New energy vehicle "planting grass" short video.
Author | Zhao Jinjie
Edit | Wang Jing
Source | Packed Lunch Finance (ID:daxiongfan)
China's new energy vehicle market in April presented a contrast between ice and fire: on the one hand, Tesla, Wei Xiaoli and other new car-making forces, even if the price continues to rise, the delivery orders are still in short supply; on the other hand, some traditional car companies' new energy vehicles, even if the price reduction is launched, the number of in-store consultants is still rare.
Behind the poor sales of new energy vehicles of traditional car companies, it is precisely the obstacle to the transformation of new energy that is limited by historical baggage.
As Gao Ming, an analyst in the automotive industry, said: "Compared with the new forces of first-line car manufacturing, joint venture new energy or independent brand new energy models, in the process of transformation to intelligence and electrification, investment is still relatively insufficient, especially in the marketing of foreign brands, there is still a lack of obvious market positioning." ”
The capital market was the first to give real monetary feedback on these deficiencies. Even if the sales volume is several times that of the new car-making forces, the current market value of the domestic SAIC Group (30.276 billion US dollars) is still inferior to that of Weilai Automobile (33.192 billion US dollars), and the market value of Geely Automobile and Beiqi Blue Valley is also lagging behind the ideal car and Xiaopeng Automobile as a latecomer in the industry.
Automobile manufacturers aware of this have embarked on the road of rebuilding new brands: Dongfeng Motor has launched the new energy vehicle brand Lantu, SAIC and Ali have launched Zhiji, Geely has launched Extreme Krypton, AND BAIC has launched Polar Fox Automobile...
The competition between car companies is more and more dependent on the brand influence they have established. NIO is even planning to export its high-end brand image in the automotive field to the smartphone field.
At present, a major problem in the field of transformation of new energy vehicles by traditional car companies has become how to reshape their brand power and how to regain the recognition of young people like Tesla.
At present, young people are more willing to buy brands with more innovative marketing methods and higher exposure. Among young people, automobiles are changing from traditional assets and tools to consumer goods and trendy products.
These changes have changed the marketing and delivery ideas of car companies, focusing on brand building and the penetration of user cognition, and the delivery channels have begun to form a 3+N pattern, that is, in addition to comprehensive information and automotive information, new short videos + other forms have been added.
With the help of short video platforms, in the face of the same young car buyer group, new energy vehicle brands from traditional car companies are waiting for a window of opportunity to catch up with the new forces of head car manufacturing.
In the new energy user car purchase decision, the brand factor surpassed the policy factor in 2021, accounting for 63%. The short video platform with huge user traffic has undoubtedly become a heavy spot for brand marketing of new energy vehicles. The short video platform itself is also interested in strengthening its expansion into the automotive industry. During the double 11 period in 2021, Wuling Hongguang MINI's Douyin live broadcast room accumulated more than 1,300 full vehicle orders, and the peak GMV in a single day exceeded 14 million yuan.
Recently, Huge Engine launched the first large-scale commercial project focusing on the new energy automobile industry, "New Car Driving", the topic has exceeded 310 million times, and on April 16, it launched "Call Us!" Champion" new energy vehicle cross-border live broadcast, Douyin live broadcast more than 40 million viewers.
The expansion into the field of new energy vehicles is behind the outward value of vibrato's "planting grass". On April 19, the Douyin APP was revealed to be the first-level entrance "same city" in the upper left corner of the home page, and it was being changed to "planting grass" in the internal test. With more than 600 million DUA user traffic, Douyin, which started with short videos, is showing a stronger value of content planting grass - even if it is a new energy vehicle with a unit price of more than 100,000 yuan.
It's not just Douyin that's eyeing the car track. In June 2019, Kuaishou launched the "Quick Talk Car" channel to try to aggregate automotive-related content and find new commercialization paths. On April 15, the commercial debut of the video number live broadcast also selected the car brand, and the social traffic of high-quality acquaintances began to open to the brand.
The new momentum of growth brought by short videos to automobile marketing is attracting more and more attention from car companies. At the scene of the launch of the new car, in addition to the traditional media, a new group of people began to appear - the anchors of the major short video platforms with mobile phones live broadcast, and their figures also frequently appeared in major auto shows, with the expansion of their influence, and more and more invited by car companies to stand.
Crowley related data show that in 2021, the average monthly interest users of automobiles exceeded 350 million, of which the growth rate of post-00 users was the fastest, and the younger generation gradually became a new force in automobile content consumption, economic environmental protection and sense of science and technology, as well as the form of live broadcast + short video, which became an important reason for attracting post-00s users.
