Chapter 8 Yue-Sai VS Maxam: Two Destinies for Chinese Brands

Yue-Sai and Maxam used to be two "advantageous" brands in China. They have encountered the fate of being "acquired" by foreign daily chemical giants in the process of China's economy gradually integrating into the international economy. Now we see that a After the injury, they "remarried" for the second time. After ten years of silence, they made a bold statement to revive the old brand. The glory of yesterday has gone. We are concerned about their future fate. The following two cases are from different They have been analyzed from different angles, and the results of the analysis may provide us with some information to interpret their fate.

Compared with those multinational companies known as "local brand killers", L'Oreal is very different-not only will the acquired local brand not suffer the fate of being frozen, on the contrary, it can also sail to the international market with the help of L'Oreal's multi-brand ship melt the ocean.All this is entirely due to the brand management method that Owen Zhong Lindsay, CEO of L'Oreal Group, is best at—acquiring regional brands with development potential around the world, and making them a global brand through L'Oreal's international packaging and R&D support Or a leading brand in a certain region, such as the famous case "Maybelline·New York".

This company known as "brand acquisition and packaging expert" is now interpreting a story of the internationalization of Chinese brands. On January 23, 2004, L'Oreal fully acquired Yue Sai, a Chinese cosmetics and skin care brand under the Coty Group (Coty).More than a year later, on April 22, 2005, L'Oreal launched a high-profile new product in Shanghai after the Yue-Sai brand changed hands, and outlined a bright future for the internationalization of the Yue-Sai brand. Ms. Jin Yuxi, the founder of the Yu-Sai brand, repeatedly commented on this: "This time, I married the right one."

In 1907, the French chemist Eugène Schueller, who invented the world's first synthetic hair dye, founded L'Oreal.After a century of hard work, L'Oreal has become a leader in the world's cosmetics industry from a small family business. Today, L’Oreal has made great achievements in the mid-to-high-end cosmetics market in China: L’Oreal Paris has occupied the high-end hair dye market, Lancome has firmly occupied the high-end cosmetics market, Maybelline has firmly controlled the color cosmetics market, and Vichy, which is sold in pharmacies, has also become the leading brand in the active and healthy cosmetics market. Behind these mid-to-high-end cosmetics, L'Oreal still has a heart problem--L'Oreal has always been blank in China's mass cosmetics market.

L'Oreal believes that although the market for mid-to-high-end products is lucrative, it must expand new markets if it wants to seek a broader development space. In particular, the Chinese market is different from the European, American and Japanese markets. The Chinese market is huge and has many consumption gradients. The cosmetics segment has the largest market share, and the price factor restricts consumers' purchase direction. In 2003, L'Oreal began to implement the price strategy, and the average price drop of its subsidiary Maybelline was between 10% and 30%. This move allowed Maybelline to gain more customers and greatly improved brand awareness.Driven by Maybelline, L'Oreal Group's sales in China in 2003 soared by 69.3% compared with 2002, and the annual sales reached 159 million euros, an increase of 824% compared to 1997 when it just entered China.

Maybelline's successful price reduction has made L'Oreal firm its determination to focus on China's mass cosmetics market after completing the layout of the high-end market.Guy Paul, president of L'Oreal China, said: "China's mass cosmetics market has huge potential." The mature local mass cosmetics brand naturally became the prey of L'Oreal. In early December 2003, L'Oreal acquired the successful local mass cosmetics brand Little Nursing in China. 45 days later, L'Oreal completed the acquisition of Yue Sai before its competitor Procter & Gamble.

Undoubtedly, Yue-Sai is a very successful local mass brand – thanks to the successful operation of Ms. Jin Yu-Sai, many people have always thought that Yue-Sai is a foreign brand, and they have a high degree of loyalty to the brand. After the acquisition of Yue Sai, L’Oreal not only enriched its product line, but also used its own resources to realize the complementarity of local brand sales channels with its existing channels—China’s sales channels are expensive and complicated, while Yue Sai has 800 counters in 250 cities in China. Sales channels. More importantly, L'Oreal claims to be a beautiful company, and the acquisition of Yue Sai reflects its understanding of beauty. "We never think that there is only one model of beauty in the world. People with different regions, different cultural backgrounds, different ages, and different genders have different understandings of beauty. So we never try to promote it globally A model of beauty. People have different perceptions of beauty and have different demands for beauty products. As a professional cosmetics company, we are very sensitive to the needs and changes of consumers at different levels in various places, and always stand on the consumer Research and develop products from the perspective of consumers’ needs, and provide them with different brands and products to choose from.” Gai Paulo said.

