Does The Beauty Brand Follow The Fashion Line And Walk The Fashion Brand?

The French cosmetics group CLARINS (Clarins) recently set up a new official account My Clarins in WeChat, which is CLARINS's new sub line brand in 2019. On WeChat's presentation, it also wanted people to call it nickname "little charming".

My Clarins is a consumer group aged between 18 and 30. It continues the advantages of CLARINS brand in plant ingredients extraction. It emphasizes that young skin needs only moderate care. Natural ingredients such as plants occupy a high proportion in the formula. At present, there are 9 single products, including face cream, sleeping mask, cleansing gel, Concealer beauty stick and so on. From the rounded and lovable packaging design, you will hardly associate it with CLARINS, the main brand of red and white two colors and elegant and simple, although the products of My Clarins may be placed on the bottom of CLARINS products shelves.

In the overseas market, Clean Clear, a clean face and skin care product, also has the so-called secondary line playing method similar to that of My Clarins, and launched the sub line called C+C Clear. C+C products, whether they are product packaging or visual style, can hardly remind you of CleanClear's classic blue and white sense of cleanliness, but a simpler and cooler grey black.

The creation of sub line brands is not only the famous old brand that was born in 1950s, but also wants to be "younger". The net red brand, which has been established for less than 20 years, is also engaged in the secondary line. Glossier, the famous beauty Unicorn named "Millennium powder aesthetics", launched a sub line Glossier Play in March this year. The unit price is lower than 20 US dollars, and the style of the big flashing film and the fluorescent color collision is carried out. The American cosmetic brand Tarte, which was born in the millennium, also launched a Sugar Rush with a full product pricing of less than $30 in February this year. Too Faced has also launched the Tutti line of cosmetics, which is the fruit theme make-up line. Although you can see that most of these secondary lines can not be called "brands" but "series" in the official website of these brands.

"The most obvious benefit of similar sub line strategy is to touch new customers, which can no longer be bound by certain brand image of the original brand, but still retain the reputation of the original brand," Fiona Glen, project manager of The Red Tree, British fashion and fashion planning company, told BoF Fashion Business Review.

CLARINS, which has a long and loyal reputation, is now launching My Clarins, which allows brands to target and respond to new customers in a completely different way. For example, in the UK, My Clarins chose to go to different universities across the country to do more experience oriented marketing activities. These are the things CLARINS brand will not do. She also pointed out that this is also an interesting case from the perspective of Customer Lifetime Value, which is to attract new customers with My Clarins in the marketing budget. As they grow older, it will be cost-effective to continue to retain them with CLARINS, from market sales and return on investment.

This strategy, in addition to attracting new customers, is also part of the brand globalization strategy, "Doris Ho, executive director of international brand consultancy Lang Tao, Landor, told BoF fashion business review." in different markets, brand globalization is positively affecting people's perception of "beauty", and brands are taking advantage of this opportunity to participate in such a transformation. She also pointed out that in the field of beauty, Olay from CLARINS to Volkswagen range is using this strategy.

So this is not just a question of "younger", but how to maximize the brand's aura in another way through another brand story, product mix, visual style and marketing techniques.

"A clean break" or "if you want to leave"?

The concept of "Diffusion line" or "bridge line" or "sub line" brand comes first from the fashion industry. Luxury or high fashion brands that emphasize the designer's concept and artistic style are able to extend the brand's main line (Signature line) to a wider population by creating lower price, less complexity of design, but retaining the key style, shorter development cycle and more product numbers. Finally, the sales volume of the whole brand can be improved.

Most well-known high fashion brands and even light luxury brands have launched sub lines, most of which are strictly differentiated from the main line brands and have their own single brand stores. Similar to Wakubo Rei's Comme des Gar ons, a landmark CdG Play with small red heart and small black heart may be the most successful case, contributing to the largest sales volume of the group. But more fashion lines do not earn too much money. Several years ago, they entered the demise of the collective. They were integrated into the original brand of the revenue or gradually escalated into a flexible and innovative project.

Ho said that the key difference between the secondary line of the fashion brand and the secondary line brand of the beauty industry is that the accessories line is aimed at more audiences who may not be able to afford the main line brand products. "But the secondary line of beauty brands must be conveyed with strong and provable points, such as unique ingredients, user benefits, usage and so on, which will lead to stronger relevance to new audiences, while introducing the core attraction of the main line brand," Ho said. "In some ways, this may be more challenging, because these points of skin care are not to be seen at a glance, and we need to know where the benefits are after we try it out."

For the more sophisticated product standards, the main benefits of the sub line strategy are more business. "Really creating a brand from scratch is indeed a high cost. It also requires a lot of investment in resources and infrastructure, and more importantly, it's almost as long as you acquiesce in waiting for a long time, so the new brand can build minds in people's minds, "Ho said.

Although the money making logic of beauty make-up brand is not necessarily equivalent to fashion, it seems that there is no maturity of a sub line brand to separate stores. But what is the difference between a My Clarins brand and a brand that is quite different from R & D, packaging, design, marketing and sales channels, and how to further subdivide product lines under the same brand name?

After all, the latter has been practiced for many years by the major brands, especially the skin care brand, that is, the classification of different functions and formulations, and naturally touches on consumers of different ages and different skin care appeals. Taking CLARINS as an example, it is also the product of make-up water. At present, you can see the nickname "girl essence water", "little sister essence water" and "goddess essence water" in the official website.

