Today, Chinese consumers' expectations for products have long gone far beyond basic functional requirements, and are shifting to paying more attention to all-round requirements such as experience and quality. Domestic brands have also long gone through the “low price and poor quality” stage and are on a global stage comparable to global brands.

In a rapidly changing market environment, it is undoubtedly extremely challenging for a company to become a brand that enjoys enduring fame. Only enterprises that continuously seize the opportunities of the new era and continuously increase their product strength and brand power can achieve evergreen growth.

Among the many popular domestic brands, Blue Moon (06993) is probably one of the examples of successfully building an evergreen brand. Its products have been recognized by consumers for a long time, and the market share of laundry detergent and hand sanitizer products has ranked first year after year. Judging from its recently released 2023 financial report, annual revenue reached approximately HK$7.324 billion, gross margin increased to 62%, and profitability was further optimized. In particular, with the successful results of initiatives such as product segmentation and global channel layout, revenue in the second half of the year increased 4.5% year-on-year according to the RMB caliber, highlighting the potential for continued business growth, as well as the company's development resilience and long-term value.

Build a diversified and refined product matrix, and continue to stabilize its position in the industry

In the Jiaqing industry where Blue Moon is located, the industrial chain structure is relatively clear. The upstream is the corresponding chemical raw material supplier. Most of the main raw materials are based on commodities such as palm oil and crude oil. Prices fluctuate but are generally stable. Midstream brand companies purchase raw materials for manufacturing, and use downstream channel vendors to target consumers. Among them, brand companies often occupy high points in the value chain.

However, to stand out from market competition, daily chemical companies must have key elements such as product innovation that closely keeps up with market demand, efficient and complete channels and supply chains, good reputation, and brand awareness.

Regarding Blue Moon's brand development, Zhang Yi, CEO and chief analyst of Ai Media Consulting, once attributed the reason for its success to the fact that its extensive sales channels and product quality were completely unbeatable to foreign brands.

In particular, its product strength has been proven over a long period of time. According to the 2023 (13th) China Brand Strength Index (C-BPI) brand ranking and analysis report published by Chnbrand, Blue Moon's laundry detergent and hand sanitizer ranked first in China's Brand Strength Index (C-BPI) for 13 consecutive years (2011-2023). According to the “2023 China Market Product Sales Statistics” jointly released by the China Chamber of Commerce and the All-China Business Information Center, laundry detergent and hand sanitizer ranked first in the overall market share of similar products for 14 consecutive years (2009 to 2022) and 11 consecutive years (2012 to 2022), respectively.

This achievement is inseparable from Blue Moon's continuous product innovation, leading the transformation of the washing market. From pioneering the promotion of laundry detergent to the whole country, opening the curtain of the “liquid” era of laundry “liquid” in China, to promoting the upgrading of ordinary laundry detergent to concentrated laundry detergent, to the recent pioneering launch of innovative products such as sports laundry detergent series, disposable and antibacterial hand sanitizer, laundry detergent for underwear, and disinfectant and deodorizing laundry detergent, Blue Moon has always been at the forefront of the industry with product innovation that has a keen insight into consumer needs.

The Zhitong Finance App learned that Blue Moon has now formed a product system with rich segmented scenarios. The product portfolio is comprehensive and diverse, including the three major categories of clothing cleaning and care, home cleaning and personal care, with nearly 100 types of products.

After decades of intensive cultivation, Blue Moon, the product innovation gene, continues. It focuses on the development of all categories of products and continues to launch new products with targeted and functional features.

As the trend of consumer segmentation has become more obvious in recent years, in order to better meet the personalized and diversified needs of consumers, Blue Moon will launch multi-faceted initiatives in 2023.

