Brand No. 1: Brand characters, gorillas, baboons, monkeys

How to "build a brand" and the necessity of persisting in building a brand are the core of this article. Determining market positioning and finding development advantages are seemingly common practices, but they are well worth learning from the three major representative brands such as UBRAS. Come and take a look at the author's experience interpretation.

• When the economy is good, you should sell products desperately; when the economy is bad, you should build more brands.
• Whenever we are still talking about traffic and dividends, we have never thought about building a brand.

01 People, goods, and venue

1. People: Generation Z, born in the 1990s and 2000s, has never been so simple and complex in terms of consumption

• A woman born after 1995 or 2000 probably won’t choose her mother’s underwear brand. Compared with the traditional concept of the previous generation that women dress up to please themselves, they pay more attention to their own body and mind.
• Many businesses die not because of their products, but because of their brands. The obsolescence of a brand is determined by a generation. A brand that can survive cycles essentially survives several generations.

2. Victoria’s Secret sells standard “sexiness”

In 1977, Roy Raymond opened the first lingerie store in San Francisco, named Victoria's Secret. During the 1999 Super Bowl live broadcast, the live broadcast screen during the halftime of the game suddenly switched to a 30-second video of the "Victoria's Secret Fashion Show". This aroused the curiosity of many people, and the number of hits on the Victoria's Secret official website exceeded 1 million within 30 minutes, and the network was paralyzed for a time.

Every November thereafter, on the brightly lit catwalk, the hot Victoria's Secret Angels wore sexy and dreamy lingerie and walked the runway in the most enchanting postures. Everything was so luxurious and dreamy. The Victoria's Secret Show took "selling sexiness" to the extreme.

3. Every kind of beauty deserves respect

In 2010, Victoria's Secret invited 10 slim models to shoot a set of posters with the slogan "perfect body", which led to its first public relations failure in history. A wave of "Body Positive Movement" was brewing here.

Low market concentration creates new niches for new brands

In 2018, the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, which returned to ABC, had a viewership of only 6.65 million. In 2020, Victoria's Secret permanently closed 250 stores in North America. The decline of Victoria's Secret marked the end of the era of underwear, and the new underwear decade kicked off.

In 2018, the market concentration of the top five brands in China's underwear market was only 6.6%. In 2019, the top five brands with the highest comprehensive market share in China's underwear market were Aimer (7.34%), Maniform (6.96%), Embry Form (6.84%), Wacoal (4.44%), and Gujin (4.20%).

Industry concentration, also known as market concentration, refers to the total market share of the largest companies and brands in an industry. Industry concentration is a measurement indicator of the degree of concentration of the market structure of the entire industry, outlining the basic outline of the market structure.

According to the degree of concentration, the market structure can be divided into three types: free competition in scattered markets, homogeneous competition in block markets, and differentiated competition in cluster markets. That is, free competition, homogeneous competition, and differentiated competition.

Free competition: In the early stage of market development and rapid growth, there is no market leader, and the main focus of participants is on incremental competition to seize users, and the market concentration is low.

Competitive strategy: cost leadership in the supply chain, extreme cost-effectiveness in products, and expansion in channels. Whoever can make usable products in the shortest time and expand online and offline channels as quickly as possible will be able to occupy the market faster. The competition at this stage is a product competition.

Homogeneous competition: A few manufacturers seized the category dividend before the market "hardened" and achieved profitability through online and offline channel construction based on the user scale obtained in the early stage. At this stage, excellent companies seized the dividend to form a phased first-mover advantage, while product innovation also reached a bottleneck stage, and the market inevitably entered the stage of homogeneous competition.

• The industry's low market concentration, new product category dividends, and shifting consumption trends have brought new growth drivers to new brands.
• New domestic brands such as NEIWAI, Ubras, and Naitangpai are quietly rising.

02 From steel ring to no steel ring

1. Circle of Admiration

After graduating from Beijing Iron and Steel Institute (now renamed Beijing University of Science and Technology), Zhang Rongming was assigned to Shougang University as a teacher. In 1991, bras with underwires were still uncommon, and Zhang Rongming developed a super-elastic memory alloy bra base. In 1993, Aimei underwear appeared in the Beijing market. As of December 31, 2020, the company had 2,156 offline retail terminals, including 1,725 ​​direct-operated terminals. On May 31, 2021, Aimei underwear was officially listed with a market value of 12.1 billion. It became the fourth listed underwear brand in China after Cosmo Beauty, Huijie Co., Ltd., and Embry Form Holdings.

