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tencent auto "high beam"

author: lin keying

editor｜liu peng

this may be the quietest media day at an auto show in recent years.

even before the opening, the collective "failure" of brand invitations had already led to constant voices of pessimism. but on the first day of the opening, which was open only to the media, the low flow of visitors to the exhibition hall still surprised many media people. a reporter at the scene lamented, "compared with usual, there are at least one-third fewer people."

but the quietness did not last forever. from the day after the exhibition hall was opened to the public, the crowds still filled the exhibition hall. behind the contrast between the two days before and after is the temporary ebb of the noisy traffic at the auto show. under the environment of limited costs and fierce competition, car companies focus on the simplest and most important question: how to sell cars?

media day was a cold reception, and auto industry bosses stopped visiting

just after 9am, three isolation belts were set up next to the xiaomi booth for queuing. there is a precedent: at the beijing auto show in late april, xiaomi ceo lei jun and xiaomi cars were one of the hottest topics. the aisle outside the booth was already jammed 20 minutes before the press conference started, and it was normal for one or two hundred people to line up.

however, as the media day cooled down, past experience was no longer valid. an hour later, the isolation belt around the booth was removed, allowing visitors to freely enter and exit the booth to experience the experience, and there was basically no need to queue up for a test ride.

"it's a working day, and the first day is media day, so it's normal that there are few people," explained a xiaomi salesperson.

even so, when compared with the beijing auto show media day four months ago, the changes are still obvious.

at that time, xiaomi motors had just been launched, and the huge traffic brought by lei jun made all car companies jealous. shooting videos and doing live broadcasts became the "standard configuration" for car company ceos, and the auto show also became a battlefield for attracting traffic. on the first day of the exhibition, lei jun visited thebyd、equation leopard,ideal,nio, baic and other booths,xiaopeng, li bin, li xiang and other car company ceos also went on a "tour" to try to get a share of the traffic pool. 360 founder zhou hongyi, wearing his signature red clothes, became a hot search with a photo of him sitting on the roof of an off-road vehicle, with his mobile phone and camera raised high and surrounding him under the vehicle.

today, the frequency of short videos posted by ceos of car companies, which were once popular, has gradually decreased. at the chengdu auto show, although he xiaopeng, yin tongyue, and yu chengdong still showed up the next day, most of them were at the press conference to promote their own products, and the grand occasion of "visiting" each other is no longer there. car companies seem to have reached a consensus: after the traffic is over, selling cars is the most important thing.

"the chengdu auto show is different from the one in beijing. the chengdu auto show is a car show, and the number of sales may be more than the number of users." a weilai salesperson told tencent auto's "high beam" that there were about 30 sales people on the first day. the audience on the media day was highly professional, but they were not the main group of car buyers.

around 9:10 in the morning,roewethe salesmen were attending a morning meeting in the open space behind the exhibition hall. the person in charge stood in front and shouted, "as long as you work hard, there will be rewards tomorrow!" the salesmen shouted "roewe sells well" three times and then dispersed.

luxury brands are not immune to this. mercedes-benz executives repeatedly stressed at morning meetings that salespeople must pay attention to observing the crowd and keeping an eye on customers. “you only need to do three things: first, take the customer’s phone number; second, bring the customer in to learn more; and third, promote the store to the customer.”

there were few ordinary visitors who actually wanted to buy cars on the media day. even at the byd exhibition hall, which had the largest flow of people, the sales staff admitted that "there were basically no customers." however, the competition for sales has already begun. with insufficient flow of people on site, the sales staff turned to mobile phone holders to start live broadcasts, unwilling to waste traffic and time.

just a few minutes after the morning meeting ended, a mercedes-benz salesman stood at the booth. he held a mobile phone in one hand and pointed it at the e300l to start the live broadcast room. with the other hand, he opened a calculator in front of the camera and quickly pressed the numbers: "a car that cost 528,000 yuan has a discount of 90,000 yuan, 438,000 yuan. i think this price is really not expensive." another mercedes-benz salesman walked past him and gave him a thumbs up.

an ideal salesperson told tencent auto’s “high beam” that the on-site sales staff came from different stores, and that he would also do live broadcasts in the stores to sell cars and had accumulated a certain number of fans. the auto show simply provided a scenario that was more conducive to attracting traffic.

