Escalation of medical beauty marketing melee: new hospital "acquires at least eight thousand yuan in customer cost"
Author: Gu Ying
"Medical beauty will be available on May Day! Pico-second individual purchases are 3680 yuan, a two-person group is 3333 yuan, and the group price is only 780 yuan."
Taking advantage of the May Day holiday, the preferential prices offered by major medical beauty e-commerce platforms are attractive.
Compared with higher-risk and expensive surgical medical beauty projects, light medical beauty such as wrinkle rejuvenation has set off a "beauty" craze. Skin management such as small bubbles, picosecond laser, photon rejuvenation, and water-light acupuncture is positive. Become the first choice for those who love beauty.
During May 1st, the Ninth People's Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine only opened the plastic surgery clinic, and the waiting area of the clinic was almost full.
And a private medical beauty institution in Shanghai is even more hot, with consumers wearing facial masks and holding ice packs, their eyes full of expectation.
"The treatment of problem skin will be treated with photoelectric projects and drugs. We are all doctors from public hospitals who come to see you and help you formulate specific plans. 2500 yuan per time, three times can be discounted to 5999 yuan, and internal and external medications can also be given away for free. ." Faced with the skin consultation of Xiaobai Linxi, the person in charge of the above-mentioned medical beauty agency tried to persuade Lin Xi to make a small bubble right now and perform a deep cleansing of the skin first.
After the emergence of new formats such as short video and live broadcasting, netizens' desire to become beautiful has been activated.
CITIC Construction Investment previously believed that the scale of my country's real medical aesthetics market could reach trillions. Faced with the blowout of demand, medical aesthetics institutions began to compete for social traffic entrance.
Behind the excitement, a battle of trust emerged, intertwined with the secret "fight" of regular medical beauty institutions and "black medical beauty".
The wave of "beauty" struck
According to a report issued by the Mob Research Institute, in April 2021, the post-95s generation of Chinese medical aesthetics App users will gradually take up the main banner, accounting for 29.2%.
Statistics from the surveyed population from April 2020 to April 2021 found that the proportion of male medical beauty users born in the post-95 years increased by 6.5%, and more than 70% of post-95 medical beauty users used sharing apps represented by Xiaohongshu Contact with medical beauty, more than 60% of users are planted by friends around me.
The planting of medical beauty projects has crossed gender, age and class. Anyone who has a smart phone and turns on social media can receive recommended advertisements for medical beauty projects.
Due to the needs of taking photos and live broadcasts, since the young artist Yu Tong came into contact with medical aesthetics in 2017, he has so far done medical aesthetics projects such as liposuction of the upper and lower legs, botulinum toxin stovepipe, heat lift, and eye bag removal.
In order to enhance the overall "appearance" of the city, the medical beauty industry in Chengdu, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and other places has also been highly valued by local governments, and policy support such as funds and talents has been continuously introduced.
On April 30, Shenzhen released information on plans to strengthen the planning, layout and support of the medical aesthetics industry. It will focus on the key links of the medical aesthetics industry's research and development, application and consumer end, and cultivate leading companies in the new track of the "beautiful economy". To build an internationally renowned "Medical Beauty City".
As early as 2018, Chengdu once proposed to build a leading national and world-renowned "Medical Beauty City", and established Chengdu's first "Medical Beauty Demonstration District" on December 28, 2020.
Guangzhou’s medical beauty market has also gradually taken shape. Xinyang’s "2020 White Paper on the Medical Beauty Industry" shows that Guangzhou’s medical beauty institutions are concentrated in the three central districts of Tianhe, Haizhu, and Yuexiu, among which Tianhe’s institutions account for as much as 57%.
In February 2021, Deloitte, Allergan Aesthetics, and Meituan released the "China Body Sculpting Market Industry Development White Paper 2021", showing that the size of China's medical aesthetics market in 2020 is expected to be 197.5 billion; affected by the new crown pneumonia epidemic, the industry in 2020 The growth rate has slowed down, but it will gradually pick up in the later period, and the growth rate is expected to rise to 18% by 2023.
The upturn in the market has also led to more active manufacturers of raw materials for medical beauty products.
