The Rules Of Retail Industry Need To Be Redefined: The Rise Of Chinese Male Consumption

Like male hormones, the reason for this change is simple and straightforward: after decades of shopping dreams for female customers, more and more brands are trying to make men fall in love with shopping malls.

Never think that this is an impossible task. Today's consumers - six and 70s born in the last century were very different from their parents. They pay attention to their appearance and enjoy life, and the probability of their shopping malls has been greatly improved.

Now, those brands that have seized the trend in the early days have been impressed by the achievements that lead to male consumers.

As a pioneer in the domestic men's skin care market, L'OREAL's Biotherm men's products have grown rapidly in recent years. Now, Biotherm's brand sales have changed from 10% to 50% in the overall sales volume of Biotherm brand, which overwhelms women's products.

Louis Weedon, the first luxury brand to enter the mainland, has become the largest market in China by 15% of the world's sales. In this beautiful pcript, male customers contribute nearly half of the sales volume, while in most of the world's market, male customers account for only about 40% of the total consumption.

"It took Paris 50 years to develop from Cologne to post water, which may take only 1 years in China," he said.

Dimitri Katsachnias, founder and strategy and development director of Air Paris, an independent luxury creative agency, describes the Chinese male consumer market in the eyes of "Global Entrepreneur".

In just a few years, the huge potential of this market is attracting more and more brands to start hunting for male consumers.

As the Spring Festival passed, the brand new man product "all-purpose oil control gel" of NIVEA, the old brand of German skin care, launched its advertising vigorously. Unlike other brands entering the market, the forerunner of the men's low-end skin care products is trying to use various product segments to cover consumers with different skin appeals.

Last year, Ecco, a Danish leisure shoe brand, split the original integrated cabinet into three separate parts: Women's shoes, men's shoes and outdoor, in order to provide more service for male consumers.

P & G, which always plays a leading role in the market, has become a latecomer this time. The OLAY brand of the company has had a large number of loyal male fans in its four years of research and launching of men's products.

However, the president of P & G Greater China is obviously unwilling to lag behind. "We are also looking forward to the great development of the male market and hope to make a difference."

But for Shi Wensheng and most of the brand managers, the next question is: how do men in the patriarchal culture prevail for the millennium?

New forces

We must admit that the rise of Chinese male consumption groups stems from the accumulation of social wealth.

"This is actually the rise of the middle class in China."

Tang Ruitao Doctoroff, President of JWT in Greater China, explained to global entrepreneur that social progress has made individual social identity increasingly diversified. Richer social life has made men's hunger for non essential substances unprecedented. This has become the original driving force for the rapid rise of male consumption in China. "Tom"

Since 2005, male consumers have begun to increase significantly in the mass market and luxury goods market.

Take men's clothing as an example. In Chen Qinghai's view, a man who was more than ten years ago was basically "a suit of suits". No matter whether he went to work or attended a formal banquet, he could only have one suit.

However, in today's urban living environment that highlights individuality and highlights personal characteristics, this way of dressing is obviously outdated. The different clothing needs of different occasions directly promote the expansion of men's casual wear and sportswear market.

A similar situation also occurs in other male consumption areas.

"There are more and more male customers, and more and more places are needed. Now it can be divided into one category."

Chen Qinghai said that in the past two years, brands have become more and more aware of the strength of men as an independent consumer group. In the Pacific department store where they work, more and more brands have begun to further subdivide products according to their gender and age.

In the luxury market, the shopping enthusiasm of Chinese men is even more eyeglasses.

Of course, male power is the absolute dominant new rich class.

In February, a report released by CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets showed that the average age of Chinese millionaires is 39 years old, 15 years younger than other regions, and the Chinese are more willing to show their wealth strength compared with the rich in other countries.

This has also created a very unique phenomenon in China's luxury market: the proportion of male buyers is higher than any other market in the world.

Another important male consumption force is much more rational than the rich men who spend a lot of money: they occasionally browse male fashion magazines, pay attention to their own image, spend money on their clothes and hairstyles, pay attention to health, enter fitness clubs and all kinds of clubs; besides, they also choose gifts for their favorite people or friends.

What is important is that these new age men are very concerned about themselves and have good recognition ability for brands, and their buying and consuming behaviors are completely male behaviors.

Don't expect them to be able to walk around the department stores in search of their favorite products as well as women.

Their usual practice is to do their homework before shopping, and then rush into the store to tell the salesperson what they want, pay the money and then leave directly.

"Department stores are always women's paradise."

