Recently, China’s first men’s skincare brand gf officially announced that Chinese actor Zhang Yunlong has become its brand image spokesperson. Judging from the information over the years, continuous cooperation with celebrities, classic IP, and well-known cross-border brands has become a marketing method for gf. And at the same time, gf’s performance can be regarded as living up to expectations.
On April 29, gf, a Chinese professional men’s technology skincare brand, officially announced that Zhang Yunlong whose fans on mainstream Chinese social platforms are close to 15 million has become its brand image spokesperson.
Gf was born in 1992. It is a men’s skincare brand under the Chinese cosmetics company Shanghai Jahwa and the first men’s skincare brand in the Chinese cosmetics market. Committed to the continuous research and development of advanced customized products for Chinese men, it has created a total of 18 series and more than 140 single products. The product series spans the four fields of skincare, hair products, bath, and perfume.
According to the data, this is not the first time that gf has officially announced a celebrity spokesperson in recent years. Judging from its moves over the years, the brand has been focusing on cooperating with celebrities including stars, classic IP, and well-known cross-border brands for many years, which turns out to be a fixed marketing model for the brand.
According to gf’s official website and public media reports, gf’s announced spokespersons include the Chinese actor and singer Tony Leung Chiu Wai, the Chinese actor Louis Koo, the Chinese actor William Feng and well-known Chinese crosstalk comedian Guo Qilin.
In 2016, gf cooperated with “ONE”, an electronic magazine platform owned by the well-known Chinese male writer Han Han, and launched a literary youth version of the packaging. Gf set the theme of this marketing as “farewell to complexity, gf is enough” and advocated that men should say goodbye to complicated procedures and make skincare simple.
In October 2017, gf joined hands with the world’s home video game console giant Microsoft Xbox to launch a global limited edition of 50 sets of gf Xbox customized limited-edition gift boxes, which assembled gf’s Moisturizing Series and “Microsoft Xbox ONE S co-branded custom model Great Sage Host”.
In December 2017, gf and Chinese contemporary calligrapher Zhu Jingyi launched gf’s “One Bag of Yan Wang” for men’s special moisturizing mask and released a joint promotional video, announcing that Zhu Jingyi was the first “Dai Yanren” (spokesperson) of gf’s new products.”.
In May 2021, gf joined hands with China’s well-known car maintenance service brand Tuhu to launch cross-border cooperation “from car maintenance to car owner maintenance”. The two parties launched a limited-edition gift box with a pre-sale price of 129 yuan. The gift box contains a bottle of gf’s facial cleanser, one sterilization of Tuhu’s air-conditioning pipeline (contract for labor and materials), and one Tuhu “Tai Ge” blind box. This gift box is exclusively sold by Tuhu.
In June 2021, gf joined hands with the trendy brand NPC to launch co-branded T-shirts, bags and other products.
In October 2021, gf teamed up with the classic IP Doraemon to launch a joint facial cleanser, repair lotion, gift box, canvas bag, mug derivatives and 3D blind box.
Under the constant cross-border cooperation and the marketing strategy of launching various co-branded products, gf’s achievements in recent years can be regarded as remarkable.
In June 2016, Shanghai Jahwa announced its promotion record on the “618 (June 18) shopping festival”, and its gf men’s skincare category ranked first in sales revenue and it was the only men’s brand in Tmall Beauty that made it to the top 25.
At the Double Eleven shopping festival in 2016, the gf flagship store on Tmall successfully won the first traffic in the beauty category and ranked first in the sales of men’s skincare products and in the sales of men’s cleansing products on the online platforms on Double Eleven shopping festival. Gf flagship store won first place in sales revenue in a single store in the men’s beauty category on Tmall.
At Double Eleven shopping festival in 2020, gf won No.4 in men’s skincare and No.1 in domestic products on Tmall.
In December 2021, Shanghai Jahwa appeared at the first Global Cosmetics Wuhan Trade Expo. Various industry lists and awards were released on the night of the conference. Gf won the first place in 2021 China Cosmetics Sub-category in the men’s category.
According to the research report of HUAXI SECURITIES, gf’s performance and market share have steadily increased in recent years. From 2015 to 2019, gf’s retail sales increased from nearly 800 million yuan to 950 million yuan. From 2016 to the first half of 2019, gf’s share of the offline retail market of men’s facial cream in China increased from 6.3% to 6.8%, ranking fourth in the market.
But at present, the top Chinese men’s skincare brand is L’Oreal Group. At the same time, there are also brands such as Biotherm Men and Kiehl’s Men who divide up the Chinese men’s skincare market. At the same time, Mentholatum in the United States is also developing continuously. These famous brands continue to carry out market education and brand promotion, while among domestic brands gf was the only one to break out of the siege, but gf ranked only fifth. Therefore, how to improve its own competitiveness and not be “besieged” by foreign investors is a problem that gf must ponder next, and this is by no means a problem that can be solved by excellent marketing alone.