The production of an underwire bra requires about 30-40 processes, and a production line requires dozens of people. From design, sampling, production to sales to consumers through various channels, the cycle of a bra can be as short as half a year or as long as a year. From 2017 to the first half of 2020, Aimei's inventory turnover days increased from 348 days to 378 days, which means that it has been more than a year from the production to the sale of a bra, and the new style has become the old style.

The underwire-free bras currently use dot-shaped adhesive film technology, which has simplified the complexity of fabrics and processes to the greatest extent, realized machine-automated mass production, shortened the human training cycle, and with the advantage of unified sizes, there is no need to expand inventory for a large number of SKUs, and the color and design of the products can be quickly iterated according to market response, reducing the pressure of clearance.

• There are very few real innovations in the world. Most so-called innovations are just rearrangements of existing old elements.
• Adhere to the principle of "taking what is available" and repackage a product concept that sells well in emerging countries and regions to make it sell better. That is, if a product or business model has been successful in some regions, it can be successful if it is applied to other developing regions.
• There is nothing shameful in plagiarism, but it is ridiculous if the plagiarism is not good enough.

2. Exercise without underwire

In 2014, Aerie, an American underwear brand that advocates the concept of health and nature, launched a marketing campaign with underwear models without retouching, promoting underwear without underwires and padding. The famous singer Rihanna also launched an underwear brand that is friendly to all body types, which was sought after by young consumers. It has achieved double-digit growth for 21 consecutive quarters and has become the second largest underwear brand in the United States in just 6 years since its establishment.

In fact, Aimei has not discovered size-free underwear, and has even produced similar products. Aimei produced this product at a Japanese factory in Thailand, which later moved to Dalian. However, it was unable to meet Aimei's requirements technically.

In 2015, Aimei accidentally cut off this category. The rise of Ubras came precisely from the bonus of the size-free underwear category. In 2016, Ubras was established and launched size-free underwear based on the innovation of the category of no underwire.

03 Scene: From venue to scene, from "people looking for goods" to "goods looking for people"

For traditional brands, the market refers to the retail venue. Today, the market is the entrance to obtain traffic, upgraded from the store to the scene. The essence of the market is connection. A connection method or connection relationship, it connects people and goods, that is, it connects people (consumer side) and goods (supply side).

In the book "Why Customers Buy", the author talked about an example. He said that he went to research and found that stores that sell mattresses would never put a pillow on the mattress because they don't sell pillows. So naturally they wouldn't think of putting a pillow on the mattress, but have you ever seen a customer who only sleeps on a mattress and not a pillow?

Therefore, you'd better create a real scene experience for customers. Even if you don't sell pillows, you need to put a pillow on the mattress.

• Two factors in the venue model: channel penetration and media exposure
• The three elements of scene mode: content, media, and change

The market environment of the old domestic underwear brands under the store model was characterized by a single channel, a single media, and centralized information distribution. At that time, there were two basic principles for doing business: channel penetration and media exposure. Penetration was achieved through direct sales + franchising, and exposure was achieved through brand + advertising.

• Urban Beauty, which suffered a loss of 118 million yuan in 2020, once had the largest market share with more than 8,000 stores.
• Before Aimei Underwear was officially launched, the company had 2,156 offline retail outlets, including 1,725 ​​direct-sale outlets.

That is: the louder the advertisement and the more stores opened, the better the products sold - opening street shops and using big signs to attract consumers captured the minds of consumers. At that time, occupying the channel itself was occupying traffic and was the most efficient way to reach the crowd, and street shops and core business districts were the carriers of traffic.

In the scenario mode, different content, media, and monetization "scenarios" improve the user's efficiency in the "demand-cognition-decision-making" link, namely: content activates demand, media reaches cognition, and scenarios promote monetization.

04 Gorillas, baboons, and little monkeys

• Ubras: pioneered the vest-style underwear and proposed "size-free underwear"
• Naitangpai: Focusing on niche areas and positioning itself as an expert in "large cup bras"
• NEIWAI: Launching "wireless" products, expanding product categories, including pajamas, sports dance, and home products

In fact, there is very little growth driven by brands alone. The driving force of growth comes from the vitality of the category. When the category has a new user bonus, it is more conducive to brand growth, because at this time you are the first brand to contact and communicate with consumers, the first to occupy the minds of consumers, and the conversion efficiency will be higher at this time.

