Live-streaming sales has become one of the most unique symbols in 2020 and is also the hottest trend nowadays. Figures like Li Jiaqi and Viya have set records of hundreds of millions of sales in a few hours, bringing huge impact to multiple industries.
As a result, the automotive industry has also begun trying live-streaming sales and brought in a “big object” into the live-streaming room. On May 17th, NIO’s “high-end” live-streaming sales attracted a lot of attention.
The results of this live-streaming included 5,288 test drive bookings, down payments for purchase of 320 vehicles and an estimated locked-in sales amount of RMB 128 million. Following car brands like GreatWall, Tesla and Li Auto, NIO has taken “live-streaming car buying” to new heights.
Scene-based Live-streaming Car Sales
The entire event was hosted by Wang Han and lasted for 5 hours and 29 minutes.
Half an hour after the show started, Wang Han began this live-streaming event next to the NIO ES6, but NIO did not appear at the beginning of the live-streaming. Instead, they appeared after Wang Han recommended several other products because NIO only occupied one slot in Wang Han’s show.
At 2 hours and 50 minutes into the event, Wang Han announced the most anticipated product, and then Li Bin appeared in person and talked with Wang Han. Wang Han started with “energy-saving and environmental protection” and asked Li Bin how he came up with the idea for this brand. Li Bin then explained the origins of NIO, including the concept of environmental protection, creating a Chinese independent high-end brand and the trend towards electric cars in order to quickly let users who do not understand NIO learn about this brand.
Then, Li Rui and the NIO ES6 appeared on screen, joining Wang Han and Li Bin’s team and the “golden triangle” began the road to car sales.
It is worth noting that in Wang Han’s introduction, Li Rui is a professional car consumer and colleagues usually ask him about buying cars. Li Bin then said that Li Rui is a senior ES8 car owner (who has purchased a NIO car) and has a background in the automotive industry (understands cars).
The reason why Li Rui is introduced this way is probably to position him as a professional and senior real user from the beginning, allowing Li Rui to explain the ES6 from the perspective of a real user. On the other hand, Li Bin outputs the brand concept to the user as the brand side, and Wang Han, who always appears as a high intelligent, high emotional intelligence figure on screen, acts as a potential user (novice user). The three of them standing together constitute the product relationship link, new user-real car owner-NIO. To quote NIO’s senior executive Wei Jian: “It feels like watching a drama.”## Scene Play Continues
At the beginning, Wang Han spoke very little while Li Rui had given some praise to ES6, calling it the “pride of the Chinese auto industry” and “the most beautiful new energy car.” Seeing Li Rui selling the car so dedicatedly, Li Bin smiled and said, “Let’s be humble.” Then he added, “We recently won the Best Design Award of the Year in Germany.”
Obviously, Li Bin was very confident about the appearance design of ES6. In the whole live streaming session, the appearance of ES6 was highlighted. Like other car executives during live streaming, Li Bin did not seem very natural and appeared to be quite nervous. He would occasionally interrupt Li Rui, as if he was afraid of missing some important product details because of the limited time.
For example, when Wang Han proposed to take a test drive, Li Bin said, “Don’t be in a hurry. Let’s talk about the overall performance first.”
Compared to Li Xiang and Tiger Brother’s live streaming, Li Bin appeared more dominant, and it was obvious that he had done enough research for this live streaming, showing how much he valued it.
Then Zijia, who was in charge of warming up the audience, appeared on the screen. As a designer who had studied in Italy, he praised ES6’s appearance and logo, saying it was “internationalized” and “high-end,” and the logo was “very cool.”
After talking about the appearance, Li Bin then focused on the performance and compared the acceleration of ES6 with that of BMW X5 M. He also used a lot of technical terms, such as braking distance and maximum torque. Li Bin might have felt that he was being too technical for the average user, but Li Rui, the experienced user, translated in time.
After entering the car, Li Bin and Li Rui, two “professionals,” gave a briefing to the “layman” Wang Han, including the queen’s copilot, advanced interior design, etc. Li Bin sat in the driver’s seat, Wang Han sat in the copilot seat, and Li Rui occasionally added to Li Bin’s explanation.
