"If you don't buy a little genius, you will be isolated"
Written by | Yin Lei
Edit | Tan Xiaohan
Source | Bento Finance (ID: daxiongfan)
A children's smartwatch can determine how many friends a primary school student can make at school.
A parent on Douyin described that when she accompanied her children to study group activities, she found that the children would quickly and automatically divide into two circles according to whether they were wearing a little genius watch or a Huawei watch. She was amazed at how much the brand affected children, those who didn't wear smartwatches, were left out of the crowd and lost the opportunity to make friends.
The independent social system behind the two brands has become a key element in separating the two circles.
The touch and friend function of the little genius watch is thunderous in the youth world. Many adults know that under the closed social system of Little Genius, only watches of the same brand can add friends to each other, but this is only the most basic function of Little Genius. In this circle parallel to the adult social platform, everyone can build a personal homepage similar to QQ space, the homepage has received hundreds of thousands of likes, and is respected as a big guy in the circle, and every birthday or collection of likes to set a new record, will be congratulated by a group of children in the circle, the scene is quite beautiful.
The circle of friends of elementary school students is not only isolated by little geniuses outside the circle. As more hardware manufacturers squeeze into the children's watch market, children who own these brands have also formed their own brand social circles.
Compared with the little genius who entered the children's watch circle in 2015, Huawei entered the market late, and it also set up its own social function of the same brand - shake. Compared with the prosperous circle culture of little geniuses, Huawei's social functions are simpler, and support WeChat children's watch version, which will be more restricted by parents, but shake is still a social password that only belongs to Huawei's circle, and they are "squeezed" out of the circle of little geniuses, and gradually form their own group of children.
According to the latest report released by data research company Counterpoint Research, in the first quarter of 2023, in terms of children's smart watches, little geniuses ranked first, accounting for 35%; Huawei ranked second, accounting for 15%; Xiaomi ranked third, accounting for 9%; 360 ranked fourth, accounting for 8%.
The circle of friends of primary school students is being divided into independent mountains by the closed social ecology established by different brands of children's watches.
On Xiaohongshu, buying Huawei or a little genius is a hot topic for children's smart watches.
Most of the people who support buying Huawei stand in the position of adults, they have a high degree of recognition of the Huawei brand, Huawei watches can meet the basic remote monitoring of children by parents, and the most important thing is that the culture of the little genius circle that children are enthusiastic about is a bell and whistle, meaningless social behavior in the eyes of parents.
Some parents who stand small geniuses think that the brand's application download is relatively closed, which can prevent their children from receiving too much information on the Internet, but more people consider their children's personal wishes or can't stand their children being wronged. "Mom, I want to be friends", many parents hear such words, and their hearts soften.
"Wa's graduation ceremony, the class of 38 children, my baby with Huawei watches, only added to 2 friends." A parent said that he saw his child with his watch everywhere to add friends, but because of different brands, he hit a wall, and finally had to compromise and change the little genius.
The social barriers of the little genius were integrated into the sales skills of the counter clerk, and some parents reflected, "Yesterday the little genius clerk said that if you don't buy the little genius, you will be isolated, the classmates are all little geniuses, can't add friends, I really don't like to listen, what anti-human design, go directly." ”
An interview with primary school students by station B digital UP master @ Nikolai who chops wood shows that children choose which brand of watch to use, often depending on which brand in the class accounts for a higher proportion, most people in the class use Huawei or little genius, determine whether the child uses a shake to add friends, or touch to add friends.
Source: Station B Digital UP Master @ Nikolai Chopping Wood
In a short video of Zhihu, a little girl asked a group of children in the park: "Whose watch is Huawei", and everyone used a little genius, and the little girl jumped to her feet in anger, using the same brand, everyone is a good friend.
On adult social platforms, searching for the evaluation of smart watches such as Little Genius and Huawei, you can only see parents' discussions around their children's educational constraints, but as long as you change a keyword - Little Genius mixed circle, you will see another different world, which is the topic field of children who wear smart watches every day.
If Huawei and Little Genius use shake and touch to divide children's offline social interaction into two closed circles, then Little Genius's homepage collection of likes makes this circle isolation more thorough, which is a social space that only belongs to Little Genius users.
From elementary school students to high school students, "expand" and "like" are their online code words, students with 300,000 likes on the homepage, admired like stars, screenshots of the moment when the number of likes reached the milestone, were carefully made into short videos by them: congratulations of other bigwigs, flashing extremely fast pictures, and enviable circles. This seems to go back to the popular QQ space more than a decade ago, the pompous popularity and naïve text, and the looming non-mainstream vision.
There are big guys in the circle who divide the history of the circle of small geniuses into two eras in a scientific way, the old circle and the new circle.
The old circle began around 2018, and children's social interaction in the world of small geniuses is still relatively simple, just making friends and sharing life, and the likes on the homepage do not have deeper social attributes such as comparison. In the new circle, social interaction has become simple and direct, and the likes of the homepage and the approval of the circle of friends are a proof of status, and everyone likes to become friends with popular people. Some people in the old circle even said that some people in the new circle will have a big guy shelf.
Those students we see at the school gate, wearing school uniforms and carrying school bags, may hide a huge flow of traffic on his wrist, and he has been sealed in the eyes of hundreds of thousands of people.
