The source of the picture material is the official Weibo
Written by Lai Hsien-ki
Editor/ Li Wenjie
排版/ Annalee
A week ago, Lei Jun, chairman and CEO of Xiaomi Group, launched a broadcast on Douyin, and the number of viewers in the live broadcast room exceeded 100,000 and the number of likes exceeded 4.8 million in just one minute after the broadcast. Since then, the traffic has continued to flock to Xiaomi and Lei Jun, and the golden sentences during the live broadcast have frequently been hotly searched.
At the Beijing Auto Show, which will start on April 25, 2024, Lei Jun announced the delivery results of Xiaomi SU7 at the press conference, which has also become a highlight of the auto show. According to Lei Jun, as of April 24, the number of orders locked for Xiaomi SU7 exceeded 75,723 units, and 5,781 units were delivered in 28 days after the release of Xiaomi SU7. It can be said that since Lei Jun started to build a car, the traffic has been continuous and the popularity has not decreased.
This makes it difficult for other car companies to stand still. In the past two months, both traditional car companies and new car-making forces, from Li Bin, founder of NIO, to Wei Jianjun, chairman of Great Wall Motors, and Yin Tongyue, chairman of Chery Automobile...... The bigwigs frequently walked into the live broadcast room.
The latest news is that on April 20, Li Bin broadcast live again, challenging the Beijing evening rush hour, starting from the St. Regis Hotel, passing through a series of Beijing landmarks such as CCTV Building, Sanlitun, Lama Temple, Bird's Nest, Zhongguancun, and finally arriving at the New Century Hotel.
This seems to be a marketing idea that has to be changed, as Zhou Hongyi, the founder of 360 Group, once commented when talking about the live broadcast of car companies, "You don't talk about a lot of things, thinking that users know it, this is actually wishful thinking." As Yin Tongyue said with a smile: "This is also forcing me, an old man in his sixties (live broadcast), everyone has come out." ”
However, when traffic pours into these live broadcast rooms, can sales really rise?
The end of the big guy: chat, test, and apologize
On the afternoon of April 18, Lei Jun, wearing a blue suit and a white T-shirt, drove Xiaomi SU7 to appear in the Douyin live broadcast room. As for the theme of this live broadcast, Lei Jun said, "Don't bring goods, chat." ”
From the Beijing delivery center to the experience center, Lei Jun first talked to a number of car owners, asked them what they thought was the most attractive thing about Xiaomi SU7, and answered the topics that many netizens were concerned about, such as "the reason for the delay in the delivery cycle" and "has Xiaomi Auto succeeded".
Zinc scale noticed that in less than 20 minutes after the broadcast, Lei Jun's Douyin live broadcast room had more than 40 million likes, and in less than an hour after the broadcast, the number of likes had exceeded 100 million.
In fact, Lei Jun's walk into the live broadcast room is nothing new. After all, before this live broadcast, Lei Jun and Xiaomi Auto had already been good at Internet marketing in the car circle. And don't go back in detail from 2016 to 2020, Lei Jun's past glory in the live broadcast room, just from the Xiaomi car press conference on December 28 last year to the Xiaomi SU7 listing on March 28, Lei Jun's personal Weibo has set off a wave of heat from time to time.
As a result, other car companies finally couldn't sit still. Among them, Daniel Zhang, CEO of Nezha Automobile, directly said: "Marketing to learn from Lei Jun, no shame!"
As early as March, Li Bin, CEO of NIO, conducted his first personal live broadcast on Douyin. In this live broadcast, Li Bin talked about his views on the appearance of the MEGA, his wishes for Gaohe Automobile to get out of the predicament, contacted the sales staff of NIO to ask "how many cars were sold today", and apologized again for the "gasoline theory......
If Li Bin has never been too far from the Internet, then Yin Tongyue, chairman of Chery Automobile, looks a little rusty in front of the screen. On April 14, Yin Tongyue, chairman of Chery Holding Group, personally tested and challenged long-distance high-speed high-end intelligent driving. In this nearly 4-hour live broadcast, Yin Tongyue talked about hot topics including price wars, intelligent driving, high-end brands, going overseas, and cross-border car manufacturing. But perhaps the most attractive thing is the "revelation" that "the two major European luxury brands want to buy Chery's high-end pure electric platform".
Screenshot of Wei Jianjun's live broadcast
A day later, Wei Jianjun, chairman of Great Wall Motors, also "went down" live for the first time to measure the full-scene NOA of Great Wall Motors. On April 18, Wei Jianjun appeared on the Douyin platform again and interacted with Lei Jun, the founder of Xiaomi Auto.
In addition, during this period of time, Xia Yiping, CEO of Jiyue, also announced the latest Jiyue 01 live broadcast experience, and invited Baidu founder Li Yanhong to help; 360 Group founder Zhou Hongyi and Nezha Automobile CEO Daniel Zhang jointly live broadcast; Geely Automobile Chairman Li Shufu and New Oriental founder Yu Minhong started online live broadcast at Geely Satellite Gigafactory.
