Summary: Breaking through the fog of "uncertainty", leading the sustainable growth of enterprises to a higher place, testing the strategic determination of those in charge.
Author| "Future Traces" Liu Ying
The 12th year, according to Chinese tradition, is a reincarnation, and in the Tiangan Dizhi period, it is a reincarnation. Winona, who belongs to the tiger, is full of fire again on Double 11 this year.
Following the third-quarter financial revenue and profit that maintained a growth rate far above the industry average, Winona's sales ranked 6th on Tmall Beauty in the just-concluded Double 11 sales list, becoming the only Chinese brand to be ranked in the top 10 of the Double 11 Tmall beauty and skin care category for five consecutive years.
At the same time, it has also achieved outstanding results on multiple platforms: it ranks No. 1 in Vipshop domestic products, No. 1 in the Tmall supermarket beauty category, No. 2 in JD.com domestic beauty, and No. 7 on Douyin and Kuaishou Beauty. This is especially bright at a time when beauty consumption is relatively weak and international giants are also feeling the "chill".
As the co-founder of Bethany Group, Dong Junzi is not complacent, but rather calm.
Leap over "2017"
Those who are cautious in the end, chase them first
Looking back at the past five years, 2017 should be a clear watershed for China's cosmetics industry.
Since 2017, China's cosmetics market has experienced a round of high growth as a whole driven by the multiple forces of capital support, new channel traffic dividends, product upgrades, marketing overweight, and "consumption upgrades". According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, the total retail sales of cosmetics in 2017 were 251.4 billion yuan, and increased to 402.6 billion yuan in 2021. This means that in five years, the overall scale of China's cosmetics has skyrocketed by 60%, and the absolute value of growth has reached 151.2 billion yuan. Until 2013, the total retail sales of cosmetics in China were only 142 billion yuan.
This round of growth has pulled the main battlefield of China's cosmetics industry from offline to online, and Winona, a subsidiary of Bethany Group, is the first Chinese brand to seize this wave of dividends. And all this has a lot to do with Dong Junzi.
After the 80s, Dong Junzi can be said to be the earliest generation of Internet natives in China, and when he joined Bethany Betney, he began to realize the importance of the Internet to brands. In 2013, Winona participated in Singles' Day for the first time.
"We have always used Tmall as the most important position from the beginning. My deepest impression was Singles' Day in 2013, which was our first participation. That year, sales exceeded 4 million, and I was very excited! According to Dong Junzi, he and his colleagues were betting on how much they could sell, and he lost to all his colleagues.
Those who are cautious in the end, chase them first. Dong Junzi is unique in that although he is not as "capable" as his colleagues, he has a talent for how to solve problems "proactively and systematically".
Since 2013, Winona's e-commerce has quickly established a unique system of "self-built team + scene marketing" after a short exploration. Although this system seems "as it should be" today, at a time when TP was the mainstay, this "everything must be done" style of play was really an "outlier".
But then, the development of the entire industry demonstrated Dong Junzi's forward-looking, self-built e-commerce team, and increasing the proportion of online direct sales has become an important means for brands to cope with fierce market competition and maintain core competitiveness.
According to Future Beauty, among the nearly 1,000 people in Shanghai, the e-commerce team is the largest sector, covering all e-commerce and related sectors such as operation, launch, content creation, and private domain, which can be completed independently.
In addition, "scene marketing" is a complete set of marketing methods gradually explored by Winona in the open innovation model.
From the beginning of the brand's creation, Winona realized that the ingredients and efficacy of the roll may not be the best way out for the brand.
When the entire marketing main position shifted from offline to online, compared with the crude logic of traditional skin care products directly telling users "I'm fine, you buy quickly", Winona created a set of scenario-based consumer communication logic that "shows users 'what scene and what skin state should be used and what product' through copywriting and pictures", and constantly strengthens Winona's consumption mentality of "focusing on sensitive skin" through the appearance of professionals.
Source: Bethany Prospectus
Under this set of communication logic, consumers know why they buy Winona's products, so that their online repurchase rate has remained at a high level of more than 30%.
When the window of time jumped over 2017, China's local cosmetics market began to enter "Winona Time". Every year's Double 11 has become one "premeditated" victory after another.
On the evening of March 30, 2021, hundreds of drones took off on the Bund in Shanghai, intertwining the slogan "Focus on sensitive skin" and the picture of the listing bell, which caused countless people on the Bund to marvel one after another. This beautiful performance heralded the crowning of "Bethany as the first share of efficacy skin care".
According to Euromonitor statistics, in 2019, Winona's market share in the sensitive skin care track officially surpassed Avène and ranked first. Winona's market share increased to 22% by 2021, almost the sum of the second and third places. With a market value of nearly 70 billion yuan, Bethenny has become the most valuable company among Chinese beauty companies.