Acquisition by Xuezang is a terrible nightmare for local brands. Some old-fashioned daily chemical companies all had a history of "blood and tears" in the 1990s. In 1994, "Panda", which is famous in the domestic washing powder market, entered into a joint venture with Procter & Gamble. Beijing Daily Chemical No. 2 Factory participated in 35% of the shares with its brand and factory buildings, and Procter & Gamble held 65% of the shares in the joint venture company and paid 140 million yuan to buy out Obtained the right to use the "Panda" brand for 50 years.However, everything Procter & Gamble did after the acquisition of "Panda" was just paving the way for the expansion of its own laundry detergent brand.Seven years after the joint venture, the annual output of "Panda" dropped from 60,000 tons to only 4,000 tons in 2000, and the national market share plummeted from 10% to 15%.Procter & Gamble quietly killed this once strong opponent, but its own laundry detergent brands "Tide" and "Ariel" have become strong brands in the Chinese laundry detergent market.

A similar scene also appeared in Shanghai "Magajing", but the protagonist became Unilever.Founded in 1962 and whose export volume once accounted for 70% of the country's total toothpaste export volume, "Maganet" leased the brand to Unilever in the 1990s, but everything Unilever did was also for its own brand " Jie Nuo” gave way, and finally the position of MAXAC toothpaste in the domestic and foreign markets took a sharp turn for the worse. The annual sales volume dropped from 60 million in 1994 to 20 million in 2000. Although both "Panda" and "MAXAM" were finally redeemed by the Chinese side, the market situation is no longer the same as it was at the time of glory, and it will not be overnight to revive the country and turn the tide.And these more and more unfortunate cases appearing in the process of local brand joint ventures have led many people to draw the conclusion that this is a common strategy for multinational companies to murder local brands in order to achieve market monopoly.

Will Yue Sai be hidden in the snow?Many people are concerned about Yue Sai's acquisition.Before "marrying" L'Oreal, Yu-Sai Jin, the founder of the Yue-Sai brand, also had a painful "marriage" experience.Internationalization is Jin Yu-Sai's biggest dream. In order to realize this dream, in May 1996, Yue-Sai entered into a joint venture with Coty, the world's fifth largest cosmetics company, hoping to use this multinational giant to market to overseas markets. However, in 1999, COTY Due to the strategic transformation of Yu-Sai, Yue-Sai's long-term overseas dream has not come true.

Now, when Yu-Sai Jin recalled the experience of the joint venture with Coty (COTY) last time, he used one word to describe it-"same bed, different dreams". "But this time, I married the right one." Yue-Sai Jin said with a smile, "I firmly believe that L'Oreal will help me realize the great dream of Yue-Sai's internationalization." Guy Paul does not shy away from questions about snow storage and the like.He emphasized that L'Oreal is by no means a local brand killer, but attaches great importance to brand development, which is what makes L'Oreal different. "Some multinational companies buy local brands and hide them for nothing more than to reduce competition. This is a very stupid behavior. If it is to reduce competition, why don't they acquire all the brands in this industry?" Careful people found that after the transformation of L'Oreal, the once iconic "China Red" no longer stands alone, and various fashionable colors permeate the products, and the first image spokesperson hired - Hong Kong movie star Shu Qi embodies Yue Sai huge change. "Shu Qi and the print advertisements she shot for Yue Sai make people feel that Yue Sai has become younger, more fashionable and more international." This is how most people described their direct feelings after Yue Sai changed his face. But L'Oreal believes that the charm of China under Yue Sai's Chinese blood has not diminished in the slightest. "Yue-Sai still represents a kind of Chinese-style beauty," Gai Paulo explained, "L'Oreal's acquisition of Yue-Sai has enriched the product range of Yue-Sai, advocating a new concept of 'fashion, delicacy, and luxury'." After completing the acquisition of Yue-Sai, the next step for L'Oreal is to transform Yue-Sai into an international brand just like Maybelline.Mr. Feng Jianuo, Director of Global Market Development of Yue-Sai, introduced to the reporter the three missions of L'Oreal after acquiring Yue-Sai: 1. To deepen the brand concept and launch a new brand concept; 2. To create a unique and beautiful new fashion; Feminine beauty is promoted to the forefront of international fashion and to every corner of the world. In this regard, L'Oreal has set up a Yue-Sai R&D center and a Yue-Sai global market development department in Shanghai.It