Article| The world of finding space
I haven't seen any excellent marketing cases in the automotive industry for a long time. I mean the traditional official marketing cases.
Once upon a time, on the stage of automobile marketing, international famous brands such as BBA dominated with their carefully planned advertising and marketing. With abundant funds and mature market strategies, they have continuously launched impressive marketing masterpieces.
Recently, however, such scenes seem to be scarce. The last time I remember, it was the "Xiaoman" advertisement that Audi cooperated with Andy Lau two years ago (it ended in a rollover).
In contrast, the recent auto marketing scene has been occupied by a new force. Their marketing method is not the official perfect content that has been refined, but the direct interaction that is closer to life and more humane.
From the interaction between Xiaomi's "overlord" Lei Jun and users through live broadcast, to a series of media attention caused by 360's Zhou Hongyi's selling his own Maybach, to the interaction between Li Xiang, Li Bin and Lei Jun at the auto show, these new faces and methods are redefining the boundaries of auto marketing. They break the framework of traditional automobile marketing and communicate with consumers in a more direct and interactive way.
I suddenly found that car marketing has changed.
From a closed conference room to an open broadcast room, from one-way advertising to two-way interactive communication, new marketing methods are driving the wind direction of the entire industry to change.
01 Goodbye TVC, hello UGC
The golden age of TV advertising gave birth to TVC, the hegemon of automobile marketing, which has dominated automobile marketing for decades.
The traditional TVC advertisement for cars often follows a common pattern: the happy picture of a family of three or four, and the elites in the workplace driving shiny new cars to enjoy the good time of beach holidays. This model has been talked about by many insiders, but with the support of TV, the central media, this traditional marketing method was extremely effective.
However, with the advent of the era of social media, the influence of TVC began to weaken. Try to recall, Tesla What impresses you most about the TV advertisements of Ideal, Weilai or Xiaomi? It may be difficult to find the answer.
These emerging auto brands almost didn't adopt the traditional TVC advertising strategy, but chose a more modern way - using UGC.
When I worked at Tesla, it was clear that Tesla would never advertise, but that does not mean that there is no advertising for the brand. Many of Tesla's advertising content is created by its enthusiastic fans.
For example, Tesla once responded to fans' suggestions by launching an activity called "love day", inviting fans to make their own advertising videos. This activity received dozens of high-quality content, and its creativity and professional level are no less than the works of professional advertising companies.
In those years, I worked in Tesla's social media marketing, relying on the content produced by these fans for a long time.
Similarly, Xiaomi SU7 (Configuration |Inquiry) Almost all the marketing with strong communication power is not from the official. No one remembers the slogan of SU7 - the integration of people and cars. My heart is surging, but everyone remembers the jokes of Li Bin, Ideal, He Xiaopeng and Wei Jianjun.
Even since "Are You OK" was originally a black Lei Jun accent, Shengsheng has been transformed into a kind commendatory joke on behalf of himself. Nowadays, jokes about Xiaomi's collision with Porsche and Zotye have been popping up on Weibo, but Xiaomi has not defended its rights. These jokes are far more influential than the so-called TVC.
02 User experience and participatory marketing
In the traditional car sales model, user experience is often limited to the test drive of 4S stores, with the purpose of being straightforward - promoting sales. 4S stores are usually located at the edge of cities, far away from consumers' daily life, which limits the opportunity and depth of user experience.
Nowadays, the stores of new energy brands are named as experience stores, and many of them also set their sites in shopping malls. The core of this strategy is to shorten the physical and psychological distance with consumers, so that brand contacts are more frequent and natural.
In these experience stores, consumers' first contact point is no longer a direct product test drive, but a more comprehensive brand experience. The design and atmosphere of the store aims to convey a lifestyle, not just selling cars.
Now to go to the new energy experience store is to see first, experience the atmosphere and lifestyle of the store first, and then test drive and sell after being infected by this experience, rather than let you test drive and sell after coming up.
The current new energy vehicles are largely endowed with the dual attributes of durable goods and consumer goods. Users need to make purchase decisions through frequent contact and feelings, and this decision-making process is often faster. Therefore, the new energy experience store is easier for consumers to place orders than the 4S store.
The rise of participatory marketing not only refers to user generated content (UGC), but also means that users participate in every link of brand marketing.
A classic case is SpaceX sending Tesla into space. This event itself is a huge news point, which has attracted extensive attention and discussion. Consumers spontaneously participated in the discussion from news release to implementation results, which has greatly expanded the brand influence.
