Click 'Read Original' for details. Can changing spokespersons solve brand aging? Where are the problems for domestic oral care brands? Liantian Liubizhi Recently, Liantian Liubizhi enlisted young heartthrob Lin Gengxin as its spokesperson, aiming to capture the attention of new-generation consumers. However, it's somewhat disappointing that Liubizhi's slogan remains the same: "Good teeth, eat anything fragrant." Older consumers remember that in the 1990s, Liantian Liubizhi quickly opened up the market thanks to cross-talk actor Li Jiacun's authentic Beijing accent: "Good teeth, good appetite, strong body, eat anything fragrant." This is a case where the advertising slogan spread more than the brand itself—if you remove the Liubizhi brand and replace it with any other, it would have virtually no impact. In that era of consumption growth, advertising meant brand, brand meant distribution, distribution meant shelf presence, and shelf presence meant sales. So you didn't need to study consumer psychology or pay attention to oral care segmentation. Liantian Liubizhi's one toothpaste solved all oral problems, much like a street-side "miracle pill." But that didn't affect its market sales. As the first Chinese brand to introduce herbal toothpaste (1911), Liubizhi naturally didn't escape the clutches of Procter & Gamble. To combat Chinese herbal toothpastes, around 2000, P&G launched its own herbal toothpaste at an extremely low price. This predatory pricing caused the entire Chinese herbal toothpaste segment to collapse. The root cause is that all herbal toothpastes had identical selling points and promotions; consumers couldn't tell the difference between Tianqi, Heimei, Liubizhi, Liangmianzhen, and P&G's herbal toothpaste. Consumers wouldn't think about how P&G understood Chinese herbal technology. When you don't give consumers a reason to buy, they'll simply choose the cheapest option. In 2006, Liantian Liubizhi was acquired by Liby. After the acquisition, Liby launched the "Century Liantian" project, and Liubizhi no longer relied on a single toothpaste to "cure" everything; it introduced different product categories. To this end, Liby also invited Chen Peisi, who had helped open the market for Liby, and changed the slogan to "Good teeth, eat anything fragrant." Liby is a company skilled in marketing, but not a good observer of consumer needs. In the era of consumption growth, advertising meant everything, but in the era of consumption stock, without positioning and without telling consumers why to buy, no amount of advertising can bring back sales. Over the years, Liby has been mired in a price war with Nice Group. How could it bring new ideas to Liubizhi? The new Lin Gengxin version of "Eat anything fragrant" is just an attempt to use so-called "male economy" to boost brand sales. Without consumer insight, relying only on a spokesperson, you'll find that Lin Gengxin isn't much different from Chen Peisi or Li Jiacun. Nice Group As Liby's old rival, Nice Group naturally wouldn't miss the oral care market. Unlike Liubizhi's lack of differentiation, Nice Group has some initial concepts. Nice Group launched vitamin toothpaste—"She/He" toothpaste for men and women—with transparent gel and vitamin concept, which was a refreshing sight in toothpaste. Especially for children, they launched Yayale, successfully creating their own IP image. Before Yayale, P&G, Unilever, Darlie, and Colgate didn't have dedicated children's toothpaste brands; they mostly just recommended using less adult toothpaste on a small brush. Although effective, Chinese consumers still believed children should have their own toothpaste. So when Yayale sang nursery rhymes and promoted vitamin C, it immediately caught the attention of Chinese parents, becoming the number one children's toothpaste brand with sales around 1 billion yuan. However, after Nice Group proposed the slogan "Create Another Nice," its entire marketing strategy went into overdrive. To achieve this goal, they changed Yayale's packaging, enlarged the free gifts, and doubled the price while keeping the toothpaste the same. They also launched Jianshuangbai, a high-end toothpaste targeting male and female students (the name sounds like a P&G or Unilever product). I've mentioned a concept called consumer psychological set. Once you've established an impression in consumers' minds, how can you overturn it with simple tactics? Never treat consumers as fools; what they ultimately buy is the product, not your gifts. Nice Group clearly didn't understand this. Yayale used to give gifts with toothpaste purchases; now it's like buying gifts and getting toothpaste. Others increase quantity without raising price; Yayale raises price without increasing quantity. This allowed Frog Prince to seize the children's market below 10 yuan, and now Nice Group's toothpaste sales are shrinking day by day. It's clear that Nice Group's