is reported that the Yu-Sai R&D Center is an expansion of the original Pudong R&D Center in Yue-Sai. It is the fourth R&D center in the world after Paris, New York and Tokyo. Research and development, but focusing on research and development of Chinese raw materials and formulations.The new products announced at this event are the research results of the R&D center. Jin Yuxi happily told the reporter that she is very satisfied that L'Oreal cherishes her "children" so much: "L'Oreal has found the best talents from the 17 brands under the group to form Yue-Sai's international team. I believe this 'dream team' can Fulfilling my dream of going abroad." However, Gai Paulo did not disclose the approximate cost of internationalizing Yu-Sai. "This is a figure that is difficult to calculate separately. In the past, L'Oreal created Maybelline and Shu Uemura did not have such a separate calculation. For example, the investment in the R&D center includes all its products, so it is difficult to say how much investment is devoted to a certain brand. .” But Guy Paul told the reporter confidently that he is sure to internationalize Yue-Sai. "We always say that beauty is not a single model. We provide products with French characteristics, North American characteristics, and Japanese characteristics because of different races, cultures, habits, and channels. Beauty with Chinese characteristics is also It will become a model of beauty that attracts other consumers around the world. Can you say that beauty with Chinese characteristics cannot also become a beauty trend?" Gai Paulo's words confirm a famous saying of Owen, CEO of L'Oreal Group, that is, "we must not make people feel that we are imposing Western aesthetic tastes on the people of the world." "However, the premise of internationalization is to do a good job in China first. China has become the main market with the fastest growth rate of L'Oreal Group. It has almost doubled, and sales have reached nearly 3 billion yuan. After doing well in China, we will gradually promote it to Asia, Europe, and North America.” He also emphasized. "Today, brand-new products, brand-new formulas, brand-new image spokespersons, and brand-new marketing methods are just the first step to do a good job in the Chinese market and the first step to internationalization. The road to internationalization that can be revealed is now also It can only be the first step." "In Europe, L'Oreal Group is known as the business school of marketing." Zhou Genliang, public relations manager of L'Oreal China, told reporters. L'Oreal is a company that emphasizes internal growth, and more than 80% of the annual growth comes from within. At the same time, for acquired brands, L'Oreal has a set of successful brand experience in international transformation.Before Yue Sai, two famous cases of L'Oreal's acquisition and successful packaging were Maybelline and Shu Uemura. In 1996, L'Oreal bought Maybelline for $758 million.Shortly after the acquisition, L'Oréal moved its headquarters from Memphis to New York.When entering the overseas market, L'Oreal followed the example of its flagship product - "L'Oreal Paris" and added the word "New York" after the Maybelline trademark.This is to tell consumers that it is a product from New York, representing sexy, international and latest fashion. In 2002, L'Oreal occupied 19% of the global market share, becoming the world's number one cosmetics brand. "L'Oréal completely reinvented its otherwise lifeless packaging and rebranded it as 'Maybelline New York'. Because New York is considered the birthplace of fashion in the eyes of consumers in many parts of the world. This strategy proved to be extremely successful From 1996 to 2002, Maybelline's sales in markets outside the United States increased by 93%." Zhou Genliang said. Like Maybelline, a popular brand, Shu Uemura, a high-end brand, has also gone through a process from acquisition to development.L'Oreal also made full use of the advantages of capital, technology and international marketing capabilities to successfully expand the Japanese brand Shu Uemura to 16 countries and regions in Asia in just a few years, making it quickly transform from a traditional Japanese professional makeup brand into a comprehensive professional beauty International brand. "These acquisitions and repackaging strategies reflect L'Oreal's strategy of diversification and internationalization." Zhou Genliang said. At present, L’Oreal’s Lancome, Vichy, Maybelline and other famous brands with different connotations are all obtained from acquisitions. Most of the global reputation of these brands is “acquired” by L’Oreal. Previously, most of these brands were excellent brands in a certain region. "It is the mission of L'Oreal to carry forward the packaging after the acquisition." He smiled and told reporters, "The purpose of L'Oreal's acquisition is not to increase short-term