China Marketing Insights Report on the Middle-Aged and Elderly Health Products 2023
Data released by the Qianzhan Industry Research Institute shows that the market size of China's health products industry is on an upward trend year by year from 2018 to 2022. The market size reached 627.2 billion yuan in 2021, a year-on-year increase of 12%, and the market size is expected to exceed 690 billion yuan in 2022. In recent years, China's residents have become increasingly health-conscious, and the middle-aged and elderly in particular attach great importance to health preservation. As a result, the market demand for middle-aged and elderly health products will continue to grow in the future.
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To gain insight into the development of the middle-aged and elderly health product industry, Ipsos Consulting analyzed public data from a major domestic e-commerce platform and online public opinion information, interpreting it from multiple perspectives such as product classification, product prices, brand performance, and marketing insights.
01Market Overview
1.1 Market Size & Classification:
Calcium Tablets, Milk Powder and Fish Oil Account for Nearly a Half
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In October 2023, among the middle-aged and elderly health products within the scope of monitoring, the transaction volumes of peptides and proteins and functional oils and fats were the highest, accounting for 27% and 25% respectively, while the transaction volume of minerals accounted for 17%, and the transaction volumes of polysaccharides and vitamins both accounted for 10%.
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In terms of subdivided categories, calcium tablets had the highest transaction volume, accounting for 16.9%, followed by milk powder and fish oil, accounting for 16.7% and 15.0% respectively. Protein/nutrition powder, vitamins, cod liver oil, lutein and other categories also had high transaction volumes.
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In terms of the efficacy of health products, vitamin supplements and calcium supplements are the most widely demanded health products among middle-aged and elderly people, with transaction indices of 840 and 794 respectively. There is also a high demand for health products that protect eyesight, regulate the immune system, protect joints, lower blood lipids and prevent osteoporosis, with transaction indices all above 100.
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1.2 Price Distribution:
High Prices for Nutritional Powders and Coenzymes, Affordable Products with Folic Acid and Chondroitin Are Popular
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Among the main categories, the average selling price of protein powder/nutrition powder is the highest (185.77 yuan), followed by coenzyme, fish oil, milk powder, and vitamins, all of which have an average selling price of over 100 yuan. The prices of lutein, vitamins, cod liver oil, and other products are more dispersed, and products in each price range have good sales. Folic acid and chondroitin are the two categories of affordable products within 50 yuan that are most popular with consumers, accounting for 60% and 40% of transactions, respectively.
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1.3 Brand Performance:
Industry Concentration Is High, And Domestic Brands Are Performing Well
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Among the monitored samples, there were 57 brands with transaction volumes of over 100,000 yuan in October, of which Swiss, By-Health, and HealthyCare ranked among the top three in terms of transaction index. Among the top ten brands in terms of transaction index, there were four each from domestic and Australian brands and two from the US. By-Health, Tong Ren Tang, Conba and Landi are the leaders among domestic brands.
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The top ten brands together contributed 47% of transaction volume, indicating a high degree of industry concentration.
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The top 50 brands of health products for middle-aged and elderly people are mainly from the United States, China, and Australia, with the three countries accounting for 80% of the total. Among them, Australian brands had the highest transaction volume, accounting for 33%, followed by China (30%) and the United States (24%). Overall, domestic brands performed well, but there is still room for improvement.
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02 Marketing Insight
2.1 Site Distribution: WeChat and TikTok Contributed the Most Volume and Interactions, Respectively
In November 2023, the total number of online health product industry-related voices of the elderly reached 74,200, and the number of interactions reached 563,700. Related information was mainly distributed on WeChat (28%), Sina Weibo (10%), Sohu News (6%), Toutiao (6%), etc., and the number of interactions was mainly contributed by TikTok (64%), Toutiao (13%), Xiaohongshu (11%), Xigua Video (7%), etc. Figure 7. Distribution of the volume and interaction of public opinion on the middle-aged and elderly health product industry in October 2023
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2.2 Brand Marketing
2.2.1 Top 10 Brands: Nestlé, Tong Ren Tang, and By-Health Communications Index Ranking Top 3
In November 2023, Nestlé, Tong Ren Tang, and By-Health ranked top 3 in terms of the brand communication index.
In terms of specific performance, Tong Ren Tang and By-Health had the highest voice volume and received a relatively high volume of interactions. Nestlé had a lower voice volume than the above two brands, but received several times more interactions, mainly due to celebrity endorsements and related publicity. Swisse had a relatively high voice volume but received an extremely low volume of interactions. Figure 9. Voice volume and interaction volume of the top ten brands in the communication index in November 2023
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2.2.2 Marketing Sites: Weibo Focuses on Sales, While Tiktok Focuses on Both Sales and Brand Promotion
Among the top ten brands in the communication index, the brand voice of By-Health, Calcium, and Swisse mainly comes from Sina Weibo and the shopping recommendation website What's Worth Buying. Tong Ren Tang's brand voice is more evenly distributed, with a high voice on social platforms such as Weibo, Jinri Toutiao, TikTok and WeChat.
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Sina Weibo: Brand Content Focuses on Sales
On Sina Weibo, brand-related content is mainly about ‘product placement’. The proportion of ‘product placement’ in Weibo for information about Swiss is the highest, reaching 94%; for information about calcium, it is 88%; and for information about By-Health, it is 82%.
