The boss decided to become the top

From Lei Jun's crossover of technology and fashion, to Dong Mingzhu's outspokenness and controversy, to Liu Qiangdong's "brotherhood theory" and Zhou Hongyi's imitation of "Lei scholars", entrepreneurs use various methods to attract public attention and compete for traffic and topicality. This article will deeply analyze how these entrepreneurs use precise self-positioning, emotional resonance and social media strategies to explore the corporate strategies, cultural impacts, and potential risks and opportunities behind this phenomenon.

When I saw the fan fiction of Lei Jun and Bai Jingting, I realized that the world has become crazy in a way I never dared to imagine.

"On the day of the first snow, Bai Jingting went to Xiaomi Technology Park without telling anyone", "Among all the grains, he never dared to see Xiaomi again", "The spring mountain is full of millet, and every grain represents my thoughts of you". Is this written by the rival's PR department or Xiaomi's own research? The writing style is bold and the mind is dirty, and the high-end business war is so mediocre.

A more common way of talking about them is Lei Jun and Zhou Shouzi. There is no need for a forced match, there is plenty of real material, they appreciate each other and never forget each other, what is the meaning of two strong businessmen, standing side by side on the top of the snow-capped mountains, the financial media have all talked about it. Lei Jun said "Zhou Shouzi is the second most handsome man in Xiaomi"; Lei Jun said "the young executive who I have trained for many years and had high hopes for has left, which is a blow to me, he is Zhou Shouzi"; Lei Jun said "although Zhou Shouzi's departure has a great impact on us, I have no intention of complaining or blaming him at all."

I don't intend to recommend "Twilight Love" but I want to say that Lei Jun has become the top of the entrepreneurial circle when he has a lot of female fans, CP output, and the same leather jacket quickly sold out after the press conference. In the past, it was biased towards the male market, but now it has been upgraded to a domineering president's article shining into reality.

At a time when Lei Jun was frequently exposed and consolidating his image; Dong Mingzhu changed the name of Gree store to Dong Mingzhu Healthy Home; Liu Qiangdong entered the food delivery market and said he would provide riders with five social insurances and one housing fund; Zhou Hongyi performed an AI skit and played the joke of being glared at by Lei Jun in order to endorse his own AI product.

12 years ago in the traditional media era, Dong Mingzhu and Lei Jun made a 1 billion bet, which was a contest among entrepreneurs. 12 years later in the self-media era, bosses have decided to make their debuts, and they are no longer competing in martial arts or talent, but who can provide emotional value for ordinary people. So, in view of the various efforts to build entrepreneurs' personal IP, it is time to conduct an unserious ranking from the perspective of "Internet celebrities".

Multipolar pattern under double top flow

Taking Douyin as the research object, the current pattern of entrepreneurs can be summarized as follows: Lei Jun and Dong Mingzhu are the top male and female stars respectively, and Liu Qiangdong, Zhou Hongyi, Yu Donglai, Luo Yonghao, Zhang Lan, and Yu Minhong form a multi-polar confrontation. This is obviously more open and diverse than the pattern of "two horses sharing the world, Yunteng surpasses thousands of families" more than a decade ago. The rise of new media, new energy, and new technology fields has opened up a new consumer battlefield while also creating more debut opportunities for entrepreneurs.

On Douyin, Lei Jun's personal account has 41.213 million followers, 190 million likes, and 62.71 billion views on related topics, which is many times more than 95 Sheng and Hua. In contrast, although Dong Mingzhu does not have a personal Douyin account, her quotation account "Mingzhu Lundao" has 2.14 million followers and 18.02 billion views on related topics, making her unrivaled among female entrepreneurs.

These two top stars, one red and one black, have completely mastered the traffic code of the entertainment industry. Lei Jun is popular and has a positive image. Dong Mingzhu is often ridiculed for being negative. Lei Jun's positive image lies in the deep integration of his personal image and brand image. His image is elegant, clean and youthful, and his products are innovative, smart and technological. The two endorse each other.

The ultimate perfect image of an electronics tycoon is a technology pursuer like Jobs and a middle-class dreamer like Musk. Lei Jun's nickname was Leibusi a few years ago and has changed to Leisk in recent years, which is obviously a benchmark. For SU7 users, buying it is not because they can't afford Porsche, but to show their taste in technology.

