The second part of the "Come to Brand" special series
CBO reporter Zhou Yao
We've always thought that local beauty is still far from the top luxury mall. But now, less than a year after its establishment, the local fragrance brand DOCUMENTS wenxian has successfully entered SKP-S. It not only became the first local retail brand to enter this top luxury mall, but also announced that local beauty brands have a new link with luxury goods.
10 years ago, few of the major consumers of luxury goods were under the age of 40, but today young people in their early 20s use luxury goods everywhere. The data shows that the post-90s generation has become the main force of luxury goods, which has reached 50% of the market consumer population, and will continue to maintain a consumption growth of 25-30% year by year.
Three years ago, the domestic TOP1 department store Beijing SKP for the first time independent of a trend line luxury shopping mall SKP-S, LOUIS VUITTON, GUCCI, DIOR and so on have opened independent trend line stores here.
All of this means that taking the consumer as the starting point, both the brand and the store are changing. In the process of this change, local beauty brands have ushered in more new possibilities.
From track selection, to positioning, to product presentation and space creation, Wenxian has subversive business thinking. This also almost breaks the tradition of the birth of local beauty brands.
01
Do a natural high premium brand
All along, in the thinking and cognition of most domestic brands, high-premium products need to be polished for a long time or even decades and hundreds of years of brand value establishment, but Meng Zhaoran believes that brands can naturally achieve high premiums.
△Wenxian Beijing SKP-S store and Ark flash mob
"If I make a brand, it must have enough premium space to do product design and cultural empowerment." Therefore, this brand must have a high customer order and a high premium. Meng Zhaoran, the founder of documents Wenxian brand, carefully calculated this account and finally positioned Wenxian as a luxury product.
"Because luxury goods are the category that can be closest to works of art in the commercial system, in addition to the commercial market value, it also includes artistic value." Art brings a premium, as long as the smell can give the product enough creativity. After positioning Wenxian as a luxury, the product has great room for creativity, and it can also make the ability of the Wenxian team play out to the fullest. ”
For The Wenxian team and Meng Zhaoran personally, choosing luxury goods is not only a bold decision, but also more suitable for the team's genes.
Wen Xian's product as a carrier, the final idea he wants to express, is obviously the philosophy of Meng Zhaoran and his team under the overlap of life journey and workplace experience.
Born in 1987 and born in Chengdu, Meng Zhaoran first studied photography in France, and then returned to China to engage in public relations work, mainly serving luxury brands and FMCG brands. The first venture was to run a floral design company in Beijing, thanks to the previous accumulation, Meng Zhaoran's company slowly became a more corporate custom form, and extended to product packaging, VI, and even to the complete space design.
From 2018 to 2019, Meng Zhaoran, as CEO, collaborated with Korean trend eyewear brand GENTEL MONSTER to present the creative art dessert brand NUDAKE. Four NUDAKE stores are located in Beijing SKP-S, Ningbo Hankyu Department Store, Shanghai Huaihai Road and Qiantan Taikoo Li.
These experiences have allowed Meng Zhaoran's team to accumulate a lot of experience in product creative design, content creation and channel establishment. In a way, it seems that THE GIFT MONSTER or NUDAKE IS A CONTINUATION OF THE BEAUTY FIELD.
The choice outweighs the effort. In the field of beauty retail, the right track choice even directly determines the fate of the brand.
After the makeup, fragrance seems to have become the most promising beauty track in recent years. On the one hand, foreign perfume manufacturers, such as Firmenich, Givaudan, etc., have successively entered the Chinese market, looking for opportunities to put into production in China; on the other hand, international high-end fragrance brands have also successively entered the Chinese market, such as: French brand L'Artisan Parfumeur Artisan Fragrance, British brand Penhaligon's PanHailigen, European brand BYREDO, etc., and have achieved good results.
Of course, China's local market has also risen some hot fragrance brands, such as smell library, RE perfume room, Scentooze three rabbits, Plustwo plustwo plus rabbits and so on. Most notably, in 2019, To summer debuted as a niche, original, oriental story fragrance brand. The first store in Taikoo Li, Sanlitun, Beijing, has also made Guanxia the most popular local beauty brand among young consumers in recent years.
Whether it is product design, product content or business model, Guanxia has also become a new force that truly breaks the traditional brand thinking. However, positioning the public fragrance, Guanxia has not been able to touch the high-end market. It can be said that in the field of fragrance, China's local high-end brands have been blank from beginning to end.
