According to the response given by Kao's public relations department in an interview with Japanese media Netorabo, the relevant decision was made "after reviewing the entire Kao Group's business strategy."

Reporter丨Luanqin

For consumers who like Japanese cosmetics, especially niche brands, the news that CHICCA will stop operating should be sad enough.

According to the response given by Kao's public relations department in an interview with Japanese media Netorabo, the relevant decision was made "after reviewing the entire Kao Group's business strategy."

interface fashion query Kao Group's financial report in recent years found that there were signs of making this decision. In recent years, Kao Group has repeatedly raised its "2030 long-term goal" and the "K20 medium-term plan " set to achieve this long-term goal. By target, Kao Group will eventually become a daily chemical group with high profit growth, high shareholder return, and global consumer influence.

This is why Kao Group has proposed to make new plans for the core business of cosmetics at least in the financial reports in the past three years. In the 2019 comprehensive annual report, Kao Group specifically explained the relevant strategies: for the global and Japanese local markets, Kao will carefully select brands and then compete with a brand new brand combination.

The first proposal of related strategies can be traced back to May 2018. According to reports from many Japanese media, Kao will select about 11 global brands and 8 Japanese domestic brands from the existing 49 beauty brands, and ultimately retain them. The name of CHICCA was not seen on the incomplete list given by multiple media outlets. At that time, there were many speculations that CHICCA would eventually be "cut off" by Kao Group.

Today, guesses come true. On the afternoon of the day when the

news was released, "CHICCA was cut" also became a hot search entry on Sina Weibo in China. From some related popular replies, we can see that although CHICCA's products have not been officially launched in the Chinese market so far, they still have many fans in China. Among them, lipstick, triangle sponge, foam cleanser and other products have been repeatedly mentioned by these fans.

According to the official introduction of CHICCA, CHICCA is a beauty brand designed to be launched for elderly women aged 50 to 60 who have a sense of fashion in metropolis. It does not focus on anti-aging, but advocates that women can become a more beautiful self as CHICCA defines as "cute" in Italian. The makeup looks like bare face, but it has the luster of being in love.

It is worth mentioning that CHICCA's products strive to interpret the brand meaning. Regardless of whether words such as matte and velvet are popular in the beauty circle, CHICCA's products are always shining.

This may also contribute to an interesting situation to some extent - in Japan and China, the brand does not only attract elderly women in actual sales. Many young women also choose to buy their products because their product texture is moist and transparent, especially the color of makeup products is natural and soft, suitable for daily makeup and can better show the charm of girls.

From the information retrieval of the social product platform Xiaohongshu , where young Chinese female consumers gather, you can roughly see the impression of CHICCA in the minds of Chinese consumers: "Japanese niche high-end brands", "unpopular, easy to use and not cheap", and "a little fairy must enter".

A little gratifying thing for these consumers is that although the brand’s self-operated channels will be closed one after another since the fall of 2019, the cooperative e-commerce channels, such as Amazon Japan and Cosme shopping websites, will delay the shutdown until the fall of 2020. In addition, according to interface fashion inquiry, Taobao purchasing agent , Xiaohongshu merchants, and e-commerce website Everglow are still selling CHICCA products normally. Take advantage of the current situation and hurry up and stock up.