Introduction
When Madame Yue Sai founded the first ever modern cosmetic brand in China in 1922, her aim was to be the first global China-based cosmetic brand (Yang and Chandon 5). However, she first intended to concur the Chinese cosmetic market by producing the best skincare and beauty products for the Asian women. She saw a market niche because Asian women could only access foreign products that were designed for different skin types. She overcame many odds to secure the Chinese market with a nationwide distribution capacity (Yang and Chandon 5). She was able to develop skincare and beauty products that are specifically designed for the Asian skin. Going by her standards, she had attained her initial goal except for the part of going global. Had Madame Yue Sai been content with a nationwide market, I feel her company would still be enjoying the iconic stature it once boasted. After all, China is the most populous nation in the world with a population of well over 1.3 billion (Yang and Chandon 1).
In her quest to go global she sold the company to a New York-based cosmetics firm, Coty, that focussed on the distribution of the products at the expense of its branding (Yang and Chandon 6). The consequence is that while Yue Sai managed to attain the number one distribution slot in China, its brand started to lose its relevance at a very fast rate. This problem persisted even when the brand was acquired by L’Oreal in 2004. Despite gaining an enviable distribution capacity under the L’Oreal umbrella, the Yue-Sai brand’s popularity continued to dwindle.
The downturn started when Yue Sai’s was acquired by Coty. Before then, Madame Yue Sai ensured that the brand remained true to the Asian heritage with the beauty products designed specifically for the Asian skin. The success of her brand was deeply anchored in the cultural heritage it promised the consumers of Asian descent. Turning around Yue Sai, requires that we go back to the very essence of the brand. Coty and L’Oreal wanted to ride on the success of the brand but failed to realize and emphasise the core foundation of its popularity. Yue-Sai was established as a brand that would produce and distribute beauty and skin care products for the Asian and specifically the Chinese modern day woman (Yang and Chandon 7). Therefore, for it to remain relevant it ought to retain that brand positioning. There is a need to identify the aspects that do not promote the brand’s mantra such the need to expand globally while capitalizing on distributing to the Asian continent. Focus on distributing to the entire globe has cost the brand the modern woman part of its goal. While it concentrates on expanding its distribution, the concept of a modern Chinese woman has changed. We are no longer in 1922 when social media was non-existent, women all over the world have become more confident, the Chinese woman of 1922 who regarded makeup as superficial has been replaced by a 2016 teenager who regards makeup as a basic need.
Lifestyle positioning for the brand would serve the brand well if its target market is in the first tier but Yue Sai seeks to attain global recognition and must, therefore, broaden its target market to encompass the women in the lower tiers. Additionally, lifestyle positioning is highly associated with foreign brands (Yang and Chandon 10), a reputation that would prove counterproductive to the Yue-Sai brand that prides itself in staying true to the Chinese heritage. Yue-Sai must acknowledge that more and more Chinese, and Asian women, have now come to embrace the use of beauty and skin care products. They must, to remain relevant, expand their target consumer base to include the younger generation of women so that their brands are not dismissed as designed for the older women (Yang and Chandon 6). In line with this, the pricing and the promotion of the brand should incorporate methods that are friendly to the younger generation. There is a need to move from the traditional media advertising to more modern methods like social media.
Yue-Sai was doing pretty well on its own. Before it was sold to Coty, it had managed to produce an iconic red lipstick for China (Yang and Chandon 4), it was able to secure nationwide distribution in stores and to train the first ever beauty advisors in the country. None of the acquisitions has served the brand well as neither Coty nor L’Oreal managed to boost Yue Sai’s original goal. The big brands are so obsessed with concurring the world, with selling their brand that any sub-brand acquired soon finds its popularity fading as it is consistently pushed to the back shelves. To regain its lost glory, Yue Sai must go back to its original plan and retrace its steps with a hope that it will recover the time it lost playing second fiddle to brands that were only riding on its Asian popularity to attain their larger goal.
Works Cited
Yang, Haiyang and Pierre Chandon. Marketing Strategies for Turning around Chinese Luxury Cosmetic Brand Yue Sai. San Fransisco: The Business School for the World, 2014. Print. 29 February 2016.
