I. Pod empires, what now?
Nokia has given up its throne to Apple in the phone market, the lesson about the necessary changes that brands need to make in their product strategies is not new, but still has its value. This lesson is true even for a new market like electronic cigarettes. How are the big brands in this industry doing, and what aspects do they compete in, we will summarize in the article below.
1. The Juul Story
Juul e-cigarettes are a popular e-cigarette brand that has gained significant attention in recent years. The company was founded in 2015 and has quickly become one of the most successful e-cigarette brands on the market, especially in the US market.
Juul's success comes from its superiority in pioneering the introduction of Salt nic into small and convenient products, solving the problem of low power but still ensuring nicotine concentration, meeting many product aspects in the eyes of users. At the same time, marketing strategies that hit the target audience received positive feedback, creating Juul's success.
Juul was once one of the most popular e-cigarette brands.
Juul’s commercial journey began with a focus on young adults and college students. The company’s marketing campaigns were designed to appeal to this demographic, with ads featuring young, attractive models and catchy slogans. Juul’s marketing efforts were successful, and the company quickly gained a loyal following among young people.
Due to its explosive popularity among young people, Juul has faced criticism from public health advocates who are concerned about the potential health risks associated with e-cigarettes. Additionally, Juul has faced regulatory challenges from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which is concerned about JUUL’s marketing practices and the potential impact of e-cigarettes on public health.
Juul’s success was short-lived, however. In 2019, the company faced a major setback as it was linked to a rise in vaping-related illnesses and deaths. The outbreak of vaping-related lung injuries led to increased scrutiny of the e-cigarette industry and a crackdown on marketing practices.
As a result of these developments, Juul has faced significant challenges in recent years. The company has been forced to reevaluate its marketing strategies and product offerings in response to increased regulatory scrutiny. Juul has also faced legal challenges from individuals and organizations that have been harmed by the company’s products.
2. The RELX Story
a. RELX's success
RELX is an e-cigarette brand founded in 2018 in China. With rapid development, RELX has become one of the leading brands in the e-cigarette industry. With a focus on product quality and user experience, RELX has attracted a large number of customers worldwide.
RELX has achieved many successes in its development. First, RELX has won many international awards for its product design and user experience. Second, RELX has expanded its market to many different countries, including the US, Canada, Australia and Europe. Third, RELX has created a large user community, with more than 10 million users worldwide.
RELX was once the industry leader.
b. Barriers of RELX
Despite RELX’s success, the brand still faces many obstacles in its development. First, RELX faces fierce competition from other brands in the e-cigarette industry. Second, RELX faces many regulations and restrictions on advertising and sales from different countries. Third, RELX faces many controversies about the safety and health effects of e-cigarettes.
II. Fierce competition between brands in the vape industry
In addition to legal issues, the brands in the vape industry are also in a fierce battle: competing for market share. While major brands are struggling with the impact of the law on their brands, the vortex of product development in terms of improving quality of use and reducing costs is still happening.
1. The battle to improve product quality
Like any other product that has ever existed in the consumer world, vaping, through competition, has continuously improved the quality of new products launched.
Juul had the first-mover advantage when Juul Lab first introduced salt nic, successfully applying it to the small-capacity Juul pod device, which has led to the success of this brand since its launch in 2015. However, from then until now 2023, those advantages are no longer exclusive to Juul. When you do well, people follow you, when Juul does well, other brands quickly follow. Salt-nic has become a new standard of Ejuice for personal pod devices, all manufacturers have been able to access and incorporate salt-nic into their standards. Especially manufacturers from China, where the competition between brands is somewhat fiercer.
As a result, new products in the pod mod line and using salt nic are continuously launched by Chinese manufacturers, not only changing in design, manufacturers from this country also continuously change the design to create optimization for users, thereby solving outstanding problems such as leaking juice, burning cotton, dead battery.
Continuing the advantages of previous products, improving the advantages with each new product launch. Users are increasingly exposed to higher quality of use, forcing manufacturers to change and upgrade the quality of their products if they want to compete. And importantly, they must catch up or accelerate faster than the speed of product development of the market.
Big brands, facing many difficulties due to legal barriers, are slower to change their products. While new manufacturers from China have long caught up and surpassed the standards of users, big brands like Relx or Juul, are slow to change or improve their products. From this perspective, it can be seen that Chinese brands, although smaller, with the ability to change quickly, have the potential to reach a larger market, even when compared to big names.
2. The price war, increasing user accessibility
There is a clear characteristic in the Vietnamese market, we have a market that favors low prices. The explosion of brands in the past did not help Juul or Relx products become popular, although there were businesses that brought them to Vietnam.
Pricing and usage costs are also an industry-wide battle. Better pricing, on a global scale, is crucial to reaching users. More people can try the product, more users will be convinced and choose to use it for the long term. A loyal customer base is also the goal that any brand or manufacturer wants to aim for.
From the user's perspective, pods are convenient enough for anyone to access, but their price, when compared to the choice of using cigarettes, is still not close to and cannot compete with this traditional product type. In developed countries, the price of equipment and maintenance costs of RELX or JUUL can be called equal, but in developing or underdeveloped countries like Vietnam, the products of these brands are still too high. This is also an issue that Chinese manufacturers show an advantage, when they can directly change from design to production flow on their products, replacing materials is also easier, lower production costs help the price of the product become better and better, which means reaching more users.
There is a notable feature among traditional cigarette markets, smoking rates in countries with lower per capita incomes are higher than in countries with higher per capita incomes. This means that a large number of people in the world who need to replace traditional cigarettes still do not have access to the e-cigarette solution.
Any manufacturer that optimizes the price of their products will be able to exploit this huge potential user base. In general, the majority of users need products with increasingly higher quality at increasingly better prices.
III. Summary
In the context of the e-cigarette boom, although big brands have developed strongly, they have also had to face many legal barriers. They have become more difficult to change and slower in competition between brands. Smaller brands, but have the advantage of flexibility, can solve many problems, and show more potential in dominating the e-cigarette market.
Which brands will make their mark next in this competitive and fierce vape industry, we will continue to follow in the future.
