A few years ago, it was difficult to find China brands in the world's high-end makeup market, and most of China's beauty market was occupied by brands such as the United States, Japan and South Korea. But with the emergence and growth of domestic beauty players, this phenomenon has been reversed.

From large advertisements in elevators to celebrity endorsements and bloggers bringing goods, domestic beauty seems to have been riding the dust. More importantly, beauty has become a benchmark industry in the trend of new domestic products.

However, behind the heat wave, some industrial problems are gradually exposed. On platforms such as Xiaohongshu and Didi, many bloggers have given "lightning protection guidelines" in the evaluation of domestic beauty products; Some bloggers even pointed out that some domestic brands have plagiarism and imitation in design.

When domestic beauty cosmetics were in full swing, a pot of cold water poured down.

About five years ago, when Guo Xianger first started as a beauty blogger, she found that beauty bloggers rarely used domestic beauty products.

It's only been a few years now, and she has seen that most beauty bloggers have several domestic products. In her own videos, domestic brands appear in almost every issue.

Especially with the rise of a wave of "new domestic products" in China, beauty cosmetics, as a representative industry, is in the limelight for a while. Among the rising brands, the most dazzling ones are Perfect Diary and Huaxi Zi.

20 17 years, the perfect diary was born. In just two years, the sales of the parent company reached 3.5 billion yuan. In the same year that The Perfect Diary was published, the birthday was born. Also in these two years, its annual sales of Tmall reached nearly 2 billion yuan.

In this year's Tmall 6 18 makeup brand TOP 10, flowers and perfect diary ranked first and third respectively.

New domestic brands emerge one after another. For example, in March 2020, a domestic skin care brand named PMPM was launched. According to public data, the GMV of the brand was 6.5438+0.5 million yuan in the month when it was launched. After half a year, GMV increased by 654.38+0.000 times.

The amazing rise speed of domestic beauty cosmetics can't help but make people stunned. "It is rare to see which international beauty brand can achieve such a volume in a few years." Diu Diu, the founder of Xin Ran advertising beauty blogger, told Pioneering Frontier.

Cutting-edge beauty cosmetics became popular overnight and quickly opened the market, which became the eagerly awaited goal of many domestic brands. But this speed of development has also led to the gradual impetuous market.

On platforms such as Xiaohongshu and Tik Tok, some beauty bloggers pointed out that some products are not easy to use in makeup evaluation.

"To be honest, there is no makeup that makes me satisfied in domestic products now." Senior beauty blogger "Luo" is outspoken in the video.

The performance of some make-up products is not satisfactory. In the product evaluation in China, Luo once criticized China's "Songyan Eyeliner" and "Songyan Butterfly Feather Mascara (Slim Edition)". "The eyeliner is like the mark of a primary school student, and the eyelashes are caked and not long." He said in the video.

In addition to the product quality being spit out, there is a more serious problem in the domestic beauty industry-brands may imitate or even copy each other.

Diu Diu revealed that some domestic brands of cosmetics or skin care products will find some mature foreign brands for 1: 1 re-engraving. "The most is to change the LOGO and establish your own concept."

On the beep, UP boss "Open-shelf King Boy" once released a video to take stock of "copying" domestic brands of other beauty brands.

She mentioned in the video, for example, a lipstick package of NOVO is similar to YSL except for LOGO, but the color number is very different.

Figure/Video screenshot of "The King of the Kings"

Some domestic beauty players not only copy foreign brands, but also have serious involution between domestic brands.

"Susisu (a domestic make-up brand) has launched a quicksand eye shadow tray, which is beautifully packaged. The price of Taobao flagship store is 148 yuan. A few days after the launch of this product, a number of products with almost the same appearance appeared on the market. " Diu diu means.

According to the rough statistics of Pioneer, besides mr.zhou, there are at least six similar eye shadows on Taobao, among which 1 is a Thai brand. Of these seven products, the cheapest one is only sold at 1 1.5 yuan. There are two other products, but the eye shadow tray is changed from square to round, and the design has not changed much.

Figure/Taobao screenshot

Imitation, plagiarism, involution ... It seems that domestic beauty products that run for their lives also need a pot of cold water to cool down.

Not only is the product extremely involuted, but the strong marketing attributes of the beauty industry also make traffic the lifeline of the product.

"If you are exposed to cosmetics for a long time, you will see many helpless phenomena. It is grandpa who has money to promote, standing at the top of the food chain, and those who have no money to promote are buried under the iceberg. " The little red book beauty blogger "Ollie Oris" said in the video.

With the emergence of new brands, in order to get out of the circle, brand owners have to spend some time on marketing. And some domestic beauty brands are well known to the public, and they really rely on high-frequency marketing.

"The frequency of domestic beauty advertisements is very high. There are several brands that have regular cooperation with me. As soon as the new product is launched, it will be promoted. When they are frequent, there will be two or three advertisements a month. " Guo Xianger said.

In marketing tactics, domestic beauty brands also show differences with international brands.

"International brands are well known to consumers. The main purpose of their marketing is to enhance the brand influence, so they will cooperate with celebrities, heads and other heavyweights to promote. " Diu diu said.

Domestic beauty brands are better at using "crowd tactics". "For example, some brands will even cooperate with more than 65,438+0,000 bloggers in a single month to promote their star products." Diu diu introduction. "Many domestic brands don't have much demand for the order of KOL in the initial stage of promotion. One is to save costs, and the other is that their popularity is not big enough, and they may not be able to cooperate with head bloggers and stars in the growth period. "

However, domestic beauty cosmetics are gradually moving closer to international brands, and an obvious performance is to find celebrity endorsements.