On the one hand, the category supply chain is mature, on the other hand, there are huge opportunities in the market, and Meng Zhaoran also smells these.
Based on this, Wenxian finally anchored the luxury market that can best reflect its own brand creativity and design capabilities, and through the mature supply chain of perfume, cooperated with the world's best flavor and fragrance giants, invested in the best packaging raw materials and technologies to quickly solve the problems at the production end, and focused on the high concentration products with 15%-25% fragrance content that are most suitable for Chinese. The main product perfume is priced at 850 yuan for 30ml, and 1790 yuan for 90ml.
02
The artistic expression of the product
So, what kind of artistic premium can a product with an artistic premium match for local luxury goods, so that consumers can gladly accept such high prices?
Meng Zhaoran used the original word "Zen cool" to define everything.
What is "Zen Cool"? In Meng Zhaoran's view, "Zen is equivalent to the luxury goods of Western society in Chinese culture, and is a unique expression of values." It is more subtle, restrained and inclusive. Wen Xian should take 'Zen Ku' as the core to express The Chinese Philosophy and Way of Life of Confucianism and Taoism. As a local luxury, this is also the core of wenxian brand culture. ”
Based on this, in the packaging design presentation, Wenxian products use a large number of Chinese utensil elements, such as the design of the bottle body inspired by the traditional tenon and tenon structure; in the use of notes, Wenxian also adds strong Chinese elements such as walnut, star anise, Chinese cedar, and magnolia to the perfumed notes. And the Chinese style of ink black and yellow as the brand color, highlighting the neutral restraint and impactful style of smelling, in order to be close to the luxury positioning.
Not only the sense of design, Wen Xian is also very good at discovering and giving product stories.
After the culture of buried charcoal incense was improved, it was very traditional Chinese as a form of incense. Due to the complex and demanding burial process, long working hours and high loss rate in the production process, it is often difficult to find charcoal. The Wenxian team discovered this and created the most expensive piece of silver charcoal drops (2650 yuan). At the same time, the silver charcoal refined in a certain period of time presented in the packaging content will be numbered and fired, giving the product scarcity and vitality.
△ Smell the silver charcoal drop incense poster
All product details are consumer experiences. Wen Xian even gave each series of aromas a theme and story, and even infiltrated the art into the details of the text, such as the 6 products of the "No One Is Perfect" series, named as the first ripe thing, the flexible thorn, the night desert echo, the art of belly language, the subtlety of the body, and the end of compromise, in order to express the imperfection of the 6 kinds of human nature representing naivety, madness, indifference, shyness, sensitivity, and stubbornness.
Combined with the current consumers' multi-occasion demand for goods, whether it is perfume or fragrance, each product can be integrated into the life scene, and can even become an ornament or even a collection at home.
In the process of creating incense, Wen Xian will deliberately ask the perfumer to break some balance, not deliberately pursue the change of the front, middle and back tones of the perfume, or the full harmony of the smell, but will enlarge some single notes, or the hedging of several fragrances, to create the memory point of the aroma. WenXian also tries to meet the needs of consumers in multiple dimensions, such as adding white space to the aroma. Nowadays, the younger generation of consumers are not satisfied with a bottle of perfume to spray the world, trying the overlapping fragrance of different perfumes is also one of their personalized needs.
For the manager, Meng Zhaoran only requires that every product offered strives to provide consumers with a "Chinese-style" luxury experience.
03
The ultimate aesthetic of spatial ambience
A luxury-oriented brand cannot come online. After choosing a good track, positioning and creating products, as a beauty brand, the presentation and service of the store is the last and most critical step.
Unlike other beauty future brands, Wen Xian did not have the mentality of testing the water online at the beginning of its establishment, but chose the first brand store in Huaihai Road, the most emotional and emotional place in Shanghai, and also opposite TX Huaihai, a shopping mall where Shanghai's hipster circle gathers.
△Huaihai Road niko and.. Flagship store
Huaihai Road is a street with a lot of tone and mood in Shanghai. The entire business district covers an area of about 798,000 square meters, and the weekday passenger flow reaches about 197,000 people/day. According to statistics, by the end of 2021, Huaihai Road has attracted as many as 42 domestic and foreign brand flagship stores to settle here, such as: Shanghai's largest global flagship store with a business area of 8,000 square meters; Japanese home life brand niko and. The world's largest flagship store, the storefront of more than 3400 square meters MUJI world flagship store. In addition, many trend brands also have flagship stores here, such as: GENTLE MONSTER, bosie, Lane Crawford, etc.
