What kind of consumption era are we in? Product explosion, information fragmentation, channel diversification, and consumer demand segmentation: China's FMCG industry has entered a niche era. In this new era, consumer choices vary from person to person, and internet-famous products emerge one after another. Chinese consumers pay more attention to product quality rather than quantity. To find products they like, they sift through tens of thousands of options to pick the one that suits them, expecting brands that understand them better. In the new era, it is difficult for a single brand or category to satisfy all consumers; every niche hides huge business opportunities, and capturing consumer insights becomes the key to success. In today's traffic-driven world, all brand owners hope to create internet-famous products to spark topics, generate buzz, and ignite growth. However, it is not easy; behind the halo of many internet-famous products lie more failures. Even if a product becomes an internet sensation, it often faces the high probability of being short-lived and fleeting. Internet-famous products with lasting vitality are rare. The reason is that most products, whether selling nostalgia or efficacy, fail to build a complete marketing closed loop. In the niche era, how can brand owners create a marketing closed loop for internet-famous products? We will share some insights based on Shanghai Jahwa's experience in creating internet-famous products over the past two years. Shanghai Jahwa, a leading Chinese FMCG enterprise with a 120-year history, leverages its strong production, R&D, and marketing capabilities to become the best provider of beauty, personal care, and home care products. In recent years, Jahwa has successfully created numerous internet-famous products favored by young people during its brand premiumization, rejuvenation, and segmentation process. This article will introduce Shanghai Jahwa's experience in building a marketing closed loop for internet-famous products in the niche era from three aspects: brand, channel, and consumer insight. Note: This article is compiled based on the speech by Mr. Yan Junfei, Senior Director of Sales Management at Shanghai Jahwa, at the "2019 China FMCG Conference," combined with an interview with him. -01- Precisely Grasp Brand Traits to Create Cross-Border Internet-Famous Hits In recent years, with the continuous enhancement of Chinese consumers' aesthetic confidence, classic national trend brands have been highly sought after, and classic cross-border cases of national trends have emerged endlessly. Shanghai Jahwa owns many classic national brands and has been pushing forward with new trends. Among the most influential national trend cross-border cases in the past two years, many came from Jahwa. The divine collaboration between Liushen Florida Water and Rio Cocktail, and the perfect combination of Maxam Lip Balm and White Rabbit Candy, have become classic internet-famous cases in recent years. Moreover, the cross-border collaboration between the Qichu baby brand and Bright Moxly on "Supporting the National Lunar Exploration Project," the cross-border collaboration between the Shuangmei skincare brand and Changyu Noble Dragon on "Beauty from the East, Drunk in National Trend," and the cross-border collaboration between Liushen and the restaurant brand Hu Xiaopang for the crayfish season—Jahwa continues to lead national trend cross-border collaborations and has accumulated rich experience. The success of these cross-border collaborations, besides extraordinary creativity, is largely due to the full exploration of their own brand traits. The more precisely brand traits are captured, the more likely they are to trigger soul collisions in cross-border collaborations, thereby creating opportunities for internet-famous products. Herborist, a Chinese herbal skincare brand; Liushen, a personal care brand deeply versed in Eastern wisdom; Maxam, the number one hand cream brand pursuing rejuvenation; GF, a skincare brand tailored for men; Qichu, a baby brand with the Eastern parenting philosophy of "nurturing the beginning with the beginning"; Jia'an, dedicated to comprehensive home cleaning solutions; and Pien Tze Huang toothpaste, containing national treasure ingredients. Jahwa's diverse and meaningful brand matrix creates vast space for creating internet-famous products. Different brand traits can meet the differentiated needs of consumers in the niche era—premiumization, rejuvenation, and segmentation—thus providing more options for creating internet-famous products. -02- Capture Consumer Insights, Position Precisely, and Follow the Trend The Chinese market is vast, and differences in age, region, education, and lifestyle habits cause extreme fragmentation in consumer demand. Each niche market harbors huge business opportunities. The accuracy of consumer insight capture is crucial for creating internet-famous hits. For example, Batiste, a British brand introduced by Shanghai Jahwa, is the global leader in dry shampoo. Its features are no-water washing, portability, and 30-second oil removal. After entering the Chinese market, Shanghai Jahwa positioned the product for young women aged 18-29 as core target consumers, further narrowing down to "socially lazy" individuals within this group, and launched brand promotions targeting college students and young white-collar workers with these traits. This achieved huge market success, quickly establishing the brand as the leader in China's dry shampoo market and sustaining rapid growth. Another example is Arm & Hammer, an American brand introduced by Shanghai Jahwa. With a 170-year history in the U.S., its baking soda is pure and natural, serving as a food-grade multi-purpose