A statement once again pushed Bloomage Biotech to the forefront!
On the evening of June 26, the official official account of Bloomage Biotech issued the "Statement on the Violation of Individual Departing Employees of Bloomage Biotech", although it was not named, it is generally believed in the industry that this is a formal response to the accusations of "workplace bullying" by former employees through social media.
In this statement, Bloomage Biotech said that "it has fully grasped all the facts of the infringement of intellectual property rights, the violation of non-competition agreements, and the illegal arbitrage of economic benefits by relevant individuals, and will definitely safeguard the rights and interests of investors and the normal order of the market."
The screenshot is from the official WeChat public account of Bloomage Biotech
In response to this announcement, Zhi Fanfan also responded to his social account for the first time, saying, "After leaving the job, the familiar taste of cyberbullying is here again." If you can't stop bullying, respond positively."
Both sides seem to be quite tough, and the dispute that has been going on for several days has escalated again, but what is the truth behind it? What problems do enterprises have to face in their development?
The branches are "torn" by the old club, and they simultaneously promote their own brands
Zhi Fanfan's original external identity was the "brand manager" of Bloomage Biotech's skin care brand Quadi. On March 7 this year, Zhi Fanfan posted a video on his personal Douyin and Xiaohongshu accounts, saying that "time is silent, there is a period of gathering and dispersion, the years are not in a hurry, and each has a place to return", revealing that he had left Quadi.
But on June 16, more than three months later, Zhi Fanfan once again posted a post titled "Embezzlement of public funds, messing with relationships? I was bullied in the workplace by a listed company with a market value of 30 billion".
In the video, Zhi Fanfan said that he suffered a lot of doubts after leaving Bloomage Biotech, but he did not speak out until May 16, Quadi's official customer service account blatantly spread rumors in all Quadi dealer groups, saying that the agent paid the payment but the company did not deliver the goods because the payment was in the hands of Zhi Fanfan; The company does not give incentives to agents because third-party companies are multiplied. In addition, Zhi Fanfan also said that he and his family suffered cyberbullying because of this, and said that he would formally sue Bloomage Biotech.
Under a series of eye-catching keywords such as "workplace bullying", "cyberbullying", "messing with relationships" and "embezzlement of public funds", the video aroused a high degree of attention and emotional fermentation inside and outside the industry as soon as it was released, and was even jokingly called "the biggest melon in the skin care industry in 2024" by bloggers, and Bloomage Biotech was quickly brought into the whirlpool of public opinion.
However, some people also found that soon after the video of the complaint was issued, the colorful personal brand "Fanfu Makeup" also came out quickly. On June 23, Fanjiao's Tmall flagship store was officially launched, and the official accounts of Douyin, Xiaohongshu, Weibo and WeChat public platforms were also opened simultaneously. The social media profile of Fanhua has also been changed to "Founder of Fanfancy Makeup Brand".
Screenshot from the Tmall flagship store
After 10 days of silence, Bloomage Biotech responded by issuing a statement.
In this statement, Bloomage Biotech pointed out that "due to the historical reasons of rapid development, Bloomage Biotech has been mixed in the introduction of personnel, and individual social personnel whose behavior and style are to be discussed are recruited to relevant positions, and relevant personnel quickly show their personal styles such as unprincipled and unidealistic, doing a, hyping personal IP, and having no sense of law-abiding compliance, etc., they are incompatible with Bloomage Biotech's temperament and corporate culture, and will inevitably become the focus of this round of organizational change."
Regarding the identity of the "brand manager", Bloomage Biotech also publicly denied it, saying that "the position of brand manager has not been set up". It is reported that in terms of internal organizational structure, Bloomage Biotech previously divided the four major brands of functional skin care products into four business divisions, namely Quadi, Runbaiyan, Medrepair and Muscle Active, and the actual position of Zhi Fanfan was "brand marketing director".
Regarding the statement of the old club, Zhi Fanfan responded on social platforms as soon as possible, saying "I can't respond to this unnamed statement", "Especially this statement is clearly full of all kinds of false information", and finally emphasized "This time, no one, anything, can prevent me and my new brand makeup from meeting you".
