Author: Cai Jialun

Introduction: LanTu, homophonic with “blueprint”, symbolizes beautiful planning and vision. As a high-end electric car brand under Dongfeng Motors, LanTu Automobile shoulders the heavy responsibility of leading Dongfeng brand upward. Judging from the current industry’s opinion, almost everyone highly regards LanTu Automobile. But can LanTu Automobile really live up to the task of making Dongfeng Group a high-end brand?

What surprised everyone was that China’s new energy vehicle market did not enter a winter period in 2020 due to the impact of the epidemic. Instead, after the end of the epidemic, there was a situation of blooming flowers and numerous companies contending. Technology companies, Internet companies, mobile phone companies, and so on all entered the raceway in their own ways. However, while everyone was paying attention to Xiaomi cars and JiKe cars, LanTu automobile announced its order quantity in early August 2021. From June 19th to July 31st, LanTu Automobile received a total of 3689 orders in just 43 days. In addition, LanTu Automobile independently proposed a brand guide price exceeding RMB 320,000, ranking first among mature Chinese automotive companies.

According to the classification of the attributes of LanTu Automobile, LanTu FREE is performing well. However, compared with some recent hits, such as JiKe cars, LanTu FREE seems to be slightly inferior, and the above order quantity is cumulative and will inevitably be discounted in the long run. Therefore, how to define the performance of LanTu up to now? Perhaps it is just average. In addition, the deviation in brand management, from benchmarking Hongqi to being the “ideal follower,” is also worth the attention of LanTu. It is believed that high-level executives such as Zhu Yanfeng are also reluctant to see such a gap in the brand.

Marketing is Neither High nor Low

Speaking of Dongfeng Motors, I believe everyone knows that it is one of the four major Chinese automotive groups, and the military products of Dongfeng series do not need to be mentioned. Dongfeng Motors has had a regret all along, that is, it does not have a high-end brand like its big brother, FAW Hongqi. For this reason, Dongfeng people have been working hard for many years, but failed until they launched LanTu in July last year, which was the original “Dongfeng H project”. Unfortunately, Dongfeng Motors with the background of state-owned enterprises took a path similar to that of a new force in making cars when it launched a brand-new high-end electric car brand – LanTu.

What does the new force in making cars mean? Visits first! Mr. Jie Weiguo of Li Xiang Automobile once mentioned in an article: “The experience of mature brands is equivalent to the ability to dress up the soft furnishings in the sample room of a high-end decoration company, while new brands need to be able to cover everything from the design of the architectural drawings, construction, to soft and hard furnishings, as well as be able to build a floor from scratch. Soft furnishings and building floors are completely different concepts.” In simpler terms, the difficulty of LanTu Automobile lies in zero brand awareness, zero brand story, zero product line, and zero fan base. Therefore, it is not difficult for us to understand why LanTu Automobile took a path similar to that of a new force in developing. So in what way will LanTu Automobile specifically build its brand culture and brand story?

Let’s first review the success of brands like Hongqi, NIO, and Lynk & Co. They all have distinct characteristics behind their success. NIO relies on “hotpot”-style service and internet thinking, Lynk & Co relies on the endorsement of Volvo’s technology, and Hongqi relies on brand accumulation and unique product design. So what about LanTu? Based on the current situation, LanTu has left the deepest impression on people with three words: “light,” “quiet,” and “elegant.” These are the key words that LanTu has left on the outside world. Compared with Hongqi’s solemnity and Lynk & Co’s technology, LanTu seems to have found an unusual way to create brand culture.

So what do “light,” “quiet,” and “elegant” exactly mean? We can use four phrases from LanTu’s promotional film to describe it: “the clear wind of the valley,” “the deep blue of the sea,” “a cleaner tomorrow,” and “a more diverse beauty.” The entire brand creates a serene and elegant visual effect. This brand characteristic reminds us of Volvo, which is ridiculed as being frigid, and Lexus, which claims to integrate Eastern luxury philosophy. However, LanTu’s brand feature is different from the two. The brand features of Volvo and Lexus are still people-oriented, but the expressions are slightly different. In contrast, LanTu shows a “broad mind toward the world” characteristic to people.

