Written by Wu Jing
Editor/ Zhang Nan
Design / Shi Yuchao
"Any organization or individual, when it reaches a certain tipping point, needs to refresh itself."
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella summed up his core management ideas in the book Refresh. In the 7 years since he led the company back to the top, the "Microsoft Savior" has mainly refreshed three things: one is the company's mission; the other is the corporate strategy; and the third is the company's culture. In December 2018, the mired giant Microsoft once again reached the top, and after a gap of 20 years, it once again returned to the throne of the world's largest market capitalization.
The market miracle of catching up and turning the tide of the tide has been staged in the treacherous business world, and the cruel market has always tested the courage and determination of a company to refresh itself.
Just like the east wind that constantly changes and constantly refreshes itself.
Since the brand renewal of Dongfeng Fengxing in June 2021, Dongfeng Fengxing is continuing to create a new situation and carry out new explorations through a series of changes and innovations.
It is mainly reflected in three aspects: first, to build a new brand value system, guided by user needs, to achieve brand renewal, and to evolve to "professional travel service providers close to users"; secondly, to realize the renewal of technology and design system, the release of super cubic EMA architecture, feng dynamic design concept, to achieve a great leap in research and development strength; finally, to achieve a new product system, fully enter the field of family cars, and launch yacht-class seven-seat family car products.
A younger, vigorous and more connected Dongfeng fengxing with users is presented to consumers.
According to the data, in 2021, Dongfeng Fengxing's sales exceeded 130,000 vehicles, reaching 134138 vehicles, an increase of 47% year-on-year. Among them, the SUV products based on the Fengxing T5 EVO sold a total of 65,000 units, an increase of 101% year-on-year. In the first quarter of this year, Dongfeng Fengxing sold 41,800 vehicles, an increase of 32% year-on-year.
The footsteps did not stop, and the east wind was still running on the road of refreshing itself.
Disrupt the family car market
Accompanied by dazzling lights and exciting music, a sparkling waterway became the focus of the scene, and the winding yacht "stepped on the waves" from the water.
This is a classic scene of the popular yacht debut on April 15. In the evening, Dongfeng Fengxing joined hands with star Daddy Tian Liang to hold the "Yacht Class 7-Seat Family Car" Online Live Appearance Conference at the Guangzhou Nansha Yacht Club. Through an immersive experience interaction and exciting water appearance, Dongfeng Fengxing once again refreshed the outside world's perception of it.
"Fengxing Yacht is a heavy 7-seat family car under Dongfeng Fengxing, shouldering the mission of bringing high-quality life to users." That evening, Zeng Qinglin, general manager of Dongfeng Liuzhou Automobile Co., Ltd.'s passenger car sales company, said in his speech. As a new product, Fengxing Yacht undertakes the important task of Dongfeng Fengxing entering the home market, and its strategic position is self-evident.
From the Fengxing Yacht, the outside world has also captured the real transformation of the Dongfeng Fengxing.
Especially in terms of design, the evolution of Dongfeng Fengxingfeng's dynamic design concept has completely broken the previous design thinking of Dongfeng Fengxing. The wind-breaking yacht locomotive rides the wind and waves of the air intake grille, and the curved through the elegant waist, such a breakthrough design product is eye-catching.
The core product advantage of Fengxing Yacht is "comfortable and changeable space". Relying on the ultra-long wheelbase of 2900mm, The Wind Yacht has a unique ingenuity in terms of spatial layout. The second row of seats can not only be adjusted in four directions, with ventilation and heating functions, the first and second rows of seats can also be flattened at 180 °, truly allowing users to achieve "yacht lying", and the third row can be fully flat and 4/6 down. It is worth mentioning that Fengxing Yacht also has 43 storage spaces, a small table in the middle row and 10 charging interfaces, which meet the needs of users with humanized design.
In terms of power, the Fengxing yacht is equipped with a 1.5TD engine, a maximum torque of 285N·m, and has a maximum horsepower of 197 horses. Mated to Magna's 7-speed wet dual-clutch transmission, the combined fuel consumption is as low as 6.6L-6.8L.
With the "yacht class" product force to define the new category of 7 family cars, differentiate the dimensionality reduction and combat competitors, the arrival of popular yachts may make the people truly enter the "yacht era".