In people's minds, the fact that you are a pioneer distinguishes you from followers. People think that the first is original and the others are imitators. All imitation actions will strengthen the new category concept. Only best-selling products will be imitated. The more they are imitated, the better they sell. No one will copy a non-best-selling product. What needs to be done is to distance yourself, widen the distance, and seize the mind, rather than arguing with imitators.

• Jeffrey Moore, the godfather of Silicon Valley, once gave an interesting explanation of the final market structure of emerging industries: Imagine that there are three animals in the forest: gorillas, baboons and monkeys.
• The 800-pound gorilla is the undisputed overlord, and all the bananas in the forest belong to it; the baboons do not compete with the gorillas for the market, and they focus on their own exclusive market; monkeys often travel in groups, but they can only survive by picking up small and rotten bananas that the gorillas and baboons do not eat.

05 Gorillas

Everyone who makes products knows or should know that brand is the foundation of business. Otherwise, it will become a "white label" and a slave to traffic. The way of buying traffic and selling goods will eventually make profits trapped in the cost of acquiring customers - this is ultimately a zero-sum game business. When the category bonus gradually disappears and the brand cannot be established, the glory will become a story of the past.

The method of spending money to buy traffic in exchange for sales is acceptable in the early stages of a brand. However, if the brand still relies on traffic in exchange for sales in the middle and late stages, the brand will have to work for KOLs and Internet celebrities. In essence, KOLs and Internet celebrities are channels, not brands themselves. Selling goods and building brands are two different things. If users trust KOLs, not brands.

This means that the company's brand has not really established the mind and brand awareness among the target population. Once the consumer's mind is saturated, it will be very difficult to break into it again - the key to seizing the opportunity is the window period of the category. Once consumers are overloaded with a certain type of information, it is difficult for them to remember the same type of information.

The underlying logic of new categories is not only the blank in the market, but also the blank in consumer cognition. Generally speaking: there are no more than three all-round players in an industry, and the vacant market gives new entrants new opportunities. Therefore, after the mind is saturated, the only way is to differentiate and open up new cognition.

In 2015, the wireless ring market exploded in China. How to seize the natural dividends brought by this category?

On the one hand, online hot products are used to grab traffic, enhance exposure, and create the first. The essence of hot products is to solve the problem of consumers' first purchase and voice. In fact, the new domestic underwear F4 brands, Ubras, Bananain, Naitangpai, and Neiwai, have all created hot products belonging to their own brands at different stages. For example, Ubras' Tmall flagship store sold a total of 12.6 million items, of which the most popular single product sold about 4.39 million pieces, accounting for 34.9% of the total sales. Neiwai launched the cloud size-free underwear with a single product price of 169 yuan as a super single product to focus on online.

Secondly, establish offline channels. Offline stores are not only a channel, but also a scene touchpoint for brand strength and category extension. The earlier this touchpoint is established and the greater the potential of the business district selected by the touchpoint, the more conducive it is to establish the brand in the minds of consumers.

For example, the beauty brand Glossier resolutely chose to open offline stores because this is the most suitable place for new brands to establish "direct dialogue" with customers, and even a brand training ground. Through the layout of offline store touchpoints, on the one hand, it can establish deeper and broader connections with customers at a lower cost, and on the other hand, it can pave the way for category extension.

In a business war, the advantage often belongs to the defending party. Without an absolute advantage in military strength, it is difficult for the attacking party to gain an advantage over the defender. To win, at least three times as many troops as the opponent must be deployed at the attacking location - "Business War".

In fact, 90% of sales of major global and domestic intimate apparel brands come from offline channels. In 2017, Neiwai began to invest heavily in expanding offline channels. It is said that the first shopping mall Liu Xiaolu chose was the Shanghai Jing'an Kerry Center. "The first Neiwai store must be opened in the core area of ​​Shanghai." Neiwai waited for a year for this location.

In the three years from 2017 to 2020, Neiwai has 110 retail experience stores in 29 first- and second-tier cities across the country, and has strategic cooperation with first-tier owners such as Kerry, Sun Hung Kai, Swire, Hang Lung, and China Resources. On the one hand, choosing a high-potential business district for the location of offline stores can reflect the brand image and effectively form brand endorsement.

On the other hand, as traffic becomes more and more expensive, offline channels can bring brands greater room for category expansion and more development opportunities. With the help of the layout of offline channels, Neiwai has gradually expanded from underwear to home casual wear, dance sports and home products.

