Masks can be described as a must-have item in the daily life of every skin care person, and it is also a category leader in the beauty and skin care market. In recent years, with the rise of the trend of home beauty, the spreadable mask is favored by consumers with the characteristics of "deep first aid" and "multi-dimensional cleaning", and the data shows that the market size of the spreadable mask in 2020 reached 5.2 billion, an increase of 12 times compared with 400 million in 2018.
The continuous growth of the consumption of applicable masks has also attracted many domestic and foreign brands, taking the Tmall platform as an example, the number of Tmall mask brands in 2021 increased by nearly 40% year-on-year. Among them, C Coffee, as the main product of the small can spread mask of the domestic cutting-edge brand, was launched in March 2021, the brand has grown for less than 1 year but has achieved cornering overtaking, preemptively occupying a place.
It is worth noting that at the beginning of 2022, C Coffee announced the completion of the B round of financing, led by SIG, and the old shareholders shun Wei Capital, Fuji Capital, belle consumer fund to follow, and this is also C Coffee's third financing in 7 months.
Three consecutive financings in 7 months, what is the growth password of C Coffee? How does a small jar of spreading masks touch the hearts of young consumers? TopMarketing's "New Consumer Maker" interviewed Ms. Wing, co-founder of C Coffee, and gained insight into C Coffee's business experience from the interview.
Guest of The New Consumer Maker 035
Wing, co-founder of "C Coffee"
01 Be a geek in the mask world
The Creator:
In 2021, in the context of the epidemic, what factors inspired the choice to use "small can film" to cut into the mask category?
Wing：
The first is that the mask category market is large enough to attract us very much. Secondly, the competition of tablet masks has entered a white-hot, the price of a single piece has entered the price war mode, and most importantly, from the perspective of consumers, we have insight into the pain points of inconvenient use of "large can masks" and not clean enough. Surveys have shown that about 64% of large cans of masks will not be used up, and masks are becoming more and more popular among users.
With the rise of a new generation of young consumers, their demand for products is multi-compound, no longer a single "old three" functions of hydration, whitening and anti-aging. Our small can membranes have launched 9 products with different efficacy. For example, according to the degree of hydration, there are two kinds of "thirst" and "run"; staying up late to repair, first aid to brighten up has "hi", as well as "pet" spot removal and so on.
C coffee uses the medical principle of targeted drugs to develop small can films, each small can film is only accurately targeted at a skin problem, advocating a skin care method of partitioning care at the same time and taking the right medicine. This is more in line with the trend of refined skin care of young consumers, and it is also more convenient for consumers to flexibly solve the problems of different parts of the skin, saving time and efficiency.
C Cafe's founding team, including you, has held important positions in front-line cosmetics companies, why did you choose to jump out and set up a start-up team?
My personal background and work experience are actually very simple, and I have long been committed to the cosmetics industry, first in Lancôme and then in Korea. Working with Mr. Xiao (Xiao Rongshen, founder of C Coffee), it has been more than 10 years, and C Coffee is our third cooperative venture. Mr. Xiao is very accurate in judging and planning for the future, from the establishment of C Coffee to the present, looking back, you will find that every step is on the planning point. In March last year, we planned to issue the first small can film in 3 months, and the result was that the first clean small can film really ran out at the end of June, which has now exceeded more than 20 million cans.
The entrepreneurial cooperation between us is very tacit understanding, he manages the big strategy and the big direction, and I manage the landing and execution. In the whole team, half of the middle and senior managers have cooperated with each other, and the process of starting a business often encounters many difficult challenges, so we are more inclined to choose old partners with high trust. They have their own persistence and tenacity, firm faith, not afraid of setbacks, dare to gnaw hard bones, this spiritual force is conducive to the brand's planning layout, to promote the steady progress of the cause.
Of course, now we also pay attention to the introduction of some new partners, especially the positions with high professional requirements will continue to absorb high-end talents. The old partner should be a good "fixed sea god needle", the new partner should make innovative breakthroughs, each play its own advantages, and the integration and cooperation of the new and old will be the situation gradually formed in the company's future management. In general, the selection and management of talents, we still pay more attention to whether they are in line with the cultural tone of the brand and the company's internal values.
