Zhou Peng: Chevrolet's future approach is for the brand to put customers first

The copyright of this article is owned by NetEase Auto

On January 19th, the 19th Guangzhou International Automobile Exhibition with the theme of "New Technology, New Life" was officially opened. NetEase Auto once again invited high-end industry elites to dialogue, talk about brand breaking and rebirth, and look forward to industry trends and future.

The following is a transcript of the interview:

NetEase Auto: Hello netizens! Welcome to the 2021 Guangzhou Auto Show NetEase Auto Live Room, this time to visit our live broadcast room is SAIC-GM Chevrolet Marketing Department Director Zhou Peng, Mr. Zhou, Hello!

Zhou Peng: Hello!

NetEase Auto: Minister Zhou said hello to all netizens.

Zhou Peng: Dear netizens, good morning! I am Zhou Peng, from the marketing department of SAIC-GM Chevrolet

NetEase Auto: I would like to ask Minister Zhou to introduce the highlights of the booth to netizens?

Zhou Peng: We have spent a lot of thought on today's booth, there are three highlights, first, this year is the 110th anniversary of Chevrolet's founding, so this year's auto show, we take "Legend is a Teenager" as the theme, the Chevrolet 110 years of inheritance and continuous innovation and enterprising spirit to show. We chose two of the most iconic classic models in Chevrolet's history, the Suburban and Corvette, and we found the first generation of Suburban born in 1935 and the first generation of Corvette born in 1953 in the Shanghai Auto Museum, this time we brought these two classic cars to the Guangzhou Auto Show, and we also brought the latest 2021 Subburban and the eighth generation of Colvet to Guangzhou from North America. In this way, as soon as the audience enters the Chevrolet booth, they can see the interplay of classics and modernity, and there is a feeling of time travel.

Second, it is three Chevrolet 110-year special edition models, which combine the trend retro, outdoor off-road, and tough agents that young people are most concerned about today to blast the existing mass-produced star models. First of all, inspired by the 1957 two-color Corvette and the Low Rider modification style popular on the West Coast of the United States, we carried out artist trend retro modification of The Maribal XL, and created the Maribal XL Maliblu Blue Out of Blue, creating a retro style through modification, in line with consumers' pursuit of retro trend.

With the process of urbanization, more and more people live in the city, but there are also many consumers, who have an off-road heart in their hearts, want to go out and break in, go out and walk, the world is so big, they want to go out and see. They want to ride in their leisure time, on weekends, on holidays, driving their own cars, to the wilderness, to the mountains, to the wilderness, and enjoy this feeling of letting go of themselves and relaxing themselves. So in order to meet this part of the demand, we made a major off-road modification of the Chevrolet Explorer to create the Explorer Jungle Hunter version, which was also brought to our Guangzhou Auto Show this time.

This year marks the 110th anniversary of Chevrolet, the only car brand in the Oscar Walk of Fame to have a car imprint, because Chevrolet has participated in more than 3,000 Hollywood blockbusters and played important roles, of which the agent car is the most famous, including Suburban, Chevrolet Trailblazer and so on. Therefore, we have modified the Chevrolet Trailblazer Jedi Agent Edition, truly restoring its role in Hollywood blockbusters, so that our consumers can personally feel the charm of the Agent's car on the spot.

Third, the new car we are going to launch in the fourth quarter also appeared at the auto show, and the Chevrolet Trailblazer White Night Edition has a pearl white body and a cool black roof, and adopts a black and white contrast design that is popular in the fashion industry, which is very stunning. In addition, the 2022 Chevrolet Cruise was also launched, with a range of 518 kilometers. At the same time, we also arranged some interactive experience exhibition areas, Guangzhou is the birthplace of Lingnan culture, so we specially arranged the Lingnan Market, you can experience the unique Lingnan culture on the spot. In addition, this year is the 110th anniversary of Chevrolet, we have also collected the stories of 110 car owners, laid out a historical wall for the 110th anniversary, and U· The CLUB Members' Zone will also present the glory and honor of being a Chevrolet owner at the Guangzhou Auto Show.

NetEase Auto: The lineup and features are very comprehensive. We have an observation, in the past Chevrolet to give others an image is very homely, but this time it seems to be different, including the models on display, such as the Suburban is a full-size SUV product, I feel that the overall product is a trend upward. In fact, it cannot be said to go up, it already exists, but we are restoring a feature of its original. In this process, is there always something to share with everyone? How accepted is this process? What about the user feedback presented?

