Xiaomi SU7, which broke the 70,000 mark, is in the limelight, and the humble Lei Jun not only did not learn from the CEO of a new force to speak harshly to his friends, but frequently showed favor to competitors, and even suggested that car owners who couldn't wait to buy competing cars......
At this juncture, even if it is a friend and businessman who privately looks at Lei Jun and Xiaomi, it is not easy to publicly criticize anything, but some people don't believe in evil, and one didn't hold back, so he "yin and yang" in the live broadcast room, and sure enough, public opinion was quickly detonated, but it didn't take more than 3 seconds, and he came to the link of admitting and apologizing, which made netizens' glasses plummet!
This person who is caught in the whirlpool of the storm is not an unknown person, but the dignified Nezha CEO Daniel Zhang, not long ago, the desperate Nezha only melted 5 billion "life-saving funds", it is said that he should be more cautious in words and deeds, not to mention being named by major shareholder Zhou Hongyi to ask to learn from Lei Jun, how can it be such a "learning method"?
01, is there "brave" without a plan?
On April 17, when Nezha CEO Daniel Zhang started broadcasting, because of body language such as stilted legs, it caused some netizens to be unhappy, they thought it was a lofty posture, and some netizens compared Lei Jun's posture during the live broadcast with Daniel Zhang's posture. It has triggered a series of hot comments such as "Lei Jun is really humble in his bones, and Daniel Zhang is still a condescending posture".
Comparison source: Internet
However, after the voice reached Daniel Zhang's ears, it may not be very comfortable, and he explained that Erlang's legs were his waist was not good, and he did not forget to reply that netizens were "licking dogs", and all kinds of big V and netizens couldn't stand it, and public opinion was completely detonated so far!
On April 21, seeing that the situation was out of control, Nezha CEO Daniel Zhang finally apologized in the live broadcast room for his "verbal offense to netizens", but as expected, netizens did not buy it, unanimously believed that his apology was not sincere, and even some netizens thought that he acted badly.
But in fact, from the perspective of marketing and communication, black and red are also red, I will give an example that happened the day before yesterday, Chen Zhen, the number one Internet celebrity in the automobile area, made an appointment with a digital blogger Jin Scissors live broadcast, and as a result, this Jin teacher was crushed by Chen Zhen in terms of knowledge reserves, expression skills, logical thinking and typhoon level, and many digital big V asked Weibo to cancel the digital certification of Golden Scissors overnight, which in the eyes of ordinary netizens, Golden Scissors can be described as a defeat.
But, did he really lose?
What I observed was that his Weibo and Douyin reached the peak of traffic the night before, attracting countless fans (even the black fans who watched his jokes were also the incarnation of fans and traffic), and then he also took advantage of the situation to strike iron, and printed the picture of Chen Zhen pointing at him into a poster and put it in the live broadcast room, and it was a series of small videos, pointing directly at Chen Zhen, and his video number influence has ranked first...... Do you understand? I have decided to eat this traffic, you are squirting and scolding, and you are not all heating up for me!
Returning to Nezha CEO Daniel Zhang's live broadcast overturning incident, did Daniel Zhang really scare netizens by temperament at that time, or was there a subjective motive to rub a wave of Lei Jun and Xiaomi SU7 traffic and then build momentum for Nezha L? I believe that everyone in front of the screen has their own judgment.
The melon is eaten here, not long ago, Nezha officially announced that it had obtained 5 billion yuan in financing, which is no less than a "life-saving straw" for Nezha, which has been facing serious losses and IPO difficulties for a long time.
02, Nezha's "time to run"?
You see that Li Xiang has stopped mentioning "three antis and two dates" for a long time, let's quickly review Nezha's sales data basics, so as to have a rational understanding of the brand's market performance:
In the first quarter of 2024, Nezha Automobile will deliver a total of 127,500 vehicles, a year-on-year decrease of 16%, ranking 6th among the new car-making forces, but the delivery volume is the only one that has reversed, in the first quarter of 2024, Nezha's cumulative sales volume will be 24,400 units, a year-on-year decrease of 6.87%, setting a record for the highest decline among mainstream new power car companies, especially in March this year, Nezha sold 8,300 units, the only car company with a year-on-year decline of 17% among mainstream new power brands , in the 16th week of 2024 (last week), there is no trace of Nezha in the TOP10 of the new force sales list.
