---
title: "In the Era of Good Consumers, Building a Brand Starts with Product Excellence"
description: "China's consumer era can be roughly divided into three phases. The first phase, from reform and opening up to 1998, was about having products, with township enterprises as the mainstream. The second phase, from 1998 to 2015, was about quality, as manufacturing surged and consumers began to value quality and functionality. The third phase, from 2015 to the present, is about wanting 'good' products, where consumers are more discerning and brands must compete on product excellence rather than just concepts or marketing."
author: "沈帅波"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
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published: "2022-08-08"
language: "en"
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# In the Era of Good Consumers, Building a Brand Starts with Product Excellence

> China's consumer era can be roughly divided into three phases. The first phase, from reform and opening up to 1998, was about having products, with township enterprises as the mainstream. The second phase, from 1998 to 2015, was about quality, as manufacturing surged and consumers began to value quality and functionality. The third phase, from 2015 to the present, is about wanting 'good' products, where consumers are more discerning and brands must compete on product excellence rather than just concepts or marketing.

China's consumer era can be roughly divided into three phases.
**Phase 1: Wanting 'to have'.** From reform and opening up to 1998, as manufacturing was just starting and not yet systematically developed, township enterprises became the mainstream of manufacturing in that era, and also the most unexpected surprise of that time. However, township enterprises could not supply goods on a large scale and systematically, and people's expectations for products were mostly just that they could be used, with low requirements for quality and functional attributes.
**Phase 2: Wanting 'quality'.** From 1998 to 2015, in 1998 we proposed that 70% of China's industrial manufactured goods needed to increase production capacity, and we opened up the import and export market. China's manufacturing industry rose rapidly like a runaway wild horse.
China's consumer era also entered a quality-price ratio era based on products, with abundant materials and more choices. Because there were more options, people began to pay attention to quality and functional attributes, such as discussing that German cars were more durable, and Japanese rice cookers and toilets had more powerful functions.
During this period, there were several consumption upgrades. The consumption upgrades proposed in recent years are not new. In this time span, consumption actually surged all the way, and consumer demand was extremely strong.
**Phase 3: Wanting 'good'.** From 2015 to the present, this is also the era of the so-called rise of new consumption. In essence, after more than 30 years of development, consumer groups have undergone several rounds of baptism and have become 'immune' to various tricks. Consumer demands have escalated, and past solutions can no longer satisfy them.
This has also led many brands to misunderstand products. They believe that in this era, backed by China's strong manufacturing system and industrial chain extension, they don't need to worry about product quality and functionality. Instead, design, aesthetics, and concepts have become the gimmicks they chase. For example, a good bottle of milk should be about good milk and good nutrition, not just good packaging and good concept.
I acknowledge that design capability and brand connotation can indeed give products a different charm. Manufacturing powers like Japan and Germany have shown similar trends. Japan even regards aesthetic design as an important or even basic standard for evaluating product competitiveness.
We have indeed established a complete manufacturing system in more than 30 years. But we may have overlooked a problem: **we haven't truly moved from a large manufacturing country to a strong manufacturing country, and products have not been polished to the extreme, rolled to the extreme. Skipping this stage, which may be the slowest in development and least obvious in results, is obviously inappropriate.**
**01**
**Rolling (competing fiercely) is the way to build a great brand.**
Many people now feel pain when they talk about rolling. I think it's unnecessary. Because everyone has been rolling for so many years. For example, your grandfather struggled from the village to the county town, and your father got into university. It's all through competition. Of course, **meaningless consumption of 'rolling' is unnecessary.** I need to clarify that I support outward rolling, not inward rolling. Don't bother me with nitpicking.
So, when I say brand roll king, I don't mean brands competing for the little resources in the existing cake. On the contrary, they should compete by **expanding outward to new resources.** Instead of fierce internal competition, it's better to broaden your boundaries and focus on self-improvement. What you need to surpass is not 'others', but yourself. Don't just think about dividing the fixed resource cake, but think about how to make the cake bigger.
In the past, under the dividend of rapid growth, some companies were built by batch advertising, channel distribution, or routine traffic tactics. Now, as the traffic dividend fades, brands also need to face the dilemma of mismatch between expectations and reality.
Question: Is paying expensive costs to compete for the last bit of traffic and market a meaningless inward roll?
Answer: **Competing in low-threshold things is inward rolling.**
Question: Has the best era for Chinese brands ended?
