interface news reporter | Chen Qirui
interface news editor | Lou Qinqin
Recently, some netizens posted content on social media, pointing out that the outdoor advertisements of aivei, a brand owned by Xinhe Co., Ltd., in Tianjie, Beicheng, Longhu, Chongqing, were starred by Xu Shaoen, the daughter of Taiwanese artist Xu Xidi. Xu Shaoen had previously been involved in controversy for referring to English as her mother tongue on her personal Instagram account.
Netizens’ dissatisfaction now extends to aivei’s advertisements, requiring shopping malls to remove relevant advertisements.
At present, the aivei outdoor advertising in Longhu Beicheng Tianjie has been replaced. The relevant person in charge of Xinhe Co., Ltd. responded to ifeng.com, saying that the cooperation between aivei and Xu Shaoen expired on July 21 - she is not a spokesperson with an official title, but a partner. However, Xinhe Co., Ltd. also stated that if there are any promotion plans in the future, advertising may be re-launched.
Xinhe Co., Ltd. cooperates frequently with Xu Xidi’s family. Xu Xidi has appeared in jorya's advertisements with her three daughters in the past, and her eldest daughter Xu Xiwen even had the opportunity to appear alone. According to the Tianyancha app and the prospectus, one of the shareholders of Purple Forest Limited, the sixth largest shareholder of Xinhe Shares, is Xu Xidi and her husband Xu Yajun.
With the advertisements in Longhu Street in Beicheng being replaced, all kinds of controversies have come to an end for the time being. But from another perspective, the traffic and exposure this controversy brought to aivei may be far more than what it planned to obtain through outdoor advertising. For many consumers, "jorya sister brand" is still aivei's most familiar label.
jorya is the most important brand of Xinhe Co., Ltd. It is the source of the entire group. As the business scale gradually expanded, Xinhe Co., Ltd. began to carry out multi-brand operations and launched five sub-brands: jorya weekend, ΛnmΛni, givh shyh, caroline and aivei.
In the introduction of the financial report, the highest-positioned brand within the Xinhe Group is jorya. The main product prices range from 2,000 yuan to 60,000 yuan, targeting first- and second-tier cities and some third-tier cities with spending power. Caroline and aivei have the lowest positioning, with the highest prices between 3,000 yuan and 4,000 yuan, but the lowest price of the former is 2,000 yuan, while the latter is 680 yuan.
There are also differences in the age groups of target customers. Caroline targets women between the ages of 25 and 35, while aivei chooses the age range of 22 to 28, which leads them to different styles of urban modern and cute romantic respectively. But judging from the 2023 financial report, Xinhe Shares chose to invest more resources into aivei-in this group that mainly operates direct operations, almost all new franchise stores come from aivei.
Xinhe Co., Ltd. did not disclose the individual performance of each of its brands in its financial report, but now it has reached a time when it needs to find new growth points.
From 2015 to 2023, Xinhe Shares’ operating income increased from 1.813 billion yuan to 1.759 billion yuan. It has almost no growth in these 8 years. In the first quarter of 2024, its revenue fell by 19.06% to 365 million yuan, and its net profit attributable to its parent company fell by 88.49% to 5.6369 million yuan. In the latest 2024 semi-annual report forecast, Xinhe shares stated that net profit attributable to the parent company will fall by 96.14% to 95.04%. The reason given by
is that a large number of stores with poor performance were closed under the transformation strategy, resulting in a rapid decline in performance in the short term.
For comparison, local women's clothing groups Gelisi, Jinhong Group and Winner Fashion, which also take the mid-to-high-end route, had revenue of 835 million yuan, 824 million yuan and 1.285 billion yuan in 2015, but by 2023 it will become 29.15 billion, 4.545 billion and 6.912 billion yuan. The gap between Xinhe Shares and its peers is getting wider and wider.
One reason is that Xinhe's peers have completed relatively successful acquisitions or achieved success in their own sub-brands in the past few years, finding new performance growth points for the company. For example, Elise's self-portrait has become the representative of fairy skirts in the market, while Jinhong Group has found a large number of young consumers because of its teenie weenie.
Although Xinhe also adopts a multi-brand strategy, the popularity of its sub-brands has not been high in the market. However, among the many sub-brands, Xinhe decided to invest more resources in aivei. It is obvious that Xinhe shares are interested in its style and price, which are quite different from jorya.
With the changes in the social retail environment, consumers' enthusiasm for women's clothing from mid-to-high-end non-luxury brands is fading. The main reason is that it is expensive and does not maintain its value.Aivei will not divide the jorya market because of similar styles. The relatively lower prices and cuter styles can also make up for the group's shortcomings in the young mass market.
's youthful image sometimes allows the market to be more tolerant of the brand's attempts in different fields, which is something jorya, which has a higher price point and target audience, does not have. If aivei can be successful, jorya's image will also benefit. This is another purpose for many apparel groups to operate sub-brands.
According to Xinhe shares, aivei and jorya weekend belong to the casual student track. The main brands jorya are classified as exquisite life, and ΛnmΛni and caroline are classified as workplace commuting. For this purpose, Xinhe Co., Ltd. has also specially set up three corresponding business clusters.
Xinhe Co., Ltd. is not the only company thinking of developing young and affordable sub-brands.
Winner Fashion has also launched a younger and cheaper sub-brand elsewhere, which will become the group's fourth largest brand in 2023, with annual revenue of 532 million yuan. Disu Fashion is doing something similar. The sales growth rate of the youth brand d’zzit in 2023 is higher than that of the main brand dazzle.
The operating conditions of these companies are better than Xinhe shares, and they have more resources and funds to invest in marketing sub-brands and promoting expansion. With the driving force of the main brand jorya declining and profit pressure increasing, it is not easy to expand the scale of aivei.
