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our reporter yang rangchen and shi yingjing reported from shanghai

the automotive industry traffic, which had been rapidly heating up at this year's beijing international auto show, began to cool down at the 27th chengdu international auto show (hereinafter referred to as "chengdu auto show").

"we still have more than 300 orders ahead of us, so we can't order coffee here for the time being." at 10 a.m. on the media day of the chengdu auto show, a clerk at a chain coffee shop in the western international expo city, where the chengdu auto show is held, told a reporter from china business news that the store has been overwhelmed with orders and has suspended taking orders.

according to the chengdu auto show organizing committee, the scale of this year's chengdu auto show has reached a new high. not only will it continue with the 11 exhibition halls of previous years, but hall 9 will be used for the first time. the outdoor exhibition area has also been expanded and upgraded to set up an ultra-large 5,000-square-meter automotive technology display area. the overall exhibition scale has jumped to 220,000 square meters.

but the booming coffee sales and the expanded venue size do not mean that this year's chengdu auto show has welcomed "huge" traffic. lei jun and zhou hongyi, the "entrepreneurial ips" who were popular at the beijing auto show, did not appear at the chengdu auto show. although auto company executives such as richard yu and yin tongyue still took the stage to promote their own products, the traffic of the chengdu auto show was still slightly inferior to that of the beijing auto show in the first half of this year. this year, the fierce battle for traffic among auto companies has reached a "crossroads".

zhang lingling, associate professor of marketing at ceibs, told reporters that the case of auto companies leveraging traffic may not be replicable. "the superstar phenomenon holds that a small number of stars will occupy the vast majority of attention and content dissemination volume, and most people cannot achieve such an effect even if they put in a lot of effort."

chengdu auto show traffic "ebbs"

the chengdu auto show did not see the surging crowds that followed the popular stars in the automotive industry.

with the entry of xiaomi motors and lei jun, traffic has become a target of competition among auto companies since the first half of this year. reporters noticed that at this year's beijing auto show, zhou hongyi and lei jun became the "traffic bags" walking around the auto show, and wherever they went, crowds of people flocked to them, making traffic a "battlefield" for the auto industry.

taking the recent traffic hotspot "black myth: wukong" as an example, many players have begun to test whether they can run this game smoothly on smart cars such as ideal and jiyue; at the same time, nezha auto has also begun to take the opportunity to "take advantage of the traffic" and posted several tweets related to "black myth: wukong" on social platforms, and stated that like the destined person in the game, nezha auto is also "my destiny is determined by myself, not by god."

but in comparison, at this year's chengdu auto show, the previous "traffic packages" lei jun and zhou hongyi did not show up. at the same time, many companies and brands including jiyue and hongmeng zhixing's zhijie chose to hold press conferences before the opening of the chengdu auto show.

however, the chengdu auto show was not without traffic. nio president qin lihong, huawei executive director, chairman of the terminal bg, and chairman of the intelligent automotive solutions bu richard yu, and chery holdings chairman yin tongyue also appeared at the chengdu auto show to promote their products. at the same time, jiyue ceo xia yiping choked up several times when talking about sales during an interview with a media reporter, which also became a traffic hotspot.

it is worth noting that in addition to the car companies and media reporters who were present to report on the event, there were also many sales staff at the auto show that day.

the reporter noticed at the chengdu auto show media day that in a certain brand's vip room before the media day, the sales manager had already gathered the sales staff and repeatedly emphasized that customers should be retained as much as possible at the chengdu auto show. "we must learn to guide customers and retain customers. we are here to sell cars." at the same time, various live broadcasts of car sales also filled the booths of the auto show. relevant data show that in 2023, the chengdu auto show generated a total of 35,028 vehicle orders, with a transaction amount of 6.087 billion yuan and a visitor number of 902,000.

the temptation of traffic

why did so many car companies flock to traffic in the first half of this year? in the view of many industry insiders, the "traffic boom" in the automotive industry may have many effects on car companies.

in zhang lingling's view, the value of traffic to a company lies in the fact that traffic can make more users aware of it, thus forming recognition, which may lead to conversion. "lei jun understands consumers very well. in the process of content delivery, he can bring his own hot spots, and in the process of communicating with consumers, he can also make consumers feel very close. lei jun builds his personal ip to convey his personal value, which is actually a very efficient way. he conveys value to the user group, and this user group may become his users at some opportunity in the future."

zhao chunzhang, head of the automotive industry and senior consultant of ries category innovation strategy consulting, told reporters that this year's "traffic battle" in the auto market is a product of the current marketing environment. "on the one hand, due to the intensified competition and the entry of some new energy brands, more traffic and attention are needed. the ceo of a company has great public relations value and brings his own traffic. the ceo's personal traffic can bring more topics and attention to the brand. on the other hand, the entire marketing media and methods have also changed, from graphic ads to tv ads, from short videos to live broadcasts. the change in consumers' catalysts has also brought new marketing methods, which can better cater to the way young consumer groups receive information and are more efficient."

