Chinese "Noble" Brand Thanmelin Opens Offline Store in Guangzhou

Abstract: Thanmelin Offline Experience Store opened in Greenland Center, Baiyun District, Guangzhou providing one-on-one multi-scene skin care services by professional skin care consultants. Thanmelin's flagship store in Guangzhou Baiyun officially opened at the end of last year, opening its offline flagship store layout.

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According to CHAILEEDO's observation, Thanmelin was established in 2015, and is a Chinese beauty and skincare brand, with its Mirabilis Lady Series, Pure Belle Revital Series and Skin Renewal Series, which focuses on wrinkle removing, firming and anti-aging effects. International brands La Mer and Estee Lauder also focus on anti-aging and other effects. Moreover, Estee Lauder Advanced Night Repair has been sought after by Chinese consumers with the total sales in the Chinese e-commerce platform Tmall flagship store reaching 1 million. This time, Thanmelin opened an offline experience store aiming to let consumers experience the real efficacy of the product more directly. It also provided consumers with more comprehensive and better experience services.

In today's cosmetics market, especially in the high-end cosmetics field, consumers have long been concerned about the brand's investment in scientific research, rare core active ingredients and sound research laboratories supported by prestigious universities. Among high-end skincare products, SK-II's core active ingredient PITERA, Lamer's deep-sea macroalgae, La Prairie's caviar extract and platinum and L'Oreal's Boswellin are all widely recognized by consumers as effective ingredients, coupled with the huge fixed annual investment in R&D by major international brands, all of which are excellent guarantees for brand awareness and exposure.

Thanmelin's huge exposure was mainly due to its sponsorship of the previously popular Chinese variety show, which was reported to have generated up to $81.4 million in sponsorship advertising revenue, with title sponsor Thanmelin indeed capturing a wave of buzz. In addition to Thanmelin, beauty or beauty-related brands such as Lux, geoskincare, and Vipshop also sponsored the show.

According to Beijing Business Today, Thanmelin invested $6 million to sponsor the variety show, where it was the exclusive title sponsor. After its inception in 2015, it has been working with popular variety shows and TV dramas since 2016. In addition, the brand has also been featured on the world's largest screen, the Vistak Big Screen, and has large advertisements in Guangzhou Airport and Guangzhou Metro.

Regarding Thanmelin's marketing investment, unnamed sources indicate that in 2019 alone, a budget of $56.7 million has been invested in the TikTok platform alone. In the first quarter of 2020, the brand continued to invest $17.9 million in the ByteDance and tens of millions of RMB in Tencent. In a rumored interview with Thanmelin, Cai Bindi, a corporate citizen, said, "Thanks to the headlines' instant platform, we made 300 videos in one month and invested almost 400 million last year and the windfall this year is still mainly focused on TikTok."

In its marketing, Thanmelin calls itself a noblewoman brand. This is also reflected in his price: 40g of Mirabilis Lady cream priced at $178.9, 150ml of Mirabilis Lady moisturizer priced at $77.5, 40ml of Mirabilis Lady serum priced at $137.2. Compare to the international brands, Estee Lauder's Advanced Night Repair with an official price of $126.7 for 50ml, and SK-II's 230ml Facial Treatment Essence at $229.6. La Mer, a brand named by Times as the "luxury of luxury", sells its 30ml cream for $226.6.

Due to the huge amount of exposure, users have begun to explore the brand in depth. and Thanmelin is mainly based on a hierarchical sales model. The dealer level is mainly divided into three levels. This business model will make consumers think that the brand is heavy on marketing instead of research and development and there are suspicions of pyramid schemes.

Although the current society has a variety of views on "Wechat business", it does not mean that it will be "looked down upon". In fact, in recent years, it has become increasingly common for Wechat business to become sponsors or even titleholders of variety shows. In 2016, One Leaf (now a brand of Chicmax), then a Wechat business brand, bought the chief title of a popular variety show at the time.

In the Thanmelin’s introduction on its official website, the brand integrates R&D, production, planning and sales. In fact, it was not until January 14, 2020, that Thanmelin added cosmetics manufacturing and makeup technology development to its business portfolio. In other words, during the period when classic products such as "Mirabilis Lady ceam" were launched, its products were manufactured on behalf of ODM/OEM.

This time, Thanmelin is focusing more on offline sinking cities aiming to build a collaboration between online sales and offline experience stores. Its offline stores also consistently adopt a luxury style, which is basically in line with its brand tone. But time is needed to test whether the brand can be further recognized by the market.