But the premise is that these new consumers should first understand the brand, and the new series will be able to undertake the aura of the brand. What often happens is that the brand with a long history or distinctive image is too deep, often forming a new division with the new crowd. Once the brand is faced with a new group of people who hardly know the brand, it seems sensible to be "off the hook" or even "cut it off" with the mainline brand.

Create, start from the beginning.

Creating a brand that is almost entirely different from the secondary line, enriches the brand matrix of the company, and sometimes looks more like the tricks of the daily cosmetics giant, P&G or L 'Or e Al, which are also known as the "multi brand strategy" of the L.

The most frequently cited examples are Head and Shoulders, rejoice, PANTENE and VS, which share a large part of store shelves, but they all belong to P & G. By occupying market share and generating sales volume as much as possible, it is one of the essentials of multi brand strategy.

BoF beauty reporter Rachel Strugatz has reported in the report that Glossier's rise in the network platform of "brand manufacturing machine" will be different from Estee Lauder group and L'OREAL group through the acquisition to enrich the multi brand structure and product matrix. It is also different from the incubator of Luxury Brand Partners who sold money after creating a successful brand: instead, it should create its own make-up empire with its own brand.

In this way, the establishment of a distinct "sub line" brand is perhaps the first step in the current beauty brand that is being tested. But whether it is really a different brand, and the sub line name package does not include the original brand name (such as "My Clarins"), many times, according to Glen, it depends on how you define the sub line brand. The attempt in the field of beauty makeup can be as early as a series of restrictions, such as the cooperation between M.A.C and Disney, the key is whether they have the value of collection or collection.

"The name of the original brand, including the name of the original brand, is indeed a more efficient way to make better use of the brand assets of the main brand, but the name is only part of the overall brand strategy. This strategy also includes packaging, marketing, distribution channels and many other links. Ho takes Shiseido's new young vice line brand Waso as an example: "although the name does not contain the word" Shiseido ", Waso's packaging style and most marketing and distribution methods are tightly tied to Shiseido.

"In this way, Waso can make better use of the good reputation of Shiseido brand in professional skills and innovation, while introducing new elements with exclusive formula," Ho said. What are the new elements? This Shiseido's young accessory line is inspired by "Washoku". It also emphasizes the natural ingredients of conditioning skin, carrot, perilla, honey, tofu, tremella and other ingredients are all familiar with the concept of "beauty and delicious food". Packaging design also emphasizes "suitable for school, work, fitness and any occasion to carry". When landing on the mainland market in 2018, it invited young artist Fan Cheng Cheng as spokesperson for vitality.

To make the sub line stand out, it is necessary to cooperate with differentiated aesthetic design, marketing techniques and strictly differentiated sales channels. At this point, Chinese local color make-up brand Mary de Jia is also a typical "sub line strategy" trader.

On the one hand, the Shanghai Chuang yuan group, which is behind the brand, opened its flagship store to the shopping mall of the first tier cities. On the other hand, it sold exclusive high-end cosmetics line Color Studio in SEF. It also launched an independent sister brand "Yes" IC two years ago, and even launched third younger brands So Cool So Me all over the world.

Mary de Jia uses the same brand name as his high-end line, and the visual style also has clear clues to look for. In essence, it is more like a strategy for the same brand to face different channels. Born in the highly developed era of Chinese social media Yes! IC and So Cool So Me, regardless of packaging design, story telling or channel supply chain from the date of birth are completely different from the parent brand.

At the end of last year, the Yes! IC brand was priced slightly higher, including the monochrome cubic Eyeshadow priced at 49 yuan, the 299 yuan nine color eye shadow disc and the 169 yuan blush, and was located in the cosmetics shop of the two or three line city. Whether it's a copy or advertisement in WeChat mall, vision and story telling are natural and refreshing. The So Cool So Me launched in March this year is mainly based on industrial style and flash silver. It caters to the young people who love the fun and trend. First, they are stationed in department stores in second tier cities, but they are no longer equipped with professional beauty consultants (BA).

But in addition to its strong brand marketing capabilities, the choice of a professional and high-end channel is also related to Mary de Jia's many years of deep ploughing cosmetics stores, a self owned factory and supply chain. After all, similar to the fashion industry, if the size of the sub line or sub brand is not enough to support its operating costs, the significance of the final secondary line may not be great.

With the transparency and information disclosure brought by the Internet, the relationship between the brand behind the cosmetics brand and its other brands is exposed under the sun. No matter whether the brand is written in the packaging of "Unilever group" and so on in the past, when consumers do their homework, they will introduce new products or new series according to their brands, and they will also make reference to their parent's research and manufacturing strength, and even share specific patents and recipes to make basic judgments.

To build a successful sub line brand, the key is to "be faithful to your overall brand strategy. When we serve our customers, we often refer to the word" Symbolic brand value ", which is why we are willing to pay three times premium to buy a lipstick for Chanel instead of others," Glen said. "Chanel's brand image with luxury and" style "also extends to their Le Boy series.

The quality of the sub line brand is also very critical. The main line of the brand should also be separated from the real value, otherwise it will be faced with risks. "The beauty accessory line really trampled a sweet spot," Glen said. "But if the quality of the main line is too similar, consumers who originally bought the main line brand may not buy those expensive product lines, but instead turn to the new sub line with lower prices."

So truly want to share the aura of the established brand, no matter how new the collateral line is playing, the main line brand must also be very successful, regardless of the product quality of the main and subordinate line brand, and the overall strength of the enterprise is still the most critical.

"This is indeed a balanced art," concluded Glen. "The key is to see how you can attract new customers with the sub line brand, not at the expense of the main brand image.