Please answer 2024, the top ten trends in automotive marketing

In 2024, the Chinese automotive industry has undergone unprecedented changes, and the marketing field has also ushered in new trends and challenges. From executives live broadcasting to cross-border cooperation, from self-built communities to 5K marketing models, and then to the application of AIGC technology, the direction of automotive marketing is reshaping the future of the industry.

In 2024, China's auto industry is still at the forefront of the times. From the market competition among new forces, to the digital transformation of traditional automakers, to the accelerated collapse of some automakers, all of these have outlined a magnificent picture of the industry.

At the same time, we have also observed that the marketing format of China's automobile industry has undergone significant changes. Executives of automobile companies have "come down" to participate in video live broadcasts and short video marketing. "Reverse traffic" operations and hot agenda setting have become new weapons for automobile companies to seize the high ground of public opinion. The application of AI technology in content creation and precise delivery has gradually matured. The forms of content marketing have diversified from popular science, street photography to playing with memes ... These all reflect the profound changes in the entire industry.

Looking back to 2024, we conducted an in-depth analysis of the top ten trends in China's automotive marketing, striving to present a marketing atlas for automakers.

Trend 1: Executive video account operation is an indispensable part of brand strategy

The video account operation of automobile company executives is no longer just a brand activity, but the most important part of the brand strategy - a direct output window for brand value and corporate culture, and a key tool for connecting consumers, aggregating public opinion, and creating brand trust.

The influence of executive live broadcasts lies not only in information transmission, but also in the long-tail dissemination through the WeChat relationship chain. This form not only strengthens the personal influence of brand leaders, but also provides a continuous hot spot for public opinion. For example, Li Bin of NIO, He Xiaopeng of Xpeng Motors, and Lei Jun of Xiaomi have become representative symbols of their brands, attracting a large number of users through high-frequency content output.

This trend is not limited to new car companies. Among traditional car companies, online support from senior executives such as Zhu Huarong of Changan Automobile, Wei Jianjun of Great Wall Motor, Feng Xingya of GAC Group, Peng Baolin of GAC Toyota, Gu Huinan of AION, Zhu Jiangming of Leapmotor, and Liu Tao of IM Zhiji Auto has also promoted a deeper connection between brands and users. The collective entry of senior executives from more than 20 car companies into the video accounts has made "senior executives' online business" a new standard in the industry.

In live broadcasts and short videos, executives interpret industry trends from their professional perspectives, share brand vision and technical highlights, and deliver real and credible information to consumers. For example, Yin Tongyue, chairman of Chery, demonstrated the high-level intelligent driving capabilities of the Xingtu Xingjiyuan ET through live broadcasts, and frankly discussed the challenges and goals in the new energy transformation. This type of live broadcast not only brings consumers closer, but also forms a continuous topic fermentation, promoting secondary dissemination on social media.

At the same time, the communication characteristics of short videos give executive live broadcasts more long-tail value. Live broadcast content can be further spread on multiple social media platforms through editing and secondary creation, continuously amplifying the brand's voice.

It is worth mentioning that many people have a strong desire to discuss when watching live broadcasts. In this scenario, the video account small window floating mode is very useful. For example, when Lei Jun released the Xiaomi SU7, many Mi fans watched the live broadcast while interacting and discussing with other friends on WeChat. The car circle video account live broadcast cleverly combines the convenience and high interactivity of the WeChat ecosystem, which can easily cover Mi fans and also break through the circle to groups other than Mi fans.

Executive video account operations are gradually evolving from short-term activities to long-term pillars of brand strategy. This format not only strengthens the brand's professional image in the industry, but also wins the favor of consumers in terms of personalization and authenticity.

Trend 2: Deep penetration of unconventional cross-border marketing

The cross-border cooperation between BYD and the domestic game "Black Myth: Wukong" is a model of marketing innovation in the Chinese automotive industry in 2024. This cooperation is not only a linkage between brands, but also an in-depth dialogue between cultural heritage and technological innovation, which explores the new boundaries of brand marketing in a unique form.

BYD and Black Myth: Wukong took "Protecting Chinese Historic Sites and National Treasures" as the theme, and provided technological support for the protection of cultural relics through digital asset scanning technology. BYD's technological advantages combined with the artistic creation of Black Myth: Wukong made the cooperation between the two parties transcend the traditional brand exposure model and transformed it into a tribute to and sense of responsibility for Chinese culture.