Especially in the original main marketing methods of car companies such as auto shows and new car conferences, which are affected by the epidemic and face many uncertainties, the traffic blessing of short videos and their own young users have become an important factor that determines the success or failure of brand sales of major new energy vehicle companies in the future.
The car-related content within the short video platform is getting more and more attention from users.
A statistical report from Judian Arithmetic shows that short videos are becoming an important channel for users to understand new energy brands. In 2021, the scale of new energy interest users increased by 104%, new energy related searches increased by 44.1%, new energy reading increased by 53%, and new energy comments increased by 104%.
Entering 2022, the content of new energy vehicles on Douyin continues to explode. The #New Car Driving to Topic, initiated by Huge Engine, has been played 310 million times, and "Call Us!" was held on the evening of the 16th. The live broadcast of "Champions" invited the well-known sports host Huang Jianxiang and Wang Mao, who was just known to young people for explaining the game during the Winter Olympics, to bring together the two world champions of the championship team members Hui Ruoqi and Xiao Ruoteng, and the caller team members Pi You and Nan Ge said that the car was two Douyin car masters, and there was a cross-border live broadcast competition around sports and new energy vehicle knowledge.
A live show that is essentially a car, after the cross-border addition of sports champions, was given a new point of view, and more than 40 million people watched the live broadcast of the night.
In addition to the endorsement of KOLs in the automotive field such as Pu You and Nan Ge Said Car to explain the main selling points and car purchase preferential policies of the Chery Tiggo 8PLUS Kunpeng e+ and ARCFOX Jihu Alpha S models that appeared in the program, through the string of Huang Jianxiang and Wang Mao, the two supporters, this 2-hour live broadcast activity, with the help of the specially set "brainstorm" and "physical challenge" links, in the most interesting gamification method, and Bluetooth headsets, building blocks, smart phones and other prizes to motivate, Drive users in the live broadcast room to understand the brand characteristics and functional characteristics of Chery Tiggo 8PLUS Kunpeng e+ and ARCFOX Polar Fox Alpha S.
In addition, by prompting users to click on the small windmill in the lower right corner of the screen in the live broadcast room, Douyin can also help these cooperative car companies collect the contact information of interested customers and form a new car purchase clue, which means that the short video platform is assuming the role of "from product to effect" after the link.
For car companies, a shortcut to shaping the brand is to unite an IP that is loved by young people and has spiritual appeal, Douyin itself is an IP loved by young people, plus Wang Meng, Hui Ruoqi, Xiao Ruoteng and many other world champions, the sports fighting spirit they pass on is also a brand innovation mark that brands such as Chery and Jihu Automobile need at the moment.
In Call Us! The day before the broadcast of "Champions", the video number also put a satellite in the automotive field - the first commercialization of the video number live broadcast was exposed, giving the Extreme Fox Car. With the help of the 45 million cumulative viewers circled by Cui Jian's concert, the brand image of Jihu Automobile has completed two phenomenal screen brushing communication in two consecutive days.
But the difference between the two is very obvious. The first broadcast of "Call Us! "Champion" will focus on the new energy vehicle itself, through the combination of sports champions and car speakers, in the form of a question and answer competition, completed the soft output of the information of the two new energy vehicle models. The program used the "highly watchable" live broadcast content to plant grass for the audience, and Chery and Jihu Automobile were also deeply involved in the in-depth co-creation of the content.
The video number concert is a more direct brand strong exposure, the scarcity of the first commercial live broadcast, so that the video number poured a lot of resources, but also let the event's topic degree, perception full, evoking the spiritual resonance of a generation.
An interesting phenomenon is that the commercial cooperation between the two activities is polar fox cars. In the period of brand upward explosion, Jihu Automobile has shown cross-border awareness and boldness far beyond traditional car brands. Whether it is with Wang Meng, Hui Ruoqi, Xiao Ruoteng and other world champions on the same stage or standing on Cui Jian's concert stage, consumers see the brand tone of "dare to break the boundary", which should be in line with the brand slogan of "born to break the boundary, why not".
The obsession of auto brands with cross-border and circle-breaking is precisely because new energy vehicle consumers are changing. According to the research done by Huge Arithmetic, among the high-potential consumer groups of new energy vehicles in China, among the "users who do not have a car but plan to buy new energy vehicles", the proportion of young users aged 18-25 accounts for 26%, which is the highest proportion of the group; from the perspective of subdivision brand attributes, whether it is the new force of car manufacturing or the new energy brand of traditional car companies, they are striving to compete for the new main force of consumption of new energy vehicles aged 18-30.
To impress this generation of young consumers, the effect of conventional means is stretched. "Call us! The live broadcast of "Champions" is not only the first time that new energy vehicles have crossed borders with sports champions, but also opened the prelude to the brand marketing war of new energy vehicle companies in 2022: whether it is a new force or a new brand, brand marketing without circle-breaking influence will be suppressed by competitors.