Youth is a belief
How to target the young consumer market and create a new contact point for communication with young people has become the primary issue of major car companies at present.
This vigorous youth revolution stems from the changes in the user portraits of the car market. Taking Dongfeng Feng as an example, in the past, the car buyers of Dongfeng Fengxing were generally around 40 years old, mainly individual industrial and commercial households, but the proportion of post-90s consumer groups increased rapidly in the past two years.
Changes in the end-consumer market are forcing companies to accelerate their embrace of rejuvenation.
Fengxing T5 EVO is the starting point of Fengxing's marketing transformation to youth. Dongfeng Fengxing innovatively created a new car listing conference in the form of a trend carnival that integrates tide cars, tide people and tide life, which makes people remember it vividly. Since then, Dongfeng Fengxing has been committed to creating young products, young marketing forms and channels, targeting young people's preferences and playing with them.
In 2021, Dongfeng Fengxing announced the naming of Fengxing yacht models and launched the circle version of the "Infernal Affairs" suspense blockbuster, which became the most discussed marketing event at the Guangzhou Auto Show. In 2022, Dongfeng Fengxing invited Olympic champion Tian Liang to share the driving experience of Fengxing Yacht as the "Chief Experience Officer" on Weibo Hot Search, triggering more than 50 million online onlookers, and successfully realized the marketing of Fengxing Yacht. Coupled with the unveiling event created by Dongfeng Fengxing with the theme of "Tian Liang's Yacht Party", its innovative form and ingenious content have made the attention of Fengxing Yacht rise again.
Under the innovative marketing offensive of the series, the image of young, trendy and high quality of popular yachts has also been successfully established.
In terms of appearance and color, Dongfeng Fengxing has also made many breakthroughs and changes, using dynamic lines and lively colors to convey fashion and agility.
In the view of Dongfeng Fengxing, when users choose a car, the choice of body color also expresses the different emotions of the owner. Choose a sporty yet elegant, personality and sedate lacquer colour that will make your eyes shine wherever you drive.
Fengxing Yacht adopts a sensual color language - frost falling sandbar white, desert poplar green, Gobi starry night black, snow field Forest Haiqing, Cangshan Erhai blue, Jiangnan smoke and rain ash 6 kinds of body colors, bringing more personality choices to young consumers.
In addition to writing youth into the brand gene, in the field of user operation, Dongfeng Fengxing has also made a new breakthrough.
Resonates with the user at the same frequency
"Who is my customer, where is my customer, what my customer needs, what can I do for the customer, what can I do for the customer", this is the customer "5W" proposed by Zhu Yanfeng, chairman of the board of directors and secretary of the party committee of Dongfeng Company, on various occasions. This "customer-centric" "5W" has become the consensus of all business units of Dongfeng Company and has been integrated into the action.
Dongfeng Fengxing knows that facing consumers and breaking the original boundaries is an urgent transformation task for traditional car companies.
Zeng Qinglin, general manager of the passenger car sales company of Dongfeng Liuzhou Automobile Co., Ltd., said frankly in an interview with the media, "In the past, our communication with users was for the purpose of closing transactions, which is the so-called 'customer marketing'. Now we hope to build communication and trust with users by creating products that users love. ”
I have to admit that in the new era of brand competition, marketing has transitioned from product-oriented and technology-oriented "product-oriented" to consumer-oriented "customer-oriented", and to "value-oriented" development to meet the deep emotional and spiritual needs of users. Customers are no longer just worshipped as "gods," but as friends or fans.
In this context, Dongfeng Fengxing internally proposed an agile development model. Previously, the verification of a new car could only be carried out after the actual car came out, and now the verification begins from the digital stage. In addition, Dongfeng Fengxing invites users to participate in the digital verification and product use stages, which can not only shorten the development cycle, but also better understand the needs of users and adjust on this basis.
Without accumulating steps, there are no thousands of miles. The superimposed fusion of refreshes again and again is enough to fill the barrier that seems insurmountable.
Dongfeng, which constantly refreshes itself, may create more vitality for China's auto market.
This article was originally produced by Automotive Business Review
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