Text/Xiao Disc
People still love life, but they don't seem to love La fang anymore.
Once upon a time, the advertising slogan of "La Fang, create the beauty of Chinese hair" was all the rage. On TV, Liu Ye, Zhao Wei, Liu Xuan, Yang Mi and Xie Yafang, five popular stars, said "Love life, love Lafang", outside the TV, lafang on the supermarket shelves occupied an absolute advantage, and Procter & Gamble, Unilever competed.
Today, 19 years have passed since the release of this advertising film of Lafang, and the time of nineteen years is not human, the daily chemical giant Procter & Gamble has been delisted, and Lafang no longer has the glory it once had.
01
Founded in 2001, Lafang Jiahua (603630 sh) is mainly engaged in the research and development, production and sales of daily chemical products, the main products include shampoo, conditioner, body soap, soap and other toiletries, and it has brands such as "Lafang" and "Yujie".
In the top five domestic wash and care brand market share in 2015, Lafang was the only local brand to squeeze into the top five, and the rest were occupied by Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Beiersdorf and L'Oréal.
It is precisely because Lafang's products are mainly low-end, and adopted the strategy of "rural encirclement of the city", focusing on the products in the second- and third-tier, third- and fourth-tier cities, and cleverly avoiding the competition with foreign big names, so that Lafang quickly occupied a huge advantage and ranked among the first brands of domestic washing.
In 2017, Lafang was successfully listed with the advantage of "the first private daily chemical stock", and the market value of Lafang at its peak was as high as 12 billion.
However, it seems that La Fang can not escape the curse of the decline in performance after listing, and La Fang's annual report in 2017 shows that its revenue and net profit have both declined. Among them, LafangJiahua's revenue was 981.1 million yuan, down 6.47%; deducting non-net profit was 123 million yuan, down 12.33%.
Today, Lafang's market value has fallen to 3.877 billion yuan, shrinking by 8 billion in just two years! I wanted to fight against foreign-funded enterprises through capital power, but I didn't want to, but after the listing, my performance declined year by year, and I gradually lost the recognition of the market.
02
The daily chemical market is sluggish, and La Fang wants to seek transformation, and originally wanted to enter high-end daily chemicals and beauty, but the process was full of twists and turns.
Lafang itself relies on the rapid growth of the low-end market share, which has already set the tone of "grounding gas" in the hearts of Chinese consumers, and now suddenly strengthens the strength of first- and second-tier cities and exerts high-end washing and care market. Let's not talk about whether it can achieve the desired effect, it is difficult to reverse the impression in the minds of consumers.
Third, in 2017, La Fang announced the acquisition of 20% of the equity of Suqian Baibao, cutting into the field of social e-commerce; then La Fang sent a message that she wanted to invest in self-media, and used 34.4 million yuan to acquire 26.8% of the equity of honey makeup information whose main business is self-media original content operation and net red makeup; and participated in the establishment of Huaxi Beauty Industry Fund to try to cut into the beauty field.
La Fang's idea is very beautiful, self-media and beauty form an industrial chain with complementary advantages, but in recent years, the intensity of the development of the beauty industry is also very clear to everyone, and the outlet of self-media has passed, and La Fang's transformation does not seem to have any results.
What is even more uncomfortable is that Shanghai Jinjia Company, a subsidiary acquired by Lafang in 2018, received a warning letter from the CSRC on April 4, 2019, and found that it had problems such as irregular use and management of raised funds and irregular accounting, which hit Lafang's transformation hard.
Lafang now seems to have been disconnected from the market, and wants to expand the field to seek a breakthrough, but the effect is not obvious, and the other domestic product corresponding to it has a different situation.
03
Born in 1931, the impression left on consumers was that small iron box balsam, and labels such as "old", "tired", "brand used by mothers" were firmly attached to the body of the bailing.
At the beginning, when foreign cosmetics first entered China, consumers' interest in foreign cosmetics was great, and the popularity of Baijiling was no longer there. For a long time, Baijiling was considered a tepid domestic brand.
Finally, in 2010, Baijiling used Karen Mok to endorse his herbal skin care series, which fired the first shot to return to the consumer's vision; from 2012 to 2015, Baijiling was even titled "The Voice of China" for four consecutive seasons, occupying an exclusive special position; what made it completely out of the limelight was the one-shot God advertisement that "went against time" and completely achieved a counterattack.
From 1.8 billion yuan in sales in 2012 to 10.8 billion yuan in 2015, and 13.8 billion yuan in 2016. It is also an old brand of domestic products, why are the situations of Baijiling and Lafang completely different?
I want to get to the bottom of it because, Bai Que Ling is aware of its own brand crisis, and the old brand does not necessarily have an advantage, on the contrary, it may become a drag on its own legs. Brand aging, young people even vaguely "reject" these mother brands, after all, now after 95 young people or even after 00 is the main force in the cosmetics consumer market, once these main forces are lost, then the impact is huge.
Therefore, Baijiling began to shift its positioning to younger, and its products were closer to the needs of young people, injecting new vitality into its old brand. And La Fang, the product does not have much innovation, even if you want to layout the high-end daily chemical market, but still give people a feeling of being incompatible with the young market, consumers are naturally reluctant to consume.
In addition, the outbreak of e-commerce channels, many brands began the road of e-commerce, but Lafang still chose dealer-style sales, and the performance is naturally more difficult to improve.
04
Now China's domestic brands are indeed facing a very embarrassing situation, consumers always recognize big brands, those high-end brands do not worry about the market; and small brands can also survive very well because of their cost performance and the audience of third- and fourth-tier cities; but these mid-range brands that are not up and down, high or low, can not pull down to develop the sinking market, and can not successfully break into the high-end consumer market, struggling on the survival line.
And now the main force of consumption of young people, many rely on the Internet red with goods, Taobao, live broadcast, small red book, etc. shopping, the effect is very significant, some time ago the "domestic product fever" can be clearly seen this. Among the various grass recommendation, the promotion of products by various Internet celebrities is far incomparable to TV advertising.
Young people don't care if they have heard of this brand before, whether it is a big name or not, as long as there are Internet celebrities they trust to recommend Amway to plant grass, they will choose to follow the trend. Many domestic brands are also looking at this point, only to regain vitality.
Many domestic products on the verge of "death" have survived, bloomed the second spring of the career, identified a cat, flamingo, Winona, etc., with the help of Internet celebrities, transformed into a cheap alternative to xx big brands, and became the "light of domestic goods".
It can be said that the consumption concept of young people has changed a lot, no longer the previous blind pursuit of high-end foreign products, but more attention to the quality of products, which also to a certain extent makes these old domestic brands positioned in the mid-range market have the opportunity to rejuvenate the second spring.
But this does not mean that these brands can sit back and relax, product innovation is the cornerstone of a brand can survive and develop, consumers have a very stereotypical impression of itself, the comprehensive ability of enterprises and the fierce competition of foreign high-end products, etc., are always testing domestic brands.
The road to Lafang's transformation is becoming more and more difficult, where is the way out for other domestic brands?