In summary, LanTu has incorporated too many traditional brand elements during the process of shaping its high-end brand, even giving people a sense of detachment from consumers, leaving people feeling unattainable. Earlier, many readers told electric car reporters that LanTu’s brand culture positioning is too high and does not fit in with the current cultural beliefs of consumers. In contrast, Ideal One, which also uses extended-range technology, doesn’t propose particularly high-end brand concepts when shaping brand culture. Instead, it integrates concepts such as “family” and “technology,” successfully attracting consumers’ attention. However, when LanTu learned from new forces in the auto industry on how to shape brand culture, they only learned the “form” but not the “essence.” On the one hand, they want to approach consumers like Ideal One and other new forces, but on the other hand, they maintain the inherent “coldness” of traditional car companies, which seems out of place in the car market.

I believe that at present, the Voyah Automobile is in a stage of being “out of reach on both sides”, on one hand, it wants to have the advanced feeling of the Hongqi brand, and on the other hand, it wants to learn the operational mode of the new forces in the industry. Under such circumstances, the brand image of Voyah Automobile will only end up being a mismatch. The reason for this situation, in my opinion, has a lot to do with the core management team of Voyah Automobile.

There is still a gap in the configuration of the core team.

The reason why this situation occurs, I think, largely depends on the background of the core members of the Voyah team. Specifically, the core management personnel of Voyah include: Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Lu Fang, Chief Brand Officer (CBO) Ye Xin, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Shen Jun, and so on.

As the core leader of Voyah Automobile, Lu Fang served as assistant product department head and department head of FAW Car Co., Ltd. from April 2014 to September 2017, and then served as the project management department head of the FAW Pentium Development Institute from September 2017 to April 2018 after switching to independent brands. It is worth noting that before Lu Fang became CEO & CTO of Voyah Automobile, he had never served as the head of any host factory. Therefore, when Lu Fang took the position of head of Voyah Automobile, many industry professionals raised two questions: First, whether Lu Fang could convince the public; second, whether the experience Lu Fang accumulated in the traditional automotive research and development field could meet Voyah Automobile’s R&D in high-end pure electric vehicles, after all, traditional automobiles are different from electric vehicles not only in design structure but also in design thinking. For example, from previous “defining cars by hardware” to “defining cars by software”.

Compared with Lu Fang, Mr. Xu Xin who has taken over the position of the Chief Brand Officer at Voyah Auto has a more diverse and appropriate work experience. Xu Xin has previously served as the head of the vehicle sales department of Dongfeng Citroen’s commercial department, the Deputy General Manager of Dongfeng Peugeot’s commercial department, the Deputy General Manager of Shenlong Motor’s commercial department and General Manager of Dongfeng Peugeot, the Deputy Minister of Dongfeng’s Strategic Planning Department, and the Deputy General Manager of Dongfeng Infiniti. In other words, Xu Xin is a “well-bred” warrior cultivated by Dongfeng Group. However, it is still hard to say whether Xu Xin has enough capability to lead a market-oriented high-end electric brand, as his background in a traditional car manufacturer may make him more familiar with the traditional dealer model in marketing thinking, which is somewhat outdated in the era of “User Co-creation”.

Ms. Shen Jun, who has been appointed as the Chief Financial Officer of Voyah Auto, not only has less diverse work experience in comparison to the aforementioned two core team members, but her previous work experience may also be detrimental to Voyah Auto’s development at its start-up stage. Before joining Voyah Auto, Shen Jun served as a financial report division manager in the finance department of Dongfeng Group headquarters. It is undeniable that Shen Jun’s previous experience may help Voyah Auto avoid excessive spending in expenditure and effectively ensure its cash flow. However, this approach is not conducive to Voyah Auto’s calling for external financing in the future, as not everyone can possess excellent financing ability on the basis of financial control capability, like Li Xiang, the founder of WM Motors. Some may argue that with Dongfeng Group’s support, Voyah Auto does not need to worry about its cash flow. However, if Voyah Auto wants to achieve high-end development, accepting the baptism of the capital market is an indispensable next step.

