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source: phoenix finance

author: tang cu and lu la

traffic anxiety is sweeping the automotive industry. the automotive industry not only looks at sales, but also traffic, not only technology, but also popularity. recently, a netizen broke the news that "zhiji auto has mobilized all employees to post on douyin. once you join this company, you have to hand in not only your personal life, but also your social media."

phoenix finance learned from several zhiji employees that they had not received any relevant requests. a jiangsu zhiji auto anchor told phoenix finance: "we have not received any requests to open accounts on social media. sales require douyin accounts, and generally the company provides accounts for operation. in addition, the situation of each store is different. our sales colleagues basically don't mention this matter, and douyin accounts should not have much impact on employees."

regarding this matter, another shaanxi zhiji auto employee told phoenix finance: "it is voluntary to open an account. there is no document requirement or mandatory requirement. in the era of self-media, even posting on douyin is normal."

an anchor of zhiji auto in chengdu said: "we do not require all employees to open douyin accounts. i am currently using the official account of zhiji auto." another zhiji auto salesperson in huzhou also denied that "zhiji auto mobilized all employees to post on douyin."

lei jun, li shufu, li bin and other car industry leaders have all participated in live broadcasts, making the marketing war among internet celebrities in the car industry more and more intense. executives of many new car manufacturers such as xiaomi have opened accounts to promote social media marketing and enhance corporate influence.

regarding this matter, phoenix finance contacted an insider from zhiji auto’s brand department, who said: “we have sent a lawyer’s letter to some of the media that published the article.”

the above-mentioned person pointed out: "zhiji invited employees to become brand recommenders through internal incentives. there was no mandatory requirement for employees to promote the brand. it was purely voluntary for employees to participate. moreover, the social media accounts of employees who became brand recommenders were also their personal accounts. there was no such thing as 'handing over'. in view of this, the content of the above-mentioned article is inconsistent with the facts and is fabricated false information. it is suspected of generalizing and maliciously misleading, and has seriously damaged zhiji's brand image, reputation rights and other legitimate rights and interests."

zhiji auto can be said to have been born "with a silver spoon in its mouth". it was established on december 25, 2020. it is an automotive science and technology company jointly created by saic group, zhangjiang hi-tech park and alibaba.

as a new car manufacturer, zhiji auto has always had a dream of becoming an internet celebrity, so much so that you can always see the shadow of "weibo, xiaoli, and li auto" marketing in it. liu tao, ceo of zhiji auto, once admitted that zhiji auto is hungry for traffic and has marketing anxiety.

in april this year, at the launch of zhiji l6, in order to take advantage of the popularity of xiaomi su7, zhiji auto deeply benchmarked its performance parameters with xiaomi auto, but apologized to xiaomi three times for incorrectly labeling the parameters and also asked xiaomi to "go easy on the matter."

to create a buzz, liu taohai even imitated lei jun's pity, saying that "some employees even missed the birth of their own children", which made netizens question zhiji's "serious lack of employee care", which in turn triggered a brand public opinion crisis. the official weibo account of "saic group roewe" urgently posted a message saying: "we do not encourage overtime, nor do we stop everyone's passion for car manufacturing."

coincidentally, zhiji auto's "thirst" for traffic is also reflected in the fact that in december 2022, liu tao personally drove the zhiji l7 to the highway, trying to promote its "supercar mode" by demonstrating the acceleration performance of the model. however, it was this video that aroused doubts from netizens, because the video showed a number of violations such as illegal parking on the elevated road, changing lanes on the solid line, continuous lane changes, and serious speeding, which also led liu tao to publicly apologize.

behind the traffic anxiety is zhiji auto’s urgency to increase sales.

the first model of zhiji l7 was launched in 2021, and the cumulative sales of zhiji auto in 2022 were less than 5,000. it was not until the launch of zhiji ls6 that zhiji auto's sales began to improve. in 2023, zhiji auto's total sales reached 38,000 units, but it did not achieve the sales target of 45,000 units.

in august this year, zhiji auto sold 6,117 vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 239%. although zhiji auto's sales have exceeded 6,000 vehicles for three consecutive months, it is still far behind the top three sales in august, namely byd (370,854 vehicles), geely new energy (75,484 vehicles), and ideal (48,122 vehicles).