Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

In the first eight months of 2023, China exported 2.941 million cars, an increase of 61.9 percent over the same period last year, ranking first in the world. According to the Forecast of the Federation of passengers, China's car exports will exceed 4 million this year, officially surpassing Japan to become the world's largest automobile exporter.

In the past few years, China's automobile overseas industry has exploded, surpassing Germany, South Korea and other traditional automobile export countries to become the forefront of market share in Europe, Southeast Asia, Brazil and other markets.

To achieve such an excellent record at sea, the mature and leading car-building technology of Chinese new energy vehicle companies is an important prerequisite-in the "2023 China Automobile going to Sea (Tianjin) Forum", the Automobile Industry Association of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade and Wang Xia, president of the China International Chamber of Commerce, shared, "in the first half of 2022, the average selling price of electric vehicles in China is less than 32000 euros. While the average selling price of electric vehicles in Europe is about 56000 euros, Chinese cars have obvious cost-effective advantages. "

But at the same time, President Wang Xia commented that the overall level of Chinese car companies going abroad is still in their infancy. "going out to sea has just begun, and there are great challenges and opportunities, so we should not be blindly optimistic." In short, similar to the difficulties faced by the whole overseas industry, although Chinese car companies have entered the overseas market with the strength of their products, there are weaknesses in their brand strength, marketing power, after-sales system and globalization ability. there is an urgent need for top-level design and standardized landing.

Market globalization, ecological localization, brand globalization-- on the spot of the forum, Lin Hanbin, CEO of We Are Social North Asia, Blue cursor International Business, put forward that these three points are the core elements for Chinese car companies to carry out international marketing and realize the long-term brand going out to sea.

01. It is a historical necessity for Chinese cars to go out to sea, but there are still three marketing problems from "going out" to "going in".

To some extent, it is a natural and inevitable development for Chinese car companies to go to sea, and it is a two-way choice for Chinese car companies and overseas consumers.

Looking back at the development history of the global automobile industry, it is no more than a hundred years, but the industry has experienced four overall transformations from mechanization, to Taylor, to Toyota, and then to the era of new energy vehicles. Global car consumers in the new era tend to pay for cheaper, smarter and greener cars. On the other hand, Chinese car companies have obvious advantages of electrification and intelligence, which have risen rapidly in the last decade; China's foreign trade industry has also achieved the transformation of digitalization and branding in the same period. As a result, the huge new demand in overseas markets and the opportunity of overtaking in corners are unfolded in front of Chinese car companies.

In this regard, Chairman Wang Xia said bluntly, "it is a historical necessity for Chinese cars to go to sea."

From the point of view of the target market, the European market is the core market for Chinese car companies to go abroad. The share of Chinese car exports to Europe has climbed to 39.1 per cent, followed by Asia (31.7 per cent) and North America (11.6 per cent), according to a set of data. Among them, new energy models are the most important. Since 2020, BYD, Lailai, Xiaopeng, ideal and other new energy vehicle brands have entered the European market, while Nahan Automobile first took Southeast Asia, and then distributed the European market. The European market has become the "first stop" for new energy car companies, due to local government subsidies and support for energy conservation and emission reduction companies, consumers' higher acceptance of environmental protection concepts, and so on.

From the perspective of the overall development of the automobile industry, Chinese car companies need to provide smarter car brands to overseas markets. As Wang Hui, vice president of Chongqing Changan Automobile Co., Ltd., said, "cars are changing from a functional body composed of traditional machinery to an agent that can constantly evolve, opening up a new new energy car racetrack. Transform mobile travel tools into evolved intelligent car robots." In essence, it requires the automobile industry to provide a full set of transformation of products, services and ecology. For example, Xilai Motors has launched a series of new business models in European countries, running through new car sales, subscription, rental and other services. It also proposes "emphasis on infrastructure, operation and customer satisfaction". Through multi-dimensional and experience-priority services such as offline stores, online App and user community, European car owners can really enjoy the Chinese car brands under the new model.

With strong product power as the core and under the leadership of the global brand vision, Chinese automobile brands shine brilliantly and have completed the first step of going out to sea: "going out".

However, in the stage of "going in", Chinese overseas car companies are still facing some objective challenges. In this regard, Wang Hui summed up five major industry problems: first, Chinese cars are facing complex global geopolitical challenges; second, Chinese cars are facing the challenges of the industrial chain; third, they are facing the challenges of laws and regulations; fourth, there is a shortage of first-class international talents; fifth, overseas enterprises of Chinese automobile brands will face the challenge of cultural differences.

