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Text: Tang Chen

Li Bin felt very aggrieved.

At the recent NIO IN Innovation Technology Day, he complained to the media, saying that the NIO that everyone knows is very different from the real NIO. NIO is often led by the rhythm and connotation. For example, if the service is good, some people will question the use; for example, if a lot of money is spent on technology research and development, many investments will take several years to see the effect. Many people tied it to NIO's car owner services and battery swap network, criticizing NIO for inefficiency, extravagant spending and inefficient management.

To give NIO a "clear name"

He attributed this dilemma or illusion to two reasons: First, externally, in today's social media communication environment, "once you are labeled by your competitors, it will be very difficult." In other words, he does not rule out that competitors are digging holes for NIO and filling them up. Another reason is internally, over the past period of time, NIO has been accustomed to only doing things, not talking, and not caring about the outside world's evaluation. From his personal perspective, "I am open-minded and don't care."

However, in an era where traffic affects sales, the outside world's distorted perceptions and interpretations are all degrading the brand of NIO. The more direct impact is that the car cannot be sold, and even the user's mind is confused. Li Bin likes to use the analogy of building a house. In his view, these "misunderstandings" are actually digging NIO's foundation and will shake the foundation of NIO's development.

Li Bin said, "If you don't speak up, people have no obligation to understand." He realized that the way to correct the situation is to communicate with users and the market sincerely, shoot more videos, do live broadcasts, organize activities similar to Science and Technology Day, and speak out more about the real situation of Weilai.

This is not difficult, because Lei Jun's work has been done before and the feasibility has been verified, so just copy it. Strictly speaking, Lei Jun became a top figure in the technology circle, digital circle, and even success circle after he staked his entire reputation on car manufacturing. Before that, although he and Xiaomi had never left the core circle of public opinion, they were still a little short of occupying the center of traffic.

From the official announcement of car manufacturing to the official release, listing and delivery of Xiaomi SU7, Lei Jun has been happy to broadcast live, accept interviews, give speeches, shoot short videos, and even respond to popular off-site topics such as "Participating in the Singer".

Every move he makes - for example, Xiaomi Motors answers 100 questions from netizens; when SAIC Zhiji tried to scam others, it fired three strikes in a row to force the other party to apologize - accurately grasps the emotional pain points of the market and users, and puts the issues and details that everyone is concerned about on the table for discussion with everyone.

Lei Jun was thus "deified". To use a more vulgar expression, Lei Jun's marketing is textbook-level. Zhou Hongyi bluntly said that Lei Jun's marketing is a master, a god-like existence, and traditional car manufacturers have nothing to be dissatisfied with.

This has won Xiaomi "breaking traffic", which was directly infused into the Xiaomi SU7, making a good start for Xiaomi Auto. But the most important benefit is what Lei Jun said, that Xiaomi today is different from the past. This "difference" is the high-end strategy that determines the life and death of Xiaomi, which is very likely to be completed with the promotion of Xiaomi Auto in the closed loop of "people-car-home".

The play style is very Lei Jun

But good marketing never requires skills. To sum up, Lei Jun's marketing strategy is nothing more than three moves: labeling, such as the "people, cars and homes" ecosystem, claiming to enter the first echelon of intelligent driving in 2024; setting targets, such as paying tribute to competitors, "admitting" that Huawei's marketing is the best in the latest leaked interview; telling stories, such as Lei Jun said that Xiaomi's car manufacturing originated from an accident; squeeze into the card table first, don't overturn the table right away. And then be low-profile and communicate with the outside world calmly and actively.

In the past year, Li Bin has been imitating Lei Jun's approach pixel by pixel, trying to reverse NIO's market reputation.

First of all, it's about labeling. Li Bin's grievances are particularly strong. Compared with Xiaopeng and Huawei, NIO's smart label has not been very obvious. He believes that it is the competitors who set the pace, causing NIO's ability in smart driving to be ignored. In his own words, NIO needs to show the outside world its investment and ability in smart driving. "Last year, we decided to do NIO IN to tell everyone our background, which is technology and R&D."

At this year's Technology Day event, Li Bin made it clear in a rare high-profile manner that NIO is an AI company. He added that a successful smart electric car company must be a successful AI company. This is the first time that Li Bin has labeled NIO with AI, leaving the mark of intelligent driving, in addition to service and battery replacement technology. This means that in the future, NIO will increase its investment in AI on a larger scale to consolidate the foundation of intelligent driving. In his statement, an annual investment of more than 10 billion yuan will enable NIO to qualify for the finals of the intelligent driving track.

This label is necessary, although it is a little late. In the competition of new energy vehicles, electrification is the first half, and the second half is intelligence. Li Bin, Li Xiang, He Xiaopeng and others have seized this opportunity and become the leading players in the new car-making forces. Their respective situations have also added a lot of topics to the outside world.

