Unilever China Launched The First Men’s High-End Skincare Brand

The birth of the new brand is undoubtedly an important step for Unilever to test the waters of men's high-end skin care in the Chinese market, and it is also an opportunity to fix gaps in the men’s skin care competition track.

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Recently, Unilever’s new Chinese men’s brand EB39 was launched in a low-key manner.

“EB39” means “Energy Buff that helps skin cells iterate every 39 days”. “EB” is short for “Energy Buff”, and “39” refers to “39 days for the skin to iterate itself”.

The outer packaging of the products is colored in navy blue that is appealing to men. The laser bottle body has rigid and straight lines. The font is simple and bold. The overall style is a cyberpunk futuristic sci-fi style.

“Simple and straight lines to highlight the sense of technological structure and the brand's pioneering attitude of being ahead of others. The design of the letters E and B is easy to read and has its own style, similar to the unique coding language of the metaverse.”. Explained the product Visual Designer Camille Zhang.

Unilever China launchedthe first light luxury men's skincare brand,the first AI algorithm-driven formula research and development brand,the first metaverse artist skincare brand. The three “firsts” together shows Unilever China's great attention to the men’s skincare competition track.

First of all, the brand positioning is high-end. Pricing for the 3 single products that have been launched is between 300-500 yuan.

Secondly, the brand said that EB39 is carefully developed by 39 Chinese and British scientists team who spent 3290 hours. It uses Unilever's iPredict big data tool, which can utilize cross-platform digital analysis capabilities to help create hit products.

Riding the popularity wave of metaverse, EB39 also has Dr. Lisa, Unilever China's first Virtual Product Manager. It is the “first metaverse artist skincare brand” created by Unilever China.

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Targeting video game players. The full line of essence categories

According to Qian Zhan Industry Research Institute (xw.qianzhan.com), it is expected that the average annual compound growth rate of China's male skin care market size will be 15.88% from 2021 to 2026, and the overall market size is expected to reach 20.7 billion yuan in 2026. In recent years, the domestic men's skin care market has also shown some great changes of new channels, new groups of people and new consumption. The continuous bet of capital has rekindled the heat of “HE Economy”.

In the men's skin care field, which was once surrounded by international giants, local brands have made a comeback. What strategies has Unilever China prepared?

“86% of male consumers buy skincare products online. In terms of demand of skin care needs, there are slight differences between men and women. Young men under the age of 35 have more oily skin, of which acne, oil and other skin problems are the pain points of contemporary young men”. Weibo social user data X Ipsos released the "New Chronicle of Men's Face - Men's Skincare Market Insights" report shows.

Looking at the new products that have been launched, Unilever has considered the segmentation of the population, channel segmentation and demand segmentation.

With the large amount of video game talk terms such as “buff/CD/KO” used in products descriptions, it is not difficult to link to the brand's target customer group - male video game players.

In the initial stage of the brand, the first wave of recommendation and conversion was carried out through Douyin, and according to the reviews most of the sales currently achieved by Tmall were converted from Douyin.

In response to men's skin issues EB39's first products are mainly “anti acne” and “anti-aging”, and all are anchored in the essence form, which is differentiated from other brands focusing on basic washing products, such as cleansing and toner.

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A chance to fill the gap in the men’s skincare competition track?

For Unilever Group positioning high-end professional men's brands has always been a missing piece of the puzzle.

From the perspective of the brand composition of the beauty department, men's skin care is not Unilever’s focus or its area of expertise. Positioning in the “high-end” is also what most brands want to conquer.

Up to now, the only professional men's brand under the Unilever Group is the acquired Dollar Shave Club. The brand's main product is a shaver, and after the acquisition, it covers men's grooming, personal care, and perfume. In the Chinese market, the only competitive men’s brand is CLEAR, which is positioned in the popular brand category.

From the perspective of competitors, it seems that EB39 only needs to face competitors of professional high-end men's care brands represented by Biotherm and Lab Series, as well as the men's line “FOR MEN” series of high-end skin care brands of major beauty groups.

In fact, iResearch.com.cn data shows that in 2021 L’Oréal, DaBao, Mentholatum, Nivea, and Shiseido were the top choices in the brand power index in the minds of consumers. That is to say, the traditional open shelf men's skin care brands and domestic emerging professional men's brands represented by MAKE SENSE, dear BOY friend, Lanseral etc., are EB39’s competitors that cannot be ignored.

In the view of vertical skin care blogger @ formulator Rex, “As far as the Chinese market is concerned, it is indeed a little difficult for men's brands to go high-end. There are Biotherm and Lab Series men’s high end products. Shiseido men have not sold particularly well either. There are many people who buy affordable UNO. When (Men) really want to pursue efficacy they generally do not buy men's products; men do not have high-efficacy products.”

In the long run whether EB39, which was born with the halo of “Unilever China’s first high-end men’s skincare brand”, is lucky enough to be successful still remains to be seen.