Brand name: Guanxia
Founded: 2018
Founder: Elvis Liu Huipu (former vice president of Jiayuan.com), Shen Li (former senior editor of Harper's Bazaar), Khoon (Korean designer, graduated from Yale Design Department)
Headquarters location: Chaoyang District, Beijing
Brand concept: tap the emotional complex in the memory of Chinese, recall the confidence and interest of Chinese in oriental culture, and do a good job of original oriental plant incense
Brand Story:
The brand is named "Guanxia" because "summer" is the favorite season of several founders, and everything is prosperous and vibrant, so the brand is named Guanxia. In 2017, the founder team sat in the corridor of the Lingering Garden in Suzhou, looking out through the octagonal flower window, and was deeply moved by the atmosphere of "watching the summer", and the name of the brand "watching the summer" was born.
Elvis, the founder of Guanxia, is the first generation of global beauty cross-border e-commerce in China. After helping countless early Chinese brands rely on traffic and popular style to rise rapidly on e-commerce platforms, and then disappear over time, he gradually got tired of it and planned to calm down and do something slow. He wants to make a high-quality brand that can bring some changes to people's lives and spiritual world, and will endure for a long time. So he found the second co-creator - Shen Li, a media person from Harper's Bazaar who has been working in the golden period of Chinese fashion media for many years, in charge of the brand and market; and the third co-creator, Khoon, a Korean-American designer who worked in New York for Cai Guo-Qiang and Takashi Murakami's graphic creativity, formed the Guanxia team, 90% of which are post-90s young people with overseas art education backgrounds.
Shen Li said, "Chinese culture is now on the cusp of revival, but there is no fragrance brand that can perfectly export and express these flavors. A good brand that can truly restore oriental incense can not only allow people to regain the taste in their memories, but also export China's cultural self-confidence, which provides a background foundation for the establishment of Guanxia."
Shen Li believes that the current team composition is very ideal, which allows Guanxia to better balance commerciality, creative arts and branding. The three founders are all leaders in the field of the Internet, media and creative circles, it can be said that "Guanxia" was born with its own tonality and temperament, and the first WeChat article on the line, without promotion, the number of public account readings reached 6w+.
Market Environment:
The global perfume market size is about 390.6 billion yuan, of which China accounts for only 2.5%, and the compound annual growth rate will reach 22% in the next five years. It is estimated that the retail sales of the domestic perfume market will be close to 30 billion yuan in 2025.
Brand Strategy:
Brand positioning: a brand focusing on fragrance healing and healthy life
Target group: delicate and independent women
Channel Strategy:
In May 2022, "Guanxia" officially entered the global fashion and luxury platform NET-A-PORTEB China, and landed on the e-commerce platform for the first time.
Offline channels include stores such as Beijing Taikoo Li, Hunan Road Guanxia Xianting, and Vientiane Tiandi Guanxia Courtyard. In January 2022, Shanghai "Guanxia Leisure Garden" was officially put into operation. We operate pop-up stores in Beijing and other places in Beijing, and have long been selling them on consignment at Lane Crawford and Four Seasons Hotels. Offline stores are more used for experience, interpreting Chinese aesthetics, and creating an exclusive experience place for summer viewing style.
Product Strategy:
There are mainly aromatherapy, balm, perfume, and cleaning product lines, of which aromatherapy is the core, including spars and candles, spars were the first to be launched, aromatherapy candles were launched in April 20, aromatherapy shower gel was launched in 21, perfume series was launched in the same year, and carbon black hand sanitizer was launched in June 22, so far, the fragrance product line is fully covered.
Key Benefits:
1) Return to Eastern traditions
As an original oriental botanical fragrance brand, the core concept of Guanxia is to tap the feelings in the memory of Chinese, arouse the confidence and interest of Chinese people in oriental culture, whether it is from the application of spices, or the creation of fragrances, as well as the overall packaging design and content marketing communication of the product brand, all of which contain the essence of traditional Chinese culture, show the aesthetics and lifestyle of new Chinese oriental culture, and better open up the category and people of "Chinese incense", such as, "plum water sencha", "naked-oriental philosophy perfume", "Kunlun boiled snow" and other product names, allowing users to quickly imagine the sense of the picture, rich in oriental aesthetic symbols.
The oriental incense of Guanxia will not only stay on the surface of the fragrance, but will be rooted in Oriental culture, and find stories related to "fragrance" from the humanities, art and history of the East to create and express them. In the content of his copywriting, there are often descriptions of the incense and lifestyle of ancient literati, such as "Thousands of mountains are separated by letters, today the moon is bright and fragrant, and you can enjoy it together", "The wind passes through the pine waves, the heart and ears are quiet", "Facing the wind and rain and old acquaintances, knowing the twilight and summer of the hometown from afar" and other copywriting, historical stories and quotations with oriental poetry.