When Li Rui was explaining some of the central control designs dedicatedly, Li Bin interrupted again, reiterating some of the product details he wanted to express. At this moment, Li Bin appeared to be in a state where he could explain seemingly endlessly.
When I thought everything was following the script, a staff member appeared and reminded them that the viewership of the live stream was high, and they needed to launch the next round of red envelope rain. Li Bin was confused and asked, “What should we do with Han Brother?”Obviously, there were some unprofessional issues occurred in this “high-end” live broadcast. After the red packet rain, there was a demonstration of NOMI by Li Bin. Following the display of NOMI’s voice control function by Li Bin, Li Rui supplemented with more functions of NOMI.
However, NOMI had an accident too. When Li Bin asked NOMI: “Do you know Wang Han?” NOMI did not proceed according to the predetermined route. Li Bin chuckled and said: “It crashed.”
Later, Li Bin explained: “The main problem is that my Mandarin is not good.” After Li Rui took over, NOMI finally gave face and accurately identified Li Rui’s voice. The three people finally breathed a sigh of relief. But, who is “Wang Han”?
Afterwards, according to the script, Li Bin sent a pair of NOMI mahjong tiles to Wang Han. NIO’s live broadcast ended with Wang Han’s words, “That’s the one.” The whole process lasted for 30 minutes.
How to evaluate this live broadcast
Although there were some small embarrassments, some small mistakes from the director, and a little accident, the content of this live broadcast was relatively compact.
In other words, Li Bin basically presented all the points he wanted to express to the audience. With Li Rui’s transition, some professional explanations became easier to understand.
Because the nature of this live broadcast is in the content, the role of content plays a significant role in how to make users more receptive to the product. However, after all, Wang Han is a star-level figure, his promotional value far exceeds the content value, and even the value of selling products.
Therefore, the analysis of the three roles: potential users, real users, and brand owners is entirely based on Wang Han’s voice volume.
As for the promotion effect, as of Li Bin’s introduction of the car machine, the number of live broadcast viewers has exceeded 10 million. In comparison, on April 28th, Viya’s Tesla live broadcast accumulated 4 million viewers. In October last year, Lei Jia Yin’s live broadcast of selling cars accumulated 4.59 million viewers.
In the automotive industry, NIO’s live broadcast has also attracted the attention of the industry, and major automobile media has begun to report on the results of NIO’s live broadcast.
The day after the live broadcast, He XPeng, chairman and CEO of XPeng Motors, posted a circle of friends. Whether this circle of friends is related to the NIO’s live broadcast, let us put it aside. But He XPeng’s general idea is that although everyone knows that live broadcasts may have some exaggeration, everyone is afraid of missing this opportunity, so they are all trying.
Based on the results from NIO, this data of 5,288 test drive appointments, 320 deposit reservations, and an estimated sales value of approximately CNY 128 million is rarely seen in the history of “live car sales”.
What does it mean if all of the reserved deposits are actually converted into sales? To compare, on the first day of his live streaming sales, Jia Yueting had a total turnover of CNY 110 million. Moreover, with 5,288 test drive reservations, even if only 1% can be successfully converted into sales, it still implies substantial income.
This means that if NIO’s sales data is accurate, not taking the opportunity to try “live streaming sales” in the face of this trend might result in missing out on opportunities and potential gains for the enterprise. Therefore, in the view of He XPeng, “live car sales” presents an opportunity to seize and make money, but whether it is a long-term strategy worth considering requires further analysis.
However, He XPeng’s concern is not unfounded. Apart from the impressive sales statistics, there is also a risk of high return rates for live streaming sales. The main factors leading to high return rates include quality issues, after-sales problems, delivery issues, over-hype, false advertising, and impulse buying, among others.
Regarding NIO’s live streaming sales, there is hardly any exaggeration or false advertising. The primary issues are impulse buying and delivery problems. It was disclosed online that the deposit for this event is refundable, meaning that the number of sales from these 320 large orders is still unknown.
Nevertheless, NIO has set a new benchmark for “live car sales” and provided reference data for future car companies’ live streaming events.