"FBeauty Future Traces" found that the main enterprise of the makeup store, social accounts and products is Lanhua Biotechnology (Shandong) Co., Ltd., registered on February 29, 2024.
According to the enterprise investigation, the company currently has a number of trademarks such as "Zhi Fanfan", "Fanfan", "FAN MAKEUP", "Jinran", "Starry Stars" and "Lanhua" in the process of applying for registration, and the earliest trademark application for registration named "Fanfan" was on March 11 this year.
The screenshot is checked by the enterprise
In this regard, Zhi Fanfan said in a media interview that the registered company was a month after the official resignation, and at first she wanted to buy the trademark of "Fanhua", but at that time the trademark was already owned by Lanhua Biotech, and finally bought the Fanhua trademark and Lanhua Biotech together, and opened a store with Lanhua Biotech as the main body.
It is worth mentioning that the first batch of secondary polishing essences on the market of Compendium are highly similar to Quadi from the product name to positioning, and the "Sapphire Disposable Essence" launched by Quadi is not only the main blue copper peptide like Quadi, but also the core ingredient patent is the same as that used by Quadi. The product detail page shows that the "compound peptide" used by it has obtained a Chinese invention patent, patent number is ZL202110215515.3, which is the same as the patent used by Quadi's "Blue Polishing Essence".
The picture above is taken from the Tmall flagship store, and the picture below is taken from the Tmall flagship store
According to the information on the patent retrieval and analysis platform of the State Intellectual Property Office, the public applicant of the patent is Shandong Keshi Damei Biotechnology Co., Ltd., and the right holders are Costar and Bloomage Biotechnology Co., Ltd.
Regarding the use of the same patent as Quadi, Zhi Fanfan said in a public interview with the media that the patent authorization he applied for from Costar Damei is reasonable, legal and compliant.
The three major dividends of Quadi's rise and Bloomage Biotech's "Decay Method"
The social evaluation of the whole incident is currently showing a polarizing trend.
Some people showed a high degree of empathy, and even said that they would not buy Quadi's products again, and accused Bloomage Biotech of "unloading the mill and killing the donkey".
Another part of the people questioned the behavior of promoting its own brand at the same time, believing that it would post some of the information disseminated within Bloomage Biotech and among distributors on social media with a very explosive title, and the drunkard did not mean to drink.
Objectively speaking, there are many key internal and external factors that the Quadi brand can enter the "1 billion club" in just a few years. First of all, it is inseparable from the hard work of the Quadi team where the branch is located, and people's subjective efforts are one of the foundations for success.
But it cannot be ignored that the rise of Quadi is inseparable from the three major dividends.
First of all, it is inseparable from the dividends of the times of the overall high growth of China's functional skin care products market.
According to the data, from 2017 to 2021, the market size of functional skin care products in mainland China increased from 10.25 billion yuan to 30.96 billion yuan, with an average annual compound growth rate of 31.8%. So far, functional skincare products are still the main driving force for the growth of China's skincare market.
Secondly, it is inseparable from the technical dividends brought by Bloomage Biotech's persistent high investment in R&D.
Bloomage Biotech is not only a global leader in the field of hyaluronic acid, but also the company with the highest R&D investment among China's local beauty companies. Without the backing of Bloomage Biotech's academic status and technical strength in the field of hyaluronic acid, it would be difficult for Quadi to rise in the short term.
It is reported that for each of its sub-brands, Bloomage Biotech will provide full-link support in R&D, production and quality control, which also gives Quadi an incomparable development advantage compared with the brands on the market.
The third is the channel dividend.
In the initial stage, Quadi seized the opportunity of the transformation of Taobao channel from the main promotion of export products to domestic products, and successfully went out of the circle in Taobao C channel, and then completely became popular through Li Jiaqi's live broadcast room. According to the financial report, from 2020 to 2022, Quadi's revenue will be 391 million yuan, 979 million yuan and 1.368 billion yuan respectively, with a compound growth rate of 51.81%.
People become adults. It should be said that the relationship between Zhi Fanfan and Bloomage Biotech was originally an industry story of mutual achievement.
However, as the competition becomes more and more fierce, the industry environment faced by Quadi is changing rapidly.