Source: Easy Car Weekly List
Marketing is indeed soft power, and can even be said to be part of the product, as early as many years ago, Liu Qiangdong publicly expressed the view that "we are definitely not better than President Lei than marketing", so marketing skills are like three nine frozen, by no means a day of cold, it requires experience accumulation and repeated correction, Daniel Zhang's live broadcast may be too urgent, it has a counterproductive effect, there is a feeling that the tiger is not an anti-dog, which obviously also needs to be reflected.
As early as October 2021, 360 officially announced that it would cooperate with Nezha Automobile to build a car, and Zhou Hongyi at that time invested 2.9 billion yuan in shares and became the second largest shareholder of Nezha Automobile in one fell swoop, however, this business made Zhou Hongyi have a bitter stomach, according to the 2023 performance forecast released by 360, it is expected to achieve a net profit loss of 370 million ~550 million, if you count the net profit loss of 2.204 billion yuan in 2022 (including the investment profit and loss loss of Nezha's parent company Hezhong Automobile of 894 million yuan), 360 has accumulated losses of more than 2.6 billion yuan for 2 consecutive years, as of April 25, 360 intraday reported 8.09 yuan / share, compared with the historical high of 20.85 yuan / share, has fallen by more than 61%.
Correct! Jusheng Huainan is orange, born in Huaibei is citrus, Xiaomi's style of play may not be suitable for Nezha, the target customer group does not overlap at all, and the brand tonality is also very different, it must be unwise to rigidly set Lei's marketing, Xiaomi currently has more than 100 billion cash and equivalents on the account, and Nezha's side, from 2020 to the first half of 2023, Nezha Automobile has accumulated a loss of nearly 14 billion yuan, according to the data at the end of 23Q3, cash and cash equivalents are only 5.101 billion yuan, less than a fraction of Xiaomi, Nezha is still busy with Zhang Luo's financing blood transfusion:
Daniel Zhang himself also knows that relying on the blood transfusion of individual shareholders such as 360 alone is not a long-term solution, Zhou Hongyi, as an investor, also pays attention to the rate of return, and it is impossible to allow the target of his investment to continue to lose, in fact, over the years, Nezha has never given up its efforts to seek new financing, in the past month, Nezha Automobile has won the Hong Kong SAR Government of China and Tongxiang State-owned Capital Investment and Operation Co., Ltd., Yichun Jinhe Equity Investment Co., Ltd., Two rounds of financing of Nanning Minsheng New Energy Industry Investment Partnership (Limited Partnership).
Stakeholders with Nezha are looking forward to its IPO as soon as possible, but its IPO road has been full of twists and turns, many times rumored to be listed, many times to no avail, now there are many listed car companies, Nezha to succeed in IPO, the difficulty is not small, in terms of brand power, research and development capabilities, product sales, etc., Nezha still has a long way to go.
Of course, Nezha CEO Daniel Zhang is still full of confidence in L's sales, and he believes that L is likely to achieve a "small goal" of monthly sales of 10,000 units. Nezha Automobile sticks to the cost, and there is not much room for price reduction, which makes it lose the same price war opportunity as its friends, but in the real fragrance cost performance range that has not been touched by Xiaomi and Wei Xiaoli, Nezha also has to face the attack of BYD Song, Wuling Binduo and Haiou.
Whether it can achieve small profits and quick sales in 2024 is related to whether Nezha's R&D, management and marketing costs can be reasonably amortized, otherwise, the curse of "more selling, more losses" may still continue, the only thing to be thankful about is that Nezha still has the hope of turning around in theory, and in the predictable cycle, it will never follow in the footsteps of Weima and Gaohe, and there is no need to worry about being acquired or going out of business.
It's just that this turnaround hard battle is also very difficult to fight, new energy vehicles have become a red sea at the moment, you just have cost performance is far from enough, Lei Jun, Li Bin, Li Xiang, Yu Chengdong, Wang Chuanfu and other big guys with their own traffic have personally ended, even the former cold Great Wall, Chang'an's number one has also opened the mode of bringing goods, Nezha Automobile's topic degree and CEO Daniel Zhang's popularity in comparison, is tantamount to a small witch.
Relying only on one Zhou Hongyi and one "Internet celebrity" shareholder Zhang Luo, how can the volume be enough?