benefits, but to hope that this potential brand can be synergistic with L'Oreal's network and resources. With the synergy of the effect, it becomes a member of L'Oreal's diversified and international brand family." Gai Paulo said: "L'Oreal's brand management has a history of nearly 100 years, and the company's history is also the history of brand management." Today, the L'Oreal Group owns more than 500 brands, 17 of which are internationally renowned brands, accounting for 94% of the total sales of the L'Oreal Group.At present, 10 brands have been introduced into China. With the addition of Little Nurse and Yue Sai, which have just been acquired, L'Oreal currently owns 12 brands in China. According to the pyramid theory expounded by Gai Paulo, L'Oreal's brand framework in China includes three parts: high-end, mid-range and low-end: Spire part.The first high-end brand is Helena, whose product quality and price are the highest among the 12 brands, and the age of the consumer groups it faces is also relatively high, and they have strong spending power; the second brand is the world's most famous Lancome, one of the high-end cosmetic brands, has consumers who are younger than Helena and has considerable spending power; the third brand is Biotherm, which is aimed at young and fashionable consumers with certain spending power. A stepping stone for consumers to enter high-end cosmetics, its price is also lower than that of Helena and Lancôme.These products are mainly sold in high-end department stores. Lancôme has 45 counters in 22 cities, and currently ranks first in China's high-end cosmetics market, while Biotherm ranks fourth.However, Helena only entered China in October 2000, and currently there are only 6 sales points in the country's most high-end department stores. middle part.Mid-end brands are divided into two parts: one part is hairdressing products, including Kérastase and L'Oreal Professional Hairdressing.Kérastase is a high-end brand in the field of hair coloring, and its positioning is higher than L’Oreal’s professional hairdressing. Their sales channels are hair salons and professional hairdressing shops. L’Oreal believes that this sales model also allows consumers to have the opportunity to receive professional services from professional hairstylists, and the use effect will be better. it is good.The other part is active health cosmetics, there are two brands of Vichy and La Roche-Posay, which are sold through pharmacies. Root part.In the mass market, there are currently 5 brands in China.Among them, L'Oreal Paris is the most high-end. It has skin care, make-up, hair dye and other products. It has counters in more than 500 department stores across the country, and is also sold in large supermarkets such as Carrefour and Wal-Mart.The third brand is Maybelline, which ranks first in the global and Chinese cosmetics field. It has entered 600 cities and has 12,000 counters.The fourth brand is Garnier. At present, it mainly introduces hair coloring products in China. Compared with L'Oreal, it is more popular, young and fashionable, and it is sold in more than 5,000 sales points in China.The fifth brand is Little Nurse, which is aimed at young consumers who pursue natural beauty, with a market recognition of more than 90%. It currently has 280,000 sales points in China, covering second- and third-tier counties and cities. Yue Sai is the second brand in the Tagen section, continuing to adhere to the concept of "designed for Asian skin", and it is sold in 800 department stores in more than 240 cities across the country. Yue-Sai is an important member of the L'Oreal brand family and bears the heavy responsibility of competing with Olay, a subsidiary of Procter & Gamble's competitor, in China.Olay has gained considerable loyalty in the minds of Chinese mass consumers, and Yue Sai, which has been reborn, has more expectations from L'Oreal. L'Oreal is such an interesting company, as someone aptly described it: "acquire all kinds of eccentric brands that represent different cultures, create a set of French-style elegant packaging, and then promote it to fine-tuned products with different delicate needs. In the segmented market, with the precise market positioning of various brands and different channels, L’Oreal can use different images to reach different customer groups with great differences.” For a period of time, the revival of old brands has become the most concerned topic of some local government executives. Between the "performance project" and the "popular project", they suddenly seem to have found the best feeling: on the one hand, most of the old brands are related to Cultural inheritance, although the Chinese are the least good at respecting history, if anyone really wants to cut off the blood of history, someone must stand up and protest in the name of "the people". Therefore, protecting old brands, especially Chinese