During Tan Benhong's tenure, AVATR not only realized the start-up stage from zero to one, but also constructed a complete brand image, product sequence, technical route, user support, market ecology, and brand culture from scratch. Zhu Huarong personally went to AVATR to grasp the general plan, and the follow-up planning is more worth looking forward to.
Text: "Autobots" Zhang Min.
It's finally time to say goodbye.
Tan Benhong, Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee of Changan Automobile and Chairman and CEO of AVATAR, resigned from his relevant positions in AVATR and was transferred back to Changan AutomobileThe chairman of AVATR will be concurrently served by Zhu Huarong, Secretary of the Party Committee and Chairman of Changan Automobile.
Zhu Huarong, Secretary of the Party Committee and Chairman of Changan Automobile.
At this time, it was less than two months since Tan Benhong changed from executive vice president of Changan Automobile to deputy secretary of the party committee.
The results are highly recognized
The rapid change of position means that Tan Benhong will be further reused by the company and enter the core leadership. The October 25 announcement also highlighted that he was "recognized as a senior executive of the company, and his term of office is the same as that of the company's ninth board of directors".
Tan Benhong, whose career has been in Changan Automobile, first focused on technological innovation, product research and development, brand communication and other departments, and then served as the deputy chief engineer of the company's automotive engineering research institute, vice president of the general research institute of automotive engineering, and president of the Beijing research institute. That is, at least 10 years ago, Tan Benhong has emerged as a reserve executive training.
Tan Benhong, Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee of Changan Automobile.
Although he was already very familiar with him within the company, it was not until AVATAR's tenure that Tan Benhongchong was widely recognized in the industry at the forefront of Chang'an's innovative brand construction. The project, formerly known as Chang'an Weilai, was prepared in 2017 and Tan Benhong was directly involved. Before the official debut of the AVATR brand in 2021, Tan Benhong had been working in this brand for more than 3 years.
AVATR is not a test of Changan Automobile's entry into a high-end brand, but a strategic action that is worth using strategic resources and a blow. It can only succeed, there is no second option.
Today's series of appointments also show that Tan Benhong's work and role in brand building are highly recognized by the board of directors.
Product first, create brand recognition
In the hands of Tan Benhong, AVATR not only realized the start-up stage from zero to one, but also constructed a complete brand image, product sequence (including product planning in the next few years), technical route, user supporters, market ecology, and brand culture from scratch.
At least for AVATAR, it was a difficult start, a successful strategic operation. It not only makes up for Chang'an's own history of lack of high-end sub-brands, but also explores a new joint venture route with technology companies and first-class businessmen. More importantly, it has enhanced the gold content of the entire Changan Automobile brand equity.
The new generation of high-end brands created by Chinese car companies must be stacked, powerful, technologically advanced, comfortable and experienced, and have the ability to adapt to multiple scenarios and a wide range. However, at the product level, how to grasp the brand tonality, AVATR under Tan Benhong has set the tone of "emotional intelligence" and "pleasing oneself" from the beginning.
AVATR itself has a certain sci-fi meaning, how to adjust its tonality to be softer, how to bring users value beyond the product itself, and its operation fully reflects the business wisdom and forward-looking of the helmsman. The team led by Tan Benhong solved a fundamental problem of mid-range high-end brands, that is, the problem of brand recognition.
The HI Huawei full-stack intelligent vehicle solution and CATL's high-voltage battery & charging technology, which are standard in all models, have brought strong technical confidence to AVATR 11 and AVATR 12. At the architecture level, based on years of technology accumulation, Changan Automobile has teamed up with Huawei and CATL to create a "new generation of intelligent electric vehicle technology platform CHN" from the initial design of the product, which determines that AVATR is different from the products of traditional luxury brands.
The CHN platform realizes the decoupling of software and hardware from the mechanical layer, energy layer, electronic and electrical architecture layer, vehicle operating system layer, vehicle functional application layer, and cloud big data layer, and digitally defines the vehicle. AVATR is digital and intelligent from product genes to underlying design.
