news

한어Русский языкEnglishFrançaisIndonesianSanskrit日本語DeutschPortuguêsΕλληνικάespañolItalianoSuomalainenLatina

In the face of the recent rumors that the brand department was completely laid off, the response from Jiaoxia that "staff resignation is a normal personnel adjustment" did not seem to stop the storm. From time to time, there were news of layoffs of nearly 10% and the resignation of the chief marketing officer. For a new consumer brand like Jiaoxia that focuses on marketing, the importance of the brand department is self-evident. This is also believed by the industry that the rumors are probably not just simple personnel adjustments, and the current Jiaoxia may be facing more severe development problems.

Unable to capitalize

The layoff rate is close to 10%, the brand department is abolished, all employees in the public relations department resigned, and the marketing department was merged into the sales department...Recently, news about Jiaoxia has been appearing on the Internet.

"The layoff news released by the first media is not true. The relevant reports have been deleted. Operations are normal and the resignation of personnel is a normal personnel adjustment." A relevant person in charge of Jiaoxia responded to the Beijing Business Daily reporter.

However, Beijing Business Daily reporters learned from industry insiders that many public relations personnel of Jiaoxia did leave in July and August. According to Blue Whale Finance, Jiaoxia's Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Guo Xiao has resigned. Guo Xiao was previously the head of the Afu essential oil market and CMO of Pop Mart. He joined Jiaoxia in April 2022, when Jiaoxia had just submitted its prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. After Guo Xiao joined, Jiaoxia completed the reconstruction of its brand, market and public relations system.

Before the layoffs, Jiaoxia had attempted several IPOs, but all ended in failure. On April 8, 2022, Jiaoxia submitted its prospectus for the first time in Hong Kong stocks, and six months later, the prospectus expired. On October 10 of the same year, Jiaoxia updated its prospectus again, but the prospectus expired again, and there was no IPO-related information afterwards. The lack of hope for listing was also speculated by the industry as one of the reasons for Jiaoxia's internal adjustments.

Looking back at the path that Jiaoxia has taken, standing at the forefront and relying on traffic marketing is the key. According to public data, in 2021, Jiaoxia's advertising expenses and e-commerce platform service fees were 586 million yuan and 227 million yuan respectively. The advertising expenses of 586 million yuan accounted for 24.4% of the total revenue. In 2021 alone, Jiaoxia cooperated with nearly 600 KOLs; in the first half of 2022, Jiaoxia cooperated with 1,577 KOLs (including top anchors such as Li Jiaqi and Luo Yonghao).

By spending money on marketing, Jiaoxia's revenue and valuation have increased exponentially. From 2019 to 2021, Jiaoxia's revenue was 380 million yuan, 790 million yuan and 2.41 billion yuan respectively; from 2021 to 2022, Jiaoxia's valuation increased from about 100 million US dollars to 3.026 billion US dollars. It is worth mentioning that Jiaoxia's sunscreen business is in full swing, but it has not made any money. Data shows that from 2019 to 2021, Jiaoxia's net losses were 23.21 million yuan, 77,000 yuan and 5.47 billion yuan respectively. However, in the prospectus, Jiaoxia attributed this loss to the different calculation methods of International Financial Reporting Standards and non-International Financial Reporting Standards.

In addition to traffic, one of the problems faced by Jiaoxia is the lack of brand value that is sufficient to support the brand through the cycle. In its prospectus, Jiaoxia mentioned that it did not build its own factory, but adopted the OEM model. This means that as long as consumers can find the "source supplier", they can buy the same brand at a low price. While Jiaoxia's sun-proof clothing is popular, the same style of Jiaoxia on many e-commerce platforms is also popular. Previously, a Beijing Business Daily reporter investigated and reported that many sun-proof clothing OEM factories claimed to produce the same sun-proof clothing as Jiaoxia. The sun-proof clothing of Jiaoxia, which costs about 200 yuan, can be purchased by consumers in the OEM channel for 50 yuan, and the style and fabric are restored one to one.

Regarding questions related to brand development, Jiaoxia did not respond. In the view of Zhou Ting, director of Yaoke Research Institute, the core reason for Jiaoxia's internal adjustments is that Jiaoxia has already considered itself a failed brand from a strategic perspective. Although Jiaoxia has always touted its success as a new consumer brand, in fact, its success has little to do with the brand itself. The core business model of Jiaoxia is still to promote large traffic based on the cost-effective route.

"With the increasing cost of traffic, as well as the consumption upgrades and market competition among mass consumers, Jiaoxia has also faced tremendous pressure in the past two years. Its natural growth has been much slower than before, and it also faces huge challenges in the future," Zhou Ting added.

Switch to light outdoor

Unable to make money, Jiaoxia shifted its focus from the sunscreen business to the light outdoor battlefield. In 2022, Jiaoxia first proposed the concept of lightweight outdoor lifestyle; in 2023, Jiaoxia embarked on the road of brand upgrading, with "lightweight outdoor" as the main line, and continuously launched a series of products for layout.

After entering the light outdoor market, Bananaxia has continued its strategy in the field of sun protection - traffic marketing is king. In May 2023, Bananaxia announced Jay Chou as the spokesperson for Bananaxia's light outdoor products; in March this year, Bananaxia officially announced Yang Mi as the global brand spokesperson. Bananaxia is always willing to spend money on inviting spokespersons. But light outdoor products are not like sun protection, which can be done by relying solely on traffic.

In Zhou Ting's opinion, Jiaoxia's transformation into the outdoor market is at best a re-use of its previous strategy in the sunscreen field, but the market conditions have changed, the traffic dividend has disappeared, the competition is becoming increasingly fierce, the profit margin is getting smaller and smaller, and at the same time there are many strong competing brands, so she is not optimistic about Jiaoxia's transformation.

In fact, compared with the strategy of burning money to earn traffic, the outdoor sports field is more famous for its professionalism, R&D and innovation, which is precisely the shortcoming of Jiaoxia. According to the prospectus disclosed by Jiaoxia, from 2019 to the first half of 2022, Jiaoxia's R&D expenses were 19.9 million yuan, 35.9 million yuan, 71.6 million yuan, and 63.2 million yuan, respectively, and the revenue share dropped from 5.3% in 2019 to 3% in the first half of 2022. At the same time, in terms of patents, Jiaoxia is mostly based on appearance styles, with fewer fabric and technology patents. Tianyancha information shows that Jiaoxia currently owns 204 patents, of which 99 are appearance patents and 31 are invention patents. Among the 31 invention patents, 11 have been "authorized", and the others are in the status of "public", "substantive examination", "patent withdrawal", and "patent rejection".

In contrast, there are quite a few professional brands in the outdoor field. In addition to Nike and Adidas, domestic professional sports brands such as Anta and Li Ning are also making their presence felt. In addition, clothing brands such as Bosideng and Metersbonwe have also turned to outdoor brands, which is a big competition for Jiaoxia.

Cheng Weixiong, an independent fashion industry analyst and founder of Shanghai Liangqi Brand Management Co., Ltd., said, "Any brand can get involved in the outdoor scene matching clothing industry. Facing a lot of competition, Bananaxia is even more anxious about its inability to capitalize. Past public relations investment and various investments in online traffic have not brought greater results to Bananaxia. Appropriate investment reduction and return to the mainstream channel of business operations is naturally for better survival."

Beijing Business Daily reporter Zhang Junhua