On May 6, some media learned from an insider of Amic (300896.SZ) that the retail guide price of its products, Bonita, will be increased from 12,800 yuan/piece to 16,800 yuan/piece from June 1. The price increase is a market strategy based on the collocation of the price system. This price increase is only a guide, not mandatory, and the ex-factory price increase is small.
It is understood that there are more than 10 products under Amec. Bonida is the only long-acting hyaluronic acid product in China and one of the two long-acting filling products. Only Aibev is the benchmark.
According to data from Amic's 2020 financial report, the company achieved operating income of 709 million yuan for the year, a year-on-year increase of 27.18%; realized a total profit of 503 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 43.29%; realized a net profit of 433 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 45.45%; in 2020 The company's R&D investment accounted for 8.71% of operating income, and the amount of R&D investment increased by 27.26% year-on-year.
As of the close of May 7, the total market value of Amic, with an operating income of 709 million yuan, has reached 112.944 billion yuan, which is higher than Huaxi Bio (688363.SH)'s 90.792 billion yuan and also higher than Huadong Pharmaceutical's 76.257 billion yuan.
The data shows that Huaxi Bio will achieve operating income of 2.633 billion yuan in 2020, and Huadong Medicine will achieve annual revenue of 33.683 billion yuan in 2020.
Marketing melee "upgrade"
Huaxi Biotech’s 2020 financial report released a set of data, and the company incurred a total of 125 million yuan in advertising and publicity expenses throughout the year.
During the reporting period, the company incurred a total of 493 million yuan in online promotion service fees, accounting for 76.32% of the annual net profit.
Huaxi Bio's online promotion is mainly based on online live broadcast, head KOL carrying goods, etc., to achieve initial user accumulation, and then use private domain operation, own live broadcast team to carry goods, etc. to realize user repurchase, thus forming a business model closed loop.
The medical beauty industry has been able to form the current marketing model after more than 20 years of development.
Xiao Longyuan, founder and CEO of Kuaishangtong, shared with China Business News that before 2000, there was basically no marketing concept in the medical aesthetics industry; from 2000 to 2007, large medical aesthetics institutions advertised in traditional media; from 2007 to 2016, Internet marketing With the rise of Baidu bidding era, medical beauty institutions have established websites; from 2016 to 2017, the Wei Zexi incident occurred, Baidu bidding adjustment strategy, Internet platform (information streaming), self-media, O2O and other multi-channel marketing; until after 2017 , Has formed a basic marketing matrix with Baidu bidding and information flow as the mainstay, and medical beauty App as the supplement.
An industry insider who understands channel operations revealed to a reporter from China Business News that when the unit price of a medical beauty institution is 30,000 to 50,000, an online click is about 400 yuan, and an effective click (that is, the customer acquisition cost) is about 8000 yuan.
Some marketing companies can help customers increase an average of 20,000 to 3 effective clicks per day, which is equivalent to saving about 16,000 yuan.
Another person in charge of the medical beauty e-commerce platform said that through channel drainage, in theory, the cost of customer acquisition can be reduced by half.
Jason@超, a self-media person who has studied medical beauty marketing for many years, told China Business News that any cost component has three parts: raw material cost prices, operating costs, and competitors' pricing.
The customer acquisition cost of 8,000 is very unreasonable.
"There are many factors influencing the cost of customer acquisition, and the cost of different institutions is quite different, including multiple factors such as repurchase, user management, product pricing, and gross profit design." Meibai founder and CEO Gong Liansheng told China Business News reporter.
Wang Zhongtang, a medical doctor who has worked in plastic surgery in public tertiary hospitals, added to a reporter from China Business News that the main direct customers are some established or chain institutions, and the cost of acquiring customers in first-tier and second-tier cities is about 5,000 to 8,000.
Most channel-based hospitals are newly established, and the customer acquisition cost is at least 8,000.
Regarding the current pricing power gradually shifting to medical aesthetics channels and the profitability of medical aesthetics institutions is getting smaller and smaller, Tang Xun, the founding partner of Houxin Health Investment, also put forward his own views to a reporter from China Business News. He believes that one On the one hand, the competition of private domain traffic has caused the cost and influence of channels to rise, which is an industry pain point.
On the other hand, insufficient time for patient education and lack of supervision have made the market more and more involuntary in channel competition, and online competition will become more prominent.
