Text | Joey
In 1922, two men named Henry made a deal, and after that, ford, an important milestone in the automobile industry, had a luxury car division called Lincoln. Since then, this car brand named after the President of the United States has established an inseparable connection with "expensive" and "good". This connection has passed in a hundred years.
Lincoln's luxury and foresight seem indisputable. After all, as one of the important founding brands of the automotive industry, and the façade of the American automotive industry, almost all of the best technology in Ford's history has been embodied in Lincoln. American luxury, American wide bodywork (even ultra-long body), and American huge power displacement have become Lincoln's labels.
For Chinese, Lincoln also seems to be a very memorable brand. In fact, Lincoln's entry into the Chinese market, almost on par with Santana and Crown, dates back to the 1980s. But in terms of positioning, Lincoln products at that time took a more niche and less likely to be owned by more consumers.
I still remember the year my father stood on the side of the street and pointed to an extraordinarily long Lincoln for the wedding head car and said to the young man, "This car is called Lincoln, it's a good car." Since then, lincoln's image of a "good car" has risen in my mind, and I believe that for many Chinese, the scene that may recognize this is almost the same as mine.
But good cars do not mean that they can sell well, in the era of relative lack of products in the Chinese auto market, Lincoln because of higher positioning and more expensive prices, so that many people are prohibitive. In the first decade of the twenty-first century, before the Chinese auto market gradually accumulated strength and was about to enter a blowout period, the emergence of new models also made people slowly forget Lincoln.
Finally, in 2008, the year before the real leap in the Chinese auto market, Lincoln, who was not cost-effective and had a slow model update, left the Chinese market. But what no one expected was that just 6 years later, in 2014, Lincoln came back.
It is still the main positioning of luxury, but this time Lincoln no longer wants to become a lofty Ford luxury totem, but really wants to participate in the competition, to participate in the competition of the Chinese luxury car market. After all, at that time, Chinese consumers had already passed the era of buying a car only as a means of transportation to meet ordinary household scenes.
Luxury and distinctiveness have become the new standard for their car selection. But for Lincoln, a brand power has no obvious advantage, back to China and has to re-layout and re-go the brand, how to go the way for them?
Robust + concentration
Product line from scratch
Unlike the first decade of the 21st century, when all joint venture brands were in the era of spring and autumn warring states and horse racing, lincoln re-entered the Chinese market, and the class of Chinese car brands has been basically divided and stopped, and the BBA has become the first-line camp of luxury cars.
The "first line" here is not limited to brand influence, in fact, for Chinese consumers whose consumption level has crossed several levels, Chinese consumers who buy brand power beyond BBA are also very large. Therefore, the "first line" referred to here is a comprehensive combination of brand positioning, market awareness, and sales data. This can be seen from the BBA's annual sales of 700,000-800,000 vehicles.
But Lincoln was very difficult to do at the time, after all, in terms of brand influence, it could not compete with the BBA. Around Lincoln, Jaguar Land Rover, Lexus, Volvo and even SAIC-GM's Cadillac also want a piece of the luxury car market. What's more, lincoln seemed to have a huge gap with these brands at that time.
In 2009, Geely formally acquired Volvo, and in November 2013, the first domestic Volvo S60L was officially launched; in 2012, Jaguar Land Rover and Chery officially joined hands to start the journey of localization. Cadillac, on the other hand, has long been fully localized under saic-GM. At that time, Lincoln had to start again at the brand building end, and started from scratch in the product layout.
Backwardness is indeed backwardness, but a blank piece of paper is also good for painting. Since then, Lincoln has embarked on a new car every year. In fact, many car companies have launched similar product plans, but there are also many car companies that have formulated long-term plans just to change. With the adjustment of corporate strategy, the change of the top management, these plans can be overturned at any time to rebuild, but Lincoln did not.
They followed their own established plans and now have a range of models such as navigators, aviators, navigators, continentals and so on. The price covers a huge range from 246,800 yuan to 1,298,000 yuan. These product series with obvious American luxury style and new design and technology continue to enrich and enhance Lincoln's competitiveness, and also give consumers plenty of time to gradually accept and recognize the Lincoln brand.
Starting with the sale of 11,600 vehicles in 2015, Lincoln sales have increased year by year. As of 2021, Lincoln has sold 91,600 vehicles in China, surpassing the brand's own sales in the United States, making China the world's largest single sales market.
There is no doubt that in just 7 years, Lincoln has indeed achieved good results in China. But these are just because of the steady progress of the strategy and the continuous release of products? Obviously, the Chinese market is not a place where these alone can give a good feedback to a brand. So, what did Lincoln do besides the product?
