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Source: Times Finance Author: Ke Meng

Wang Ziru isGree Electric Appliances(000651.SZ, hereinafter referred to as Gree)'s executive career seems to have come to an end.

On August 16, media reported that Wang Ziru, the person in charge of Gree's digital channel reform project, had been updated to resign in a screenshot of the company's OA system. Times Finance tried to contact Gree Electric and Wang Ziru himself, but as of press time, there was still no response.

According to feedback from Gree’s internal staff, the corresponding email address could still be searched on the morning of August 16, but when trying to send an email to Wang Ziru, the corresponding information could no longer be found. Someone close to Gree confirmed the news of Wang Ziru’s resignation to Times Finance.

Just at the beginning of August, Wang Ziru accompanied Gree Electric Appliances Chairman Dong Mingzhu to attend the company's dealer conference. On August 12, Wang Ziru was also present at the 2025 Cold Year Gree Electric Appliances (Guangzhou-Foshan) New Marketing Strategy Summit.

However, Wang Ziru's resignation from Gree was not sudden. Recently, Wang Ziru was subject to consumption restriction measures by the Nanshan District People's Court of Shenzhen for failing to perform the payment obligations determined by the effective legal documents within the period specified in the execution notice. The amount of the execution target is about 33.83 million yuan.

Some industry insiders believe that Wang Ziru’s departure will not have much impact on Gree’s subsequent reforms. If Gree continues to be tied to public figures with certain risks, it will instead affect the company’s image and brand value.

The first generation of digital product review blogger, defeated by Luo Yonghao

Before becoming the operator of Gree's channel transformation, Wang Ziru's first widely-known label was that of an internet celebrity digital blogger.

In 2010, the domestic electronic product evaluation market was still in the blue ocean stage. Wang Ziru developed a strong interest in technology electronic products.appleThe video of the product iMac went viral, and Wang Ziru got his first ticket to the circle of internet celebrities.

Wang Ziru, who reaped the benefits of the first wave of traffic dividends, began to frequently shoot a series of evaluation videos. He also took the opportunity to form a team called "ZEALER" and started a booming entrepreneurial career in a one-story bungalow in Shenzhen.

With the label of "the first person in the domestic video evaluation organization", Wang Ziru's business empire gradually expanded, and he became a top blogger with millions of fans. In 2012, ZEALER received a 2 million yuan investment from Shunwei Venture Capital Fund under Lei Jun, and its valuation reached 8 million yuan. Subsequently, Tencent, Gionee, OPPO, BBK and other big names also followed suit, making ZEALER a new star in the industry.

At the peak of Wang Ziru’s career, he met another first-generation internet celebrity—Luo Yonghao.

That year, Luo Yonghao bravely entered the mobile phone circle and released the first smartphone, Hammer T1. Wang Ziru naturally did not miss this product with its own traffic. He pointed out that the Hammer T1 product design had defects, while Luo Yonghao insisted that there was no problem with his own product and that Wang Ziru's evaluation content contained a lot of errors and biases.

In the end, the two sides launched a three-hour verbal battle under the mediation of Youku. During the debate, Luo Yonghao was in the upper hand for a long time. Someone calculated that Luo Yonghao interrupted Wang Ziru's speech 69 times, and the sentence "People who are kept should not come out to talk about independent personality" once became a famous saying on the Internet.

This Internet war became a turning point in the careers of both men.

As he was unable to produce any evidence from the evaluation, Wang Ziru had to remove the "objective, independent, third-party" sign and gradually disappeared from the public eye. The fate of ZEALER also took a sharp turn for the worse. Luo Yonghao also failed to gain a firm foothold in the mobile phone industry, but instead became very successful in the live streaming sales trend, and even became the number one anchor on Douyin.

Gree's strongest worker is pushed to the forefront of reform

In July 2021, the news of Wang Ziru joining Gree once again brought him back to the center of public opinion.

Wang Ziru and Dong Mingzhu first met on a variety show "I am the Founder" in 2016. In 2020, Dong Mingzhu held a nationwide live broadcast event, and Wang Ziru appeared as the host many times. Together with Dong Mingzhu, he achieved sales of 703 million yuan. A year later, Wang Ziru became Dong Mingzhu's right-hand man.

At that time, Gree was carrying out a rapid channel reform, promoting the "new retail" marketing model transformation across the country. Its main measures included live streaming, building an online "Gree Dong Mingzhu Store" and offline experience stores.

Wang Ziru, who has experience in Internet entrepreneurship, was pushed to the forefront of reform. In March 2022, Gree established a digital channel management department and appointed Wang Ziru as the project leader of the digital channel reform to promote Gree's "cloud-network wholesale" reform. The goal of this reform is to encourage dealers to wholesale online, with Gree headquarters coordinating shipments.

In May 2022, Wang Ziru began to frequently appear in the vision of Gree dealers in various provinces, carrying out the "Cloud Network Wholesale" channel reform propaganda, and his footprints covered many provinces such as Anhui, Jiangxi, and Hebei.

Sun Zhi (pseudonym), a Gree distributor in Anhui Province, once told Times Finance that Wang Ziru once led a team of about 10 people to Anhui for research. In his eyes, Wang Ziru is a firm executor of Dong Mingzhu's channel reform, but the real maker and controller of the strategy should still be Dong Mingzhu herself. (For details, please refer to Times Finance's previous report "Wang Ziru's 20 Months at Gree: Internet Celebrity in Front of the Stage, Gambling Behind the Scenes")

What made Wang Ziru popular again was an interview program broadcasted by Guangdong Satellite TV. During the interview, he frequently praised Dong Mingzhu, "I have not seen the salary slip that Gree gave me", "Can you give me an office closer to you so that I can report to you at any time", "Even if I do nothing every day, I just watch how she holds meetings, listen to what she says and does every day, and I feel it is a very happy thing."

Different from the high-spirited technology celebrity in the past, Wang Ziru has become much more low-key. Whenever he appears in public, he often plays a supporting role and attends important Gree events with Dong Mingzhu.

Dong Mingzhu also spoke highly of Wang Ziru, "He is completely different from other Internet celebrities in the company. He has been tempered by the market and his understanding of life is not on the same level."

An insider of Gree once told Times Finance that the reason why Dong Mingzhu brought Wang Ziru to a high-profile appearance was to endorse Wang Ziru in order to promote channel reform.

Even before leaving, Wang Ziru was still busy on the front line of business. According to a report by China Business News, Gree is promoting a new online wholesale system in many places to change the traditional way of getting goods and reduce the sales level. This system was promoted and improved by Wang Ziru under the guidance of Dong Mingzhu.

After Wang Ziru's resignation, who will take over the position of channel reform? Dong Mingzhu seems to have made an arrangement. In May this year, Gree issued an internal notice to appoint Lu Luqun as the sales director of the home appliance business department. Lu Luqun had won the battle to defend Gree's Hebei dealers.

The industry's interpretation of this personnel change is that Lu Luqun's appearance is to disperse Wang Ziru's voice in channel reform. From the time point of view, it has been more than two months since Wang Ziru was fined more than 33.83 million yuan.

Now, Wang Ziru is no longer a senior executive of Gree, but his internet celebrity status may still play a role. Previously, a technology blogger revealed that Wang Ziru's appearance fee for a press conference was as high as 600,000 yuan. As the first generation of internet celebrities, will Wang Ziru's fate intersect with Luo Yonghao again?

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