Answer: The brand war in the Chinese market is not over, but just beginning. In forty years, we have economically traversed more than 100 years of the West's path. **In the past forty years, brand building in the Chinese market was about each claiming territory, any tactic worked. Today is the best era.**
In the future, more powerful regular troops will appear, and now is a shift period.
During this shift period, **brands should be a 'roll king' that rolls themselves.**
**02**
Currently, competition in various industries has clearly reached a fierce stage. Whether it's marketing or channel construction, it's no longer a secret or a technical job. It's just about who has more money and who can burn longer.
So the roll king is definitely not about internal friction in these matters, but about finding how to give consumers higher value and better experience at the product level. **This kind of rolling is about fighting with your own products, fighting with your own technology, and fighting with your audience's needs.**
When you fight to a certain extent, you will find that you have led a certain field in a market, or even set standards for that field. From this point of view, the old skincare giants are the veterans who established industry standards: for example, when it comes to serums, you think of Estée Lauder's Advanced Night Repair, HR's Green Power, Lancôme's小黑瓶; when it comes to creams, you think of SK-II's大红瓶, La Mer's精华面霜, Estée Lauder's白金面霜, etc.
In this year's Tmall 618 beauty and skincare sales ranking, the top three are still L'Oréal, Estée Lauder, and Lancôme. New consumer skincare brands have been bustling for many years, occupying 3 seats in the top ten, but the sales gap is not reflected in the ranking.
In a previous article analyzing old consumer brands, I analyzed Estée Lauder's growth history in detail and concluded: the major giants all have their own core technologies and flagship products, and product iteration is accelerating. At least from the current perspective, these giants will continue to lead the beauty and skincare field for decades. Especially Estée Lauder's development history is a history of extreme product rolling. The representative is undoubtedly the Advanced Night Repair.
Currently, the Advanced Night Repair serum itself has iterated to the eighth generation, and the supporting products developed around it, such as masks and eye creams, have formed a small brown bottle matrix. Currently, the sixth and seventh generations are available on the market, and the eighth generation is waiting to be launched.
From this, we can see that the longest interval between iterations of the Advanced Night Repair is 9 years, and the shortest is only two or three years. Some might say that each iteration doesn't change much, just a concept upgrade. But the Advanced Night Repair does fight with itself based on basic research and new technology. The difference between two consecutive generations may not be obvious, but the eighth generation is definitely better than the first, both in technology and effect.
**03**
Speaking of brands rolling on products, two cases in Japan impressed me deeply: Okamoto rolling itself and sake rolling the industry.
Founded in the 1930s, Okamoto is an enterprise that leads the world's condom product standards. In 1969, Okamoto developed the skin less skin with a wall thickness of 0.03 mm, breaking the then limit of 0.05 mm, becoming the world's thinnest. In the 1980s, Okamoto surpassed itself and developed a 0.02 mm condom. In January 2014, Okamoto successfully developed a condom with a thickness of only 0.01 mm.
Okamoto spent nearly thirty years just to make condoms 0.01 mm thinner. What's the use?
Simply put, it's rolling itself. Most people have almost zero perception of 0.01 mm, only a small number can perceive it. But this attitude of rolling itself will make the brand require excellence in all products. This is the underlying logic that drives the upgrade of the entire brand's products.
At the same time, you will find that Okamoto's rolling on products has also made 001 and 002 products the focus of research and benchmarking by major brands. To a certain extent, this has also set industry standards and led the industry's development direction.
In my view, the rolling of sake is also a rolling of product segmentation and standards. Take Dassai, the most familiar to Chinese consumers, as an example. From the perspective of large circulation, the grades are Dassai 50/45, Dassai San Goku Kyu, and Dassai Ni Goku San Bu.
This grading is not about alcohol content, but about the degree of rice polishing. For example, Ni Goku San Bu means using only the most essential 23% of the rice grain for brewing. Although I don't know much about wine, I am very interested in this strict grading method.
In Japan, there are more than 1,500 sake manufacturers, and they classify sake by production method into Junmai Daiginjo, ordinary brewing sake, added brewing sake, honjozo, and ginjo. In addition, they have strict regulations and classifications for taste, storage period, and liquor tax law.
Of course, similar strict systems include French wine, Italian ham, and cheese.
