Author | Guan Xuejun
Source | Car selection network
When the tank 300 was in short supply, the tank 500 blind booking actually received more than 20,000 orders, what makes the "tank" so crazy? What magic did Wei Jianjun, chairman of Great Wall Motors, exert on the "tank"? How far can the "tank" go? If we only seek answers from the product point of view, we may never understand why "tanks" continue to be popular, why they can be so hot that even The German and Japanese systems are dwarfed.
We turned our attention to the era when we had just decided to open up to the outside world, when foreign brands were good at everything, compared with Chinese brand cars, which could not be seen, and there were gaps. As a result, people began to explore the reasons behind it, and engineers and technicians looked for gaps in products and technologies to catch up. Humanistic people look for cultural gaps, and as a result, both the literary and theoretical aspects attribute the ultimate problem to cultural differences, and then the worship and pursuit of Western automobile civilization. And Wei Jianjun's ability to heat up the "tank" should be said to be a landmark phenomenon of the times.
In fact, without the support of national economic strength, without the support of leading product technology, and without the support of reliable product quality, any brand and brand culture will not gain support. Today, some people believe that German brands and Japanese brands are declining, and from the two levels of national economy and products, it is not the decline in the international status of these brands, but the improvement of China's status in both economy and products, narrowing the gap between the two sides. 30 years ago, when the media told the story of German brands, many young people flocked to it; when reporting on the daily life of Germans, Chinese compared with Germany, they were ashamed of themselves; when interviewing Mercedes-Benz factories, people were envious of German craftsmanship and quality. The root cause of all these phenomena is the gap, and it is this inner identity that forms the cornerstone of the German brand's heartfelt trust and yearning. Including Japanese brands in China, the same is true, that is, the hard power of products + the soft power of culture constitutes a brand culture that occupies people's minds. Wei Jianjun is one of the few wonderful entrepreneurs in China, he has established his own hard power with tank 300 and tank 500, and then empowered by the current trend of Chinese culture, thus forming a wave of hot sales that is higher than a wave.
In recent years, The Chinese cultural fever has swept the country, Taoist, Confucian, Buddhist culture to all aspects of life (including enterprise management), this wave of cultural revival and the rapid growth of China's economy is synchronized, China's automobile quality has been greatly improved, the brand to the high-end impact is also from here. This is precisely the period when the dispute between Chinese and Western cultures is most intense. The clever Wei Jianjun did not find a beautiful word from traditional Chinese culture to name his products, but chose the word "tank". "Tank" is reminiscent of a popular e-sports game, many young people are growing up in this tank battle game, the word tank is very neutral, both won the 80s and 90s likes, but also did not involve in cultural conflicts. Therefore, riding on the general trend of the national tide and the momentum of network communication, the tank brand has easily won the recognition of Chinese young people.
It is worth noting that when international brands such as Germany, Japan, and the United States enter China, they actually enter China with a sense of Western-centrism, and it is the export of Western culture to China. Today, the rise of Chinese culture has formed a reverse export of culture for the West, and it is a reverse export of products, or the reduction of the "trade" deficit of the West on Chinese culture. If only a few cars enter Western Europe, it may not be enough, if it is a large number of cars into the birthplace of automobile products and culture, there may be a clash of civilizations. In this sense, Wei Jianjun (including all CEOs who aspire to turn their companies into multinational companies) seems to need to inject more cultural value, or brand values, into the brand, rather than just staying at the level of tide culture.
In fact, whether it is Chinese theater culture or Western theater culture, most of them tell the stories of emperors and generals and talented people, some of which are real, some of which are completely fictional, and these stories constitute a social paradigm of behavior. If you delve into the brand culture of multinational companies, it is actually another form of expression of this paradigm culture. This paradigm tells people that first of all you have to be brave, you have to be good, you have to persevere... Then you can be successful. In short, for you to succeed, you need to have hard and soft power, and you need to gain strength through the path of justice. For the people, whoever is strong (unless they do not agree with it nationally or religiously) accepts the culture of whomever they want, and the same is true for brand communication. When we put Wei Jianjun's "tank" into this framework to examine, it is happy to see that he has achieved great success, but he and his team still have a lot of work to do, because the challenges ahead will be even more arduous.
In the context of China's sustained upward trend, Chinese culture promotes the development of brand culture, so we have seen the rapid growth of some Chinese brands such as Tank and Lynk & Co, especially on the road to the high-end. At the same time, there are also unsuccessful cases, and some company CEOs are indignantly questioning why my products are better than foreign brands, and the car cannot sell their prices, and the sales volume cannot go up. Some bosses even accuse consumers - buying foreign brands is sublime. However, in the context of the relative political, economic and cultural adjustment of the East and the West, to examine the new situation of product and brand competition may be able to give different answers.
We are very happy to see the success of Wei Jianjun's "tank", we are very happy to see the success of Lynk & Co, and hope that more Chinese brands can understand themselves from the cultural level, after all, we are in a huge and profound change, we hope to see a happy ending. After all, "tank" is a cultural phenomenon, but what is the cultural connotation of "tank"? How far can the "tank" eventually drive? We will continue to pay attention to this and select Wei Jianjun as the news person of the week in this issue.
(Image source: Internet)