Introduction: The rise of ingredient parties is a new way of communication between brands and consumers, which tests the brand’s scientific research capabilities and content production capabilities. However, brands and consumers are also “taming” each other. As consumers’ awareness of ingredients gradually upgrades, brands begin to face new challenges.
Author 〡Future Traces
has shifted from "basic care of hydration and moisturizing" to "in-depth care with anti-aging and other functions". As China's newborn population has dropped to the lowest level in history, the society is gradually showing an "aging" trend, and Chinese skin care products The overall market demand has also begun to accelerate.
This consumer demand is reflected on the industrial side. Judging from the fact that the consumption of matrix raw materials and active ingredient raw materials in the Chinese market is higher than the global level, cosmetic products in the Chinese market are currently showing a polarization trend. On the one hand, low-tech products with only basic functions still account for the majority and face heavy pressure for product upgrades; on the other hand, the Chinese market has an urgent demand for functional products, which has brought about a large demand for active raw materials.
This change is projected to the marketing side, and the biggest phenomenon at present is the "ingredient party". Why is the
ingredient party so popular? The underlying logic behind the popularity of
ingredient parties is that after consumers have been deceived by various concepts of cosmetics for decades, they no longer want to pay IQ taxes and are eager to find safe and effective products.
Therefore, they are eager to find out what products are effective and why they are effective.
At this time, companies use science popularization "ingredients" from the marketing level to cater to this demand of consumers. Because, for ordinary consumers, they cannot accept too complex information at first, and can only receive the simplest information. Obviously, the simple and crude method of "A ingredient = A effect" is the most suitable for communication.
However, this trend has intensified, and many outrageous phenomena have appeared over a period of time. For example, a certain tree that was once very popular achieved remarkable effects by adding hormones and other methods. At the same time, there are claims that cosmetics can cure various "diseases" such as gynecological diseases and athlete's foot.
At this time, the national regulatory level took advantage of the situation and started from various aspects such as raw material supervision, efficacy evaluation, label management, and efficacy claims to stop this unhealthy trend, and finally corrected the entire cosmetics market to the correct direction of "raw material research and development" and "efficacy demonstration". the way.
The current main regulations in the cosmetics industry
In such an environment, companies of a certain size in the market soon discovered that their scientific research results accumulated for many years began to have a greater use at the marketing level, so they added fuel to the fire.
The popularization of ingredients based on raw material research and development and efficacy verification has reached a new level.
This is the reason why the constituent party is in full swing at present. In summary, it is the result of the interaction between consumers, mainstream brands in the industry, and national authorities.
From this perspective, ingredient party and ingredient science popularization will still have a long way to go in the cosmetics industry. At present, paying attention to the current status and progress of ingredient science has certain industry significance.
To this end, "FutureBeauty" obtained the data of Douyin in 2021 and the first quarter of 2022, and based on this, conducted some analysis on the current trends in cosmetic ingredients. The reason why Douyin’s data is used is because Douyin is a hobby e-commerce company. To a certain extent, its data can reflect consumers’ “interests and hobbies.” The following is the current development of the beauty ingredient party:
Chemical ingredients dominate
Plant extract ingredients have become a hot spot in the market
According to Douyin’s sales and video playback in the past year, ’s massive engine has summarized the hottest beauty makeup in 2022 TOP50 Ingredients and TOP50 Ingredients with the Most Potential.
What is the mystery behind these two lists?
1. From the classification of ingredients, the main ingredients currently popular in science are chemical ingredients, followed by plant ingredients.
Popularity list ingredient type distribution
Potential list ingredient type distribution
Comparing the ingredients of the popularity list and the potential list on the marketing side and the consumer side, you will find it more clearly:
· The flowers on the popularity list This component has been over-marketed and needs to find new components to break through.
· Chemical composition, whether it is an ingredient on the popularity list or an ingredient on the potential list, although there are many ingredients lined up on the potential list, the marketing space is not big, and it will soon face the situation of over-marketing;
·Plants in the short term The ingredients still have potential to be tapped.
From a mid- to long-term perspective, the current popularization of cosmetic ingredients at the consumer level is still in the basic stage, and information asymmetry between upstream and downstream still exists. In the short term, plant extract ingredients will be a hot spot in the market. In the medium and long term, biofermentation ingredients and biosynthetic ingredients will have more room for popularization among consumers.
2. Judging from the efficacy of the ingredients listed in the two lists, anti-aging occupies an absolutely dominant position, followed by whitening and moisturizing.
This data confirms the previous judgment from the side. The core needs of consumers have generally shifted from "basic hydration and moisturizing" to "anti-aging functional in-depth care".
Similarly, from the perspective of efficacy, by comparing the marketing index and the consumer index, we can clearly find:
·Hot-selling moisturizing products have been over-marketed and will enter the knockout round. Some products will be eliminated, but new ones Potential ingredients, and marketing space;
· soothing and repairing category, the overall entry and marketing balance critical point. This market segment has entered the Red Sea, and will begin to seriously roll into and ;
· There is still room for marketing in the anti-aging and whitening market.
