Text: Plums in Tiexi District
Two interesting things have happened recently:
The number one advertiser of Migu in the European Cup is CATL, and the number one advertiser of the "China Special" car on the scene is BYD.
In the story of the new Spring Festival film "Mr. Red Carpet", it is an "Internet car company" that only has a brand, and it is the kind that has not even built a car.
For more than a decade or so, JV has been the top advertiser for major sporting events such as the World Cup, the European Cup, and the Olympic Games, and now they disappear from computer screens. Also in the past ten or twenty years, joint venture cars are also big advertisers implanted in movies, dramas, and variety shows, and they have also lost this position, and today's entertainment industry financiers are Internet (automobile) companies.
Needless to say, how sad the times have been for JV cars in recent years, sales declines, factory closures, withdrawal from China and other phenomena abound. The discussion of the reasons for this has also been obvious, and various factors such as the lag of new energy transformation, the lag of intelligent transformation, the epidemic and world disputes have led to consumption downgrading, the rapid rise of local brands and the price war...... Any of the above reasons are true.
But beyond these factors, there is actually a dark line running throughout. This dark line explains why the Haval H6 reached the top in 2016, why Wei Xiaoli withstood the pressure of the start, and why the joint venture car became an over-the-top artist from a traffic star...... This has to do with the way the masses entertain, with the transformation of the form of the media, and with the laws of money.
Phase 1:
At this time, the joint venture car is the top in the automobile industry, and in addition to regular advertising, film and television dramas, variety shows and online discussions will also contribute traffic to them.
Not to mention that at the beginning of the new millennium, joint venture cars were still the number one choice of consumers, and the Volkswagen owner said in an interview that "this car is very high-end" is a well-known and representative event.
In the movies 20 years ago, the cars that symbolized "high-end" appeared were often joint venture cars, and many cars appeared at that time were not implanted ("implantation" was not popular at that time), but purely the result of the crew taking materials from life. For example, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen in "Waiting Alone".
During this period, local brands have not achieved much, and most of the phenomenal ones are very cheap and cheap cars such as Xiali, QQ, and F0.
Phase 2:
The self-contained traffic of the joint venture car has been greatly attenuated, and it is necessary to be the head advertiser to obtain traffic.
Around 2012, the production environment of domestic film and television variety shows changed. Local films have regained the local box office crown from Hollywood's imported films. Film and television drama variety shows began to have the penetration of commercial factors, and began to look for manufacturers to invest in "implantation", no one gave free advertising to the brand anymore, and any logo that wanted to appear on the screen would cost money.
JV cars have to spend money to maintain their brand magic. When the Mazda MX-5 appeared in "Durala's Promotion", Infiniti appeared in "Where Are You Going, Dad", and Volkswagen appeared in "Running Man", the appearance of the joint venture car is no longer a spontaneous choice of the crew or production team, they are implanted with real money.
During this period, local brands such as Changan (Yidong) and Haval began to emerge.
Stage 3:
At this time, the joint venture car can't even be a head advertiser, and the cost of obtaining traffic is raised to a very high level by the Internet company, and the joint venture car can't get so much budget.
Around 2016, the era of Internet giants began. They control film and television dramas and variety shows, they have become the mainstream media that distribute traffic, and they are the commercial entities that get the most traffic.
Film and television drama variety shows ushered in Internet companies represented by LeTV, and then more Internet and traditional giants (such as Alibaba, Tencent, Wanda, etc.) joined, and the gameplay became more and more capitalized.
The explosion of the mobile Internet and the wave of entrepreneurship also began at this stage. The Spring Festival Gala began to send red envelopes, collect "dedication blessings", and the most dazzling advertisers in the live broadcast of the Russian World Cup are Internet companies such as Pinduoduo and BOSS Zhipin.
From the OPPO Russia World Cup advertisement
At this stage, the written media also completely shifted from traditional media to mobile Internet. The WeChat public account has risen (and today's headlines), and local entrepreneurial stories such as "Diao Ye Beef Brisket" and "Huang Taiji Pancakes" have begun to be packaged into business stories through WeChat public account articles, and there are more and more such promotions, packaging a large number of local entrepreneurial myths and business stars. Wei Xiaoli was scolded by the automobile industry for several years in the initial period, but after that, there were considerable and even excellent sales, and the biggest help was this wave of self-media god-making.
