Baojun, which has a million-strong body, has actually reached a crisis moment that cannot be broken.
Shenyang, general manager of SAIC-GM-Wuling, said in his 2019 New Year message: "The Baojun brand has not been able to identify the user base and has become a parasitic brand of the Wuling brand, resulting in a clear overlap between the two brands. ”
In that year, in order to achieve rapid sales growth and establish a brand image, the start-up Baojun adopted the measure of grid-connected sales with Wuling. Nowadays, although Baojun has achieved millions of sales, Baojun's brand upwards is always a twist and turn. At the Baojun brand night, "youthful, scientific and technological, intelligent" has become the new brand definition of Baojun, and Baojun's sales channels will also be completely separated from Wuling, and these measures are quite "chaotic" taste.
New cars, new measures to achieve brand upwards
At the brand night, in addition to releasing a new brand positioning, the first Baojun RS-5 based on the Baojun R platform and also the first Baojun RS-5 equipped with Baojun's new car logo was officially listed, with a guidance price of 96,800 yuan to 132,800 yuan.
Based on the new R platform and equipped with the new diamond logo, Baojun RS-5 is the pioneer of Baojun's upward "breakthrough".
Thanks to the R platform, Baojun RS-5 is equipped with L2 level automatic driving assistance system, 0-130km/h integrated adaptive cruise, traffic congestion assistance, high-speed intelligent navigation, curve cruise assistance, lane departure warning, lane keeping assistance, speed limit sign warning, intelligent speed limit assistance, intelligent near and far light switching and other functions are readily available.
As an intelligent networked SUV, RS-5 comes standard with an intelligent car zebra system from Alibaba Cloud, which has 10 all-round car networking systems such as in-car voice operation, mobile APP remote, online lifetime wireless upgrade, and intelligent travel, which is also one of the best on-board intelligent operating systems on the market.
In terms of power, the RS-5 is equipped with a 1.5T turbocharged engine, which has the technical support of General Motors and is equipped with Honeywell's third-generation turbocharger, which has a maximum power of 151ps and a peak torque of 250Nm, which is at the same level as the current mainstream joint venture 1.5T engine. The analog 8-speed CVT gearbox was jointly developed by Baojun and Bosch and has completely independent intellectual property rights.
In addition to products, Baojun released a new brand positioning of "youthful, scientific and technological, and intelligent", and Baojun hopes to find new user groups with new brand positioning and accelerate the process of differentiation with Wuling. In terms of sales channels, Baojun has also carried out drastic reforms, and Baojun, which was once sold in parallel with Wuling, will break away from Wuling's system and build its own channels.
In 2018, Baojun has 360 independent outlets, in 2019 plans to expand the number of outlets to 800, while the channel investors and Wuling have a high degree of duplication, the past ten years or even more years of cooperation, so that they have a high degree of loyalty to SAIC-GM-Wuling, in sales also have a strong combat effectiveness, which is a good news for Baojun to build a new channel.
A few years ago, in order to let Baojun break the ice and grow, SAIC-GM-Wuling formulated the method of "one system, two brands, and the same group", relying on the base plate of the Wuling brand, user upgrades and the dividends of system strength, to achieve the volume of Baojun's production and sales of millions. Nowadays, the harsh external environment makes Baojun have to break this inherent system.
Baojun has reached an important juncture of not breaking or standing
For Bao jun, success is also five ling, and defeat is also five ling.
In 2010, relying on the policy of cars going to the countryside, it achieved great success in the field of micro-passengers, and left its competitors far behind SAIC-GM-Wuling set its sights on the passenger car market and created the Baojun brand for the household market. SAIC-GM-Wuling hopes to use the Wuling brand to respond to the needs of users for both passengers and goods, and to enter the booming family car market with the Baojun brand to achieve balanced development
But the ideal is full, the reality is bone. Baojun's first model, baojun 630, has the technical background of GM jointly developed by SAIC-GM Wuling and Pan-Asia Technology Center, and there is no problem with the product itself. However, Baojun, which is a brand new brand, cannot support the brand premium of Baojun 630 at all, and the price of 62,800 yuan to 73,800 yuan was not competitive at the time, and the lack of price advantage made it difficult for 630 in the market.
Fortunately, Baojun's adjustment is quite timely. With cost-effective products such as Baojun 730 and Baojun 560, we will enter the market and use the huge micro-customer base plate accumulated by the Wuling brand to meet their upgrade needs. At the same time, in terms of channels, relying on Wuling to go deep into the sales outlets of third- and fourth-tier or even fifth- and sixth-tier cities, we can achieve a more comprehensive channel layout.
After the era of passengerization represented by Baojun 730, Baojun has opened an era of brand rejuvenation, led by products such as Baojun 310 and Baojun 510, and has opened up a new "small town youth" consumer group. After the downturn of 630, Baojun's several strategic adjustments have been quite successful, and now, in less than 10 years, Baojun has gained the favor of more than 4 million users and successfully established its own brand image and word-of-mouth foundation.
But did Baojun really succeed?
In 2018, the Chinese market once again ushered in great changes. According to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, China's passenger car sales in 2018 were 23.71 million units, down 4.1% year-on-year, which is also the first time since 1990 that the data of China's automotive industry has declined. In the case of a bad trend, Baojun naturally did not survive, and in 2018, Baojun brand sales reached 879,000 vehicles, down 13.5% year-on-year, a decline of more than the market. From the perspective of market segmentation, the market below 100,000 yuan where Baojun's main products are located is facing great downward pressure.