The first is that the competition in the functional skin care product market is becoming more and more fierce, and by 2023, almost all skin care brands are "rolling efficacy" and "rolling scientific research". At the same time, Tmall and Taobao channels began to decline, and live broadcast e-commerce such as Douyin and Kuaishou rose, and the channel ecology began to change.
Aware of the risks, Bloomage Biotech will begin to take the initiative to slow down its development speed and seek change in 2023. Bloomage Biotech said that the company is taking the initiative to get rid of the path dependence on past success and take the initiative to change, from rapid growth to sustained and steady growth, from focusing on revenue growth to focusing on business health and sustainable development capabilities, from focusing on development speed to focusing on development quality, from focusing on profit indicators to focusing on the refinement and consolidation of key capabilities such as organizational capabilities and operation management capabilities.
In the eyes of industry insiders, the direction of change of Bloomage Biotech is actually very clear and to the point.
The first is the R&D level.
In 2023, Zhao Yan, chairman of Bloomage Biotech, began to clearly define Bloomage Biotech as "a biotechnology company driven by synthetic biotechnology innovation, and a whole industry platform company of biomaterials" in many public speeches. ”
The significance of this adjustment lies in the fact that in the competitive environment of major enterprises focusing on "volume R&D", Bloomage Biotech has a clear "R&D position", which clearly conveys the advantages of Bloomage Biotech at the underlying technical level. This advantage is transmitted to the product level, which is conducive to the unfavorable situation of "concentrated volume hyaluronic acid" of mutual internal friction of Bloomage Biotech's brands, and establish a foundation for long-term steady growth.
Secondly, it will inevitably be personnel and organizational restructuring adjustments.
For Bloomage Biotech, the inevitable path for growth in the short term is to do a good job in live broadcast e-commerce; The core of long-term steady growth is the omni-channel operation capability based on digitalization.
What is needed to do a good job in live broadcast e-commerce is an extremely flat short, flat and fast organizational structure. This is different from the talent and organizational structure required by enterprises based on platform e-commerce such as Tmall and Taobao.
To sum up, the core of Bloomage Biotech's active adjustment in R&D and personnel is actually to solve the two core problems of "what to do" and "who will do it" that the company is preparing for in the future.
Many people in the industry know that from the second half of 2023 to the first half of 2024, it has undergone drastic personnel adjustments, and it is also under this background that Zhi Fanfan has resigned.
In fact, the original best result between Zhi Fanfan and Bloomage Biotech was to compose an industry story of mutual achievement, and then get together and disperse; No matter how bad it is, it is "everyone is fine", goodbye to the rivers and lakes; Now they have fallen into the most embarrassing situation of "boycotting each other", which is really embarrassing.
Putting aside the rights and wrongs of both sides behind the whole thing, from the perspective of brand building, corporate management and public opinion public relations, there are a lot of things to think about for the beauty industry.
Bloomage Biotech may be falling into the "self-proof trap"
In the era when everyone is self-media, how to face online public opinion is becoming a compulsory course for enterprises.
In this entanglement between Bloomage Biotech and Bloomage Biotech, although Bloomage is the "weak" side in the eyes of most ordinary consumers, Bloomage Biotech naturally represents a strong company. However, in the eyes of professionals, Bloomage Biotech is a passive party, and is even falling into the "self-proof trap".
In the algorithm-driven social media communication environment, the formation of information cocoons will be an inevitable phenomenon because the algorithm will continue to recommend similar content based on the user's past behavior trajectory and preferences. In this communication environment, similar content will continue to strengthen a certain emotion of users, and let this emotion spread, and then the same kind of people gather to form a square effect.
Therefore, professionals who are well versed in Internet marketing know that "emotion" is the traffic password of social media.
And when a flesh-and-blood, emotionally outgoing "branch" needs to maintain "restraint" or even "politeness" on social media, the latter's passivity and embarrassment are almost obvious at a glance.
"Branches" can be told to the camera with tears in their eyes, and then use words such as "workplace bullying", "cyberbullying", "messing with relationships", "embezzlement of public funds" and other words to "mobilize" public emotions; However, as a listed company, Bloomage Biotech seems to naturally have to respond with a cold "statement". It is conceivable who can win the sympathy of public opinion more.