Not long ago, some media exposed the culture of the mixed circle of small geniuses, and the curiosity and banter in adult texts immediately triggered the resistance of insiders.
"Are you not used to me being jealous of us? We have our own preferences and don't need your fingers. No one rules that we can't mix circles, right? Can't we socialize? We have our ideas, and we should have the freedom to choose, no matter what we do, it has nothing to do with you, but we want to get involved, right? ”
The insider of the little genius used a subtle contrast to complain to the adults, "People in this circle look at the homepage, just as some adults in this world look at people by educational wealth or appearance." ”
The big guy's birthday was solemnly celebrated, and a strange girl wrote in a small birthday essay for the big guy, "Wen Jun descends the sun, is not a new love, everywhere is beautiful, and the years are good." The hot spring day of that year came, the joy of birthday, is a blessing, is joy, is lively. It's you. We met in a world where we didn't meet, and we didn't talk a few words during our acquaintance, but I think you're a lovely person..."
In this circle, there is never a lack of this kind of interpretation of the wind and snow. However, in such an atmosphere, there is an unstable factor, that is, parental interference, some parents will forcibly delete their children's friends, and the dissolution of this friendship often triggers gossip in the circle, and others will suspect "You started to put up shelves?" ”
With parental intervention, withdrawal and return have become a common phenomenon, and for many children, parental control is absolute force majeure.
Children's struggles on the social ladder are summarized as playthings in the eyes of parents, and some parents complain that "the Huawei used before, the baby is honest as a contact tool, usually thrown aside and not used." Since changing the little genius, I have become completely addicted, secretly playing in the bed, adding dozens of friends to chat every day... Changing him for a little genius is the thing I regret the most this year! ”
Is it the circle culture of little geniuses that creates this parent-child conflict, or is the original contradiction released under the role of smart products?
Of course, some parents believe that their children rely too much on little geniuses to make online friends, and the essence is that there are problems with parent education.
Parents may not have figured out these questions, but the little genius definitely did. From the child changing a piece of little genius to integrate into the class group, and then gradually enter the "deep water area" of the circle, becoming a public figure in the online world, behind the strong sticky product system established by the little genius.
This is exactly what other brands do not have. Huawei's circle construction is more focused on offline, it only solves the problem of children establishing friendships, and the online part does not establish a community like the culture of small genius circles, from the product point of view, online is the core to deepen user stickiness.
Relatively simple product functions are also a key factor for many parents to reject little geniuses and choose Huawei.
BBK behind the little genius, has been good at marketing, BBK point reader advertising slogan "where will not point where" has not been forgotten by the public, its smart watch once again in the children's market precision marketing, a line of "Make Friends" is engraved on the side of the dial, it induces user psychological changes, far more complex than the literal meaning of this line of English. This seems to have become a credential for children to persuade parents to buy little geniuses.
In the children's smart watch industry, which is increasing year by year, the children's version of "making a friend" has also become a killer tool for little geniuses to divide more shares in the future.
According to the "2022-2027 China Children's Smart Watch Industry In-depth Survey and Investment Prospect Forecast Research Report" by the China Industry Research Institute, there are currently about 170 million children aged 5 to 12 in China, and the penetration rate of children's smart watches has reached 30%.
At present, there are many children's smart watch brands in China, early entry and strong core competitiveness of the little genius, almost one-third of the industry market share, "Prospective Industry Research Institute" mentioned in the 2020 report, after the little genius, Huawei ranks second in the industry with a 20% share, two as the first echelon, occupying half of the market, followed by 360 and Xiaomi, each accounting for 10% share, ranking the second echelon. Brands such as Wuzhou Wireless' Aba Town, Zhen Shi Information Technology's Xiaoxun, Sogou's Sugar Cat and Yoshulang only account for about 2 percent of the share, belonging to the third echelon. Other brands, on the other hand, carve up nearly 20% of the remaining market.
Compared with the data released by Counterpoint Research in the first quarter of 2023, Xiaogeni, Huawei, and Xiaomi accounted for 35%, 15%, and 9% of the market share of children's smart watches, respectively, and it is clear that the market share of Xiaogenius has further increased.
Whether it is for smart hardware companies such as Huawei and Xiaomi, or for the little geniuses who focus on children's smart watches, the involution between brands will continue further. In mid-May, Baidu announced that it would release the Xiaodu Qinghe learning phone, which claims to be a teenager learning phone that reassures parents.
From the perspective of new products released by various brands, their functions are gradually converging, and the function of the dial that can be "stood up" or taken off from the wrist has become standard, and no one can fully occupy the advantage in positioning technology, camera pixels, speech intelligibility and other aspects.
Brand wooing is geared towards both parents and children. In some apps and games of smartwatches, some payment loopholes allow children to pay without parental permission. On the black cat complaint platform, there is no lack of complaints about the inexplicable deduction of smart watches, and the source of inquiry is that the child is charged in the operation without a password.
Chaos is the product of brand involution, children's limited self-restraint and their interpersonal needs, and even the game with parents, for these smart watch manufacturers, are the profit gap of sewing needles, children's smart product market, seems to be much more complex than the adult market.
Just a week before June Day this year, Little Genius, Huawei, Xiaomi launched a new smart watch, products ranging from more than 300 yuan to 1999 yuan, behind the price, brand and function, hidden children's safety, social and other derivative problems, for parents, this is not a simple test question.