Abstract: Chinese medical dressing brand Trauer launched a new Trauer Collagen Soothing Facial Mask and released the internal test data of product with 97.22% of testers perceiving a reduction in skin sensitivity. According to CHAILEEDO, on the product detail page, the product claims to add active collagen and sodium hyaluronate ingredients for strong skin repair and tightening effects and can see significant barrier repair effects in 14 days. The test data released by Trauer is shown that the product is comfortable to use and its main effect is to repair the barrier, which is aimed at people with sensitive skin. Trauer has been focusing on medical skincare for 18 years, with a focus on bioactive collagen products for sensitive skin repair and post-laser surgery repair. The series of products are mainly used for the auxiliary treatment of wounds, promote the hemostasis and repair of wounds, and can be used for the auxiliary treatment of acne, dermatitis, eczema, and skin allergy diseases. The products include collagen dressing, collagen sponge, etc., of which collagen dressing is one of the main products for the auxiliary treatment of dermatological diseases. At present, there are 28 SKUs in Trauer's Tmall flagship store, the main categories are mask and essence, and the best selling is Trauer Collagen Dressing with two packs, priced at $8.97, with total sales volume of 1 million+. According to Frost & Sullivan analysis information, at present, Voolga, Giant Bio, UnderProved (parent company of FulQun, Fufu), Trauer Biological (parent company of Trauer), and BTN occupies the main market share of Chinese patch medical device dressing products. During this year's 618 reports on Chinese e-commerce platform Tmall, the top 1 and top 3 of store sales of medicine and health store are Comfy and Voolga. In 2019, the market share of TOP3 brands of medical skin repair dressing is 51%, of which Voolga with a 37% market share is far ahead, occupying the first, Trauer with 8% share in second place. This shows that the influence of Voolga, Giant Bio and Trauer Bio in the medical dressing market continues to patch functional skincare products. In other words, in the functional patch mask market, these companies that started out as medical dressings have been competing for head-on with cosmetic companies. In fact, the pricing of medical dressings is generally higher than the mask. Some medical dressings such as Comfy Collagen Dressing are priced at the unit price of $5.9. Voolga Medical Sodium Hyaluronate Dressing was priced at $4.4. Trauer Collagen Dressing is priced at $5. However, general facial masks normally are priced at $1.5. However, under the increasingly fierce market competition, "price war" has become the first response of the brands, Comfy, Trauer, Voolga began to attract customers with lower tasting prices. In their Tmall flagship store, they also launched two pieces for discount to attract traffic. During the promotion, the product price of two pieces of medical dressing for $3, and the unit price has been less than $1.5. In fact, this kind of medical dressing is mainly functional skincare and its efficacy is similar to the international brand LA ROCHE-POSAY positioning active health skincare brand. In its Taobao official flagship store, LA ROCHE-POSAY B5 multi-effect moisturizing repair mask claims to repair redness, stinging, and dryness symptoms, priced at $24.5/5 pieces with a total sales volume of 500,000 +. In terms of price, it is comparable to the unit price of Trauer collagen dressing. This time, Trauer launched an efficacious mask, which may also indicate that Trauer intends to expand the trend of the efficacy market. Moreover, the product targets sensitive skin users, which also indicates that Trauer wants to share the market share with Winona, a big player in sensitive skincare.

Abstract: Recently, KOLMAR announced the acquisition of 55% shares of YONWOO, a leading cosmetics packaging material company in Korea.

