China-Singapore Jingwei, April 18 (Liu Xueyu) "This is the first time I have done a live broadcast of intelligent driving, and I am very excited. On the 15th, Wei Jianjun, chairman of Great Wall Motors, made his live broadcast debut. And more than half a month ago, he just posted his first blog post after nearly 13 years of registering on Weibo.
"As a corporate CEO and founder, relying only on Weibo and Moments, the influence is already very limited, and you need to learn how to express and communicate with the public in a new way of short videos and live broadcasts. Since the beginning of the year, Zhou Hongyi, the founder of 360, has mentioned the importance of short videos and live broadcasts in public more than once.
Zhang Lan, the founder of South Beauty, also mentioned that one of the biggest challenges for entrepreneurs this year is whether entrepreneurs should be Internet celebrities and how to be good Internet celebrities. For car companies, this is also a must-answer question. Recently, the bosses of car companies rushed into the live broadcast room, how did they perform in this "open-book exam"?
The boss of the car company "rolled" into the live broadcast room
Image source: Screenshot of Great Wall Motor's live broadcast room
In the live broadcast on the 15th, Wei Jianjun drove a vehicle, from the complex "six crossings" in the center of Baoding, Hebei Province to the narrow streets, and successively carried out traffic light recognition and intersection turning, obstacle recognition and flexible detour, full-scene lane change and lane line management and other driving scene measurements.
According to the live broadcast room, the 16.6-kilometer live broadcast brought 1.109 million views.
"When I come to Weibo, I am very much looking forward to seeing everyone's sharing, and the voice of users is always the driving force for us to move forward. Less than a month after the launch of Weibo, Wei Jianjun's personal Weibo followers have grown to 232,000.
The car company bigwigs who broadcast live on the 15th were not only Wei Jianjun. On the same day, Xia Yiping, CEO of Jiyue, and Robin Li, founder, chairman and CEO of Baidu, measured Jiyue 01 and started a live broadcast of two CEOs in the same frame.
The day before (April 14), Yin Tongyue, chairman of Chery Group, and Luo Zhenyu, the founder of Chery, also conducted a live broadcast.
Yin Tongyue said in the live broadcast: "Learn from Yu Chengdong, learn from Lei Jun, explain and introduce in person, this is also forcing me, an old man in his sixties, everyone came out." ”
Zhongxin Jingwei combed and found that since July 2023, a total of six car company owners have gone live to promote their products, namely Li Bin, founder of NIO, He Xiaopeng, founder of Xiaopeng Automobile, Lei Jun, founder of Xiaomi Automobile, Daniel Zhang, CEO of Nezha Automobile, Wei Jianjun, chairman of Great Wall Motor, Yin Tongyue, chairman of Chery Group, and Li Shufu, chairman of Geely Holdings. In addition, there are two Internet founders who invest in the automotive field to participate, Robin Li and Zhou Hongyi appeared in the live broadcast room of Jiyue Automobile and Nezha Automobile respectively.
Image source: Screenshot of Baidu's official live broadcast room
"Traffic is linked to sales, and the bosses are very excited"
Xiaomi SU7 locked orders to 40,000 units within a few days after the press conference. According to a number of market leaders of car companies, this figure is basically the average of the industry. However, many industry insiders believe that Lei Jun's press conference not only taught many car companies a lesson, but also made the car circle fall into traffic anxiety.
"The marketing of Xiaomi cars has made the car circle see that traffic can be linked to sales, so now the bosses are very excited, and it is impossible for everyone not to be blushing, and everyone wants to follow. Zhong Shi, an independent analyst in the automotive industry, told Zhongxin Jingwei that in the early days of Internet enterprise promotion, most imitated the Silicon Valley model, and entrepreneurs went down in person to spread it through technology media and public media, which originated from consumer electronics technology companies such as Microsoft and Apple, and the effect was remarkable. However, there is a lack of charismatic and business leaders for the promotion of domestic consumer products in China, especially in the automotive industry.
"Nowadays, the competition in the automobile market is fierce, not only the price of the product, but also the marketing of the bosses. In contrast, the owners of traditional car companies are relatively low-key and do not often face the public directly. However, with the intensification of market competition, traditional car companies have to try new promotion methods, such as using personal IP for promotion. Zhong Shi said.
Behind the live broadcast of the boss himself, some car companies are facing a lot of performance pressure. Taking Great Wall Motors as an example, Great Wall Motor's 2023 financial report shows that last year's revenue was 173.212 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 26.12%, and its net profit was 7.022 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 15.06%.
