Just like Dr. Jia Mingdi, general manager of SAIC Audi's marketing business, said, "SAIC Audi is different from the new forces of pure car manufacturing, and it is different from the traditional luxury brand, what it wants to do is an efficient direct connection to cover the whole life cycle of users, a physical e-commerce ecological experience", SAIC Audi seems to be different from audi in our previous impression in terms of product and brand image.
Fortunately, As one of the several West Districts, after the static experience of the White Mage and the Black Samurai, Ah Chuan said that after the static experience of the White Mage and the Black Samurai, he also got the opportunity to face face to face with two senior executives of SAIC Audi (Dr. Jia Mingdi, General Manager of SAIC Audi Marketing Business, and Gao Dele, General Manager of SAIC Audi Marketing Business), to have a deeper understanding of what kind of new ideas SAIC Audi has in innovation, brand positioning, and competition with new forces.
In fact, the interview with the two senior executives of SAIC Audi is of great significance, to know that in the past 20 years, Audi has left a mature and calm brand image for Chinese users and consumers, and SAIC Audi will open the first Audi city in southwest China in Chengdu's largest commercial complex MixC, in addition to reflecting the importance of the western market, you can also see SAIC Audi's active changes in the structure of sales channels and the operation of young user communities. I think that only through such a process of participation and interaction can we truly understand the significance of "innovation" and "enterprising" for SAIC Audi.
About innovation
At present, most of the traditional luxury brands are still in the relatively remote Motor City 4S stores to show the brand, and SAIC Audi chooses to open the "Audi City" and 300-400 square meters of urban stores in the urban life circle, shopping malls, places with enough traffic (in 2022, it is planned to build 120-150, not 80-120 cities), is to hope to be closer to consumers, after all, the really good experience, not to say that you can do something, but this thing is around, It's easy to experience him—
Compared with users giving up their own life time and running to the distant motor city to see the brand, SAIC Audi chose to take the initiative to enter the user's life circle and become a door-to-door platform, rather than waiting for customers to come to the door.
What's more, saicid Audi is not just rebuilding the system, but also providing a disruptive experience:
First, in the past, luxury brands were technology-oriented, and the OEMs said that they would do what they wanted, but consumers did not necessarily get a good experience, so consumers also proposed "what I want you should give". The current positioning of SAIC Audi is in China for China, and the needs of all Chinese consumers and users are imported by SAIC Audi to the Audi brand to do product positioning and product design.
Taking the just-listed A7L as an example, some people will feel that this is not the original imported A7, but we can see and experience the adjustments made by SAIC Audi for consumer needs (not simply to do processing and manufacturing), such as the softness of the seat, the depth of the seat, and the space in the rear row, which are not experienced on the original product.
Second, SAIC Audi spent a lot of time and energy to develop front and back office software systems and APP, through the combination of online and offline, so that the APP's community operation has been going in the direction of rejuvenation, users can 24 hours, 365 days anytime, anywhere and anywhere direct contact with enterprises, such as understanding product information, vehicle intelligence issues, or express appeals, express feelings, as long as users have time, SAIC Audi will definitely have a reply, do not let them wait.
Third, in each offline experience store, there will be SAIC Audi's underground parking garage resources, in addition to satisfying the user experience, test drive, delivery and other services, users can also come here to park and charge when they have time, or be busy, let saic auto Audi staff to help park.
The brand is higher than Mercedes-Benz BMW
"For traditional luxury brands, SAIC Audi is a new force, but for new power brands, SAIC Audi is a real luxury brand" This is Jia Mingdi's description of savoy Audi brand image.
Obviously, if you still regard SAIC Audi as a traditional luxury brand today, it may not be very accurate - its target customers and brand positioning have changed from the Audi we have remembered in the past. You know, from the current actual order analysis, only 14% of users have compared FAW Audi products, 32% compared BMW, 28% compared Mercedes-Benz, and the remaining ten percent of users are comparing Maserati, Porsche and even some imported products (more than 60% of users are not compared with FAW Audi). That is to say, we can easily distinguish SAIC Audi from FAW Audi from the classification of users.
On the other hand, from the pricing range of the first domestic model, the product line covering the traditional fuel and new energy markets, or the advanced level of technology and equipment of the new factory, whether it is compared with the model route originally introduced by Mercedes-Benz BMW in China, or compared with the hard power of the current new factory, SAIC Audi is indeed higher than BMW Brilliance and Beijing Benz in terms of brand positioning.
New energy track
What impressed me most in the interview was that SAIC Audi did not show anxiety when facing the future of the entire automotive industry (new energy track). Especially when everyone thinks that the "behemoth" of the fuel vehicle market size and scale of Audi may be affected by the transformation when facing the challenges of the new energy market, Jia Mingdi and Gao Dele showed unanimous confidence and firmness in the interview.
In Jia Mingdi's view, the technical threshold of electric vehicles is not higher than that of fuel vehicles, and the development of electric vehicle products that can manufacture fuel vehicles is not a problem, but the understanding of people who manufacture fuel vehicles may be different from electric vehicles: "We emphasize the Haipai luxury pure electric SUV, which is first of all a car, the basic attributes of the car are placed there, and then we need software, need intelligence, need human-computer interaction, empower this car, the brain of this car will be more intelligent, but it is still a car, you spend 500,000,700 to buy not software, but a car, We're a car company, not a software company."
From the perspective of SAIC Audi, although the Q5 e-tron electric vehicle currently launched is more of a means of transportation, users can still clearly perceive that this is a luxury brand of pure tram, luxury brand to provide a sense of material atmosphere, including hearing, etc., all the experience is first luxury, and then an electric vehicle.
In other words, what SAIC Audi has to do is to first solve whether innovative products are liked by users, and whether innovative models and experiences can lead the transformation of the circulation field at a certain stage in the future.
If you take a longer-term view, when the first batch of electric vehicle users develop the habit of using trams, they will inevitably upgrade, but when they face the need for upgrades, it is not simply to meet the basic needs, and will pursue a luxurious experience, and at that time (2025 or 2026), after the upgrade trend comes out, it will be the time node for SAIC Audi to exert force in the pure electric vehicle market.
Ah Chuan said car
Through our observation, many users or consumers come to the Audi City of the MixC and will preconceived that the store is also selling new energy vehicles, which just shows that SAIC Audi has changed the impression of the Audi brand in the minds of the general public to a certain extent. As the "most familiar new brand" in the Chinese auto market, the birth of SAIC Audi itself is the embodiment of Audi's enterprising, and SAIC Audi makes us remember not only the labels of "higher than Mercedes-Benz BMW" and "domestic luxury ceiling", but also their courage to innovate and dare to face challenges.