"Compared to last year (2017), this year (2018) we have fully felt the pressure to compete head-on with joint venture brands." Lin Jie, vice president of Geely Automobile Group and general manager of the sales company, once issued such an exclamation in an interview.
Now that Volkswagen has launched the entry brand Jetta, toyota also has the intention of launching an entry brand, which shows that the competition in the entry-level market will become more intense. In such a big environment, if Baojun is in a safe corner, it is bound to be difficult under the encirclement and suppression of joint venture brands and strong independent brands. Only by bravely rushing out can it be possible to survive in the cruel market competition.
Before the release of the new brand definition, Baojun had launched several rounds of brand upward offensives, increasing the average selling price of models to the range of 70,000-80,000 yuan, but this was not enough for Baojun. How to cross the watershed of "100,000 yuan" is a problem facing Baojun. In today's more fierce competition, Baojun's upward path is like "sailing against the current, if you don't advance, you will retreat".
The road to upgrading is long and obstructive
"In fact, we have always been a little anxious, always doing low-price market is not our original intention," a Baojun staff member told me. Whether it is a new model or a new car logo or a new brand definition, it represents Baojun's determination to achieve brand upwards, but Baojun's upward road is not smooth.
Before the market meeting, I especially went to the 4S store to test drive the Baojun RS-5, compared with the previous Baojun products, the quality of RS-5 or the texture of the product has been greatly improved. But in this segment of the RS-5 market, with veteran players such as Haval F7, Haval H6, and Geely Boyue, it is not easy for RS-5 to stand out from these products.
RS-5's interior/exterior design language basically continues the style of Baojun 510, although Baojun 510 is called "Yan Beast", its design has been recognized by a large number of consumers, but such a design language from 50,000-80,000 yuan to 10-13 million yuan after the advantages of RS-5 in the face of competitors of the same level is not obvious.
At the same time, RS-5, as the first product under the definition of Baojun's new platform and new brand, or Baojun's current flagship product, should have its own or future Baojun's new product sequence design language. Looking at many overseas car companies, their design language is derived from the top down of the flagship model. Such a blockbuster model as the RS-5 should have its own design language that is highly recognizable.
If you want to achieve brand upwards, product strength is the foundation. In the comparison of product forces, the RS-5 lacks the absolute advantage of 510. In the launch of new products, Baojun seems to have some "adventurous".
Baojun plans to launch six models based on the new platform and equipped with new car logos in 2019, so that the new brand image can be quickly rolled out and the average selling price range of the Baojun brand will be further improved. However, the radical product offensive is easy to make marketing unable to do a good job, do a thorough job, a large number of intensive product launch, manufacturers are difficult to arrange the publicity cycle, the publicity is easy to disperse, resulting in the scope of communication, depth are not enough.
From the perspective of consumers, intensive product launch will make them "taste and stop", distract them from new products, and is not conducive to the promotion of new products.
At the same time, for SAIC-GM-Wuling, for products priced at 50,000-80,000 yuan, they are familiar with it. But for more demanding products, can its research and development strength support the simultaneous development of 6 models? If you only pursue speed and ignore quality, this is not good for Baojun's brand upward road.
In addition, in the brand segmentation and the Wuling branch network, Baojun also has problems that need to be faced.
Born in 1985, the Wuling brand has more than 30 years of hard work in the field of micro-customers, making it have a more solid brand image. Today's Wuling is like a double-edged sword for Baojun, which brings a huge user base and channels to Baojun, but it is also a "stumbling block" for Baojun to achieve brand upwards.
Relying on Wuling's huge user base and wide range of channels, coupled with highly cost-effective products, Baojun has indeed achieved rapid development, but the problem is that the distinction between the Baojun brand and the Wuling brand is not very obvious.
"We have a lot of customers who came to see Wuling car, just saw baojun in the store, felt that everything was good, and then bought Baojun," a northern dealer told me on the brand night.
SAIC-GM-Wuling originally hoped to achieve two-legged walking of micro-passengers and passenger cars through the two brands of Wuling and Baojun, but now that it has developed in the past few years, Baojun and Wuling have a tendency to be confused.
"Is Baojun's SUV just Wuling Hongguang changing a shell?" More than one friend outside the circle has asked me this question. When the market went down and the crisis came, Baojun found itself still firmly tied to the Wuling brand, which represents Weike.
To achieve the promotion of brand value, Baojun needs to make a clear distinction between itself and Wuling. Making a distinction is not only to have higher quality, differentiated products, in terms of marketing, Baojun also needs to make huge changes, breaking the status quo that has achieved millions of volumes, it is not an easy task.
Baojun plans to completely divest the sales of the Baojun brand from Wuling's channels, but it is a great risk for Baojun, after all, Wuling's widely covered channels and good customer gathering ability are one of the important reasons for Baojun's previous best-selling.
And most of the new channels are still established by a group of Wuling "old people", in the process of Baojun's brand upgrade, can it meet the increasing service requirements?
But in any case, the drastic reforms reflect Baojun's determination to seek change. In the overall downturn of the market, the joint venture independent competition is becoming more and more fierce, Baojun really needs to launch high-quality products, establish its own channels, and make a distinction with the Wuling brand, which is the first step to realize the correct direction of the Baojun brand.
Write at the end
Rome was not built in a day, and Baojun spent nearly a decade to build itself into a million-volume brand. Nowadays, Baojun has announced its determination to the outside world with an attitude of "not breaking and not standing", but this brand upward road is not easy, it may take 5 years, and it may take longer.