Young people don't recognize the "old brand", will "traffic" become an adhesive?

Image source @ Visual China

Text | Intelligent Relativity, author | Kevin She

A few days ago, the latest season of "Longing for Life" was officially announced, in addition to the change of shooting location to Hainan Island, the replacement of the sponsor again was somewhat unexpected. "Rongsheng Refrigerator", which was once "famous", now does not go to the home appliance store, basically can not remember the brand, but also so rich to sponsor popular variety shows?

Think about the emergence of Rongsheng is not abrupt, after all, "Longing for Life" has brought fire to many brands, and because of the particularity of its shooting scene, it has become the only choice for many home appliances and 3C hardware products, such as from the "OPPO" to the "small degree smart speaker" to the "boss dishwasher", as well as "Millet mobile phone", "Martian integrated stove" and so on, Rongsheng is just another enterprise that hopes to strengthen brand power.

Rongsheng refrigerator stationed in the popular variety show, can it be understood that those "old brands" who are now second-line also need to rely on "traffic" to eat?

"Disappearing" home appliance brands, small fish that are eaten by big fish

I don't know if you have heard such a sentence, "a goose and a duck, two golden music, one water and one sea Ronghuawei" This is not a riddle, but represents the prosperity of the domestic home appliance manufacturing industry in the 90s, they refer to the little swan, the little duck, the golden antelope, the goldfish, the three music, the daffodil, the begonia, the Rongshida, Shenhua, the will of the 10 domestic washing machine brands, these brands almost accompanied the 80s and many of the childhood of the 90s.

At the end of the 1990s, domestic brands rose everywhere, and the domestic home appliance track at that time was more than just "a hundred schools of contention". According to statistics, at that time, there were more than 50 competitive color TV brands in China, more than 110 air conditioning brands, and 80 refrigerator and washing machine brands.

In all kinds of large shopping malls, home appliance counters can be called "ten thousand brands of glory". Nowadays, the volume of domestic brands is indeed getting bigger and bigger, but the number is not one in ten. Such as the TV track, even with the Internet players who have poured into it in the past two years, the number of domestic brands that can really speak in the industry is only a dozen or so, and the industry CR10 is close to 90%. The same is true of air conditioning, washing machines, and refrigerators.

Where have those brands gone now? Most of them have been eliminated in the increasingly fierce market competition, and some have become part of the "big fish eating small fish" after mergers and acquisitions and restructuring. For example, Hualing, as the first domestic home appliance company listed in Hong Kong that year, was acquired by Midea in 2004; for example, the "one brother" little swan of the washing machine industry was taken over by Midea in 2008 and formally acquired and merged by Midea in 2018; similarly, Kelong, after being acquired by Hisense in 2005, became a sub-brand of Hisense together with the Rongsheng brand, and Rongsheng once sold first for 9 consecutive years and once dominated the domestic refrigerator market.

The reasons for the fall of these former domestic home appliance brands are "varied", but the final attribution is "the same destination". Of course, not only domestic home appliance brands, but also foreign brands have also begun to net outflow in recent years, in 2016 Toshiba sold 80% of the shares in the home appliance business to Midea, in 2018 Hisense acquired 95% of the equity of Toshiba Image; in 2021, Philips sold the home appliance business to Hillhouse Capital, and Hillhouse is the capital behind Gree. And in addition to small household appliances, Philips has leased TV, mobile phones, air and other business brands to Chinese companies in operation.

However, after these brands are acquired by giants, the lives they live are not the same, and some have disappeared into history; some have become living by selling "hanging tags"; some have deeply cultivated the vertical category and become a leg for the revenue of large brands; and some are trying to regain the glory of the past.

The survival of "under the big tree" is varied, some are "hidden in the snow" and some live as "pro-sons"

If you want to select a domestic home appliance brand with the most "sad color", "Rongshida" is definitely one of the candidates.

In 1993, the Rongshida brand was born, and the slogan of "Rongshida, the Tide of the Times" began to resound throughout the country; in 1994, the Sino-Japanese joint venture Hefei Sanyo Rongshida Electric Appliance Co., Ltd. was established; in 2004, Hefei Rongshida Sanyo Company was officially listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, becoming China's first joint venture home appliance listed enterprise; but the good times were not long, and in 2008, it began to sell assets, first by the United States acquired all the shares of the Chinese side of the Rongshida Sino-US joint venture company, and in the same year, the "Rongshida" trademark was also leased to the United States. Allowed to use it in refrigerators and washing machine products; in 2013, the Rongshida trademark returned to Hefei Sanyo, Japan Sanyo chose to completely withdraw from Hefei Sanyo, and the successor became Whirlpool, thus establishing Whirlpool (China); in 2021, Galanz acquired Whirlpool (China), which was once regarded by the industry as a classic case of domestic home appliance companies acquiring foreign brands, but after being acquired, the four major brands under Whirlpool (China) went in a completely different direction.