Zhou Peng: Last year at the Chevrolet Brand Night, I also formally proposed that the future development path of the Chevrolet brand is brand upward and customer first. The conversion of some of the models you just mentioned is actually the upward layout of our brand. Chevrolet in the United States and in China, to consumers feel completely different, in the United States in fact, Chevrolet is a medium and large SUV, more American tough, reliable, muscular, bloody feeling, the street is full of Chevrolet's big car. But in China, it is really a family car brand. So I have been thinking about where our brand is going in the future, after customer research, market research, we have determined the strategy of brand upwards. In the future, in our entire product series, we will also gradually move closer to Chevrolet in North America, that is, to medium and large SUVs, mainly to performance, function, SUV based on these main lines, through these main lines to reshape Chevrolet's cognition in the minds of Chinese consumers, it is a pure American brand, is a strong, reliable, very driving pleasure brand.

This brand recognition, I think in fact from this year's sales structure can be seen, this year's Chevrolet Explorer, Pioneer, Maribao XL these three big cars, the proportion of the entire sales structure has increased to 55.2%, that is, Chevrolet brand this year more than half of the cars are sold cars, this change is in line with the future of the Chinese market this strong trend of consumption upgrades, but also reflects the high-end, personalized consumer demand. The subsequent Chevrolet product line layout, research and development will continue along this road.

NetEase Auto: We know that in fact, consumption upgrades are also mentioned by many brands, that is, the concept of product upwards, but upwards are also divided into different directions, such as luxury or technology, intelligence, etc., for Chevrolet in the upward process, because just now everyone also mentioned a point, such as multi-functional attributes, or in the booth just now there is actually mentioned that there is a special agent version of the model, Chevrolet and agent's image is more matched, is it possible to say a few keywords, Is it to be able to generalize or make everyone feel, what kind of upward tone does Chevrolet want to create?

Zhou Peng: There are two aspects of my thinking, the first is that this year is the 110th anniversary of Chevrolet, chevrolet is a brand with a deep historical heritage. In the future development, I think the DNA left in the blood of this brand still needs to be inherited and carried forward, so just now I have repeatedly emphasized that the whole Chevrolet represents a kind of American DNA tone, which is a large space, comfort, which is a good brand asset, which needs to be well inherited and developed. At the same time, China's passenger car market is developing very rapidly, and we are not only the world's largest consumer market for passenger cars, but also the most competitive market in the world. In this process, how Chevrolet makes its own characteristics is what we have to think about, so on this basis, we have to make our tonality, like you mentioned, in the case of inheriting Chevrolet DNA, how to do it in the future, which is also the direction we are thinking about now. Of course, there are also Chevrolet features, which I think are mainly focused on the strong and reliable direction of functionalization, personalization and American tradition, as well as the development trend of future automobile electrification, networking, intelligent connection and high-end.

Zhou Peng (right), director of the marketing department of SAIC-GM Chevrolet, and Jiang Zipei, director of NetEase Auto Channel

Zhou Peng, Director of Marketing Department of SAIC-GM Chevrolet (Source: NetEase Auto)

NetEase Auto: We have special expectations for Suburban, is there an actual introduction time?

Zhou Peng: Now that it has entered a substantial time period, it will be announced to consumers at the right time, and I believe that this time will not be too far away.

NetEase Auto: Just mentioned another one, that is, customer first. In fact, customer first and product upward similar, but also everyone is mentioning, now I feel that the car company conference does not mention co-creation with users, feel disconnected from this era. How is Chevrolet positioned in terms of user operation and user co-creation? What do you think? What can Chevrolet do that is different from other homes? Because after all, Chevrolet is a brand with a long history, and it also has its fan base, what is your opinion or planning for this piece?

Zhou Peng: Our strategy of user upward is actually mainly built around three aspects, the first aspect is our dealer network system throughout the country, since 2017, we have also carried out some hardware upgrades to our Chevrolet dealer stores. By creating a comfortable, quiet and relatively high-quality car buying, car maintenance, car use environment, to bring customers some very good experience.

At the same time, the second aspect, we also pay special attention to some digital marketing means, we are now also spending a lot of resources to create our official Chevrolet APP and WeChat public account, as the mainstream consumer groups have successively entered the post-90s, these digital natives, they are more accustomed, but also willing to make contact with some products on the mobile end of the mobile phone, or on the PC side, so this is the territory we must cultivate deeply. Chevrolet official website, APP, public number, we have a dedicated team to maintain and build, but also continue to iterate, the construction of a digital link system, so that our customers in our official website, can be unfettered to swim, from understanding the information, brand touch to buy a car, use a car, car maintenance, etc. In the whole life cycle, can achieve his needs on this digital link, thus bringing some very good experience.