Another important turning point
Sustainable growth is more critical than "first"
From the perspective of past development, China's cosmetics market has always been in a five-year cycle, constantly iteratively moving forward.
A few years later, if you look back again, 2022 is likely to be another important turning point in the cyclical iteration of China's cosmetics industry.
First of all, since 2017, the opportunity for "benefit redistribution" brought about by the shift of the main channel of the cosmetics market from offline to online has disappeared; In addition, the traffic dividend brought by the continuous growth of the number of netizens and the continuous emergence of new media platforms has also ended; Finally, under the superposition of multiple factors, the overall high-growth era of China's cosmetics market has also come to an end.
A research report by China Merchants Securities shows that China's cosmetics industry is currently facing a switch between old and new growth models. "Low-quality traffic-driven growth" is transitioning across the board to "high-quality product-driven growth."
It is not difficult to see that Winona's round of rapid development since 2017 is actually practicing the "high-quality product-driven growth" approach.
The continuous exploration of Yunnan's rich plant resources, committed to providing scientific solutions for sensitive skin care, has built Winona's "differentiated ingredients and formulas", which has become the brand's core weapon to win in the white-hot skin care market. The e-commerce team and modern retail team that Dong Junzi began to build from the beginning built its "refined channel operation" capabilities; The "scenario-based communication" system that builds professional nursing solutions and brand value propositions through the Internet is Winona's unique "marketing that rises to the level of brand spirit".
It's just that today, when more and more brands begin to "awaken", Winona has to face the challenge of being constantly chased.
But under the laurels of the "leader of domestic products", the post-80s Dong Junzi showed an unusual calmness and open-mindedness that was not burdened by "fame".
Dong Junzi believes that Winona's current position is not important, sustainable growth is the most important. To this end, in the complexity of everyday life, he selected two key factors - people and goods, and took it upon himself to get to the end.
Dong Junzi, who comes from a background in human resources, knows what kind of disaster a fast-growing company will be if there is a problem with the talent structure.
"In recent years, the biggest change has been constant change. Our team is getting bigger and bigger, and the requirements for the middle office are getting higher. Therefore, we make organizational adjustments every year. Dong Junzi said.
However, Future Beauty found that the adjustment mentioned by Dong Junzi is not only a personnel "up and down" based on KPIs or OKRs, but more a change in the offensive formation in the face of market changes.
According to Dong Junzi, the biggest adjustment in personnel for Bethenny in 2022 is the formation of a content creative team and the integration and upgrading of the new media operation team.
"In the future, the contact content with consumers will become extremely important, and it is no longer possible to output a unified standard content on the whole network, and it is necessary to adopt different communication methods according to the needs of different consumers and different scenarios, and when the selling point of the product is determined." That's what our new content team does. Dong Junzi said.
According to the observation of "Future Beauty", the way of outputting different content according to different scenes mentioned by Dong Junzi has been implemented in the layout of Winona Blue V account, and matrix accounts such as Winona's official flagship store, Winona's flagship store, Winona's Bei Xiaoni store, and Winona's class representatives have been constructed.
According to Dong Junzi, on the one hand, this is to adapt to the content distribution mechanism recommended by Douyin to different groups of people through algorithms according to different keywords and content, and on the other hand, it is also to have a deeper spiritual resonance with different consumers. "It's a kind of thinking and layout for us in advance." Dong Junzi said.
In addition to "people", "goods" is another issue that Dong Junzi is more concerned about.
In Dong Junzi's view, Winona's early success is precisely because it successfully passed on the slogan of "Winona focuses on sensitive skin" to consumers through its super large item "Special Care Cream". Therefore, large items are the direct "ammunition" for brands to build consumers' minds and must be regarded as lifelines.
In 2022, Double 11, the new big item "Winona Special Protection Essence" that sold 1 million bottles was personally checked by Dong Junzi.
According to reports, based on the latest research results in the dermatology community, this essence product is added with Winona's new high-purity green thorn fruit PRO, which can accurately and directly hit the sensitive root target "tight protein" Claudin-5, and repair the sensitive and fragile barrier from the root; At the same time, Danshen root extract and gakya fruit extract are specially added to directly hit the "pain switch" TRPV1, and synergistically act on the "pain reducer" CB2 to improve the sensitive state of the skin. In addition, it is also equipped with EBI-Booster penetration black technology, which can achieve five-fold in-depth repair, layered precise penetration, and multi-dimensional improvement of facial sensitivity.
In addition to applying cutting-edge technology to carry out a full range of "precision skin care", based on meticulous consumer insights, Winona also fully considers the differentiated needs of sensitive skin people, and develops products for five common skin problem scenarios, such as morning C and evening A, special beauty, staying up late and working overtime, seasonal alternation, and sun exposure. This meticulously polished product was launched in September and has been well received by the market.
Of course, Bethany product research and development is not the words of the "boss", what really plays a role is the huge R & D and development system behind it.