time-honored brands, in a sense On the other hand, since the old brand has a certain basis of public (consumer) cognition, if you add some more investment, advertise, change CI, engage in promotion, let the company restructure or go public, you will be busy for a while. The dust on old brands can always be wiped off, and performance recovery is just around the corner—at least from the perspective of administrative will, this logic is reasonable and unavoidably exciting. However, as far as the facts are concerned, the process of revival of old brands is full of twists and turns, and even a lot of unimaginable things happened, and many old brands did not wait for their own rebirth, but died in the lost way of going around and wandering. . Even so, "thousands of sails pass by the side of a sinking boat, and ten thousand trees spring before a sick tree", some people who are concerned about the revival of old brands have "if you don't succeed, you will be benevolent" or "a dead horse will be treated as a living horse doctor", "there are still three days before the ship dies". Companies with a "thousand nails" mentality are still seeking ways to make progress. It can be seen that as long as they don't die, their dreams and efforts will not stop.However, where can we see the hope of rebirth and ZTE? We take Shanghai Jahwa's attempt to revive MAXAM as a case study. Regarding the dispute between reviving an old brand and creating a new one, Wang Zhuo, deputy general manager of strategy and marketing of Shanghai Jahwa, once explained his point of view at a forum convened by CCTV in early 2005.He used the real estate market in Shanghai as an example to explain his own inclination—to be honest, after getting closer to Wang Zhuo, you can roughly find that this is at most Wang Zhuo’s "inclination" as a member of the company.This metaphor basically means that houses in Lujiazui, Pudong, Shanghai are very expensive to sell, more than 20,000 yuan per square meter. A four-bedroom house of 150 square meters costs about three to four million yuan, and a villa can sell for five million yuan. Yuan.But they are not considered the "Lord of Buildings" in Shanghai. "Lower King" is an old house in the area of ​​Huashan Road. After repairs, it can be easily sold at a super high price of 10 million yuan. Even after buying the old house, the buyer cannot make any big moves without authorization. modification. This metaphor seems to be just right to emphasize that the "revival of the old brand is justified", but if you look carefully, it is obviously a way of changing the concept.Because the selling price of old houses is high, in addition to time factors, geographical factors, and supply and demand factors that rarity is more expensive, the most important thing is cultural factors, that is to say, the historical celebrities who lived in these old houses. The circle and its related stories constitute the key elements of the popularity of old houses. As an old brand of cosmetics, Maxam, although consumers yearn for it in the era of shortage economy, only a few urban people can afford it. However, in addition to the factors of the abnormal era, the former consumers retain some intimacy in their minds. Maxam In the brand, there is no such thing as a profound cultural factor.This is the biggest difference between Maxam and old houses, and there is no inevitable fit between revitalizing Maxam and rebuilding old houses. That is to say, if each enterprise provides at least one motivation or one assumption for its own business behavior, Shanghai Jahwa regards the revival of MAXAM as the main support for its future development strategy, and its motivation or assumption has been wrong from the very beginning. In fact, not only Jahwa in Shanghai is engaged in the revival of old brands. Companies such as Guanshengyuan, Phoenix Bicycle, Forever Bicycle, Laofengxiang Silver Building, Bright Dairy, Conch, and Hengyuanxiang are all busy revitalizing old brands.Although Wang Zhuo on the stage gave a metaphor that seems to be "reasonable for rejuvenation", in private, he frankly admitted that the current view that the old brands should be abandoned is the mainstream. There are so many old brands in Shanghai revival, but the road will be difficult, and The revival of MAXAM, there are still opportunities in the market, but "it is a last choice." As the company most qualified to undertake the task of local skin care brands attacking "Western powers" such as Procter & Gamble, L'Oreal, and Unilever, in 2003, when Shanghai Jahwa formulated its medium-term development strategy, it had to accept that although it had many brands, The embarrassing fact that the dragons have no leader. For example, Liushen has flourished in the toilet water market, but it is limited to the summer bathing market. It is not only inappropriate to transplant the brand appeal of "removing prickly heat and relieving