Behind the traffic: onlookers and coaxing
So, are the live broadcasts of the bigwigs in the car circle popular?
Judging from social platforms such as Xiaohongshu and Weibo, many netizens have taken screenshots or recorded the live broadcasts of Li Bin and Lei Jun and discussed them constantly. Among them, on Weibo, topics such as "Wei Jianjun's live broadcast debut", "Li Bin's live broadcast responds to low emotional intelligence", "Yin Tongyue wants to add chicken legs to the intelligent driving department" and other topics are frequently on the hot search.
The data is more intuitive: Li Bin's first live broadcast lasted about two and a half hours, with more than 100,000 people online at the same time, and a cumulative number of viewers of more than 10 million, and the day after the live broadcast ended, Li Bin's personal account increased by more than 180,000 fans, and Wei Jianjun opened his personal Weibo before the live broadcast, and as of now, Wei Jianjun's personal Weibo fans have grown to 230,000. The live broadcast set off a craze, attracting more than 4 million people to watch online in real time on Douyin. By the end of the live broadcast, the live broadcast had attracted more than 10 million views on Weibo, and Yin Tongyue's four-hour live broadcast had also attracted the attention of millions of netizens......
It is worth mentioning that some netizens even said that the income brought to Li Bin by the first live broadcast was about 1.3 million yuan. As a result, Li Bin announced his live broadcast income. The screenshot shows that the total income of his account in the past 7 days is 33,088.5 yuan. Li Bin said: "I decided to donate this money to Formula Student racing. We will continue to receive tips in the future, and all the income will be donated."
It is undeniable that there is no shortage of traffic and popularity in the live broadcast room of the bigwigs. However, when "splashing traffic" poured into these live broadcast rooms, what were netizens watching?
"Although there are many netizens who are indeed asking questions related to the car, such as price, delivery time, performance, etc., but more often it is to watch the excitement. Qiao Xing is a car enthusiast and has recently watched several live broadcasts of car bigwigs, "It can be seen from the comment area and barrage that many people will deliberately lead the war, swipe the screen to draw a lottery, or throw out some difficult questions to answer." ”
Image source: Screenshot of the live broadcast
This may be glimpsed from Li Bin's live broadcast room. The barrage that appeared in Li Bin's live broadcast room includes: "The ideal financial report is so good, what do you think?", "How to deal with Xiaomi SU7?", as well as "You are the next Gaohe" and "Garbage truck" sharp comments. As for the above barrage, Li Bin's responses were: "Envy, let's learn from them", "We are all friends, what to deal with", "Gao He, I hope they can get through this difficulty" and "Scold me, don't scold the car"......
And Nezha CEO Daniel Zhang was on the hot search because of "the comparison between the live broadcast of the stilted legs and the live broadcast of Lei Jun", and was criticized by many netizens, so that Daniel Zhang apologized on April 21. In addition, the bigwigs' own personalities are also a major traffic point. For example, Lei Jun refuted the rumors about the identity of "the first male protagonist of Shuangwen" during the live broadcast, saying that "I am at a low point in my life, and there is no cold 4 billion in the card", "I have not taken the college entrance examination champion" and so on.
The involution continues: who can turn traffic into sales
Is traffic useful for a brand and its sales? The answer is unquestionable.
If you were looking for an entrepreneur in the world who would best enhance marketing through social media, it would be Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Previously, Musk once became an Internet celebrity on Twitter with his sharp style, and later showed his skills in the live broadcast room: in addition to playing "Diablo 4" live, Musk will also start broadcasting to bring audience experience when his products have made important progress, such as brain computers, and such as the test drive live broadcast of FSD Beta V12 last year.
Screenshot of Lei Jun's live broadcast
Of course, from a domestic point of view, there are also models. As Zhou Hongyi, founder and chairman of 360 Group, said bluntly, "Everyone has seen the popularity of Xiaomi cars, Lei Jun posts two short videos every day, and he is also very network sense and influence, and he destroys other traditional car dealers, this is the power of Internet celebrities."
Major car companies are obviously reluctant to fall behind in the traffic field. According to a report released in March 2024, nearly 200 automotive executives have already settled on Weibo, with 30% of them added in 2023.
But as mentioned above, when netizens are more likely to rush into the live broadcast room with the mentality of joining in the fun, there is actually a question mark over whether the traffic can really be converted into sales. Especially for traditional car companies, although the market competitiveness of their new energy brands is gradually emerging, they are obviously still facing a lot of pressure in the face of the menacing new forces of car manufacturing.
What's more, as the "Economic Observer" wrote, Yu Jingmin, the former deputy general manager of the automobile passenger car, was also active on the Internet with the image of "fat head Yu", and played personal labels such as "the joker who was delayed by the sale of cars" and "the talk show sales boss", but this move had a limited effect on the sales of SAIC passenger cars. Right now, when the bigwigs roll up to the live broadcast room, whose traffic will eventually be a bubble, and who will finally be able to win the championship?