According to the statistics of "Future Beauty", from January to September this year, Bethany R&D expenses increased by 84.66% year-on-year, ranking first among major domestic beauty listed companies.
In addition, Bethany has a unique "horse racing" mechanism for new product development. According to Dong Junzi, Bethenny's private domain team, which has gradually improved, is undertaking part of the responsibility of "testing" new products through its advantages of long-term direct communication with consumers, and through the testing of new products, the company will select multiple suitable channels for test sales, and then increase investment in products and channels with better performance.
Bethany has been very outstanding financially since going public.
According to the financial report released on October 25, when the Shanghai branch was locked down for more than 3 months, Bethany also reached 2.895 billion yuan in the first three quarters, a year-on-year increase of 37.05%; The net profit attributable to the owners of the parent company was 517 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 45.62%; It is the company with the best comprehensive performance among the major beauty listed companies in China.
Breaking through the "no-go zone"
Find answers for the future
Looking back at the rapid development of China's cosmetics industry for more than 40 years, many local companies have stood on the cusp of the times, trying to lead Chinese brands to higher places. However, the vast majority of them, in the end, due to insufficient brand power, or business decision-making errors, are eventually squeezed by strong competitors in the local market, and it is difficult to advance.
In the past five years, with its first-mover advantage, Winona has become the only local brand in China that can continue to maintain a breakthrough in the head-to-head competition with foreign brands.
But "the middle stream hits the water, the waves stop the flying boat", if Bethenny wants to continue to break through, she will have to find answers that Chinese local companies have never pursued in the past:
How exactly should the road from single brand to multi-brand be taken?
What is the effective way to go abroad and run to internationalization?
In a unique business environment around the world, how can online and offline converge?
And all this is related to the future answer, in the past successful experience, there is no clue. It is almost equivalent to the "no-go zone" of local Chinese enterprises.
In music, High C used to be considered a no-go zone for tenors because no one could ever sing it continuously. It wasn't until 1972 that Pavarotti broke this penalty area by singing 9 high-pitched C's in a row with chest resonance.
From the current layout, Bethany has taken the first step to create a "multi-brand".
Since last year, Winonababy has become Bethany the second brand to focus on. Last year's Double 11 ranked in the top 10 of Tmall's baby and child skin care list, and this year's ranking has been promoted to the fourth place, and the progress is rapid.
"We are also figuring out what kind of organizational structure will help build a new brand, whether it is an internal incubation or an independent team, and this exploration will become clearer and clearer, and there will be more new brands to look forward to." In this regard, Dong Junzi seems to be full of confidence.
As for the issue of "going to sea", Dong Junzi admitted that he has been trying since last year, but it is not the focus yet. Moreover, compared with the simple "trade abroad" of selling products abroad through some cross-border e-commerce platforms, Dong Junzi is more interested in exporting brand value to developed countries and markets.
"Winona already has a certain understanding overseas, and in the promotion of related business, how to build a localized brand, create more localized products, and be able to meet local consumers, is our logic to go overseas." Technology going overseas, product research and development going overseas, and mainstream social media and mainstream market play and strategy are our most concerned points. Dong Junzi said.
The exploration of the integration of online and offline channels may be a direction that Bethany has gone further.
According to Huangshan Yansong's theoretical model of retail positioning in the new era, in the face of China's current complex and fragmented sales channels, combined with their respective characteristics, high-frequency consumer goods and "long-tail" consumer goods are sold through the Internet as the main channel, and medium and low-frequency and high value-added products are sold offline as the main channel, which may be the theoretical path of online and offline integration in the future.
Huangshan Yansong's theoretical model of retail positioning in the new era
From this point of view, Winona is currently working to expand the "long-tail area" and precipitate high-frequency large items from the long-tail area, in addition to continuing to launch high-frequency large items such as special cream and freeze-dried masks.
"We should consider sunscreen products for sensitive skin, anti-aging products for sensitive skin, whitening products for sensitive skin, etc.", according to Dong Junzi, with the trend of aging population, more new opportunities have emerged in the skin care market, and Bethany is actively deploying thinking in anti-aging and professional medical beauty.
In addition, the Shanghai Winona Volley Experience Center, which was unveiled in September last year, and the Hangzhou Yintai counter, which landed in December last year, are both tentative moves to establish a new online and offline system.
"Our business model has always been an integration of online and offline, offline is an important carrier for us to set benchmarks and enrich the scene of contact with consumers, and we already have a series of physical stores including counters. The process of forming offline points and releasing sales online, so online and offline are equally important to us, and in the future, we will continue to do a good job online and expand these offline services. Dong Junzi said.
The charm of the business world is that there has never been a so-called standard answer, and Dong Junzi, who has just entered the "year of not confused", is also full of countless possibilities. And the new generation of domestic pathfinders, what step will they go in the end? What kind of posture to start a new path of globalization is the most promising place to look forward to in the future.
END