"Guanxia" has achieved the ultimate development of the connection between Chinese cultural scenes and fragrance, and the brand has formed a strong combination with the artistic conception of traditional culture through modern aromatherapy products, realizing the modern expression of traditional cultural connotation.
2) Extreme aesthetic attainments
80% of the employees of the "Guanxia" team are related to content and creative background, from content, design, product creativity to fragrance planning, all of which are completed by the internal team, which is also the strength of the team.
Open the Guanxia official account of the picture and text, each article is like a magazine, there are planning, photography, makeup and hair, modeling design, just like the creation of a magazine, in the whole visual creation, it is an aesthetic feast, but also the exclusive smell symbol of Guanxia.
The development of the Internet has given consumer goods fast and wide communication channels. The interest that users care more about and are more likely to be stimulated comes from the aesthetic and creative expression of the product.
"Guanxia" advocates "Oriental New Modern", and in addition to its own logo, only the Chinese character product names such as "Gui", "Kun", "Mo" and "Xixi Peach Blossom" are left on its products, and the rest of the place is left blank in a large area. Such a style is not only an aesthetic interpretation of minimalist style, but also a direct reflection of Guanxia's blood roots based on oriental culture.
This ultimate aesthetic pursuit is also reflected in the design of the offline store, the use of metal materials in the store makes the store look modern and avant-garde, there is no clear division between East and West in style, and even in the choice of interior furniture, it does not deliberately take Chinese designers as the standard, but places the works of British artist Max Lamb, modern, full of art and experimentation, and at the same time with a sense of roughness, quite in line with the theme of "caves at the foot of Kunlun Mountain".
Brand Strategy:
1) "Product as Content"
"Guanxia" pays great attention to content creation, and every product has a story behind it. From the product name, product story, and brand story, consumers can be impressed. There is no spokesperson, no large-scale streaming and advertising, and Guanxia mainly relies on content to occupy the user's mind. The brand name is exquisite, and the meaning and atmosphere represented by the taste of the product are described; He is accustomed to looking for stories related to "fragrance" from the humanities, arts, and history of the East to create and express them.
Compared with traffic, Guanxia cares more about content. The best-selling four-season diffuser of "Guanxia" is a series of special articles, each of which is a story about the city, the seasons and beauty. The main position of "Guanxia" content output - WeChat public account. Each issue of the tweet with a lot of mood and texture can make people feel like they are in the poetic scene of the East, and have an infinite desire for fragrance.
Created the brand magazine "Kunlun KUNLUN", using a paper magazine full of design and quality as the carrier to convey brand and product stories, value propositions and lifestyles to target core users and KOLs, and maintain users' emotional and mental connections. In addition, Guanxia also provides personalized customization services, and consumers can customize the greeting label on the bottle.
2) "Experience as Content"
Carefully create a sense of space for the offline experience of the flagship store and pop-up store, the interior design is simple and full of details, combining Chinese design and store to create a high-end and sophisticated feeling. Guide users to how to use fragrance and aromatherapy products in the home scene, and create a space for users to associate with the corresponding lifestyle, so as to deeply associate with the product.
With the oriental courtyard as the main clue, we will create an offline experience store with different themes for summer viewing - smelling fragrance space:
Shenzhen Guanxia Courtyard - The southern courtyard is covered with snow
Shanghai Guanxia Leisure Garden - a leisurely garden of century-old Spanish buildings
Beijing Guanxia Living Room - a cave at the foot of Kunlun Mountain
In the "Summer Viewing Room" opened in Sanlitun, Beijing, elements such as water waves, mountains and rocks, and clouds and mist are integrated into the minimalist style of decoration, closely following the oriental artistic conception. Instead of a large area of product display, a large area of space is used for art exhibitions and social networking, and a physical retail store is turned into an offline experience art space.
Offline stores are not about sales, but about displaying and excavating the use scenarios of aromatherapy through offline stores, and enhancing the brand style of Guanxia with Chinese design and simple aesthetics, and building the image perception of Guanxia's sense of luxury.
3) Precise co-branding
Co-branded brands are all niche and lifestyle brands, or brands that are emotionally related to consumers, and on the basis of broadening the horizontal reach of Guanxia, the brand art and humanity are superimposed in depth.
"Watching Summer" – Chen Kun's "The Power of Walking" public welfare project
Launched a public welfare project to focus on people's hearts in the most instinctive way of "walking", using emotions as the key word to inspire everyone to see themselves as they are.
"Watching Summer" — Song Art Museum
The scent of pine wood is created as the artistic conception of the art space, restrained and ethereal, and when you enjoy the fragrance, you can take the empty state of being in the art museum home with you.
「观夏」 — Seesaw
Seesaw and the oriental cultural incense brand Guanxia together to create a new artistic vitality on the traditional totem and see a different "New Year's flavor" novelty, Seesaw will also present a new series of Guanxia New Year products in the café with Guanxia, and jointly create a limited edition of incense bricks.
