Can you learn the "luxury feel" of MALO by hiring a designer?

Foreword:

Mataki Dental Clinic, China:Since entering the mainland market at the end of 2013, the company has established a presence in the upstream and downstream of the industry chain, opening 24 clinics in 16 cities across the country, and owning 2 dental prosthesis processing centers, 1 education and training center, and 1 procurement center. At the same time, the capital market has also shown frequent favor, raising more than 500 million yuan in 5 rounds of financing in 5 years, and incidentally setting a precedent for dental clinics to receive two rounds of investment in a single year.

Several dental clients who contacted us before the Lunar New Year regarding their brand upgrade needs cited Malong Dental's visual identity design as a reference. Malong Dental's brand tone is indeed commendable compared to its peers in the industry. Essentially, it can be said to use...Luxury Marketing LogicCome and build a dental brand:

The marketing logic of luxury goods often requires finding a balance between ostentation and understated elegance.Without effective communication, the brand's spirit cannot be understood, let alone generate sales; however, excessive communication can lead to an overabundance of "information entropy," which in turn devalues ​​the brand and has the opposite effect.

There's a joke in the luxury industry: "Top-tier luxury brands rely on word-of-mouth within their circles, mass-market luxury brands market themselves through public media, but if they go through social media platforms like WeChat, they practically have no brand identity anymore..."

Today we'll talk about Mataki."A sense of sophistication"The art of cultivating relationships. Beyond explicit visual design, what other brand marketing management logic, as employed by Mataki, is worth learning from in order to capture customers' mental accounts?

Today we have three keywords:

Restrained, innate, unconventional

01. The sense of luxury in luxury goods always has a history.

We randomly selected four clinics listed on Dianping (a Chinese review platform) and scraped all their review data. Dianping has some unspoken rules regarding paid reviewers, which are an open secret within the industry.

Our tech colleagues have countless experiences with data verification; they always shake their heads after scraping data from other dental brands. Interestingly, this time, their expression was like this:

Amidst the fierce competition among platforms, Ma Long stands out as a breath of fresh air: the user reviews from the four clinics we examined were almost entirely genuine and unbiased. Meanwhile, our analysis of content from other UGC platforms revealed that Ma Long has won over customers with its quality, garnering a large following of organic word-of-mouth referrals, which, through continuous accumulation, has created a widespread positive reputation.

We extracted the most frequent words from the comments and created the following word cloud:

If the current state of a brand is an echo of its past history.

Let's take a look at this."Shanghai Elite"His growth history:

For established dental brands in China, Malo is a relatively young company. Rewind to the end of 2010, a historic moment for Malo: Dr. Paulo Malo and Shao Zongzong met in Macau. The former is a leading figure in the global dental implant industry, while the latter was the key figure in bringing Malo to mainland China.

Dr. MaloHe founded the Malo Clinic as early as 1995 and began his global expansion. In terms of professional technology, he holds 14 independent patents and inventions. The “ALL-ON-4®” permanent implant technology and the “MALO CLINIC BRIDGE” fixed prosthesis bridge patent technology are recognized as major revolutions in the treatment and rehabilitation of patients with missing teeth or near-edentulous jaws.

(Caption: Shao Zongzong (first from left) and Dr. Malo (second from left))

Shao ZongzongBefore venturing into healthcare, Shao had been involved in real estate and investment, including senior living projects. He even published an article titled "Aging is a Business Opportunity, Elderly Care is a Problem" (published in *China Hospital CEO*, 2014, Z1 issue), outlining the core position of healthcare in senior living real estate. In 2012, Shao joined Taifu Health as CEO after the company underwent a capital increase, officially entering the healthcare industry. Whether in senior care or healthcare, it's clear that Shao's professional focus has always centered on people."Sense of security in life"question.

That meeting in Macau marked the beginning of their...The combination of "technology + business"The opportunity: Three years later, the two joined forces and opened Malong China's first clinic in Beijing's CBD. That year, local brands such as Ruier and Taikang Baibo had already received several rounds of financing, and their hospitals/clinics were springing up in many cities.

With increasing market competition, Shao, who is familiar with business management, clearly understands the importance of seizing a certain market share.Having the skills for delicate tasks is not enough; you also need the expertise for mastering them.。

So, after only six months of operation for the first Malong restaurant (the other was still under renovation), and with an annual revenue of just 3 million yuan, Shao quickly secured Series A funding.Honghui Capital。

(Five rounds of financing in 5 years, totaling over 500 million yuan)

When Honghui invested in Malong, it was actually quite young, having been established for less than two months. However, those familiar with the venture capital circle know Honghui's impressive background: all three founders graduated from prestigious universities with degrees in biology or clinical medicine. These three had led investments in nearly half of the well-known healthcare cases in China (BGI Genomics, Angel Women's and Children's Hospital, Kanghong Pharmaceutical, etc.).While the investors appear young, the founders are actually seasoned veterans in healthcare investment.After its establishment, Honghui developed into one of the few funds in China that focuses on healthcare investment, and later invested in well-known companies.WuXi AppTec and Mindray Medical…

It is worth noting that since leading the Series A funding round in 2014, Honghui, which is adept at discovering "dark horses" in the medical field, has continuously invested in Malong for four consecutive rounds, leading half of them.

exist"IP + Commercialization + Capital"Driven by these three pillars, Mataki's financial tasks are as follows:

(Malong's annual revenue (RMB 100 million) from 2014 to 2018E | Source: Zhiyin Capital)

At that time, Shao saw the explosive reaction of this combination. Using Ma Long as a model, Shao replicated it in the pediatric field the following year: partnering with renowned pediatrician Cui Yutao and inviting Jiang Wei, who was skilled at refining internet products, and adopting the same combination, "Yuxueyuan" in the maternal and infant field also rose rapidly.