Compared with the public image of the "1 billion bet" 12 years ago, Dong Mingzhu's popularity has not decreased, but her reputation has declined. Her image as a dictatorial queen also fits in with Gree's unconventional design. Whether it is the rose air conditioner that is out of this world, or the Gree mobile phone where the designer accidentally put Dong Mingzhu's head portrait on the boot screen, they are all evidence of anti-technology and anti-aesthetics. When people ask me where I am, I am really embarrassed to say "I am visiting Dong Mingzhu's health home". After all, I am not Wang Ziru, and I am not interested in entering Dong's home.

It is worth noting that Dong Mingzhu seems to have replaced Jack Ma as the punching bag for labor-capital conflicts in the new era of the Internet. Social animals have replaced Meng Yutong with others, believing that grasping visible benefits is more real than the illusory successor. Employees are fired for throwing garbage, driving on the motorway, and wasting paper. I don’t know if she really likes to fire people, or if she wants to establish an image of herself in the media as a person who always keeps her word. Anyway, Dong Mingzhu has made Gree into "Modern Times".

Although entrepreneurs in the multi-polar echelon all have the potential to become Internet celebrities, they lack the aura of Mr. Lei, and are slightly inferior in overall Internet voice and topic sharpness.

Liu Qiangdong's "brotherhood theory" is full of gangster style, and it is still effective for his entry into the food delivery industry, but it seems to have some overlap with Yu Donglai's employee welfare utopia; Zhou Hongyi completed the return of Concubine Xi to the palace by getting his hand pinched while test driving a new energy vehicle, but his model of "grabbing traffic" everywhere is ultimately difficult to become a success; Zhang Lan parasitized on family scandals and performed in the eight o'clock drama, but she played with fire and got burned and was forced to leave the stage; Luo Yonghao retired after completing "True Return", and we can only look forward to his early return after entering the AI ​​industry.

In Oriental Selection, the relationship between Yu Minhong, Sun Dongxu, and Dong Yuhui is very similar to that in "Swordsman". Yu Minhong is Feng Qingyang hiding in the back mountain and manipulating behind the scenes, Sun Dongxu is Yue Buqun's jealous apprentice, and Dong Yuhui is Linghu Chong who was expelled from the sect. After the incident of Dong Yuhui, their story obviously still has infinite possibilities. It depends on when Chen Kexin will shoot "Chinese Partners 2".

Top-tier cross-border drifting

To become a top-tier entrepreneur, just like male and female writers in online literature, they also need to accurately position themselves and radiate into different circles. And the only person who can straddle both markets is Lei Jun.

In his early years, Lei Jun was a typical male-oriented cool article. Everyone knows these jokes on social media, right? He was the top scorer in the provincial college entrance examination. The code he wrote in his freshman year was included in the university textbooks in his sophomore year. He made a million by writing code part-time in his junior year.

He joined Kingsoft at the age of 22, became the general manager at the age of 28, and had only 4 billion yuan in his financial freedom card at the age of 38. He conquered the mobile phone market with Xiaomi, allowing the working class to use first-class smartphones. He could have just laid down, but a car PPT made his competitors cut prices to siege him. His label is genius success, the ideal self-template for men.

In the middle period, Lei Jun tried to show his down-to-earth side, and he released his debut song "Are you okay". It must be said that Lei Jun was average in the early days of the Internet industry. Because of their famous songs, Wang Jianlin had "West Sea Love Song" and Zhang Chaoyang had "Dear, That's Not Love", and they were all sung live.

But Lei Jun's advantage lies in his good sense of the Internet and his high tolerance for all kinds of ghosts and memes, so he has accumulated four famous songs in a short period of time. In addition to AYOK, there are "My Heart Is Beating", "The Whole World Crashes" and "Burn My Xiaomi Phone".

The most worthwhile thing to study is that in the past two years, Lei Jun has won the female market by relying on pure love president, business outfits, and life sharing. Not only has he got his dream girl, he even has imitation makeup and fan fiction. This is a peak that no male entrepreneur has ever reached. Compared with the early emperor's favored son, today's approachable pure love president can better meet the emotional needs of the female group. "Only married once" is the medal of male entrepreneurs.

On Xiaohongshu, Lei Jun has 4.05 million followers, and his operations are clearly differentiated from those of Douyin. Lei Jun’s “fitness check-in” is a typical feature of Xiaohongshu.