There is no doubt that this has greatly increased the difficulty of overseas marketing for Chinese car companies. From a marketing point of view, Chinese car companies need to first overcome the following three core issues in order to carry out transnational operations:

First, cross-cultural team building and management problems. For the whole offshore industry, after having certain product advantages, internal cross-cultural team management and collaboration is a high priority issue.

This is especially true in the automobile industry. Lin Hanbin gave an example from the perspective of marketing practice. in the past, a car brand did social media publicity material and wanted to use it on a large scale around the world, but because the women in the poster showed too many legs, it hit a brick wall in the Indonesian market, which believes in conservative religious ideas. " This happens in every country. Without down-to-earth building of local teams, there is no way to really understand what local consumers like and dislike. " It can be seen that the victory of Chinese car brands is often accompanied by the localization team. Therefore, it is urgent for overseas car companies to absorb excellent nationalized talents and strengthen their comprehensive understanding of the overseas market.

Second, the difficult problems of external resources expansion and integration. President Wang Xia pointed out that "China's auto industry needs top-level design, systematic thinking, and collective action by government departments, vehicle and parts companies, standards and certification institutions, finance, insurance and many other post-market service institutions." fighting alone will be impossible. " At the same time, with the explosion of consumer contact point, automobile brands pay more attention to omni-channel marketing than ever before. Only by grasping the dialogue approach closest to the real consumers in the local market, taking into account both online and offline, public relations and transformation, can Chinese car companies complete in-depth consumer dialogue in the competition.

Third, the difficult problem of building brand image. Some mature car brands have established high stickiness with consumers in overseas markets. Under the "extreme volume" pattern that all car companies are catching up and improving the level of intelligence, Chinese brands as outsiders who break into the market, the establishment of brand image and the continuous voice of the follow-up determine how long the brand can go locally.

02. The car goes out to sea to break the game: "people" is the core element. Only by recruiting local people and speaking the local dialect can we open the local market.

In view of the above three major automobile marketing problems, at the site of the "2023 China Automobile going out (Tianjin) Forum", the blue cursor acts as a key link between Chinese car companies and overseas car users, and provides some solutions. As the only marketing service company in China among the top 500 private enterprises, Blue cursor Group attaches great importance to the layout of Europe, North America, Middle East, Asia-Pacific and other overseas markets in recent years. The first step in layout is "people".

"founded 27 years ago, Blue cursor is one of the top 10 marketing companies in China, the second in Asia and the top 10 in the world. It is one of the top 30 national cultural enterprises selected by the propaganda Department of Communist Party of China Central Committee. It is also a demonstration base for the integration of national culture and science and technology. It is also one of the top 500 private enterprises in China. At the same time, Blue cursor is the only marketing service company in China on all these lists." Zhao Wenquan, chairman of Blue cursor Group, shared at the forum, "our overseas company Plus Company has more than 2000 employees, 100% of whom are foreign employees. There are great differences between China and the West. We have to communicate with them in the language and way they are used to."

When it comes to automobile companies, Blue cursor's road to globalization is also worth learning-first, car companies should pay attention to the building of overseas localization teams, and second, they should use a language that locals can understand in the process of communication.

Chen Chen confirmed this: "95% of the Weilai European team are locals, and the remaining 5% are Chinese expatriates or local Chinese." this group of people have a better understanding of local culture, user preferences and front-line voice, and can combine our company's value system to really pay attention to users' voices, achieve timely feedback from users, and adjust their marketing strategies. " Furthermore, from the perspective of marketing work, Lin Hanbin shared a story. When the epidemic raged, Great Wall wanted to improve its brand image in the Australian market, and the team could not go abroad, so it was served by the Australian localization team. Later, the local team shot a set of high-quality "surfing" theme posters, which were loved by local surfers and enhanced the brand image of Great Wall cars as young, interesting and trendy.

Summing up the methodology of transnational marketing of automobile brands, Lin Hanbin points out that it is not the most important thing to let the Chinese story go out. What car companies really need to do is to get local people to tell local stories well. " Some stories go from home to overseas, but consumers' attention is very short. Whenever a brand wants to introduce a concept that is too complex, it is difficult to understand that consumers do not have the same cultural background. I suggest that brands first look at how well the local market knows the Chinese story, and don't try to explain it. The most efficient way is to create a brand image that suits the local market. "

03. Car going out to sea break point 2: from Internet celebrities to the government, attach importance to the building of overseas relations network

Second, cultivate good public relations with the local government, attach importance to the crowd coverage ability of large online Internet platforms such as Google and Meta, and seize the growth point of online celebrity marketing.