itching" to skin care products, but on the contrary, this kind of random extension may dilute the six God's original brand equity is in danger.The grade of the concubine Qing is not suitable for the large distribution area for the time being, such as selling on the shelves of supermarkets.Herborist is generally following the path of high-end specialty stores.Therefore, in order to enter the mass skin care market, the above-mentioned brands are obviously unable to undertake this tough task.However, some of the original low-end products that are also taking the popular route, such as Yashuang and Friendship, are only some particularly strong regional brands.For example, Yashuang sells well in East China and the Central Plains, but not in other places. Friendship is very popular in the Northeast market, but the influence in the customs is very small. Of course, it is not that Shanghai Jahwa has never considered creating a new brand, but the "abortion" experience in the past few years has made them lose confidence.They tried Shuxin (sound) and made Yuze mask, but the failure rate was too high. In this way, there is actually only one MAXAM to choose from, and it is only a choice after exclusion.Although the "injured" Meganet was redeemed from SC Johnson at a high price in 1994, it has been "refrigerated" for nearly 10 years during the indecision and hesitation of the Shanghai Jahwa leadership. ——Regarding this point, Ge Wenyao, chairman of Shanghai Jahwa, told the press more than once that he was responsible for the strategic hesitation. From the outside, first of all, there are still great opportunities in the skin care products market, and the improvement of living standards will inevitably make most of the 1.3 billion Chinese people gradually know how to take care of their bodies.Secondly, a group of loyal customers, no matter whether Shanghai Jahwa does marketing or not, they still buy Maxam. With such consolidation of resources and comprehensive consideration of internal and external factors, Shanghai Jahwa finally "gambled" on the old brand Maxam, hoping that the revival of Maxam would play a flagship role and drive the revival of Shanghai Jahwa.In an interview with a well-known financial newspaper reporter, Ge Wenyao even made a high-profile statement: "The strategy of revitalizing MAXAM will remain unchanged for 10 to 15 years." The problem is, as a state-owned enterprise (despite its subordinate company), since Ge Wenyao can "refrigerate" MAXAM for 10 years without hindering its leadership position, then even if the 10-year strategy of reviving MAXAM is wrong again, who will really be so Heartache?In the state-owned enterprise, where the pH is seriously out of balance, any bitter fruit can be forgiven.The biggest shadow of the revival of Maxam and even the revival of Shanghai Jahwa is: whether the enterprise operates for the so-called national sentiment or "can't breathe", or is it really returned to a profit-seeking organization to operate.If I knew that "Meganet" would have to be refrigerated for 10 years before it was released, why did I spend a lot of money to buy it back from foreign businessmen?Since it spent a lot of money to repurchase "Megamin" from foreign businessmen, why can it let it hide its youthful time, and let it wake up after 10 years of hibernation, and it is not long after waking up, and the limbs have not moved yet, so let it be As the main player, go to the arena with international strong players? ——Later, if someone with aspirations writes the history of Chinese companies, the scene that happened to the Shanghai Jahwa Maxam brand must be an unavoidable node: the so-called "forced" strategic choices are often the disaster of their own recklessness.The first is the disaster of the state-owned enterprise system, and as time goes on, it is the disaster of the state-owned enterprise thinking, which has little to do with whether to restructure and go public, even if it is listed overseas. Even now, there is still uncertainty about how firm Shanghai Jahwa is on the issue of reviving MAXAM.This is firstly manifested in the fact that the people of Shanghai Jahwa no longer emphasize that Maxam is a strategic brand, and even deny that the senior management of the company has said "ruthless words" about Fuxing Maxam.Secondly, since September 2004, since September 2004, it has spent 50 million yuan on China Central Television to advertise MAXAM, and what MAXAM has done on the ground (channels, terminals) is currently unclear.In the end, the marketing actions of supporting brands Liushen and Herborist still surpassed the news of Maxam, and the status of Maxam as the main brand is still "only hear the sound of the stairs, but no one comes down". An era has a glory that is bound to be born in an era, just like an era has a mistake that an era is destined to make. