Author: Su Qin

Recently, the news of Avita’s Chief Marketing Officer, Wang Lin, leaving the company has attracted a lot of attention in the industry.

According to data, in 2008, Wang Lin joined Apple China and later served as the Chief Marketing Officer of IHG’s mass market segment. He also worked at Chanel China and other companies. Wang Lin has rich experience in the high-end consumer goods industry, which coincides with Avita’s goal of establishing its presence in the high-end market as a new energy automotive brand.

After joining Avita Technology, Wang Lin mainly focused on two core areas – brand strategy and user development, including brand management, digital marketing, digital products, public relations, sales service, channel expansion and user experience in multiple customer-oriented business units.

Under Wang Lin’s leadership, Avita quickly established the direction of high-end brand positioning, and built a customer-oriented brand management system. In terms of brand strength, Avita’s high-end positioning has been preliminarily established, and the differentiation, personality and pioneering spirit of the brand are also very clear. Avita also created a pioneering limited edition fashion crossover car model – Avita 11/011.

Although the high-end label has been established, Avita’s market performance can hardly be described as outstanding. As of October 31, the first batch of Avita 11 has only locked in more than 5000 units.

Labels without market performance support are fragile.

Therefore, there are many speculations about Wang Lin’s departure from Avita.

Avita officially stated that Wang Lin resigned due to personal reasons, and Avita Technology CEO Tan Benhong will take over Wang Lin’s related work. The company’s existing personnel and business structure will remain unchanged, and efforts will be made to ensure the smooth delivery of the first model within the year.The wording raises two questions: first, the CEO is in charge of marketing, not someone else filling in, which shows that Wang Lin’s departure was somewhat urgent; second, did Wang Lin really resign for personal reasons?

Obviously, the truth may not be so simple.

On October 28th, according to Caixin, Avita reached a cooperation with Huawei, and its first model, the Avita 11, will enter Huawei’s flagship stores in Beijing and Shenzhen later this year. Later, this news was confirmed by Avita officials.

This news was ignored by many media outlets, but its significance is huge for Avita. For Avita, this is a crossroads of fate.

On the surface, there is nothing wrong with Avita’s cooperation with Huawei, but the key lies in the fact that Avita will be entering Huawei’s stores, which raises questions in the industry: is Avita going down the same path as Roewe Wanjie?

Roewe Wanjie, a subsidiary of SAIC, was labeled as an “OEM” after cooperating with Huawei and also entering Huawei’s flagship stores. This has made SAIC, which was supposed to have the initiative, unable to escape the shackles of Huawei’s support in name, and Roewe Wanjie has become known as “Huawei car” by the public, losing its soul.

It’s not hard to imagine the consequences of Avita’s choice to enter Huawei’s stores.

Some users are bound to compare it with the AITO Wanjie model, and since the Jixue Alpha S HI version also has a deep cooperation with Huawei and has the intention of entering Huawei’s flagship stores, and Avita is one of Huawei’s many partners, so this “halo” does not highlight the uniqueness and uniqueness of the Avita brand.

Once Avita cars are also labeled “Huawei cars”, where is the soul of the Avita brand? What is its existence?

This is why Jixue, who knows the interests involved, has been keeping its distance from Huawei’s channels.“`
However, it seems like AVITA is taking the third approach and relying on Huawei’s channels on a stage-by-stage basis.

According to Tan Benhong, “we are discussing channel cooperation with Huawei, but it is not about selling products on behalf of each other. It is more about Huawei helping us when our channel scale has not yet reached its full potential.”

What Tan Benhong said is true. As of now, AVITA has more than 60 direct stores across the country, but compared with Huawei’s thousands of retail stores, AVITA still has a long way to go. The secret behind Huawei’s stores lies in the company’s persuasive power, which can be described as “call and response”.

Therefore, by joining Huawei’s stores, AVITA’s market promotion is sure to have an immediate impact. The only downside is that AVITA may lose its brand spirit.

Choosing this approach reflects Tan Benhong’s pragmatic style. When faced with the choice between sales volume and brand recognition, he chose the former. Perhaps in his eyes, without the present, there can be no future.

For Wang Lin, when AVITA began to compromise with reality and temporarily handed over its brand spirit to Huawei, the branding she had previously established for AVITA can be considered as being nullified.

Wang Lin’s departure was to a certain extent inevitable.

So, where does Tan Benhong’s pressure come from?
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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.