What changes is the sunscreen apparel market undergoing and where are the future trends heading?
As the temperature rises, the sunscreen clothing category is already gearing up.
According to relevant reports, the GMV of Douyin's sunscreen market in 2023 will be about 3.73 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 217.4%. At present, consumer demand for sunscreen products continues to grow, and there are as many as 150 million sunscreen users.
According to the echelon, sunscreen brands can be divided into fashion brands focusing on the field of sunscreen, old outdoor sports brands, and some "disruptors" in the market. New and old brands of different echelons compete on the same stage, and their playing styles have their own characteristics. What new trends can we see in the brand melee?
Banana under the sunscreen field
The sharpest catcher enters the game
The earliest wins the world
For a long time in the past, the public's awareness of sunscreen clothing was relatively weak, and sunscreen umbrellas were still used as a solution for sun protection. As the industry gradually popularizes consumers, consumers' awareness of sunscreen has gradually increased, and they have begun to try to buy sunscreen clothing.
However, in the past, many sunscreen clothing brands pursued the maximization of a single function excessively, and the purchase experience of consumers was not good. On the one hand, it is reflected in the fact that the breathability of sunscreen clothing is not high, it is stuffy, and the fabric is not skin-friendly. On the other hand, the functional data of each sunscreen brand is not disclosed, which weakens the transparency of the brand and the trust of consumers.
Some manufacturers with a keen sense of smell have seized the market gap and consumer pain points, so they have given birth to Bananaxia, Oh! Sunny and other fashion brands that focus on the field of sun protection. Since "sun protection" is a concept that has only been mentioned and taken seriously in recent years, most of the brands that focus on this field are relatively new, but it does not prevent consumers from recognizing these brands at all.
Jiaoxia, which started as a sunscreen product, is one of the earliest brands to enter these new sunscreen trends, and has continued to dominate the TOP1 in many categories such as sunscreen clothing, sunscreen masks, and hats for many years.
When the vast majority of brands on the market adopt the ordinary original yarn sunscreen process, Jiaoxia has worked "sunscreen + coolness", using a variety of sunscreen technologies such as whole clothing wind sense breathable technology and original yarn cooling technology to distinguish it from other sunscreen clothing brands.
With the development of the brand, Jiaoxia has gradually adjusted its positioning to a "lightweight outdoor brand" to create a variety of "lightweight outdoor products that can be applied across scenarios". Looking at the sunscreen clothing category under the banana, the color of the product is gentle and clear, and the design is full of sports technology, which is convenient to match with different looks, and it is among the favorite of urban women in first-tier cities.
In terms of product marketing, Banana is never stingy. Just launched the brand video "Surprise Order" during the solar term, and immediately launched the second part of "All the Suns".
The video records a couple of men and women who met and got to know each other by chance outdoors, and they were compared to two banana sunscreen clothing flying to the sun, a metaphor for men and women embracing the sun and embracing beauty, and finally pointing to the slogan of the video, "We wear sunscreen clothing not because we are afraid of the sun, but to embrace the sun", encouraging young consumers to participate in lightweight outdoor activities.
It can be felt that Jiaoxia is constantly deepening its label of "lightweight outdoor" in communication with consumers. Most of its brand marketing is to tell stories in combination with solar terms and outdoor scenes. In addition to investing the most in brand entertainment marketing, Jiaoxia also pays attention to investment in camps, communities, stores and other business formats, and continues to create a lightweight outdoor lifestyle in an all-round way.
In addition to Bananaxia, Oh! Sunny is also not to be overlooked.
Oh! Sunny provides young female consumers with "a complete set of sunscreen solutions according to the scene", and it finally relies on the "six-in-one" sunscreen clothing series of lightweight, comfortable + professional sunscreen, allowing the brand to achieve an average annual growth rate of nearly 300% and attract female consumers to repurchase.
For women, in addition to paying attention to the sunscreen effect when buying sunscreen clothing, appearance is also a very important point. Oh! Sunny's main healing aesthetic technology inspired by outdoor protection aims to bring technological aesthetic wear to every urban woman.