Tom Ford officially announced actor Bai Jingting as the brand's fragrance ambassador in China while launching White Suede Parfum Gift Box exclusively for the Chinese Qixi Festival. The product is available in its flagship store on the Chinese e-commerce platform Tmall with a price from $223.2 to $1406. Tom Ford is the eponymous brand founded by designer Tom Ford with several categories including cosmetics, ready-to-wear, and fragrances. Tom Ford was once the creative director of Gucci. In 2005, a year after leaving Gucci, he co-founded his eponymous brand with Gucci's former CEO Domenico De Sole, cutting into the top luxury market from high-end menswear. In 2006, Tom Ford entered into a partnership with beauty giant Estee Lauder Group to jointly develop its beauty business, Tom Ford Beauty. According to CHAILEEDO, Tom Ford launched its fragrance in 2006 and its color cosmetics business in 2011, which debuted online in China in 2019. In August 2020, Tom Ford's world's largest beauty boutique officially landed in Parc Central, Guangzhou, which was not only the first TOM FORD store to land in Guangzhou but also the brand's largest beauty boutique in the world at the time. Compared with the online Tmall flagship store and other channels, the offline beauty store also has a more complete range of products. For example, TF's new radiant fine white tube lipstick series, luxury air cushion holster engraving service, as well as the brand's latest and most popular exclusive sale of beauty products, were achieved in-store premiere. It is reported that Valentino had benchmarked TOM FORD when entering the China market due to its high luxury brand background and the fact that the price is located at the same as Tom Ford. In September 2021, Valentino opened its offline flagship stores in Hong Kong and Shanghai, China. In March 2022, Valentino released its 2021 financial report: the beauty and fragrance business recorded a 97% year-on-year growth in 2021, which is double the forecast. In comparison, in Valentino's flagship store on the Chinese e-commerce platform Tmall, the product categories include lipstick, perfume, primer, gift box, etc. with a price range of $43-$588, and the highest sales volume is VALENTINO REFILLABLE LIPSTICK priced at $67 with total sales of 10,000+. In Tom Ford's official flagship store, product categories are similar, which also contain lipstick, perfume, primer, gift boxes, etc. With the price range of $52 -$2946. The highest sales product is TF lipstick classic black tube priced at $71 with total sales of 600,000 +. In summary, because TF entered China earlier than Valentino, it has a slight advantage in terms of sales and TF lipstick also received the Chinese consumers' admiration. For Valentino, how to quickly integrate into the Chinese market is a big test. It is worth noting that, according to Bloomberg, Tom Ford is looking for a sale, citing sources close to the company. According to the report, Tom Ford is currently in close contact with investment bank Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to discuss related matters. The deal would value the Tom Ford brand at billions of dollars overall. A possible sale partnership would include a future new owner working with Tom Ford himself to run the brand. At this time, no final decision has been made by the brand and Tom Ford may still choose to keep the brand independent. Estee Lauder has repeatedly mentioned Tom Ford's outstanding contributions to fragrance and color cosmetics in its annual earnings reports. Previously, John Demsey, Chairman of Estee Lauder's executive group, said in an interview, "The Tom Ford beauty business is driven primarily by cosmetics in Asia, by fragrance products in Europe, and both in the U.S." Since entering China in 2016, the brand now has about 20 stores and a Tmall flagship store that are performing brightly with China contributing 40 percent of its current global market share. Some industry insiders estimate that the brand's beauty business has exceeded $1 billion in sales in 2019 and is now temporarily the 25th largest beauty brand in the world. The plan of seeking a sale of Tom Ford is a response to the epidemic and it also tends to find a way to combine "business value" and "social value" for the brand to reorganize its business map. The official announcement of Bai Jingting as the brand's fragrance ambassador in China may reflect TF's willingness to continue its efforts in the fragrance category in the Chinese market and the Asia-Pacific market will become an important part of its long-term strategic plan.

Because of counterfeiting the patent of BASF and using it in the production of the “Stegner Gold Peptide Skin-lighten roll mask”, Guangzhou Riji was sentenced to forfeit its illegal revenue of USD 11, 800 and another USD 165,000 (1.4 times that income). According to the knowledge of CHAILEEDO, Guangzhou Refen (the entrusted manufacturer of Guangzhou Riji) has manufactured three batches of the infringing product, totally counted for 18,305 boxes. Guangzhou Riji has sold out 12,827 boxes of this mask, the sales amount of which was USD 19,900. After the infringing event happened, during the period between April 13, 2021, and June 13, 2021, Guangzhou Riji informed its clients to recall the product involved in this case. The total infringing product to be recalled back is 5,559 boxes, and the refund amount is USD 8,099. Administration for Market Regulation in Huadu District Guangzhou City has recognized that Guangzhou Riji had violated Detailed Rules for the Implementation of the Patent Law by labeling SALVIA MIL TIORRHIZA on its unpatented or unauthorized product “Stegner Gold Peptide Skin-lighten roll mask”. According to Item One of paragraph 1 of Article 84 in the Detailed Rules for the Implementation of the Patent Law, “the bellowing acts are stipulated in Article 63 of The Patent Law as patent counterfeiting: one, labeling patent logo on the unauthorized products or their packages, continuing to label the patent logo while the patent right is invalid or terminated, labeling unpermitted patent number from others”. According to that, Guangzhou Riji has committed patent counterfeiting in the above acts. The end result is that Administration for Market Regulation in Huadu District Guangzhou City has charged the Guangzhou Riji to stop producing or selling the counterfeiting product “Stegner Gold Peptide Skin-lighten roll mask”, and remove the patent logo on the unsold product. The illegal revenue of USD 11,800 and another USD 165,000 (1.4 times that income) were expropriated. CHAILEEDO has searched out that BASF Beauty Care France Company is the owner of the patent number “CN 106794136 A”, which involved combination products of Salvia miltiorrhiza Bunge