Recently, Tianyancha showed that Shandong Hebao Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. has undergone industrial and commercial changes, and Unilever Investment Co., Ltd. was added as a shareholder. According to the shareholding structure chart, Unilever holds 2% of the shares.

Reporter | Zhou Fangying

Editor | Lou Qin

Recently, Tianyan checked and showed that Shandong Hebao Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. has undergone industrial and commercial changes, and the new shareholder is Unilever (China) Investment Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as " Unilever "). According to the shareholding structure chart, Unilever holds 2% of the shares.

According to the official website of Shandong Hebao Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., the company’s Hebao brand is positioned as a skin care brand with traditional Chinese medicine prescriptions. Based on TCM clinical screening and verification of TCM prescriptions, combined with modern skin care technology and TCM pharmaceutical technology, the brand provides skin health care products such as "topical + oral" and "TCM prescriptions" to solve skin problems.

At present, the Hebao brand has five product series, namely anti-acne, soothing, hydrating, the same model as the theater and oral beauty. According to Hebao Tmall futures store, product prices are basically between 100 yuan and 400 yuan.

It can be seen from the product introduction page that in addition to popular ingredients such as bosen, hyaluronic acid , nicotinamide , Hebao will emphasize the traditional Chinese medicine prescriptions added to its products , thereby strengthening the "Science of Traditional Chinese Medicine" Skin care" brand concept.

The unique concept of "TCM skin care" really helps the brand break through the serious homogeneity dilemma in the current skin care market. On the other hand, the popularity of "national fashion" in the consumer market also helps to promote this concept.

It is worth noting that the concept of publicity is certainly important in opening up the market, but the key to whether domestic skin care products can grow lies in whether their research and development capabilities are sufficient to support the effects of the publicity. Compared with the short-term and intuitive use effects of makeup, skin care brands have a higher threshold for consumer acceptance. The category characteristic lies in stronger user stickiness.

Sky Eye Check shows that Unilever’s subscription investment time is September 15, 2020. At that time, Hebao brand announced that it had signed a contract with Unilever and joined its "U Innovation Incubator".

"U Innovation Incubator" is the world's first external incubator launched by Unilever headquarters, aiming to support Chinese start-up brands. As a long-established daily chemical company, Unilever will obviously provide considerable assistance to the new brand in marketing.

However, Interface Fashion has analyzed that being backed by a large international group does not necessarily mean smooth sailing. If large companies are in a relatively strong position during the cooperation process, or if the follow-up management level and resource support of the incubator project are not in place, this will restrict and affect the future development prospects of emerging brands.

Judging from Unilever's actions, the brand is obviously destined to expand its business in the beauty sector in the Chinese market. Jiemian Fashion once reported that shortly after the launch of the "U Innovation Incubator", Unilever's high-end beauty department established a joint venture company GoUni (Gao Youyi) with Hangzhou Gaolang Holdings Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Gaolang Holdings") to jointly launch China's cutting-edge products High-end beauty brand team.

focuses on beauty brand incubation and brand asset management. Gaolang Holdings had earlier helped Unilever introduce its high-end skin care brand Kate Somerville, clinical skin care brand Murad and professional skin care brand Dermalogica to the Chinese market.

Obviously, seeing the resilience of consumption in China’s beauty market after the epidemic, Unilever hopes to find new opportunities in the regional market, such as incubating local brands that better meet the needs of local consumers. This idea coincides with most international brands that have been deeply involved in the Chinese market for many years.

Recently, Procter & Gamble , which is also a large daily chemical company, has also reached a cooperation with Watsons to launch the "streamlined skin care" brand aio in the Chinese market. In addition, international cosmetics companies such as Shiseido and Beiersdorf have also launched brand incubation projects in 2021.

Compared with daily chemical products, the gross profit margin of beauty products is higher, so the development of beauty products is expected to be a good performance growth point for daily chemical companies. According to Unilever’s latest third-quarter report, its high-end beauty segment contributed double-digit performance growth during the period.

High-end beauty has also been the focus of Unilever Group's overall efforts in recent years.

In the third quarter, Unilever also completed the acquisition of “cruelty-free” skin care brand Paula’s Choice.Since the establishment of the high-end beauty department in 2014, Unilever has included about a dozen brands. In 2020, the high-end beauty segment contributed approximately 700 million euros in revenue to the group (approximately 5 billion yuan).

However, in the Chinese market, the rise of local beauty brands and the development of international beauty brands mean that competition in the future will become increasingly fierce.

Interface Fashion once reported that Unilever’s skin care brand K-BRIGHT may have withdrawn from the Chinese market in early 2021 because its e-commerce channels have been closed and its social media accounts have not been updated for a long time. This brand is Unilever’s first independently developed brand for the Asian market in the past decade.