What is the difficulty in marketing functional products?

The marketing of many functional products is difficult. Most of these products have two controversial issues: exaggerated publicity and inconsistent product performance. So what is the difficulty in marketing such functional products? For consumers and market practitioners, how should they choose and respond?

Many functional products are still trying to cross the river by feeling the stones. For example:

If you search online, you will find that whether it is the new brand "Yiquangen" or the old brands Swisse, By-Health, Tongrentang, and Melatonin, they have all been caught up in the marketing storm of "IQ tax". Recently, the oral beauty track where the "five female doctors" are located has also been at the forefront of public opinion because of overly naked and exaggerated advertisements.

I find two main controversial issues with these products.

First, the publicity is too exaggerated, with old-fashioned crazy brainwashing ads that try to stuff the product into your head in the elevator. Second, the effects advertised in health or functional foods do not meet expectations after use.

As a working person, I often feel sleepy and weak during the day. At first, I did not agree with the comments of netizens, that is, taking more B vitamins or liver protection tablets to refresh myself. I did buy a lot of these things at home, but in the end I either forgot to eat them because I was too busy, or I gave up after eating them because they were not very useful.

Among health products, there has always been academic controversy over oral beauty and oral efficacy. Take hyaluronic acid as an example. Whether it can be taken orally and moisturize the skin is two different things. There is no particularly rigorous evidence for academic verification, but some experimental data seem to prove that it can be effective.

At the scientific ingredient seminar held by "Makeup and Food Research", regulatory scholars and efficacy evaluation experts said that they initially had doubts about hyaluronic acid oral moisturizers, believing that it would be directly digested. However, after experiments, they found that the effective ingredients do have some effects on the human body.

However, as consumers, most people may take a wait-and-see attitude towards the product. But as a market practitioner, I am more concerned about whether this type of product has other marketing strategies besides the main efficacy.

01

Before discussing marketing, consider the following:

How should the specific product form of functional products be designed? For functional products, we need to consider their specific product form, which is usually related to the industry they are in.

Functional products are generally distributed in three industries: food baking, alcoholic beverages, and daily chemical beauty. Among these industries, food baking and alcoholic beverages are usually the main marketing channels, and these two industries are also trillion-level super tracks.

For example:

If ginseng is sold whole with roots or sliced ​​in pharmacies, specialty stores and supermarkets, it belongs to the health care product industry and the gift industry; if it is soaked in wine and sold in bulk, it belongs to the wine industry.

So, how important is product form to sales?

Everyone knows that red dates and walnuts can replenish qi and blood and kidneys and brain respectively. In the past, everyone ate these two things separately, and there was no problem. But around 2003, a smart person combined them and made a snack called "dates with walnuts".

This snack quickly became a big hit in the market and became a best-seller. All merchants selling red dates and walnuts launched their own "dates with walnuts" products, because this snack not only has multiple functions at the same time, but also tastes better than eating red dates and walnuts alone.

That is, innovation in product form led to the emergence of small snacks, which directly promoted the sales of red dates and walnuts, becoming a very successful product case.

In fact, product form innovation is very important for all fast-moving consumer goods, not just functional products. But the reason why we should emphasize the form innovation of functional products is that it is not only related to the product effect, but also to the user's acceptance of the product.

From the perspective of human absorption, in order to improve the absorption effect of functional products, the product form is generally liquid, such as juice, beverages, puree and enzymes. For some products whose form is not easy to change, it is necessary to work hard on product packaging and make micro-innovations, such as materials, shapes, and external label patterns.

However, whether it is product form design or packaging design, it must be based on the user experience perspective. In addition, innovation should not only pursue innovation, but also consider whether users can accept it, and whether it is more convenient, practical, and portable.

For example:

The only listed company that focuses on cheese, Meiji Land, launched a cheese stick specifically for children. Because children and parents responded well to it, they decided to spend a lot of money on publicity and promotion, which directly turned cheese sticks into a niche category.

