Makeup Marketing Needs Facelift to Target China’s post-00 Crowd
Up until just recently, it was normal in China to not wear makeup; however, these days not only have skincare and makeup become a normal part of life in China, the age when users are starting to use makeup is getting increasingly younger. This is evident within China’s “post-00” generation (those born in the 2000s). Here we take a closer look at this demographic and how their ways of thinking and values differ from just a few generations before.
80% of China’s post-00 generation started using makeup products between the ages of 13 and 15. For post-90s (those born in the 1990s) it was between 15 and 17, indicating a two-year drop in the starting age.
The reason the starting age is getting lower is not that kids are trying to emulate adults. This is clear as 90% of post-00 buyers say that “effectiveness” is what they look for in cosmetics, and, furthermore, 95% say they have skin problems, revealing that many are buying cosmetics to deal with their skin.
On top of this, the purchasing power of the post-00s is growing. The annual expenditure of cosmetics for 80% of post-00s has been recently recorded as over 1,000 yuan (US$140). Out of this segment, 40% spend over 4,000 yuan (US$560), and out of that segment, 14% spend over 10,000 yuan (US$1,400).
Another reason why the starting age has lowered is young people’s high dependence on the internet. Not only were post-00s brought up in an environment where from an early age they’ve found holding a smartphone to be second nature, due to the Chinese government’s one-child policy, in most families with post-00s both the post-00 individual and their parents are only children. For this reason, the post-00s end up having very few cousins or points of contact outside of school. Their friendships can exist entirely in the cyber realm, and through such concentrated online sessions, they easily gain information on makeup and fashion from social media platforms such as RED (also known as Little Red Book ), and it’s not long before they want to try products out for themselves.
Along with social media, this generation is also known for its considerable use of China’s largest video platform “bilibili ”. bilibili features many videos of users filming how they put on their makeup, and many of them are by primary, junior and senior high school students. Some videos by primary school students have over 400,000 views.
Chinese brands switch their marketing to target post-00s
With post-00’s emergence as a cosmetics consumer group, Chinese manufacturers have started marketing towards them. In 2018, OEM Chuangyuan Group launched the brand “YES!IC ”, which targets post-00s. With its stylish and novel designs, the brand has been mostly sold online and in drug stores and cosmetics chain stores. Followers of the brand’s flagship online store on Tmall number over 360,000.
Similarly, “Perfect Diary ” is a brand targeted towards Generation Z (which includes post-00s) and is being sold mainly online. Their recent chocolate-flavored lipstick has been a hit among the generation. In a marketing campaign held in April by the Alibaba subsidiary and group-purchasing site “Juhuasuan”, Perfect Diary raked in over 80 million yuan (US$11.2 million) in sales across 3 days, and still today it continues to be one of the strongest Chinese cosmetics brands.
Although 70% of their overall sales are through Tmall, Perfect Diary has recently put efforts into offline stores. This year they plan on opening 40 directly-managed stores and within the next three years are aiming for up to 600 in total. Their concept store, which opened some weeks ago in the city of Chengdu in Sichuan Province, doubles as a cafe and a space to try out their products. When they opened their first store in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, crowds of social media followers all live-streamed the event over Tmall and TikTok.
As for major manufacturers, Jala Group, which owns brands such as Chando, launched in 2017 the skincare brand “Spring Summer ” which targets Generation-Z. Once the brand was launched they undertook 3 years of research on the demographic. Through this, it was found that post-00s have made both visual attractiveness and function (user-friendliness) part of the criterion for selecting products and that this is consistent across the price range, from 20 yuan (US$3) foundation products to 1,000 yuan (US$140) face creams.
Post-00s’ distrust of influencers
Considering that the post-00s are set to become the main consumer demographic in the future, it’s only natural for product development and marketing that target them to thrive increasingly from here on. However, it seems that traditional promotional methods may not work the same way with them.
According to a 2018 report by Tencent, only 16% of post-00s say they “feel an affinity to bloggers and streamers and trust in their recommendations, even more so than those by celebrities”. In other words, the large majority of post-00s don’t trust influencers. One female high school student gave a biting assessment: “All they can think of is how to sell things. I once bought one of the products they recommended, but the quality was so bad — it was pure garbage”.
Post-00s seem to hate commercialism and have no tolerance for excessive promoting. This means that marketing methods that make use of KOLs (Key Opinion Leaders) — methods that have been employed since several years ago — are not going to work on them. Perfect Diary’s strategy to strengthen the offline front could end up becoming a standard that demonstrates how best to market to post-00s in the future.
Text: Ching Li Tor
Original text (Japanese): Team Roboteer
