A Translation of the Chinese Markdown Text to English Markdown Text
By LYNXUnknown
During the Shanghai Auto Show two years ago, I had a chance encounter with a long-time-no-see old classmate. Since he graduated from university, he has become a lawyer, and had almost nothing to do with the automotive industry.
However, to my surprise, when I saw him, I found out that the new car he bought recently because of getting married was actually a pure electric SUV from a new brand.
At that moment, I became interested and asked him why he didn’t choose traditional luxury cars like BBA, but instead bought a less well-known brand.
His answer also surprised me – apart from the license plate restriction policy and price factors, the biggest reason was simply because he saw the brand’s advertisement when refreshing the news on his phone.
“I don’t have any special research or interest in cars myself. I had never even heard of this brand before. But I saw the advertisement, thought the appearance was quite novel and different from the cars on the street, and the price was reasonable, so I bought it,” his purchasing reason was also simple and straightforward.
After hearing this answer, I had some reflection at that time:
As a media person in the auto industry, you naturally classify various car models into “good, better, best” based on technical parameters such as performance and endurance. Over time, this seems to have fallen into some kind of “information cocoon.”
And when it comes to ordinary consumers who really want to buy a car, the first thing that new energy car manufacturers need to do is probably just let them know that there is such a brand.
After all, in this era of information explosion, seemingly simple and inexpensive attention is the scarcest resource.
Time has passed, and at the 2021 Chengdu Auto Show which just opened last week, the competition for attention has become even more intense. Although there were no heavyweight new cars in the true sense, the modified cars, joint venture cars, and “women’s exclusive cars” on display at the booths of major manufacturers still brought countless flows to the auto show.
Some of these products have co-branded paint, some have personalized configurations, and even retro elements. These have attracted crowds of people to the relevant exhibition booths, where many young consumers have taken pictures for memorial.
Diverse marketing activities are the traditional strengths of old-fashioned car companies. For new energy car manufacturers, on the one hand, there are the constraints of insufficient marketing budgets , and on the other hand, there is the influence of “Tesla does not advertise” public opinion, so we rarely see eye-catching marketing initiatives from new energy brands.
However, during the Chengdu Auto Show, this situation is quietly changing.
The first to “seize the opportunity” is XPeng Motors.At the auto show booth, XPeng not only announced the “hard news” that the new P5 model will be launched for sale on the 15th of this month, but also brought the XPeng G3i NBA co-branded model, which was exhibited together with signed basketball shoes and the NBA championship trophy (the O’Brien Cup), attracting many young NBA fans to come and check it out.
As early as June 22 this year, XPeng Motors signed a contract with the NBA official website and became an official market partner. It is reported that XPeng only paid one-third of the cost of previous partners.
Outside the auto show, also in Chengdu, at the torch release event of the 31st World University Summer Games, XPeng Motors officially became the designated car for the torch relay.
During the escort period of the torch relay in this Games, XPeng will provide escort vehicles, work vehicles, shuttle vehicles and other services for the torch relay, and provide support in charging services and vehicle guarantee.
From co-branded NBA to becoming the torch escort car for the World University Summer Games, we can also perceive a thread: XPeng Motors wants to go down the “youthful” route.
But in the field of automotive marketing, this doesn’t seem too new. “Brand rejuvenation” has been a slogan shouted by almost every traditional automaker for many years. At China Joy, music festivals, and even mobile game skins, we often see various new cars.
So why does XPeng still want to go down this “old path”? Let’s analyze it from their own perspective.
If you have been paying attention to the new forces of automobile manufacturing, you will not be unfamiliar with the saying that “Wei Xiaoli” has formed a label for their respective companies: NIO emphasizes “high-end”, Ideal focuses on “family”, and XPeng focuses on “intelligence”.
But if you think carefully about the connotations of these three labels, the effects of telling stories to ordinary consumers will be somewhat different.
NIO’s “high-end” is easy to understand: the average price of their products is over 400,000 yuan, which is expensive enough and provides high-quality service. In short, they use high prices and costs to create a high-end luxury brand tone.
Ideal “family” is easy to understand: a 6-seater Ideal ONE with ample space, fully equipped to meet the comfort needs of family travel. When people talk about Ideal ONE, they think of “dad cars.”
However, XPeng’s “intelligence” is not as easy to understand as the above two categories. What is NGP? How advanced is the laser radar? How much better are voice partitioning and intelligent cockpit compared to other competing products?
