How a 36-year-old domestic brand regain popularity in Douyin？

The fact that Bee & Flower is making an eye-catching comeback in the market 36 years after its establishment should be attributed to this domestic brand’s product power and its long-term care and respect for consumers.

Recently, Bee & Flower, a 36-year-old domestic washing and care brand, has found itself becoming a trending topic on social platforms. The reason behind it was "sad and funny".

Bee & Flower has been keeping such a low profile in marketing over the past years that many netizens believe that the domestic brand is going to stop production. In the process of interacting with netizens, Bee & Flower's humorous responses such as "Does participating in the contest cost money" and "Our products are already dirt cheap" have made netizens believe that this brand is on the verge of disappearing.

△Gu Jinwen, chairman of Shanghai-based Bee & Flower, responded to netizens via Douyin over the issues of concern

Under this context, netizens spontaneously started to "save" Bee & Flower via the Internet. Some came to the live streaming studio for "wild" spending, some offered ideas and suggestions, and some even stayed up late to design packaging solutions... All this was done with great sincerity and enthusiasm. At a time, the trending topic about "netizens work hard to keep Bee & Flower alive" made it all the way to the top on Douyin's hit list by9.8 million hits.

01

Bee & Flower Being Accused of Packaged like “a Detergent”

Netizens Voluntarily Offer Online “Guidance”

After Bee & Flower became a trending topic, more and more netizens have joined in the discussions about the domestic brand. An unprecedented interaction between the brand and consumers is taking place.

What netizens complained of most frequently during the interaction is packaging. Most netizens said that the transparent and colorful packaging of Bee & Flower is very reminiscent of the style back in the 1970s and 1980s. "Packaged like detergent" and "outdated" have become a consensus among most netizens.

In fact, Bee Flower once put in a lot of efforts in packaging. In the interview with CBO, the head of Bee & Flower's Marketing Department said that in order to meet the needs of younger consumers, Bee & Flower changed the packaging pattern and color tone. For instance, bright and fresh colors, such as pink, blue, gold gradient as well as flowers and plants, were used to make products look lively and refreshing.

It is obvious that such change has failed to match with the aesthetic standard of consumers. Even worse, it received many complaints from consumers.

With attention paid to the consumer demand, Bee & Flower now has responded that they will continue to improve their packaging. As to the netizens' question of whether the brand will raise the price after updating the packaging, Bee & Flower sincerely responded: the new packaging will not cause a price increase and at the same time, the company will keep the production line for the old packaging for older generation consumers to keep the classic memories.

In an era when consumption upgrading has become a craze,It is hard to netizens not to be moved by such sincerity and thoughtfulness from Bee & Flower.

"Bee & Flower is committed to becoming a 'personal care brand for all'. In the future, we will step up our efforts to develop more new products to better meet the hair care needs of different consumers through technological innovation and packaging innovation." Regarding the current popularity of the brand, the person in charge at Bee & Flower said that they will do all that they can to create a robust, and classic, domestic brand".

02

As a 36-Year-Old Factory

Bee & Flower was once the Leader 

in the Era of Separating Washing from Care

In fact, the down-to-earth manner of Bee & Flower is closely related to its positioning.

In 1985, Shanghai Light Industrial Products Import & Export Company and Shanghai County Maqiao Commune Yutang Brigade jointly funded Shanghai Huayin Detergent Factory, the predecessor of Shanghai Huayin Daily Commodities Co., Ltd. With the main production being Bee & Flower shampoo and conditioner, the company has become the first domestic enterprise specializing in the production of liquid shampoo and hair conditioner products.

At that time, Bee & Flower was, so to speak, the leader of the industry. In an era when many people were still used to washing their hair with soap due to lack of the concept of hair care, Bee & Flower became the first brand to lead consumers to enter a new era of separating washing from care. 

△Bee Flower’s basic product series

At that time, Bee & Flower's classic yellow cylindrical conditioner, known as the "glory of domestic products", became a hit instantly for its high-quality hair care function and affordable price, creating beauty memories for several generations.

Since its reform, China, as the world's largest market for daily chemical products, has been regarded as the main battlefield for multinational companies. Many foreign brands have flocked into the market, making it difficult for many old domestic brands to survive. How to forge forward through pioneering and innovation in the increasingly fierce competition environment has become an urgent issue for Bee & Flower.

He Shuying, Chairman of Suzhou Bairun Trading Co., Ltd., the distributor of Bee & Flower in Jiangsu Province, said in the interview with the CBO reporter that as there is no question about the quality of domestic brands, Bee & Flower’s products sell well in supermarkets and she has been working with the brand for a long time. Last year, Bee & Flower expanded its factory buildings, which has provided strong support for the further development of the brand. For this reason, the Chairman has become even more optimistic about the future of the brand.