On the one hand, Blue Moon has upgraded its core product, Extreme Full Series Laundry Detergent, and expanded the functions of the full range of products to help consumers solve many clothing cleaning problems; moreover, this series of products has the function of efficiently removing mites, which can meet the needs of consumers for a healthy lifestyle. At the same time, Blue Moon innovatively proposed the Extreme Instant Dissolution Technique, which emphasizes that the Extreme series products use low viscosity stabilization technology to bring the advantages of products that dissolve immediately in water. Coupled with a “concentrated +” formula with a concentration of up to 47% active substances, strong cleansing power; and features such as low foam and easy rinsing, so that the Extreme Series products can also be quickly cleaned without residue in the 15-minute quick wash mode. The Premium series laundry detergent has environmental value, is convenient and worry-free, and can meet the green consumption needs of current consumers very well.

In addition, Blue Moon continues to expand new cleaning scenarios and has launched a new personal care product, Clean Enjoy Foam Body Wash. The refreshing and quick-washing function satisfies the current fast-paced lifestyle of consumers.

Some industry insiders pointed out that through continuous product upgrading and iteration, Blue Moon has basically built a diversified, refined, and comprehensive product matrix. While keenly grasping consumer trends and promoting sales of best-selling products, it continues to launch targeted and functional new products, stabilizing the product “moat” in both horizontal and vertical dimensions, opening up incremental space for itself, thereby promoting value growth and sustainable development, and the market position will be further stabilized.

Going deep into the global channel layout, leading companies in 2024 are ready to take off

For consumer chemicals, another important core competitive dimension is sales channel construction. As the trend of individualized consumer demand intensifies, the global channel strategy has become the core driving force for industry growth.

As a leading domestic cosmetics brand, Blue Moon is one of the earliest companies in the industry to launch an omni-channel layout. Adhering to the channel construction concept of “Wherever the consumer is, Blue Moon will shop”, the company has always attached importance to further promoting channel optimization, continuously expanding consumer access channels, and opening up a wider range of market incremental space for product penetration.

Since 2008, Blue Moon has continued to optimize channels, adhere to omnichannel development, refined operation to improve quality and efficiency, and has gradually rationalized the three major channels through many integrations.

The Zhitong Finance App learned that in the past year, Blue Moon has continued to advance at the level of channel optimization. Among them, in terms of online channels, the company continues to consolidate the advantages of traditional e-commerce, actively lay out emerging content e-commerce, accurately grasp important market opportunities such as 618 and Double 11, and carry out innovative marketing activities. For example, during the Douyin Double 11 Good Things Festival this year, Blue Moon launched innovative integrated marketing, used Douyin to create new products in trending categories in the industry, strengthen all-round brand penetration, and achieve an explosion in the number of people, product sales, and brand volume. In 2023, Blue Moon's online channel continued to lead, and several shopping festivals topped the home cleaning category sales rankings on multiple platforms such as JD and Douyin.

Meanwhile, in terms of offline channels, the company is sinking at an accelerated pace, and the penetration rate in counties, townships, and villages in all provinces across the country continues to increase.

China Merchants Securities once pointed out in a research report that with the rise of China's sinking market, the standard of living in third-tier cities and other low-tier cities has improved. Judging from the home care industry, low-tier cities have a lot of room for improvement. It is expected that Blue Moon will have broad room for product penetration in the sinking market, and growth potential will continue to be unleashed.

CICC expects that after clearing the backward production capacity of the retail industry in the past three years, leading companies may continue to exert their leading edge against the backdrop of the consumer market continuing to pick up in 2024, expand the brand product matrix, improve channel layout, and improve operational efficiency to achieve growth beyond the industry, and the market share of leading companies is expected to continue to increase.

According to market participants, market demand is constantly changing, and enterprises must actively adapt to or even grasp changes ahead of time if they want to maintain their dominant market position. In the daily chemical industry, new scenarios and demands are inspiring China's daily chemical enterprises to continue to change and innovate.

At present, the company has strong moat advantages in terms of products and channels. In the future, as Blue Moon continues to cultivate products, channels, brands, etc., Blue Moon's business moat and industry advantages are expected to be further consolidated, and enterprise development resilience and long-term value will be deepened.

(The above data comes from Blue Moon's official website, Blue Moon's 2023 results announcement, statistics from multiple platforms such as JD and Douyin.)