It is understood that Voyah Auto claims to explore a new “mature car enterprise + new force in car manufacturing” innovative integration development model in terms of mechanisms, adopting the OKR (Objective and Key Results) goal management form of the Internet, and the project development will also adopt a matrix parallel development method. Can Voyah Auto achieve consistent and Internet-based operation of new energy vehicles? However, in actual operation, tradition and face-saving are still the core, indicating that so-called learning may only exist on the surface, and the real operational difficulties cannot be underestimated.From the current situation, it’s hard to imagine how many layers decision-making mechanism Voyah Auto has, as its core management team consists mainly of people born in the 60s and 70s. According to the operating mode of “mature car companies,” when faced with major decision-making issues, companies typically report to their groups, the government, etc. However, in this era of fast-paced car production, the multiple layers of decision-making mechanisms undoubtedly seriously affect the development of Voyah Auto.

Despite this, Voyah Auto’s management is relatively flat, similar to those new car companies with quick decision-making and agile responses. This is why the author believes that Voyah Auto is learning from “new car companies.” As for the actual situation, we need to see how much tolerance the core management team of those born in the 60s and 70s has for new ideas from below.

Wrong skill tree!

Yu Zheng once said: “Dongfeng sees quality as life, bringing users trustworthy products and services based on the craftsmanship spirit accumulated over more than 50 years, nearly 30 years of high-end manufacturing technology accumulation, 19 years of new energy technology research and development, and more than 50 partner companies.” The implied meaning is that Voyah Auto is based on Dongfeng’s tens of thousands of employees, with over 50 years of technical accumulation, nearly 30 years of high-end manufacturing technology accumulation, and more than ten years of internet development to launch a high-end brand that focuses on new energy technology. If readers are familiar with Dongfeng, they will feel that this is exactly the second “Dongfeng No.1” project, and the significance of Voyah FREE is almost identical to that of the A9 back in the days.

Given its innate deficiencies in brand marketing and other aspects, Voyah Auto can only rely on Dongfeng Group’s existing technology to achieve “corner overtaking”. Unfortunately, with the advent of the era of intelligent electrification, Voyah Auto’s first car – Voyah FREE – is not a true fully electric intelligent vehicle, but instead adopts the range-extender technology, which was jokingly referred to as “pointless” by Volkswagen CEO Feng Sihan. Although the success of PHEV vehicles like the BMW i3 has proven their market potential, is it really because of the technology? The answer is not difficult to answer. What is more important is that the core technology of Voyah FREE is intricately linked to Seres.Apart from the three-electric technology, Dongfeng’s independently-owned passenger car brands have clearly fallen behind in the areas of intelligent network connections and autonomous driving, which may affect the future sales of the Voyah model. In terms of intelligent networking, Dongfeng’s Windward 5.0 artificial intelligence car system, which is geared towards a younger demographic, developed in collaboration with the Botai Car Networking and Baidu DuerOS, falls short when compared with the Byton Dilink intelligent connected system powered by the Snapdragon 625 octa-core processor with a main frequency of up to 2.0GHz. Due to Dongfeng’s lack of experience in forward-looking technology, the positioning of the Voyah model as “independent high-end” can only be achieved by feeling around in the dark. This means that the road ahead for Voyah cars is likely to be more difficult. Many readers have privately messaged the electric power journalist, saying that Voyah Car now has more than 3000 orders, but it is still uncertain whether Voyah can maintain such a sales volume.

In today’s new energy vehicle market, both Tesla, which took 16 years to achieve nearly 500,000 annual sales, and NIO, which has been in business for more than 6 years, are almost all in a state of loss. Therefore, for Voyah, a brand that has been established for only a year and is pursuing an independent market-oriented strategy, it is necessary to prepare for long-term investment in product development and brand promotion in order to achieve a “shortcut”.

Regardless of how many layers of external packaging are present, every successful brand must have a core competitive advantage. This could be luxury for Mercedes-Benz, sportiness for BMW, technology for Audi, and many others. As such, I believe that the key to Voyah Car’s comeback lies in strengthening its technological research and development and brand culture shaping, both of which require changes from Voyah car’s core management team, and even higher-level personnel at Dongfeng.

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.