Produced 丨 Tiger Sniff Car Group
Author 丨 Li Wenbo
Edited 丨 thoughtful
Head Map 丨 TV Series "Bright Sword"
On the night of Cui Jian's first online concert, Helena sent 7 circles of friends in a row to miss her distant college days. But until the end of this more than 3-hour concert + dialogue, her attention was focused on Lao Cui's most representative red five-star hat, and she did not perceive the existence of the exclusive title sponsor at all.
"Maybe I'm too immersed in it," Helena said, "but what does the BEIC Polar Fox do, build cars?" Switching to a Mercedes BMW I will definitely notice. ”
Such doubts are not only helena alone, throughout the live broadcast of the night, the question of "who is the extreme fox" runs through it. Cui Jian opened a portal to the Volkswagen Circle for the Beiqi Polar Fox, but people did not know where they were after passing through the door.
When she learned that the gift given to Cui Jian by the audience during the live broadcast would be directly displayed as a red Beiqi Polar Fox model, Helena shook her head, "It's too inconspicuous, don't say remember, I don't even feel it." ”
Helena's weak perception as a single audience is in stark contrast to the official macro big data. According to the statistics given by WeChat Advertising Assistant, the concert called "Continue to Sprinkle Some Wild" has 1.2 billion+ exposure in the WeChat ecosystem, 120 million cheers+, and 2.7 million times in the live broadcast room. At the peak of the title brand Jihu WeChat Index, it increased by 54 times compared with before the event, and Jihu customized gifts were given a total of 1.04 million times. Needless to say, this is a "blockbuster" level of trading.
1.04 million "Beiqi Polar Fox" gifts were sent in 3 hours, which means that the number of gifts sent per minute is 57,777 times, and 963 times per second. Another set of data is more intuitive, the concert attracted more than 46 million viewers, the number of likes exceeded 110 million, and the number of comments exceeded 2 million. Such a degree of popularity is the highest moment in the life of beiqi polar fox, and there is no one.
Cui Jian let Tencent Video follow Xicheng Boy, Mayday and Zhang Guorong again, but the question outside the numbers soon struck: how much did the exclusive BEIQI Polar Fox spend and how much did it gain from it?
According to the estimation of third-party service companies, aside from the cost of the platform, the total expenditure of BAIC Jihu this time is about six or seven million, which is only a drop in the ocean compared with the total marketing expenses of the Jihu brand of 400 million yuan in 2021.
400 million yuan of marketing expenses in exchange for the annual sales of 4993 units, bicycle marketing costs of more than 80,000 yuan, this figure is very amazing. If calculated according to the sales target of 12,000 units scheduled by BAIC Jihu at the beginning of the year, the marketing cost of bicycles is also 33,300 yuan.
Where did all this money go? According to public information, BAIC Jihu released a total of 5184 pieces of content on the self-media platform of the whole network last year, with a cumulative exposure of 260 million + times, an interaction volume of 4.05 million + times, and a fan growth of 663,300. At the same time, Jihu also held 9 offline activities, 4761 people attended the scene, received 92 orders, and the conversion rate was 1.9%.
Take "Wei Xiaoli" as an example: in 2021, NIO's sales and general management expenses were 6.878 billion yuan, and the average bicycle cost was 75,200 yuan; Xiaopeng Automobile's sales and general management expenses last year were 5.305 billion yuan, with an average bicycle cost of 54,100 yuan; Ideal Automobile's sales and general management expenses last year were 3.492 billion yuan, and the average bicycle expenses were 38,600 yuan.
Even Weilai, who is most willing to burn money in marketing, is not as big as Beiqi Extreme Fox. The ideal of the most "door-cutting" only costs less than half of the Beiqi Polar Fox.
Blindfolded and frantic "throwing coins" marketing, the parent company of Beiqi Extreme Fox - Beiqi Blue Valley is breathless. According to the latest financial report, in the first quarter of 2022, beiqi blue valley operating income was 1.731 billion yuan, and the net loss was 957 million yuan. Beiqi Blue Valley has lost money for two consecutive years, with losses of 6.476 billion yuan and 5.244 billion yuan in 2020 and 2021, respectively.
According to the 2021 financial report, the sales expenses of Beiqi Blue Valley's advertising and operation are about 1.7 billion yuan, and the annual sales cost of bicycles is 65,100 yuan based on the annual sales of 26,127 units. When you see this number, you will suddenly be enlightened: the original BEIQI Polar Fox crazy "throwing coin" marketing habits, not acquired, but inherited from the mother's fetus BAIC Group.