BYD has invested more than 150 billion yuan in research and development to support its continuous breakthroughs in the automotive industry, while Black Myth: Wukong adheres to the ingenuity of "six years of hard work". The two companies share a spiritual resonance in terms of innovation drive and insistence on quality.

In the future, automobile brands can further explore linkages with fields such as technology, entertainment, and art, and deeply integrate into the social and cultural ecology while creating commercial value.

Trend 3: Car companies are deepening their own car owner communities

Brands such as Xpeng, NIO and Xiaomi are providing users with a deeper interactive experience through innovative content platforms and social ecosystems. These platforms not only enable connections between car owners, but also promote two-way communication between users and brands.

These self-built communities build a powerful private traffic pool for brands through user co-creation of content and accumulation of community culture. The establishment of this ecosystem enables brands to actively control the way they interact with users, thereby avoiding complete reliance on third-party platforms for content dissemination.

At the same time, the essence of self-built content ecology is to extend the user life cycle through a highly sticky community, forming a closed loop from new car sales to after-sales service, further enhancing the brand's profitability.

Trend 4: Video account 5K marketing sweeps the automotive industry, and content consensus is forming

In order to cope with increasingly complex user needs and market competition, automobile companies are actively exploring new paradigms of digital marketing. Among them, the 5K marketing model of Video Account can be said to be a dark horse - namely Key Opinion Boss (KOB), Key Opinion Leader (KOL), Key Opinion Customer (KOC), Key Opinion Employee (KOE) and Key Opinion Sales (KOS).

We have observed that this method and practice is not only an important tool for automakers to achieve refined and systematized marketing, but is also becoming a core engine for their brand value-added and business growth.

To put it simply, the boss is responsible for setting the tone, the expert is responsible for promoting the product, the car owner is responsible for seeing how good it really is, the employees are responsible for popularizing knowledge, and the salesperson is responsible for closing the deal.

• KOB (Keeping the Keynote): Executives convey brand strategy, product advantages and corporate vision to consumers through live broadcasts and short videos with their authority and professional perspective. For example, Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun’s many speeches on the video account not only introduced new models, but also showed the overall layout of Xiaomi’s smart ecosystem, which greatly enhanced users’ trust in the brand.
• KOL (Knowledgeable People): Industry leaders and influencers attract target consumers through their strong appeal and convey the charm of products through their personal brands. For example, car companies cooperate with technology bloggers to embed innovative technologies into short videos in an easy and interesting way, narrowing the distance between brands and young consumers.
• KOC (Know-Owner): Real consumers share their experience and convey product value through UGC content. This "know-Owner" effect not only strengthens word-of-mouth, but also provides potential users with a reliable purchase reference.
• KOE (Knowledge Education by Employees): Through professional explanations and daily interactions, the brand’s internal employees intuitively convey technical details and service advantages, further enhancing the brand’s affinity and professionalism.
• KOS (Keeping Salesperson in Charge of Closing): Frontline sales shorten the purchase decision path and achieve sales conversion through direct user interaction and personalized services.

In fact, this method is applicable to many content platforms, but not all of them can be effective. The fundamental reason is that the WeChat ecosystem is the best carrier of the 5K model. Tesla CEO Musk has also praised the WeChat model. Specifically speaking about the effectiveness of 5K marketing:

First, the relatively decentralized traffic distribution mechanism, with interest recommendations and social communication as the dual driving force, breaks the traffic barriers of traditional large accounts and enables high-quality content to quickly go viral.

Second, trust and user interaction: Based on the relationship scenarios of WeChat's real social network, video account content strengthens the brand's authority and credibility. At the same time, users can directly interact with brands within the WeChat ecosystem, seamlessly connecting private and public domain traffic.

The third is the detonating effect of event marketing: in major node marketing, the voices of senior executives and the collaboration with KOLs can more easily form a powerful synergy.

For example, during the Beijing Auto Show, many executives and employees of automobile companies interpreted brand strategies and product highlights through live broadcasts on video accounts, driving a surge in brand WeChat index and sales leads.

Trend 5: Reject sales-oriented marketing and create superimposed value through content segmentation

Following 5K marketing, what we want to talk about is that effective content marketing needs to meet the core demands of different groups.

The needs of car users are no longer limited to basic functions, but cover multi-dimensional expectations such as age, identity, and scenarios.