extract and niacin or niacinamide, and the cosmetic and/or the nutritious composition included these combination products. The effective time of the original patent’s Substantive Review is August 15, 2017. However, as stipulated by the Patent Law of the People's Republic of China, accounting for the date of application, the expiration time of the patent right for invention is twenty years, and that of the patent right utility model is ten years, the patent right for a design is fifteen years. It is obvious that the patent right of BASF is still unexpired and unauthorized to Guangzhou Riji. “Patented composition ≠ proprietary technology, they are totally two different things.” An industrial professional has explained with the example that even if glucan had been invented before but another party just found a different way to extract the material, it would be counterfeiting the patent to advertise it this way. For this kind of phenomenon, the State Administration for Market Regulation has underscored that they will continually target the prominent fields and regions where counterfeiting actions frequently happen. By enforcing the intellectual property law, illegal activities such as trademark infringement and patent counterfeiting will be strictly punished. In one of the most crowded places for cosmetic companies, the Guangzhou Administration for Market Regulation also has implemented the 13 Measures to Improve the Brand Construction (hereafter short named as Measures) to financially subsidize the protection of patents and trademarks, lowering the companies’ cost of legal rights protection. It has enhanced the scope of patent right protection and the subsidized amount, bringing the highest subsidized amount of patent right protection to 1 million yuan (about USD 148,600), and that of trademark protection to 0.2 million yuan (about USD 29,700). It is true for the above saying from the industry professional that patent counterfeiting will involve problems of false advertisement. The industry should be alert to it because intellectual property is a brand or a company’s “core” asset. As law enforcement authorities and regulators are increasing their punishment for illegal practices of counterfeiting patents, China’s cosmetic market will be more regulated.

Abstract: Chinese oral care brand Canban stepped into Watsons aiming to expand their offline scale and also improve their brand image. According to CHAILEEDO, Watsons, which has more than 4,100 offline stores in China, enjoys a huge "attraction" for beauty brands. In the past six months, a group of online high-profile beauty brands have put "being in Watsons" on their task list. Last October, WIS launched the Watsons exclusive series, which is the first time WIS joint offline channels to launch exclusive series of products. In November last year, P&G and Watsons jointly developed and launched the skincare brand aio, which is also the first time P&G and retailers to research and create skin care brands. Undeniably, Watsons, which has over 4,100 stores in mainland China, has always been an important territory for many cosmetic brands to compete for. Watsons has quasi-attributed its new O+O (online combined with offline) model to the "O+O (online combined with offline) model". If the O2O (offline to online or online to offline) strategy in the past brought customers from one platform to another in a one-way manner, the O+O model, represented by the small mini program (cloud store) and enterprise WeChat, seamlessly connects physical stores with online platforms. With data analysis and AI technology to gain insight into consumer preferences, retailers are able to stay close to customers' needs, which makes consumers to reach Watsons' products and services at any time and on different platforms. In current situation, despite of the effect of sales and product promotion scale, brands see more possibilities from Watsons that are different from traditional cosmetic retailers. For example, when Winona entered Watsons in June 2020, the head of the brand said that part of the reason for entering Watsons was to fill the gap in its new retail segment. In recent years, many international and Chinese beauty brands have been stationed in various beauty collection stores, which has also led to the booming market of beauty collection stores. According to a survey by iResearch, new beauty collection stores will account for 7.6% of China's beauty collection stores in 2020. With the transition of the new beauty collection store industry from the budding period to the stable development period, its market share is expected to increase to 15.8% in 2023, and the market size is expected to reach $1.9 billion. This shows that there is still potential for development for new beauty collection stores. In the past two years, new beauty collection stores led by colorist, wow color, and HARMAY have sprung up in China and are listed as direct competitors of Watsons. Likewise, Sephora, which is owned by LVMH, is also a beauty retailer, with more than 310 Sephora stores in China as of now. According to the financial report released by LVMH, Sephora achieved excellent results in the quarter, mainly driven by the recovery of fragrances and cosmetics. It is reported that Sephora is positioned in the mid-to-high end, and the stores are basically dominated by international mid-to-high end brands such as Dior, Estee Lauder, Givenchy and Guerlain. Its categories are all beauty related. In comparison, Watsons positioning affordable and cost-effective brands such as OLAY, Maybelline, Revlon, etc. The categories of the store are broader than Sephora, involving daily necessities, beauty and health products, specialty goods, etc. It is reported that Canban is a Chinese oral care brand specializing in providing one-stop solutions for oral care, and the category includes all products related to oral care scenarios, including mouthwash, toothpaste, oral spray, dental stickers, tooth flosser, etc. The brand concept is to create oral care products that are "more suitable for Chinese people". In 2021, Canban began its omni-channel sales. By December 2021, Canban had entered more than 100,000 offline stores covering channels including Wal-Mart, He Ma, Vanguard, Biavo, Mannings, Lawson, FamilyMart, 7-11, Bianlifeng, Nepstar, etc. In June 2021, Canban achieved single-month omni-channel sales exceeding $15 million. Canban's star product, Probiotic Mouthwash exceeded 20 million bottles in 2021 annual sales volume. Nowadays, with the cost of online traffic becoming more and more expensive, brands like Canban, which emerged from online channels, also need offline channels to help them broaden their brand breadth, deepen their brand depth and increased their brand influence.