What's worse is that once social media public opinion labels Bloomage Biotech with some kind of negative label, due to the existence of the information cocoon, public opinion will turn a blind eye to Bloomage Biotech's rebuttal opinions, and once this kind of public opinion is formed, Bloomage Biotech will soon fall into the "self-proof trap".
In the movie "Let the Bullets Fly", Xiao Liuzi was slandered and ate two bowls of noodles, and in order to prove his innocence, he could only open his stomach in order to prove that he only ate one bowl of noodles. This is the classic "self-proof trap".
Last year, Hua Xizi was like this when facing the "79 yuan eyebrow pencil incident", and now Bloomage Biotech is also the same when facing "branches".
Whether Hua Xizi can prove that the 79 yuan eyebrow pencil is not expensive to sell, she will pay a heavy price; And whether Bloomage Biotech can prove its innocence or not, it will also be the party with the greatest losses. Because the two topics of "workplace bullying" and "cyberbullying" selected by "Branches" are equivalent to an "emotional crater", which will be uncontrolled once it erupts.
Once this sentiment explodes on social media, it will spread further out of the circle, triggering interactive reports from financial media and official media, and eventually it will evolve into a social event that will completely get out of control.
For Bloomage Biotech, the next step is to thoroughly investigate whether the relevant accusations of "Branches" are true within the company, and truthfully announce the truth and processing results, so as to establish a positive public image of seeking truth and pragmatism externally; At the same time, maintaining communication with the financial media and state media to avoid further escalation of the situation may be a more important priority than issuing a statement.
The IP of the brand manager is a "thorny rose" after all
In addition, from the perspective of brand building, it has actually sounded the alarm for the industry - the relationship between the brand's personal IP and the brand needs to be cautious and cautious.
As a "foreign" word, the concept of "owner" originated from some trendy brands, hoping to distinguish it from the managers of traditional mass brands. Usually, brands with owners emphasize a more personalized, stylized aesthetic. These managers often bring their own traffic and have a loyal following in the circle.
In the past few years, with the popularity of the consumer track, the concept of the manager has begun to be introduced and popular in China, but when it comes to the beauty industry, the real identity and authority of the manager are not the same, some are self-made shareholder founders, and some are external professional traders.
Previously, the role of Bloomage Biotech was originally the "professional manager" of the enterprise and the strategic executor of the brand. However, in the early development of the Quadi brand, it has used the personal IP of the "brand manager" for marketing operations and publicity, and even the previous profile on the social platform is still the "founder of Quadi", which can quickly establish contact with consumers and enhance brand recognition in the era of social media. However, the disadvantage of this is that in the minds of some consumers and channel providers, the multitude of personal IP is strongly bound to the Quadi brand.
This is a very red flag for brands. Once the personal IP collapses or the personal IP "betrays" the brand IP, it will lose both.
Therefore, in the era of social media, the personal IP of brand managers seems to be a shortcut to reach the minds of users, but it is actually a "big pit" for brand building. The fashionable title of "brand manager" should be extremely cautious if it cannot be combined with "founder".
It is reported that Quadi's new management team has been set up, and the adjustment of the functional skin care product R&D sector has also achieved initial results: on the one hand, the functional skin care product R&D sector can quickly respond to market demand, the verification is more adequate and rigorous, and the multi-task collaboration has shortened the cycle from insight needs to product launch by 10.5% on average; On the other hand, the scientific research layout has been comprehensively carried out in six directions, including effective skin care innovation technology and pilot process technology, and the effective utilization rate of project resources has increased by 7.1%, and the overall project health has increased by 21%. According to the financial report for the first quarter of 2024 released by Bloomage Biotech, the group's operating income reached 1.36 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 4.24%.
For Bloomage Biotech, although it has encountered some twists and turns in strategic adjustment on the surface, if you start from a more macro perspective, the "Flourishing Incident" will eventually be just an episode of Bloomage Biotech's deep transformation. From the perspective of the industry, the creation of brand IP and the response to the public opinion crisis also have certain warning significance for the development of enterprises. How the situation goes, "FBeauty Future Traces" will continue to pay attention.
Author/Wu Liqing, Wen Huan
Editor/Liu Ying
Proofreading/Yangyan