"Medical beauty is an important field of consumer medicine, and its consumption attributes determine the competition for online traffic. The fight between various people will be a long-term trend; especially platforms such as Meituan, Pinduoduo, JD Health, and Ali Health will all Continue to do business design for online layout and traffic monetization. The important feature of mature markets such as the United States and South Korea is the development of the doctor’s personal brand, while the Chinese medical aesthetics market is still in its infancy. In the future, vertical platforms and private domains of institutions and doctors Traffic will be more worthy of attention." Tang Xun said.
Medical Beauty Xiaobai VS "Black Medical Beauty"
In recent years, some dermatologists will receive more and more patients whose skin has been damaged due to medical beauty.
Jiang Lin, the founder of Shenzhen Qinglan Biotechnology Co., Ltd., told the CBN reporter that in the field of medical aesthetics, photoelectric products are used to physically remove the problematic skin, while brushing fruit acid is to remove the stratum corneum, which is a chemical removal of the problematic skin. It is particularly bad for the body. At the same time, the root causes of skin problems are not really eliminated, which can easily lead to recurrences. These operations themselves are also very harmful to the body. After long-term accumulation, the patients' skin problems will become more serious.
When talking about how long optoelectronic projects will be popular in China, Jiang Lin said that as long as products with real effects do not appear, optoelectronic products will continue to go on.
Moreover, the high fees of photoelectric medical and aesthetic projects belong to the source of income for hospitals.
"You must know that all medical beauty photoelectric projects are first injured and then regenerated. For problematic skin, it needs to be adjusted to a normal state before it can be considered for photoelectric projects." A senior makeup artist explained to a reporter from China Business News.
There are many gray areas in the medical aesthetics industry. Not only are there no standards for different groups of people's medical aesthetics, but different doctors have very different operating effects, not to mention the mixed reality of participants.
Jason@超 told China Business News that the biggest competitor in the medical beauty market is "black medical beauty", and the industry has been fighting against "black medical beauty".
Due to the chaos in the medical aesthetics market, most consumers who do medical aesthetics have the mentality of "don't treat me worse and worse".
Jason@超 directly pointed out that because of the existence of "black medical beauty", it is difficult for formal medical aesthetics institutions to explain to consumers that they are formal, and because the price difference is too large, many patients will directly choose the low-priced "black medical beauty".
Beauty salons without medical beauty qualifications even took the opportunity to tear apart a gray industrial chain and "bundled" middle-aged and elderly consumer groups by means of recharging.
A reporter from China Business News found that in addition to daily facial care such as whitening and wrinkle removal and shoulder and neck massage, some beauty salons also added special items such as throat gland conditioning and private part care.
Consumer Aunt Zhou complained to CBN reporters that after recharging 16,000 yuan in a beauty salon, the other party proposed to choose from three gears: fast, medium, and slow. Different efficiencies represent different price points.
In the end, the beauty salon did not fulfill its promise of "cover cure", but made Aunt Zhou's local problems more serious.
Yu Tong told the CBN reporter that if it is a facial surgery, it is best to go to a tertiary hospital, liposuction can choose a specialist hospital, and general skin care is almost the same, and currently they are going to regular institutions.
It is understood that many black clinics even perform first-level plastic surgery operations.
Although the regulation is in action and the media is propagating, consumers still take risks.
The black clinic does not have too much burden, and if there is a problem, you can continue to do it in another place.
This also increases the difficulty of supervision.
Nowadays, it is not uncommon for doctors and medical beauty institutions to advertise on Xiaohongshu, Douyin, and Kuaishou. Wang Zhongtang said that this is the three major forces of black, white and gray competing on the same stage.
He explained that black mainly refers to unqualified, including no business license and no qualified medical team.
Gray refers to doctors in public hospitals who use public hospital endorsements to guide patients to the institutions they want to receive services in order to obtain illegitimate benefits.
Because doctors and institutions have qualifications, they are classified as gray industries.
The report of iResearch's "Insight White Paper 2020 of China's Medical Beauty Industry" pointed out: In 2019, there are about 13,000 institutions with medical beauty qualifications in China.
Among the legal medical beauty institutions, 15% of the institutions still operate beyond the scope; in addition, illegal production in the industry is still rampant, and it is estimated that there are still more than 80,000 lifestyle beauty shops across the country that illegally carry out medical beauty projects.
