Vaseline's Ambition to "Occupy" China

The establishment of a complete matrix of body care products in China highlights the desire of Vaseline to further "capture" the Chinese body care market. It also shows that Unilever has taken another important step in its rush into the Chinese market.

---

Unilever is launching a new onslaught on the Chinese market.

One foot is expansion. In recent years, Unilever intensively acquiring a series of international beauty brands to launch a global purchase trend. After that, the company accelerates the introduction of these brands into China through the opening of Tmall overseas flagship stores or into the CS channel. All of these brand flood into the Chinese market.

The other foot is deep developing. Brands that have been laid out in China for years are being developed into new increase by Unilever. Vaseline, which has a 151-year history and ranks as one of Unilever's 1 billion euro (equal to about $1.158 billion) brand, is the most important part of this strategy.

In Unilever's financial reports in recent years, "stability" and "newness" of Vaseline have been praised many times. On the one hand, the brand has been growing steadily, which has helped drive the Group to growth. On the other hand, Vaseline has been responding to market demand by launching diversified and segmented product lines - it is hard to imagine that the brand has founded around for 151 years, yet it seems so agile and young in terms of market responsiveness.

In the Chinese market, Vaseline has been performing well. Ma Wen, Vice President of Personal Care Category, Unilever North Asia, revealed that the Vaseline has "shown a good upward trend" in sales figures since entering the Chinese market. Hand cream of Vaseline grew significantly due to the increased frequency of hand washing by consumers during the pandemic with e-commerce performing particularly well. Ma Wen shared a figure that "during the epidemic, Vaseline sales increased by 400% in the Watsons online business channel alone."

In Double 11 - Chinese Shopping Festival - in 2018, Vaseline teamed up with Chinese e-commerce platform Tmall to create a new "healthy white UV lightening" that garnered significant sales and gained a firm foothold in the body lotion category.

In order to provide Chinese consumers with more precise body care products, Vaseline has also been innovating and developing hand and foot masks and neck creams for different parts of the body to achieve head-to-toe body care. With a series of initiatives, Vaseline success to capture the exact needs of consumers.

In the promotional campaign on June 18th in 2019, Vaseline hand and foot masks and body lotions became one of the hottest selling products with a 100% year-on-year increase in turnover in the Tmall flagship store. The store gained 250,000 new fans, of which the young demographic accounted for 68%. It boosted the proportion of Generation Z in the consumer population.

In the promotional campaign on June 18th in 2021, the turnover of Vaseline Tmall store increased 148% year-on-year. The store's hot-selling single product "Vaseline Niacinamide Radiance" was sold 200,000+ bottles, with a 502% year-on-year increase in sales. "No. 5 AHA Smoothing" sold 120,000+ bottles, with a 294% year-on-year increase in sales.

The multi-star endorsement by localized celebrities has become one of Unilever's key tools to extend the China market in recent years.

To promote the launch of the new Pro Derma body lotion, Vaseline announced Chinese actress Liu Shishi as its first Asia Pacific spokesperson on March 3, 2020 and Chinese actor Chen Weiting as the Asia Pacific (body skincare) spokesperson on May 6, 2020. Based on the different vibes conveyed by the two celebrities, Vaseline has been making product recommendations for different types of fans.

After the multi-artist endorsement and promotional videos were revealed one after another, the new product of Vaseline has set off several rounds of conversation among different groups of its fans. For Chinese consumers, the brand has clearly mastered the key to rejuvenation. And for Vaseline, the thickness of the brand value is only lighter with the catalyst of new trends.

A complete body care product line has been established in the Chinese market. This not only underlines Vaseline's ambition to further "capture" the Chinese body care market, but also shows that Unilever has taken another important step in its rush into the Chinese market.