toothpaste has initial positioning, but in market operations, toothpaste was first classified under home care, managed by the team selling washing powder, soap, and liquid detergent. Although they have many promotional teams to maintain it, consumers feel that laundry products are now for oral use, which is hard to accept. Now they've switched toothpaste to a personal care team, but they still refuse to establish a professional toothpaste sales team. It's a pity to handle a product with 1 billion yuan in sales this way. Weimeizi Shuke As a rising star in oral care, I once had high hopes for Shuke. With good product quality and visible effects, they launched a series of creative products that changed the oral care market. Small-head toothbrushes, morning-and-evening toothpaste, and electric toothbrushes were all impressive. They introduced a series of terminal oral examination promotions, which felt like a perfect combination of "Mengpai" (a type of direct selling) and modern promotion techniques. The "city campaigns" sparked sales in city after city. That's why Junlian Holdings was willing to invest in Shuke. However, these so-called advantages are also why Warburg Pincus was unwilling to invest. After all, Shuke was still developing in 2012, and such a series of operations had a visible impact on the market. But six years have passed, and Shuke still hasn't found its own development path. They launched morning/evening series and seven-day series. The model markets are still Xi'an and Chongqing, still playing "city campaigns"—gathering all city managers, giving pep talks, then going to stores to promote and sell, causing sales to spike in a short time. They tell distributors that as long as they have such enthusiastic promoters, sales will rise. But what's the cost of each city campaign? Besides city managers' accommodation, there are various buy-one-get-one promotions. Especially now that store costs are rising and promoter wages are increasing, can distributors really afford such short-term volume spikes? What's the point of this pep talk? Six years, a full six years, and Shuke still hasn't found a truly suitable way, relying only on "fake models" created by city campaigns—essentially opening a distributor, doing it for a while, then switching to the next. It's not that distributors aren't cooperative; it's that your model isn't replicable for them. Even if one day Shuke reaches Blue Moon's sales with this method, what then? Blue Moon can't move without stores, let alone Shuke, which is much smaller. How can you convince stores? You claim to give stores new growth points in exchange for free displays. Six years ago, stores might have believed it, but now, six years later, will they? If Shuke had seized the opportunity, the number one children's toothpaste brand wouldn't be Frog Prince. Other Brands Yunnan Baiyao, relying on its heritage, launched a hemostatic toothpaste that became China's number one brand, with prices that foreign brands like P&G can't match. Its whitening toothpaste didn't sell well; now it's focusing on children's toothpaste, and with its brand advantage, the future looks promising. Yangyuanqing's shampoo has died. It has the common ailments of state-owned enterprises: slow response, too much internal harmony, and heavy nepotism. Cold Sore (Lengsuanling) has stuck to its anti-sensitivity positioning for years, with sales reaching over 800 million yuan, making it difficult for GSK's Sensodyne to open up the Chinese market. Cold Sore's sales are stable, but real dentists know that tooth sensitivity can't be prevented; it's mainly a gum problem, which is why Cold Sore's sales can't break through. Tianqi, Heimei, Caoshanhu, Fangcao, and Little White Rabbit—no one knows what they're selling. Liangmianzhen not only confuses consumers but also likes to diversify. So the decline of these brands is understandable. Sanxiao, once specializing in toothbrushes and toothpaste, sold to Colgate for 1 billion yuan in 2005, and the owner was required not to re-enter the oral care field for ten years. In 2015, it launched a high-end toothbrush brand, Kejie Kejing. Namei, a new brand, focuses on high-end toothbrushes and is following Shuke's path. The current state of China's daily chemical industry is that companies would rather spend big money on spokespersons and advertising than find a good agency to position themselves. They think they are the positioning and that sales will follow. The so-called product upgrades are just wishful thinking, changing the soup but not the medicine. In the new marketing era, without positioning and new marketing methods, trying to find growth in a stock economy is basically a pipe dream. It's better to calm down and sort out your thoughts. After all, competition in oral care is far less intense than in food and beverages. It's not too late to make changes now... Source: Kuaixiao (Fast Consumer Goods) -END-