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Slim and medium-sized cigarettes are increasingly considered healthier and more fashionable by Chinese consumers.
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Even though there were not many new products launched in China in 2021, slim and medium-sized cigarettes were popular with consumers.
At present, China’s economy shifted from high-speed growth into high-quality development featuring upgrade of consumer products. Moreover, as young, high-end consumer groups grow and consumption trends become more diversified, China’s cigarette market also shows a growing trend of mainstreaming particular segments and style specialization.
Slim and medium-sized cigarettes maintain a strong momentum, striving to gain equal popularity as conventional cigarettes. Focusing on the core elements of “high aroma, high quality, low tar, and low harm”, consumers how have healthier, more comfortable, and less harmful products while ensuring the sense of satisfaction – even paying attention to spiritual satisfaction – with an aim to endow cigarettes with more culture and fun to meet the potential hidden needs of consumers.
Mainstreaming different segments
In the first half of 2021, not many new products came onto China’s cigarette market, but among the ones that did, slim cigarettes and medium-sized cigarettes were favored by consumers.
Huangshan, one of China Tobacco (Anhui) Industrial Corporation’s traditional cigarette brands with a development history of nearly 100 years, launched three new slim cigarettes in June. About a month later, Yunyan, another cigarette brand with a history of nearly 100 years from China Tobacco (Yunnan) Industrial Corporation, launched a new medium-sized cigarette. Then, in August, China Tobacco (Chongqing) Industrial Corporation, mainly a producer of medium-sized cigarettes now formed three series in this developing product segment.
After sales volume reached 1.5 million boxes in 2020 and the increment exceeded 500,000 boxes, the sales volume of medium-sized cigarettes in the first half of this year exceeded that in the first eight months of 2020 with a year-on-year increase of more than 40%. In particular, it is commendable that the scale expansion of medium-sized cigarettes is not based on low price and the sacrifice of value, but the simultaneous increase of volume and price, and the average wholesale price of a single box remains stable above Class 1 category.
Medium-sized cigarettes gained popularity in China from the second half of 2016. By comparison, slim cigarettes became a hit about 10 years ago so that market is more mature, the products are more abundant, and consumption grows steadily. In 2020, the sales volume of thin cigarettes in four provincial markets accounted for more than 20%, and over 10% in another 17 markets. The sales volume of slim cigarettes in provinces such as Guangdong, Zhejiang, Hunan, Hubei, and Fujian exceeded 100,0000 boxes. In the past, slim cigarettes and medium-sized cigarettes gained attention with distinctive packaging forms. Now their technical and category innovation provides a very considerable growth and contribution to China’s cigarette market.
Specialization in style
The main characteristics of Chinese cigarettes are “high aroma, low tar, and low harm.” At this year’s national tobacco work conference, the requirement and standard of “high quality” were raised. Now, the significant advantages of Chinese cigarettes come as “high quality, high aroma, low tar, and low harm”.
Nowadays, many brands advocate rejuvenation, which is inseparable from product innovation and the sense of lightness supported by practical consumption experience. The second is to change the product form. Among the rich traditional cultural resources, picking the part that is most suitable for the psychology of the current people, combining them with the characteristics of their own products or brands, and then expressing and spreading them in ways, languages, and words that fit the current new consumer groups and the context of the new era is the most popular way of products in China.
Take Huangshan brand as an example. “Sweet and smooth Huiyan” is Huangshan’s main feature. The “sweet” comes from the tobacco leaves grown in southern Anhui province, where the climate is warm and moist, the light is sufficient, and the unique ecological environment makes the tobacco leaves form a unique sweet, burnt aroma. The “smooth” comes from the Anhui Province’s dendrobium huoshanense [a perennial orchid species, well known as a medicinal herb – Ed.]. By using modern scientific and technological means, China Tobacco (Anhui) integrated the herb, which counts warming the five internal organs and promoting the production of fluids to nourish the lung as its benefits, into the cigarettes.
By doing all this, the cigarette brand not only increasingly defined its taste style, but also embraced a more vivid cultural connotation by integrating a “sweet and smooth” feeling into consumers’ experience of a better life. The brand also advocates gentle and kind communication. This “smooth” social way is very suitable for the psychological needs of modern people, and virtually increases consumers’ recognition of the brand culture and psychological intimacy.
The new Spring (slim cigarette) from China Tobacco (Guangdong) has the same cultural expression as the “sweet and smooth culture” of Huangshan. Spring emphasizes original flavor. This taste is characterized by simplicity and nature, light but high-grade, soft and strong, and the aroma is natural, delicate, and lingering, just like the oriental beauty. In terms of brand culture expression, Spring combines regional characteristics and oriental culture so as to shorten the psychological distance between products and consumers.
The new medium-sized and slim cigarettes of different brands have made progress in terms of technology, quality, style, and cultural identity. However, whether it is mainstreaming different segments or the specialization in style, in fact, the overall logic behind it is the adjustment and response made by China’s tobacco industry to consumers’ attention to health and comfort, especially since the Covid-19 outbreak. Compared with the large-sized and conventional cigarettes, the medium-sized and slim cigarettes are healthier and more fashionable. Through technological innovation and style shaping, they not only balance health and comfort, but also help to stabilize consumption intention, lengthen the consumption cycle, and buffer consumption decrease.