---
title: "What a 49-Yuan Box of Gummies Reveals About Gen Z"
description: "If you work in marketing, phrases like \"personalized consumption\" and \"diversified consumption\" roll off the tongue, but what they actually mean can be elusive. After speaking with Li Yi, co-founder of BUFF X, a functional food brand, the answer became clearer: Gen Z consumers exhibit highly individualized preferences even within the same demographic, driving the rise of innovative brands that cater to these diverse needs."
author: "袁来"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
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published: "2021-06-05"
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# What a 49-Yuan Box of Gummies Reveals About Gen Z

> If you work in marketing, phrases like "personalized consumption" and "diversified consumption" roll off the tongue, but what they actually mean can be elusive. After speaking with Li Yi, co-founder of BUFF X, a functional food brand, the answer became clearer: Gen Z consumers exhibit highly individualized preferences even within the same demographic, driving the rise of innovative brands that cater to these diverse needs.

If you work in marketing, phrases like **"personalized consumption"** and **"diversified consumption"** are probably second nature. But what do they really mean? I suspect many of us are still unclear. While these terms have become common consensus, I believe we need more concrete dimensions or examples to explain the personalized and diversified demands of the new consumption era.

Recently, I had a conversation with **Li Yi, co-founder of BUFF X (a functional food brand)**, and found my answer. Building on his explanation, I developed an example:

Two people, both born in 1996, each earning 5,000 yuan a month. When buying candy, one is willing to spend 49 yuan on a box, while the other only 9 yuan. Yet, when it comes to facial cleansers and skincare, the first spends only 39 yuan, while the second splurges 239 yuan.

**These two individuals share similar education, consumption awareness, and backgrounds, but their perceptions of specific product categories and their pursuit of brands are completely different.**

This is what we now understand as personalized and diversified consumption. It is precisely because of such diverse needs that we see the emergence of various innovative consumer brands today. **Behind these diverse needs lies the Gen Z demographic that every marketer cares about.**

How to understand Gen Z? I believe everyone has their own interpretation, but that's not enough. How to truly apply this understanding to the market and to brands—perhaps this article can offer some insights and food for thought.

The protagonist of this article is Li Yi, co-founder of BUFF X. He and his partners founded BUFF X in April 2020, securing tens of millions of yuan in angel funding at inception, followed by two more rounds within less than a year. This clearly shows the capital market's favor for this innovative brand and its expectations for its future growth.

**-01-**
**Finding Entrepreneurial Opportunities from Data**

**Unlike other entrepreneurs, Li Yi and founder Kang Le identified their product category through data.**

Before starting the venture, founder Kang Le worked at Douyin's brand studio, while Li Yi was in Douyin e-commerce. Their daily work involved observing industry changes, especially through data, analyzing category growth based on consumer needs.

Li Yi recalled that they spotted two categories with significant opportunities: **the first was alcoholic beverages, and the second was health supplements.**

Why these opportunities? It might differ from conventional wisdom. Most other consumer categories, like beauty, personal care, and snacks, had many innovators, but alcohol and health supplements seemed relatively quiet.

In baijiu (white liquor), from 2018 to 2019, few new domestic brands emerged, and the same was true for health supplements. Since there was no wave of national trend (guochao) in these areas, there must be deeper reasons.

Further research revealed that **the core of baijiu is culture**—it's more of a cultural product requiring strong brand power. Baijiu is essentially a cultural business, which is relatively hard to master.

**Health supplements, in fact, have gone through two stages:**

In the early stage, brands like Brain Gold (Naobaijin) focused on traditional nourishment and the concept of medicine and food homology, with strong brand recognition, but they have largely disappeared now.

The second stage saw imported health products like Swisse, which emphasized specific functions and targeted mainly the post-80s and post-90s generations. From 2014 to 2015, imported health supplements saw significant growth, not only due to favorable policies but also because the rise of the internet provided consumers with abundant information about good foreign products.

**The evolution of these two stages shows that consumer awareness is progressing, and users' understanding of the industry deepens each year.** Based on this, BUFF X believed there was an opportunity to create a new domestic brand in the health supplement sector.

With a category opportunity identified, they dug deeper. A brand opportunity must occupy a mental space, either by targeting a new group of people or fulfilling a completely new need. Ultimately, **BUFF X chose to create a health supplement brand for the new young generation under Gen Z.**

Li Yi explicitly stated that BUFF X's consumer base is not the post-80s or post-90s, but mainly the post-95s. The post-80s and post-90s already have brand awareness for health supplements like Swisse and By-Health, and we don't intend to change their perceptions. **Our target group is the post-95s; BUFF X might be their first choice for health supplements.**

BUFF X positions itself as "punk wellness" (pengke yangsheng). The post-95s are curious about the world and have the strongest sense of identity with domestic brands.

In October 2020, BUFF X's Tmall store officially launched. Within 30 days, it ranked first for the keyword "sleep gummies," and within two months, sales of sleep gummies exceeded 20,000 orders. From October 20, 2020, to January 1, 2021, in just over two months, BUFF X achieved a repurchase rate of 15% and revenue of around 10 million yuan.