At the level of public relations in the local market, Zhao Wenquan, chairman of Blue cursor Group, said, "it is a consensus today that Chinese cars may face more complex challenges and competitive environment in the future." especially in developed markets such as Europe and North America, Chinese car companies need to know more about the local culture, law and market environment and communicate more effectively with the government, the media and the public. " Some car companies are well aware of the importance of carrying out public relations activities in the local market. Zhang Mingxia, vice president of sales, marketing, and after-sales of Smart Brand Global, points out, "if you do not consider specific countries when doing laws and regulations in the early stage, doing so at a later stage will form a disconnect from the pace of entering the market."

At the level of Internet marketing, under Blue cursor's estimated overseas revenue of US $5 billion this year, Zhao Wenquan pointed out, "so far, Blue cursor has many licenses for overseas head media and emerging media, such as Meta, Google, TikTok for Business, Snapchat, Pinterest, Microsoft Advertising, and so on. Both mainstream media and emerging media have the ability to deeply reach overseas users, revitalize brand communication, and basically achieve comprehensive coverage of overseas target markets such as Europe, America, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and so on. "

At the same time, another big marketing tool of Blue cursor is overseas Internet celebrities. Overseas online celebrity marketing is one of the most important marketing in 2023, which has both public relations and sales functions. In this regard, Zhao Wenquan revealed that Blue cursor has established close cooperative relations with more than 100,000 Internet celebrities around the world and the MCN institutions behind it.

In short, from the docking of online celebrity relations to the contact of local government affairs, Chinese automobile companies need to establish good overseas relations from point to point. Among them, marketing service organizations such as Blue cursor and overseas Internet giants such as Google can all play a leading role in helping Jianlian.

04. The third point of the automobile going out to sea: AI marketing * Intelligent car, the killer mace to enhance the brand image

Based on the advantages of more than 2, 000 employees and local operations, Blue cursor is integrating AI into every aspect of marketing to improve the efficiency of its team and the automotive brand ROI.

In 2023, AIGC is undoubtedly the hottest concept in the global marketing industry, and it has a far-reaching impact on the entire sea industry. For the automobile industry with intelligent and young brand image as the mainstream, AI marketing especially means approaching the breaking point of young consumers.

Lin Hanbin revealed, "We have built a 360-degree AI system for the automobile industry, and now we can use AI to help car companies carry out brand optimization, product development, dealer management and car owner CRM." It can be seen that with the deep combination of AI technology and smart car brands, this may help Chinese car companies complete a higher-level capability transformation and have a stronger competitive advantage in overseas markets.

Of course, in addition to the overall efficiency of the enterprise, in the most direct level of marketing content production, AI is also a good helper for car companies. For example, Blue cursor once helped Renault and the local post-70s high-end car buyers establish deep resonance through advertising videos in France, and helped Ferrari filter racing drivers in Italy, making the brand number one on Twitter in Italy. The video created for Audi in the UK has received millions of exposures across Europe. The success of these marketing popular style cases is inseparable from in-depth localized learning and the creation of creative content in line with local cultural habits.

And AI can help car companies greatly improve in this part of the work-"We have begun to reuse AIGC creatively. Several videos of Guangzhou Auto Toyota are made by us with AIGC. In addition to videos, AI can also help us do a lot of things, such as the planning and design of offline activities. This year, the posters, main videos and KV of GAC Toyota car owners' activities are all completed with the assistance of AI." Introduced by Lin Hanbin.

05. Conclusion

In terms of product power, Chinese cars, especially new energy vehicles, have come to the forefront of the world without dispute. However, as Wang Xia said, the brand development of Chinese car companies in overseas markets is still in its infancy. In short, the marketing strength of Chinese car companies is very important, and even determines whether Chinese car companies can really build a leading global car brand at the mental level of consumers in this development cycle of the automobile industry.

Data sources:

Global PR Agency Rankings 2023, PRovokeMedia

2023 Top holding companies in the WARC Effective 100,WARC, 2023

Top 500 listed companies in China, Fortune, 2023

2023 Top 500 China Private Enterprises list, all-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, 2023.

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