however, zhao chunzhang further told reporters that under the traffic, each car brand should think more about: what information should be conveyed to consumers? what information is valuable to consumers and can be retained in their cognition? "marketing and traffic without positioning are meaningless."

this is also reflected in the sales data of major automakers. the reporter noticed that xiaomi motors, the "traffic star" in the automotive industry, has achieved remarkable results. according to the delivery data released by xiaomi motors recently, xiaomi motors has achieved the delivery target of more than 10,000 vehicles for three consecutive months, and is expected to complete the annual delivery target of 100,000 vehicles ahead of schedule in november.

but some are happy while others are sad. in comparison, the delivery volume of new brands such as jiyue, zhiji, and avita, which have also used the "traffic password" a lot this year, is embarrassing. relevant data shows that jiyue and zhiji delivered 2,117 and 6,117 vehicles respectively in august this year, while leapmotor and nio, which are also new forces, delivered 30,305 and 20,176 vehicles respectively in august.

avita is in a similar situation. recently, avita officially announced that it had subscribed to huawei yinwang shares and adopted huawei qiankun 3.0 system. in august this year, it delivered 3,712 vehicles, an increase of 88% over the same period last year. in contrast, the similarly priced wenjie m7 jointly built by huawei and seres had delivered 10,261 vehicles in august.

traffic does not equal sales

why do car companies use "traffic" to achieve the opposite of what they want, even though they are both on the hot search list? in the opinion of industry insiders, the process of converting traffic into sales in the automotive industry may not be replicable.

in zhang lingling's opinion, the case of car companies leveraging traffic may not be replicable. "the superstar phenomenon holds that a small number of stars will occupy the vast majority of attention and content dissemination volume. most people can't achieve such an effect even if they put a lot of effort. if the superstar phenomenon is applied to the ip field, you will understand that traffic whirlwinds are difficult to replicate because it is impossible to determine what the key factors that truly form the star effect are."

zhao chunzhang also told reporters that in the current era of "traffic is king", traffic can indeed contribute a certain amount of sales to car companies, but traffic only belongs to a small number of car companies, and only valuable traffic can bring sales.

"the cases of some car companies do provide a marketing idea for other car companies, but it is obviously difficult to succeed if they just copy it." zhao chunzhang told reporters that there is huge "founder public relations value" behind the traffic of some car company executives. through this value, they achieve twice the result with half the effort and bring huge traffic and popularity. however, if they only obtain traffic by purchasing traffic or advertising, the effect will be greatly reduced.

the reporter noticed that in addition to "entrepreneur ip", cross-border ip co-branding is becoming one of the most popular ways of brand marketing. for example, nezha auto has posted a series of weibo posts about "black myth: wukong". however, in the eyes of industry insiders, ip co-branding is indeed a good way of brand marketing, but for cars, ip co-branding may not be a good way to increase sales.

"the biggest advantage of co-branding is 'breaking the circle'." in zhang lingling's view, "social media has the concept of 'information cocoon', which only pushes content that users are interested in. co-branding can break this circle. at the same time, it can also play a certain role in building brand values ​​and image."

but for cars, the path to success through co-branding with other industry brands may not be smooth. "it may be difficult for cars to succeed through ip co-branding, because each co-branding is a big move." zhang lingling said that this is a big challenge for car company marketers, who need to understand their own company's genes and target customers, as well as the values ​​they want to convey, and be able to try and iterate on the underlying logic of these values.

zhao chunzhang also told reporters that ip co-branding is relatively difficult in the automotive category. "successful ip co-branding chooses co-branded brands with strong brand power, premium ability and popularity, and strong category relevance, such as luckin coffee choosing moutai and uniqlo choosing hermes."

"at present, user insights and rapid iteration are both important. there is no formula or code to predict success." zhang lingling said that for car companies' marketing, they need to have a keen sense of smell, be able to make bold assumptions, and quickly iterate and try. "it is important to understand your own genes. many successful companies will not succeed every time they innovate, but every innovation must be closely related to the underlying logic of their own company and their own genes. on this basis, the company's marketing attempts can form an iterative closed loop, and its success probability will be stable in the long run."

"the automobile category has less empowerment for brands in other categories. for technology-based products, a more valuable 'co-branding' is technological empowerment, such as huawei's empowerment of various automobile brands by providing better intelligent driving systems and smart cockpits, helping brands increase their attractiveness and premium." zhao chunzhang also believes that what major automakers need to think about is not how to "grab traffic", but to first think clearly about what kind of cognition to establish in consumers' minds, and then think about what marketing methods to use.