Editor/Zhang Nan
Design/design
In a market where competition has long been the Red Sea, how should a new automobile brand find its unique positioning and value? This is probably the same topic that every new car brand faces at the beginning of its birth.
There is a saying in Positioning, one of the best-selling monographs in marketing, "Don't attack market leaders head-on. It is much better to bypass obstacles than to cross them. It is best to choose a position that others do not fully occupy. "
This coincides with the idea of Drucker, a master of management. "The success of a small business is definitely not to get a slice of the big business, but to find its own niche, even a temporary niche."
Most emerging enterprises and brands hope to gain differentiated competitive advantages through market segmentation and personalized service. This is also the so-called "differentiated competition" strategy advocated by many start-ups, and many of them uphold the concept of "better than different".
The competition in China automobile market continues to heat up. In this context, Zhang Xiaoliang, founder and CEO of Socar product strategy consulting company, believes that it is becoming more and more difficult to play tricks only by gender, age, occupation and other characteristics. At this time, more in-depth insight tools are gradually incorporated, and car companies must study the characteristics of users' values and find the internal driving force of users.
Users are still the entrance to insight, but the scene has become the foothold of insight. In Zhang Xiaoliang's view, car companies still need to understand users, but the key point of understanding is the lifestyle and car use of users, as well as the cognitive rules of users. Because the final output is the user-related car scenes and the key problems that users expect to solve in each scene.
The latest representative of this is the koala of the polar fox.
Driven by the subdivision of the scene, around the travel needs of parents and children, the polar fox opened the "second front" of scene-based car-making. Around the mother-infant crowd, this was almost unheard of in the China automobile market in the past.
At present, product differentiation, as a necessary condition for market success, has become the common sense of many enterprises. However, if the differentiated positioning is not derived from technology, but from the conceptual attachment of insight or perceptual value, then this positioning logic is difficult to last with great probability.
Some insiders said that it is understandable that enterprises hope to break a new world in a red sea with the help of misplaced competition. But another problem is that dislocation competition is not a purposeful dislocation, not a dislocation for the sake of dislocation. If we differentiate for the sake of differentiation, enterprises will eventually lose their marketing direction in differentiation.
On June 23, 2023, at the monthly analysis meeting of the passenger car market in June 2023, when talking about the topic of who can win the new forces of traditional car companies and technology companies, Zhang Yu, CEO of Shanghai Yuzhi Automobile Consulting Co., Ltd. said that the extreme scene of enterprise research cannot enter a misunderstanding, that is, the consumer group cannot be reduced to the extreme.
"If you study a scene associated with a very narrow crowd, then this scene research is problematic. Why is the ideal (car) successful, because it has positioned a wide range of people for family travel, and every married man, including women, can like this car. "
Zhang Yu believes that if a product wants to become a mainstream model, rather than a short-lived explosion, then it should try to target the widest and wider population. There is no problem in scene research, but the scene should be aimed at a wider range of people and find extreme scenes that a wide range of people like. "Take Toyota as an example, it is for everyone, and it has achieved reliable quality and fuel economy, becoming a world famous car."
In the current automobile market in China, we can see that many automobile brands are taking the differentiated competition route. They are really maverick and different enough. Among them, there are many excellent automobile products and brands, some of which have not only changed the fate of enterprises, but even rewritten the competitive pattern of a market segment.
Without quantity, only quantity, China automobile market began to bid farewell to sameness and ushered in a truly diversified era. Now, let's take a look at the automobile brands and models that follow the differentiated positioning in the automobile market.
Koala: Positioning the Maternal and Infant Market
With the arrival of the polar fox koala, a brand-new category focusing on parent-child travel has officially surfaced.
On June 9, 2023, at 65438, the smart parent-child car, the polar fox koala, was officially unveiled. As the first scene-driven product of the polar fox brand, koala is the first smart parent-child car for mothers and babies. Unlike most car products in the past, koala is the product that resolutely divides the scene vertically along the user's life stage and lifestyle.
If Euler is facing women, koalas are more concerned about their mothers.
"Koala is the first car in a child's life. Koalas should ride around children instead of adults again. " At the press conference that day, Li Sen, koala manager and vice president of BAIC Research Institute, said, "Let the children be seen and the mother be concerned. Doing this product is our initial intention. "
Slightly different from Ideal and Euler, koala further vertically divides the product positioning into the life stages of specific people on the basis of specific people, that is, from pregnancy preparation to parenting.