• The initial single-store model of Neiwai achieved profitability for offline stores, with an average sales per square meter of more than RMB 4,500 per square meter nationwide.
• With the help of offline stores, Neiwai has expanded its product categories from underwear to home wear, dance and sports, and home products.
• Flagship stores in first-tier cities + standard stores in second-tier cities and even beyond second-tier cities
• Effectively avoided Ubras' online customer acquisition competition and established a primary brand moat

06 Baboon

In 2020, the frequency of Ubras brand live broadcasts reached at least one and at most seven per month. In addition to the top anchors represented by Wei Ya, Ubras's live broadcasters include Zhang Hanyun, Meng Jia, Kan Qingzi, Xu Lu and other celebrities. In 2020, when most brands were experiencing a cold winter, Ubras had a monthly sales volume of nearly 1 million and a bra market share of 94.1%.

In the traffic structure of Ubras’ Tmall flagship store in 2020, free traffic from Taobao accounted for more than 50%, and the transaction volume from independent visits accounted for more than 46%, which was due to its content seeding + private domain conversion.

• Weibo, mid-level influencer, mainly to cooperate with the brand's new product launches
• Xiaohongshu, a mid-level influencer, focuses on daily recommendations
• Douyin, placing information flow ads related to spokesperson Ouyang Nana
• Station B, a UP host of mid-level clothing and beauty products.

Private domain conversion: order in the live broadcast room - scan the code after receiving the goods - private domain conversion - post the order on Xiaohongshu - content conversion. The brand IP "U喵" was created, using the image of cats to narrow the distance with young consumers, and the personal account in the private domain also continued the brand's cartoon IP.

• Personality: WeChat personal account “U的喵”, continuously reaching users
• Tips: After receiving the product, scan the QR code to add your personal account, you will receive an invitation to post your order on Xiaohongshu. After posting product photos and content with specified keywords on Xiaohongshu, you can get a free piece of underwear at your own expense after successful review.
• Operation: Post trial activities and other benefits in Moments, with a series of event previews to attract traffic back to the live broadcast room

07 Little Monkey

Find 1% of the market and occupy 80% of the share. The essence of product selection is to choose increments and dividends. Words are the ceiling and occupying words creates barriers to achievement.

According to a Tmall underwear survey report titled "Looking for E-cup", about 68 million people buy bras on Tmall every year, and buyers with cup sizes above D account for 23.7%. However, the supply of large-cup bras does not seem to keep up with the potential demand of consumers. Dabai, the founder of Naitangpai, found in his research that it is difficult to find bras with cup sizes above E, both offline and on e-commerce platforms, and the styles and quantities are very few. Naitangpai - large-cup bras.

In July 2015, Naitangpai started to build a community on Douban. The article "Must-read before joining the group: The origin and ideas of Naitangpai" shared Naitangpai's insights into the Chinese underwear market, such as: domestic large-cup underwear has a high degree of repeatability, and most of them are the "auntie style" that girls despise; European and American brands do not fit the Chinese body shape, and their aesthetic needs are also different; invisible, strapless, swimsuit, sports, and sexy underwear are very difficult to find... These insights into the pain points of target consumers have stimulated potential demand. In terms of content, traffic, fans, and monetization, Naitangpai has completed the first step.

In the past five years, Naitangpai has insisted on original content and interactive content. It has continuously established and deepened the relationship with users through content. Searching for Naitangpai on Weibo, Xiaohongshu, and Bilibili, you can see many users' spontaneous sharing and recommendations. These "invisible" consumer co-creations have brought a steady stream of new customers to Naitangpai.

It's not because we are stingy with promotion costs, but we believe that the most important driving force that really drives users to share on social platforms such as Xiaohongshu and Weibo, or directly to others in life, still comes from the recognition of the product and the goodwill to help more people. Once it becomes a commercial behavior, the motivation or drive for sharing may change - said the founder of Naitangpai.

Defensive warfare, offensive warfare, flanking warfare, and guerrilla warfare, using cognitive advantages as external advantages and based on corporate strength. Gorilla defensive warfare: Only market leaders should consider defense, and the best way to defend is to attack yourself. Baboon offensive warfare: Find weaknesses in the leader's advantages and attack them. Monkey flanking warfare: Launch in uncontested areas and constantly look for market gaps.

Author: Houshan Keju; WeChat public account: New Consumer Brand Research Society