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Editorial/nagging section
On May 10, 2023, Hailan House officially announced actor Zhang Songwen as a new brand spokesperson, who has ushered in the peak of his career in middle age in recent years with film and television dramas such as "Hidden Corner" and "Crazy".
This move also seems to show that Hailan House is also adjusting its brand strategy to get rid of the greasy decline of the mid-life crisis, but it ushered in a series of complaints and oolong incidents such as "rubbing traffic", "misuse of photos", "excessive P pictures", etc., this cooperation does not seem to have achieved the expected effect, and even caused Hailan House's stock to fall by 90%, and the market value has seriously shrunk.
Is the "men's wardrobe", which has been cultivated in the men's wear market for more than 20 years, really going downhill uncontrollably?
Zhang Songwen became a spokesperson
The promotional words "men visit Hailan House twice a year" and "Hailan House, men's wardrobe" in TV commercials are deeply rooted in people's hearts, such a positioning, although clear, but also obvious drawbacks.
For example, in today's traditional clothing industry decline, e-commerce clothing development of the Internet era, young people have become the main force of consumption, but young people do not eat the set of Hailan House, the maturity of Hailan House's main brand, but has become rustic.
Hailan House is not unaware that in fact, long before Zhang Songwen, Hailan House has begun to try to get out of the circle through celebrity endorsements, and use such marketing to change the label that has been formed in the public's mind for a long time: old-fashioned.
In 2003, Hailan House officially announced the first signed spokesperson, Wu Dawei, in the advertising video he wore a white shirt and tie of the successful person, is the main urban business style of Hailan House, Wu Dawei faced the camera and said the deep-rooted line: "Men, visit Hailan House twice a year." ”
In 2009, the appearance of the second spokesperson Yin Xiaotian accelerated the promotion of Hailan House to the people, in the video, Yin Xiaotian danced the dance of the devil beast, and even added multiple shadow special effects, while saying the line: The label "men's wardrobe" is very brainwashing, so that people can not forget it to this day.
This peculiar and trendy marketing has produced excellent results, and Hailan House has completely eaten the dividend effect brought by stars to the brand, so the spokesperson Du Chun also continued this style.
Asking middle-aged consumers to like celebrities as spokespersons made Hailan House reach the peak at the beginning of its listing in 2014, but with the advent of the Internet era, the main force of consumers has given way to young people, so the direction of Hailan House's exploration has changed, after all, it is important to embrace the core of consumption.
So since 2016, the spokesperson of Hailan House has become a more popular and popular star among young people, for example, Lin Xinxin, who has the label of "900 million girls' dreams", in the advertising poster, he wore an elegant long coat, exquisite and simple matching, sweeping away the lingering earthy taste of Hailan House for a long time, injecting freshness and fashion.
After 2020, Hailan House even invited national idol Jay Chou as a new spokesperson, as well as Xu Weizhou, a young student who was sought after with the image of a sunny boyfriend, and even invited sports stars Wang Wei and Wu Dajing to endorse it.
It can be seen that Hailan House has spent a lot of money on the selection of spokespersons, and at the same time, it hopes to catch up with the pace of young people, relying on stars to increase consumer stickiness and broaden its consumer group.
These efforts are indeed effective, and they can be regarded as occupying a place in the increasingly competitive track.
However, just by constantly changing the marketing model of spokespersons, it will not always be bought by people, such as this official announcement, which has caused a series of oolongs.
Hailan House
Let's go through the brand path of Hailan House again and see how in addition to spokesperson marketing, it has created a menswear miracle and gradually declined from the peak.
This has to mention the founder of Hailan House - Zhou Jianping, in 1998, only 28 years old, he has already founded a woolen factory, in just a few years, it has become the top five in the country, sales have exceeded 1 billion, but the opportunity for Hailan House to appear was Zhou Jianping's trip to Japan in 2002.
In 2002, he went to Japan to prepare for business in the garment industry, and discovered something that caught his eye.
Zhou Jianping walked into any Uniqlo store in Japan, and he found that inside, consumers were completely self-service, separated from the store staff who followed them, and at the same time had shopping guides who could help at any time.
The products in the store are also complete, and they are neatly displayed according to gender and function, giving people a professional, safe and comfortable shopping atmosphere.
This kind of mass merchandiser-style self-service sales directly inspired Zhou Jianping, which led to the emergence of the first Hailan House, which opened a store on Zhongshan Road in Nanjing in September of the same year.