Chen Qinghai said that in the Pacific department store, the proportion of men is 30%, the frequency of their occurrence is very low, but the average unit price of each guest is very high.

However, in China, where the patriarchal culture has been popular for thousands of years, male consumers have been ignored by businessmen.

In the 50 and 60s of last century, men and women in Europe and the United States reshaped traditional masculinity under the pressure of female consumption. Men's consumption in modern China was more served by politics. For a long time, the so-called male fashion was led by politicians.

Even after the reform and opening up, the rise of male consumption has lagged behind the female market.

Until the recent 5 or 6 years, with the emerging market of China becoming the new growth point of the mainstream consumer goods manufacturers, the male market has gradually been valued and developed.

In 2006, L'OREAL group's Biotherm brand first launched men's skin care products in the Chinese market. Since 2007, luxury brands such as Louis Weedon and Zegna have begun to accelerate the pace of opening stores in China. In many two or three line cities, these brands have been touted by local consumers.

It is understood that in the four regions of Zhejiang, Fujian, Beijing and Guangdong, Louis Weedon's male customers are extremely active, and the rich villages in some places even go to collectives in the stores.

Meanwhile, a series of men's magazines, such as "fashion gentleman", "men's wear", "bazaar" and "GQ intelligence", which are leading men's consumption, have begun to appear in large numbers, which has further promoted the development of the entire men's goods market.

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I'm crazy about brands.

As a matter of fact, no matter what kind of consumer it is, it is the same mentality behind the Chinese male consumers: the fanaticism and the ultimate pursuit of brand identity.

One thing to note is that in all luxury stores, the most obvious product category is the most popular product.

According to Louis Weedon's sales data, the sales of lattice bags without its obvious logo are obviously inferior to those with "LV" logo. In men's shoes, shoes with brand identification and identification are more popular with Chinese male consumers. Compared with black shoes with no obvious characteristics, shoes are not only cheap, but also can be recognized at a glance.

In Tang Ruitao's view, brand is like a weapon and tool for Chinese men to fight against the outside world. In order to show their success in their careers, independence and wealth, houses, cars, watches, clothes and so on can be used by Chinese men to arm their own accessories, so as to gain a social recognition.

Quite a few of the male consumers of luxury goods do not understand or care about the image of these brands or the image of their references.

In their eyes, the status and status of luxury brands is the most important attraction.

In response to this crowd, Louis Weedon and Zegna, which had earlier entered the Chinese market, started to shop in China and put a lot of advertisements in order to gain a higher brand awareness with the help of the first mover advantage.

Before more competitors enter this golden treasure, they have made a lot of effort.

A reader survey conducted by men's magazine "GQ Zhi" shows that most Chinese male consumers want to see the story of "successful people". They want to know how those successful mainstream men are successful, and any products connected with them are easier to get consumers' favor.

Many brands have successfully used the mentality of Chinese men to attract the attention of consumers.

The practice of Audi, a car manufacturer, is very representative. It has set up "Yingjie Hui" among its customers. Its members include successful people in various fields, such as pianist Lang Lang, musician Tan Dun, collector Ma Wei Du, and so on. Audi will help these members promote themselves and tell their success stories. At the same time, Audi brand will naturally be associated with the key word "successful people". By this way, Audi will always take the first place in the Chinese luxury car market. According to its data, the three luxury cars of A4L, A6L and Q5 in China will have nearly half of their market share in 2010.

Similarly, Ford's brand appeal in China is also focused on highlighting its buyers' "unusual".

The unification of its global advertising language is "Feel the Difference". If plated literally into Chinese, it should be "feeling different". But when landing in China, the advertisement is cleverly plated into "extraordinary feeling" by the Chinese marketing team.

The original intention of English is to show that Kaifu car makes drivers feel different. At the same time, Ford is also different. But in Chinese advertisements, it emphasizes not only the quality of cars, but also the sense of driving.

"In China, everything must display your ambition."

Tang Ruitao said.

Compared with the confession of car manufacturers, Biotherm, a skincare brand, struggled to embody the image of "unique taste and distinctive identity".

Through various ways to teach male consumers to "have a clean, oil-free face", so as to show their fresh image, so the need for the use of special men's facial cleanser.

In addition, although cosmetics may not be able to express their wealth directly from outside, but with a magic face with maintenance marks can reflect the mental health of men's health, so consumers need to use water, moisturizing, wrinkle resistant and whitening and other products of different functions.

"Chinese men are highly receptivity to all kinds of products."

Guepaolo, President of L'OREAL China, regrets "Global Entrepreneur".