Unlike Li Xiang's current glory, Li Bin's situation can be described as "brothers in distress" with He Xiaopeng, both of whom are struggling to stay at the table. If they do not exert their strength in the early stage of the second half, they may have nothing to play in the subsequent competition and be squeezed out of the table at any time. To some extent, Weilai, which shouts the slogan of "AI company", is becoming more and more similar to Xiaopeng Motors, which is deeply engaged in technology.

The second is to set targets. It is clear that setting targets is not to artificially create "enemies", but to serve business development. If the target is not set accurately, it may fail; if the topic object is chosen appropriately, it can gain expected or even unexpected attention. In the past few years, Li Bin has set many targets for NIO. For example, at the end of 2021, he pointed the finger at gasoline cars, "I can't think of anything good about gasoline cars except that they can smell a little gasoline. I don't understand why people still buy gasoline cars?" His starting point is easy to understand, and the purpose of pulling down is to sell more cars. But it was obviously inappropriate at the right time and caused quite a stir. He had to apologize for his words and deeds on many subsequent occasions.

Recently, NIO threw the topic to Ideal, and the effect seems to be good. At this Technology Day, NIO co-founder and president Qin Lihong directly said that NIO has never authorized any organization to publish a weekly list containing his name. Li Bin also directly emphasized that "if NIO becomes the first, the weekly list will not be released."

Anyone with a discerning eye could see it, and they were just short of saying Li Xiang's name. Later, He Xiaopeng also joined in, saying that "the United States is working hard on technology, while China is working on the weekly sales chart." Soon after, executives from NIO and Geely Auto also expressed their views on Weibo, believing that the weekly sales chart affected the normal operation of the company.

In response, Li Xiang, CEO of Ideal Auto, updated his WeChat Moments with an illustration of the "Stealing the Bell by Covering One's Ears" story and added a "booing" emoticon, which brought the battle over the weekly sales chart to a new level.

Li Bin's criticism of the weekly rankings is partly because this "Li Xiang customized" ranking, standing at the commanding heights of public opinion, has exerted more or less pressure on other friendly companies. The deeper reason is that Weilai's second brand Ledao Automobile will be launched soon. According to Li Bin's previous disclosure, Ledao and Ideal brands are both aimed at family users, and the user groups and price ranges they target also overlap. Competition with Ideal is inevitable. The conflict between Li Bin and Li Xiang was directly put on the table.

The third is storytelling. NIO actually has no shortage of good stories, but what it lacks is a storyteller like Lei Jun who is good at planning and organizing. At present, Lei Jun has updated five versions of the main story line of Xiaomi through his annual speeches, the latest of which is "Who gave us the courage to build cars?"

In the past, NIO was used to cooking without any fireworks. But judging from the performance of NIO's Technology Day, Li Bin has made a lot of progress. The "technological long-termism" he often talks about is being disassembled and visualized, paving the way for a story that the public can understand. Electric vehicles are essentially consumer products, and are increasingly becoming a smart terminal for consumers, just like mobile phones. Car brands need to constantly provide sensory stimulation and even emotional teasing. This is the tension of a good story.

Today, Li Bin tells a new hard technology story about "making chips" and "making souls" around labels such as "intelligent driving" and "artificial intelligence". "Making chips" means launching the world's first automotive-grade 5nm intelligent driving chip, the NIO Shenji NX9031; "making souls" means launching SkyOS, the vehicle's global operating system.

If NIO's intelligent driving chip is compared to Huawei's Kirin, then SkyOS, the fully released vehicle-wide operating system, is similar to Huawei's Hongmeng. Although the subsequent implementation effect needs to be verified, this has already pushed NIO to the level of Huawei and Xiaopeng in terms of technology, injecting new expectations into NIO's car owners and potential users.

His confidence, which convinced the market to pay attention to NIO's long-term technology investment, came from the sales explosion in the second quarter. Throughout Q2, NIO delivered a total of 57,373 new cars, even exceeding the delivery guidance, a year-on-year increase of 143.9%. Not only did it return to its former peak, it even continued to set a new historical high.

Under this replication, Weilai presents another version of the "people, cars and home" ecosystem, but in the "home" link, it is still very weak compared to Xiaomi. Li Bin "did not listen to advice" to make mobile phones and launch the Ledao brand. It is hard to doubt that he is not forcing himself to make up for his shortcomings. He also recognizes the reality. He said that he will not compete with Lei Jun in this ecosystem, because he cannot compete. First, make the car better and improve the mobile scene. Both the car and the mobile phone are mobile.

This is a smart move. After all, besides Xiaomi, there is another big mountain in this race, that is Huawei. Whether it admits it or not, it is there.