On July 11, Estée Lauder Companies announced a new board member, Dong Wei, who will serve until November 2023. She also joined Estee Lauder's Audit Committee. According to the observation of CHAILEEDO, Dong Wei was ranked 39th in the 2022 Forbes list of China's Outstanding Women in Business, which was announced in March this year. In addition, she was named to Fortune's 2021 list of the most influential women in business in China. It is reported that Dong Wei joined Nike in 2005, after holding management positions at Coca-Cola China and P&G. In 2015, she moved from CFO to CEO of Nike Greater China and is currently the Global Vice President and General Manager of Nike Greater China. She is responsible for planning and developing Nike Greater China's vision and growth strategy to enhance Nike's brand presence and strengthen its connection with consumers. In addition to Estee Lauder, other international beauties and beauty-related brands have also made different personnel changes. On April 28, L'Occitane's Board of Directors announced the appointment of Christian-Matthias Klever as CFO, effective July 1. Klever was previously CFO of Breitling from 2017 to 2020. From 2004 to 2017, Klever held various financial and operational positions at Procter & Gamble, as CFO for Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Latin America, and CFO for IWC Schaffhausen. In the same month, La Prairie's global CEO was taken over by Philippe Lamy, who notably also worked for L'Oréal for more than a decade holding various positions in the luxury and travel retail divisions in the Asia Pacific and the Americas. Moreover, in June this year, Estée Lauder appointed Karen Housman as Senior Vice President/General Manager, Travel Retail, Asia Pacific, effective July 1. Publicly available information is shown that she has been deeply involved in the travel retail business for 30 years and the travel retail division has become its leading business section in terms of market share across the entire category channels of skincare, color cosmetics, fragrance, and hair care covering duty-free environments such as airports, city centers, airlines, cruise ships, and border stores. It is one of Estée Lauder's fastest-growing channels. According to Estee Lauder's FY2021 data, travel retail accounted for 28% of the Group's total business contributing approximately $4.69 billion in sales. Karen Housman's new appointment as Senior Vice President/General Manager of Asia Pacific Travel Retail also represents the Group's new expectations for the travel retail channel. On May 3, Estee Lauder Group announced its results for the third quarter of the fiscal year 2022 (January 1 - March 31, 2022), during which the Group achieved net sales of $4.25 billion, an increase of 10% year-on-year. The Group reported net sales of $4.25 billion, an increase of 10% year-on-year, and a net profit of $560 million, an increase of 22% YOY. By region, Estee Lauder Group's performance declined only in the Asia Pacific during the reporting period achieving net sales of $1.203 billion, down 4% year-on-year. For the performance decline in the Asia Pacific, Estee Lauder explained that due to the epidemic in many provinces in China during the reporting period, East China and other places were severely affected by the epidemic. The regional traffic and logistics transportation was poor and net sales of brick-and-mortar stores fell, which in turn led to a decline in overall net sales of the Group. However, Estee Lauder still achieved double-digit growth online in China offsetting part of the decline in physical stores. The personnel changes of various international brands in the first half of 2022 show that, despite the decline in sales in the first quarter due to the epidemic, various international beauty brands remain confident in the online and travel markets in China believing that there is still huge potential. Regarding the personnel changes to Estee Lauder's Board of Directors, William P. Lauder, Executive Chairman of Estee Lauder, said that Dong Wei's background in finance and her extensive experience in consumer goods brand strategy and marketing, particularly for Chinese consumers, will provide valuable input to Estee Lauder's Board of Directors.