Zhang Xiaoliang believes that this positioning is a double-edged sword, because if the segmentation stage is too narrow, the product value is not lasting, and the segmentation is too wide or not, the core interests of the product will not be focused. "The scale that koalas consider on this issue is basically to make this cycle approximately equal to the average cycle of users holding a car. This will not only make users feel that the vehicle cannot be used for a long time because of precise positioning, but also make the core scene thorough. "
"We can proudly say that koala is the definer of maternal and child cockpit standards in the automotive industry." At the press conference, koala officials described their position like this. In koala's view, there is no car cockpit defined specifically for maternal and child level in the industry. In order to change this reality, koala has made various attempts, such as making the top products of this module in the benchmarking industry, and comparing the environmental protection standards that are most suitable for infants and young children in various scenarios such as home and medical care.
For example, koala's team found that when getting on the bus, many mothers will encounter the problem of getting their children on and off the bus, and it is even more difficult to fasten their seat belts in safety seats. To this end, the polar fox koala and the good boy jointly launched the electric child safety seat, the design standard was improved by 60%, the structural strength of the child seat was improved by 156%, and the seat was designed according to the 80km/h standard collision.
For another example, in order to let children explore freely in the car, koala controlled11prohibited substances according to the EU toy directive and the new national standard, thus realizing the safe biting of gutta percha; Meet the environmental hygiene standards of pediatric outpatient service, and achieve medical-grade sterilization and antiviral effects; At the same time, the koala is also equipped with mercury-free ultraviolet active germicidal lamp, which can kill more than 99% of common Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus and influenza virus.
Koalas will go on sale this year. Koalas have opened up a brand-new track. So far, the market acceptance of this brand-new category of automobile products is still unknown, and it will take time to test whether it can pass the rigorous test of the market.
Salon: Original Mecha Technology Style
2021119, at the press conference on the first day of Guangzhou Auto Show, Jialong, the first product of Salon Auto, made its debut.
With the design with great visual impact, the dragon symbol of the mecha has become the focus of hot discussion in the industry as soon as it appears. There are two completely different sounds on the mechanical dragon: some people think that the modeling is individual, the design is full of avant-garde mechanical aesthetics, and the angular style makes people shine; Some people think that this design is too grandiose and far from the mainstream design style we usually see, which is difficult for mainstream consumers to accept.
Even though it is controversial, Sharon Automobile, a high-end brand owned by Great Wall Motor, broke into the public's field of vision in this way and successfully earned a wave of traffic. It is worth mentioning that at the auto show, this limited edition of Mechelon, with a price of 488,000 yuan and a global price of 10 1 car, was snapped up within 3.5 hours of booking.
What is the mecha wind?
Salon is defined as follows: Mecha style is a sci-fi style that takes place in a technological power. Its origin is the pursuit of the ultimate technology, and it is an out-and-out sci-fi romanticism. Looking back on the mecha products, from the snowstorm space shuttle and MiG -25 fighter in the former Soviet Union to the SR-7 1 Blackbird reconnaissance plane in the United States, all came into being under the extreme conditions. They used the ultimate technology internally and created an extremely pure form externally.
Inherent genes determine that the customer group that Sharon faces is a minority.
"Mecha is always a kind of romance for men." At the press conference, Wen Fei, CEO of Salon Auto, said frankly, "Salon is going to make a niche report, and use a warm and cool mecha technology brand to give customers another choice and give the world another answer."
Instead of gaining only 10% share in the 90% scale market, we should strive for 90% share in the 10% market segment. This is the logic of Sharon's automobile adventure. Wen Fei's intention is the same. Salon is built to make some people, especially high-end people like and trust it. "We want to build a niche but extreme product, which is high-end enough. Although it is a niche, it is extreme and special. "
Wen Fei emphasized more than once that it is necessary to focus on the high-end pure electric market of more than 400,000 yuan, the category of Mecha, this group of people with common brand beliefs and values, and this group of users with common interests in high intelligence, high performance and hard core modeling. It is enough to catch them.
Only from this point of view, Sharon is successful, but how to make consumers pay for their feelings and dreams with real money is also an all-round test of Sharon's automobile strength.
Ideal: born for family.
"This large SUV has brought users a perfect and comfortable experience from driving control to riding. It is rare for each seat to achieve the same rights. Its HUD+ dual-screen+rear entertainment screen constitutes a vehicle interactive system, with improved advanced assisted driving ability, accurate product details and a coherent and smooth experience. It is the representative work of China Zhizao from product thinking to user thinking and scene thinking. It will make every detail and experience of the whole vehicle perfect, and the products at the same level are unparalleled. "
On June 65438+February 65438+February 6, 2022, Ideal L9 won the 10th Xuanyuan Award in 2023 and the China Automobile of the Year Award. The above is the ideal L9 award-winning reason given by Xuanyuan Award Executive Committee.
In the new camp of building cars, Li not only has a clear market positioning, but also is the only car brand that injects the concept of "family" into every model.
Whether it is Li ONE (renamed L8), a six-seat medium-sized and large-sized SUV listed in April 20 19, L9, a large-scale home smart flagship full-size SUV ideal listed in mid-2022, or L7, a five-family flagship SUV ideal released on February 8, 2023, all of them are aimed at families, with clear positioning and focus on creating safer, more convenient and more exquisite smart electric vehicles for families.