Looking at the product line, Oh! Sunny was the first to launch sunscreen clothing, and with the changes in the air environment, it has continuously innovated to create a series of protective products with anti-virus, anti-haze, anti-mosquito and anti-pollen, covering masks, hats and other sunscreen products.
When the various scenes of sunscreen have been "made a fuss" by major sunscreen brands, Oh! Through technological innovation and product upgrades, Sunny has set foot in full-link feminine protection products, providing head-to-toe sunscreen solutions.
In marketing, Oh! Sunny has successively cooperated with celebrities such as Sun Qian, Song Yi, Wu Jiacheng, etc., and attracted young female consumers through the same strategy of celebrities.
After the concept of sunscreen gradually entered the minds of consumers, sunscreen clothing has changed from niche needs to well-known categories, and some fashion brands focusing on the field of sunscreen have led the transformation of sunscreen categories with the trend of scientific and technological refinement and popularity, and rewritten the pattern of the sunscreen market.
I am most concerned about the sunscreen of the outdoor circle
An established outdoor brand
It is completing the gorgeous turn of "circle" and "youth".
Outdoor sports people often have a strong need for sun protection. It's just that it was not the old outdoor brands that initially paid attention to consumer needs and subdivided their daily needs, but the lightweight outdoor brands represented by Jiaoxia.
A fact that has to be admitted, outdoor brands represented by Pathfinder, Camel, Anta, and Arc'teryx are not weak in the category of sunscreen. They are characterized by strong functionality and a minimalist style design. However, the core customer group of the brand is not ordinary female consumers, but more inclined to all kinds of outdoor sports people, focusing on "circle".
According to the statistics of Yien, the circle stratification was the mainstream trend of social media entertainment that year, and the cycling circle, the river tracing circle, and the camping circle were the three circles that were most concerned about sun protection.
For example, ANTA has launched the "Absolute Purple" sunscreen series for cyclists, which adopts anti-ultraviolet technology, focusing on anti-sun exposure and cool cycling. Kaile Stone has launched sunscreen "fishing clothing" for men who are obsessed with fishing, bringing consumers a cool fishing experience.
Of course, the major outdoor sports brands will not let go of the daily sunscreen needs, but compared with the sunscreen fashion brands that pay more attention to the soft needs of "fashion trends", the old sports brands pay more attention to research and development, science and technology.
The "Cold White Skin" series of sunscreen released by outdoor sports brand CAMEL uses light and breathable fabrics and efficient cooling technology to create a light and thin sunscreen clothing with a variety of technologies such as sun protection, water repellency, coolness and breathability, which are based on the real experience scenarios and needs of outdoor consumers for outdoor consumers.
Although the old outdoor sports brand is more conservative in communication, it still makes an entertainment marketing attempt in order to make the brand reach young people.
On March 28, CAMEL officially announced Bailu as the brand spokesperson to jointly start a new outdoor journey. As a representative of the artist of cold white skin, Bailu is highly compatible with the "cold white skin" series of sunscreen products. The brand shows the image of Bailu Sunshine and the enthusiasm for outdoor exploration through TVCs and posters, interpreting the brand's personality and the original intention of attaching importance to consumers' outdoor sunscreen needs.
It seems that the old outdoor brands are also ushering in a gorgeous turn of "circle" and "youth" in the field of sunscreen. Sunscreen clothing has also been subdivided from the public's daily commuting into more focused and subdivided scenarios such as camping and cycling, and the key to breaking the game has been found in the involution track.
Cross-border sunscreen brands and white labels as "spoilers"
Triggering a big scuffle in the sunscreen market
The spurt growth of the sunscreen clothing market, the main fashion brands in the field of sunscreen, Bananaxia, Oh! Sunny and other cutting-edge brands are vying for young consumers, and old outdoor brands are subdividing the scene, focusing on professional sports people, and starting a sunscreen business. Major brands have opened the gap with competitors through insight into market demand and formed brand advantages.
