Xiaomi, a walking marketing textbook

This article deeply analyzes the marketing strategy of Xiaomi Auto SU7, revealing how Xiaomi successfully shaped the trend of new products on social media and attracted widespread attention by means of relying on big brands, selling personalities, playing memes and creating topics. The article explores the logic and effects behind Xiaomi's marketing methods, and how to enhance the brand's social identity through marketing methods. It is recommended for readers who are interested in brand marketing, social media strategies and the new energy vehicle market.

More than ten days have passed since the Xiaomi Auto launch conference, and the topic of Xiaomi SU7 is still hot on social media. On the evening of April 8, the launch conference of Zhiji L6, a subsidiary of SAIC Motor, used Xiaomi Auto to attract a lot of traffic, which once again put Xiaomi Auto on the cusp of the storm. Right now, Xiaomi Auto is a hot traffic topic.

From the "price suspense" during the preheating period, to the "50,000 units sold in 7 minutes" during the pre-sale period, to the "Lei Jun personally opened the car door for the car owner" during the delivery period, Xiaomi Motors once again staged a textbook-level marketing case. Why is it that every time Xiaomi releases a new product, it becomes popular before it is sold? Let's explore Xiaomi's marketing strategy together.

1. Xiaomi only benchmarks against industry benchmarks

The fastest way for a new brand to increase its popularity is to "hang on to big brands" and use the influence of "big brands" to endorse the brand and increase the volume of topics. This is also what Xiaomi is best at, and its imitation of big brands is almost at the pixel level. When Xiaomi made mobile phones, it shouted the slogan "Benchmark Apple, learn from brands." When it made cars, it made a bold statement: to compete with Porsche and Tesla.

When making mobile phones, Lei Jun's dressing style was comparable to Steve Jobs. When making cars, he started to "wear the same clothes" as Musk. His products have also "looked like" big brands many times. The appearance of Xiaomi 13 is very similar to iPhone 14, and Xiaomi Auto SU7 is jokingly called "Porsche Mi" by netizens because it looks very similar to Porsche Panamera.

One of the benefits of "hanging on to big brands" is that it can quickly create a "visual hammer" for new products and anchor the "value of new products" through reference objects. For example, when Lei Jun shouted the slogan "Chinese Porsche" and added Xiaomi's "cost-effective" brand label, the audience's expectations were immediately raised: the dream of luxury cars can finally be realized.

There is nothing new under the sun. If a new product or brand wants to succeed, it must follow the path of its predecessors. Follow the big brands, surpass them, and become a big brand. But one thing to note is that good products are always the strong support for marketing, otherwise it will only turn "copycats" into "copycats".

2. Selling personality, the founder is the best spokesperson

Compared with celebrity spokespersons, founder spokespersons are often more credible and persuasive. For example, in 2012, Chen Ou made Jumei Youpin popular on the Internet with the phrase "I endorse myself". Let's look at the Xiaomi brand. The founder Lei Jun himself is a walking king of memes, and is also the key word of the Xiaomi brand's own traffic code.

First of all, his past experiences are very topical. Netizens said that even the male protagonists of the cool novels would not dare to write like this. In addition, what he did is also very topical. In addition to making mobile phones, Xiaomi also took the time to make some adjustments to various industries. The first generation of Redmi, priced at 799 yuan, completely ended the history of copycat phones. The first generation of Xiaomi bracelet, priced at 79 yuan, brought down the price of smart watches worth thousands of yuan to 49 yuan. The artistic power strip, which made Bull upgrade the product appearance overnight and reduce the price of 10 Xiaomi styluses to 9.9 yuan and rainbow batteries to 9.9 yuan... and this time the "cost-effective" luxury car with a top configuration of 300,000 yuan, made Lei Jun be named "the new generation of wishing pool" by netizens, and they all ran to the comment area to make wishes.

What is even more commendable is that even though he has a "cheating" life, he always maintains a humble, sincere, low-key spirit of a doer, which is also the key to getting closer to users. From the user's perspective, watching Lei Jun's entrepreneurial history is like watching a story of a poor boy's counterattack. It is easier to empathize and give a certain degree of tolerance. Even if it is such an outrageous thing to cross-border car manufacturing, users still expect Lei Jun to be deified again.

3. Dare to play with memes, the key to successful brand rejuvenation

"Playing with memes" is the social code of young people and also the passcode for brand rejuvenation. Xiaomi is not only good at capturing "memes", but also extends them into a complete marketing event that attracts users' attention. For example, netizens made a ghost video of Lei Jun's poor English accent "Are you OK", which went viral on the Internet. Lei Jun not only did not send a lawyer's letter, but praised the blogger for his creativity and even bought the copyright of the song and set it as the official ringtone of Xiaomi mobile phones.