cleaner for fruits, vegetables, cups, and dishes. As a new internet-famous product entering China in 2019, Arm & Hammer baking soda targeted housewives as core consumers, focusing on "safety-anxious" Chinese mothers for precision marketing. In its first year in China, it successfully penetrated over 1 million households and gained a good reputation. From the above, it is clear that accurately capturing the growing segmented consumer needs is crucial for creating internet-famous products, especially in entirely new categories. -03- Precise Reach: Products Need to Understand Channels Better When targeting consumer groups, we must consider not only their characteristics as product users but also their characteristics as shoppers when purchasing. The two are closely related yet different. Capturing consumer insights alone is not enough to build a closed loop for internet-famous products; choosing the right purchase channel is equally important, or even more so, as it is key to sustainable development. In the niche era, shopping channels are also diversified and fragmented. Traditional supermarkets, department stores, and wholesale markets are declining in traffic but still hold important positions. Offline specialty stores such as cosmetics stores and mother-and-baby stores maintain good growth. Online channels continue to grow and have become the main shopping channel for consumers in first- and second-tier cities. Moreover, with the continuous iteration of e-commerce, cross-border e-commerce, social e-commerce, community e-commerce, and vertical content e-commerce are developing rapidly. The elderly still have a keen interest in TV shopping, while young people have turned to short-video apps like Douyin, Kuaishou, and Xiaohongshu to find internet-famous products. Internet-famous product promotion and fan fission also provide new opportunities for products to become famous overnight across the internet. Channels are numerous and complex. Choosing which channel or channels as the scenario for building a new brand or product is an important part of the marketing closed loop for internet-famous products. Brand owners should prepare well around three difficulties when formulating channel strategies: Positioning Difficulty Ten years ago, the differences between channels were not as large as today. The so-called channel strategy (some peers call it Route To Market strategy) was often simple for brand owners, with the core being to find the revenue balance point between outlet coverage and coverage cost investment. Today, ten years later, with the rise of e-commerce, community group buying, cosmetics stores, social e-commerce, and other segmented channels, the differences between channels are growing. The previous two-dimensional coordinate methodology based on outlet count and cost is no longer applicable to channel strategies in the niche era. What brand owners need to build now is a three-dimensional coordinate system with channel entry selection, channel reach depth, and comprehensive cost as axes. The exponentially increased complexity poses great challenges to precise channel positioning. Operational Difficulty Operational difficulty lies in details. When channel strategies are implemented in different channels, various predictable or unpredictable practical issues will force adjustments to the channel strategy, which in turn affect pricing and brand strategies. Dogmatic strategies and templated methodologies are no longer effective. Only by making thorough plans and leaving room for continuous adjustment during implementation can an effective channel strategy be developed. Enterprise System Constraints In the process of building a marketing closed loop, enterprises of different sizes face different difficulties. Small and innovative enterprises have flexible strategies and easy coordination, but they face limitations in channel control and limited channel talent reserves. Large enterprises have strong channel control and relatively sufficient talent, but due to excessive and fine departmental divisions, it is difficult to break down inter-departmental barriers, leading to a disconnect between channel and brand strategies and difficulty in forming synergy. Overcoming the three difficulties of channel strategy, building three-dimensional precise positioning, leaving room for strategic adjustment during implementation, and breaking down enterprise system barriers through extensive cooperation and top-down coordination are important conditions for achieving effective channel strategies and precise consumer reach. At this point, the closed loop from consumer insights (insight) to consumer reach (reach) is truly completed. In Summary To create a marketing closed loop for internet-famous products, brand owners need the following:
1. Closely focus on brand traits to create highlights 2. Precisely insight into consumer demand and grasp trends 3. Effectively implement channel strategies and adjust in real time These three are interrelated and run through all details of the marketing closed loop for internet-famous products, thereby truly converting the overwhelming market demand into graspable business opportunities. The essence of internet-famous products is not internet-fame but the right marketing approach. After perfectly solving the three key issues of product, channel, and consumer group, we believe we can all create internet-famous products with vigorous vitality in the niche era. Let's encourage each other! Tips will be paid 400-2000 yuan once adopted. China FMCG + Internet Professional New Media Committed to FMCG manufacturer transformation and upgrading and channel digital solutions Copyright Issues | Business Cooperation | Project Consultation | Reader Submissions