Chapter 600 – Medical plaster Part 1 of 2
The most popular pharmaceutical brand in China currently was Bing City Pharmaceutical. The second was the Band-Aid, and the third was Janssen.
The second and third brands were joint ventured. They were all owned by a US pharmaceutical giant. This Pharmaceutical Giant was Johnson and Johnson!
Johnson and Johnson were one of the top 5 Pharmaceutical companies in the world, and it had the most extensive variety of products. A lot of their businesses was into health and medical care products manufacturing.
Janssen had patents, and Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise could not imitate its products. But Band-aid was different. It was just an adhesive bandage or medical plaster. The technology involves was very simple.
In Feng Yu’s previous life, the newspapers had reported the purpose of band-aids were to stop bleeding and prevent infection. It does not help to heal the wounds. It might even slow the healing process of the wound. Unless it was the special band-aids produced by Yunnan Baiyao. But it was very costly and going to the hospital to clean up the wounds was cheaper.
This was why the band-aid had the biggest market share of the medical plaster market. Feng Yu had not seen other competitors. Maybe there were competitors, but no one was willing to buy their products.
The people in the current era tend to believe that popular products were better. Band Aid was the most famous medical plaster, and most some of the people do not even know the product was called medical plaster. They called that product band-aid!
Although there was nothing wrong with it, Feng Yu felt that medical products should be known by its name and not a brand of a company. He does not want to let Johnson and Johnson earn all the money. Why can’t this medical plaster be Bing City’s Pharmaceutical Enterprises’ popular product?
From Feng Yu’s view, Band Aid was only a type of medical plaster, and it was the old fashion design where there was a small non-adhesive absorbent pad in the center. It was not waterproof and had airtight.
The funniest part was that many consumers thought that Band Aid was the original product and other medical plasters were imitation goods! Even when the effects of the products were the same and other brands were cheaper, but consumers will not buy other brands.
Feng Yu could let Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise produce medical plasters which were waterproof and breathable. The medical plasters could still be printed with cartoon designs. With the reputation of Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise, Feng Yu was not worried that consumers will think that his medical plasters were imitations.
Also, the cost of medical plasters was very low. In the current era, the cost was not more than 10 cents RMB, but the retail price could reach 1 RMB. The profits were huge!
Although the distributors and retailers will get a cut, Feng Yu was confident that the wholesale price of Band-aid was more than 40 cents per piece. That was at least 3 times the cost!
Band-Aids had brought enormous profits to Johnson and Johnson. Just China alone, Band-Aid controls more than 98% of the market share!
This was a simple business, but others could not enter. It was mainly because of the branding. But Bing City Pharmaceutical have no issue with their branding. Feng Yu does not have high requirements. He set his goal to be 30% of the market share this year. He will advertise on the media, and with his sales distribution channels, it should not be a problem to overtake Band-Aid and becomes China’s top medical plaster brand!
Thus, Feng Yu told the General Manager of Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise to develop their own medical plaster. Their plasters must not be the same as Band-Aids.
Band-Aid was browned in color. This color was chosen to make it not too noticeable when used on the skin. So, Feng Yu decided to be the opposite of Band-Aid. His plasters must be as colorful as possible.
The ones who use plasters the most were children. Most adults do not mind small cuts or wounds, and it was the children that fall or injured themselves more often. They were young, and people will notice their plasters no matter what color it was.
Feng Yu’s plaster must be colorful, and they can even print cartoon characters on it. Regardless of children and young girls, they will like it. Also, medical plaster must be waterproof.
This way, people will not be afraid of getting their wounds wet, and if the weather is warm, their sweat will not come into contact with their wounds.
Also, these breathable plasters are more suitable for athletes.
When Feng Yu told the leaders at Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise about his ideas, all of them felt he was a genius.
This medical plaster market was vast, and if they succeed, it will bring in at least 10 million RMB profits annually.
The cost of production was also very low. Even if they fail, their losses will not be a lot. But if they succeed, their profits will be massive. Low risk, high profits. There was no reason why they should not produce medical plasters.
Of course, to compete with Band-Aid for the market share, they must educate the consumers that this product was called Plasters and not Band-Aid. Band Aid was only the brand name. This will lower Band Aid’s brand influences.
Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise’s medical plaster brand must be easily remembered by the consumers and must demonstrate the differences from Band-Aid.
But after many rounds of brainstorming, no one was satisfied with the suggestions. Feng Yu wanted to name the plaster as Huatou Brand, but the leaders told him that this name will not be approved.
Tai Hua Brand? Feng Yu felt it does not sound nice. He had lots of products under the Tai Hua brand, and it will not be suitable to use Tai Hua on medical products. It will not elevate the brand status and might even cause the brand reputation to fall.
As for Wind and Rain, Aiwa was not possible. These were electric appliances’ brand, and if they were to use these brands on medical products, it might bring down the reputation of Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise.
In the end, no one could think of a suitable brand name. Wu Zhigang suggests that they might as well use Bing City Pharmacy and name it as Bing City Pharmacy Medical Plaster. They do not need to register this brand name if they use this name. Also, it will not be good to have many brand names under Bing City Pharmaceutical Enterprise.
All the top management staffs felt this was a good suggestion and agreed to it. The designs of the plasters were handed over to Liu Michael and his team. That was also Feng Yu’s company.
The cartoon characters will use Journey to the West’s Monkey King. Everyone felt that Monkey king as the main character should be enough. Who would want to stick a Pigsy plaster on themselves? Sha Wujing or Sandy, and Tripitaka will not be suitable too.
But Feng Yu told Liu Michael and his team to design Pigsy as a cute character. His ears could be designed as his wings. A piglet with wings. Sandy can also be designed as a fierce character and Tripitaka can be designed as a kind and benevolent look. The white dragon can be designed as a handsome man. He was the third son of the Dragon King and princes should be handsome in fairy tales.
There can also be other characters like Bull Demon King, Red Boy, and Guanyin from the story. All the characters in the story must be included. The characters could be handsome, pretty, cute or fierce looking. It must be designed to be loved by children and adults!
Feng Yu believed that with this series of plaster, children will want to stick the plasters even they do not have wounds or cuts. It will just be like stickers.
This cartoon waterproof medical plasters will be Feng Yu’s weapon to compete with Band-Aid!
Translator’s notes:
Hua Tuo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hua_Tuo
Journey to the West
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_to_the_West