Abstract: Chinese oral tonic brand Five Doctors((formerly known as Young Doctor) launched the third-anniversary limited edition gift box containing the star product Five Doctors Collagen Peptide Vitamin C Drink. The product is priced at $52 on its flagship store on the Chinese e-commerce platform Tmall after a discount. According to CHAILEEDO, Five Doctors was jointly founded in 2019 by five female doctors of medicine from Peking University focusing on the field of oral tonic. It mainly specializes in the collagen category and has launched a number of oral products such as collagen peptide vitamin C drink, a daily hyperactive botanical drink. Driven by the strategy of "Healthy China", the health industry has risen to the level of national strategy and has been developing rapidly. It is becoming a new engine to drive China's economic transformation and social progress. According to the data of AskCI in 2020, the size of China's health market increased from $477 billion to $1.1 trillion from 2016 to 2020 with an average annual compound growth rate of 23.3% and it is expected that China's health market would increase by 8.1% and the size would reach $1.2 trillion in 2021. The overall improvement of the health industry has given rise to many new market segments. The oral beauty market has been booming in recent years and industry insiders predicted that the size of China's oral beauty market will reach $3.5 billion in 2022. The Chinese oral beauty market was first triggered by Japanese brands. In 2004, the drink with high bioactive collagen peptide as the main raw material was popular in Japan and entered the Chinese market through procurement service, thus Chinese women knew for the first time that collagen plays an important role in maintaining skin elasticity. From 2005, oral collagen drinks became popular in China. But the market is mainly occupied by Japanese manufacturers such as FANCL, Shiseido and DHC. According to the data of Beauty In Sight Intelligence, in 2019, the top three oral category beauty brands with the most sales according to BA are Shiseido, Lumi and BYHEALTH with the ratio of 31.62%, 16.91% and 14.71% respectively. Overall, the market share of imported brands was higher than that of Chinese brands. However, Chinese enterprises soon caught on to the business opportunity and entered this field. The Chinese oral beauty market thus ushered in the first golden age. In recent years, along with the awakening of consumer health consciousness and the support of China's own innovative technology and the improvement of the whole supply chain, a number of new Chinese brands such as Black Zero from Bloomage Biotech, G-Young, Whiteasy, etc. have been born in the Chinese oral beauty market. Five Doctors, founded by five female doctors from Peking University, is one of them, which has accumulated more than 100,000 users in two years. Its repurchase rate remains above 40% with a weighted repurchase rate of 115%. At the beginning, Five Doctors chose to start from live streaming on TikTok China. During the Chinese Double 11 Shopping Festival in 2020, Five Doctors achieved sales of $745 thousand in TikTok China e-commerce. From November to December 2021, Five Doctors' monthly sales exceeded $7.5 million. At present, Five Doctors ranks top in the oral beauty category and the major category of nourishing health care in TikTok China pop-up list. According to statistics, share of Five Doctors' sales in TikTok China e-commerce accounts for nearly 80% of the network's ratio. The brand is currently sold mainly through TikTok China Mall followed by the Tmall flagship store. It is understood that during the scientific research at Peking University, one of the brand founders of Five Doctors, Jiang Jun, conducted research topics around collagen peptides. she has many years of research experience and full academic knowledge in the field. On the basis of this, Jiang Jun further united four other doctors from different disciplines to create the brand Five Doctors. It can be seen that the brand has strong scientific background support since the beginning of the creation. For the Five Doctors, it seems that they did not put all their pocket at the road of oral beauty products. After the oral collagen peptide opened the brand sales, they began to look for another pillar. The brand has launched the eye cream, essence, mask and other external skin care products. At present, in its official flagship store of TikTok China, VC ethyl ether rejuvenating serum is available for $30 with total sales of 93 units as well as the recently launched Muscle peptide translucent mask for $44.6. Looking at its new product sales and promotion efforts, it has not yet made a push on topical skincare products for the time being. For this launch of the third-anniversary gift box, the brand founding team said they used their professional scientific research capabilities to develop the product hoping to break the consumer's inherent impression of collagen products "poor taste, the effect is not obvious". It also contributed to bringing consumers collagen peptide drink with "scientific formula, good and easy to drink" .