This strict standard setting and rolling must be the result of industry competition and product iteration upgrades. This way of rolling brings brands the thought: **If you want to build a brand with high premium, high awareness, and high reputation, you need to roll.**
**04**
Good brands are definitely rolling on products. But not for the sake of differentiation, nor for the sake of pushing concepts. It's to pursue product excellence and roll the industry with higher self-standards. Consumers benefit from products, and brands accumulate trust among consumers.
A while ago, because of the Bilibili video shooting, I received new products from Lian (理然) during the pandemic: the new effective oil control series.
Those who know me know that I have always been a user of Lian, and last year I also showed the Lian products I was using. So, I am qualified to talk about my experience with this men's skincare brand that I keep repurchasing.
I think this set of products understands what I want.
Just the facial cleanser alone, after one use, I fell in love with the washing feel. It foams very easily, which is a basic need for many men, and it feels smooth and dense on the face. I dare say this effective oil control cleanser is better than many big brands I've used.
The biggest feeling after using the whole set is that the oil control effect is very good. For example, I usually get up at noon to wash up, use the effective oil control water gel, and by 6 or 7 in the evening, my face doesn't get oily much.
Compared to other Lian products I've used before, the biggest upgrade I can perceive is the experience. But besides the washing feel, they have also iterated on the formula, scent, packaging, and usage method, allowing me to get the same or even better feeling with fewer steps.
My good friend, also the founder of Lian, Huang Weiqiang, also told me about their efforts on this new product. When explaining the upgrade points of the formula and technology, I could feel the excitement of a productist rolling his own product. But I also know that many times this excitement requires continuous product iteration to a perceivable point before getting feedback from consumers, especially male consumers. This is a slow process.
But no matter how excited, you can't expect Lian to reach its peak with one generation of products. **As long as this spirit of rolling products continues, the brand's standards will eventually roll into industry standards.**
In fact, before the new product launch, I received a gift box from Lian. What impressed me was that it contained a white paper dozens of pages thick. I flipped through it casually; there were really a lot of words, about 100,000, with many professional literature citations and statistical data. Although I don't understand the detailed targets, pathways, and skin characteristics described, I still felt it was very professional.
I heard that they are also the world's first men's care brand to systematically conduct basic research based on gender differences in male skin. To prove this was not a mere PR stunt, they invited experts, professors, and doctors from different fields in the cosmetics industry's upstream and downstream to review and discuss the content. They ensured all content was objective and rigorous before publishing the white paper.
Unlike most brands that invite me to co-author white papers for gimmicks, Lian is really serious about this. But as a new brand, such things are rare. I also asked him why they did this thankless task. His answer was simple: to make effective products, to educate the market, and to prove this is right.
**05**
Many times, whether something is useful cannot be judged from the current perspective. Looking at the long term, the standards and things done now are often brand reserve actions. Sometimes it's a manifestation of rolling products, rolling brands, and rolling the industry, and it's the long-termism that brand architects adhere to.
If there are no good products in the industry, start from basic research and roll out a good product yourself; if there is no brand to learn from in the industry, become a brand that others learn from; if there are no standards to refer to in the industry, then establish your own standards;
**I believe all compound interest lies in the bits of doubled efforts, and all long-termists don't care about doing a difficult but correct thing.**
**06**
If our case ended with Lian, you would think it's natural. After all, compared to new consumer brands, traditional mature brands rolling at various levels is within our cognition.
But new consumer brands doing this does make us feel like a fresh stream. Based on the cognition when new consumption was hottest a few years ago: new consumer brands = traffic-oriented brands = brands where marketing outweighs products. Although they all said they did product upgrades and iterations, and did a lot of product R&D, there are still very few that actually did it.
In the current environment, this set is useless. People are slowly discovering: **brands that don't fight with their products have a ceiling so low they can't even straighten up.**
Especially in recent years, as the market declines, everyone is compromising to survive. There are still new consumer brands adhering to their original intentions, polishing products desperately, spending longer time on products than before, and doing product R&D steadily from basic research. This makes me very gratified. Returning to the beginning of our article, the best brands in the market, Estée Lauder rolls on blockbuster products, Okamoto rolls on brand, Japanese sake rolls on the industry. None of them fail to redefine standards, and none fail to raise relevant standards or set rules in their industry or category. **Brands that cross cycles have all come this way. This new generation of emerging brands will eventually shed the title of emerging and grow into evergreen brands. In Lian, I see the signs of crossing the cycle and becoming a brand in the best camp.**
Source: 进击波财经 (ID: jinbubo) Author: Shen Shuaibo
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