These are not things that can be explained in a few words. At the level of specific consumers, they all have a certain level of cognitive and learning hurdles.
Moreover, the “geeky” group of consumers who equate “intelligence” with it has always been a relatively narrow one.
In this regard, we can compare it with the slogan “born for fever” of Xiaomi’s early days of entrepreneurship—until now, from mobile phones to tablets, rice cookers to sweeping robots, Xiaomi rarely mentions the concept of “technology enthusiasts.”
In short, cutting-edge intelligent technology is still a little far off for ordinary consumers like my lawyer classmate at the beginning, and “youngness” is more grounded and has a larger market space.
According to the “2020 China Consumer Market Development Report” released by the Institute of Commerce of the Ministry of Commerce last year, the population of China’s 90s and 00s reached 340 million, accounting for nearly one-fourth of the total population.
This group has distinctive characteristics. On the one hand, the young consumer group is the only child generation who likes to promote personal personality, has a wide range of sources of information and knowledge, has self-judgment, and has a high acceptance of different brands. On the other hand, their parents are generally from the 60s and 70s, after 20-30 years of wealth accumulation, they are also willing to invest in their children.
Therefore, compared to continuing to emphasize technological innovation, telling a good story of “young intelligence” to these more than 300 million young people will undoubtedly have greater value for XPeng to improve brand tonality and promote sales growth.
He XPeng also mentioned in 2018: The logic of new young users is changing, and we still want to pursue the logic of young users. When an era changes, we should pay attention to the new expectations of young users for the future. With this kind of thinking, XPeng Motors has strong competitiveness in intelligent and personalized product design.
However, what He XPeng emphasizes is still the “hard power” of product intelligence and personalized design. So how can XPeng Motors make more ordinary young consumers who are not originally interested in cars and researching about cars to understand XPeng Motors?
The answer is to find the real concerns and interests of young people, and subtly arouse their attention and interest.
This place can be a variety show like “The Big Comedy Show”. Through top-notch comedians’ witty and humorous language, let young audiences remember the “one house, four wheels” XPeng P5 either consciously or unconsciously.
This place can be a lively rap concert. Through the personality interpretation of rap singers and cool stage performances, young people will pay attention to the XPeng G3i which has an intelligent upgrading.
And sports events such as the NBA and the Universiade are undoubtedly good places to gather young people’s attention, which can make more people outside the automobile industry remember the name of XPeng Motors…
Just like XPeng wrote in the publicity poster of the Universiade torch relay car: “Enter the stage, youth”, compared with the slightly cold “technology”, the warmer “youth” is more likely to arouse the emotional resonance of young potential customers who do not know much about cars.
On the day of becoming a partner of the Universiade torch relay, XPeng Motors also announced its sales performance in August: a total of 7,214 new cars were delivered, a year-on-year increase of 172%. P7’s monthly delivery reached 6,165 units, setting a new high for four consecutive months. From January to August this year, a total of 45,992 new cars were delivered, a year-on-year increase of 334%.
From this scale, XPeng’s products are no longer limited to attracting a small group of smart technology enthusiasts, but will soon knock on the doors of more ordinary families who do not know much about smart cars.
At this point in time, the label of “young” and “youth” that is more friendly to the public can be said to be the general trend.Translate the following Chinese Markdown text into English Markdown text, in a professional way, preserving the HTML tags inside Markdown and only outputting the result:
To be fair, in the recent financial report conference, Henry Xiaoping also set a goal that the monthly sales of NIO in the fourth quarter should reach 15,000. The young consumer group will undoubtedly become an important "base" for XPeng's sales.
Finally, I would like to add that a rhetoric that new force manufacturers often used in the past few years was "returning to the rules of carmaking and respecting the rules of carmaking."
Nowadays, the "marketing towards young consumers" that has been popular in the Chinese auto industry for many years, can also be a kind of return to the industry's rules.
Moreover, XPeng, the new car manufacturer, is naturally young.
“`
To be fair, in the recent financial report conference, Henry Xiaoping also set a goal that the monthly sales of NIO in the fourth quarter should reach 15,000. The young consumer group will undoubtedly become an important “base” for XPeng’s sales.
Finally, a rhetoric that new force manufacturers often used in the past few years was “returning to the rules of carmaking and respecting the rules of carmaking.”
Nowadays, the “marketing towards young consumers” that has been popular in the Chinese auto industry for many years, can also be a kind of return to the industry’s rules.
Moreover, XPeng, the new car manufacturer, is naturally young.
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.