Zhang Huanfa,General Manager of Dafa Daily Chemicals Co., Ltd. in Baoding, Hebei Province, a distributor who has been operating the offline supermarket channel of Bee & Flower for more than 20 years, told the CBO reporter: "Bee & Flower is a time-honored domestic brand that has made some progress in sales and user growth in recent years.However, all this was taking place relatively slowly. To make a qualitative leap forward, the brand should make overall improvements in new products, terminal presentation, and marketing strategies, to open up the market and expand market share.."

It can be seen that the quality of Bee & Flower’s products has been generally recognized by the public. How to win the favor of more consumers in the rapidly changing market requires the brand to step up on  innovation and reform.

03

By Establishing New Intelligent Factories and Implementing Young Consumers-based Marketing Strategies

Bee & Flower is Also Advancing with the Times

Despite the fierce competition and challenges, Bee & Flower is not "closing down" soon, as some netizens suggested.. Instead, the brand has made a series of reforms to keep pace with the changes of the market and consumer demand.

In terms of products, the head of Bee & Flower’s Marketing Department said: "Since its establishment, Bee & Flower has successively developed more than 150 types of hair care products that meet different consumer needs. For example, the brand developed fragrance washing and care product series in 2018, plant based anti hair loss washing and care products in 2019, smoothing and brightening washing and care product series in 2020 and silky nourishing hair masks in 2021. In fact, we have been focusing our efforts on younger consumers for a long time." 

With a wide variety of products, the brand still sets the prices that are quite reasonable and accessible to ordinary people, which are all below RMB 100. According to some netizens, the price has increased by only two yuan in ten years".

The person in charge at Bee & Flower told the CBO reporter: "It is true that in the past ten years, the price of our classic hair care products has increased by only 2 yuan." According to the person in charge, due to the fact that the costs for raw materials, packaging materials, labor, electricity and transportation have been rising in recent years, Bee & Flower does have great cost pressure. However, Bee & Flower is committed to becoming a personal care brand for all and providing quality hair care products with reasonable prices. For this reason, we will continue to try to keep the low pricing for the benefit of our consumers. We want the consumers to ‘think about us, afford to buy and have great use of our products’.

Despite its low prices, Bee & Flower has never reduced its investment in R&D and production. In October last year, Shanghai Bee & Flower Cosmetics Co., Ltd. officially opened for business. At the same time, the industry-leading Intelligent factory, which was built with RMB 400 million, was put into operation. These major moves are of great significance to the time-honored domestic daily chemical brand that has been surviving the fierce competition among foreign hair care brands over the past 30-odd years. Reportedly, it took three years to build the new industrial base of Shanghai Bee & Flower Cosmetics Co., Ltd., which cost nearly RMB 400 million and covers an area of more than 45,000 square meters and a total construction area of over 61,000 square meters.Twelve new production lines have been built, of which seven are fully automatic and at the industry-leading level.

According to Gu Jinwen, Chairman of Bee & Flower, the annual output of the old factory was somewhere between 25,000 to 30,000 tons, but now the new factory has doubled that to more than 100,000 tons, with an annual output value of RMB 1.5 billion, and its efficiency greatly improved. Filling and product quality were conducted manually in the past and now infrared ray can be used to identify whether or not the product quality has met the standards. The high-quality and efficient reserve production capacity has undoubtedly provided a strong guarantee for Bee & Flower in the fierce competition in the washing and care market.

Besides production, Bee & Flower has also engaged in transformation in channels. As a brand that started from daily chemical and commercial supermarket channels, Bee & Flower has covered more than 300 first-level distributors in more than 1,600 county-level cities across China, with marketing spread to neighboring countries and regions.

With the development of e-commerce, consumption habits have been shifting from offline to online. According to such change, Bee & Flower is also trying to change with time. Through a series of online operations, Bee & Flower officially announced that e-commerce sales have accounted for 21% of the total this year.

Kantar data also demonstrated the Bee & Flower’s growth after its transformation. According to the 2021 China Brand Footprint Report released by Kantar Consumer Index released in July 2021, Bee & Flower has become one of the most popular brands among consumers with a market penetration rate of 15.6% and a high growth rate of 3.6%.

In addition, in terms of marketing, Bee & Flower is also transforming to be more youthful. In May this year, Bee & Flower officially announced that the brand had invited Jackie Li (La Mu Yang Zi) to be its first spokesperson with a goal to gradually influence young people through the young spokesperson. At the same time, Bee & Flower has been gaining more popularity by working with celebrities, such as Liu Tao and Ge Xiaoqian, in live streaming.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, which means that long-term quantitative changes will lead to qualitative changes. We believe that Bee & Flower will take on a brand-new look for consumers in the near future.