selling cars is the real business.

despite the constant pessimism on the first day of the opening, every salesperson on the scene said with certainty: "it will definitely be different after the media day."

their judgment was correct. from the day after it was opened to the public, the flow of visitors increased significantly, and the popularity was no less than that of the previous beijing auto show.

according to data from the china passenger car association, from january to july this year, chengdu has surpassed beijing and shanghai with sales of 332,000 vehicles, becoming the city sales champion.

many visitors clearly stated that they have the idea of ​​buying a new car, but they are still hesitant about the choice between gasoline and electric cars. "i still want to buy a gasoline car, because i am afraid that the electric car will run out of power on the highway." one visitor said that he felt that most of the pure electric cars in chengdu are still online ride-hailing cars, and in addition, the power rationing in chengdu has occurred from time to time recently, so he has doubts about the range of electric cars.

intelligent driving has also become one of the focuses of the audience's attention.extremethe screens at the booths played videos of its ceo testing noa on the road. a visitor who planned to buy a new energy vehicle said that he did not plan to buy xiaomi, mainly because its intelligent driving "still doesn't work".

a young couple coming out of the xiaomi booth told tencent auto's "high beam" that their budget was about 150,000 yuan, and the xiaomi was a bit overpriced, but they were considering it because it looked good.toyota camryit also meets the price expectations, but he still prefers to buy the new brand now.

according to camry sales, the car, which is currently priced at 139,800 yuan, should be able to reach less than 120,000 yuan with discounts. if an order is placed during the auto show, an auto show subsidy of around 2,000 yuan can be obtained, and the final price can be around 118,000 yuan.

although the price war in the auto industry seems to have slowed down recently as bba has reduced its discounts, price is still one of the most effective means of sales competition. a cadillac salesperson said that the price of the gt4 luxury version has been reduced to 180,000 yuan, and the landing price is about 200,000 yuan with insurance and other factors. after deducting the current 7,000 yuan subsidy and coupons, it is less than 200,000 yuan. "you know, it's like this now..." he smiled, "the prices are all extremely cheap, there is no high price."

lantu ceo lu fang told tencent news' "high beam" that the current market is different from the previous ones. in the past, it was an incremental market, and all you had to do was run faster than others. now it is a stock market, and to accommodate so many new car companies in a limited market, there must be very fierce competition - the stock market is a "life-and-death" market, which is the market competition situation, forcing everyone to compete like in the animal world.

in addition to price, each brand also used its own unique methods to attract and retain visitors. it is worth noting that only byd and cadillac purchased outdoor advertising for this auto show, and the publicity and marketing of auto companies were basically compressed inside the booths: xiaomi provided free bottled water to all queuing visitors,polar foxa blind box machine was placed next to the booth, and visitors could draw prizes after checking in and taking photos. the contents included ice cream, water cups, etc.mazdaat the booths of brands such as , hyundai, staff members dressed in heavy panda doll costumes waved to the audience - during the auto show, the highest temperature in chengdu reached 37 degrees celsius, and although there was air conditioning indoors, the temperature was still not low.

many car companies also hired people to walk around the exhibition hall, inviting passing visitors to scan the code and follow the brand.volvothe person who promoted the qr code scanning told tencent auto's "high beam" that he had to invite 50 people to scan the qr code a day and work until the end of the auto show, with a daily salary of 200 yuan.

among the many auto show "gifts" that can be received by scanning the qr code and checking in”the most common one is the purple shoulder bag of jiyue, which has a ribbon with the words "baidu × geely jointly built" on it.”in each exhibition hall and booth, visitors carrying large purple bags can be seen everywhere, becoming a series of mobile billboards.

on the evening of august 28, just before the opening of the auto show, xia yiping, ceo of jiyue automobile, choked up and cried several times when talking about the sales difficulties in january this year during an interview after the jiyue end-to-end ai intelligent driving conference.

"nowadays, many new brands have similar technologies, with no big gaps. so whether they sell well or not may still depend on marketing strategies, channel diversion and other actions." an industry insider observed that many users at auto shows do not have particularly clear goals when faced with many choices. this is a good time for companies and stores to take the initiative. "companies with weak brand power still need to do a good job in marketing, otherwise you can't blame the market or the price war."