Successfully build brand recognition
Tan Benhong once said that 80% of the energy and resources should be used to make products and services the best;At the same time, use 20% of the energy and resources to do the brand.
On the basis of the product, cultivate brand value. Tan Benhong not only started from the product, but also planned the long-term operation guiding ideology and brand moat of the AVATR brand.
From the date of the brand announcement, in more than two years, AVATR has completed the launch of its first product and two rounds of financing, and by the end of 2022, the channel has covered 200+ deployments in 54 cities, and it is expected to rise to 350+ in 2023. The second all-new product, AVATR 12, was unveiled at the Munich Motor Show. This is not only an image display, but also hints that it will land in Europe and lay the groundwork for overseas operations.
In operation, Tan Benhong always makes a layout several years in advance, sometimes it is obvious (such as product release), and sometimes it is gradually revealed over time, which reflects the forward-looking brand operation.
Being smart doesn't mean being cold. AVATR injects emotion into the brand's genes, while "Pleasing Yourself" puts forward a value proposition of self-identity and following one's heart. It is worth mentioning that the value of "pleasing oneself" formed by AVATR is not the content that was conceived at the beginning, but gradually formed after the product was launched, the brand image was gradually enriched, and the user was deeply interacted. Customers who are willing to choose 300,000-400,000 yuan for smart electric SEV SUVs (not necessarily AVATR brands) generally have the values of pleasing themselves.
"Pleasing oneself" is not only a summary and refinement of the values of AVATAR's user group, but also a combing of the brand image.
Hold on and expand
In the madness of the first war in the whole market, AVATR did not follow up rashly, but adopted a series of indirect measures to add value to users and reduce the burden, which not only safeguarded the interests of old car owners, but also gave new car owners a feeling of value for money.
*Competition to a certain extent, the actual transaction price is still more than 300,000 yuan strong SEV SUV, very few. AVATR has repeatedly claimed to "win the mid-to-high-end SEV sales championship", but in fact, because there are few competitors in the same class, it seems to be a bit of a victory.
However, AVATAR's persistence did not affect the gradual rise in sales. In November, the sales volume of AVATR 11 reached more than 4,000 units. This is because of the brand's unique genes, and the efforts to occupy the minds of users have worked.
Tan Benhong, who has repeatedly said that being a brand is "a long-distance run", has achieved the desired effect - that is, to achieve sales expansion while maintaining the brand foundation and values. In today's market atmosphere, for mid-to-high-end electric brands with a history of only a few years, it is rare to do both at the same time.
On December 10, deliveries of AVATR 12 began. At this time, the user locked the order (Dading) as many as 20,000 vehicles, which is equivalent to 5 times the delivery volume in November. What AVATR should do is to fully mobilize production capacity and realize continuous production.
After achieving this perfect start, Tan Benhong was transferred to Changan Automobile as deputy secretary of the Party Committee.
And Zhu Huarong, chairman of Changan Automobile, unexpectedly concurrently serves as the chairman of AVATAR, which undoubtedly shows the strategic position of AVATR in Changan. This time he is also the chairman of AVATR Technology, which is a step forward for the Chinese brand to improve and build a world-class brand. AVATR has now opened up the situation, and the follow-up product plan will be realized one after another.
At the same time, Wang Xiaofei, vice president of Changan Automobile, will assist the chairman of AVATR Technology in the company's enterprise operation, major project promotion, and key business operations.
It is worth mentioning that since the brand was announced, AVATR has never postponed any of the promised time nodes. Chang'an's senior management and AVATR operation team have terrifyingly strong execution.
Now that the most difficult start has been successfully passed, as long as it follows the trend, AVATR is ushering in a period of intense and rapid expansion. Presumably, under the personal leadership of Chairman Zhu Huarong, the AVATR team will make good use of this rare period of strategic opportunities. 【Copyright Notice】This article is the original manuscript of "Autobots", and it is not allowed to be unauthorized **.