"The difference between a leader and a follower is innovation."
This is Steve Jobs' philosophy, and it is also the fundamental reason why Apple can achieve a level of leadership over competitors in the field of high-tech consumer electronics.
Facts have proved that if you can accurately identify the core needs and core technologies, and firmly grasp the consumer mind with products, you can enjoy the dividends of being a rule-maker. If you choose the same track as the front runner, even if you have more advantages in the grinding and optimization of the non-core peripherals, it is still difficult to shake the position of the leader because the consumer market is more demanding.
The frontrunner bears the greatest market development risk, so it deserves to receive an equal market dividend; the follower has an object that can be imitated and referenced, and naturally needs to be placed by consumers under a magnifying glass compared with the leader.
When the automotive market is in an incremental era, the dividend effect of the frontrunner is not obvious, because the market is large enough that the followers and leaders have their own cakes. However, when the auto market enters an era of highly full competition, and each company inevitably begins to face direct dialogue, profits have long been equalized, monopoly and speculation have been difficult to reap huge profits, and only innovation can win considerable market returns.
This is also why the Chinese auto market has become less and less eager to follow suit.
Product follows the trend: "do small" or "hard"?
On the one hand, the increasingly differentiated consumer trend, on the other hand, the increasingly stagnant space for technological progress, and now want to make a dazzling new car, not only to test the product manager's business ability, but also to test his life experience and insight into human nature.
Therefore, even if most of today's automotive product innovation is integrated innovation, as long as any new idea becomes a hit, there will never be a shortage of followers on the market.
Two typical cases are pure electric cars and high-end hardcore off-road vehicles.
If we regard micro and small cars as "small cars" and medium-sized, medium-sized and large cars as "big cars", the new car share of "small cars" in 2021 will be 13.3%, an increase of 1.7 percentage points compared with 2020, while the new car share of "big cars" will be 33.9%, an increase of 1.2 percentage points compared with 2020.
In other words, under the general trend of consumption upgrading, not only the big cars benefit, but also the small cars have ushered in a new round of development because of urban congestion, the advent of the wave of purchases and other factors.
In the car market, the most prominent one is the scooter market created by Hongguang MINIEV. The emergence of such small, low-cost, and stylish electric vehicles has expanded the market capacity of mini cars in 2021 by 174% compared with 2020.
When Hongguang MINIEV was listed in July 2020, there was a consensus within SAIC-GM-Wuling that there would be imitators within 9 months. It turns out that just 5 months later, the Ben E-Star launched the national version of the model in almost the same model, and later there were more extremely god-like products like Chery Ice Cream. And Euler Black Cat, Chery Ant, Collavi, Zero Run T03, Sihao E10X, which are also low-priced micro-electric vehicles, also have a good sales level.
However, as a market pioneer, Hongguang MINIEV's share in the mini car market still rose from 38.7% in 2020 to 47.6%, while none of the competitors behind it had a market share of more than 10%.
Some people say that the product threshold of this type of car is very low, almost relying on the price to sell the car. However, behind the low price, it is the ultimate pursuit of business model efficiency, and the higher the volume, the more advantageous the cost control. Not to mention, Hongguang MINIEV has already explored its own unique culture, which is the key element that makes a fundamental difference from the followers.
Therefore, even if competitors will look for the shortcomings of Hongguang MINIEV, such as fewer air bags, such as no ESC, these cannot become the factors that determine whether to buy in the eyes of the scooter consumers who have been cultivated. Just like the iPhone charging slowly, the bezels are thick, and the signal is poor, it cannot prevent it from selling well.
Another big fire segment of the market is the high-end hardcore off-road vehicle created by the Tank 300.
Before tank 300, hardcore buggies were the choice of niche players. Because there is almost no hardcore off-road vehicle that can meet daily needs in terms of comfort, convenience and intelligence. According to this statement, it seems that the tank 300 is just on the bottom of a hardcore off-road vehicle, and the city SUV should do a good job. But it is precisely this kind of innovation that activates a whole new segment.
Because looking at all car companies, there are only a few car companies that have the skills to build hard-core off-road vehicles and build urban cars, and have made achievements in new technologies such as intelligent networking, if you count the creation of affordable models, almost only Great Wall Motors is left.
Because the order is hot, because the production capacity can not be satisfied, because there is no competitor, the tank 300 side has enjoyed the dividends of the market, on the other hand, it also provides a new path reference for chinese brands recognized by consumers. The pre-priced tank 500 is more than 300,000 yuan, and the order volume has even exceeded the sales volume of the original market segment for a whole year.