It is worth noting that on the track of sunscreen, the down jacket brand Bosideng and the down jacket debuted at a staggered peak, starting to make sunscreen clothing, forming seasonal complementarity and stirring the pattern of the entire sunscreen market.
Opening Bosideng's official flagship store, we can see that its sunscreen products have been subdivided into four series: summer sunscreen, women's sunscreen, men's sunscreen, and children's sunscreen. In the new series of summer sunscreen, we have selected the sun series, the urban light outdoor series, the ANNAKIKI co-branded series, and the outdoor camping series, and launched sunscreen products with both a sense of technology and appearance.
For example, the Bosideng Sunshine 3.0 series has achieved UPF 100+ with its cool black technology, based on the sunscreen factor of the yarn, which protects the sun from the source, and the cooling feeling is 66% higher than the national standard.
As a national brand with public recognition in the down jacket category, Bosideng has begun to make efforts in sunscreen products, and its marketing can be described as generous.
While inviting Yang Zi as the brand spokesperson of Bosideng, the brand also invited well-known fashion photographer Jumbo Tsui to create a fashion blockbuster. In the film, Yang Zi interprets the fashion imagination of sunscreen clothing with unique charm.
In addition to artist endorsements, Bosideng has always been willing to do cross-border cooperation in fashion. For example, it joined forces with "Harper's Bazaar" to create a phenomenal fashion showroom in Shanghai TX Huaihai, creating a new fashion landmark for small and long holidays; In addition, the first cross-border collaboration with French luxury fashion designer Christelle Kocher presents a capsule series of sunscreen clothing, where fashion aesthetics and professional sunscreen technology collide.
While most sun-protective clothing focuses on a single product, Bosideng began to focus on fashion and provide consumers with a summer wear solution. On Xiaohongshu, there are also KOLs who share the matching of celebrities wearing Bosideng in summer, which realizes the drainage of e-commerce platforms.
In addition, in addition to focusing on women's sunscreen clothing, which is the largest number of consumers, the brand has also increased the size of men's sunscreen and children's sunscreen to cover more consumers and achieve sales growth. On Xiaohongshu and Douyin, the audience of sunscreen clothing-related topics covers all ages, and the groups that pay attention to sunscreen clothing on Xiaohongshu are mainly women, but the ratio of men and women to followers of sunscreen clothing on Douyin is close to 4 to 6. Sun-protective clothing, which was previously considered "women's only", is now becoming a national apparel on social media, and is ushering in all-round growth.
If the cross-border brands represented by Bosideng have made the market more involuted, then the emergence of white labels in e-commerce platforms has plunged the sunscreen market into a melee.
A large number of white-label merchants on 1688 and Pinduoduo have seized the market with big-name "same" and extreme cost performance.
It is understood that the price of white-label sunscreen products from the factory can be as low as more than 10 yuan, and the price difference between the products and the brand side is as high as three or four hundred yuan, and the price difference is 30-40 times. The reason why white-label sunscreen products can seize the market is that the appearance of sunscreen products is not much different, and the premium on parameters such as functional indicators UPF (ultraviolet blocking coefficient) cannot be verified, and many consumers have begun to turn to more cost-effective white-label sunscreen products.
In today's hot sunscreen market, there is a trend to turn to a reckless period, and a large part of the ingredients is due to the fact that the sunscreen market has been labeled as an "IQ tax". In particular, some fashion brands focusing on the field of sunscreen have the suspicion of "heavy marketing, light research and development", and consumers have begun to shift their consumption power to sunscreen products of old outdoor brands with stronger product power, and consumers' demand for sunscreen clothing has shifted from a single basic protection to refinement and inclusiveness.
With the advent of the national outdoor era, the demand for men's sunscreen clothing and children's sunscreen clothing products has gradually increased, which has become an important trend in the development of the sunscreen clothing market, and further leveraged huge incremental dividends. After the hundreds of millions of sunscreen market is soaring, whether the market pattern will be rewritten again is waiting for further confirmation by the market.
Author: Put
Producer: Fan Yi