02 "New domestic products" must have both strength and value
"Creator": How does C Coffee define "new domestic products"?
I think the most important thing about "new domestic products" is to have excellent strength, product strength and innovation research. In the past, domestic consumers preferred imported beauty products, but with the improvement of China's economic strength in recent years, national self-confidence has begun to rise, and domestic brands have increasingly become the first choice of consumers. I have seen a data before that about 90% of young consumers will be more inclined to choose domestic brands. Since they are willing to choose domestic products, we must give good products that are worthy of their choice. Therefore, "new domestic products" must have excellent product quality and innovation ability.
C coffee is from the perspective of consumers to do every innovation and research and development, our research and development products are based on what consumers need, like what, what to recognize, to think and create high-quality products they recognize, so C coffee research and development materials must be selected from the world's top partners, such as the Dutch Royal DSM, Germany Dezhixin, domestic such as Northbell, Bloomage Biology and so on.
In order to further improve the quality of raw materials, we have also established high-purity extraction requirements to make the results even better. Good materials should have a good formula, C coffee independent R & D team composed of the current preliminary construction, including pharmacy, human microecology, microbiology, scientific beauty and other fields of scholars, specialized in the development of mask categories of experts, and even joined one of the top two beauty industry in South China senior R & D chief engineer.
The latest round of financing we have received plans to focus this money on research and development, build a special research and development center, strengthen the strength of the research and development team, and make bolder explorations of product innovation.
As you said, young consumers are increasingly favoring new domestic products, so is C Coffee targeting them in product positioning and research and development? How do you attract these consumers?
First of all, most of the post-90s are also about thirty years old and have become the mainstream consumer group. Our data reports that 85% of our customers are under the age of 30 and over 18, which is very consistent with our original target group. This is a group of "Internet natives", young consumers do not like to rely on BA/ salesman recommendation, consumers are more and more professional, the needs are more and more precise, which means that doing a good job of consumer insight is the top priority.
Before we develop our products, we conduct a lot of research on consumer groups under the age of 27. Before each product is sold, it will also organize experience surveys in the internal fan base many times, and then list the product after improving according to user feedback.
In addition, we agree that in the face of similar products, the shopping mode of young consumers is no longer simply to compare a and b at the price level, they are more concerned about whether the product can give more value, so we have made a lot of investment in product packaging and successfully applied for patents.
The shape of the small can film packaging is a design element containing Chinese culture, and each square word marked on the surface such as "hi", "qing" and "pet" has the attribute of sociality, which directly represents a kind of effect, which can automatically make the product automatically communicate with consumers, helping them quickly understand and make purchase decisions. At the same time, with bright colors, it can quickly attract the attention of young consumers. Therefore, whether it is the formulation material of the product or the packaging design, we have made very bold innovations, balancing the good sense of experience and fun, and conveying the original mission of "life is beautiful and equal".
In addition, C coffee is positioned as a high-quality popular skin care product, we improve the quality at the same time, but also as far as possible to control the retail price, reduce them in the fixed range of 3-5 times the price range. The consumer's focus is not on how much money is spent, but on whether it is worth the price he spends. Good products will come with their own traffic and word of mouth, allowing consumers to buy back, which in turn will promote a win-win situation.
03 Online and offline efforts to do a good job in omni-channel operation
C Coffee has invested a lot of effort in the research and development and design of small can films, creating such a cost-effective product, how did you achieve the performance of top 1?
Overall, our approach is omnichannel operations. The secret is to organize several teams internally to try to penetrate a platform with different playing methods, that is, to do small-scale tests with the help of internal competition, build their own traffic models and profit operating models, and successfully promote them on a large scale. Our sales in online channels such as Tmall, Douyin, and Xiaohongshu are all developed in accordance with this path.