Lei Jun once said in an internal letter that Xiaomi's overall hardware net profit margin does not exceed 5%. Netizens joked that he was "the good man Lei" and "Lei Jun became the richest man because of his losses". As a result, Lei Jun actually used 10 billion shares for charity. As expected, sincerity is always the ultimate skill. On the day of the Xiaomi car launch conference, Lei Jun actually invited big names in the automotive industry to attend the event. Netizens posted the complex psychological dynamics of the big names, which became a "meme" that night.

Some netizens who like to watch the fun even went to Zhang Songwen's Weibo comment section to post a comment: "Xiaomi cars will be on sale soon, didn't Mr. Lei prepare one for you?" In the face of netizens' deliberate provocations, Lei Jun directly said that he would deliver the car on April 3, and the "domineering president fell in love with me" meme became popular again. Brands playing memes means that they have to lower their status and dare to laugh at themselves in order to narrow the distance with young people. It can be seen that in the face of netizens' ridicule and criticism, Lei Jun and Xiaomi responded with a sincere attitude, directly linking the popularity of "playing memes" to brand value.

4. Create topics and shape the trend of new products on social media

Most young people buy brands to enhance their "social identity". The more distinctive and topical a brand is, the easier it is to attract their attention, and this is exactly Xiaomi's marketing strength. Other car companies preheat their brands for a month at most, but Xiaomi's car launch preheating started three years in advance.

On March 30, 2021, Lei Jun publicly announced that he would build a car. He choked up and said, "This is the last major entrepreneurial project in my life. I am willing to bet my entire reputation in life, lead the team personally, and fight for Xiaomi Auto."

Whether it was for sentiment or to see the joke, the fact that "Xiaomi is going to make cars" had already been imprinted in the minds of users three years ago. On the eve of the Xiaomi Auto SU7 technology launch conference, Lei Jun booked several city big screens and hung a thank-you banner "Salute to New Energy Vehicle Friends", which instantly topped the hot search list.

On December 28, Xiaomi held a technical conference for the SU7, saying that it would be "comparable to Porsche and Tesla", and also left a "price suspense". Every time a user guesses the price, Xiaomi will appear in front of the user once.

Lei Jun himself became an auto blogger, writing daily on Weibo to update the various technologies and details of Xiaomi SU7, as well as the ups and downs of three years of car manufacturing. This series of marketing moves is enough to make netizens believe that "Xiaomi's car manufacturing is very hard" and raise their expectations for the new product release. On the first delivery day of Xiaomi Auto SU7, Lei Jun called himself "Director Lei" and went to the scene to personally open the car door for the car owner, which gave users a full sense of ritual. The topic of "The billionaire CEO opened the car door for me" quickly became a hot topic on the Internet.

After the first batch of Xiaomi SU7 hit the road, netizens took photos from various angles and made great comments, which made the topic of Xiaomi SU7 rise rapidly. Some car owners even rented out Xiaomi SU7 for 2,000-3,000 yuan per day, while the rental price of its benchmark Porsche Taycan is between 1,500-2,500 yuan.

It can be seen that most young people do not mind "looking like" Porsche and Tesla, but instead stimulate their curiosity about Xiaomi SU7. The "Breaking Defense Awards" of major car dealers further prove the popularity of Xiaomi SU7. Major car companies have unanimously launched a new round of price cuts. In addition to BYD, Xiaopeng G9 is "10,000 yuan lower" than Xiaomi SU7, and Weilai has put out 1 billion to replace cars... Porsche, the biggest "victim" of this conference, actually came to take advantage of this wave of popularity and launched the "Buy Taycan and get a Xiaomi SU7 for free" event. Cadillac released a poster full of gunpowder, taking advantage of this wave of popularity to warm up its own new pure electric products;

The ever-increasing topic has made Xiaomi SU7 occupy the headlines of various social platforms. The higher the discussion on social media, the greater the brand influence. As Philip Kotler said: "Real advertising is not about making an advertisement, but about getting the media to discuss your brand to achieve advertising." Xiaomi SU7 is only responsible for making a voice, and leveraging consumers to actively share and discuss is the core of amplifying the marketing volume. - No matter how good the marketing is, it is time-effective. How far Xiaomi Auto SU7 can go still depends on technology and safety. Product is 1, marketing is 0. Without a high-quality product, no matter how good the marketing strategy is, it will be in vain.

How long will the "new energy vehicle craze" started by Xiaomi Motors last? What will the industry do next? It's exciting to see.

Author: Aye Source public account: Shock Copywriting (ID: 214328)