Bolebao Chi Juan: Product power comes first

"In the past 21 years, we have only been doing one year, which is to do 'water' and treat all kinds of water into various standards." Chi Juan is talking about the parent company of Bolebao Boten Environmental Group. Before Bolebao was established, she was often asked by friends: "What kind of water is safe and healthy? Your company has been making water for so many years, can you help us choose a water purifier?". Today, Chi Juan, who is the CEO of Bolebao, said with a smile: "We have been making water for so many years. If we don't make a water purifier, we can't explain it to our friends and relatives."

2013 Bolebao Technology Co., Ltd., established in November, launched its first water purifier in March 2015, with sales of nearly 30 million that year. In the water purifier industry, this is not a very prominent data. Some established companies such as Haier and Midea have achieved annual sales of hundreds of millions of water purifier products due to the accumulation of home appliance channels for more than 20 years. But Bolebao, who is still in the second echelon, doesn't seem to be too worried, because Chi Juan feels that she has a killer in her hand.

Regarding water, where are the pain points?

This kind of plot often appears in American TV dramas: the people in the play pick up a glass of water from the tap and drink it all down. This drinking habit, which would be considered extremely unsanitary in China, is taken for granted abroad. Chi Juan explained: "The transportation pipelines in developed countries in Europe and the United States all use food-grade pipe fittings. In the process of transporting water to the faucet at home, there will be no secondary pollution, so their tap water meets the US NSF standard."

But what about in China?

Rusty water pipes and rarely cleaned water tanks are probably the common impression of Chinese people on tap water. In recent years, with the frequent occurrence of water pollution incidents such as "cyanobacteria incident" and drinking water fluorosis, people's awareness of drinking water safety has been continuously improved, and many people began to drink only pure water every day. Many purified waters have been over-treated in the production process, resulting in the dissolved oxygen, ions and other elements needed by the human body that should be contained in normal water are filtered out.

Although developed countries in Europe and the United States have direct drinking water, most people also install a water purifier at home. "Their water purifiers are very simple, only PP cotton or activated carbon rods to filter impurities or improve the taste."

In Europe and the United States, the penetration rate of household water purifiers is over 80%, but domestic This figure is not even 5%. Such a comparison shows that domestic household water purifiers are a huge market. But behind this huge market is a chaos of more than 4,000 companies that lack supervision. Chi Juan pointed out that many domestic manufacturers will over-treat water for safety reasons, and the research and development direction has gone to the other extreme.

Before deciding to make a water purifier, Bolebao spent half a year conducting market research, and launched its first product after a year. The difference of this product is that it It uses nanofiltration technology (nano-level filtration), which can filter out harmful ions (heavy metals, pesticides, organic pollutants, etc.), but retains trace elements such as potassium and sodium that are beneficial to the human body.

"Consumers still have a pain point, that is, the current water purifier wastewater rate is very high. We will soon launch a barrier-type product that will exclusively use the water channel that has won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Protein technology can effectively increase water output and reduce wastewater volume. This is a subversive technology and our trump card." Chi Juan is not only full of longing and self-confidence for the upcoming new product, she believes that this will be The key to Bolebao's foothold in the market in the future: "In 2017, the state will introduce mandatory standards for the water purifier industry, mainly to classify water purifiers based on the amount of waste water. It depends on how much energy-saving you are, and those below the third level will be banned. Eliminated. Once the label is attached, the product will be known. It will determine whose product can gain a foothold in the market and whose product will be shuffled out. And Bolebao is confident that it can achieve corner overtaking through aquaporin technology.”

Internet of water purifiers

In the original research, Bolebao also learned that although some families have installed water purifiers, they do not necessarily know when the filter element needs to be replaced. , Is the water filtered by different water purifiers safe? Therefore, Bolebao has launched the first water purifier with APP in China, which not only allows users to see the water quality of the incoming and outgoing water on the mobile phone, but also reminds them to replace the filter element.