In February this year, Zhou Hongyi made it clear that compared to becoming another Yu Minhong, his envy is Musk, Lei Jun and Yu Chengdong, and he wants to build himself into an Internet celebrity and save billions of advertising costs for the 360 Group.
Internet analyst Ding Daoshi told Zhongxin Jingwei that through live broadcasts and other forms of interaction, entrepreneurs can not only display their products and ideas, but also directly affect the public's perception, thereby shaping the brand image. "The final effect is what Zhou Hongyi said, 'saving hundreds of millions of advertising costs'. Compared with traditional PR and advertising, it is simply not too cheap. ”
The public relations of some car companies told Zhongxin Jingwei that from the perspective of effect, it can reduce publicity costs. "Everyone has become numb to the conventional car publicity, and the form of the boss's live broadcast can allow consumers to feel the product power more intuitively. ”
In January this year, Zhang Lan publicly stated that the current era is called the era of Internet celebrity economy, and every entrepreneur should grasp the pulse of the economy and every dividend, which is the social responsibility of entrepreneurs and the responsibility of enterprises.
However, there are certain risks for entrepreneurs to come to the forefront. On April 8th, SAIC's Zhiji Automobile held an L6 press conference, in addition to the PPT of the press conference marked the Xiaomi SU7 Max motor parameters incorrectly, which caused heated discussions, Zhiji CEO Liu Tao's speech at the press conference was complained by netizens.
Liu Tao said that since the start of the business, he and every employee in the team have been working hard every day very seriously: "Our classmates will even miss the birth of their own children; we also have friends who have been yang four times in a row in a short period of time, and they still stick to the front line of work. ”
This remark was complained by netizens that "the values of the conference are distorted" and "the level of the CEO determines the upper limit of the enterprise".
Zhong Shi told Zhongxin Jingwei that on the surface, Liu Tao's slip of the tongue seems to have brought a lot of trouble to the company, and the three consecutive apologies seem to have made the company lose face in front of the public. But to put it another way, it could actually be a marketing strategy that operates in reverse.
"We can't say for sure if this was intentional, but in terms of effect, it does bring a lot of attention to the business." Without this strategy, a company's press conference may have limited reach and impact. ”
Who else is the entrepreneur who seizes the traffic dividend?
Image source: Screenshot of Yu Minhong's video account "Yu Minhong Hongge".
In addition to car company owners, in recent years, there are not a few Internet celebrity entrepreneurs in the financial circle. For example, Dong Mingzhu, chairman of Gree Electric Appliances, is known as the "Queen of Topics", from the former "future successor" Meng Yutong to the content of Gree's annual meeting, every small move can arouse heated discussions among netizens, which also makes Dong Mingzhu's IP image deeply bound to the Gree brand.
Yu Minhong, who led the successful transformation of New Oriental, in addition to participating in live broadcast sales, his personal public account "Lao Yu Gossip" and video account "Yu Minhong Hongge" have maintained a high update frequency.
Previously, at the 24th annual meeting of the Yabuli China Entrepreneurs Forum, Zhou Hongyi said, "Now that it is the era of Internet celebrities, I have now worshiped Yu Minhong as a teacher, learning how to be an Internet celebrity, and diligently posting short videos every day." ”
In addition, Fu Sheng, chairman of Orion Star, who is working on the large model track, has also begun to update his personal public account and video account frequently since this year, and has published more than 30 articles, and the topic of large models has also attracted the attention of many netizens.
However, Ding Daoshi pointed out that it is not a simple thing for entrepreneurs to be Internet celebrities.
He believes that in the live broadcast, entrepreneurs often need to choose to appear as a people-friendly image and drive a car in person to shorten the distance with the audience. On the 15th, when Xia Yiping and Robin Li were in the same frame, the elegant Robin Li talked and laughed freely, but Xia Yiping seemed bumpy and couldn't let go. "If you really want to be a good entrepreneur Internet celebrity, you have to work hard. Daoist Ding said.
Zhong Shi also believes that it is a new challenge for traditional enterprises to shift from relying on product brands and media publicity to promoting directly to consumers.
On the afternoon of the 18th, Lei Jun, the founder of Xiaomi Auto, will start another live broadcast. Zhong Shi predicts that this year, there will be more car company bosses who "can't hold back" and will go live broadcast.
(For more reporting clues, please contact the author of this article, Liu Xueyu: [email protected]) (Sino-Singapore Jingwei APP)
(The views in the article are for reference only and do not constitute investment advice, investment is risky, and you need to be cautious when entering the market.) )
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