For new energy vehicle brands, the huge traffic pool of the short video platform can play a role in ensuring that the event volume covers a wider range of people, and the content planting ability of the platform further deepens the penetration of the brand power and product power of new energy vehicles into the potential car buyers, thus gradually guiding potential users from the public domain of short videos to the company's own business domain, taking a key step towards the final car purchase decision.
Around new traffic, new channels, new scenes and new people, short videos are becoming an important channel entrance for new energy vehicle brand marketing.
The short video platform can not only help the new energy business of traditional car companies to be brand exposed and potential passenger diversion, but also become a standard skill for new first-line car-making forces such as Tesla.
In the development stage where the ownership of new energy vehicles is still very low, in order to strive for as much brand exposure as possible and occupy the market, shopping malls once became a competition field for new energy vehicle companies. Moreover, for new energy vehicle companies that are biased towards younger, the main consumer group of shopping malls happens to overlap with the former demand.
But heading into 2021, things have changed. Tesla, which has opened a precedent in a shopping mall, began to plan to close the offline experience stores in the core business districts of first- and second-tier cities, and move the store site to the outer business circles and suburban business circles of the city, so as to reduce operating costs and expand new reach groups.
When the good shopping center location has been seized by the first-comers, and the car companies do not want to spend high prices to lay out offline stores through price wars, the short video platform that can play the role of the online experience store has undoubtedly become a better choice for many car companies.
For these car companies, with the help of short videos, expanding new contacts for potential people has become the second growth curve to promote brands.
More car companies are also gradually realizing the potential of short video platforms in brand promotion. Tesla as early as October 2019 has been stationed in Kuaishou, follow-up also opened a Douyin account, in the Tesla exclusive page, users can make an appointment for a test drive, query the price, and search for nearby experience stores and charging pile locations.
In addition to Tesla, mainstream car brands including BMW China, FAW-Volkswagen, Audi and other mainstream car brands have opened accounts on Douyin, of which more than 50 car brands with more than 100,000 fans have more than 50 accounts.
Especially considering that after the gradual recovery of the automobile supply chain, tesla and Wei Xiaoli's current order demand in short supply will eventually return to normal, and even with the continuous improvement of the production capacity of these new car-making forces and new factories, they must also consider the practical problem of how to expand the sales channels of new cars.
Through short videos and other platforms to efficiently expand powder and live powder, multi-fan services, so that the short video account page step by step to develop into the owner's online community, thereby enhancing the owner's stickiness and brand service image, will also become one of the many tasks that these head new energy vehicle manufacturers need to do next.
And the link for users to buy cars is also tilting towards short videos. On the one hand, user decisions are becoming more and more proactive, and the proportion of models that have been determined before purchasing a car has risen from 68% in 2020 to 75% in 2021; on the other hand, the number of user visits to the store has shown a decreasing trend, from 2.46 in 2019 to 2.33 in 2021.
Major new energy vehicle companies began to "plant grass" new energy vehicles on Douyin, and it is precisely to see this change. According to the "Research Report on the Grass Planting Power of the Three Major Platforms" released by Crowley, content planting can greatly influence consumer decision-making. According to the report, 74% of users have purchased a product that has been planted, while more than 80% of users will complete the purchase within a week after being "planted".
With the deeper and deeper involvement of Douyin in the automotive field and more and more linked car brands, the car marketing on Douyin is showing a more complete integration trend, such as:
1. Rely on the brand number to complete the construction of the private domain position of the car enterprise
2. Achieve scientific talent marketing and content planting through the giant star map
3 through something like "Call Us! Champion" and other live broadcast events to achieve product + effect of the cloud to see the car cloud explanation
4. Finally, the link is precipitated to the clue test drive and even converted.
This one-stop business closed loop is being valued by more and more new energy vehicle companies. In the face of the short video platform that enters the automotive field with huge traffic, this will undoubtedly be a wave of dividend period for new energy vehicle brands to carry out brand marketing.
Resources:
"Accelerating" Change: 2021 Automotive Industry Content Ecological Development Research Report, Crowley & Autohome
2021 Automotive Digital Marketing Insights, QuestMobile
"Car companies aim at Kuaishou Old Iron", Future Auto Daily
"Electric vehicles are rising in price? Not! The maximum price of such new energy vehicles is reduced by 90,000 yuan, and the sales say "lose money to sell"" Daily Economic News
"New Car "Enclosure Movement": Rush shopping malls, scramble for thousands of stores targets", Tech Planet
Aiming for the Little Red Book? Douyin also began to "plant grass"", leopard change
"New Cars Crossing the Line of Life and Death", Tencent Technology