And such a situation is naturally seen by competitors. BYD and Dongfeng have put the high-end hardcore off-road vehicle project on the agenda, Chery has exhibited similar concept cars on the Jietu brand, and BAIC, which has been cultivating the hardcore off-road vehicle field for many years, has not let go of the opportunity to lean closely. Toyota already has rumors of resuming Prado production, and Ford may be remorseful for not introducing Bronco in time.
However, at this time, no matter who comes again, it will be compared by consumers with the tank 300 in all aspects. As long as the Tank 300 cannot be crushed in all directions, including price (which is almost impossible), it will be difficult to shake the position of the front-runner, and the result will still be that the Tank 300 occupies an absolutely high market share, and other followers eat the rest.
Marketing follow-the-trend: What else is there besides naming modifications?
Giving a model a catch-all name is nothing new. The spirits of the Great Wall, the cool bears, the auspicious King Kong and the pandas, the wind and clouds of Chery, and the sons of the East are all car names with Chinese characteristics more than ten years ago.
However, in the past ten years, the name of our models has either been a "letter + number" general style, or a "high-level word" that every word is recognized and connected to the cloud, and for a time, consumers do not care much about the name of the car.
However, the advent of the Big Haval Dog in 2020 changed all that. On the one hand, big dog is an extremely popular and extremely affinity name; on the other hand, the name big dog is voted out by netizens, and the recognition of consumers superimposes the boldness of car companies, so that this event breaks the circle.
Since then, the Great Wall has never returned on this road of flower names, cat and dog cannon tank mechs, each car name is both easy to remember and can make people connect with the existence of product features, and can continue to dominate public opinion. At this time, competitors naturally have to follow suit.
Throughout 2021, we have seen countless cases of easy-to-remember naming of car companies, Geely calls the hybrid system "Thor Power", BYD names the new car series with marine life and warship types, and Chery also has ant and ice cream models. Not only independent brands, but even joint venture car companies have begun to learn from them. Before the listing of the new Lingdu L, SAIC Volkswagen also opened an online call for names, and spicy steamed buns, spicy hot, spicy mando and so on were impressively listed.
However, there is no longer a family whose popularity and freshness can be compared with the round of trend marketing of the Great Wall in 2020. When consumers have aesthetic fatigue, and even feel that some of the names are deliberate, this kind of marketing for the positive promotion of the product, has been far less than before.
Equally likely to cause aesthetic fatigue among consumers is the endless vehicle modifications.
Modification, itself, is a phenomenon of automobile culture, and it should only appear in marketing behaviors for the purpose of cultural shaping. However, since Wuling and the Great Wall, two topic car companies, opened the marketing of vehicle modification in 2020, for more than a year, whether there is a modification gene, whether there is a corresponding culture, it is necessary to paint the car like a model, add a surround, and install a tail wing.
Leaving aside the power and chassis modification for the purpose of improving performance, the vast majority of ordinary consumers' cognition of modification is to turn tool cars into toy cars and jewelry cars, become good-looking, and become personalized. Just like some mobile games sell skins, they have no impact on character attributes and game balance, but they can be used as a carrier for personality expression.
This kind of behavior is guided by the manufacturer in advance, and eventually induces the majority of third parties to "take the initiative" to produce various types of peripherals.
Just like a casual search on the Internet, there is a vast sea of iPhone phone cases. In turn, mobile phone cases are easy to buy, which has invisibly become one of the reasons why many consumers buy iPhones.
Therefore, just putting a few so-called modified cars on auto shows, pop-ups and other activities can at most allow consumers to look at it more, whether it is the shaping of culture, the stimulation of sales, the guidance of third-party ecology, the role is minimal.
At this time, for the leader, it actually does not need to deliberately suppress the follower, relying on brand recognition, intellectual property barriers, increasing the cost of imitation, quickly covering the core position of sales, etc., it can naturally block the entry and scale expansion of the follower.
Write at the end
In the manufacturing industry, from design drawings to mass production, every link may be compromised more than once because of costs, regulations, and supply chains. Even if the scale has begun, the characteristics of heavy assets determine that the pursuit of efficiency cannot be relaxed from beginning to end.
At the same time, the Internet has made information transparent and more concentrated, people can remember the first, the second, there is no way to remember the third, and the second, the third imitator, it is difficult to fully surpass the first front-runner. With the further deepening of industrial change, the cost of following the trend will also become higher and higher until it is unsustainable. Therefore, in the automotive industry, in the fully competitive Chinese auto market, consumers are no longer waiting to follow suitors.
The wise change from time to time, the knower follows events, and the dividends of those who follow the trend will become less and less.