In 1921, the world’s first real sanitary napkin was invented, popularized in the western world for nearly half a century, Chinese women have no idea what a sanitary napkin is.
Sanitary napkin production line
From the founding of New China to the reform and opening up, most Chinese women used toilet rolls:
Families that were a little better off went to the market to buy menstrual belts handed down from the Republican era.
Menstrual belts were sewn from cotton cloth and were more comfortable to wear, but repeated washing and sterilization after use remained a big problem.
Many gynecological diseases resulted from this simple method.
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In 1982, China introduced a sanitary napkin production line from Japan’s Ruikou Co. and began to explore its own path to sanitary napkins.
But the opportunity behind this is rarely mentioned.
According to Haoji’s recollection, shortly after the reform and opening up, some foreign women traveling to China ran into trouble:
When they hurriedly faced their periods, they realized that there were no sanitary napkins in China, and when they asked, they realized that Chinese women used menstrual belts.
In the context of that time, foreigners who were able to travel to China were either rich or expensive. The news of the “inconvenience” of such a situation soon reached the top.
In 1982, the relevant departments decided to take out valuable foreign exchange to import sanitary napkins.
At that time, “imported sanitary napkins” is not a direct purchase of sanitary napkins, but “luxury” a sanitary napkin production line introduced from Japan, the production of straight sanitary napkins. “The heavy responsibility”, to the Beijing Paper Eleven Factory, located in Bingjie Hutong 23, Haozhi is the then director of the factory.
sanitary napkin machine manufacturers
Accompanied by imported production line pleasant gear friction sound, sanitary napkins are processed into the market, did not expect, the people are discouraged.
There are two reasons:
First, too expensive. At that time in China, food and clothing are the basic needs.
Paper mill production of sanitary napkins, a package of 70 cents, a package of 16 pieces. And the women’s paper that everyone used to use only sold for 17 cents a pack.
One pack of sanitary napkins ≈ 4 packs of women’s paper, not to mention that 70 cents back then was a lot of money to spend, and sanitary napkins were a monthly necessity, and when the price was suddenly multiplied by 4, very few people must have been able to accept it.
Second, sorry. When foreign women came to visit China, when they realized that sanitary napkins were not available in China, they would bluntly ask because they were popular abroad and they were much more open-minded than in China. At the time, it was considered “offensive” to talk about this issue in China.
Bundles of sanitary napkins were unsold and piled up in warehouses, but the companies had nothing to show for it. Gradually, people took the novelty as a joke.
This time three years, almost led to the bankruptcy of Beijing eleven paper mills. Haoji also anxious to sleep.
In the difficult third year, the historical turnaround appeared.
adult diaper machine manufacturers
Two
In 1985, an advertisement for sanitary napkins “came out of nowhere”:
“I didn’t think anyone would buy them.”
Xiaoqing, the advertising director of O.B., China’s first foreign brand of sanitary napkins, is now past middle age, and still has a youthful smile on her face when she recalls the scene.
The picture presented in the O.B. sanitary napkin advertisement:
The brightly colored and lively poster shows a young woman sitting on a swing swaying with a stretched smile.
The tagline reads, “Bring me comfort and confidence.”
The jingle for this O.B. tampon looks earthy now, but back then it was a bombshell that sent the streets into an uproar.
The ad started off with walls everywhere, even the female colleagues at the ad agency refused to take the attitude, “It’s too shameful.”
But as the ads aired, O.B. sanitary napkins were quickly sold out and won the first prize for national advertising creation in 1985, which was instantly acclaimed.
“At that time, such a product couldn’t wait to be something that people opposed ideology. People thought they should reform and open up for a long time. I think human nature demanded that they buy it.” Ren Xiaoqing explained.
Under the onslaught of advertisements, Chinese women, who had been repressed for too long, not only bought sanitary products, but also the courage to “fight against confinement”. In the “Guardian” in fact many young people’s anti-feudal weapons towel, in fact, many young people’s anti-feudal weapons.
Three
Foreign sanitary napkins not only influenced the thinking of Chinese women, but also let Chinese businessmen see the business opportunities.
In 1984, when domestic manufacturers have not yet coveted the fresh cake of the sanitary napkin market, a rural man from Fujian began to “start”.
Later he called “China’s sanitary napkin king” Xu Lianjie.
As early as 1979, Xu Lianjie seized the wave of rural reform, pulling investment, building factories, into the garment industry processing industry, earned a bucket of gold in life.
In 1984, Xu Lianjie accidentally came into contact with a sanitary napkin production line in Hong Kong was eliminated, after careful investigation, concluded:
There is still a big gap in the sanitary napkin market. And their own garment processing plant, and then work hard can only earn processing fees, only their own production, in order to make a lot of money.
He insisted on producing sanitary napkins, regardless of the fact that the other partners looked like madmen:
“After all, backward feminine hygiene products should be replaced by advanced scientific sanitary napkins, which is the result of the trend”
How difficult was this decision at the time?In 2018, boys are ashamed to buy sanitary napkins for their girlfriends, while boys are ashamed to buy sanitary napkins for their girlfriends, while in 2018, “big men” 34 years ago in China, Xu Lianjie decided to produce sanitary napkins.
Subsequently, Xu Lianjie personally traveled to the capital, factory address, Japan to import equipment, launched China’s first completely independent production of sanitary napkins brand – “Anle”.
“At that time, we couldn’t even recruit female business salesmen, so we had five male salesmen to sell. When we sold with women, they didn’t buy at all. They thought the salesman was a hooligan trying to take advantage of people. They rushed out at a glance. We also go to supermarkets to get people to sell for us, but people simply don’t want to. The food sellers in some supermarkets thought that if they put sanitary napkins with the food, the food would not sell. That was the idea at the time.”
At the beginning of the business, Xu Lianjie and his Anle sanitary napkins went unnoticed.
The products were stagnant and the company had no income, so naturally it could not pay its workers. on the eve of the 1986 Spring Festival, Xu Lianjie borrowed money from everywhere in his hometown in Fujian, barely keeping the factory in operation.
So in 1986, summarizing the failure, Xu Lianjie did two things:
First: spend a huge amount of money and advertise!
Xu Lianjie spent a few hundred dollars on production and 30,000 yuan on advertising to win a commercial for the then-popular Hong Kong TV series “The Eight Immortals Cross the Sea”. Halfway through the TV series, Anle sanitary napkins suddenly appeared “out of time”, leaving an indelible impression on everyone.
Secondly, Anle shifted its sanitary napkin business, which was originally focused on the Fujian market, to Shanghai. Although Fujian is its own “home base”, but have heard of sanitary napkins, but also willing to try too few people, accept new things, always open to the big city is better.
And the beginning of O.B. In less than a year, Anle sanitary napkins quickly occupied 70% ~ 80% of the market share of Shanghai sanitary napkins.
This was the year that women in Shanghai, finally, bought sanitary napkins at the store.
“Soft and clean, warm and comfortable between the legs” spread the experience of using sanitary napkins among women.
According to statistics, in 1990, the annual consumption of Chinese women’s sanitary napkins was 2 billion pieces, and by 1999, this figure soared to 30 billion pieces. What is this concept? According to the 2000 census, there are 349.7 million women between the ages of 14 and 49 in China, with a per capita consumption of 85.7 sanitary napkins.
