Produced by Phoenix.com's "Eye of the Storm".
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It is said that Xiaomi Lei Jun is a marketing expert, and Zhou Hongyi, who climbed on the roof of the car, has earned enough eyeballs, but in the 2024 car circle, there is also a real "marketing maniac", who has opened up the most outrageous way out of these two top streams - claiming that taking a nap in the car can maintain health.
"Skyworth Auto can alleviate high blood pressure, improve immunity, and eliminate habitual diarrhea. On April 25, Huang Hongsheng, the founder of Skyworth Automobile, stood in front of a blue Skyworth car surrounded by the media, holding a microphone and said.
He recounted his own experience: he had severe typhoid fever, was infected with acute respiratory pneumonia, and through the past ten years, he went to the car every day to take a nap, and his high blood pressure returned to normal from more than 180 years, and he did not rely on medicine to achieve it. "So get a good night's sleep in the car, and all sub-health can be cured by autoimmunity boosting. He said.
After Huang Hongsheng's death, it was written on the PPT that "more than 60% of the manufacturing groups who started their businesses together in the 80s have left this world." If in the past, Huang Hongsheng still firmly grasped people's anxiety to sell cars, then now, it can be said that he is directly selling anxiety.
In this automobile marketing field with obvious traffic siphon effect, it is already very difficult for other manufacturers to win a position! Huang Hongsheng's eye-catching method is to "health" quotations as always. This amazing move still attracted many netizens and sighed: Color factories have come out to build cars, are refrigerator factories and sofa factories still far away?
01 Grasp the selling points of "anxiety" and "health".
If other people's marketing is language, then Huang Hongsheng's marketing may have to be added to ten years of performance art. It is inconceivable that a car owner opens the door for the car owner, which may just be an interactive show for a moment, while a car company owner insists on taking a nap in the car every day for ten years while monitoring his own health.
Huang Hongsheng obviously regarded the scene as a marketing conference for high-end health care products. He not only claimed that cars could cure diseases, but even advocated that "no need to take medicine". However, this is not the first time he has spoken astonishingly.
Last year, at the 2023 Skyworth Automobile Spring Technology Ecology Conference, he said that "the life expectancy of entrepreneurs will be shortened by 10 years on average, but it will be extended by 30 years after using Skyworth Automobile".
"Building cars for the health of 80 million entrepreneurs", since the launch of Skyworth Automobile, Huang Hongsheng has given himself a huge mission. "Entrepreneur" - maybe a portrait of a target consumer group, or maybe just to sell anxiety more accurately.
"Lack of sleep, often sudden death, too much stress...... I'm an entrepreneur myself, and I've died twice, health is the first, the other is 0, I feel the same way. As outrageous as it sounds, Huang Hongsheng may be the first person to associate selling cars with people's physical health, and thus with mental health.
And to achieve the efficacy of "car cures all diseases" he advertised, all he needed was a comfortable sleeping cockpit.
Taking Skyworth Automobile's healthy intelligent pure electric SUV Skyworth EV6 as an example, according to the official website, this model has active sleep promotion technology, which can improve sub-health status, actively promote deep sleep state, and can also scientifically and accurately measure deep sleep quality and monitor life and health indicators. In addition, the car is equipped with a super air filtration system, music rhythm seats, and is equipped with somatosensory sound vibration technology.
It is equivalent to a comfortable bed, massager, audio and smart bracelet in one.
How can a person who sells TVs build a car, and in an industry that is already rolling out of the sky, how can he compete differently with the new car-making forces such as Weilai, Xiaopeng, Ideal, and BYD? Huang Hongsheng seems to have blazed a trail in his own way.
Although Skyworth Auto believes that it has grasped the pulse of the healthy development of new energy vehicles, in fact, the large space required for napping and sleep mode, massage, music, heating and other functions have almost become the standard configuration of SUV models of various brands, such as Xpeng G9, Ideal, BYD Tang, these functions can be said to be readily available.