Sephora's first store in Hainan opened in The Mixc, Haikou. At present, Sephora has more than 310 stores in China. Sephora also joined hands with WEI to open the first "shop-in-shop" in the retailer store in China. According to the observation of CHAILEEDO, The Mixc, Haikou was officially opened for business on June 26 and Sephora's store was also opened simultaneously on the same day. It is reported that the store is the "Top 3 store in South China" covering an area of 680 square meters, and the number of SKUs in the store reaches 3000+. According to the introduction, the store is mainly for local consumers in Haikou and some tourists. Therefore, the sun exposure is more intense in Haikou, Hainan. Thus, the selection of products also according to local conditions, specifically set up four categories including sunscreen, hair care, home fragrance, and cross-border e-commerce as the core of the service experience area. Among them, the sun protection area showcased brands such as LANCASTER ESTHEDERM, etc. These brands have brought the season's selected products. In the new home fragrance area, Sephora's exclusive cooperatio with high-end brands CHA LING, and its own brand Sephora Collection are on display. In the cross-border e-commerce brand zone, Olaplex, KORA ORGANICS, Supergoop!, SUNDAY RILEY and many other international niche brands. They also received special attention from consumers. Earlier, Sephora launched the "Made in China" program. The plan stated that Sephora would support five local Chinese beauty brands within three years and help them become high-end Chinese beauty representatives with sales of over 100 million. Sephora would also leverage its strong global network, loyal user community and rich experience in high-end retailing to promote these brands to international retail channels. Sephora has been working closely with local Chinese brands since it entered the Chinese market. To date, it has established partnerships with more than 10 Chinese iconic brands, which account for about 10% of its overall selection composition. Among the high-end makeup brands are MAOGEPING-LIGHT, COLOR STUDIO BY MARIE DALGAR, YUMEE, BEAUTY JUNKO, etc. As for high-end skincare brands, it covers CHA LING, WEI, INOHERB TANG, Herborist TaiChi, Face Symbol and so on. 19 high-end national trendy brands such as Herborist TaiChi, INOHERB TANG, MAOGEPING-LIGHT, YUMEE and COLOR STUDIO BY MARIE DALGAR participated in the "Made in China" program of Sephora. And exclusive international innovative brands, such as also made a concentrated appearance in the Sephora store in Haikou. It is worth noting that Sephora cooperated with WEI to set up a shop-in-shop this time, which is a move that is not only the first time for Sephora, but also unique when looking at the Chinese beauty retail market. Inside the store, WEI's Beauty-in-Store, located at the back left of the Sephora store, occupies an exclusive area of nearly 50 square meters. It is designed with the concept of "Zen Trails", which organically blends the herbal rhythm of the brand's genes with modern technology to showcase WEI's Beauty-in-Store's brand identity. The reason that Sephora chosen WEI as the first shop-in-shop in China is not only because it is one of Sephora's exclusive and close partners, but also because of its parent company Fosun Group's product and technology research and development capabilities, which can co-create with Sephora in terms of products and experience services. The AI precision skin measurement is the exclusive research and development technology of Fosun Group. "This new mode Shop-in-Shop is just a beginning. Sephora will explore more innovative cooperation models with brands in the future and will also give priority to brands with exclusive cooperation." The relevant person in charge of Sephora revealed. Deeply developing the Chinese market for 17 years, Sephora has long become the "synonym" of the global high-end beauty retail leader. However, in the past few years, the product power and innovative marketing methods demonstrated by Chinese local brands have significantly raised consumers' awareness of Chinese beauty and started to feed back the overseas market. Through the strong investment of Sephora in this store, it can be seen that Sephora is undoubtedly confident about the development in the Chinese market.

Recently, according to an administrative punishment notice issued by the Guangzhou Administration for Market Regulation(GAMR), a cosmetics company in Guangzhou was fined 50,000 RMB($7455) yuan for using the word “Vaseline” in its product name. As CHAILEEDO learned, on May 20th, 2022, the GAMR found that Guangzhou Zhuanghuang Cosmetics Co., LTD(hereinafter, the Guangzhou Zhuanghuang) was suspected of producing cosmetics that violated the exclusive right of “Vaseline” registered trademark, and filed a case for investigation according to law. According to the online public information, in November and December 2021, January and May 2022, the Guangzhou Zhuanghuang successively produced several bottles of White Dolphin Vaseline Nourishing Moisturizing Cream and Katina Vaseline Nicotinamide Nourishing Moisturizing Cream with the trademark of “Vaseline”, and has sold some products with a total sales amount of $2301.8. The GAMR said that the “Vaseline” trademark used by the Guangzhou Zhuanghuang has been approved and registered by the State Trademark Office, granted the Trademark Registration Certificate No. 2023551. The registrant is Unilever(China) Co., LTD, which enjoys the exclusive right to use the trademark under the protection of laws. On the basis of the information from China Trademark Network, Unilever obtained the ownership of the third-class international trademark of “Vaseline” on October 28th, 2004. In accordance with the punishment decision, the above-mentioned behaviors of Guangzhou Zhuanghuang constituted a violation of the exclusive right to use the registered trademark within the provisions of Article 57(1) of China‘s Trademark Law that without the permission of the trademark registrant, use the same trademark as its registered trademark on the same products. In addition, as the relevant provisions of the second paragraph of Article 60 of China’s Trademark Law showed, Guangzhou Zhuanghuang was ordered to immediately quit trademark infringement, confiscate and destroy the products involved, and be imposed a fine of $7519.9. CHAILEEDO inquired on the filing information