Before Meiji Landou, cheese on the market was in the form of bars, blocks and candies, but we overlooked the fact that children love to eat lollipops. Therefore, Meiji Landou directly made cheese into the shape of lollipops, which became a hot product.

Indeed, the product's choice of raw materials and categories, as well as whether the market has growth potential and the specific population, directly determine the difficulty of promotion. So, for functional products (hyaluronic acid, peptides, etc.), is beauty and skin care the only focus?

Not really.

Compared with ordinary products, functional products pay more attention to marketing, after all, they are strong marketing products. Although they cannot be strongly promoted like medicines and health products, they must be deeply educated and carefully promoted.

Functional products are generally divided into two types: implicit effect and explicit effect.

The latent effect needs to be seen after three months or more of continuous use, while the obvious effect usually takes place within three to five days. However, this is also related to individual differences in the human body, because some people may see the effect within five days, while others may need about ten days to feel the effect.

Generally speaking, most functional products have hidden effects, and only continuous use can really work. In addition, psychological factors can also have a great impact on the effect. The hidden effects are mainly concentrated in the aspects of moistening the intestines and relieving constipation.

This is where the difficulty lies.

my country's advertising laws are very strict. Non-drugs cannot claim to have efficacy or treatment effects, and the restrictions are very high. In China, if a health product is legal and compliant, it needs to be marked with a special health product logo, commonly known as the "little blue hat."

There are only 27 types of efficacy that can be claimed, and they need to be registered and approved by the State Food and Drug Administration. I checked and found that it usually takes 2-4 years to apply for a small blue hat, and you have to find a special intermediary agency.

According to media reports, these institutions charge around 120,000 to 200,000 yuan for vitamin products, 280,000 to 300,000 yuan for immunity function products, and as high as 450,000 yuan for lipid-lowering function products. Therefore, the approval process for blue-hat products is very long and difficult, and does not quite meet the market demand for emerging consumer brand products.

Therefore, many oral beauty products and functional foods will choose food product specifications such as liquid beverages, compressed candies, jellies, tablets, capsules, and soft capsules, and can only use three categories of ingredients: food ingredients, food and medicine of the same origin, new food raw materials, and new resource foods.

So, if functional products don’t mention their functions, how can consumers know the difference between them and ordinary products? How should products with multiple functions be marketed?

02

There are usually three options:

The first is to break out the old perception. For example, for the product of walnut, the old Chinese medicine practitioners would think it is a good thing, which can nourish the kidney, warm the lungs, moisturize the intestines and promote bowel movements, moisturize the skin, blacken the hair, and resist aging.

However, among the general public, they generally know that eating walnuts is good for brain health and can improve intelligence. Therefore, we should emphasize the advantages of this product based on the user's cognitive points.

for example:

If the promotion of Six Walnuts and Dazhai Walnut Dew was based on beverages, they would definitely not be able to compete in the "beverage market". However, they changed the dimension and directly mentioned the benefits of raw walnuts for brain health in advertising. Then they cooperated with nutrition experts and doctors to carry out marketing health education so that everyone could understand walnuts themselves.

At the same time, they actively promote the health benefits of walnuts on social media, including publishing nutritional knowledge and sharing eating habits, thereby increasing audience awareness of the health benefits of walnuts.

The second method is to highlight the most prominent points of the raw materials.

Everyone knows that pearl powder contains many trace elements and minerals, and has the functions of whitening, anti-inflammatory, acne removal, spot lightening, skin moisturizing, and even improving intestinal function when taken orally. We can choose the most prominent function of pearls: whitening. Just highlighting this point will make it easy for consumers to make a choice.

for example:

Maxam, Herborist, Kao, Estee Lauder, L'Oreal and the Japanese brand Fancl all started with pearl powder to enter the market in the early days.

