Produced by One View Commercial
Author/Li Yan
Edit/Wooden Fish
Recently, Blueglass, an Internet celebrity yogurt brand, was investigated by the market supervision department for "rubbing the edges".
It all started with two new products that Blueglass recently launched. One View Commercial noticed that the ingredient list of these two drinks contained maca, cistanche, yellow essence, ginseng, deer whip, Cordyceps militaris, taurine and other substances. At the same time, the new product is clearly marked with the symbol of "18 forbidden" in the advertisement. In the introduction of the new product, it is written that "under the age of 18, I do not sell; Spoof boyfriend, I don't sell; It is recommended to drink one drink a day, and I will not sell it if there is more; Over 60 years old, I don't dare to sell it" and "don't say you don't understand" and other words. It was questioned by consumers as having the suspicion of "rubbing the edges", and also called it a vulgar "aphrodisiac laxative".
On May 9, Yilan Commercial experienced Blueglass's new product with 500 billion probiotics, and the night it had obvious diarrhea symptoms.
On the same day, the Shanghai Municipal Administration for Market Regulation said that based on the problems reported by consumers and the media, the relevant district market supervision department has been asked to conduct an on-site investigation of Blueglass stores.
Subsequently, the relevant slogans were deleted from the Blueglass official account, and the relevant products were also labeled with "You really need to buy again", in which Blueglass re-marked the suitable people for the product.
(The first on the left is the original slogan, the second on the left and the first on the right are the current interface)
Does yogurt drink have an "aphrodisiac" effect? Is it a new "black technology" or a marketing method in the beverage industry?
Lawyer Tian Xiaofeng, director of the Competition and Anti-Monopoly Committee of the Shanghai Bar Association, said that the addition of cistanche, yellow essence, ginseng and other medicinal materials that have been included in the list of traditional Chinese medicines that are both food and drugs by the National Health Commission should be used in accordance with relevant regulations. In addition, from the perspective of advertising supervision, it is suspected of violating the provisions of the Advertising Law on ordinary food advertisements by implying or emphasizing the health care functions that may be involved.
Zhu Danpeng, an analyst of China's food industry, believes that with the blessing of weight management, appearance management, nutrition management, and health management, the new generation of consumers lacks protection for some innovative and upgraded products, and their purchase decisions are more based on appearance and selling points. The probability of companies using product efficacy as gimmicks is high, and whether they have the R&D technology they advertise is also debatable.
It is not the first time that Blueglass has been fined for improper use of promotional slogans. According to public information, the brand was fined for false publicity in October 2021 for using promotional terms such as "anti-inflammatory", "beauty and beauty" and "anti-aging" for "natural phycocyanin yogurt", which violated the relevant provisions of the Advertising Law and was sentenced to a penalty of 60,000 yuan by the Beijing Chaoyang District Market Supervision Bureau.
According to the data of Narrow Door Shenyan, Blueglass has 175 chain stores nationwide, 76 of which will be opened in 2023, and the store locations are mainly located in shopping malls, mostly distributed in Beijing and Shanghai, with 55 and 71 respectively, followed by Guangdong and Zhejiang, with 18 and 9 respectively. The per capita consumption was 41.64 yuan.
It is worth noting that under the background of the rapid expansion of new tea brands and coffee brands in recent years, since the beginning of this year, the track of freshly made yogurt drinks has not been so easy to do. The industry's leading brands such as jasmine yogurt and a yogurt cow have been more or less affected by the crisis of downsizing.
After the "non-dairy creamer" turmoil, the price of jasmine yogurt was hit to the range of 15-30 yuan, and the speed of opening new stores slowed down month by month. In 2023, 1,312 stores will be opened, and only 42 stores will be opened so far in 2024.
A yogurt cow has withdrawn stores in multiple cities in a row, and according to the statistics of One View Commerce, the number of stores covered by a yogurt cow from January to February dropped from 176 to 163 cities. Due to continuous losses, New Hope Dairy also gave up its controlling stake.
In contrast, Blueglass's expansion this year is still relatively stable, with an average of 6 stores per month in 2023 and 19 stores so far this year.
Looking back on the history of Blueglass, a glance at the business found that in order to make consumers willingly pay for the unit price of forty or fifty customers, Blueglass still has to rely on targeting high-end people and playing with the concept.
一方面,Blueglass早期营销侧喜欢与Lululemon 等品牌强绑定。 壹览商业发现,"Lululemon是瑜伽服中的爱马仕,Blueglass是酸奶中的爱马仕"等口号在社媒平台被高频提及。
First of all, in terms of store location, Blueglass loves to go with Lululemon. There are individual Blueglass stores that are Lululemon's shop-in-shops, and there are often tweets of a single Blueglass store doing activities (yoga-based) with a single Lululemon store. All of this puts Blueglass on an equal footing with Lululemon and subtly influences the minds of consumers, thereby supporting Blueglass's extremely high pricing.
Secondly, Blueglass claims to be the first yogurt brand to use collagen, and the global selection of high-end ingredients has also become the basis for its extremely high pricing. According to its introduction, most of BlueGlass's SKUs use functional ingredients such as "Rousselot deep-sea collagen peptide imported from France", plant bird's nest "Snow Swallow" collagen, phycocyanin + GABA aminobutyric acid, etc., which capture the psychology of women's natural beauty.
Finally, Blueglass is good at catering to the needs of "beauty economy" in product packaging. Its products are mostly white, blue (the color of phycocyanin), green, and pink, and their packaging is more suitable for sharing marketing.
In the view of One View Business, Blueglass's current brand power is still difficult to support the high pricing of products.
On the one hand, since Blueglass focuses on functional ingredients in publicity and marketing, the key data of the product should be more transparent. In addition to the protein content and the cold brew process, consumers also need to be convinced of the basis for the use of the ingredients in the product. On the other hand, Blueglass's offline experience and service level to consumer touchpoints need to be improved. One View Commercial has visited two Blueglass stores in Hangzhou, and the store space is not enough to support it as a "third place", and there is still a lot of room for optimization for a "luxury" brand in the beverage industry.
If ready-made beverages want to go high-end, differentiated marketing is necessary. But the core of marketing is still product power. The eye-catching slogans and concepts will only backfire on the company and hit the "face" of the brand in the end.