China Taojun Exhibition•2021 Guangzhou Design Week ③
If Brother Chan asks you: As a ceramic builder, what do you think of the annual Guangzhou Design Week?
You will most likely say "You must first look at the design during design week", and then you will probably say "look at the trends" and "look at the products". I looked at the design during the design week and found that there is nothing wrong with it. Brother Zen will not be stubborn with you on this point. However, when it comes to "looking at trends" and "looking at products", Brother Chan has to "haha".
Looking at trends? Large-scale home building materials exhibitions held one after another every year, including Guangzhou Design Week, show many trends, but how many of them actually become trends in the end? At best, they are just predictions from industry experts and media figures. They often sound good, but in the end they are just a passing wind.
Looking at products? There are countless products displayed by various ceramic brands at Guangzhou Design Week, but how many of them have been displayed during the Foshan Ceramics Expo and Foshan Tanzhou Ceramics Exhibition held earlier in the same year? Not to mention that the products displayed by various ceramic brands mostly follow the trend and innovate, but there are few exclusive innovations.
Therefore, Brother Chan feels that it is important to look at designs, trends and products at Guangzhou Design Week, but it is not the most important. The most important thing is to look at the essence reflected and the problems exposed by various phenomena at Guangzhou Design Week.
Follow this idea and look at the extraordinary 2021 Guangzhou Design Week, which has withstood the increasing pressure of COVID-19 prevention and control. There are three major phenomena behind the prosperity of 60 + ceramic (ceramic tiles and slate) brands participating in the exhibition that are worth exploring.
As we all know, the building ceramics industry is an industry with serious homogeneity, which is mainly reflected in product colors, processes, specifications and brand tonality. Needless to say, product specifications are either small square sizes of 600×600mm or 800×800mm or large rectangular sizes of various sizes. It seems impossible to avoid it; product colors and craftsmanship seem to be avoidable, but in fact they are similar; and brand tonality They should definitely have their own characteristics, but there are always many similarities. These three points can be verified from previous large-scale ceramic exhibitions or large-scale home building materials exhibitions with many ceramic brands participating. 2021 Guangzhou Design WeekNo exception.
Let’s talk about product specifications first.
If products with traditional specifications such as 800×800mm still had a chance to appear at previous large-scale ceramic exhibitions and large-scale home building materials exhibitions, then they have basically been sentenced to death at the 2021 Guangzhou Design Week.
Looking at the entire building ceramics industry, most brands are abandoning products with traditional specifications such as 800×800mm, and giving all their passion and love to large-size ceramic tiles, namely large ceramic slabs and ceramic tiles, which are known as cross-border new products. Material slate.
When traditional ceramic tiles such as 800×800mm still occupy a considerable share in the ceramic tile market and ceramic tile revenue still accounts for the absolute majority of the total revenue of ceramic brands, they are so fond of the new and dislike the old that they abandon traditional ceramic tiles and even despise all ceramic tiles and invest in Will the embrace of rock slabs that “cannot be called rock slabs unless they are large in size” be seriously out of touch with the actual market situation? Will it chill the hearts of dealers who only deal in ceramic tiles and cannot afford to get involved in slates?
Although it is too early to discuss these issues now, it should be considered carefully.
Let’s talk about brand tone.
At the 2021 Guangzhou Design Week, many ceramic brands are following the national trend. In order to avoid the embarrassing situation of being misunderstood as advertising for certain brands or deliberately discrediting certain brands, this article will not give examples of names representing brands here.
Why are many ceramic brands following the national trend?
First of all, the new generation of consumer groups like national fashion. Generation Z (post-95s) and generation Z0 (post-00s), who are increasingly becoming the main consumers, grew up in China's increasingly prosperous environment. They have no experience of material scarcity at all. They are patriotic, culturally confident, and like the national trend. Not worshiping foreigners and favoring foreigners has promoted the rise of a number of national fashion brands. Affected by this factor, more and more ceramic brands have embarked on the journey of brand rejuvenation and national fashion.
Secondly, factors such as "mass entrepreneurship and innovation" (mass entrepreneurship and innovation) policy, mobile Internet, high-end technology, and great power competition have promoted the popularity of the national trend. Especially the game between great powers (due to various trade sanctions imposed by beautiful countries on China, various blame-shifting and frame-up during the epidemic, and unprovokedSuppressing Huawei, selling weapons to Taiwan, undermining peace and stability in the South China Sea, disrupting Hong Kong, and provoking Xinjiang, and many other shameless acts have aroused people's patriotic enthusiasm, causing many consumers to shift their consumption intentions from international brands to local brands, quickly setting off a A massive wave of domestic products.