On the other hand, thanks to the influence of Wang Han’s massive fan base, NIO’s brand exposure has increased substantially regardless of the test drive and deposit data.
The only drawback is that the anchor fee for a celebrity like Wang Han is undoubtedly high. It is guessed that the thinking of major car manufacturers is as long as the input-output ratio does not result in significant loss, or it can basically break even, then live streaming sales are a profitable deal. However, the fact is that no one can predict the number of orders that will be placed. Based on exposure alone, most car companies may still prefer advertising investment.
Therefore, as of this NIO live streaming event, almost no car manufacturer would invest in a high-profile celebrity like Wang Han. Why did NIO do this?
It is speculated that there are two reasons: first, NIO itself aims to develop independent high-end Chinese brands, and inviting some social media influencers to participate might compromise their brand image. Instead, choosing a celebrity-level live streaming event better aligns with their high-end brand personality.
Secondly, the “Matthew Effect” brought by celebrities – the greater the voice, the wider the spread, even if the order is unknown, it can also attract attention from all walks of life in the brand heat hype, and even go viral.
So in summary, this live broadcast was quite successful, and its significance lies in providing an industry benchmark reference value, indicating that “live streaming car sales” by celebrity-level hosts have some feasibility.
In other words, NIO’s live broadcast is a relatively successful reference case. I guess that in the next stage, there will be a small number of car companies trying out celebrity “live streaming car sales”, and they will refer to NIO’s content form in this live broadcast. If this stage can bring considerable data performance, then the next stage will usher in the outbreak of “live streaming car sales”.
A new marketing model?
If we ignore the live streaming of NIO, IDEAL, Tesla and others and look purely at the current live streaming car sales market, what kind of perspective does it present?
First of all, let’s take a look at the two major changes that live streaming car sales brings compared to traditional sales models. The first is to overturn the order of people, scenes, and goods. The traditional automotive business model is to produce products, sell them to people through sales venues such as dealerships or self-operated stores. In simpler terms, the process is to first have products, then go to the scene, and then to the people.
However, live streaming disrupts this traditional marketing model, where people come first, and you need to have a voice, which is the fan base, then find one or more automotive products to sell to fans.
This means that in addition to the brand reputation of car manufacturers, the live streaming hosts’ reputation is also critical. In this way, the fan base and the hosts’ reputation play a more significant role in determining the final transaction volume. The second change is from standard products to non-standard products. How to understand this?
In other words, traditional sales must sell products according to standard specifications, but live broadcasting consists of different products, different prices, and different sales methods combined. For example, Luo Yonghao’s live broadcast of the Haval discount sale is something that cannot be done with traditional sales methods. Some live sales even offer low-priced snap-up methods, and various forms emerge endlessly.
In simple terms, live streaming and product delivery are more flexible, and non-standard products will be the most important ecology in live streaming. Further, live streaming focuses on “traffic conversion” in the front end.
From the perspective of the automotive market, the practical significance of live streaming and product delivery directly converting traffic into sales in the short term needs to be further discussed, but acquiring leads will be more direct. Because cars themselves are consumer goods, and users’ purchase decision cycles are longer and more cautious. Most users need to understand product-related information and refer to multiple opinions before purchasing.
The more straightforward approach is to prioritize obtaining high-quality leads, which can then be transformed into actual sales by the sales team. In other words, currently, livestreaming car sales mainly serves to bring users online and generates a portion of these leads in the process.
In the long run, when the user lead data accumulates to a sufficient quantity, it will provide automobile manufacturers with decision-making bases, including research and development, production, promotion and other stages.
In addition, from my perspective, livestreaming car sales will also have another effect, which is to push users who have a basic knowledge of the product and are hesitating to make a purchase.
Assuming that the livestreaming generates sufficient buzz and has good content, the driving effect on this type of users can be foreseen.
In conclusion, current livestreaming car sales are still in the trial stage, but as the format matures, a new round of reshuffling between dealers and car manufacturers may be on the way.
NIO’s livestreams have provided a reference for the industry, and it remains to be seen how major automobile companies will respond.
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.