It really responds to Cui Jian's words: "No matter how the times change, Lao Tzu (BAIC) has not changed at all."
The dilemma of the old "porter"
The appearance of Beiqi Polar Fox always needs to pull some big people to support the scene, like a small town youth who is not very mixed, when returning to his hometown for a family gathering, he always has to take out the photo of himself and his boss in his mobile phone to show off. The young man of the town failed to become the boss, he was just a porter of the photos.
Although BAIC Jihu, which has been operating independently in 2019, is only 4 years old, it has considerable experience in handling the world's top high-quality automobile supply chain companies.
Let's start with the factory.
Remember the criticism and doubts suffered by Weilai at the beginning of its establishment, choosing to produce on oem basis in Anhui Jianghuai Automobile Factory? Whenever it comes to explaining the time and cost of the two companies to create a production model, founder Li Bin is very distressed. Even with all the effort, to this day, there are still a considerable number of consumers who are not at ease with the Jianghuai Weilai Hefei Advanced Manufacturing Base in Li Bin's mouth, which is "more advanced than the Porsche factory", and the first action after picking up the car is to use fishing wire to buckle off the tail mark.
This explains what it means that "the factory is well chosen, and the reputation is early." The factory selection is not good, and the boss cries until he is old. ”
Beiqi Jihu, which was founded later than Weilai, must have observed the pits stepped on by its predecessors in production and manufacturing, so it directly moved the production line of Magna, the "working emperor" of the car-making industry, to Zhenjiang City, Jiangsu Province.
How good is Magna? It is so powerful that it can assemble a number of luxury cars such as the Mercedes-Benz Big G, BMW Z4 and Jaguar I-PACE directly in its own factory in Graz, Austria, and has supplied more than 3.7 million luxury models to the global market by 2021. This means that the workers who assembled the BEIC Polar Fox may have been proposing to reduce the assembly gap of the Mercedes-Benz Big G in the first two months. To put it more bluntly, baicchi polar fox and Mercedes-Benz big G share craftsmanship and spiritual core.
How much the BEIQI Polar Fox values Magna. According to the data, the parent company Beiqi Blue Valley has three factories, namely BAIC New Energy Automobile Co., Ltd., BAIC New Energy Changzhou Co., Ltd. and BEIQI Blue Valley Magna Automobile Co., Ltd., with a design capacity of 320,000 units, 50,000 units and 150,000 units, respectively, and the actual capacity utilization rate in 2021 is 0.08%, 0% and 8.32%, respectively.
Even if the company continues to make huge losses, Beiqi Blue Valley is willing to shut down the two ready-made factories and build a new factory from scratch with Magna for money, land and people. After finishing the event, not only did he write Magna's name on the certificate, but he also kept stressing that this was "Graz of the East", an authentic Magna factory with world-class craftsmanship.
What's the picture? Let's clarify one thing: Consumers buy the Mercedes-Benz Big G, BMW Z4 and Jaguar I-PACE, and the picture shows Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Jaguar creating them, not because Magna made them. Similarly, consumers buy Alpha T or Alpha S to create them for the BAIC Polar Fox, not Magna making them in China.
The premise is that there are indeed such consumers.
Magna's strong foundry ability has long been known to Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Jaguar, Fisk and Sony. The BEIQI Polar Fox has been pushing Magna to the front of the stage, and he has taken the initiative to stand in the shadows, the fundamental reason is that he is not so good at fighting.
This story also happens to another strong supplier, Huawei.
From the timeline, the cooperation between BAIC Polar Fox and Huawei is earlier than That of KinconCelix. In 2017, BAIC Group signed a contract with Huawei. At the 2021 Shanghai Auto Show, the world's first intelligent driving solution equipped with Huawei's HI full-stack and the world's first Jihu Alpha S HI version equipped with Hongmeng OS were unveiled. In September of that year, BAIC BJEV signed a comprehensive business deepening cooperation agreement with Huawei, planning to achieve online and offline channel sales cooperation for the Polar Fox Alpha S HI version by the end of 2021.
According to the established story line, alpha S HI version will become a shock force for BAIC Polar Fox to impact the mid-to-high-end electric vehicle segment and become the profit cow of Beiqi Blue Valley. But the actual situation is that the Alpha S HI version even has only one exhibition car, parked alone in Huawei's Beijing Yintai new concept direct flagship store.
Subsequently, the delivery time of the Polar Fox Alpha S HI version has since become a mystery, postponed from the end of 2021 to March and April this year. On April 22, some investors asked Beiqi Blue Valley whether they had "fallen out" with Huawei. Beiqi Blue Valley said: It has noted the relevant information and will take resolute action to correct the audio-visual in response to false reports. The latest news is that the delivery time of the Polar Fox Alpha S HI version has been changed to early May.