Third, Chevrolet has been deeply involved in China for the sixteenth year this year, we also have our own unique service projects, but also our own exclusive IP resources, these aspects we are also constantly integrating and planning, to provide our customers with rights. Just like the fifty car owners' rights we proposed last year, which are open to all of our car owners, this year we are constantly iterating and updating on this basis. At the same time, we will also use some of our offline experience platforms, such as DC 24-hour Chevrolet SUV driving camp, Chevrolet SUV land flight show, as well as CRC City Challenge, etc., as well as Chevrolet Red Chalk public welfare projects, through these offline experience platforms, recruit some of our users, car owners, so that he can also participate in our entire activities, can understand the development of our current brand, but also can improve the stickiness of the brand in the activity, but also feel the temperature of the brand. This year is the 110th anniversary of Chevrolet, and we came together with the owners to celebrate their birthdays and play together. So we also recruited several activities, such as recruiting some car owners from all over the country to tell the story of car owners and Chevrolet, and we also collected 110 particularly touching car owners stories and put them on our official website. In addition, we also invite customers to co-create together, for example, during this year's National Day, Chevrolet and Chinese street painting artist Qi Xinghua cross-border cooperation, join hands to cool 3D street painting and Chevrolet SUV family star model new explorer skillfully integrated, in the creative process, cross-border attempt group co-creation art, invite the audience to improvise relay painting, and finally complete this group co-creation painting with profound significance and creativity, so that the strong temperament of the new explorer can be perfectly presented in the national tide art works. This activity has been recognized by customers and has inspired us to do a better job.

NetEase Auto: Let's cut to the next topic, because since this year, Chevrolet has some innovative ways of playing in marketing, or some good cases, for example, when "Hello, Li Huanying" was particularly popular in February, Chevrolet had a short film "Hello, Volando", which was very out of the circle. In your opinion, what kind of marketing content is a good marketing? What can it achieve?

Zhou Peng: Indeed, this year, our marketing in Volando also exceeded expectations and achieved very good results. At that time, we combined the family affection in the film with the warm attributes of Volando's new-age family car, and achieved good results. It can be seen from this case that a good marketing is based on accurately grasping social hotspots, perfectly fits the psychology of consumers, and arouses the emotional resonance of the public.

This year marks the 5th anniversary of the opening of Shanghai Disneyland, so we have also carried out some cross-border cooperation with Shanghai Disneyland, including the Mickey Magic Edition and the Mickey Space Edition that have been built around the Parade, and the Mickey Kung Fu Edition that was unveiled at the Auto Show. Several models have cleverly combined the popular Disney cartoon image with the patrol with ingenious creativity, bringing a more personalized and fun experience to young consumers who pursue trendy personality and quality life with innovation and imagination.

NetEase Auto: A good marketing out of the circle is a good car company yearning for, in fact, the goal is very clear, but to achieve this goal, the system behind it is very important, can Mr. Zhou share this experience with our marketers?

Zhou Peng: I think the marketing system is indeed like this, a good idea, a good marketing campaign, in fact, it may be on the stage or on the short video for a few minutes, but behind it is the hard work and efforts of a team. I personally feel that especially in Chevrolet, I particularly emphasize that, first, traditional marketing we pay special attention to online and offline, modern marketing, I think to take the project as the starting point, to fully integrate online and offline. I think that now the barriers have become more and more blurred, in fact, a good marketing is to switch from online to offline, offline in turn to online, such a flow will become more and more frequent in the future. So now we are also building the project team structure of the entire marketing team with the project as the goal and grasp, to do a good job in our innovative marketing.

In addition, I think we must embrace new things and embrace new changes. Finally, there is the system guarantee, Chevrolet has been deeply cultivating China for sixteen years, and in these sixteen years we have formed our own network. The future will certainly be iterative and optimized, but it will not be easily abandoned, and it will seek innovation for the sake of innovation. It's also important to let these systems and processes continue to function in the new era.

NetEase Auto: What is the average age of the innovation team you just mentioned?

Zhou Peng: I don't choose only by age, I think what is more important is a mentality, you can be in your 30s, you can also be in your 40s, but your mentality is to accept these things, be willing to deal with young people, and also be willing to learn the channels and things that young people like now, which is very important.

NetEase Auto: Okay, thank you very much Mr. Zhou for sharing with us today, so that everyone has a deeper understanding of a lot of thinking behind the concept of customer first and product upward. Today's interview will come here first, thank you!

Zhou Peng: Thank you!