Offline, we mainly market through agencies. The first step is to enter the fast fashion new retail stores such as KKV and Sanfu, which are very consistent with our products, so the first echelon of C coffee products are all settled. The second step is to enter the traditional store, we will use another model for cooperation, that is, to pass on some marketing concepts and methods to help the store carry out private domain drainage and passenger flow operation. Let them see that C coffee is an important breakthrough to attract traffic, and can attract younger consumers through C coffee products, broaden the original customer base, and achieve sales increase.
In this regard, we are different from other cutting-edge brands, they generally stabilize online before considering rolling out offline. But from the very beginning, C Coffee will become an online and offline omni-channel brand. The founding team has the ability to operate through omni-channel, we feel that the traffic is flowing, the overlap between online and offline will not be very high, the online traffic will quickly overflow to the offline in the early stage, and when the offline store reaches a certain amount, it will flow to the online, so it is necessary to integrate online and offline to make the traffic system of the entire brand plump.
You emphasize the "omni-channel" operation principle, which is a problem that many FMCG teams are very concerned about, what is the current proportion of online and offline sales of C coffee, and what will be the focus of operation in the future?
The difference between the two is that the cost of customer acquisition online is higher, and the offline is more focused on store operation. At present, C coffee is online accounting for about 80%, from this year onwards, the proportion of the offline market will gradually expand, if we can achieve the layout of 20,000 terminals in omni-channel, then the online and offline traffic interoperability operating model can play a more obvious role.
There is also a private domain traffic that is also worth exploring, which is a part of the omni-channel layout that should not be underestimated. Private domain assets are very important, and at the beginning of its establishment, C Cafe also organized a special team to operate private domains. I think that the real construction of the private domain can not only rely on marketing, but also allow customers to enjoy the corresponding services and products in the private domain, experience added value, and the private domain can do a good job for a long time.
We have a relatively clear understanding of LTV (user lifetime value), so we will build a sufficiently complete channel, a sufficient wide range of paths, and absorb enough consumers with sufficient characteristic distribution based on data analysis, so as to continue to extend the life cycle and consumption value of consumers.
C Coffee invited Xu Lu, Jin Xing, Xiong Dailin, Ying Cai'er and other stars to endorse/bring goods, how do you consider the choice layout of kol/koc? What used to be a celebrity endorsing a brand has now become a trend of multiple celebrities promoting a brand together.
It will be a normal trend for celebrities to have too strong bindings with a brand. The reasons for this phenomenon are manifold: First, many stars themselves have their own "side business", including his own live broadcast with goods, no longer easy to sign endorsement contracts with brands; second, stars in the entertainment industry are more and more likely to "collapse", and brands no longer "put all eggs in the same basket" in order to reduce risk; third, the current brand is diverse, the personality of stars is also diverse, and the attributes and needs of consumer groups are more diverse, even if it is the same brand. The audience of products with different effects is not necessarily the same audience, and the market differentiation will become more and more refined.
In order to adapt to this situation, it is difficult to cooperate with a single star to meet the needs of all the product promotion of the brand, and it is difficult for the attention of a single star to cover a wide range, so it is the best strategy to adopt multi-star cooperation. But one thing that needs to be emphasized is that the star is just an amplifier of the product, and the star endorsement should serve the product, not the product is accommodated to the star characteristics. C coffee first determines its preference for the selling points of the product through the audience, and then looks for the corresponding KOL or star cooperation from these selling point directions. This is the basic logic of C coffee for kol/koc selection, by no means to see which traffic star is on fire and follow the trend, or follow their own principle strategy.
C coffee can be popular throughout the network, the whole people plant grass, relying on the comprehensive potential energy, which is what I just mentioned - comprehensive and comprehensive layout and coverage. In addition to the traditional hard and wide, the common new media and channel penetration have basically been done, so that more different consumer groups can be captured. If it is only a single channel of investment, the overall anti-pressure risk will be slightly thin. Consumers are mobile and three-dimensional, and only when they can access and browse the relevant information of the same brand on various platforms, they are likely to be impressed.
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