The Chinese auto market has a general psychological expectation for the positioning of the high-end market, and it is generally believed that models with a price of about 300,000 yuan can be classified into this category. During this year's Chengdu Auto Show, Zhiji Auto released a pre-sale range of its new model LS6: 230,000 to 300,000 yuan, which is obviously an attempt to reach the threshold of the high-end market. However, Zhiji Auto adjusted its strategy when the LS6 was officially launched, lowering the ** to 22990,000 to 29190,000 yuan. If you place an order within a month, you can also enjoy 1With a cash discount of 50,000 yuan, the actual selling price dropped to 21490,000 to 27690,000 yuan. Compared with the starting price of 400,000 yuan set for the brand by Liu Tao, co-CEO of Zhiji Automobile, a year and a half ago, this ** has almost halved.
The wisdom of the self that gives the public hope is mediocre
As one of the many domestic automobile groups, SAIC Motor has the highest market positioning of its brand Zhiji. SAIC's brand layout in the new energy vehicle market covers different levels from low to high, including "Roewe MG-Feifan-Zhiji".
Despite this, as the "No. 1 seed" of SAIC, Zhiji's sales performance this year is less than expected, lagging behind other independent high-end new brands such as Geely Zeekr, Dongfeng Lantu, and Changan Deep Blue, and even the sales volume in September is not as good as that of the new brand Changan AVATAR. Another model of Zhiji, the LS7, sold as many as 1,948 units a month in the early days of its launch, but sales gradually declined since then, and by November 2023, monthly sales were only 385 units. At the same time, the monthly sales of another model, the L7, have been hovering in the hundreds since 2023 and gradually faded out of the public eye.
Among the models of Zhiji, the LS6 performs better. On October 12, after the launch of Zhiji LS6** was announced, the Zhiji APP was paralyzed for a while, and many users reported that they could not place orders. According to official data, the new orders for the Zhiji LS6 reached 8,000 on the day of its launch, and the number of orders exceeded 3 as of October 1380,000 units. However, it is difficult to judge whether such data is true, as order falsification seems to have become part of the marketing strategy of some emerging car brands, such as the Zhiji LS7 announced that it had more than 15,000 orders when it opened its pre-sales and the Hengchi 5 also claimed that it had more than 3 orders when it was launched70,000 units, and in the end, the actual order conversion rate was negligible, and the delivery volume was far less than the order data.
Poor marketing techniques, wisdom and self-defeat
Since its establishment, Zhiji Auto has tried to get rid of the conservative style of traditional car companies and adopt a more bold and innovative marketing strategy. The company's CEO, Liu Tao, is known in the industry for his bold rhetoric and marketing tactics, and is sometimes seen as mimicking Li Bin of NIO and Li Xiang of Li Auto.
Recently, Liu Tao's live broadcast of making dumplings in the car of Zhiji LS6 has sparked some negative discussions in the automotive circle. The purpose of this live broadcast is to show the "IM Mag magnetic docking station" function of the Zhiji LS6, and Liu Tao personally demonstrated the scene of making dumplings in the car. In addition, Liu Tao posted the content of related activities on Weibo, which was both warm and showed a high-end quality, trying to vividly present the original function of "IM Mag magnetic docking station" of Zhiji LS6 to netizens. This technology allows users to freely mix and match a variety of interior spaces to create a variety of travel scenarios such as private powder rooms, immersive reading spaces, and outdoor camps.
However, the livestream event and its Weibo posting sparked some doubts and criticism. Netizens questioned the necessity of this marketing method, pointing out that this practice ignores the safety of driving and riding. Some comments pointed out that "if there is no application scenario, he will create his own application scenario" and that "he doesn't seem to understand much about the selling point of an SUV other than the brand". Due to the generally poor feedback from netizens, Liu Tao's Weibo has now been hidden.
Although Zhiji is positioned as a high-end brand, high-end positioning can not only be achieved through a sentence or a high price. Brand influence, product strength, technical strength, safety and reliability and other aspects must reach the industry-leading level in order to be recognized by consumers. However, since its inception to the release of its first model, the L7, and then in 2022, in the past two years, Zhiji has done less in terms of brand promotion, resulting in many people in the industry not being familiar with the high-end brand of "Zhiji".
Previously, the only eye-catching publicity of Zhiji was that Liu Tao personally drove the car on the highway to demonstrate and shoot ** in order to demonstrate the performance of Zhiji L7. However, after **, netizens found that Liu Tao had illegal driving behaviors, including illegal parking at high speed, changing lanes without turning signals, compaction lines, speeding, etc., and the cumulative points may be deducted as high as 17 points.
The fate of Zhiji L7 is also quite bumpy. Soon after, 102 "Angel Wheel" owners of the Zhiji L7 issued a joint statement titled "Joint Statement on the Rights and Interests of the Zhiji L7". Five major issues were raised in the statement: the rights and interests of the angel wheel version have been surpassed, and the scarcity of absentees is no longer scarce; The conditions for upgrading LiDAR and high-end energy batteries are unclear; The 93kWh battery capacity advertised in the configuration table does not match the registration of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology; A number of promises made at the auto show launch and advertising campaigns were not fulfilled; The management of the official app community is chaotic.
Electric EV:At present, Zhiji Auto is still facing multiple challenges on the road to pursuing high-end market positioning, not only needs to continue to innovate in products and technologies, but also needs to be more prudent and effective in market communication and brand image building. With the price reduction of Zhiji LS6, Zhiji has finally put down his arrogant head, perhaps for Zhiji, "cost reduction and increment" is the best marketing method at present.