At the press conference of the multi-brand strategy matrix between Galanz Group and Whirlpool (China) held in 2021, Rongshida was not mentioned in the whole process, and its future fate is unknown, and the latest consultation about Rongshida on the Internet is only entangled in litigation.

In comparison, another former washing machine giant, Little Swan, has a much better life.

First of all, in the industry track, Little Swan washing machine still maintains a high market share, the data shows that in 2021, the overall retail volume of China's washing machine market reached 38.27 million units, which has basically returned to the pre-epidemic level, and the retail sales volume has reached a record high of 73.5 billion yuan, of which the market share of Little Swan remains second, second only to Haier;

Secondly, although Little Swan ended its 22-year "listing career" in 2019, it was not a restart. After being fully acquired by Midea, Little Swan became a trump card for Midea to target the high-end washing machine market. Around 2000, one of the reasons for the failure of Little Swan was blind expansion, continuous financing to open up new tracks, at most Little Swan had 33 subsidiaries, involving dishwashers, dry cleaning machines, refrigerators, air conditioners and other businesses, but the new business did not make Little Swan a qualitative change, but began to drag down the washing machine business. "Committed" to the united, but let the little swan focus on the "washing" track, since the birth of its Beverly brand, but also the little swan in the high-end washing track has a place.

But to say that the most comfortable life after being acquired, it must be Rongsheng. On the one hand, when it was acquired by Hisense, Rongsheng has come to the most difficult moment, to know that the little swan in the decline stage, the maximum loss is only 800 million, and Rongsheng is nearly 3.7 billion, when the Shunde government wanted to let the United States acquire Kelong, but was rejected by the United States, after several twists and turns Hisense acquired the Rongsheng refrigerator with cliff-jumping gambling.

After helping RongSheng make up for the huge loss, Hisense did not snub it, but took it out of the country together. At the 2016 European Championship, a "sound barb" by Swiss star Shaqiri caused a hot discussion in China, making many fans recall this old brand.

Hisense has always believed in sports marketing, in 2016 Hisense became the first domestic company to sponsor the European Cup, and its brands, including Rongsheng, also appeared on the biggest stage of European football; after that, the Rongsheng refrigerator appeared again in The 2020 European Championship.

Hisense's investment in Rongsheng is not without returns, according to AVC data, from January to March 2022, Rongsheng refrigerators in the online market, whether in sales or sales, have maintained a market share of more than 10%, second only to Haier and Midea. Obviously, Rongsheng has now become the biggest weight for Hisense to compete with two other major appliance giants in China in the refrigerator track.

But whether it is a little swan or a good sound, even if it is still firmly occupying an acre and three points of land in the subdivision track, but in terms of popularity, compared with the big brands of Haier, Midea, and Hisense, the gap is impossible to make up, "Intelligent Relativity" conducted a small-scale survey of young users around, most of whom said that young people said that "Rongsheng this brand, I have never heard of it before, as for Rongshida, Hualing, Meizhi do not know what they do." ”

For Hisense, relying on sports marketing may bring good word of mouth, but obviously sports marketing can no longer support a "voice", so we see that voice has also begun to "embrace traffic".

"Small" brands can not escape the "true fragrance law" of "traffic" after all

Home appliance brands "embracing traffic" is indeed not a new thing, but the difference is that one of the previous home appliance brands prefers star endorsements, for example, last year in the kitchen appliance track, there was a wave of celebrity endorsement wind, first Ao Shuai signed Hua Shao, Huang Shengyi, Yin Xiaotian, Li Xiaoran four star spokespersons; Ketian followed him to announce the signing of Ye Xuan; Beidou Star signed Lang Lang; Mars One signed Hu Jing; Shangpai joined hands with Chen Xiaochun; Fang Taiguan Xuan Chen Kun endorsed its integrated cooking center Power Giant announced that power singer Joey Yung became the first brand ambassador.

At the moment when the rice circle culture is prevalent, the fan economy behind the stars reflects the value of traffic and commercial value. However, the momentum of celebrity endorsements suddenly stopped in the second half of the year, the reason is also very simple, including Jiuyang, Vantage and other home appliance brand spokespersons collective collapse, so that all kinds of enterprises caught off guard, while enjoying the star dividend, but also let the brand feel the thrill of "overturning".

Therefore, Rong Sheng chose to sponsor an N-generation popular variety show, which may be the safest way to choose.

