Daily chemical products are a product category with absolutely high emotional added value, symbolizing demands that have the characteristics of diversification and personalization. Through brands, they reflect the functional benefits and rational advantages that are focused on, embodying the value, culture, and personality of the product.
Li Jun believed that China's shower gel market was just beginning to rise. Only 30% of the urban population used shower gel, and the penetration rate in rural areas was even lower. The market still had a lot of opportunities. A product with bizarre and unique positioning would surely be able to stand firm. In the market, there were still many such unexplored positioning strategies.
Although multinational companies possess impressive strength and prominent brands, they lack understanding of local tastes and needs. Moreover, in order to maintain the standardization of global operations, they mainly consider the needs of developed markets in product design and cannot provide products that satisfy local preferences according to the needs of emerging markets. Their main target customer group consists of urban residents who pursue fashion. Taking young people in mainland China as an example, they often show great enthusiasm for everything Western. Shanghai Jia Hua does not compete with foreign manufacturers for this market segment but focuses its sales on a larger scope: loyal customers who firmly believe in the efficacy of certain traditional ingredients, and provides relatively low prices.
The launch of Six Gods Shower Gel was due to the strong brand effect that the Six Gods brand already possessed in the market, aiming to maximize the value of the Six Gods brand. On the other hand, facing challenges from multinational companies, Shanghai Jia Hua grasped China's special taste for trusting traditional Chinese medicine in some fields. After analyzing the consumer group, Shanghai Jia Hua launched Six Gods Shower Gel, targeting users of Six Gods flower water and those who have long favored traditional Chinese medicine products.
In recent years, with the continuous expansion of China's shower gel market, multinational companies have increased their efforts in market competition. Companies like Procter & Gamble and Unilever have strengthened their advertising and channel deployment for existing strong brands such as Safeguard and Lux, while also launching new products at different price levels and with different functions. For example, Dove, which ranked first in growth in this survey, was launched by Procter & Gamble in 2003. Now, the price of Six Gods is only about 1/4 cheaper than international top-tier brands.
Two years later, Shanghai Jia Hua launched Six Gods Shower Gel, specifically targeting the Chinese summer personal wash and care products market.
Successful indigenous brand culture blocks international brands
To adapt to new psychological needs, in the past one or two years, Six Gods Shower Gel has shifted from a simple refreshing product appeal to establishing a brand concept of summer, coolness, family, health, and fashion. Certain adjustments have been made in product packaging, advertising promotion, etc., for brand innovation, and the advertising investment has been increased. It aims to attract all users of Six Gods flower water and more young but still interested in Chinese tradition high-end users, seizing some territory from multinational companies. In product development, besides maintaining the original refreshing characteristics, series of products with moisturizing and antibacterial functions have been added, expanding the originally seasonally obvious products to seasons other than summer.
Unique product positioning blocks competitors
Some domestic enterprises have captured a part of the market with low prices, but this part of customers who do not value brands and are sensitive to prices was not the main target group that Six Gods aimed to capture; multinational companies, considering international strategies, lack a certain degree of flexibility in new product development.
However, Six Gods has established a strong national image with its distinct local brand cultural connotation.
Six Gods Shower Gel was the first product to highlight a refreshing positioning in the shower gel market, leading the way and gaining developmental space through time. After its listing, Six Gods quickly achieved success and has always occupied the position of market leader, building a powerful barrier in this positioning. For domestic enterprises, it is now very difficult to compete with Six Gods in terms of enterprise strength and brand.
After the product was launched, it quickly won over most users of Six Gods flower water. By 1998, it had gained the largest market share in the gradually established shower gel market in China, making Six Gods Shower Gel the first brand of summer personal wash and care products in China.
Products from companies like G, UNILEVER, KAO filled the shelves of stores, and using these imported brands became a matter of pride; under intense competitive pressure, some national brands gradually faded away, others became acquisition targets for foreign groups, and the rest mostly struggled bitterly. In the shower gel market, P&G's Safeguard and Unilever's Lux became dazzling stars.
However, Six Gods' unique product positioning became its competitive advantage. We found through investigation that compared to other regions, China places more emphasis on a refreshing feeling after summer showers. Said Li Jun, brand manager of Six Gods.
High loyalty but low favorability seeks brand innovation
At the same time, since Six Gods flower water still maintains a vigorous life in many regions, especially south of the Yellow River, multinational companies disdain to enter this field. Therefore, Six Gods flower water has unmatched brand influence in this area. In recent years, Shanghai Jia Hua has also strengthened brand innovation work for Six Gods flower water, striving to attract more younger audiences, which positively impacts Six Gods Shower Gel.
Due to the establishment of a strong product positioning differentiation, Six Gods Shower Gel avoided price competition to a certain extent, maintaining a good profit level, with a gross margin of about 22%.
In the mainstream consumption market of core cities, Six Gods faces squeezing from international brands; regional brands attempt to seize a share of Six Gods' market share based on their price advantages. Medium and small daily chemical factories represented by Zhongshan, Guangdong, also rely on geographical advantages and cost advantages to launch some widely recognized brands in regional markets, such as Aoxue. These brands' lowest prices are merely half of Six Gods Shower Gel's.
Therefore, in product appeals, unlike most international brands that promote moisturizing and antibacterial functions, Six Gods Shower Gel highlights the cool and refreshing sensation of the product, continuing the traditional style of Six Gods flower water, naturally associating with the enhancement of heat-clearing effects by Chinese medicine components. Thus, Six Gods Shower Gel established its unique refreshing image.
Daily chemical products are fashionable items, and the psychology of seeking novelty and change is relatively evident in this industry. Although Six Gods Shower Gel seized a significant market share advantage through its localized brand cultural connotation and unique product positioning, and maintained this advantage over a long period due to usage habit inertia, many people have a high loyalty to Six Gods Shower Gel but low favorability, thinking the product lacks a sense of fashion. This indicates that Six Gods Shower Gel faces the tendency of brand aging.
Since the end of the 20th century, internationally renowned daily chemical groups have started treating the Chinese market as one of the emerging sources of profit. They wield considerable power in the Chinese market with mature product systems, advanced promotional methods, and substantial financial guarantees. For a time, P...
In the early stages of the opening up of the Chinese market, enterprises generally believed that multinational companies would sweep across the entire Chinese market. The strategy of Six Gods Shower Gel provided an elegant explanation of how Chinese local companies can use local advantages.
Six Gods or the six deities are the names of traditional Chinese medicine prescriptions used to treat prickly heat and other summer diseases, with main ingredients being pearl powder and musk. According to this prescription, in 1993, Shanghai Jia Hua launched Six Gods flower water for summer use. With clear product appeals of preventing prickly heat and itching and invigorating the mind, this brand quickly won 60% of the flower water market share.
Facing the strong foreign competitors, Six Gods grasped China's special trust in traditional Chinese medical culture, thereby establishing a unique product positioning - shower gel with Chinese medicine components, creating a strong market differentiation. Under the strong attacks from multinational companies like Procter & Gamble and Unilever, the strategy of Six Gods Shower Gel provided a beautiful explanation of how Chinese local companies can apply local advantages.