Industry compliance becomes a common wish
The leading medical beauty institutions all hope that the industry can be standardized earlier, so as not to fall into the competition with "black medical beauty".
Tang Xun said that the protection of consumer rights is the basic performance of a mature market, and sound supervision and law enforcement can eliminate the abnormal state of bad money driving out good money. The medical beauty category has developed rapidly, but in fact, the barriers are still very high. Without the intervention and improvement of supervision, it is difficult to expect industry leaders to grow rapidly.
After the announcement of the "Notice on Severely Cracking Down on Illegal Medical Aesthetics", the "Notice on Further Strengthening the Comprehensive Supervision and Law Enforcement of Medical Aesthetics" clearly stated that medical cosmetology advertisements are medical advertisements, and non-medical institutions are not allowed to publish medical advertisements.
Medical aesthetic institutions shall not use news forms, medical information service special sections (columns) to publish or disguise medical advertisements, and shall not conduct false publicity.
On July 29, 2020, the State Administration for Market Regulation also issued the "Guiding Opinions of the State Administration for Market Regulation on Strengthening the Supervision of Webcast Marketing Activities (Draft for Comment)", which clearly stated that medical, pharmaceuticals, and medical devices should not be published in the form of webcast. Wait for advertising.
On April 13, the Shanghai Municipal Market Supervision Bureau announced the first batch of typical cases of false and illegal advertisements in 2021.
Among them, Shanghai Xinghe Medical Beauty Clinic was fined 500,000 yuan for publishing illegal toxic drug advertisements.
Earlier, a maternity hospital in Cangzhou, where medical beauty advertisements were suspected of false propaganda, was fined 450,000 yuan.
There are not a few people who have been fined because of the failure of the plastic surgery. A woman in Ji'an, Jiangxi Province suffered hemiplegia due to a fat filling accident. Four years later, the court finally awarded 1.05 million yuan in compensation.
"The improvement of supervision is an inevitable trend. Medical aesthetic institutions should still focus on the improvement of product and service quality. The mere consumption of traffic competition shows that the possibility of practitioners shuffling is increasing." Tang Xun also Said that the medical nature of the industry also determines that this category has many issues in patient education, doctor support, and discipline construction that need time to solve, and regulations and supervision need to be further improved.
On February 23, the "Report on the Status and Demands of Professionals in China's Medical and Aesthetic Industry" released by the Education and Training Center of the China Plastic Surgery Association showed that the number of service positions (including customer service personnel, online consultation, on-site consultation, etc.) in medical aesthetic institutions is the largest. It accounts for 40%.
Service staff not only account for the largest proportion, but also generally have a low level of education, with non-medical background staff accounting for more than 60%.
Among the health technicians, in addition to licensed medical staff, there are a considerable number of auxiliary technical operators who take up their jobs without a license, accounting for 16.5%, and most of them have a technical secondary school or below high school degree.
In addition, the shortage of medical and aesthetic talents in my country will also be a major challenge for the development of the industry.
According to data, the actual number of physicians in China's medical aesthetics industry in 2019 was 38,343, while the 2018 Health Commission Statistical Yearbook showed that the number of physicians (including assistants) in plastic surgery specialist hospitals was only 3,680; if it is not multi-point practice, The standard demand for physicians in 13,000 medical and aesthetic institutions reaches 100,000.
In 2018, Allergan Aesthetics Innovation Center plans to train 3,000 medical and aesthetic medical professionals every year. By 2020, the China Plastic Surgery Association has launched the "National One Million Medical and Aesthetic Talent Training Project".
The good news is that on January 26, 2021, the Ministry of Education pointed out in its response to Recommendation No. 1124 of the Third Session of the Thirteenth National People’s Congress that according to the “Measures for the Establishment and Management of the Discipline Catalogue for Degree Awarding and Talent Cultivation,” the second-level disciplines Degree-granting units are independently set up, and qualified degree-granting units can independently set up secondary disciplines related to aesthetic medicine under first-level disciplines such as clinical medicine according to their own development and social needs.
After the supporting policies for the development of the medical aesthetics industry are in place, the living space of "black medical aesthetics" will be greatly reduced, and cheap and good quality is no longer the luxury of medical aesthetics consumers.
(In the text, Lin Xi and Yu Tong are pseudonyms)