Feng Qingfeng, it's useless to hit the mouth cannon | Electromotive force

Recently, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi and other luxury brands have withdrawn from the price war information on the Internet, Lotus Group CEO Feng Qingfeng posted on social platforms that Lotus will never join the price war, nor will it rely on the so-called brand premium to obtain high profits.

When everyone was rolling up the price and selling cars on the table, Feng Qingfeng really made Lotus tough, and also made this brand attract a certain amount of attention. The downside of the price war is indeed as Feng Qingfeng said, unable to increase sales and damage the brand image at the same time, so Lotus has not joined the price war for a long time.

But how long can Feng Qingfeng's hardness last? Nowadays, the environment of China's auto market has changed, and independent new energy vehicles have been eroding the market share of luxury cars and sports cars.

As a more niche brand, Lotus faces more challenges domestically than other luxury brands. At the same time, the strategic mistakes of Lotus helmsman Mao Jingbo have put Lotus in a deep predicament, with sluggish performance and brand appeal continuing to decline. In this case, is Feng Qingfeng's so-called confidence just empty prestige?

Geely backs up, why bother to reduce prices?

The reason why Lotus does not participate in the price war, Feng Qingfeng said that Lotus's brand culture, brand genes and pure product experience do not allow price for volume.

It is undeniable that Lotus's positioning is high, this is a positioning of the million-level luxury pure electric car brand, once with Porsche, Ferrari these sports car brands are equally famous, its sports cars have been pursuing pure driving experience, even if the transformation of electrification, the launch of the main family pure electric SUV ELETRE model, is also the ultimate pursuit of aerodynamics.

Lotus takes the high-end luxury route, and the buyer is also a rich man who is not bad for money, Lotus does not have the need to reduce the price, and there will be side effects of selling the car at a reduced price, which not only loses the profit of the model, but also affects the brand value. As Feng Qingfeng said, some brands are desperate to exchange price for quantity, and the product is broken, which finally hurts the brand, and does not get a good evaluation and reputation in the market.

From the perspective of Geely Group, Lotus really can't cut prices, otherwise it will erode the market share of Zeekr, Zeekr and Lotus, one is a civilian route, the other is a high-end route, and the price is the boundary moat of the two brands.

However, Lotus's insistence on not reducing prices is far more than just a matter of brand culture and market positioning, and the sluggish market demand is also an influencing factor that cannot be ignored.

Lotus's lofty positioning doomed the brand to a niche route. Taking the 2024 sales target as an example, Lotus has set a global sales target of only 26,000 units, and with such a small market demand, it is likely that it will be difficult for Lotus to reduce the price of its models.

What's more, Lotus is not short of money. With the big tree of Geely, funding is not a problem, and it has been reported that Lotus can get sufficient resources and autonomy to pursue development within the Geely Group, and will not have strict budget benchmarks like other brands. It is reported that Lotus has a global smart factory in Wuhan Economic and Technological Development Zone, with a total investment of 8 billion yuan, covering an area of more than 1,500 acres.

At the beginning of this year, Lotus Technology was listed on the NASDAQ in the form of SPAC, which shows that Lotus's financial strength is quite strong. So the problem of funding is solved, why does Lotus blindly pursue the scale of sales?

Geely's expectations, I'm afraid they will be disappointed?

In fact, for the Lotus brand, Geely's goal is not only to pursue volume. Li Shufu has always had a sports car dream in his mind, when the beauty leopard failed to realize the dream of the market, Li Shufu pinned his hopes on Lotus, Geely acquired Lotus is also planning to establish a high-performance sports niche first, and then Geely will use the Lotus signboard to harvest overseas high-end car market share, so now Geely is strongly supporting the development of Lotus and giving various resources, and market sales and cash flow are not the goals that Lotus focuses on.

To this end, Feng Qingfeng also launched the "Vision80" brand revival plan within Geely, that is, to complete the brand's comprehensive transformation to electrification and intelligence on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the establishment of the Lotus brand in 2028.

However, Geely's expectations for Lotus are not up to the ideal state at the moment. In recent years, the development of Lotus in China has not been smooth, this luxury brand with a history of more than 70 years, since stepping into the mainland's smart car track, has not been able to hand over a satisfactory answer, the brand voice is very low.

Although Mao Jingbo, President of Lotus China, once said that Lotus is the world's first all-in electric and intelligent supercar brand, the change in product layout strategy has not brought about a change in market performance and voice for Lotus, but Lotus has also fallen into a negative public opinion crisis.

First, in May last year, a Lotus Eletre user complained that Lotus sold the test car as a new car, which was suspected of consumer fraud. Then the Lotus Eletre was revealed to have been reduced three times, and did not take the initiative to inform the owner. What is even more unacceptable is that the Suzhou Lotus Center held a "high-end" blind date bureau, requiring male students to verify more than 50 million yuan, and female students need to have a master's degree or above, and have a good temperament and image.

This series of events not only lowered the brand image of Lotus, but also reduced the favorability in the hearts of consumers, and cast a shadow on the road to brand revival of Lotus.

The crux of Lotus is more complex than it seems

Lotus has overturned again and again in the market, and there are voices in the industry that Mao Jingbo, known as the "Iron Lady" in marketing, can't control Lotus.

Before joining Lotus, she held key positions in Lincoln and Mercedes-Benz, and during her tenure at Lincoln, Lincoln successfully achieved a bumper harvest in sales and word of mouth, bringing Lincoln from a marginal brand back to a brand on an equal footing with Lexus and Cadillac. Perhaps Geely took a fancy to Mao Jingbo's ability to revive the brand, and then Mao Jingbo joined Lotus as a founding partner and served as the president of Lotus China, which shows that Geely has high hopes for Mao Jingbo.

According to Li Shufu's idea, after Mao Jingbo came to Lotus, the core work is to clarify the value and definition of the Lotus brand, create a solid brand imprint, and to put it bluntly, let the Lotus brand glow with new vitality in the Chinese auto market, and embark on a Lincoln Avenue like the Lincoln brand.

However, contrary to expectations, Lotus's current performance in the market is obvious to all, whether it is sales, revenue, or brand reputation, there are no outstanding results. In other words, Lotus was in the hands of Mao Jingbo and failed to fulfill Lotus's expectations for her.

It's not easy to solve the crux of Lotus. For the current Lotus, there are not many internal problems, first of all, the helm, it is reported that after Mao Jingbo took the position of CEO of Lotus China, she brought a lot of her old department, placed in important positions, and cleaned a lot of the original Geely system personnel in various ways, including Ye Qin, a Geely old man who hung the legal person of Shanghai Lotus Sales Company, when Mao Jingbo did not have significant achievements to support, this nepotism was criticized.

And then in terms of marketing shortcomings, in this regard, a typical example is last year, when everyone tightened their belts, Lotus took the 75th anniversary as an opportunity to spend a budget of 100 million yuan, held a party at the Shanghai International Circuit, and advertised on major online platforms, but the money was spent, and the brand influence of Lotus was as you can see, and hundreds of millions of funds could not be effectively converted.

For Lotus now, it is too important to enhance brand power, and Feng Qingfeng frequently shows Lotus's attitude of not fighting price wars through social platforms, and the behavior of singing against most car companies can indeed gain a certain degree of attention for Lotus, and to a certain extent, it also demonstrates Lotus's adherence to brand value and value marketing.

However, the value marketing pursued by Lotus needs to provide consumers with a high-value product experience, rather than secretly reducing allocation, otherwise, Feng Qingfeng's so-called "Lotus always provides the best sports cars in the same class, provides customers with the purest driving pleasure, and gives customers the most unique emotional value" is just empty talk.