Benchmark Brands:
Smell Library:
The smell library was founded by Lou Xiaozhi, a young art student who returned from studying abroad, and in 2009, she opened the first collection store of the smell library. At that time, it gained a group of loyal fans, but the smell library is more known and remembered by more people, starting with the "Liang Bai Kai" series launched in 2017, which is inspired by the scenes of boiling water in aluminum kettles in many Chinese families, and what parents used to say when they were young: drink less drinks and drink more boiled water.
Fauvism:
BEAST Fauvism has grown from a legendary florist to a well-known art and lifestyle brand in the past ten years. With floral art as its DNA, BEAST Fauvism spans the fields of perfume fragrance, home decoration, home wear and artwork, giving the soul of a flower and a thing with natural and elegant design and emotional expression, influencing all aspects of life of the new generation in China.
Looking at the plan in the advertiser dry goods warehouse applet, I found that Guanxia released the "2024 Guanxia Brand Manual" to share with everyone.
Under the great wave of cultural self-confidence, Guanxia keenly excavates the latent oriental cultural genes of the fragrance category, aims at the blank position of high-end oriental incense, takes culture as the banner and aesthetics as the arrow, and opens up the Guanxia Garden; Creativity is the root, content is the material, and the tree of the brand is watered. In the past five years, the story of Guanxia's oriental incense has attracted a large number of audiences, and Guanxia Garden has come to fruition, covering many first- and second-tier cities offline, and entering the mainstream e-commerce platform online. The market is turbulent, and Scentooze, a cutting-edge fragrance brand established in 2019 with three rounds of financing in two years, has stopped for 5 years, and the company will be officially closed in September 2023. Looking forward to the future, the first five years have crossed many reefs and entered the summer of the 1 billion club, what kind of story will be written in the next five years? The big waves sweep the sand, and on the way forward, the brand boat of Guanxia still needs to withstand the test of countless winds and waves.
The story is easy to tell, but the reality is still skinny
Watching the summer all the way, the "incense" drifted away. However, the status quo of the monopoly of upstream raw material extraction and flavor formulation technology has not changed, the road to the popularization of Chinese people's fragrance awareness is still long, international brands are constantly adjusting their formulas to win the Chinese market, and new domestic fragrance brands are emerging in an endless stream...... Market competition is intensifying, and the future is not yet known. In addition to watching the summer, the story of the revival of oriental culture is not only about watching the summer, but also about the new consumer national fashion brands in various tracks such as beauty, tea, and clothing. Can this version of the "Oriental Culture" story of Guanxia stand the test of time and have undiminished fans? Is it the fragrance floating across the sea? Or is it a fleeting wave in the turbulent tide of the country? Will the "Oriental New Modern" advocated by Guanxia become a popular aesthetic and be widely sought after? Can its "Oriental Aesthetics" transcend the long river of time and endure for a long time?
Aesthetic filters, whether the premium can be sustained
In September 2022, Brutalist Perfume was sent to the hot search because it was the same generation factory as MINISO, but the price difference was more than ten times, and it was widely questioned. Yann Vasnier of Givaudan, one of the perfumers of ByteDance's perfume Emotif, is also the perfumer of Wenxian, a domestic high-end perfume brand. However, there is a huge price difference between the two, a 2ml Emotif perfume is priced at 19.9 yuan, and a combination of six 2ml Wen Xian perfumes is priced at 450 yuan, which is less than one-third of Wen Xian's. In the future, with the intensification of competition and the maturity of the industry, how much profit space can there be left for brands to play with domestic fragrances with almost the same upstream source? Can "good stories" and "good looks" continue to support high brand premiums? Can the high-end road of Guanxia go smoothly?
The brand is evergreen, where is the way to grow
Looking forward to the future, what kind of barriers does Guanxia need to build to achieve sustainable growth and brand longevity? Is it the brand precipitation given by the oriental cultural narrative? Is it a unique visual image of "Oriental New Modern"? Is it a technological breakthrough for oriental notes? Or is the supply chain of oriental spices opened? This depends on the two paths of Guanxia to reach a higher level in the future: one is to continue to cultivate in the garden of "Oriental Fragrance", go abroad, expand its territory in the global fragrance market, and after obtaining L'Oreal's investment, Guanxia can get the help of upstream fragrance research and development and the international market, and go further on this road; The second is to transform into a lifestyle brand like Fauvism and Atour, from a concrete category brand to an abstract category brand, expanding business boundaries, and Guanxia's current brand story, content creation, and aesthetic design are easily transplanted to other categories. Both roads are rarely traveled, and no matter what, pathfinders always deserve respect, as Guanxia's copywriting goes, "Time will give the answer, you can smell it". Looking forward to the answer given by Guanxia in the next five years, it will exude a rich fragrance, so that fellow travelers in the domestic fragrance industry, as well as explorers of emotional value tracks such as oriental culture, lifestyle, and healing economy, can "smell" together.