Darlie branded oral care products. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
One year after the launch of a branding initiative for Darlie — an oral care brand of the Hong Kong-headquartered chemical giant Hawley & Hazel Group — the company reported prominent growth in market performance as well as positive feedback from customers.
Hawley & Hazel launched the branding initiative on Dec 14, 2021 with a significant move to change its Chinese name to "Haolai", which carries the meaning of "good things come with a smile". It also established some development outlines for the brand, including brand concept, product lineup and corporate social responsibility.
"The branding initiative in 2022 is a successful one," said Eddie Niem, managing director of Hawley &Hazel. "The strategies not only formulated a series of development goals, strategies and plans, but also helped to unite the staff members and create values for consumers and society. We are glad to see that consumers' love of our brand has been increasing and their awareness of our new Chinese brand name Haolai has been on a steep rise."
Leveraging its insight into the diversified needs of consumers and effective brand and market promotion activities, Darlie's performance in the Chinese market maintained a positive growth in 2022, and achieved its best sales growth rate over the past three years, according to Niem.
Centering on the long-term care of oral health, Darlie prioritized breath freshening in its bid to attract customers. In the 1930s, it designed the Double-Mint Toothpaste with its signature mint formula and cool taste, which swept the market shortly after its launch.
In 2004, the brand launched the Tea Care toothpastes, which contain natural tea polyphenols extracted from natural Longjing tea leaves, to help prevent oral cavities while also helping to freshen people's breath.
In 2022, it accelerated the innovation and development of the product with whitening and breath refreshening functions, and launched its Magnificent White toothpastes. To meet customers' whitening goals, it also provides teeth-whitening patches, pens and other products.
Alongside sales growth, the brand is also making great efforts to pursue sustainable development, especially in the five aspects of product design, packaging, factory, social community and integrated planning. It strives to minimize resource consumption for the entire life cycle of a product.
To make its packaging 100 percent recyclable, the group has unveiled a new version of its packaging development plan for 2025, which is estimated to help reduce the usage of about 500 metric tons of plastic packaging in total.
Its requirements include removing all of the polyvinyl chloride packaging materials, and the use of more environmentally friendly polyethylene terephthalate sheets. It also plans a certain proportion of post-consumer recycled materials.
To reduce the usage of original plastic, the group pledged to replace plastic packaging with paper packaging and gradually remove the plastic films of toothpastes and toothbrushes.
By optimizing the mold pattern, the group has cut down the plastic consumption of a single cap from 1.4 grams to 1.1 grams. In this way, about 12 tons of polypropylene plastic can be saved each year.
The project won the China Synthetic Resin Association's Golden Apple Award, for the innovative model of plastic recycling in 3R aspects — "reduce, reuse and replace" — in 2021.
The original design of Darlie Eco Green series toothbrushes, whose handle consists of fir wood, won the Japanese Good Design Award in 2021.
"As a good corporate citizen, it is our responsibility to make responsible use of limited resources. We prioritize sustainability as part of our effort to bring more confidence to society, which is in line with our brand's purpose," Niem said. "In 2023, Darlie will usher in the 90th anniversary of the brand's establishment. We are confident that through unremitting efforts, we will continue to innovate the brand, promote the sustainable development of the industry and bring more value to the society."