Written by | Huang Zhi
Edit | Yang Guang
Produced | Automotive Sankei
"SAIC has given the best 2,400 square meters of resources in the lot of the group building to SAIC Audi, which is enough to see the expectations and determination of both shareholders for cooperation."
On January 1, 2022, the opening ceremony of SAIC Audi Enterprising, Jia Mingdi, general manager of SAIC Audi's marketing business, said.
This Enterprising Hui is also the only Audi brand in China, the second but also the largest in the world.
This in itself represents an attitude.
From the release of the SAIC Audi brand on April 18 last year to the opening of the New Year's Day Enterprise Exchange and the delivery of the first batch of car owners, SAIC Audi has chosen a road that no one has ever taken in the Chinese market and strives to find the possible direction.
As Jia Mingdi said, the choice of Enterprising Hui to open on the first day of the new year represents the butterfly change of SAIC Audi from "0" to "1".
When the channel network layout is initially completed, the agency system model and the concept of direct connection users are basically formed, and the 3 products and 50,000 sales targets are made public, the outside world can also have the opportunity to see the complete SAIC Audi born from a blank piece of paper.
SAIC Audi Enterprising Hui is located in the headquarters building of SAIC Group in Jing'an District
For 258 days, the silhouette of SAIC Audi gradually became clear
On top of Audi, how does SAIC Audi break the game and get new?
It is different from the new new power brand because it has the premise of "one Audi", but it is also different from any traditional luxury brand, because "SAIC Audi" means that many actions can be built from white paper.
Jia Mingdi said: "Different from the pure new forces, but also different from the original traditional luxury brand, we are a new luxury brand force, how to let users get an innovative experience based on innovative products through our creation, we do not have something that can be directly learned." ”
When the whole industry is piled up in shopping malls to open stores, anytime and anywhere to talk about user-oriented enterprises, how will SAIC Audi put forward China's exclusive models, agent sales, user direct connection and online and offline integration? In fact, many people still have doubts in their minds.
Jia Mingdi and his team spent more than two years studying innovative marketing models, trying while doing, "We are more thinking about whether this works, is it right, how to make consumers really feel that they are brand participants, and how to make good ideas land." He said.
Jia Mingdi, general manager of SAIC Audi's marketing business
This requires both innovative ideas and overcoming the difficulties and obstacles posed by years of experience in traditional mainstream brands.
But with the past 258 days, from the brand release to the opening of reservations, to the gradual opening of stores, and the co-creation story that occurred simultaneously on the SAIC Audi App, the new outline of SAIC Audi has gradually become clear.
At the opening of the SAIC Audi Enterprise, Jia Mingdi also shared more details behind the silhouette.
For example, user services, from Enterprising Hub, Audi City to urban stores, plans to complete the layout of 120 stores in 2022, and create an "Online mix Offline" life circle through the store network, so that fans can participate in it and narrow the distance between brands and users. For the area that has not yet been covered, it has basically opened up the link of door-to-door test drive and door-to-door delivery, facing the order distribution from Hegang in the north to Tacheng in the west and Sanya in the south, through off-site door-to-door delivery and FAW Audi's after-sales service network to achieve user service coverage.
"Some of our urban stores have opened tens of kilometers to achieve door-to-door test drives for users, and in this service process, users are also very moved." Jia Mingdi said.
Enterprise Exchange provides a new living space for Audi users
For example, co-creation, on the SAIC Audi App, users have determined the club name through voting, participated in the exchange of the limited number of the owner of the pre-order booking, co-created QQ music golden song list, and various product service rights and interests, and even product configuration, according to user opinions in a short period of time to increase the L2+ level assisted driving function.
Jia Mingdi himself will personally communicate with users in the App every day to understand the user's feedback and voice, he said: "The direct connection with the user every day, the absorption of information and feedback, is itself a co-creation process, because it affects the decision-making ideas of each of our teams, each member, and each leader, which is a process that is subtle and happens all the time." ”
Transform the user experience with digital infrastructure
The A7L 45TFSI model, which was officially launched on January 1, offers a variety of personalized options, including the Black Samurai version and the White Mage version, which stems from the different demands of users for this model, or young, or elegant, or violent.
The basis for supporting the launch of personalized products and the improvement of user experience is the new agency model and digital infrastructure.
In the previous batch sales model, dealers will naturally choose hot products and configurations when entering inventory to achieve the highest turnover rate and avoid the backlog of cold colors, configurations, and models.