Adhering to the mission of "building a mobile home and creating a happy home", the emergence of the ideal not only effectively solves the pain point of users using new energy vehicles, but also redefines the family car and accurately meets the needs of family users.
In terms of intelligence, Li ONE also embodies a development model dominated by the needs of home users. For example, the multi-screen solution for voice interaction of the whole vehicle promoted by Li ONE has now become the industry benchmark, and its whole vehicle is equipped with four-tone intelligent voice control, which is the first four-screen interaction. This also means that not only the driver, but also the family members sitting in the second row or even the third row can easily interact with Li ONE. Relevant data shows that the usage rate of its co-driver related smart applications exceeds 65%.
Paying attention to the feelings of drivers and all passengers is an important underlying logic of family car design, which is ideally practiced.
At the beginning of Li's establishment, Li Xiang, CEO of Li, showed his attitude-the underlying logic of creating explosive products is clearly defined users and creating exclusive products for these users. Fearing the market and users, the market finally gave him rich returns.
65438 On October 28th, 2023/KLOC-0, Li Xiang publicly declared in the employee letter that in February, 2022, Li won four firsts: the sales volume of SUV was the first of 300,000-500,000 yuan; 300,000-500,000 yuan of new energy vehicles ranked first in sales. The sales volume of large SUVs is the first; Sales of medium and large SUVs ranked first.
In June this year, 5438+ 10, Li won the first place in the new car-making power camp and was the only new car-making power with sales exceeding 10,000. Although sales can't represent everything, at least so far, the fiery performance of the market has initially proved the success of its product and brand positioning.
Jietu: Tourism+and User Operation
Gateway, which was born on 20 18, is a typical new independent brand that focuses on market segments. From the beginning of the brand's birth, Jietu determined the "Travel+"strategy, focusing on travel market segments and distinguishing it from Chery brand.
In 2022, Jietu sold 6,543,800 vehicles, up 654.38+06.9% year-on-year. As of February 2023, it has sold 660,000 cars, which is outstanding among many new brands.
Auto business review once analyzed how gateway products focus on travel+in reports such as High Intelligence, Extraordinary Health, Gateway X70 Zhuge Establishing a New Image of Travel+,Gateway: Born in Difficulties, Growing Against the Trend and Gorgeous Future. On February 18, the reporter had a new understanding of the brand's user operation after watching a Jietu family banquet in Yantai.
Jietu Family Banquet is a rider activity jointly organized by Jietu officials and local rider associations. The venue of this event, Wencheng Castle, will be decided by riders through consultation. Visit scenic spots during the day, lead * * * to set up meetings, and get together and have dinner at night. After the party, riders continued to scramble to perform on stage and gathered late into the night, which made the reporter deeply sigh: the social needs of consumers are really stronger than expected. How to find these like-minded people and organize them through lifestyle is a major issue for automobile brand users.
Zhang Chunwei, general manager of Jietu Marketing Company, said that this is the result of Jietu's online and offline dual operations in the past five years. Online, the owner connects through the application. In addition to the regular after-sales service, shopping in the mall and other functions, it is more sticky that all car owners can exchange and interact on the forum and organize activities spontaneously.
Offline, Jetway has five IPS: road trip, family banquet, beer lobster festival, fan culture festival and experience day. Every region, every dealer is doing it. Together with the activities organized by the car group, 3,345 user experience activities have been held by the end of May. Take go on road trip as an example, * * * held 783 games with 56,356 car owners.
Weilai has always been a benchmark enterprise in the field of user operation, and Jietu's attempts in some aspects are even worse. For example, in the face of users, Jetway has more than 3,000 people. At present, more than 1 0,000 people have added 34,000 users' WeChat, and each person is responsible for the docking service of more than 30 users on average. Users can directly find the docking personnel if they have problems, and the latter must help him find the corresponding departments and posts to solve the problems according to the feedback from users.
The departments involved include marketing, R&D, procurement, personnel and finance, and Zhang Chunwei was also randomly assigned to nearly 40 users. According to company regulations, users must give feedback within 24 hours if they don't reply to WeChat. If the service is good, the customer satisfaction is high, and there is a reward mechanism, the company will conduct regular spot checks.
This "full customer service" model is quite rare. "At first there was resistance, and everyone added extra work. The main purpose is to cultivate everyone's user awareness. Later, everyone saw that the bosses set an example and the employees did not resist. " Zhang Chunwei said.
"The biggest advantage is that in the past, customers mainly relied on call centers, which was ice for users.
This article is from auto business review, written by Yi Chehao, and the copyright belongs to the author. Please contact the author for any form of reprint. The content only represents the author's point of view and has nothing to do with the car reform.