Of course, none of these new energy vehicles associate comfort with health or even the cure of disease, but Skyworth has gone further on this niche road. In addition to the sleeping cockpit, Skyworth also provides a variety of tests in the car, generates health reports, and supports 24×7 telephone doctor services.
Whether there is a causal relationship between daily sleep in the car and physical recovery remains to be professionally determined. Whether entrepreneurs are willing to pay for this tailor-made product is also a question. Who is buying such a Skyworth car?
02 Train the owner of the car into a salesman
Ironically, despite Mr. Huang's efforts to brand Skyworth as healthy, consumers don't seem to be impressed. On social media, there is no shortage of ridicule and ridicule from netizens, with comments such as "health car, I die of laughter" and "crooked ways" emerge in endlessly.
What's more interesting is that the person who buys Skyworth Cars may not be entrepreneurs, but they will definitely become its "salesmen".
Perhaps because the selling point is really not attractive, when selling a car, Skyworth Automobile has opened more tempting conditions: a car priced at more than 100,000 yuan can be driven home for "zero yuan", and more importantly, "you can make money by buying a car".
But behind this lies a deep routine. "0 yuan purchase" does not mean that consumers can drive the car home for free, but requires users to buy the vehicle through installment loans. This method of calculating the loan plus interest will end up making the consumer pay a lot more than the full original price.
Car owners have the opportunity to earn extra income after buying a car by inviting others to test drive it to obtain subsidies provided by Skyworth Auto.
The specific subsidy rules are as follows: if the car owner can invite 30 people to take a valid test drive in the month, he can get a subsidy of 1,000 yuan/month, and if the number of test drivers reaches 90 people, or the car owner directly recommends the sale of 1-2 cars, the subsidy amount will be increased to 3,000 yuan. The maximum subsidy amount can reach 10,000 yuan. In addition, if the owner's invitation can lead to the sale of the vehicle, an additional 3,000 yuan will be awarded for each car sold. The term is one year.
During the test drive, in addition to uploading on-site photos to a specific Mini Program, the owner also needs to provide Skyworth with accurate, true and effective information such as the information of the test drive personnel, including the name, phone number and photo of the test drive customer.
"Buying a car is equivalent to having a job, but also a career, making money and supporting a family." But the reality is not as good as advertised, many Skyworth owners were told two months after buying a car, such a cooperation model was terminated, and it was written in the contract: "The first three months are the objection period, and both parties have the right to terminate the agreement without assuming any responsibility."
Phoenix.com's "Eye of the Storm" contacted a salesperson of Skyworth Automobile, although the subsidy conditions are slightly different, she also advertises that she can make money by buying a car. According to her, there will be a subsidy of 2,000 yuan per month for 5 years to buy Skyworth cars, provided that you drive 3 kilometers every day and send a circle of friends, and sell a car every year. Of course, there will be a commission after selling a car, and you can get up to 5,000 yuan for each car sold.
Regarding the question of whether the subsidy will be terminated, the other party said: "I sold 4 cars, and I have been sending them since October last year."
In this mode, Skyworth Automobile seems to want to convert car owners into sales and endorse the product. However, the operation was as fierce as a tiger, and the sales volume not only did not reach the expected target, but showed a downward trend. According to the data, in 2022, Skyworth automobile sales will be 21,900 units, and in 2023, Skyworth automobile sales will drop to 18,600 units. This is far from its sales target of 40,000 units.
In addition, according to the data released by the China Passenger Car Association, Skyworth EV6 sales in January 2024 will be 400 units, accounting for 40% of Skyworth Auto's sales in that month. However, in the sales ranking of the SUV market, Skyworth EV6 ranks 200th, which is obviously at the bottom of the market. In Huang Hongsheng's mouth, Skyworth Automobile's sales target for 2024 has also been lowered from 100,000 to 50,000.
With poor reputation and declining sales, Huang Hongsheng may have been wrong from the beginning. In today's new energy vehicle market, the competition can be described as very fierce, and all major brands are rolling technology, service, and experience, but the volume "car can cure diseases" seems to deviate from the mainstream market demand. This is also to make the road to car manufacturing, which once won the "king of color TV", full of uncertainty.