Second, the brands that generally appear on the advertising screen are "big" brands, such as Midea, Haier, Hisense himself, or "pro-son" like Haier Zhijia's three-winged bird, Casarte, etc., and Rongsheng is "favored" by Hisense There are not many acquisition brands, and even if Rongsheng follows Hisense to the European Cup IP, in fact, like Kelong, gorenje, TOSHIBA and other brands, they are only his side products.

Even Rongsheng has had independent marketing, as early as 2014-2019 Rongsheng Refrigerator had been titled CCTV3's "Vietnam War more and More Courageous" for 4 consecutive years, which is the variety show debut of Rongsheng Refrigerator. However, in terms of program exposure and popularity, "Vietnam War and More Courage" is indeed inferior to "Longing for Life".

Just like Little Swan has also had a lot of independent marketing, such as becoming the overall title of the "2016 Asian Fencing Championships", but whether it is the variety show chosen by Rong Sheng or the sports event chosen by Little Swan, it is a very marginalized "product", and it can even be said that there are almost no marketing results. This may also be the reason why Rongsheng eventually returned to "traffic", but can a single sponsorship help them return to the mainstream vision?

It is not easy for the old brand to go out of the circle, is Rongsheng ready?

The "rejuvenation" and "trafficization" of home appliance brands may not be as simple as imagined.

First of all, "brand rejuvenation" cannot be achieved overnight. This point is the same for both new brands and old brands, think of the year vivo and OPPO in order to really enter the domestic smart phone market, from variety show titles, celebrity endorsements to traditional advertising bombardment, it can be said that the same has not fallen, in almost like brainwashing bombardment, only finally left "charging 5 minutes call for 2 hours", "soft light dual camera, illuminate your beauty" and other advertising words.

There are also many cases of failure, such as BlackBerry, Bird, Gionee, which was once close to the end of the brand, and now try to stand up, but what awaits them is another fall. Is it true that young people can't accept "old brands"? More or more is the brand itself failed to find its own positioning, coupled with the lag in marketing, there is no effective reach at all.

Back in the field of home appliances, Haier's commander-in-chief is relatively successful in terms of "rejuvenation", but also experienced a long period of transformation, in 2016 the commander-in-chief aimed at "light fashion home appliances" to start again, in reaching young people can be described as inexhaustible, an obvious action is to find stars, in 2016 Xue Zhiqian turned popular with variety shows, the next year the commander-in-chief immediately found and named his concert; in 2018, Deng Lun's popularity exploded, and the commander-in-chief immediately signed as a brand spokesperson.

Whether it is Xue Zhiqian or Deng Lun, at that time, they were the top stream in the hearts of young people, and the commander did not shy away from it, in comparison with the previous spokesperson "Tang Guoqiang", the commander's intention was obvious, and it was to enhance brand awareness, enhance brand power, and enhance brand transformation. It is also under years of operation that commander has become the youngest 10 billion brand in the industry.

Second, it may never be young people who will save "old" home appliance brands.

At this stage, in all home appliance categories, the only one that can really hold the "young consumer" is small household appliances. However, what do small appliances rely on? Is it technology research and development? Is it product power? Or practicality? None of them, relying only on personalized appearance and hunting marketing.

Speaking of "Rongsheng", some people have previously described the Rongsheng brand as a "high-caliber student with introverted personality", and it can be seen from many Rongsheng-related information released that Rongsheng has always emphasized its own technology research and development, scientific and technological innovation and even industry leadership, but do consumers really pay attention to these now?

People of different eras have different perceptions of home appliances. Post-00s are obviously more receptive to new things, especially in the context of the rapid development of whole-house intelligence, post-00s are more likely to choose Internet tide brand home appliances instead of traditional brands recognized by their parents.

At least so far, in addition to sponsoring variety shows, there has been no new action in the Rongsheng refrigerator, and it can also be said that Rongsheng is still in a situation where the positioning is unclear. In summary, rongsheng's return to popular variety shows may not be so simple, of course, this may only be its first step, after all, let the brand face young people, even if it is an "old brand" it takes courage.

summary

At present, Rongsheng is becoming another old brand that returns to the audience's vision with variety shows, and as for whether it can run through, it may not be so important, and it can also be regarded as an attitude expressed by Rongsheng.

From the perspective of the industry, at present, the major appliance giants have moved towards a multi-brand strategy, and at the same time, the ceiling of the home appliance industry has long appeared, at this time, relying on the influence of the "main brand" to blindly expand, in the national tide brand back to the consumer vision of the opportunity, betting on their own old brands may become a good choice.