platform of domestic general cosmetics of the National Medical Products Administration and learned that the White Dolphin and Katina were filed on December 5th, 2022 and October 25th, 2021 respectively, of which both the product filer and the manufacturer were Guangzhou Zhuanghuang. It is reported that the company has also filed products of several other brands. According to the product packaging plan in the filing information, the words “Vaseline” on the packaging of the two involved are relatively prominent. For example, the font size of “Vaseline” on the product package is significantly larger than its trade name White Dolphin; while on that of Katina, the word “Vaseline” is also more prominent, and the package of the product is also printed with the word VASELINE. What’s more, CHAILEEDO learned that the third-class cosmetics trademark of VASELINE also belongs to Unilever. As the information on China Trademark Network showed, Unilever applied for that as early as 1980 and got the registration. Since then, similar groups of this trademark have been expanded many times. In this regard, Deng Gang, a lawyer of Guangdong Legal Shengbang law firm, said that we should not judge the trademark infringement only by relying on the word “Vaseline” on the package, but through comprehensive identification. Among them, the most critical point is whether its products will confuse consumers. Deng Gang also said, “If the word “Vaseline” on the product packaging of other brands is more prominent than the words of their brand name or logo, which makes people mistakenly take them as trademark-registered goods, there may be a risk of infringement.” From the perspective of Chinese consumers, “Vaseline” is both an ingredient and a brand name that is also relatively well-known. From a legal point of view, the trademark holder has the right to safeguard his own legitimate rights and interests within the term of validity of the trademark. In general, all makeup corporations should conduct themselves rightly and legally by both eradicating unfair competition that deliberately clings to famous brands, and resisting the evil trend of wrongful rights protection.

Estee Lauder launched a new Revival Lipstick for China's Qixi Festival. It is reported that this product is a tribute to its brand classic lipstick in 1984. According to CHAILEEDO, the lipstick will be available for sale in all official Estee Lauder online channels from July 1, 2022 and in all official offline channels from July 15, 2022 simultaneously. With this new product launch, Estee Lauder has timely insight into the changing trends of current women's needs and established a deeper emotional and spiritual resonance between the brand and its users, thereby solidifying its position as a beacon in the industry. On May 3, Estee Lauder Group released its results for the third quarter of the fiscal year 2022 (January 1 - March 31, 2022) reporting net sales of $4.25 billion, up 10% year-over-year. The Group reported net sales of $4.25 billion, an increase of 10% year-on-year. By region, Estee Lauder Group's performance declined only in Asia Pacific during the reporting period achieving net sales of $1.203 billion, down 4% year-on-year. For the performance decline in Asia Pacific market, Estee Lauder explained that due to the epidemic in many provinces in China during the reporting period. East China and other places were severely affected by the epidemic. Regional traffic and logistics transportation was poor and net sales of brick-and-mortar stores dropped, which in turn led to a decline in overall net sales of the Group. However, Estee Lauder still achieved double-digit growth in China online offsetting part of the decline in physical stores. In the just-passed Chinese 618 Shopping Festival, Estee Lauder ranked second in the top 20 list of beauty store sales. During the pre-sale period of this festival, Estee Lauder exceeded over 100 million yuan($15 million). The Qixi Festival, a traditional Chinese holiday, is valued by many major international brands. For example, Lancôme launched the Qixi Festival lipstick gift box specifically for the Chinese market not long ago. Nars also launched the 2022 Qixi Festival limited gift box, which includes a variety of classic blush and lip cream. Last year, Estee Lauder teamed up with SHUSHUTONG, an independent designer brand, to launch a limited edition set with SHUSHUTONG's classic floral motifs, including lipsticks, makeup-holding air cushions and an eyeshadow palette. For last year's marketing for Qixi Festival, Estee Lauder targeted Weibo, where celebrities and KOLs gather and followers interaction rates are high, as the main marketing place. Based on the strong follower community attributes of the Weibo platform, Estee Lauder adopted a top-down multiple approach to gradually accumulate user attention and attract traffic. It finally achieved double growth of brand voice and sales. The Weibo hashtag #Estée Lauder Qixi Festival Limited has reached 71,627,000 views and exceeded 396,000 discussions. The cumulative sales of the gift box in its flagship store on the Chinese e-commerce platform Tmall and JD have exceeded 10,000 units. The data shows that the sales of Qixi Festival have surpassed Valentine's Day and May 20, becoming the most obvious festival to soar the "gift economy". In the past few years of Qixi Festival marketing activities, various international brands as well as Chinese brands have also made every effort. From 2019 to last year, Chanel has invited Chinese actors Liu Wen and Jing Boran to shoot a Qixi Festival blockbuster for 3 consecutive years to discuss what love is. Florasis combined the form of leather-silhouette show(a Chinese traditional art) to launch an animated short film Zhang Chang Painted Eyebrows for His Wife to tell the story of love in ancient China. In a way, the video can carry more information and reflect the brand's attitude more intuitively. Brands also love to use this way to combine products, festivals, brand culture and values together. During Qixi Festival in 2019, Tiffany launched the first WeChat limited-time boutique in China and put advertising on Moment of Wechat. With the forwarding among Wechat to form social fission, more than 200 products were quickly sold out. This year, Estee Lauder has once again stepped up its Qixi Festival marketing, which may reflect the brand's quest for short-term growth but also aim to build long-term brand influence.