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, all parts of the country were creating conditions to attract foreign investment and build development zones.The Cantonese put forward a very vivid concept: "beautiful girls marry first." They sold Huabao, a famous air-conditioning manufacturer, to a Hong Kong businessman. In the end, the "Huabao" brand was put aside, and the unwilling local government had to pay a higher price than the selling price. Repurchase "Huabao" at a higher price.The Shanghainese, who had better face than the Cantonese and therefore sold more, took out almost all the best-quality belongings at home at that time, such as Maxam, Zhonghua toothpaste, Avon pearl cream, etc., which were all controlled by foreign capital.As a result, the rich son-in-law did not intend to help the father-in-law to honor his ancestors. On the contrary, they deliberately used this reasonable and legal way to clear the obstacles for themselves to enter the Chinese market. Founded in 1962, Maxam, a national brand that created the first styling mousse, the first sunscreen, and the first styling hand cream in the Chinese cosmetics market, was almost involved in this foreign acquisition conspiracy , into a situation of eternal doom. In 1990, the market share of Maxam in the national skin care products market was as high as 20%, and the market share of Maxam shampoo was also close to 20%, with a sales revenue of more than 300 million yuan.However, in the first year after the acquisition, the company's performance dropped to 6 million yuan.By the time Shanghai Jahwa reluctantly bought back Maxam in 1994, the rapid development of the industry market had left behind the scarred Maxam, and the new competitors were not polite. .Another 10 years have passed, and the old Seventh Olay and Maxam just exchanged positions. The annual sales of the Olay brand alone is 2 billion yuan, while the performance of Maxam is naturally not very good. ——When Wang Zhuo talked about the symbiotic topic of Maxam’s revival and Shanghai Jahwa’s revival, he clearly stated that if Maxam can recover its market share at its peak and Liushen’s contribution does not decrease, Herborist’s share can be larger. , the revival of Shanghai Jahwa became much simpler. "Pressure is now on MAXAM's revival. Its market share has dropped too much!" In the view of Shanghai Jahwa people, an important sign of brand aging is the decline in market share. Sometimes even if your share does not decline, if it is lower than the average speed of industry development for several consecutive years, you should be vigilant. However, the decline in market share is only a result.Rather than saying that the important sign of a brand’s aging is the decline in market share, it is better to say that consumers lack the motivation to go to this brand. From the perspective of enterprises, it is the brand’s lack of pull to consumers to come closer to them. Relying solely on scattered memories, for corporate brands, expecting consumers to have such "foolish loyalty" is undoubtedly a dream.Maxam has given some consumers good memories, but you can occasionally miss the little girl who held hands with you on the hillside when you were young, but what you face every day at home is the yellow that can accompany you to live with salt, oil, soy sauce, vinegar and tea. face lady. How to wake up consumers' memory? Rather than revive the old brand, it is better to revive the emotions and memories of the old brand in the minds of consumers.Shanghai Jahwa wants to revive MAXAM, and it must implement the strategic thinking of "adhering to MAXAM's unwavering development for 15-20 years". How to implement it is the key. According to Wang Zhuo, in 2004, the first thing they did was to increase the marketing budget by 50%.And where is this budget spent?CCTV advertisement, local media advertisement, promotion and terminal construction.He said that in the past they paid less attention to the role of public relations activities, and in 2005 they will greatly strengthen public relations.The appeal of the advertisement may be based on the theme of nostalgia, which is a little different. The analysis of the role of consumers can probably be regarded as the performance of Shanghai Jahwa people's marketing progress.They believe that the consumers of MAXAM can actually be divided into two categories.The first type of people can afford to buy more expensive products than MAXAM, but they have to buy MAXAM, which is an active choice.The second type of people has limited income and can only afford the net price of US and Canada. This is called passive selection.The work to be done now is to extract the feelings and values ​​of active consumers, promote them, spread them, and attract more passive consumers, making them believe in the correctness of their choices and increasing their income in the future. Can still insist on choosing MAXAM.To put it bluntly, it is to turn more passive consumption