons: on the one hand, consumers are not confident enough in domestic products at that time, and they are eager for European and American brands, Japanese and Korean brands; on the other hand, the track where Mingchuang Premium Products, Yuanqi Forest, and Naixue's tea are located are all fiercely competitive Red Sea markets, and after investing in their preferences to move closer to the "Japanese system", they can quickly establish a brand image.
"When we think of the word Japanese, neural networks make us think of quality." In a speech, Tang Binsen, founder of Yuanqi Forest, said.
For brands, the most important thing is to take advantage of consumers' trust in Japanese product quality and quality to break through the market. This point, whether it is the successful listing of Mingchuang Premium Products and Naixue's tea, or the yuanqi forest all the way to open and hang in 3 years from 0 to monthly sales of nearly 100 million yuan, we can see the huge income after moving closer to the Japanese system.
At the end of 2019, the "Japanese Commodity Observation of China's E-commerce Industry" released by the Nomura Research Institute and Tmall showed that in 2019, the market share of Japanese commodities in China's e-commerce reached 3%, second only to Europe and the United States, and the volume in a single country is quite considerable. Among them, the proportion of medium- and high-spending power purchasers of Japanese goods is as high as 49%, the highest among all overseas countries. High-spending women over the age of 30 have become the main consumer group of Japanese goods.
However, with the rise of the national tide, the rise of a large number of domestic brands, consumers in the consumption mode and consumption channels have undergone drastic changes - although there is no unified statement on the national tide so far, but a consensus is that the "national tide" is leading the new trend of the 45 trillion Chinese consumer market. Among them, 260 million "Generation Z" and the next 450 million new middle class are the main force to support and purchase national tides and domestic products.
For the teas of Mingchuang Premium and Naixue, the return to the national tide undoubtedly indicates that "fish and bear paws can be both": on the one hand, they can respond to the high-pitched questions that have come and gone, wash their identities and declare themselves as local brands and win the trust of consumers; on the other hand, they can tell new capital stories and find new growth curves through the national tide.
In September 2020, Genki Forest changed its logo, changed the Genji Forest to a Meta "Gas" Forest, removed the "Nippon Kokusai Co., Ltd. Genji Forest" propaganda on the product packaging, and said that it would rely on the "Generation Z economy" and "healthy sugar-free concept" to break the situation. In January this year, the frequently moved Yuanqi Forest and the traditional time-honored Quanjude formed a cross-border CP to jointly launch the New Year's Chinese New Year's Eve lunch box.
As of now, Ne Xue's tea has not removed the hiragana name "の", but whether it is cooperating with forbidden city food and Li Ning, or creating a "CUP Art Museum" to embrace intangible cultural heritage, launching products with national style and tone such as "Boya Absolute String" and "Orchid Pavilion Sequence", including the "new Chinese dim sum" category, all in order to move closer to the national tide.
From the current point of view, the increase brought by the national tide marketing cannot be underestimated: although the competition in the consumer segmentation track is becoming more and more fierce, and the differentiation of the circle layer is becoming more and more obvious, the tea of Mingchuang Premium, Yuanqi Forest, and Naixue has occupied an important place by returning to the national tide.
Judging from the latest financial report, Mingchuang Premium products rely on the national tide and accumulate 14 million private domain retained users - a large proportion of which are young consumers, and the e-commerce income exceeds 170 million yuan, accounting for nearly 11% of the total revenue.
In addition, Nesher's tea now has a store coverage rate of 100% in first- and second-tier cities, and the first annual performance forecast said that the revenue in 2021 achieved a year-on-year growth rate of 40%; the growth rate of Yuanqi Forest is even more amazing, with sales growth rates of 300%, 200% and 309% in 2018-2020, with a valuation of up to 15 billion US dollars, ranking ninth among domestic unlisted unicorns, becoming a popular feast in the capital market.
03, want to really tear off the label, what is the difference?
However, whether it is Mingchuang Premium Products, or Naixue's tea and Yuanqi Forest, at present, it has only torn off the "pseudo-Japanese" label on the surface, and it is still far from a truly successful national tide brand.
The reason is very simple, at present, these new consumer brands, closer to the national tide, the main means of out of the circle is still marketing and promotion, so far failed to establish a "moat". No matter how high the current valuation or market capitalization is, it is likely to be a flash in the pan from a long-term perspective.
In addition, with the increasing attention of consumers to quality, service, safety, etc., no matter how the marketing rubs the heat or "the sky is falling", it is difficult to establish a real reputation, and the brand life will not be so good.
Taking the signing of Gu Ailing, Su Yiming, Xu Mengtao, three brand spokespersons, with the "Yuanqi Forest wins the numb" entry on Weibo hot search, circle of friends brush screen Yuanqi Forest as an example, the marketing heat brought by the three Winter Olympic champions has dissipated in a short period of time, and the outside world is still most concerned about its product itself.