On both sides of Huaihai Road, there are also a number of mature commercial projects such as IAPM, K11 Shopping Art Center, and so on. TX Huaihai is one of the most popular business projects for Shanghai's trendy young people to punch in. In early 2021, TX Huaihai debuted as a young force center, positioned as a curatorial retail space. After opening, TX Huaihai used flexible commercial space to hold different exhibitions and various cross-border activities. According to statistics, from January to June 2021, TX Huaihai held a total of nearly 70 activities, including flash mobs, art exhibitions, parties, etc., almost touching the young community of different circles. And these customer groups are almost the same as the positioning customers of WenXian.
On the one hand, it is the symbol of Huaihai Road, on the other hand, it is a matching consumer group, which seems to have become the most suitable place for the "birth" of Wenxian in shanghai.
In July 2021, WenXian's first store was opened, covering an area of 110 square meters, with the theme of "Night Temple Space". From smell, packaging, vision, text, story, service, music to incense tasting experience, all links present a complete smelling brand.
From the appearance point of view, the smell of the huge black storefront is extremely low-key and secretive, which will make people feel some distance, and even once called Shanghai's "black shop". There are incense devices on both sides of the shop door, and incense is spread non-stop on the streets of Huaihai Road. In this way, even if passers-by do not enter the store, they can still feel the aroma of the brand and stimulate more consumers to enter the store experience.
△ Wenxian Huaihai Road store
Inside the store, Wen Xian refers to the entire space field as the experience of "the highest sense of smell and the linkage of the five senses". The main tone of black creates a solemn and calm atmosphere, with the display of new media art on the big screen and the floral decoration in the store, and then to the electronic dance music of techno coming from behind, wenxian tries to create an atmosphere that opens up the sensory experience, and consumers add more dimensions of experience while trying incense.
In the store, the details and completeness of the experience are not only displayed in the store, but even include: the circulating fresh air system set up on the incense test table, nylon rope tote bags, constant temperature drinking water, etc. Laser engraving customization of perfume bottles is also available in the store, and each product is also presented in the packaging of exquisite gifts, further increasing the sense of ceremony.
From the performance point of view, Wen Xian, who has been open for less than a year, has indeed impressed many young consumers with purchasing power with products and experiences. At present, the average monthly sales of Wenxian Huaihai Road store exceed expectations, and products are also spontaneously sought after by consumers on various platforms. According to statistics, more than 90% of the members in the store come from word-of-mouth marketing among customers.
Meng Zhaoran summed up Wen Xian's first store results and said, "We did not warm up and directly opened the store for sale, and there were a few points that exceeded my expectations. The first is the unit price of customers, our original estimate is about 1200 yuan, and now it is close to 1600 yuan; the second is that the age distribution of the customer group is 80% after 95, of which 35% is after 00, and the customer list contributed between 95 and 00 is the highest; the third is that the conversion rate reaches 30%, which reflects the current high-net-worth consumers, and the acceptance of new brands is actually very high. And this group of people often need to see the real materials, experience the real products, and recognize the brand through communication with the store staff and listening to the brand story. ”
In December last year, Wen Xian received tens of millions of yuan in financing from angel rounds. Meng Zhaoran also opened stores in Shanghai and Beijing, two of the most iconic shopping malls, Shanghai Jing'an Kerry Centre and Beijing SKP-S. And each store has a specific theme, creating a "whale altar space" and a "secret cellar space" respectively, from the visual, smell, touch and other sensory angles, to create their own different fragrance experience field.
△Wenxian Jing'an Kerry Center Store
Today, Wenxian still uses offline stores as the main channel to reach consumers, and the mini programs and Tmall flagship stores opened as ways to enhance consumers' repurchase experience.
"In August this year, Wen Xian will once again receive tens of millions of yuan in Series A financing. This round of financing will also be used again for store expansion, R&D innovation, team building, brand building and other aspects. Meng Zhaoran told Cosmetics Finance Online, "In the next 5 years, Wenxian will open 30 stores in more than ten first-tier and quasi-first-tier cities across the country." Wenxian will also integrate and innovate in product research and development and deep supply chain, such as opening workshops and cultivating technical craftsmen. In the future, Wen Xian will also go abroad to seize the overseas luxury market. ”
At present, Wen Xian may only be a special case. But in the long run, Wen dedicates a new idea to brand entrepreneurs in the beauty field. When more and more beauty brands continue the path of wenxian offerings, will the real new domestic beauty era begin?
The presiding officer asks quickly and answers quickly