Traffic "floods" the auto show

The 2024 Beijing Auto Show officially opened yesterday after a four-year hiatus. As the first A-level auto show in China this year, it attracted more than 1,500 domestic and foreign automakers and parts manufacturers to participate. On the first day of the opening, the China International Exhibition Center was crowded with people inside and outside. Even though the organizers limited the number of exhibitors and formulated a flow control plan in advance, the huge flow of people still made it difficult to move around in the exhibition hall. Some bloggers revealed that the first-day media tickets were sold for 4,000 yuan each, and some institutions spent more than 100,000 yuan to buy tickets in order to bid on the first day.

The unprecedented popularity of the auto show spread from inside and outside the venue to the Internet. "Lei Jun thanks BYD for helping Xiaomi Auto", "Lei Jun says Li Bin is both capable and competent", "Li Bin has good relationships with people, Mi, Xiao and Li gathered at the NIO booth", "Zhou Hongyi climbed onto the roof of a car at the auto show". Similar topics and hot searches instantly detonated social platforms. With the first-time sharing and discussion by the media and audiences, the auto show gained unprecedented traffic and attention on the first day.

This out-of-circle effect is beneficial to the Beijing Auto Show itself, and helps the platform and exhibitors to promote the event. However, judging from the public opinion on the first day, whether it is the hot search topics or the events that are discussed a lot, they all come from people, not cars.

The interaction between Lei Jun, Zhou Hongyi, Li Bin, Li Xiang and He Xiaopeng in the exhibition hall became the most watched topic of the auto show. The audience and netizens seemed to be more concerned about the content of the bigwigs' chat, but not so much about the products and new technologies exhibited by the automakers. As a result, it was difficult to find analysis and discussion of the models exhibited by automakers such as NIO, Ideal, Xpeng and Xiaomi in the popular content output on social platforms on the first day of the auto show.

For the auto show, this is putting the cart before the horse. Putting aside the cars and talking about the auto show, this undoubtedly makes the auto show a little bit different.

At the press conference on the first day of the auto show, Zhu Huarong, chairman of Changan Automobile, said frankly, "We must now cultivate the 'Lei Jun' and the 'Yu Dazui' of Changan Automobile." He believes that now car companies must not only make good products and build channels, but the helmsmen also need traffic, but he is far behind Lei Jun and Yu Chengdong.

Not only Zhu Huarong, but also Wei Jianjun, Chairman of Great Wall Motors, Yin Tongyue, Chairman of Chery Automobile, and Li Shufu, Chairman of Geely Holding, have been active on social platforms through live broadcasts and sharing since this year. Yin Tongyue said frankly, "Learn from Yu Chengdong and Lei Jun, and explain and introduce in person. This also forces me, an old man in my sixties, to come out."

As new car manufacturers and other new energy vehicle companies frequently exert their efforts in Internet marketing, the bosses and executives of various car companies interact with users one-on-one through social platforms. While constantly narrowing the distance with ordinary users, they can also gradually form strong personal IP through public opinion guidance and fermentation, and then feed back to the promotion of car companies and models. This set of methodologies has been successfully verified in the new energy vehicle market in the past two years. Bosses represented by Li Xiang can not only form a systematic promotion of their own products through the operation of social platforms, but also create car company KOCs after establishing the authoritative image of "car company bosses" and let their own products enter the Internet traffic pool.

After Lei Jun, CEO of Xiaomi Motors, officially entered the car manufacturing field, the importance of Internet marketing to car companies and products has become more prominent. From the technical conference to the launch, and then to the first day of the Beijing Auto Show, Lei Jun announced the performance of Xiaomi Motors in the first month of its launch. The popularity of SU7 on the Internet platform has been maintained for more than three months. After 28 days on the market, the number of orders reached 75,723, which is a reflection of the sales volume under the marketing enthusiasm.

Under the huge advantages of Internet marketing established by new car-making forces, traditional car companies are forced to take the same path and battlefield. In addition to Wei Jianjun, Yin Tongyue, and Zhu Huarong, "tech geeks" from traditional car companies such as Nezha Auto's Zhang Yong and SAIC Zhiji's Liu Tao have all followed this trend in the car circle and began to move from behind the scenes to the front line of social platforms, but the results are hard to describe.

Traditional car companies have established and developed fixed processes in the form of joint ventures through dealer models after decades of establishment. Faced with companies entering the car manufacturing field under the background of the Internet and technology, their decision-making and execution capabilities seem clumsy and lagging. When imitating the Internet marketing strategies of new forces, they are unable to fundamentally create a closed-loop publicity system. Therefore, the execution effect will feel like "imitating others without success".

In the current era of Internet communication, when new forces are using forward-looking marketing methods to fill the entire public opinion field, the traditional car companies, which are already slow in pace, are even more precarious in terms of marketing volume. New energy brands incubated by traditional car companies such as Zhiji, Avita, and Lantu have good product strength in the eyes of car owners and car reviewers, but due to the disadvantages in public opinion communication and marketing, their products are buried in the Internet battlefield.

Zhu Huarong, Wei Jianjun, Yin Tongyue and other traditional car company bosses made high-profile appearances at the Beijing Auto Show and frequently interacted with users, using the unprecedentedly popular auto show platform to compensate for traffic and achieve the purpose of promoting car companies and new energy brands. However, the success of "Lei Bus" and "Yu Dazui" is not only due to the inherent traffic blessing in the consumer electronics field, but also due to the era dividends of the early stage of Internet marketing. It may not be so easy to copy their model now.