Herborist once launched the "Angelica Pearl Powder Spot Removal Set", emphasizing the whitening effect of the pearl powder in the product. At the same time, it published a large number of user experience and effect demonstrations of pearl powder products on its official website and social media.

Kao, on the other hand, prints the words “made from natural pearls” on the packaging of its pearl powder products, emphasizing the natural ingredients and precious value of the product. Fancl emphasizes the natural ingredients and efficacy of pearl powder in its products, promoting it as a secret weapon for “instantly whitening skin.” These brands all anchor on a trace element to establish market competitiveness.

The third type is to target the weakest or largest market.

Daylily, also known as forget-me-not, contains a variety of beneficial ingredients, which can promote brain health, promote lactation, resist depression, and moisten the intestines and relieve constipation. It can be said that it has all four functions. However, if you want to select promotion points based on the market and competition situation, in fact, moistening the intestines and relieving constipation is the best.

If we look closely at these four major functions, only lactation and anti-depression are less common than competitors and have relatively small market demand.

Therefore, combining these two characteristics, we can choose a vertical market to promote. For example, for mothers with children under two years old, this can more accurately penetrate this market. From the birth of the child to the age of two, women can use deep-processed daylily products, which can better meet the needs of this specific market.

for example:

A few years ago, the daylily porridge launched by the infant skin care brand Mamale combined the efficacy of daylily with breastfeeding, with lactation and brain health as the main functions. It is a product line specifically for pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers.

Doubtful, YanPlace, which uses bird's nest as its raw material for promotion, focused on the lung-moistening, beauty, and yin-nourishing effects in the early years, and then established brand awareness step by step through a differentiated image.

In the consumer sector, it is also common to see “functional foods” that use ordinary food standards, such as “a whole root” ginseng water, which is produced using plant beverage standards and focuses on nourishing and maintaining health. Red Bull is a well-known brand, positioned as a “vitamin flavored drink”, but its main focus is still on providing energy and refreshing the mind.

The anti-sugar tablets under Indie Pure (Le Le) are produced using the standards of pressed candies and focus on anti-sugar. The only difference in the dissemination stage is that a lot of popular science knowledge will be incorporated, such as emphasizing that the anti-sugar links of many products are not complete and their efficiency is discounted, and then highlighting how they do it.

Therefore, if you can clearly understand the above three dimensions, you will know why everyone likes to use "efficacy" as an entry point.

On the one hand, efficacy is a physical need. When the body encounters problems, it needs maintenance, rehabilitation, and treatment. In addition to using medicines, doctors or experts will recommend users to eat more products rich in relevant elements.

For example, patients with eye diseases will eat more blueberries, people with qi and blood deficiency will eat red dates, people with insufficient kidney qi will choose walnuts, and people with three highs will choose deep-processed products of sea buckthorn, etc.

On the other hand, efficacy is a psychological need. When women reach a certain age, they will increase their purchase of cosmetics and consumer goods for anti-aging, whitening and skin rejuvenation. When choosing efficacy products, they will naturally choose products that remove free radicals, such as the blueberry series and deep-processed products such as Ganoderma lucidum and wolfberry.

On the other hand, it is the social need. People around me are eating bird's nests and drinking certain peptide drinks. When everyone sits together and chats, they are all promoting the magical effects. If you don't buy some, you will always feel like you are not in the same circle, so you have no choice but to join the buying army.

03

After understanding user needs, let's see what effect brainwashing advertising has on functional brands. I think, apart from increasing exposure and public opinion and occupying a position in the category, it has no value.

Why?

First, brainwashing attempts to influence the group's ideas and behaviors through repeated propaganda and obvious emotional manipulation, making people feel irritated and dissatisfied. Second, it indirectly or directly highlights pain points, making people feel anxious and fearful, thereby guiding consumption.

Furthermore, they exaggerate the effects of the advertisements, ignore or hide the drawbacks, and feel cheated. The whole process can be summed up in one sentence: "You are sick, I have medicine, and you will be cured after taking it." Therefore, it is the worst method to acquire customers.