Xiaomi Automobile Our marketing strategy also reflects deep participation. When Xiaomi announced its entry into the automotive industry, their public discussion and interaction strategy immediately aroused widespread public discussion.
At the technical conference, Lei Jun effectively maintained the attention of the media and the public by leaving suspense and triggering public speculation about the price.
In addition, in the process of product development and improvement, Xiaomi also actively responded to user feedback, such as suggestions on the physical keys of the electric tail. Xiaomi not only listened carefully, but also made rapid product adjustments.
Experiential marketing enables users to obtain emotional value beyond the physical attributes of goods, while participatory marketing enables users to become part of the process of product and brand building. This marketing method not only improves the loyalty of users, but also brings more lasting vitality to the brand.
03 D2C, private domain traffic
The market strategy of traditional automobile enterprises mostly relies on automobile vertical websites to collect potential customer leads and complete sales and service through dealer networks. This B2C mode has insurmountable obstacles in obtaining core user data and feedback.
Due to the involvement of dealers, the interaction between car companies and users has always been separated from each other, as if "seeing the flowers in the fog, watching the moon in the water", which undoubtedly limits their potential in deepening user relations and promoting product innovation.
In contrast, Tesla, Xiaomi, Weilai and other new energy vehicle brands have adopted the D2C (Direct to Consumer) model, which directly connects with consumers through the brand, saves the traditional dealer level, reduces information distortion, and can respond to market demand more quickly.
In the product creation stage, D2C mode uses data to drive decision-making, ensuring that every function and design can be close to the actual needs of users.
For example, the mobile phone holder launched by Xiaomi Automobile was once ridiculed by Yu Chengdong, but it was widely praised by users. Users generally commented that "I can not use it, you can't do without it", which reflects Xiaomi's precise grasp of user needs.
In the marketing phase, the brand directly drives the marketing through UGC content and events, and collects clues through the official website, greatly reducing the marketing cost. In the traditional mode, the cost of obtaining a clue is at least 100 yuan, while the D2C mode can almost reduce this cost to zero.
Through D2C marketing, the brand has gradually built its own private domain traffic pool.
In addition, on social media, the brand carries out full touch marketing, including dual micro, Tiao Yin, Xiaohongshu and other platforms. Through these channels, the brand obtains data and conducts in-depth analysis in combination with its own system data to make marketing activities more accurate and efficient.
Taking Xiaomi Automobile as an example, according to the data of Xiaomi Automobile Data Center, the proportion of female car owners is expected to reach 40-50%, BBA users accounted for 51.9%, and Apple users accounted for 29%. These data provide strong support for Xiaomi's next marketing strategy, help the brand more accurately position the target user groups, design marketing activities that meet their needs, and thus improve the conversion rate.
04 Intelligent ecological marketing, making lifetime value for users
The traditional car sales model often ends at the moment when the car is delivered to the consumer. However, in the era of smart cars, every sale is only the starting point of the long-term connection between brands and users. Intelligentization not only means the continuous upgrading of technology, but also represents the continuous iteration of services and the continuous optimization of user experience.
Tesla is a pioneer of this change. Through remote software upgrade, Tesla can add new functions to the sold vehicles, such as auxiliary driving. After the OTA upgrade that year, many users felt the surprise brought by technological progress overnight.
This continuous service and upgrading not only improves user satisfaction, but also deepens user loyalty to the brand.
The ecosystem connection of smart cars means that the brand is committed to mining and satisfying the lifetime value of users. This is no longer a one-time transaction, but a dynamic process of constantly increasing services, constantly mining and meeting user needs.
Many car companies like to say that selling cars does not make money, but they can make profits in the lifetime of users by long-term mining of user value and providing value-added services.
The innovation in user operation strategy of Weilai Automobile is particularly worth mentioning. It is the first brand to do user operation concept after Tesla.
Weilai has not only established its own user community, but also launched the "Weilai Value" system within the community. This system aims to record the contribution of each user to Weilai Community, and reflect the growth and value of users in Weilai Community. In this way, Weilai successfully transformed its users into loyal supporters and long-term partners of the brand.
Weilai Value is not only a reflection of user activity, but also a feedback of Weilai's loyalty to users. Users can accumulate Weilai value by participating in community activities, providing feedback, recommending new users, etc., and then enjoy more services and rights. This mode effectively encourages the participation and contribution of users, and also brings continuous user activity and brand loyalty to Weilai.
