Yesterday, CHAILEEDO learned from informed sources that Ye Wei, the CMO of Chinese skincare brand Proya, has resigned. Upon verification, Ye Wei confirmed the news. However, he did not provide much response regarding the reasons for his resignation or his future plans.
Over his 6-year tenure, Ye Wei witnessed Proya’s soaring performance
Public reports indicate that Ye Wei joined Proya as the CMO in 2018. CHAILEEDO noted that on August 30th of last year, Ye Wei attended the Proya company’s 2023 semi-annual performance briefing alongside the co-founder and CEO, Fang Yuyou, and the Secretary of the Board and CFO, Wang Li. It is reported that this was Ye Wei’s first attendance at Proya’s performance briefing, where he provided a detailed introduction to the performance of the Proya and Cai Tang brands in the first half of 2023, focusing on products and marketing.
However, during the Proya 2023 third-quarter performance briefing held on October 24th last year, Ye Wei did not continue to attend, and only Fang Yuyou and Wang Li were present from the company.
Regarding Ye Wei’s departure, CHAILEEDO promptly inquired with Proya, and they responded, “Personnel changes that do not affect the company’s operations will not be announced.”
For a cosmetics company, the position of CMO is crucial, often being the top decision-maker in managing the company’s marketing work. World-renowned management guru Peter Drucker once said, “The business enterprise has two-and only two-basic functions: marketing and innovation. All the rest are costs.” Undoubtedly, the CMO is an important driver for a company’s profitability and return on investment.
Looking back at Ye Wei’s 6 years at Proya, it coincided with the period when Proya achieved remarkable growth shortly after going public. According to Proya’s financial reports from 2018 to the first three quarters of 2023, the company’s revenue was 2.361 billion yuan (329.5 million), 3.124 billion yuan ($435.9 million), 3.752 billion yuan ($523.6 million), 4.633 billion yuan ($646.5 million), 6.385 billion yuan ($891 million), and 5.249 billion yuan ($732.5 million), respectively. Several investment institutions have predicted that Proya’s revenue is expected to surpass 8 billion yuan for the full year of 2023.
Especially in 2023, Proya became an undisputed leader and “star” in the Chinese cosmetics industry. Firstly, in the first three quarters of the previous year (January to September), with a revenue of 5.249 billion yuan ($732.5 million), Proya surpassed Shanghai Jahwa, the long-standing leader of the Chinese cosmetics industry, becoming the new industry leader. Next, during the Singles’ Day promotion in the previous year, the Proya brand topped the Tmall Beauty Rankings for the first time, breaking the dominance of foreign brands over domestic beauty brands.
Undoubtedly, the continuous rise in Proya’s performance over the past 6 years is closely related to CMO Ye Wei, and his contribution to the company’s performance is significant.
Previously employed at P&G, Ye Wei applied classic marketing methods to Proya
It is well known that Proya’s rapid growth in recent years is closely related to its “hero product” strategy. This strategy was first introduced in Proya’s 2020 annual report. It’s worth mentioning that after Proya proposed the “hero product” strategy, the concept of “early C, late A” skincare started gaining popularity, and Proya subsequently launched the “Ruby” series of products. Additionally, the “Dual Resistance” series of products, supported by the skincare concept of “anti-sugar, anti-oxidation,” also became another hit for the Proya brand.
Subsequently, in multiple financial reports, Proya stated that its excellent performance is related to the deepening of its “multi-brand, multi-category, multi-channel” strategy and the continuous development of the “hero product” strategy.
Industry experts have analyzed that “behind Proya’s rise to become China’s number one in the beauty industry over the past five years is the credit of CMO Ye Wei, who applied P&G’s marketing system at Proya.” The reason is that Ye Wei previously worked at P&G before joining Proya. The hero product strategy is a marketing strategy commonly used by international companies such as L’Oréal and Estée Lauder. Classic examples include Estée Lauder’s Little Brown Bottle, Lancôme’s Little Black Bottle, SK-II’s Facial Treatment Essence, Helena Rubinstein’s black bandage and green bottle, which have already deeply ingrained in consumers’ minds.
It can be said that the hero product strategy is a product consensus that international brands have reached after years of market validation. It is also an important product strategy for Proya and other domestic brands to gain market share. Undoubtedly, Proya is currently the most successful domestic brand that has successfully implemented the hero product strategy.
In addition to the hero product strategy, Proya’s content marketing in recent years has also been impressive. According to reports, Fang Yuyou mentioned in an interview with Forbes China Magazine in 2023, “When discussing the success of century-old beauty brands abroad with CMO Ye Wei, they reached a consensus that content marketing is essential for cosmetics. It’s not just about advertising or posting videos; it’s about accurately expressing the product’s attributes and the brand’s values, while maintaining consistency across all communication channels.”
It is understood that since 2021, the Proya brand has focused on four themes: “gender equality,” “love and intimacy,” “mental health,” and “youth and growth.” They release short content videos during events such as International Women’s Day, back-to-school season, and Mother’s Day. For example, during International Women’s Day in 2021, the Proya brand collaborated with the Chinese Women’s Daily newspaper on the theme campaign #GenderIsNotABoundary,PrejudiceIs#. It went viral and gained significant attention. As of March 9, 2021, the hashtag #GenderIsNotABoundary,PrejudiceIs# on Weibo had reached 130 million readings and 99,000 discussions. It also sparked discussions on WeChat Moments, with reposts reaching 218,000 and likes totaling 313,000.
Undoubtedly, successful content marketing will drive the integration of brand and product effectiveness, further promoting sales growth.
Overall, during Ye Wei’s six years as CMO at Proya, he has made significant contributions to the company’s sales performance improvement and brand building.