02. A dental "luxury brand," seeking a balance between extravagance and understated elegance.

Ma Long targets high-net-worth individuals, who, while possessing a high willingness and ability to pay, also have higher expectations for brand metrics than the general public. This target audience, working backwards to influence the brand's systematic operations, results in numerous demanding metrics: if Ma Long's brand operations fail to consistently align with the self-perception of its target audience, even a slight misstep can damage the brand's reputation within the entire circle.

"Success or failure both depend on word of mouth."

To explore how Malong manages its brand, let's first return to the logic of advertising and communication:To accurately convey the brand's message to the target audience.

Here's a brief explanation of communication studies.Lasswell's 5W communication model：

Who?

What to say?

• To whom?

Through what channel?

What effect was achieved?

Recommended reading: Harold Lasswell's *The Structure and Function of Social Communication*

What's surprising is that Ma Long handled each of the 5W communication points like a composed "gentleman".

When the creators searched for information about Malong online, they found that although Malong had compelling talking points regarding its IP, patented technology, and direct-supply dental prostheses, there was not much proactive advertising on public platforms. Malong also didn't engage in any significant promotional activities for brand information that could potentially build a positive public image, such as a globally renowned implant company opening clinics in mainland China or providing free dental reconstruction services for a girl with cancer.

In an interview with CBN (China Business Network), Hong Hui mentioned that his investment decision was influenced by Ma Long's low-key philanthropic activities. However, Ma Long's official website only features one image related to philanthropy, without detailed news links or text descriptions. Our attempts to obtain more information through other channels yielded only a few results, mostly understated and casual. Compared to the common practice of many dental brands dedicating special sections to philanthropic initiatives on their websites and meticulously planning publicity stunts, Ma Long appears rather restrained.

I'm reminded of a topic girls often discuss privately: bags covered in logos aren't true luxury goods. Everyone knows the answer:

The more something is lacking, the more it will be displayed to the outside world.

Let's take another look at what the industry is learning.Malong Visual Communication

Here are some simple material designs:

There is a"Shanghai-style elite style"Their aesthetics are clearly different from those of their competitors. This also confirms that luxury brand designs rarely adopt a "market follower" strategy, but rather attract their target audience by expressing the brand's unique value proposition through differentiation.

Furthermore, Mataki internally pursues a strategy that is almost impossible to replicate—Zero-advertising strategy。

So, how does Ma Long advertise, since he doesn't use conventional advertising methods?

Let's take a look at what Ma Long is doing on the official Weibo account:

(Image source: "Malong People" series of stories)

In fact, clinic interviews and braces stories are services we have provided to brand clients, but we have rarely seen any dental brand that systematically writes stories for ordinary team members: celebrity doctors, clinic managers, clinic nurses... In the "Malong People" series of stories over the past year, customers often appear to support and cheer for the "Malong People" who served them.

(Image source: "Tap Water" from the "Malong People" series of stories)

This storytelling strategy is very sophisticated, taking into account corporate culture, employees' private traffic, and external information dissemination. Therefore, we say that Ma Long's brand management approach is basically based on the logic of luxury goods marketing: seemingly detached from the masses, yet possessing the deepest understanding of customer value demands.

Postscript:

Today we will start with five basic elements:"Control Analysis"、Content Analysis、Media Analysis、Audience Analysisas well as"Effect AnalysisWe chatted about Ma Long, a "Shanghai elite".

From the perspective of dental brand management, we do not agree with fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) marketing strategies, and pay more attention to:Starting with the brand's DNA, we can internally create brand power and then leverage audience media consumption methods to release key brand messages.

After all, simply making a logo and having physical stores doesn't make you a brand.

Even dental investment has two levels:

·The value of an investment is assessed using the price-to-earnings ratio (P/E).

· In addition to internal benefits, external feedback is also important, such as the positive impact on the dental industry and even society as a whole, but this is unlikely to be apparent in the short term.

Although Malong only achieved overall profitability in 2018, compared to its peers, this seems somewhat "slow" for a dental brand with such a strong foundation. However, the founders are unanimously optimistic about its brand premium and potential for future growth.

However, creating a "high-end" dental brand demands a high level of expertise from the clinic team: high awareness from the operator, systematic brand management, and extensive networks at each level… Admittedly, the "high-end" feel of Mataki (except for visual communication, which can be copied verbatim) is not easy to replicate completely. But the logic behind Mataki's "high-end" feel:Restrained, intrinsic, and unconventional.However, it is something that friends can think about and apply to their own brands.

Finally, I'd like to express my appreciation to the Ma Long brand team and thank our industry friends for their information support.

P.S.: Which clinic's brand management "technical" analysis would you like to hear from next time? Let the creators know in the comments, and we might just pick it!

(*Some images are from the internet; please contact us to remove them if there is any infringement.)

(Editor: Hume; Graphic Designer: ZZ; Reviewer: Peter)

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[Disclaimer]

The above information is derived from publicly available sources and may contain inaccuracies. It is for reference only. This article does not constitute investment or decision-making advice for any individual. Good Teeth Pro assumes no responsibility for any losses incurred as a result of using this information and reserves the right to the final interpretation of this content.