Lei Jun also tried his best to publicly show his concern and catering to the female market. For example, he found that although the male owner of a family chooses the car, the female owner has the veto power, and Xiaomi su7 emphasizes taking care of women's needs. So when sanitary napkins were exposed to safety issues, many people on Douyin called on Lei Jun to make sanitary napkins. I don't know if it was marketing water army or true feelings, but I was shocked anyway. The founder's image has been built to this extent, and the year-end bonus must be quite large.

Of course, we cannot ignore Lei Jun's determination and efforts to become an Internet celebrity. For only 530,000 yuan, Lei Jun, the billionaire president, can accompany you to personally lift the car cover. A few days ago, he ate ginger during a live broadcast, but he still ate it silently because he felt it would be bad to spit it out. Whether it was intentional or accidental, this sense of relaxation was enough for Zhou Hongyi to study at home for a week.

The reason why Lei Jun has created such a female-friendly, middle-class obsessed, superb internet sense, and righteous and friendly image is that the corporate strategy and the target user value are aligned. In the words of netizens, "only those who respect me can make money from me." However, it is hard to deny that he can put so much effort into everything without appearing to be overdoing it.

The struggle between performance art and personality

Compared with Lei Jun's cross-border legend, more entrepreneurs strive to become the spokespersons of the sinking market. This market always relies on brotherhood and fellow villagers. However, there is a contradiction between grassroots spokespersons and successful entrepreneurs, which makes the audience's mentality fluctuate.

Liu Qiangdong's early story template is more inspiring than Lei Jun's. He is the most popular story in the print media era. When Liu Qiangdong went to college in 1992, the villagers raised 500 yuan and 76 eggs to send him to the National People's Congress. In 2015, he returned home with his wife Zhang Zetian, and the elderly over 60 in the village were given 10,000 yuan each, totaling more than 6.5 million yuan. For a company, it is really a big publicity with little money.

Thinking back to the days when Qiangdong was young, Milk Tea just got married. Why not retake the college entrance examination? I will pay for 76 eggs and 500 yuan. If it weren't for Yang Li's endorsement on Double Eleven last year, JD.com would still be the first choice for male users to buy electronic products. Until today, under the analysis of his TikTok video that was sidelined, there are still brave people who say "At worst, Qiangge will create another brand and I will continue to work with him."

But Liu Qiangdong's "brotherhood theory" is also constantly evolving. He used to say "We will never fire any brother, as long as the employees are not corrupt, we will never fire them." Now he says "People who have poor performance and never work hard are not our brothers, you are just passers-by."

In the short video "Qiangdong releases military power", JD.com Vice President Du Shuang revealed that she was pregnant at a dinner party. Liu Qiangdong, who was forced to resign, knew that this was a trap in front of the media, but he still calmly let the other party "rest". "Don't think that the whole department will fall apart if I am gone." His face remained calm and every word was as sharp as a knife. It really fits the saying "We drink from the golden cup together, and we will not spare each other with a white sword". But even if the top management is not brothers, it does not prevent the bottom management from being brothers. JD.com provides five insurances and one housing fund for food delivery riders, which is obviously a good way to make a profit.

While Liu Qiangdong was on the offensive, Zhou Hongyi became a famous "Lei scholar". His path to becoming an Internet celebrity was not a new one, but a study of Lei Jun's behavior, following his example to gain traffic. His video style, wearing racing suits, and visiting car shows are all imitating Lei Jun. This kind of following in his footsteps is like advertising for Lei Jun while erasing his personal characteristics, but it still works.

If the figures of the older generation of entrepreneurs, such as Zong Qinghou and Chu Shijian, are a symphony of great opportunities and legendary fate, then there are many more former Internet celebrities, such as Jia Yueting, who is suffocating for his dream, Xu Jiayin, who is running with a Hermès belt, and Wang Jianlin, whose fate is still being concerned by people... What they left for us is a dash or exclamation mark that stops abruptly.

Compared to artists, entrepreneurs are actually a little more miserable. We judge artists by their masterpieces, but we judge entrepreneurs by the final results. No matter how many guests there are in the middle, it doesn't count. It all depends on whether there will be a day when everyone will push down the wall. With a sigh, we have to worry about the future of Internet celebrity entrepreneurs. After all, when personal image is deeply tied to products, and personality and performance fly together, risks and opportunities also coexist.

In any case, it is a general trend to build personal IP for entrepreneurs, to attract traffic to themselves, and to directly contact fans. When directors and actors merge into one, we can either see an excellent interpretation of the theme or the ultimate carnival of narcissism.

Author | Xie Minghong Editor | Li Chunhui