What are the new opportunities in the anti-aging/whitening/soothing market segments?
(1) Anti-aging market
Anti-aging is the current mainstream demand of consumers. Nearly half of the currently popular ingredients are anti-aging ingredients, and nearly half of the potential ingredients are anti-aging ingredients. However, in terms of user interests and consumption needs, the demand is far from being met.
Currently, the representative hot-selling anti-aging ingredients are as follows:
Next, the representative ingredients that are likely to become more popular are as follows:
From the data point of view, peptides may be the ingredients that will become more popular next. A-alcohol, peptides, and Bose are known as the three anti-aging giants. Nowadays, A-alcohol has become very popular due to the popularity of "C in the morning and A in the evening." Although Bose's patent has expired, it is too tightly tied to and L'Oreal . As more and more companies participate, the impact of peptides may expand.
Another noteworthy phenomenon in the anti-aging market is that facial essence products account for the highest proportion in terms of product form. What is noteworthy here is: lotion used to be one of the main products in the Chinese market, but since 2016, the sales of lotion have continued to decline, and now it ranks behind essences, facial masks, and facial creams. It is estimated that this ranking is likely to decline.The main reason is:
· Lotion has emerged before, mainly because the deep cleaning ability of facial cleanser at that time was not enough. Lotion was used as an auxiliary product for deep cleansing to open pores and promote hand washing with subsequent products. However, now, facial cleanser can Complete this work;
· Ordinary hydrating lotion cannot meet the needs of current consumers in terms of function.
Therefore, the category of lotion will either be upgraded and find a new positioning, or it will be replaced by essence. There is no lotion in the European and American cosmetics systems, which may be due to this reason.
In addition, from the age level that focuses on anti-aging, compared with the first quarter of last year, the number of people aged 30 to 40 years old decreased year-on-year, while the number of people in other age groups increased, indicating that anti-aging has become a global trend. Things that age groups pay attention to are not only older people, but also young people.
(2) Whitening market
Whitening is the second most important market at the moment besides anti-aging. The current representatives of popular ingredients and potential ingredients are as follows:
The whitening market currently has the following points from the perspective of consumption trends:
1. Consumer demand has expanded from facial whitening to full body whitening;
2. In acid brushing, the use of high-concentration VC, etc. In addition to strong medicines, more gentle whitening products are needed; so in terms of ingredients, various plant ingredients with whitening effects are beginning to gain popularity.
For this reason, whitening facial masks are becoming more and more popular.
(3) Shumin repair market
Judging from the indexes on the marketing side and the consumer side, this is a market that is moving toward saturation. Seasonal changes/sensitivity/after medical beauty treatments are the main scenarios for using this type of product.
The current popular ingredients and potential ingredients are mainly plants. The future trend of this market segment is that market segments will continue to emerge. Currently, the main market segments are "balancing skin microecology" and "soothing and calming".
A brief analysis of the new changes and future trends of the ingredient party
"Future Beauty" believes from the perspective of brand building and market competition that brands are rushing to make ingredients. From the perspective of brand building, this is likely to be a "trap" ".
Because if you keep valuing ingredients, for brand building, it is equivalent to destroying the value of the "brand". Just imagine, it’s also nicotinamide . Why does the next door sell it for 100 yuan a bottle, but you want to sell it for 200 yuan a bottle?
Only if it can obtain global patented raw materials like L'Oreal can it build a brand moat. But the paradox is that if a raw material can only be used by a certain company, the probability of destroying this ingredient will be much lower.
Therefore, from this perspective, it can be said that brands rushing to speculate on ingredients are actually a trap and a road of no return. Many popular products may be born and gain a lot of sales in a short period of time, but it is difficult to accumulate brand awareness. Speculating ingredients can only be used as a staged strategy on the road of brand development or a maneuvering tactic for survival.
To put it bluntly, consumers buy things based on their ingredients. The reason they choose a certain brand is simply because it is cheap, looks pleasing to the eye, or has a lot of advertisements.
In addition, based on the analysis of consumer behavior data obtained from Douyin, after such a long period of ingredient science popularization, consumers’ awareness has actually been continuously upgraded. From the initial understanding of a single ingredient, we have gradually begun to pay attention to the concentration of the ingredient that really works, as well as the best combination with other ingredients, etc., to develop in more comprehensive directions.
Scientific formula, multiple effects in one bottle, cocktail-style ingredient combination is becoming more and more popular.
This is a bit like a child learning to speak. At first he can only dance words, and then he can slowly form words and sentences. As the popularization of ingredient science continues to advance, consumers’ understanding of cosmetic formulas will gradually mature. This process is a process of "domestication" between consumers and brands. When consumers’ awareness upgrades, brands will begin to face new challenges.
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