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TikTok: Tiktok: Equal Emphasis on Sales and Brand Promotion
There is much content related to various brands on the TikTok platform that includes ‘Little Yellow Cars’ (purchase links). Among these, Tong Ren Tang's content with ‘Little Yellow Cars’ accounts for 80% of the volume, while By-Health's content with ‘Little Yellow Cars’ accounts for 70%.
Nestlé's shopping-oriented content is relatively rare, accounting for less than 30%. Among the brand's non-shopping-oriented content, content related to Nestlé's Yiyang spokesperson Cheng Yi accounts for 27%, and it contributes 92% of the interactions, which shows that the spokesperson has significantly helped the brand's communication.
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2.3 Marketing Buzzwords
2.3.1 Swiss: Note Aliases to Increase Popularity
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In November, among the internet buzzwords related to Swisse's health products for the middle-aged and elderly, ‘calcium tablets’, ‘vitamins’ and ‘deep-sea fish oil’ appeared frequently. These three are the main products promoted by the brand for the middle-aged and elderly.
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In addition, ‘Niangniang Calcium’ appeared 282 times. It is rumored that actress Sun Li recommended Swisse calcium tablets many years ago, although there is no evidence of this, some netizens still like to call Swisse calcium tablets ‘Niangniang Calcium’ (the actress got the nickname ‘Empress Sun’ because of a role she played). Therefore, when selling and promoting Swiss calcium tablets, many businesses will add the keyword ‘Niangniang Calcium’ to the title to facilitate searches by netizens, while also increasing the popularity of the product by leveraging the actor's traffic.
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2.3.2 Tong Ren Tang: Joint Official Accounts to Promote Second-Sale Activities
Among the hot keywords related to Tong Ren Tang on the internet, the keywords ‘calcium tablets’, ‘ejiao cakes’, ‘chondroitin’ and ‘ammonium glucosamine’ appear frequently. All four are the main products of the brand.
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In addition, ‘welfare’ and ‘second-by-second’ appeared 667 and 651 times respectively, while ‘energy’ and ‘milk’ appeared 644 times each. In November, Tongrentang's Ejiao cake distributors joined forces with more than 250 WeChat local information platform official accounts to launch a second-by-second event, and used similar promotional wording – one piece of Ejiao cake = 6 apples = 150g brown sugar = 2 cups of milk! The energy contained is beyond imagination! The edible value of this Ejiao cake was materialized to attract consumers to buy it.
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03Sensitive Public Opinion
3.1Negative Word Cloud:
False Advertising Has Been Criticized Repeatedly, And Live Streaming to Sell Products Is a Major Problem
As the health product market continues to develop, there is also more and more negative public opinion in the industry.
In November, among the negative public opinion information related to health products, ‘false advertising’ appeared the most frequently. Further analysis found that consumer feedback on false advertising mainly involves exaggerating the health benefits and claiming that health products can treat diseases.
Terms such as ‘anchor’ and ‘live broadcast’ also appeared frequently. Currently, live broadcasts have become an important channel for selling health products. However, consumer feedback indicates that some anchors will explicitly or implicitly state in the live broadcast that the health products they sell can treat diseases to boost sales.
Live broadcasts have a wide audience and have become one of the mainstream sales channels in China. However, health products are related to consumers' health and safety, and false advertising by anchors is a problem that deserves vigilance.
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3.2 Public Opinion Event:
An Elderly Person Unfortunately Passed Away After Taking Health Supplements as Medicine After Surgery, Which Delayed Treatment.
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Currently, false advertising is commonplace in the sales of health supplements. In addition to defrauding people of their money, it can also have the adverse effect of ‘not curing the disease and delaying lifesaving treatment’.
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The relevant information has attracted widespread attention in the community after being reported, and the volume reached a peak in April 2021 (189 articles). It has been reported on multiple social media and news websites, including Weibo, Sohu, Sina, Netease, and Tencent. After the incident, until this year, it has been mentioned by media, self-media, and netizens from time to time. The incident has had a profound and lasting impact on the health product industry.
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04 Conclusion
In recent years, the size of China's health product market has continued to expand, and the market segment for health products for middle-aged and elderly people has also developed rapidly. Supplementing vitamins, calcium supplements, eye protection, immune system regulation, joint protection, and regulation of the three highs (high blood pressure, high blood sugar, high cholesterol) are the main health care needs of middle-aged and elderly people, and calcium tablets, milk powder, fish oil, nutritional powders and other products are the most popular.
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Brands that have performed better include swisse, By-Health, HealthyCare, etc.; domestic brands account for 30% of transaction volume, among which By-Health, Tong Ren Tang, Conba, and Landi have performed better.
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In terms of online marketing, WeChat, Sina Weibo and TikTok are the main marketing platforms for health products for the middle-aged and elderly. Weibo focuses on sales, while TikTok emphasizes both sales and brand promotion.
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Currently, false advertising has become the biggest obstacle to the healthy and orderly development of the health product market. It is recommended that consumers not believe the propaganda that ‘health products can cure diseases’ and choose products reasonably. It is also recommended that sales channels such as e-commerce platforms and live streaming platforms strengthen audit management, suspend broadcasts and remove products from shelves of businesses that violate regulations by promoting the curative effects of health products, to ensure that consumers obtain correct information.
Source: Ipsos Consulting