At this time, the local car H6 became the sales champion, Lynk & Co and Wei brand were established, and Wei Xiaoli started a business.
Stage 4:
In the face of the new platform, the joint venture car has no clue, cannot obtain traffic, and has lost a large amount of market share.
Since 2019, even film and television dramas and variety shows have ceased to be the mainstream entertainment method, and the entrance that used to distribute traffic has now been divided into huge traffic.
Station B, Xiaohongshu, Douyin, the rise of Kuaishou, and the rise of live broadcasting, there are fewer people watching celebrities and more people watching Lao Tie. The implantation of film and television drama variety shows is no longer the most effective way to promote brands, and the planting of new video social media such as Station B, Xiaohongshu, Douyin, and Kuaishou is. Yuanqi Forest, Mengyajia, Zhongxuegao, Mixue Bingcheng, Reborn Luckin, etc., all opened the market through these platforms.
During this period, the protagonists of the local business world are new local brands, some of which are good and some are bad, some are at the peak of their debut, and some have long existed until this period before rising rapidly. As a result, car manufacturers also came to video and live broadcast platforms to grab traffic, and car company bigwigs began to post videos and do live broadcasts.
The automobile market has also come to the era of BYD, Wei Xiaoli, Huawei, and Xiaomi.
Time, place, people – the story
The current predicament of joint venture cars is actually a process of joint venture cars from bringing their own traffic to buying traffic, to not being able to buy traffic, and then to not being able to buy traffic. When the traffic is getting less and less, the brand magic is also declining, and the market share is decreasing.
Can't afford traffic, can't buy traffic, there are also complex reasons behind it. For example, behind the new brand are investors, they wish that the new brand would desperately buy traffic to raise the market value and then get rid of it, and they also know more about the gameplay of the video platform. Behind the joint venture cars are shareholders, some want scale, some want profits, some want market value, and a considerable part of those families, consortia and even professional managers do not understand the traffic distribution law of today's era. What's more, the shareholders and management teams of the joint venture are still divided into Chinese and foreign, and the decision-making efficiency will be discounted again.
But this is by no means inexplicable. For example, Volkswagen Group, which invested in 2019, implanted Volkswagen Polo, and invested in 2024, "Flying Life 2", which was invested in Audi A3. It turns out that the joint venture brand is certainly capable of completing a beautiful communication.
For example, Maybach's exposure in the U.S. market has surged in recent years, driving rapid growth in global sales. The approach of this ultra-luxury model is aimed at the appeal of American street culture. Hip-hop singers including Jay-Z, Nicki Minaj, Tyga and other Hip-Hop singers have publicly exposed their Maybach in large numbers, and they also followed Jay-Z to catch Kanye, and then followed Kanye to Kardashian, who spared no effort in promoting it.
The Maybach story proves that behind the joint venture, the brand magic of overseas giants is still there, but it has not yet found what story to tell in China, and how to tell it.
Behind Maybach's growth, there is also another set of narrative logic. Kardashian is a person, she wants to have traffic, she wants to have talent, she wants to have taste, and she wants to have a sense of responsibility...... In short, she is by no means a noble existence, but she can rejuvenate an ultra-luxury brand.
Cooperation, implantation, or whatever else it is called, in the final analysis, are all advertisements, and in the final analysis, they are all Xie Ruolin's words in "Latent": "Now that the two gold bars are placed here, you tell me which one is noble and which one is dirty?" ”
This is true of the Kardashians who advertise, and the same is true of the new brands that buy traffic. Today, when we look at those new brands, we always feel that this is not pleasing to the eye, but how strong can today's giants be when they first start, the business world is a victory or defeat after all, the brand is big, it has become, and those pickles in the past have been ignored.
The joint venture car still has to cross its own hurdle. Don't always use yourself as old money, and don't always use new brands as nouveau riche. Consumers have long understood that the so-called brand is nothing more than "doctrine in the mouth, and business in the heart", so why can't they wipe their face.
Cover image from The Ballad of Buster Scruggs