In this year's plan, men's cosmetics have been designated as key areas of growth.

Of course, with the rapid growth of the market, there are subtle changes in the way Chinese men display their wealth.

"They have a psychological conflict, on the one hand, they want to show their status, but on the one hand they want to protect themselves."

Tang Ruitao pointed out that in the first tier cities where consumer psychology is more mature, many men have learned how to use their brands to express their worth in a low-key way.

These consumers do not want to look like themselves, they will not obviously "G" on the GUCCI belt, but they are keen to show their taste in minute details.

Therefore, those brands that have paid more attention to details in product design have been more popular. For example, Bottega Veneta, famous for its knitting process, and MontBlanc, which is popular with Chinese men, is on the most popular product pens in Italy. A small white Pentagram is placed on one end of the pen. This location is easy to be seen, but its small logo is not conspicuous. "People who understand can immediately understand it."

One user said he liked to sign with MontBlanc pens in expensive restaurants.

Each has brilliant ideas.

Despite its promising prospects, the rising consumption of men is still not a readily available market.

This makes those who want to win the favor of men must do everything possible to impress their target customers.

In many brands with male consumer market accumulation, the guidance from women has a strong boost, especially in the early stage of male products entering the market.

Impressed by Air Paris Asia manager Nora Ledgtem, she once saw a lot of scenes of mother shopping with his son in a department store in Chengdu.

Usually, mother tells her son what to buy or not to buy.

Similarly, a girlfriend or wife usually plays an important "shopping guide" in men's shopping.

When we first entered the Chinese market, Biotherm adopted this strategy.

At that time, men's fashion magazines in the market were very rare. They tried to advertise in automobile and financial magazines, but the effect was not ideal: as a brand new brand that few men know, Biotherm's name is hard to remember.

As a result, Biotherm's marketing team had to innovate in the channels, such as carrying out preferential gift boxes that combine women's and men's products during the holiday season, promoting male consumption by mature women's market, and directly sending products to the gift market.

P & G's OLAY brand is also the best player.

Before the introduction of men's products in 2010, we predicted that 60% of men's products will come from female buyers, and the other 40% will be driven by other brands such as Procter & Gamble, such as Braun.

In addition, its overall marketing plan takes into account the common preferences of male and female consumers. In order to attract men to buy, OLAY designed green packaging for its male products to create "cross-country" effect; at the same time, OLAY invited Huang Xiaoming to advertise, on the one hand, it hoped that the "men's enthusiasm" element of its expression could attract potential buyers, and on the other hand, it was derived from its high popularity among female consumers.

In addition to traditional advertising marketing, the impact of Internet on younger generation of male consumers can not be ignored.

Because more and more young men are keen to get information from the Internet, many brands are paying more attention to their exposure to the Internet.

This year, the radar table, which was first held in China independently, launched the "2011 Swiss radar watch China RYDP" campaign. It has chosen to publish a lot of advertisements on the Internet. In order to attract more young people with relatively low spending power, the radar watch has launched a product with a price of 10 thousand yuan left and right, which is close to the new generation of male consumers through a sense of design and a sense of future.

Last year, the brand even invited Taiwan star Rene Liu for global endorsement to cater to the Chinese market.

Nowadays, with the maturity of consumers, the proportion of men buying by themselves is getting higher and higher.

According to Biotherm's forecast, 70% of its products will be sold by men themselves in the future. Air Paris's visit and research to Chinese men also show that more and more Chinese men, especially the younger generation, are very interested and willing to take the time to act in person to create their own image.

This allows brand operators to devote more time and energy to educate and guide consumers.

Different from the western society, Chinese men have Oriental aesthetic standards. For example, in the west, men want to have healthy muscles, but Chinese men are generally thin. Compared with their muscles, they are more inclined to control their own bodies. Therefore, Jet Li's Kung Fu star can easily be recognized by most Chinese men. Adidas's casual clothing series "Wuji", which is endorsed by them, has achieved good sales.

However, in the current Chinese market, the image of men created by various brands is still too single.

Whether it's traditional men's consumption products such as cars, watches, and other emerging fields such as skin care products, the most common male image is "business people". In the advertisement of L'OREAL men's skin care products, Daniel Wu shows his daily work status on various occasions. In the image of the Heuer Watch, Chen Daoming appears in a black suit's standard business man image.

However, the Air Paris survey shows that this demand for identity is also changing. In addition to portraying itself as a financially successful person, more and more Chinese men want to be able to appear as a good father, a good sportsmen, an artist and so on. "Everything is still in shape."

Nora Ladghem said.