Introduce the concept + deep ploughing the local
Lincoln found the right way to integrate
Nowadays, there is no single way of playing that can win a comprehensive victory in a mature and huge market, especially in the Chinese market. Because Chinese consumers like to constantly accept the novel experience brought by better and fresher things, and the awakening of autonomy brought about by the vigorous economic development has also made their choices more diversified and less and less likely to be swayed by publicity.
At this point, you can get a glimpse of the two points where Chinese consumers are more enthusiastic about trying out new forces to build cars, and at the same time they are gradually willing to buy car products from traditional domestic brands. They like WEILAI's meticulous and comprehensive service, and they have begun to stop obsessing over the purchase of joint venture brand cars and even pure imported cars. No matter which brand, as long as it can give Chinese consumers better service and better products, it can pry open their wallets.
And these two points are completely coinciding with two things Lincoln did in the process of brand promotion. The first is the Lincoln way they have been promoting since the beginning of the brand's return to China; the second is that from 2019, Lincoln and Changan began to work together to build Chinese-made auto products (now three Lincoln products have been domestically produced). These two points are the two important reasons for Lincoln's success.
It's hard to evaluate whether the Lincoln Way is a more American or Chinese way of customer service. But all in all, from the first moment of the user's encounter with Lincoln, it is an effort to create a sense of respect that surrounds every detail for them. Each individual negotiation area, each exclusive sales consultant, brings a quiet, private, high-end car buying experience, I think anyone who wants to buy a car can not refuse.
There is no doubt that such an experience is enough to drive sales increases, but more importantly, such an experience is not just to increase sales. The overall car purchase feeling and the service feeling in place that are in place are completely able to feed back to the brand and help the brand create a more high-end image.
Today, Lincoln has launched the 2.0 version of the Lincoln Way upgrade to combine digital technology with user services, and Lincoln has created the Lincoln Way Experience Center to try to create a new retail model.
Yes, the accumulation of history, the leading of product technology, and the high-end selection of materials are certainly the signs of luxury, but what can continue this sense of luxury must be everyone who contacts users and the brand temperament they represent. Compared to brands that are more keen to offer offers to drive sales, the results may not be fast, but they are longer-term.
At the same time, the benefits of domestic models are obviously greater than those of simple imports. In fact, the localization of luxury brands, especially the luxury brands of the second camp, is a risky road. For now, assuming that there is no stronger brand premium support, if such a localization road cannot be successful in one fell swoop, it is actually possible to drag down the sales of imported cars and even the brand value.
Lincoln's path to localization was actually accompanied by such concerns from the beginning. But the facts seem to give us a positive feedback. Judging from last year's sales data alone, the overall sales of domestic adventurers, navigators and aviators reached 82,000 units, accounting for more than 90% of the total sales of the brand in the whole year.
Such achievements, in addition to the "Lincoln Way" boost, domestic car prices are more easily accepted by more consumers, the launch of models for the Needs of the Chinese Market (such as long wheelbase version and limited edition), but also let consumers have a more close to their own needs of the choice.
electrification
The key to Lincoln's continued success
At this stage, lincoln has actually gained a firm foothold and has the strength to continue to sprint upwards after returning to the Chinese market. But in fact, there is always change. At present, almost all luxury brands and giant car companies have adjusted their development goals to a new direction of electrification and intelligence. What about Lincoln?
In fact, Lincoln's steps have already begun. In the middle of last year, it was reported that Lincoln had begun to develop a pure electric model, which will be launched in 2022; since then, they have launched their first new energy model, the Adventurer PHEV, to kick off the prelude to the electrification of the brand. Apparently, Lincoln had a bigger plan.
In fact, earlier in the launch of the adventurer PHEV, Lincoln China President Mao Jingbo said in an interview: "Lincoln will be based on the long-term development of electrification, establish a new pure electric platform and architecture, and create a pure electric vehicle model that truly brings smart travel experience to Chinese customers; in addition to adding a pure electric model to the existing product lineup, Lincoln also plans to realize the electrification of all products and truly integrate electrification into Lincoln's brand genes." ”
Just a few days ago, as the Lincoln brand celebrated its centennial, this goal was further clarified. Lincoln is promoting the continuous evolution of product design concepts, moving in the direction of intelligent connection and electrification, and will eventually launch a complete lineup of intelligently connected and electrified products worldwide by 2030. Obviously, this is again a strategy that has firmly stepped on the pace of the times.
There is no doubt that for Lincoln, who has become a century-old brand, returning to China 8 years ago was a good idea. What is even more valuable is that every step after returning to China, they insisted on following their own plans and walked correctly. Therefore, we have reason to expect their future steps. If Lincoln continues to be determined and continues to go right, perhaps a better future awaits them.
After all, I've always believed that Lincoln, is a good car.