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. 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.

Recently, Lancôme launched a Qixi gift box exclusively for the Chinese market, reflecting from some part the importance Lancôme attaches to the Chinese market and expects to have a meaningful dialogue with Chinese consumers. According to CHAILEEDO, the limited gift box contains three lipsticks, and the color scheme of the lipstick tubes echoes the name of each lipstick, which are "Intoxicating Star River", "Moonfall Heart" and "Star Dreams in Love". The individual lipsticks are priced at $49.2. Qixi refers to the traditional Chinese festival, which can be said to be the Chinese Valentine's Day. It is reported that Lancôme comes from France, founded in 1935, and is a brand of L'Oréal. In 2019, Lancôme sold $1.6 billion in China. By 2020, its annual sales grew 36.4% to $2.2 billion. By May 2021, Lancôme opened 330 directly operated offline department store counters and shopping center boutiques in 124 cities in China. It spread across 30 provinces and autonomous regions with online channels including the official website and Tmall flagship store. Recognizing the huge potential of the Chinese market, Lancôme has made great efforts to develop its presence in China in the last two years. In May this year, Lancôme entered the Chinese e-commerce TikTok platform. This is the second brand in the L'Oréal Group after L'Oréal Paris, and Lancôme is another brand of the Group to be part of the TikTok e-commerce. In the internal division of L'Oréal Group, L'Oréal Paris and Lancôme belong to the mass consumer goods division and high-end cosmetics division respectively. This means that TikTok China e-commerce has the ability to serve the entire line of brands in the cosmetics category. After moving in, Lancôme succeeded in one fell swoop. It gained daily sales of over 1 million yuan just in 10 days of its launch and cumulative sales of over 10 million. In the TikTok promotional campaign on May 20, the cumulative turnover reached $746 thousand. In addition, Lancôme's active participation also reflects some extent the acceleration of the digitalization process of China's retail industry towards internationalization. As e-commerce continues to evolve, international brands and Chinese e-commerce companies are also providing a model for other first-tier brands to develop and operate in the Chinese market. Moreover, it can also be found that Lancôme has been following the trend of the Chinese market. Previously, Lancôme officially announced Zhou Dongyu as the brand spokesperson. In April this year, Lancôme cooperated with Zhao Jinmai, the leading actress of the hottest Chinese TV series at that time, as its skincare ambassador. Recently, it also signed up celebrities such as Xue Kaiqi and Wu Mochou, who gained high attention for their participation in the popular Chinese variety show to promote its lipstick. From these moves, Lancôme has been committed to communicating deeply with the young consumers who are following the trends of today. In the Chinese market, Lancôme's performance is shining. According to the 2022 Tmall 618 report, Lancôme is Top 3 in the top 20 list of 618 beauty store sales. In the list of skincare kit brands, Lancôme won the top. And, its parent company L'Oreal broke all records and captured more market share during the 2021 Tmall Chinese Double 11 Shopping Festival. This shows that its brand is very attractive to Chinese consumers. The iconic consumer campaign has established L'Oréal Paris and Lancôme as number one and number three in the beauty market. The L'Oréal Group is confident in the Chinese market describing it as "still successful" at the recent Consumer Goods Forum's Global Summit conference at Deutsche Bank. In the first quarter of 2022, the L'Oréal Group grew by 13% year-on-year in China market. As of May 22, the Group's online sales in China (including Tmall, JD and TikTok platforms) grew by 30%, well above the market average (+5%). The Group forecasts that the China market will maintain its high single-digit growth target as the tough situation caused by COVID-19 improves and urban stores reopen. It seems that Lancôme's Tanabata gift box, launched specifically for the Chinese market, is able to gain a good reputation while attracting eye-catching and stunning crowds. Compared with other online marketing, this move is more meaningful to further the brand image and in-depth user service established by the brand for Chinese consumers.