**-02-**
**The "Problem" of Having No Competitors**

BUFF X once conducted a survey on new user acquisition, finding that 80% of users had never taken health supplements before. Choosing a post-95s demographic inevitably means they likely haven't consumed health supplements. **Although there are no competitors in the market, how to trigger demand is a key challenge for BUFF X.**

How to find these consumers, attract their attention, and ultimately convert them? Li Yi mentioned that **currently, off-platform efforts mainly use Douyin short videos and information feeds to reach them.**

Why focus on Douyin? It's related to changes in media formats. Before 2017, mainstream media included WeChat official accounts and Xiaohongshu, which were text-and-image based. Text media presupposed reading habits, and at that time, most networks were below 4G, so internet speeds were not fast.

When internet speeds were relatively slow, reading WeChat articles or Xiaohongshu posts on the subway was the best option for consumers—they offered depth and solid content.

But now the media environment has changed dramatically. In 2018, Douyin had tens of millions of daily active users; just three years later, it's a platform with 600 million DAU, driven by the proliferation of 4G networks.

**When a user wants to learn something, a short video might take just half a minute, while text could take five minutes.** The new generation of young people is lazier and prefers more efficient ways of receiving information. Of course, beyond efficiency, the medium also conveys experience and emotion more vividly.

**For an innovative consumer brand, especially targeting the post-95s, short-video platforms are more suitable for recruiting new users.** Once users are interested, they can enter BUFF X's WeChat private domain or Tmall flagship store for conversion and retention.

According to Li Yi, BUFF X has already covered mainstream e-commerce platforms and has also entered offline channels such as KK馆, Bianlifeng in the north, Meiyijia in the south, Hema Fresh, and national CVS convenience stores like Lawson and FamilyMart. Soon, it will also enter Watsons and Walmart.

**-03-**
**The Pricing Logic Behind 49 Yuan per Box**

Regarding pricing, **it's not just about cost; it involves brand positioning, consumer perception, and other multi-dimensional considerations.**

To most people, pricing a box of gummies at 49 yuan might seem unaffordable for a 95-born young person who just graduated three years ago. Such a price might shut out many potential customers.

On this point, Li Yi has his own views: **Huawei phones are quite expensive but sell well; the essence is young people's identification with new domestic brands.**

**When BUFF X sets a high price, it can first produce high-quality products and also provide a matching high-quality experience.** Of course, our pricing strategy overall benchmarks against imported health supplements. If this were earlier, even if domestic brands had the same quality as imports, they would have to price lower.

But now, **Gen Z users don't see any advantage in imported products; they don't understand why imported brands can be so expensive.** BUFF X's pricing considers consumer perception, which is the biggest difference from the past.

At the same time, **in terms of brand positioning, BUFF X hopes to be a leader in users' minds, not a follower.** Beyond the product and function, Li Yi wants BUFF X to be a trend-leading brand.

**"We expect our users to be a relatively high-income or influential segment of Gen Z; this group may not be easy to acquire. More precisely, we don't expect to be a widely distributed product from the start. Rather than being a high-cost-performance brand, we prefer to be a brand that pursues a higher experience."**

Li Yi continued, "Frankly, BUFF X is an FMCG product; it won't be unaffordable. If you're willing to consume, you can afford it. But the premise is that you're willing to spend more because you trust the brand. With 1,000 yuan of pocket money, some people are willing to spend 200 yuan on game skins but only 50 yuan on snacks; essentially, it's a difference in identification."

Of course, from an operational perspective, BUFF X's early service capabilities are limited—whether in supply chain, user acquisition, or channel expansion. We need to first find people who are more aligned with the brand, or who need us more in the early stages.

From a brand perspective, once a brand establishes its positioning, there's basically no room to move up; only down. At 49 yuan, when a consumer buys, they essentially identify with the candy you make.

There's also a group that doesn't identify and thinks it's only worth 9 yuan. For such groups, we don't intend to convince them now because the communication cost is too high; they're not our current target users. **At this stage, our capabilities are limited, and spending excessive communication costs to change perceptions is not the current focus.**

**Conclusion:**

The above is BUFF X's understanding of the young consumer group under Gen Z as an early-stage innovative consumer brand. Compared with brands that grew in the past, such as Master Kong, Uni-President, Nongfu Spring, Dali, etc., the logic of entrepreneurship and innovation for new consumer brands has completely changed. Behind this, of course, is the change in the market environment.

**Scarcity of product supply, accumulation of historical resources, demographic dividends, cognitive dividends, single-media dividends, single-channel dividends—these were the soil for the growth of big brands in their early days, but today, they are completely gone.**

**This doesn't mean entrepreneurship is harder or that there's no friendly soil; rather, the key elements of the soil have changed.** Therefore, innovative consumer brands must use entirely new tools or logic to build their brands; otherwise, it's unlikely they can get a share in a market dominated by giants.

Of course, for big brands, although innovative consumer brands have limited scale, talent, and resources, they shouldn't be underestimated. **When the young people of Gen Z become the mainstream of society in 5 or 10 years, brand iteration and replacement are highly probable.**

**The rise of innovative consumer brands today—I think practitioners should see not just the "new" but the "innovative." Behind innovation is a deep insight into new consumption, new demands, new products, and new environments. Regardless of future scale, it's worth learning from and thinking about.**

Focus on FMCG distributor new distribution / innovative consumer brand cases
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