Seeing that there was none, Huawei remained silent throughout the whole process, and even did not bother to debunk the rumors, and Yu Chengdong's focus shifted to the new person of the Qingjie, and there was no time to take care of the predecessor of the Pole Fox.
Delay in delivery, the attraction of the Polar Fox Alpha S HI version to consumers began to weaken, and the door of opportunity to debut Huawei technology was gradually closing. The name of "the world's first model equipped with Hongmeng OS" is now owned by the Q&I M5 listed at the end of 2021, and the first right to launch the "Huawei HI full-stack intelligent driving solution" belongs to Avita, and even the car that accompanied Yu Chengdong to the interview for the first time is not from the Extreme Fox, but the Q&I M5. It is no wonder that the name of the Alpha S HI version of BAIC Jihu at the official media communication meeting is only "the world's first high-end intelligent driving mass production car that supports urban roads".
According to informed sources, the reason for Huawei's dissatisfaction with Jihu is that the Jihu factory adopts the Magna design concept and process, and Huawei hopes to control it all, but BAIC Jihu is unwilling. A source close to The Extreme Fox said in communication with the Economic Observer that they are grabbing the first concept, and that People (AITO) is their own brand, and Extreme Fox can only give way.
From the series of rainbow blows directly to Huawei, to the dark discord, the relationship is getting colder, empathizing with Jin Kangxilis, and the wishful thinking of beiqi polar fox for Huawei, it is only one year before and after. In the end, Huawei won three new partners (Qingjie, Eian and Avita), and the BEIQI Polar Fox learned a bunch of old lessons: lick to the end, nothing.
Smart cockpits from HARMAN, autonomous driving solutions from Bosch... The more golden the supplier list, the fainter the mark of the BEIC Polar Fox. However, Liu Yu, deputy general manager of BAIC Group and chairman of BAIC Blue Valley, did not care about the statement that "BAIC is becoming more and more like a foundry", and he told "Auto Sankei", "How to say it, things are done well." ”
On a car, the wheat content, Chinese content, and Bo content are very high, but the fox content is too low, which is the true epitome of the existing models of BAIC Jihu, but why are consumers reluctant to pay for such a cup of high-purity extracted global automotive industry chain essence?
"Who is the Polar Fox?", no one answered
According to the March 2022 production and sales express report released by Beiqi Blue Valley, the cumulative sales of 9120 new cars in 2022, the total sales volume in a quarter, is not as much as the "Wei Xiaoli" sold more in a month.
The reason why consumers do not pay is very direct and does not recognize.
First, don't know the brand. As a new player in the intelligent electric vehicle track, BAIC Jihu's means and methods to build a brand are still stuck in the traditional BAIC stage, going to the auto show, issuing a press release, and conducting test drives, which just ignores the real users who can most produce a sense of brand belonging, and does not really establish a strong connection with users. You should know that when the user operation thinking of "Wei Xiaoli" has evolved to the "rice circle" mode, BAIC Jihu is actually trying to say goodbye to Elder Yuan today! Mourning and remembrance, continuing the struggle! Collect user information in the official account article.
Second, the product is not recognized. In the 250,000 to 350,000 yuan market segment, Weilai's weapons are high-end positioning and perfect services, the ideal weapon is no mileage anxiety and accurate crowd, Xiaopeng's weapons are intelligent experience and configuration, ANDD's weapons are batteries and appearance. What is the weapon of the Beiqi Polar Fox? It is the historical accumulation of BAIC since 1958, and the guarantee of Magna's quality system, which is not a reason for consumers to pay real money.
Can't answer the question of "who is the polar fox", who to change to open the concert, in fact, it is useless. Beiqi Blue Valley could not answer, and could only continue to throw money and bear losses. Former President Yu Liguo can't answer, so even if he is only the head of the second-level department, he must hurry to Xiaomi Auto.
Judging from the traffic dimension, BAIC Jihu has won three times in the Chinese market: the first time, in cooperation with Huawei; the second time, former president Yu Liguo threatened to "clean up you in Beijing like playing"; third, Cui Jian concert. But in terms of sales, the Extreme Fox has not won once. After the hustle and bustle, the secondary contact points of converting users did not keep up, the sales of Jihu did not move, and the high-end of BAIC BJEV did not improve. Now Jihu can't catch this 1.2 billion Cui Jian traffic package, let alone try to convert traffic into actual sales.