Most of the users who buy a car also have a similar experience, the so-called rich selection can not be decided by the user himself most of the time, the sales consultant will be more willing to recommend popular styles, and if you choose to customize, often can not guarantee the amount of preferential treatment and pick-up time.
However, under the agent direct sales model, car companies can more quickly understand the needs of users, allow resources to be shared, no longer sell cars in inventory, but directly deliver personalized products to users.
Although Thorsten Godulla, general manager of SAIC Audi's marketing business, also admitted that many traditional Chinese users want to "get a car immediately" when buying a car, he also said: "We must be brave enough to take this step of personalized needs in the entire market." ”
Thorsten Godulla, General Manager of Marketing Business at SAIC Audi
Digitalization is also changing the user experience.
SAIC Audi has established its own R&D team, built a digital middle office, and achieved a better user experience through cooperation with Tencent in front-end construction.
At the product level, SAIC Audi has won the opening of the Audi brand to the vehicle-machine end system, so that the Chinese side can build a third-party application ecology on the platform. At present, SAIC Audi's car machine side can realize the tencent application, and other more local Internet services are also being promoted.
At the service level, Tencent has customized enterprise WeChat for SAIC Audi, with Micro as the carrier to provide users with lifelong butler services, users only need to face a micro butler to solve all the problems from test drive, car purchase, insurance, credit to car service, without facing a number of different links of service consultants.
Behind the micro-housekeeper is the expert service group, all the user's service needs and dialogue information are stored in the enterprise background, which also solves the privacy problem that users need to contact the service consultant through private communication in the process of car purchase and car use, as well as the information handover problem after the loss of the service consultant.
In addition to real people's services, the development of AI technology has also provided users with more efficient and consistent services. SAIC Audi has established a question library in the background, trained the machine through AI technology, and when the problem bank accumulates gradually, the vast majority of users can also get consistent answers through the question library.
Who is buying SAIC Audi?
In 2022, SAIC Audi will offer three products: A7L, Q5 e-tron and a full-size large SUV to be launched in the second half of the year, which Jia hopes will sell more than 50,000 vehicles this year.
But more important than the sales figures, SAIC Audi established and consolidated its brand image and positioning in the first year of delivery.
In the interview, Jia Mingdi gave the current user portrait of SAIC Audi:
32% are under 30 years old, 72% are under 40 years old, and about 20% are over 40 years old;
In terms of product and color selection, more needs are personalized colors, as well as special products, for performance, personality, youthful attention, different from the previous Audi brand;
User sources, more from BMW, and even from Maserati, Porsche users.
SAIC Audi's differentiation efforts have seen certain results.
The domestic Audi A7L price of the highest price of 55TFSI preconception version reached 777,700 yuan, basically the ceiling of the current domestic models, which is also the clear positioning of SAIC Audi to itself: to do the ceiling of luxury cars produced in China.
From January to November 2021, in the range of 400,000-800,000 yuan in the Chinese auto market, in addition to the top three BBA domestic administrative cars, the more high-end market is mainly occupied by BMW X5, Mercedes-Benz GLE, Porsche Macan and other SUVs, while sedan products are almost very few, imported Audi A7 sales are close to 7,000 vehicles, but to some extent it does not directly compete with domestic A7L.
Therefore, the segment of the Audi A7L is actually relatively blank, and the Q5 e-tron and the future medium and large fuel SUV are also blank markets in luxury brands. For SAIC Audi, while establishing the brand height, it can explore new opportunities in the luxury car market as much as possible.
SAIC Audi hopes to become a benchmark, but as Jia Mingdi said, there are still many tasks that need to be further polished in the process of products, experiences and service users.
How to position the new Audi brand and the new operating model to make users better perceive and identify with it may be a long and challenging process.
Write at the end
From The former president of Audi China, Anschho, to SAIC Audi Jia Mingdi and Gao Dele, in several interviews over the past year, we have heard more about the depiction of concepts and "stay tuned".
But this time, when SAIC Audi showed a more complete business logic and planning, it seemed to make the outside world have a little more confidence and expectations.
Of course, time does not allow us to say whether SAIC Audi can go better in the next year, just as no one thought a year ago that the penetration rate of new energy vehicles could reach 20%.
But in an era of rapid change in the automotive industry, at least SAIC Audi is exploring new opportunities.
This is a chaotic world, but in a chaotic world, there will also be heroes.