In March 2015, this product participated in crowdfunding on JD.com under the aura of the first internet smart water purifier in China, successfully crowdfunding 20.89 million, becoming the first champion product in China to exceed 20 million. . At a time when everyone is striving to be close to the Internet, will the word Internet appear in the water purifier for the first time just a gimmick?

In this regard, Chi Juan believes: "The water purifier industry does not have particularly disruptive technologies, but only micro-innovation, which is a miniature version of industrial water treatment technology. Now many manufacturers are also starting to make intelligent products. , began to do crowdfunding, so this will soon no longer be the exclusive advantage of Bolebao; some manufacturers have found that the Internet model is good and the product intelligence concept is good, and they have begun to follow us. We think this is a good thing, which shows that this industry They are all developing in a healthy direction, and they are all developing in the direction of intelligence, the Internet, mobile Internet, and the Internet of Things, so that the industry will become more and more high-end.”

At the end of 2014, air purification The appliance brand "Three Dads" crowdfunded its products on JD.com and raised 11 million in 30 days. Until now, if you search for "three dads" as a keyword, people can still see the story of its founder's passionate crowdfunding success. How many companies are selling stories instead of selling products like this?

Chi Juan believes that the protagonists of Internet + need to be companies with strength in traditional industries, they have very mature thinking on the management layout of the value chain, and then use Internet thinking and mobile Internet technology to help product sales. At present, there are many Internet start-up companies with marketing success, but they are lacking in other aspects and lacking things that can support brand influence.

Bolebo has also done a very clever job in marketing with the help of the Internet. This company initiated the activity of drawing the "China Water Quality Map". The project team visited major cities across the country to test the water quality of local residential areas, and drew a detailed water quality map of China, which not only included real-time monitoring data of the seven major rivers in my country, but also It allows people to easily and intuitively understand the water quality in their area. This public welfare activity not only reflects the feelings of a water purifier company, but also helps the company's product development. In September 2015, Bolebao launched a smart sports bracelet that can measure water quality, which can measure water quality anytime, anywhere. , and sync the data to the home water quality map.

In the era when intelligence is king, it is also a matter of course for a water purifier company to launch mobile smart bracelets, water cups, household portable water purification kettles, etc. Chi Juan believes that these smart products around the water purifier can expand the user base of Bolebao, and at the same time generate user stickiness.

The idea of hitting the middle class

“Our brand is positioned as the middle class.” Chi Juan believes that the number of middle class in my country will reach 340 million next year, and it will double in the next ten years . The middle class has begun to rise and become the main body of social consumption. This high-yield and high-stress group in Kochi needs more care and wants to prove their brand and taste. They will not buy impulse purchases because of cheap prices, but focus on the brand and quality of products. "This is the group we focus on."

In order to meet the quality and taste requirements of the middle class, Bolebao is very careful in the selection of materials and the creation of products. "A bad product with a good communication will die faster, so we must insist on reflecting that we are a professional-level company and make product quality the first." In terms of marketing channels, Bo Instead of focusing on conference-style marketing and ground promotion commonly used by other conventional manufacturers, Lebao has set up home experience halls in home furnishing stores such as Red Star Macalline, and established domestic experience halls with domestic first-tier e-commerce platforms such as JD.com, Tmall, Yihaodian, and Amazon. Cooperation, in order to reflect the characteristics of its product marketing in the Internet era, as well as the positioning of high-end. On the Internet, Bolebao has also launched some marketing activities aimed at the middle class, such as breaking into the circle of high-end people - continuous experiential marketing in the scenes of some parent-child groups, tea lovers, and financial and financial management users, forming geometric form of dissemination.

Chi Juan believes that: the design and service in the water purification industry are relatively low-end at present, and the water purifiers all look the same and imitate each other. There must be an improvement in quality. In the future, if a company wants to do better and better, product strength must come first. Only good products can make enterprises go further.