Wen Dongcheng
Source | Haike Finance
The voice of the domestic automobile industry continues to soar.
Since Xiaomi's car building triggered a flow surge, many brands have spent much time in improving their exposure. For example, Huawei recently released the Qiankun smart car solution, and on April 22, the official microblog announced the official accounts of Chang'an Auto, Avita, Dark Blue Auto, Landu Auto and other cooperative brands; Coincidentally, on the 22nd, the official announced that the price of the ideal car would be reduced across the whole line, which aroused heated discussion.
More remarkable is the Beijing International Auto Show, which is held again four years later. Xiaomi and Huawei participated in the exhibition for the first time, which was very popular. Lei Jun, CEO of Xiaomi, announced at the exhibition that as of April 24, the number of locked orders of Xiaomi SU7 had reached 75000, and 5781 units had been successfully delivered.
Xiaomi sales are in line with the overall trend of the industry. According to the data of the National Bureau of Statistics, in March 2024, the total retail sales of domestic automobiles accounted for 11.3% of the total retail sales of consumer goods in the whole society, reaching 426.5 billion yuan, an increase of 11.5% year on year. According to the data of the Passenger Transport Federation, in March 2024, the retail sales volume of the domestic passenger car market will be 1.69 million, up 6.2% year on year.
This trend also highlights the importance of online marketing - the competition in the industry is fierce. If you want to expand the market and enhance the influence, you must increase the exposure. New car making forces with Internet genes have always focused on this. Xiaomi has become a typical case, and many car enterprise executives have opened microblog accounts and broadcast their voices on various platforms.
It is not difficult to see that platforms such as Tiaoyin, Fasthand, Station B and Weibo have different forms in this marketing field, and more and more car enterprises are deeply embracing these platforms. It doesn't matter whether the car enterprises are traditional or not. The new marketing paradigm is the key to success.
01
Product promotion and new ideas
Due to the high passenger price and low transaction frequency in the automobile industry, it is particularly important to keep the brand exposed. In short, it is necessary to "brush the sense of existence".
Xiaomi's sense of marketing rhythm is worth mentioning. Xiaomi announced its entry into the automotive industry in March 2021, and announced the list of core team members six months later. At the end of the year, it began to publish various patents applied for. Before the appearance of the car model was disclosed, Lei Jun often posted pictures of various car models on Weibo, which frequently triggered users' guesses about the appearance of Xiaomi cars.
Long term planning and publicity and reasonable node layout can make users interested without losing patience due to waiting. The acceleration of this kind of marketing since the end of 2023 can be seen from the naked eye: on December 24, 2023, the official microblog of Xiaomi Auto officially appeared, and the press conference on December 28 was announced the next day; The press conference focused on technology display and left a sense of mystery in terms of price. After the press conference, the road test and ecological conditions were announced successively; On March 28, 2024, the press conference with detailed prices will officially introduce Xiaomi SU7 to the market.
Social media platform is different from the top-down communication of traditional advertising or materials, but a two-way communication with users. After the hot spots spread in time, users can also spontaneously respond and spread again. According to the statistics of Haike Finance and Economics, since the first technical conference of Xiaomi was held, there have been more than 40 hot microblog searches related to Xiaomi in four months, and several hot microblog searches have also been conducted on platforms such as Tiaoyin, Fasthand, Baidu, etc. The topics cover the price, configuration, market response and other aspects of Xiaomi cars.
As a result, the car company's boss, who not only has personality and staffing, but also can speak on behalf of the brand official, has become the communication hub between the car brand and users.
When fans mentioned Xiaomi cars on actor Zhang Songwen's microblog, Lei Jun replied specifically that he had prepared one for Zhang Songwen; The user suggested that Xiaomi should add physical keys to the electric tail, and Lei Jun immediately replied on Weibo, "Xiaomi Automobile persuaded" to get on the hot search. Also on April 18, the live broadcast of Tiao Yin, Lei Jun admitted that he was not the No. 1 student in the college entrance examination, nor did he have a deposit of 4 billion yuan. The ratings of this live broadcast exceeded 44 million in just 20 minutes. After the 2-hour live broadcast, the number of fans of Lei Jun's dithering has increased from 17.37 million to 18.26 million, and now the number of fans has reached 18.78 million.
Lei Jun has narrowed the distance between the brand and consumers with his personal image and created a sincere and grounded tone, which has led other manufacturers to follow suit: Wei Jianjun, Chairman of Great Wall Motors, registered his microblog account in 2011, released his first microblog in March 2024, and then launched live broadcast on April 15. He also opened a twitter account and connected with Lei Jun's live broadcast; Yin Tongyue, chairman of Chery Automobile, also launched the live broadcast, and said that he would learn from Lei Jun and Yu Chengdong.
The traditional marketing of automobile enterprises is dominated by advertisements, celebrity endorsements and dealers, and the online launch focuses on vertical platforms such as Yiche, Auto Home, and Pacific Auto. The case of Xiaomi fully shows that the ways of implanting brand mind are becoming more diversified, and different platforms and content integration can build a greater brand voice.
02
Content weight difference
The multiple platforms in the mobile Internet era make the user circle covered by automobile marketing more extensive.