In June 5438 +2020 10, Zhou Xun officially announced to be the global spokesperson of the perfect diary brand; In May of this year, Dilraba officially announced that he would become the global spokesperson for the colorkey brand. ...

There are also differences between domestic brands and international brands in the evaluation criteria of marketing effect. Unlike international brands that emphasize the subtle influence of marketing on consumers, domestic brands pay more attention to instant conversion rate, that is, the effect of bringing goods.

The most intuitive performance is that many bloggers have added shopping links or soft implants to their videos. When choosing KOL, brands will also measure the data of their historical commodities and cooperate with bloggers who choose higher prices.

"Users have the habit of buying international brands and may consume them at any time, but for domestic products, consumers will not buy them today and may not take the initiative to buy them in the future." Diu diu said.

In addition, the low pricing of domestic brands and the low cost of trial and error for consumers also make it possible to evaluate the instant conversion rate of brands.

Overwhelming marketing seems to be the key password for new brands to break the circle. Naturally, they also invest a lot in marketing. "As far as I know, there are no fewer than five domestic beauty brands with a marketing budget of over 100 million this year." Diu diu said.

Too frequent marketing may attract users' disgust. "When bloggers on all platforms are pushing the same product, consumers will inevitably have rebellious psychology."

Too much marketing investment will naturally reduce the cost of product research and development. This has also led to some domestic beauty brands being called "marketing with heart and making products with feet" by the outside world.

Beauty brands are crazy about marketing, but do they make money?

I don't think so

Diu Diu said that the marketing expenses of most products often account for 50%-60%, including anchor commission and pure grass marketing. Plus the cost of operation and maintenance, manpower and warehousing, the brand can hardly make any money.

But in order to gain a firm foothold in the market, marketing is both helpless and inevitable for brands.

"I sometimes feel that some brands pay too much attention to marketing, but there is no way. As a person in the beauty industry, I know about new products through marketing, not to mention consumers. " Guo Xianger said.

"There are some very old cosmetics brands with good research and development capabilities and product quality, but the products are not hot." Diu Diu also noticed the influence of marketing on products.

There may be two reasons behind this, one is that the brand's marketing ideas can't keep up, and the other is that there is no money to do marketing.

"Some brand-new products are put on the shelves, and 500 to 1000 talents are sought for promotion at one time, while some traditional domestic brands place their hopes on' tap water'. However, the quantity and volume of' tap water' obviously cannot compete with the pyramid promotion of new brands. There are still some old players who know how to do marketing, but their ideas and styles are not fast enough, so they have been eliminated by the market in the wave of Internet e-commerce. " Diu diu said.

This makes it difficult for domestic brands to reach consumers without marketing. Insufficient marketing can't stimulate splash, and too much marketing will lead to consumer disgust. This is an uncontrollable battle.

Another problem facing domestic beauty cosmetics comes from consumers' rigid cognition.

In the eyes of many consumers, domestic brands are equivalent to "cheap prices", and few consumers are willing to see the design and product development behind the products. This also leads to the lack of motivation for brands to increase R&D costs in the short term.

Fortunately, the domestic beauty industry is full of thorns, and there are also some products with both reputation and quality.

Guo Xianger once bought a khaki eyebrow pencil and a 9.9 yuan eyebrow pencil. "The color and durability are good, and it won't agglomerate. The painted eyebrows are deeply rooted. " She said.

She once compared the "khaki" eyebrow pencil with the American makeup brand "Bellingfield" whose price is more than 160 yuan. "Using these two eyebrows to brush the eyebrows on the left and right sides, I can't see any difference, and even think that' khaki' looks better."

Although some products have been spit out, domestic beauty cosmetics may still be worth the patience of consumers. "Even if it is an international brand, no product is perfect. For example, if a lip glaze is bright, it must be sticky; If it is matte, then I accept it to some extent. " Guo Xiang said.

Surprisingly, the growth space of domestic beauty cosmetics is not limited to the domestic market, and brands such as Huaxi Zi, Perfect Diary, Zhiyouquan and Tangduo are all seeking to go to sea.

"In 2020, we began to work hard to go to sea. By the end of May, 2002 1, Perfect Diary had become the number one cosmetics sales volume on Shopee platform in Vietnam, the number one cosmetics sales volume in Singapore and Malaysia, and the sales volume of loose powder products in Philippine market was1." The person in charge of the perfect diary said.

Most domestic beauty brands set their first stop at sea in Japan, South Korea and Southeast Asian countries, and these products with China imprint are also very popular overseas.

"The concentric lock lipstick with China elements sold out quickly on the first day of listing and once entered the top three of the Japanese Amazon lipstick sales list." The relevant person in charge of China said.

There are also Japanese netizens who marvel at China's West Lake Seal Gift Box, which inherits the craft design of oriental aesthetics, and its related Twitter content was once on the Japanese Twitter hot search. "According to feedback from many users, our Miao Impression Gift Box has also triggered reverse purchase by Japanese users, and the price has even been fired to 900 yuan to 2,000 yuan." The person in charge added.

Figure/China Official (Hua Tongxin Lock Lipstick)

It is undeniable that domestic beauty cosmetics are indeed immature, but users should also dialectically look at the achievements made in a short time. There is no perfect person, and there is no perfect brand.

In the domestic beauty industry, giants and upstarts are constantly emerging. But if you want to further expand the territory, players need to come up with more chips.