As the first person to eat crab, such adventures have paid off, and as the first clothing store in China to complete station-based shopping, Hailan House has brought a new experience to domestic clothing stores.
In addition to learning the sales model, Hailan House has also made a clear distinction from Uniqlo from the beginning, choosing a more vertical field in the clothing industry: men's clothing, but the innovative model that makes Hailan House profitable is a different form of outsourcing from UNIQLO's OEM model.
The so-called OME is designed independently by the brand side, and the factory is only responsible for production, so that although the brand side accounts for a large proportion of profits, the risks and costs also need to be borne by themselves.
But Hailan House changed this model, chose to cooperate directly with suppliers, design and production are all responsible for suppliers, it is only responsible for sales, procurement of finished products, Hailan House will make a distinction between production and sales, just like an intermediary that only earns the difference, a role of wholesale and then take out for retail.
The benefits of this model are obvious, because it greatly reduces the accumulation of inventory, and at the same time reduces the cost of building its own factory, compared with the traditional OEM model, it is much more convenient, the key is that this also gives birth to an exclusive procurement model, and the returnable and non-returnable model between suppliers.
For example, for some regular styles of clothing, Hailan House will only pay about 30% of the payment to the supplier when purchasing, and the final payment will be settled one by one according to the actual sales volume of the store.
In the non-returnable mode, goods such as down jackets and short sleeves are sold directly to Hailan House, and the company bears the risk of unsellable products, which is indeed a smart strategy for Hailan House to reduce its own costs.
What really makes Hailan House a lot of profit is its franchise model, franchisees are only responsible for investing money, bear the cost, professional store operation and management are all professionally responsible for Hailan House, through this, Hailan House has absorbed a lot of funds.
Where does so much money flow, that is, the marketing we said, Hailan House attaches importance to brand promotion, and also attaches importance to marketing to young people for the Internet, but why is it still in 2022 into the dilemma of a large number of offline store closures and a decline in market value?
Strategic marketing methods
In fact, the key also lies in the achievement of Hailan Home's asset-light model, because the supplier directly provides the source, resulting in insufficient control over product quality and design.
First of all, let's talk about the lack of design, after all, now that the fast-moving consumer track is getting more and more rolled, the replacement of clothing is too fast, and the preferences of young people on social media are the same every day.
Since you want to firmly grasp the young consumer group, you can't let the supplier fool around, brainlessly produce some 10,000-year-old evergreen models, or local flavor explosive models, and then the quality is unstable, which is one of the reasons for the decline of the brand image of Hailan House.
Some consumers said that the quality of the clothes bought back is too poor, it didn't take long to wear the fabric pilling, shrinkage, fading is also a keyword that often appears in the evaluation, this situation, and Hailan Home faces a high return rate, a large number of products piled up, forming a slow sale, plus the original because the design was not bought, sold products, resulting in a large increase in inventory.
The way Hailan House adopts the method of clearing inventory and selling at a reduced price, but as a fast-moving consumer goods brand, Hailan House has long set up a persona for itself, that is, it does not roll low-priced characters, but it cannot be rolled up, so it is a disguised discount and a better and cheaper feeder brand.
For example, the newly established "Hai family" and "Hundred Clothes" in the back, how to deal with the products that can be returned to the supplier?
They are not returned directly, but until the clothes are out of season and completely unsold, and then cut off the label and returned.
After all, suppliers also have to minimize costs and losses, so clothes that cut off the label will re-enter the clothing market at a lower price, competing with labeled "authentic" products.
So on some e-commerce platforms, we can see that some clothes with a price of only 10% of the original price are sold under endless new names, and even exceed the sales volume of Hailan House's own store.
From the psychological point of view of consumers, most people tend to choose this same lower-priced product, and at the same time, the credibility of Hailan Home has also been shaken.
This has created a vicious circle, consumers do not buy, a new round of marketing has encountered a crisis, the product is again unsold, and faces standard cutting sales, Hailan House is of course aware of the dilemma they are facing, and the direction they chose to break through We have also seen, that makes a big fuss in marketing.
And in 2020, after the head of Hailan House became Zhou Jianping's son Zhou Lichen, the newcomer is also committed to expanding Hailan House from a man's wardrobe like a family's wardrobe.
At the same time, it has also launched online retail channels, and also used online live broadcast for sales and promotion, but compared with other brands on the same track, Hailan House's investment in R&D and design is obviously not enough.
Perhaps in the face of the collapse of the traditional sales model and the reality of brand transformation, Hailan House should consider both ends of the scale, and what really attracts consumers is not only marketing, but also product quality and design.
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