For example, since April 2021, Yuanqi Forest's main "0 sugar" and "low-fat" milk tea products have fallen into the whirlpool of public opinion of false propaganda, although Yuanqi Forest has issued an apology statement on this matter, it has not been able to eliminate the suspicion of netizens.
In addition, although Yuanqi Forest has entered many categories such as milk tea, tea drinks, functional drinks, coffee, light food, liquor, etc., many analysis articles on Yuanqi Forest have mentioned that sugar-free sparkling water sales account for more than 70%, which is the only main product of Yuanqi Forest. The hidden danger of relying too much on a single product, coupled with the "ultimatum" of the beverage giants led by the "two pleasures" in the market competition, the supply chain was once "necked" by insufficient raw materials and the shutdown of the foundry, these urgent problems need to be solved before there is no answer, Yuanqi Forest wants to maintain high-speed growth is hopeless.
As a representative of the new tea drink, Nesher's tea food safety issues have long been concerned by relevant departments and consumers. On August 2 last year, Xinhua News Agency reported that Naixue's tea Beijing Xidan Joy City store, Chang'an Shopping Mall store and other branches had problems such as "cockroach crawling, fruit rot, rags not washed, and untrue labels". Subsequently, Nai Xue's tea apologized for closing the store for rectification.
Since then, the relevant departments in Beijing, Guangzhou and Shanghai have punished Nai Xue's tea one after another, and Nai Xue's tea has apologized again. Two apologies within a month have made the outside world question why Naixue's tea is always unable to avoid food safety problems, but according to Naixue's tea official statement, strict standards have been set for from supply chain management to product production and store operations, so the answer may be only one: the so-called poor execution of stores, in fact, the management level, operational capabilities have not kept up with the scale expansion of enterprises, and Naixue's tea has disregarded food safety.
In fact, the impact of the food safety storm on Nesher's tea has already emerged: since its listing in June last year, its market value has fallen by a third. According to the announcement released by Nesher's Tea on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on February 8, it expects its adjusted net loss to reach 135 million yuan to 165 million yuan in 2021. If you add a total loss of 300 million yuan in the three years from 2018 to 2020, then the loss for four consecutive years is about 442 million yuan. Behind this, consumers who have lost due to health and safety concerns are not a minority.
Therefore, even if Naixue's tea and Xicha have recently started a marketing price war, even if a new Chinese dim sum is launched in an average of 5 days, declaring itself a "new brand of national tide", the basic development of Naixue's tea is still how to make real efforts in quality, formula and raw materials, so as to build a competitive advantage that is difficult to copy.
The same is true of Mingchuang Premium. The capital market obviously also noticed that a quarter's profit is a new high, which does not mean that it is a successful national tide brand: although it tries to seize consumer preferences through the national tide IP joint name, but because of the poor quality of many goods, consumers are losing - Guangzhou and Shanghai relevant departments have repeatedly announced that the mingchuang excellent protective mask is unqualified, peelable nail polish trichloromethane exceeds the standard by more than 1400 times and other issues of products, more consumers vote with their feet, through the marketing to the national tide after the traffic is limited after all, Not only are the 10,000 stores only half realized, Ye Guofu's annual revenue target of 100 billion yuan is only a dream.
The real reason behind it is that Mingchuang Premium may only regard the national tide as a "marketing slogan". This is also evident in the top TOY of the franchise system: tide play, the joint brand activity of gathering beauty stores and long-established brands, the most important thing is the original IP incubation, which is the brand's confidence, exploration and innovation in Chinese culture - which is why consumers like the national tide brand. But the reality is that TOP TOY has almost no independent IP, relies on OEM and cooperation forms, and does not participate in the creation and production of other links, and it is difficult to understand what is the real national tide.
Similarly, WOW COLOUR is also difficult to bring new hope to Miniso Premium. According to the "Interface News" news, WOW COLOUR originally planned to open 300 stores in 2020 and 1,000 in 2021, but the total number of stores in the country is currently about 135, which is half of the peak of 300, of which the number of stores distributed in the four first-tier cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen is only 3, 4, 11 and 3 respectively.
"A lot of people think that Yuanqi Forest is a marketing company, and I think this is a big misunderstanding." In November last year, Li Guoxun, vice president of Yuanqi Forest, said on a forum: "The success of a brand cannot rely solely on marketing and promotion, but also needs product and quality, and user reputation to be supported behind." ”
This should have been the case for brands that tore off the "pseudo-Japanese" label and wanted to tell a new story by the national tide. The question is, is this just a kind of marketing propaganda, or is it really implemented so that more consumers can perceive it?