Affected by the wave of domestic products, many ceramic brands with foreign names but actually local brands, products and design styles that tend to be international have also realized the change in the trend and began to adjust their brand strategies and change their brand tonality, obviously or not. The ground is moving closer to the national trend. Those ceramic brands with Chinese names and products and design styles that focus on Chinese style have clearly raised the banner of the national trend and embarked on the development path of building domestic brands.
Regarding this situation, Han Feng, a well-known marketing expert who has been deeply involved in the home building materials industry for many years and founder of Guiren Xiuzhu Strategic Marketing Consulting, believes that "these 'fake foreign devil' brands are best Now change to a brand name that is consistent with Chinese cultural confidence or incubate a second brand that is consistent with Chinese cultural confidence. The cost of switching is the lowest. Anyway, home furnishing is a low-frequency and low-attention industry. Chengjiaduobao has not caused much change in sales, let alone the home building materials brand."
Of course, there are also many people in the industry who have completely different views from Han Feng. They still believe that worshiping foreigners is the mainstream among Chinese people. For consumers, ceramic tile and slate brands with foreign names are more attractive and convincing.
As to which of these two views is more correct, this article will not comment. Just a kind reminder, wouldn’t it be a bit embarrassing for a famous foreign brand to follow the national trend? Of course, you can say, "As long as you are not embarrassed, others will be embarrassed."
Finally, let’s talk about the product color and craftsmanship.
The product features of the ceramic brands participating in Guangzhou Design Week 2021 are mainly reflected in two aspects: First, in terms of color, plain-colored products are very popular, popular with cement tiles and wabi-sabi style; second, in terms of technology, they have digital glaze, digital Products with superimposed craft effects such as molds and finely carved inks have become a common practice.
By the same token, in order to avoid being misunderstood as advertising for certain brands or deliberately discrediting certain brands, this article isI won’t give examples here of names that represent brands and their products.
Through the current two important product features of the building ceramics industry, we can discover the serious problems hidden behind them: product homogeneity is still serious, even more severe than in the past.
In the Guangzhou Design Week, which is held in the name of design on such a large scale, it is sad that the product R&D and innovation in the building ceramics industry only have these two features that are good at attracting so many brands to follow suit.
Behind the still serious phenomenon of product homogeneity, there is also a question worth thinking about - a little comparison and analysis can reveal that, whether before or now, product R&D innovation in the building ceramics industry is mostly a gust of wind.
The so-called product R&D innovation trend means that whether they are big brands or small and medium-sized brands, most ceramic brands that meet user needs with a full range of products like to follow the trend, "you have it, I have it all", and they soon fall into homogeneous competition. The only The difference is to see who has the lowest price, and vicious price wars often arise from this. Only a few brands that meet user needs with subdivided products, that is, subdivided brands or small and beautiful brands, will choose the right direction and go forward firmly.
To sum up the above two situations in one sentence, it is: generally only subdivided brands can turn a category into a brand, while full-category brands usually make the category die halfway or eventually become a thing of the past.
For example, in the building ceramics industry, when it comes to marble tiles, everyone thinks of Jianyi, when it comes to wear-resistant tiles, everyone thinks of big horned deer, when it comes to cement tiles, everyone thinks of Fiona, etc., their product categories remain the same as always. Active in the market; when it comes to the products of all categories of brands, they have either "passed away" so long ago that no one can remember them, or they have "hibernated" long ago and are still lying in the brand headquarters or a dealer's warehouse. Only a few may still remember.
This shows that it is important to serialize products, it is important to adhere to the strategy of featured products, and it is even more important to combine products and brands.
At the same time, this also vividly proves a point mentioned by Jack Trout, the founder and pioneer of positioning theory and marketing warfare theory, in his book "Positioning": "In order to reach consumers with limited capacity in their minds, To occupy a category, the best way for a brand to differentiate is to become number one, be a category leader or pioneer, and be far ahead in sales. Secondly, differentiate the category, and be the only one in the segmented category, that is, be the number one in the segmented category, or become the first in the segmented category. First in categoryof opponents. ”
In the past, when there was no need to worry about selling products, or when the real estate industry was not experiencing frequent thunderstorms, that is, when the engineering channel was an important growth point, leading brands in all categories did not need to pay attention to the creation of subdivided categories. They mainly relied on scale advantages, cost advantages and The brand advantage implements dimensionality reduction on the waist and tail brands of all categories, and relies on engineering channels to further develop and grow.
However, the situation has changed now. People's consumption needs are becoming more and more complex and personalized. Engineering channels are no longer an important growth point worthy of all bets. The leading brands in all categories need to be prepared for danger and innovate for change. The waist and tail brands of all categories need Brands need to fight against the odds.
Don't listen to what the family says.
Brother Chan is here waiting for everyone to take photos of the bricks.
(Author: Chan Can)
