"The so-called sailing ship is basically to control the sail with a cable, using the power of the wind to move forward against the waves. ”
On April 23, on the eve of the Beijing Auto Show, the Youth Dialogue Automobile Future Forum, guided by CB20, hosted by Shuidi Automobile, and co-organized by Tencent Advertising, was guided by CB20, a joint meeting of chief brand officers of Chinese auto companies, which once again built a bridge of communication between the industry and young people in the new era.
This forum continued the "open mic" session of face-to-face discussions between college students and leaders of car companies in the previous event. With the Chinese automobile, Chinese brands are becoming more and more widely overseas and gaining popularity in the global market, and there are more international students in China among the college students who participated in the "Open Mic" link this year. Shuidi Auto invited 30 student representatives from 13 countries in Europe, Southeast Asia, Africa and other places to discuss the future of China's automobile with automotive industry leaders.
Shuidi Auto firmly believes that young people are the consumers and new force of new cars, and from the perspective of young people, they can better understand the future development direction. At this stage, the automobile industry is undergoing major changes unseen in a century, with new players, new stories, new ways of playing, and new technologies emerging one after another. Under the big rhythm of oil and electricity switching, a new round of price war has started between oil and electricity; the existing brands have rapidly transformed, and new brands have entered the game rapidly; the original technology is still being updated, and the new technology has refreshed the industry cognition; user operation is still resorting to practice, and the new way of playing based on traffic has come to the front of the stage.
The front wave and the back wave are in it, pushing or passive, experiencing or witnessing. Different perspectives have different understandings of key variables. Among them, some variables are the key to winning the future, and some variables are the floating clouds that are lively for a while. As a practitioner, it is more important to identify the key variables and adjust the direction accordingly. And as a later wave, what is the understanding of key variables?
Yao Yuan, from Beijing Forestry University, found in his daily conversations with his classmates that when discussing cars, the brand is no longer the first factor to be considered, and even rarely mentions which brand a certain model comes from, but is more based on direct comparison between products and experience. Based on this, he is worried about whether the brand can still exist as an entity in the future new energy era.
In this regard, Ma Zhenshan, executive vice president of Chery Jaguar Land Rover Automobile Co., Ltd. and executive vice president of Jaguar Land Rover China and Chery Jaguar Land Rover joint marketing sales and service organization, believes that this brand generalization phenomenon is only temporary. The brand generalization at the beginning of the new energy era is only temporary, and the brand must last forever in the future.
Abu of the Beijing Institute of Technology has noticed that more and more Chinese brand cars are appearing on the streets overseas, and China's car exports will rank first in the world in 2023. He wondered how consumers in overseas markets evaluate Chinese cars, and whether Chinese cars can take root in the world and surpass German and Japanese automakers in terms of share and brand power.
In this regard, Huang Zhaogen, assistant general manager of Chery Automobile Co., Ltd. and general manager of Xingtu Marketing Center, shared his overseas research and found that as one of the most successful overseas brands, Xingtu is directly benchmarked against Lexus in overseas positioning, and more and more users are willing to accept China's high-end brands. In Southeast Asia and South America, consumers agree that Chinese cars are on the same level as the brands of South Korea, Japan and other automotive powerhouses. This perception is based on the intelligent experience brought by Chinese cars. In the future, overseas brands, including Xingtu, will definitely move towards the EU market. The growth of the EU market share will drive the potential energy of the overall overseas market to rise, and the potential energy of the overseas market will drive the brand of the domestic market upward.
Huang Zhaogen believes that it is precisely because of China's rapid transformation in the direction of electrification and intelligence that Chinese brands have good overseas opportunities.
Marketing that doesn't impress users is just talk on paper after all. At the dialogue site, Shen Jiajie from Tsinghua University, on behalf of young consumers, raised an essential question, how to judge what is "good" and what is "bad" when consumers buy a car.
Zhang Hongyu, General Manager of Chery New Energy Automobile Co., Ltd. and General Manager of iCAR Brand Division, answered from the practice of iCAR.
He believes that a good product should not be simple and good-looking, high quality and good appearance are only the basic requirements, and the key is to stand out and be different from the other in the homogeneous products. Secondly, the goodness of this product should also include fun, easy to open, and soulful. The so-called soul is a strong sense of science and technology and intelligence. Finally, in addition to being good-looking, fun and easy to open, consumers also need to be "good to buy", and with the help of Chery's system, iCAR has achieved the ultimate cost control. Not only do young people want to play with standard equipment, but the ecology of the car machine should be expanded as much as possible.
As the most dynamic and growth potential of the consumer group, many brands have launched models specially designed for young people, but in the view of Yang Shangru from Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, young consumers simply cannot afford them, and even many such models are not suitable for young people. In this regard, how do brands solve this problem that users do not buy it?
Yong Jun, vice president of AVATR Technology, also answered based on AVATAR's practice, quoting Henry Ford's famous saying, "If you ask consumers what they want, their answer must be a faster horse." Yongjun believes that to build a car for young people, we must want to be in front of young people. One of the things about a car built for young people is that it has a futuristic feel, a unique personality and a difference.
"He doesn't want him to drive a car that walks down the street and no one turns around," Yongjun said with a smile. In addition to appearance, wisdom is also needed. He believes that the traditional automotive industry is doing three major parts, and the new automotive industry is doing intelligence, the key of which is intelligent driving. Young people, in particular, are more able to integrate into intelligent life. As a brand that aspires to luxury, AVATR walks with young people who are struggling.
On the whole, the so-called sailing ship is basically to control the sail with a cable, and use the power of the wind to move forward against the waves. In the era of change, the wind is blowing from all directions, and it is more necessary to grasp the key variables and adjust the sail and course in a timely manner. China's automobile youth are consumers, witnesses, participants and builders of the future automobile industry, just like the back waves on the sea, holding up the ship that travels far away. We may not be able to change the direction of the wind, but we can turn the sail in our hands and call for the waves at the bottom of the boat. Together with the youth force, build a broader consensus within the industry, calibrate the direction, and move forward quickly.