behaviors into active and designated purchases through the "precepts and deeds" of the proactive ones.At the same time, we will find out the driving factors from these active consumer values ​​to influence those consumers who often change brands, and ultimately facilitate the company to identify the core active consumer groups and extract the brand that can represent a certain category. Clarify the value orientation, such as Olay spreads a "full self-confidence feeling", Dabao spreads its "popularization and wide adaptability" and so on. Relatively speaking, although MAXAM had a very good value orientation in the 1980s, after the toss of joint ventures and recovery, many things have been displaced.Wang Zhuo made an analogy, "We didn't mark our villages on the value map, so even if consumers pass by us, they don't know what value we can provide, and they can't stay."This means that MAXAM needs to be repositioned, but this is undoubtedly a long process. "The difficulty of Maxam is that it has been silent for so many years. The communication action and scope are too small, and the communication is not timely and insufficient, resulting in a blurred brand image and making consumers feel that Maxam is not very aggressive. But as long as we increase investment and don't waste money, the brand connotation There will be no repeated swings, insist on communicating with consumers, and there will be a result!" Can advertising and PR solve the memory recovery problem of Maxam in the minds of consumers?According to Wang Zhuo, Maxam's market share is currently ranked seventh, and the future goal is to enter the top three.Rough analysis, if you want to join the first lineup of daily chemical giants such as Procter & Gamble, L'Oreal and Avon, unless someone really dreams of the fairy tale version of the "tortoise and the hare" story is performed in reality.Even for local brands such as Dabao, Longliqi, Caishi, etc., the enthusiasm, boldness and persistence of advertising are better than the "intermittent fever" Maxam.As for the intensive cultivation of channels, the degree of humility they bend down is much more mature and pragmatic than Maxam, which is clinging to the "sea goods complex" and not letting go. In other words, advertisements and public relations may awaken some consumers’ emotions and memories of Maxam, but since the investment in this area has not formed a height and intensity of differentiation from competing products, when Maxam makes further progress, other leading brands It may be the same progress or greater progress, then the road to revival of MAXAM appears to be longer.Once the time is too long to lose patience, and other brands under Jahwa have outstanding performance, Maxam's dream of revival must be in the most embarrassing situation. 当年美加净的自动冬眠给了包括玉兰油这样的化妆品品牌以大好的发展机会，而今，一个玉兰油品牌的市场贡献超过上海家化旗下众多品牌所有的市场贡献。尽管如此，王茁表示，从做品牌的角度来说，不相信玉兰油一家可以把“价值地图”插满，就算插满，也可以切割进去。你说自信，我可以表达轻柔。美加净品牌复兴最紧迫的事，就是必须在这样的“价值地图”上占据一座山头，然后插上一面旗帜，旗帜上写着几个大字，这就是你要告诉消费者的属于你的、与众不同的品牌主张。 有了品牌主张，还要大声一点说话。王茁承认，美加净过去多年就有一个不说话的毛病，尤其是不在全国市场说话，久而久之，消费者没有必要对你形成愚忠。 所以，即使是消费基础很好，并且品牌推广的潜规则里有一种“越是老品牌，不不推它也增长；越是新品牌，你下再大力气也推不动”现象，企业仍需对老品牌保持持久的投入，不要成天想着这孩子已经长大了，把奶给其他孩子吃去。事实上，如果把用于新品牌推广的费用专注一点用在老品牌身上，老品牌的复兴会比预想中的容易得多。从2004年起，在家化内部，品牌资源的配置上，美加净与六神基本持平。尽管做六神的员工对此持保留意见。 王茁举可口可乐为例。它已经是世界上第一品牌，但每年仍会花费巨资维护品牌，强化与消费者的沟通。如果它也产生歇几年的想法，那么它的股票表现一定会好看多，但它为什么不那么干？ 对于那些成天嚷嚷要创新的企业，王茁抛出一个观点说一味地创新就等于放弃。那可能是一种遇到困难就想撤退的懒惰行为。也许只要再坚持一会，就会成功，但老是强调创新，老品牌的资产积累就会成问题。断奶之后再恢复喂奶，当然会有些困难。 综上所述，上海家化似乎把复兴美加净的有关问题都想清楚了，看清楚了，然而，作为旁观者，我们仍然看不到美加净在做品牌传播时，向我们传递了什么清晰、新颖的价值主张。知易行难，我们只能审慎地看待美加净的复兴过程。如果做六神不仅给企业创利更大，而且给员工个人可以带来可观收入，他们怎么会乐意去做美加净？王茁没有否认在家化内部，复兴美加净的信心指数远没有做大六神那么高，但资源仍在向美加净倾斜，只是，这一定会有一个限度。 更重要的是，即使美加净能够在空中端出明确价值主张，但地面上上海家化的营销队伍仍不被专家看好。曾在日化行业浸淫多年的俞雷就曾直言不讳“上海家化的销售系统绝对是个二三流的队伍，他们的分销结构有着严重的结构性问题”。在他看来，“经营部+批发商”的模式是上海家化多年来采用的方式。如果说经营部直接操作K/A，批发商操作其余零售网点，那么问题不大。但是现实的情况却是上海家化的经营部几乎都在和自己的批发商抢生意，他们很大程度上还在依靠品牌多年来累积下的老本走大流通渠道冲业绩，对于渠道的精耕细作和经销商管理还相当欠缺研究。而上海家化营销能力被看低的另一命门是，受制于国有企业僵化的人事制度，这家企业大多数的销售管理层（包括大区经理和经营部经理）还都是上海人，俞雷对此发出反诘：“一个没有全国用人胸怀的公司能成就全国的霸业吗？答案是否定的。” 我们当然不想愚妄地宣判美加净复兴之路的死刑。实际上，美加净复兴在家化集团内部提上议程，也不过最近两年的事，所以，它们还在摸索价值主张，加强品牌规划的计划性，还在调和内部的不同声音、统一认识，还在被动地期待民族情感增强、中国消费者自身变得成熟和理性，还在与投鼠忌器、得陇望蜀的思想作斗争，还在尽量降低冒险一击的风险，还在加快国际化人才培养和引进的步伐，这些都是可以理解和值得期待的。 但是，正如宝洁某高层曾对上海家化董事长葛文耀发出过的“威胁”：“只要打倒你的长腿，你就走不了路！”确实，对于“中国驰名商标”美加净而言，一个品牌由4家不同企业共享的隐患也许还不是心腹大患，改变“一条腿长（策应品牌六神）一条腿短（主攻品牌美加净）”的市场不利局面才是最需忧患的事情。如果说过去美加净错过了最从容的发展时间是国企机制和行政意志之错，那么，美加净复兴的最后一战最缺乏的就是从容的时间。这几乎是个轮回报应式的惩罚！但是，西西弗斯仍在运石上山、无暇自怨自艾，普罗米修斯仍在被雷劈鹰啄、不肯屈服求饶，美加净呢？是不是要给自己更多自信？ “SK-II事件”也许可以给中国本土品牌一个启示：跨国公司横亘的大山并非真的不可逾越。在过去制定营销计划，分析强大外企对手的优劣势时，中国人哪能想到安全性这些产品消费的基本元素竟可能是外资产品的软肋？同时这个事件也许会逐渐教育中国消费者：外资产品真的可以精细到减少多少条皱纹，年轻多少岁的程度？宝洁无非是把握了中国人得过且过、最怕认真的心理，所以，它也在用赌的心理。 国际化一直都是羽西最大的梦想，为实现这个梦想，羽西已经走了很长的路，如今欧莱雅高调推出羽西品牌易主后的全新产品，并勾画了羽西品牌国际化的美好前景，羽西品牌创始人靳羽西女士更是说羽西这次嫁对了，现在看来，羽西的梦想似乎很快就会实现，而美加净的复兴仍然是前路茫茫，面对如林的强大外企对手，更显得美加净的势单力薄，再加上自身的种种问题，我们不知道，美加净的未来会是什么样的，我们无法预料，但对于羽西和美加净，我们几乎已经可以看到两种不同的命运已经降临。