• Young users need a sense of fashion, and street photography and meme videos enhance interaction in a relaxed and interesting way, becoming a powerful tool for brands to capture young minds.
• Family users are more concerned about safety and practicality, and the real-scene videos shared by car owners directly cut into the key points of their car purchase decisions.

For scenario requirements such as urban commuting, long-distance travel or outdoor camping, the vehicle's performance advantages can be demonstrated through immersive content to achieve diverse user coverage.

Content form is an important variable that affects communication effectiveness. Through diversified content strategies, automakers can reach users at different decision-making stages:

Car owner sharing provides authentic and reliable reference points, which is a key driving force for subsequent conversions.

Popular science content strengthens the brand’s technological image, showing stronger educational value, especially in the high-end market.

Entertainment content enhances brand memory through creative expression and establishes emotional connections with young users.

Trend 6: Cross-platform “competition and cooperation” and another full-link

By leveraging the attributes of different content platforms, automakers can ultimately promote a complete closed loop from brand awareness to sales conversion through reasonable cross-platform link design.

For example, Xiaohongshu attracts high-net-worth female users with its refined content, Douyin covers a general consumer group with short videos, and the "real social" ecology of Video Account has become the home ground for family users.

The key is that although different platforms have their own characteristics, they do not exist in isolation. At the same time, the coordinated operation of the characteristics of different platforms is also improving the overall effect. For example, car companies combine the seeding content of Xiaohongshu with the interactive live broadcast of Video Account and the sales leads of Enterprise WeChat to form a full cross-platform link.

Each touchpoint does not need to be completely connected in series on the same platform, it only needs to play a role at different contact points of the user.

Trend 7: AIGC reduces costs and increases efficiency, and innovates the marketing efficiency of auto companies

Artificial intelligence generated content (AIGC) technology is becoming an important driver of marketing reforms for auto companies. Through intelligent creative generation and data-driven optimization strategies, AIGC is helping auto companies produce content at a lower cost and higher efficiency, thereby improving brand communication effectiveness.

The core value of AIGC lies in empowering creativity with technology and generating high-quality materials by optimizing prompts, thereby significantly improving content production efficiency.

Take Avita as an example. It uses Tencent Advertising Miaosi Platform to help the creative team generate AIGC materials, optimize prompt sentences, increase CTR by 20%, and save 95% of costs.

Of course, AIGC does not simply "replace human labor", but provides creative teams with a new way to deeply collaborate with technology.

For example, Zeekr increased CTR and reduced store costs by precisely optimizing prompts.

The application of AIGC goes far beyond content generation. In the data-driven delivery link, AIGC also demonstrates far-reaching value. For example, brands can generate a variety of creative materials to perform personalized matching and optimization for different audiences during the delivery stage. Dongfeng Nissan has further amplified the personalized reach of content by combining virtual human technology and micro-motion videos, while improving conversion rates through in-depth user interaction.

This intelligent content delivery not only reduces the time cost of repetitive content production, but also wins higher market returns for brands through accurate material matching. AIGC makes marketing no longer a single-dimensional promotion, but a full-link integration from creative generation to delivery optimization.

The value of AIGC does not stop at "reducing costs and increasing efficiency", but it is deeply involved in creative generation and delivery optimization, bringing qualitative improvement to car companies' marketing. It helps brands break through the bottleneck of traditional creative production and find a balance in large-scale, personalized content production.

Trend 8: Women’s voice and spending power are growing

In March this year, the "China Women's Auto Consumption Trend Report (2024)" jointly released by 21st Century Business Herald, 21st Century New Automotive Research Institute and Nielsen IQ mentioned that women's auto consumption generally presents the following characteristics:

• Women’s average car purchase price is higher than men’s. Potential users are younger, and those born after 2000 are the most daring to buy.
• Women prefer new energy vehicles, and their discussion of car brands focuses on independent, luxury, and new power brands;
• Women are more receptive to auto finance products and online car purchases than men, and this is more evident among young users.
• Intelligence has become an important factor for women when buying cars, and it is more obvious among young users; in terms of intelligent configuration requirements, female users pay more attention to "safety" intelligent functions.

Taking Xiaomi SU7 as an example, Lei Jun mentioned in his annual speech that female users of Xiaomi SU7 accounted for more than 40%, which shows that Xiaomi has achieved remarkable results in attracting female users.