I have analyzed the reasons and possibilities for consumers to buy functional products. They are very averse to such advertisements. Even if they have a need, they will be skeptical after seeing them. So, for brands with obvious niches, how should they implement marketing strategies?

First, single-point penetration

In strategic thinking, a commonly used concept is Point Break, which is to focus limited resources and energy on key areas for breakthroughs.

The principle is very simple, that is, select a target and concentrate all resources to dig deep. In terms of marketing, it is to use a key advantage of the product to promote a pain point of the target consumer.

However, many bosses are not satisfied with highlighting only one key advantage of the product, but want to list all the advantages, which often results in marketing information being too scattered and difficult to remember.

In reality, most consumers can only remember one or two key features and will not buy a product just because it has multiple functions. They also believe that multiple functions may be unhealthy.

Just like buying a car, we usually choose to become a user based on a prominent feature of the brand, rather than choosing it based on multiple functions. For example, Volvo focuses on safety, BMW emphasizes driving dynamics, Mercedes-Benz focuses on dignity, and Audi is often chosen when dealing with the government.

Of course, the rational part of the basic dimension before the breakthrough must be made clear.

Including product origin, exclusive resources, unique selling points, R&D background, efficacy and benefits, packaging features, the meaning of the brand name, etc. These attributes are like containers filled with various screws, and marketers need to push the containers out.

Second, get out the container.

I think for new e-commerce platforms (such as Douyin and Xiaohongshu), their operation is crucial.

At present, most functional products are mainly aimed at specific user groups such as sophisticated mothers and senior middle-class people in first- and second-tier cities, who have their own judgments and preferences. To stand out in this market, you need to rely on three key factors: core KOLs’ recommendations, e-commerce promotion, and user operations.

In this regard, in addition to cooperating with some head KOLs to increase sales, the main thing in the early stage is to seek endorsements and appropriately select some long-tail, vertical KOLs, such as entrepreneurs, athletes, nutritionists, etc. This is a commonly used promotion method for functional products.

In addition, you can also do more activities such as self-broadcasting by merchants and Da broadcasting, as well as group buying by experts, and self-circulate in multiple scenarios from short videos to shopping malls until all scenarios are running smoothly, and then choose relatively more stable methods such as celebrity patch cooperation, endorsements and offline advertising.

Worth noting:

Elevator advertising is inherently suitable for brand marketing, and therefore is suitable for shaping tone, and can achieve good results without the need for brainwashing marketing.

Just like the Xiaomi ad, which uses only a few words to describe the ultimate cost-effectiveness. There are also some creative ads that combine pictures with life. The one that impressed me the most was the crayfish ad, which split the shrimp's body in the middle and formed a complete shape when the elevator door closed.

In addition, private domain operations are also an indispensable part of brand operations.

In addition to promotional activities, it can also serve as a seed source for detonating topics. When a brand wants to start a topic on social platforms such as Douyin and Xiaohongshu, encouraging old users to actively participate can not only create a large amount of content, but also indirectly convey the brand's value.

Topics are not simply pursuits of popularity; they may be the core of brand building, for example, by leveraging the sense of meaning extended by attitudes such as "female growth" and "independent self" to build a brand image.

In a nutshell, I think IP endorsements and KOL content should be repeatedly mentioned as the first dimension. Therefore, IP, advertising and brand need to be highly consistent, and the fans and users of IP also need to be highly consistent with the potential users of the brand. Only in this way can the circle effect of functional products be more obvious.

Overall:

The promotion of functional products goes beyond functions.

The more intense the competition, the more important the marketing strategy becomes. Old methods may not work in new places, and brands still need to consider their own actual situation. At the same time, they must also pay attention to user needs to avoid backlash.

Author: Wang Zhiyuan, public account: Wang Zhiyuan