05 CEO goes to the front
In the era of traditional marketing, the executives of automobile enterprises often maintain a high and inaccessible image, and they rarely have the opportunity to communicate directly with users. However, in the current Internet era, this has been unable to meet market demand. The interaction between users and brands is expected to be more sincere and practical, and the personal IP creation of the CEO of the automobile enterprise has become the key to achieve this goal.
Musk may be a typical representative of the personal brand marketing of automobile enterprise CEOs. He is known as Iron Man and deeply rooted in people's hearts. On the social network, every tweet of Musk may become the focus of global media attention, and his personal charm has played a huge role in promoting Tesla's marketing effect.
In fact, Tesla can not invest in traditional marketing resources, largely thanks to the top "free spokesperson" like Musk.
In China, Li Xiang, the ideal car, is another CEO who is extremely active in social media. His behavior style on Weibo not only deepened the public's understanding of him personally, but also indirectly improved the brand image of the ideal car.
Li Xiang shared the latest news of the ideal car, industry observation, and direct response to user feedback through Weibo, and created a friendly and professional corporate leader image.
Lei Jun is undoubtedly the leader in CEO marketing in China. Since the impressive "Are You OK?" in 2015, Lei Jun has established his brand image of being friendly and sincere. Through his grounded image and people friendly way, he makes consumers have a natural trust in what he said.
Lei Jun's marketing activities on Weibo are tireless, and he often interacts with ordinary users. Weibo comments seem simple, but actually reflect the CEO's attitude of valuing users and willing to talk to users on an equal basis.
An attractive CEO can be the best spokesperson of the brand, which not only promotes the improvement of the brand image, but also saves marketing costs for the enterprise, forming a closer emotional bond between the brand and users.
06 More authentic and extensive KOL marketing
KOL marketing has always been an important part of the brand communication strategy since its birth. In the current marketing field, its role has become more multidimensional and complex.
With the improvement of consumers' recognition of advertising, they are more eager to see authentic and credible KOL marketing content, rather than one-way and over beautified product boasting.
Today's consumers are more inclined to trust those car owners who can share real use experience. These real user stories can provide more convincing evidence than the "cloud evaluation" through standardized test scripts, showing the actual performance of the product in daily life.
Real feedback, stories and scenes can greatly improve the effect of KOL marketing, because they represent the real voice and provide more reliable reference for potential buyers.
In addition, as mentioned above, as the positioning of new energy vehicles in the market is getting closer to consumer goods, they are not only durable goods, but also symbols representing personal taste and lifestyle. Therefore, automobile brands should seek cooperation from KOL in different fields.
KOL in fashion, technology, sports and other industries can bring new user groups to automobile brands through their unique lifestyle and personal charm. For example, new energy vehicles driven by fashion bloggers can convey a fashionable and cutting-edge attitude to life, while technology bloggers can interpret the innovative characteristics of cars from a technical perspective to attract consumers interested in science and technology.
Cross domain KOL marketing has become increasingly important. It is not only a means to break the brand circle, but also a bridge to connect different consumer groups and build a brand new image. This marketing method can deepen the brand's influence in multiple consumer groups, break the boundaries between traditional automobile brands and users, and create a broader market space.
Conclusion:
With the continuous evolution of the automotive industry, marketing strategies have also undergone earth shaking changes.
First of all, from the traditional TVC advertising to the real and vivid UGC, auto marketing has increasingly emphasized the interaction with users and the authenticity of content.
Secondly, in terms of user experience, auto brands transform their stores into experience centers and move to crowded urban centers. User centered experiential marketing strategies are gradually becoming mainstream.
Third, the D2C model promotes the brand to communicate directly with consumers. The creation of private domain traffic enables the brand to collect user data and feedback more accurately and improve the conversion rate.
Then, with the advent of the era of intelligent cars, we witnessed the transformation from single sale to lifelong service, and strengthened the exploration of intelligent ecological marketing for users' lifelong value.
As the image spokesman of the brand, CEO's image building of being friendly to people and sincere undoubtedly brings incomparable personality charm and trust to the brand.
Finally, the more realistic and extensive KOL marketing enables opinion leaders in different fields to inject new vitality into the automobile brand, and ring breaking marketing has become a new growth point.
In all these changes, we have witnessed the transformation of automobile marketing from one-way communication to two-way interaction, from single sales to comprehensive user management, and from a closed system to an open ecology.
The change of automobile marketing is not only the change of strategy and means, but also the redefinition of the relationship between brand and user. In this era, every user has become a part of the brand story, and every interaction has constituted the co creation of brand value.