Xiaomi SU7 is designed with the needs of female users in mind, such as sun protection, storage space and B+ body design, which are all points that female users care about. These functional adjustments show that Xiaomi attaches great importance to the needs of female users.

The importance of female executives in the Xiaomi system is also growing. After the Xiaomi SU7 launch conference in March this year, Xiaomi promoted two female executives, Xu Fei and Zhang Jianhui, to vice presidents of the group in May. As the CMO of Xiaomi Group, Xu Fei is also very active on platforms such as Video Account.

Xiaomi is working hard to become a female-friendly brand, starting with tearing off gender labels. The design of Xiaomi SU7 does not overemphasize "designed for women", but focuses more on gender-neutral design, which is in line with modern consumers' pursuit of simple personality and gender equality.

The case of Xiaomi shows that modern female consumers need not only pleasing designs, but also products and brands that can integrate into their lifestyles and respect their needs.

Trend 9: AI Intelligent Driving 1.0 Era, Ushering in the Battle of Experience

The end-to-end model on the car marks the transition of intelligent driving from the rule era to the data-driven AI intelligent driving era. my country's intelligent driving development stage has moved from the hardware stacking stage (around 2021, competing in single-vehicle perception hardware and intelligent driving chip computing power), to the human sea tactics stage (around 2023, competing in the number of cities opened), to a new data-driven development stage (starting in 2024). Tesla FSD V12 leads the end-to-end intelligent driving, and leading local intelligent driving companies such as Ideal, Xiaopeng, and Huawei are quickly following suit.

The end-to-end model converts the perception information collected by the vehicle sensors into driving trajectories or operating instructions. Through a large amount of data training, it can achieve full-scenario intelligent driving and continuously improve the fluency and anthropomorphism of intelligent driving. Adaptation to scenarios, takeover mileage, and anthropomorphism are the three dimensions for measuring the AI ​​intelligent driving experience.

At the beginning of 2024, Yu Chengdong shared his experience of driving the M9 from Anhui to Shenzhen using the smart driving function for the entire 1,314 kilometers, which caused heated discussions. Later, in some public occasions, he also said that he rarely intervened manually when commuting to and from get off work and did not need a driver.

In the eyes of the big players in the automotive industry, the era of intelligent driving for all is coming soon. Many videos of intelligent driving experiences shared by car owners can also be seen on platforms such as Video Account and Douyin. It can be foreseen that the release of intelligent driving functions and marketing by car companies will become a trend in 2025.

Trend 10: Globalization and localization integration

Toyota is a model of globalization in the automotive industry. Its globalization journey has gone through the iterations of exporting complete vehicles - shaping brand awareness - manufacturing overseas - technology and industrial chain overseas. This path has important reference significance for the development of China's automobile overseas markets.

In 2024, there are several highlights worth noting in the marketing cases of Chinese automobile brands going overseas: At the beginning of the year, BYD held a brand launch conference at the Jakarta National Miniature Park with its three new energy passenger cars, Dolphin, Seal, and Atto 3, and officially announced its entry into the Indonesian new energy passenger car market.

Changan Automobile has made in-depth layout in the “Belt and Road” market and has built numerous Changan brand automobile sales and service outlets in more than 60 “Belt and Road” countries, including Russia, Saudi Arabia, Chile, Pakistan, etc.

Chery Automobile's business has spread to more than 80 countries and regions around the world, making it the first Chinese automobile company to export complete vehicles, CKD parts, engines, and vehicle manufacturing technology and equipment to foreign countries.

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It can be seen that the globalization strategy of Chinese automobile companies is shifting from simple export of complete vehicles to a comprehensive layout of overseas production, R&D and sales. The target market has expanded from traditional Southeast Asia and Africa to mature markets such as Europe and North America.

The globalization process of Chinese automobile companies is no longer limited to simple market expansion, but through refined market insights and flexible localized marketing strategies, they have achieved a deep fit between product value, brand value and local consumer needs.

Final Thoughts

In 2024, China's automotive marketing will undergo multi-dimensional and profound changes. Both the application of technology and the innovation of content are reshaping the industry landscape. We believe that the future automotive market will focus more on the integration of technology and humanity. Against the backdrop of rapidly changing consumer demand and intensified industry competition, a deep understanding of interpersonal relationships, user needs, and optimized marketing strategies are the key to success for automakers.