The content of microblog is mainly written in words, which can be officially announced, and can also show "human feelings" in a more simple way, which gives full play to the car enterprises, especially the car enterprise executives.
Lei Jun, who has 23.73 million followers on microblog, has published 17000 microblogs in 14 years, with an average of more than 3 microblogs a day. In Xiaomi Entrepreneurship Thinking, Lei Jun also said that it would be difficult to really listen to users' voices and make friends with users without releasing microblogs.
In addition to Lei Jun, Wei Jianjun and Yin Tongyue, there are also Li Xiang, CEO of Ideal Auto, Li Bin, CEO of Weilai Auto, He Xiaopeng, Chairman of Xiaopeng Auto, Zhu Huarong, Chairman of Chang'an Auto, etc. According to the official data "White Paper on the Ecology of Weibo Vertical Fields", as of March 2024, there were 194 senior executives of the enterprises settled in the park, and the original Weibo of senior executives increased by 120% year on year.
The spread of video platform needs to meet the characteristics of interest, visual impact and so on. For example, the owner of station B game UP "Strawberry Flavor" released the video of picking up the car after buying Xiaomi SU7, and self photographed Lei Jun opening the door for him, with a video playback volume of 1.075 million. The way to promote the car UP's main "super speed partner" as the ideal L9 is to transport an ideal L9 to Africa and start an overseas self driving live shot journey, with a series of videos played more than 6 million times.
Many auto brands will also show product performance more directly in the form of live broadcast. In December 2023, during Li Bin's 1000 km battery pack test live broadcast, Li Bin suggested that in the future, all important evaluations of the automobile company should be broadcast live by the CEO in person, and he Xiaopeng should also be connected to interact. The aforementioned live broadcast of Wei Jianjun and Yin Tongyue is also mostly related to product display.
Short videos also have the possibility of viral transmission. They do not need unique or in-depth content, and only rely on a certain point to attract netizens to imitate. This is where the previous short video hotspot "Great Wall Cannon" came from. The Great Wall Gun is a pickup truck model owned by the Great Wall. In March 2024, the blogger "Dalilun loves spinach" shouted "Great Wall - Gun" to the model at the roadside in an exaggerated voice, making the model popular. The video played 3.35 million times, and soon there were countless netizens shouting in similar tones on the platform.
In today's diversified content, the marketing of each platform has no fixed rules. The car enterprises are improving the response speed and marketing efficiency according to the platform's tonality, and strive to reach a larger user scale.
03
Gradual restructuring of the pattern
In fact, the content marketing matrix of automobile brands has developed considerably. According to data from QuestMobile, a research organization, in 2023, the advertising expenses of automobile brands will reach 14.878 billion yuan, up 12% year on year; In December 2023, the volume of auto related content on content platforms such as Tiaoyin, Fasthand, Station B and Weibo increased by 256.7% year on year.
The growth of marketing volume stems from the vigorous development of the automobile industry itself. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, in 2023, the operating revenue of the automobile manufacturing industry will exceed 10 trillion yuan, up 11.9% year on year.
Measures have also been introduced at the national policy level. Recently, the Action Plan for Promoting the Trade in of Consumer Goods specifically mentioned the issue of trade in of old cars, aiming to promote the trade in of new cars, second-hand cars, scrapped cars and the automobile aftermarket through policy support, and promote new energy vehicles to optimize and upgrade the energy structure of automobiles. New energy vehicles have become the top priority of the current market development. According to the data of the Passenger Transport Association, the sales volume of new energy vehicles in March 2024 will be 714000, with a year-on-year growth of 30.5% and a penetration rate of 42.3%.
It should be noted that the main force of the new energy vehicle market is young users. QuestMobile data shows that in the new energy vehicle market in February 2024, 46.3% of users are under 35 years old, and 21.2% are 36 to 40 years old. This means that auto companies need to accurately grasp the needs of young groups and catalyst preferences, and develop targeted communication strategies.
This is also the reason why the executives of the new force of car making mostly make their voices on Weibo. For many topics that can "break the circle", the communication chain often starts from microblog. Executives can also communicate and discuss with users simply and directly, and can also trigger the second spread of topics. After Xiaomi held the press conference, relevant terms were first posted on Weibo hot search, and then further spread and in-depth discussion were carried out by the video platform, such as product comparison, actual measurement, etc.
Weibo can easily raise the public attention of these executives' speeches, which can help relevant brands and models enhance their awareness and influence. Ideally, when the L9 model was released in June 2022, Li Xiang once said on his microblog that it was the best household SUV within 5 million yuan, and soon the relevant terms were on the hot search. Later, a large number of auto bloggers participated in the discussion and evaluation. Regardless of whether consumers accept this assertion, the purpose of publicity has been achieved.
It can be predicted that the competition of automobile brands in the future is no longer a simple competition of product strength. The way of long-term growth is deeply embedded in user preferences. Whether it is the hot search of microblog or the sharing of long and short video platforms, automobile marketing must rely on the content platform to feel, touch and even feedback the traffic brought by these preferences, and the potential and possibility of the content platform can bring a broader image space for the marketing communication of automobile brands.
(Statement: This article only represents the author's view, not Sina.com's position.)
