Nowadays, Buick changes the car logo, which has become a hot topic in the automotive circle, and netizens joked that it has changed from "shield" to "nail clipper". The change of bid is intended to break the game, but this will not pull Buick out of the quagmire of sales woes. What's going on here?
1. Three shields become "nail clippers"?
As the most iconic carrier of the car brand, the replacement of the car logo is a big thing. Buick, an influential brand in China, will also be rebranded, which means that the Buick "three shields" logo familiar to the public will no longer exist. The recent announcement of the US Patent Office shows that Buick has applied for a new brand LOGO design pattern, and the oblique "three shields" logo that has been used for 22 years will become a new image of parallel juxtaposition. For the new car logo, many netizens expressed their inability to accept it, "ugly crying", and some people ridiculed the new LOGO such as "three nail clippers" and "three nail caps".
2. Buick is stuck in a sales woe?
Although Buick is owned by GM of the United States, it is actually more like a Chinese special supply brand, with annual sales in China accounting for about 80% of global sales, which can be described as the joint venture brand most dependent on the Chinese market. Since entering China's territory in 1998, Buick has been sailing smoothly, and in terms of market share and sales performance, it has the confidence to compete with joint venture brands such as North and South Volkswagen and Japanese Liangtian. But in recent years, Buick has been stuck in the quagmire of sales difficulties in China. The setback in the Chinese market means that the Buick brand has begun to decline.
In 2018, Buick's sales in China began to decline, and in 2019, it was even kicked out of the club with annual sales of millions of vehicles, and the sales of the main model Yinglang plummeted by nearly 40%, causing Buick to be seriously injured. By 2021, Buick sales will drop to 820,000 units, down about 10% year-on-year, and Yinglang, Regal, Oncowe, GL6 and other models will decline by 11.0%, 28.9%, 12.7% and 70.5% respectively. Entering the Year of the Tiger, Buick is even more unbearable, monthly sales from the past 890,000 waist cut, February sales of only 42,048 vehicles, down 18.5% year-on-year, of which Yinglang, Regal, GL8 fell by 66.38%, 66.04%, 4.21% respectively.
3. Can't change the bid save Buick?
Why did Buick fall to the altar? First of all, from the perspective of product models and brand image, Buick looks old-fashioned. Foreign media once reported that "the average age of Buick buyers in five years has dropped from 64 to 57 years old." From this, we can see the severity of the "aging" problem of Buick car owners. As the trend of rejuvenation in China's auto market becomes more and more obvious, Buick also feels the pressure to work towards rejuvenation in terms of product design and brand image, but this is not something that can be done quickly overnight. Changing the logo is also a step towards Buick's rejuvenation, and we'll see how effective it is.
Secondly, GM's obsession with the three-cylinder machine is the culprit of the sales decline of Buick, especially Yinglang. GM is very active in the implementation of three-cylinder engines, Buick's Yinglang, GL6, Oncora, Oncora GX and other models, are equipped with 1.3T three-cylinder engines. Buick three-cylinder engine models, covering cars, SUVs, MPVs and other segments. However, because of the vibration and noise caused by natural defects, Chinese consumers are deeply disgusted by the three-cylinder engine, and the acceptance level is very low. As a result, Buick finally "made its own sins can not live", confessed to the market, and Yinglang and other models began to change from three-cylinder engines to four-cylinder engines.
Finally, Buick's products, in addition to the terminal price of GL8 is relatively firm, other models in the terminal market, most of them have large discounts, at least larger than the same level of Japanese and other brands. Moreover, cadillac, a luxury brand under GM, the price has been lowered to the ordinary joint venture brand, and Buick with the same platform and technology can only fight a "price war". In the long run, the price of Buick models is not firm, and the discount is large, which has become the inherent impression of consumers. Although it can be exchanged for price in the short term, it is very harmful to Buick's brand in the long run.