Zhou Hongyi climbed on the roof of a car, Zhou Hongyi gave suggestions to 7 car companies, Zhou Hongyi became the oldest car model at the auto show. On the first day of the auto show, the most eye-catching person in the exhibition hall and on the Internet platform was the "Red Leader" Zhou Hongyi, the boss of a technology company who has nothing to do with the automotive industry.

Since Zhou Hongyi and Nezha Auto's Zhang Yong's frequent interactions last month, he has been discussing and expressing his opinions on the new energy vehicle industry and products on his personal social media platform. Especially when he said he would sell his Maybach and replace it with a domestic new energy vehicle, it set off a wave of reverse marketing by car companies. Since the beginning of this year, almost all mainstream domestic new energy vehicle products have been sent to the 360 ​​company park. Some netizens joked, "This is the Beijing Auto Show."

Zhou Hongyi, as a non-automotive industry practitioner, expressed the views and opinions of ordinary users, and became very popular on social platforms with the title of Internet veteran. The IP of "Red-robed Leader" quickly became the top of the automotive circle. On the first day of the auto show, Zhou Hongyi also followed the operation mode and strategy of Internet marketing. Every interaction with the boss of the car company became a hot topic. The action of climbing on the roof of the car made netizens say "It reminded me of the incident when someone climbed on the roof of a Tesla car to defend their rights at the last Beijing Auto Show."

Rather than saying that the Internet marketing wave has changed the nature of this auto show, it is better to admit that Zhou Hongyi's "Internet celebrity" behavior and operating logic have seized the limelight and traffic that should belong to the car itself, making users and netizens pay more attention to marketing behavior and gradually ignore the product. The space for new models such as the 2024 NIO ET7 Executive Edition and Ideal L6 and new models of traditional car companies such as Mazda EZ-6, Cadillac IQ, Infiniti Qe, Ford Mustang, Chevrolet Equinox Plus has been severely squeezed.

In the four years since the Beijing Auto Show was absent, the domestic new energy vehicle market has undergone tremendous changes, from new energy models being not well received by users when they first entered the market to now being able to compete with gasoline vehicles. According to data from the China Passenger Car Association, the market penetration rate of new energy vehicles exceeded 50% for the first time in the first half of April.

New energy vehicles are moving from the initial stage of educating the market and educating users to the stage of more advanced product innovation capabilities with user thinking. At this point in time, are the Internet marketing strategies that have been tried and tested still useful? And for products with strong personal IP like Zhou Hongyi, are the promotion effects on the sales and market expansion of car companies still obvious?

After the endless traffic incidents at auto shows, this may be worth pondering for automakers.

Before the Beijing Auto Show, a piece of news that "Hebei police intervened to investigate the malicious attack on Ideal Auto MEGA by water army" was hotly discussed by netizens. The statement that "during the listing period of MEGA, there were three to four car companies suspected of participating in the suppression. The Hengshui police conducted multiple inquiries, and a middle-level employee of Xiaopeng Motors is cooperating with the investigation" made Xiaopeng Motors the target of public criticism for a while.

Although Xpeng Motors officially explained the situation immediately, saying that "the case is under investigation" and "Xiaopeng X9 has also been widely attacked by online trolls since its launch", Xpeng Motors still received considerable attention even after being named by the police.

On the first day of the Beijing Auto Show, the bosses of the four new energy vehicle companies, Lei Jun, Li Bin, Li Xiang and He Xiaopeng, all visited each other's booths. Only Li Xiang and He Xiaopeng did not appear at each other's booths, thus verifying the previous speculation of netizens.

When Internet marketing becomes the main means of publicity for the new energy vehicle industry, besides the advantages such as easy dissemination, strong timeliness and more vivid content, there are also unfavorable factors such as uncontrollable public opinion. "Water Army" exists in every corner of the Internet and cannot be eradicated and must be faced.

In the past, both the consumer electronics industry and the traditional automobile industry have experienced negative news due to malicious attacks by online trolls, and new energy vehicle companies that use social platforms as their main propaganda battlefield are no exception.

However, the "water army" is not entirely a villain. Because of its characteristics of guiding public opinion by commenting on a specific brand and event in an organized and targeted manner, the "water army" also includes positive groups, such as the KOCs that exist around car companies.

Internet users are easily influenced by the opinions and thoughts of online opinion leaders or opinion consumers. Therefore, the role of "water army" is more obvious in both positive and negative Internet marketing. "Water army" can easily lead users to appreciate a certain brand, but can also cause strong resentment among users. This is a double-edged sword for car companies. Since they are in the Internet wave, if they choose to join, they need to bear the benefits and risks of this publicity method.

Regardless of whether the final investigation results of the "MEGA incident" are really related to Xiaopeng Motors, the intervention of the police this time is enough to attract the attention of car companies to the way they deal with online public opinion.

The Beijing Auto Show is still going on in an orderly manner. After bidding farewell to the crowds on the first day, the auto show has gradually returned to the cars themselves. For the 2024 new energy vehicle market, which is recognized by the industry as the most competitive, the Beijing Auto Show is just the beginning. After the noise and the uneasiness of traffic grabbing, car companies should also be ready to face the new round of market tests.