Rim BOSS live broadcast "report card"

On June 27, Wei Jianjun, chairman of Great Wall Motors, announced on the Douyin platform that the second live broadcast of intelligent driving NOA (pilot assisted driving technology) will be launched in Chongqing this weekend to test the achievements of Great Wall Motors in intelligent driving for more than two months. The last live broadcast test of Great Wall Motors NOA was Wei Jianjun's live broadcast debut. Wei Jianjun is making great strides on the road to being a "high-quality Internet celebrity".

Three months ago, on March 28, Li Shufu, chairman of Geely Holding Group, and Yu Minhong, founder of New Oriental, conducted a three-hour live broadcast to lead the audience to visit Geely's satellite super factory, which opened the prelude to the collective "broadcast" of car company bigwigs. Since then, Yin Tongyue, chairman of Chery Holding Group, Zhu Huarong, chairman of Changan Automobile, and many other senior executives of car companies have joined the live broadcast ranks.

It's been more than two months since their first live broadcast, and in that time, what have they achieved with short videos and live streams?

On the other hand, the heads of new power car companies are also running wild on the road of live broadcasting. Li Bin, founder of NIO, He Xiaopeng, chairman of Xpeng Motors, Li Xiang, founder of Li Auto, and Daniel Zhang, CEO of Nezha Automobile, are active on social platforms such as Weibo and Douyin.

Due to the recent development of various car companies, the attitude of the heads of these car companies towards live broadcast has also undergone some subtle changes.

Among the traditional car companies, Great Wall Wei Jianjun has the fastest increase in fans

Judging from the time point of participating in the live broadcast for the first time, among the "four old men" in the automobile circle (referring to Yin Tongyue, Li Shufu, Wei Jianjun, and Zhu Huarong), Wei Jianjun was not the first to end, but the most active.

On March 26, Wei Jianjun opened his personal Weibo and began to share his daily work. On April 15, Wei Jianjun participated in the live broadcast of Great Wall Motors for the first time and personally tested Great Wall Motors' full-scene NOA. On April 18, Wei Jianjun settled in Douyin and interacted with Lei Jun, the founder of Xiaomi Auto.

Since then, Wei Jianjun has started the "Internet celebrity growth history" in the field of short videos. After the premiere, Wei Jianjun also carried out a number of live broadcasts, including the on-site exchange meeting of the Great Wall Motor's shareholders' meeting, inviting car critics to visit Baoding together on the weekend, and the CoffeeOS3 intelligent cockpit press conference.

Since Wei Jianjun entered Weibo, it happened to be around the time of the Xiaomi SU7 launch, so the first few Weibo posts he posted were related to Xiaomi cars, and then Great Wall Motor released the motorcycle brand "Soul (SOUO)", Wei Jianjun posted a number of videos related to motorcycles, as well as videos related to the Beijing Auto Show. In addition to sharing topics related to cars and work, Wei Jianjun also likes to share his daily life, such as participating in marathons. Up to now, Wei Jianjun has released a total of 43 Weibo posts and 23 short videos, with 267,000 followers on Weibo and 529,000 followers on Douyin.

In contrast, Zhu Huarong has been on Weibo and Douyin platforms for a long time. Before April this year, Zhu Huarong's social "main battlefield" for the public was concentrated on the Weibo platform, and his Weibo followers so far reached 627,000.

Zhu's first video on Douyin was posted in September 2018, but was inactive until April this year. In the more than two months since April 12, Zhu Huarong has released a total of 24 short videos, but the number of fans is only 20,000. Most of the short videos released by Zhu Huarong are for him to test drive new models of Changan Automobile, and explain product knowledge and test drive experience to the audience.

In the matter of live broadcast, Zhu Huarong is very easy to put off the shelf. At the Beijing Auto Show in April, Zhu Huarong held his mobile phone in the live broadcast to introduce the Changan booth to the audience. At the Chongqing Auto Forum and Chongqing Auto Show in June, Zhu Huarong once again stepped down and led the audience to visit the auto show in the live broadcast room. As a result, Zhu Huarong has become the most down-to-earth member of the "national team" of car companies.

The other two bigwigs in the automobile industry, Yin Tongyue and Li Shufu, seem to be unwilling to do the live broadcast in person.

On April 14, Yin Tongyue tested the long-distance high-speed high-end intelligent driving ability of Xingtu Automobile's Star Era ET in his live broadcast debut. But after that, Yin Tongyue did not continue to participate in live broadcasts or shoot short videos, and he currently has 180,000 followers on Weibo, but he has stopped for more than a decade and has not opened a Douyin account.

When mentioning participating in the live broadcast event, Yin Tongyue once said that he was "forced" by the young people under him.

The same is true for Li Shufu. The live broadcast of the visit to the super factory at the end of March this year was also a live broadcast initiated by Yu Minhong as a participant. Li Shufu has an account with 11,000 followers on Weibo, but the last time he posted on Weibo was in 2013. Up to now, Li Shufu has not entered short video social platforms such as Douyin and video accounts.

At present, among the "four old men", Wei Jianjun and Zhu Huarong are more active in opening live broadcasts and shooting videos, among which Wei Jianjun, as the founder of a private car company, is showing the potential to become an "Internet celebrity" by sharing his work and life on social platforms.

Other car companies such as FAW, Dongfeng, SAIC, BAIC, GAC and other car companies "national team" leaders have not yet come off the field to do live broadcasts. However, the managers of the sub-brands of these car companies have begun to pour into Weibo, Douyin, Channels and other platforms. The senior management teams of GAC Toyota, GAC Honda, GAC Aion and other brands under GAC Group have basically joined the live broadcast team.

Among the new power car companies, the voice of "Wei Xiaoli" is different

As the heads of new power car companies, Li Bin, He Xiaopeng, Daniel Zhang and others are younger than the leaders of traditional car companies. Taking the initiative to start live broadcasts, actively speaking on Weibo, and answering questions from netizens are common characteristics of executives of new car companies.

In March this year, Li Bin conducted his first live broadcast on the Douyin platform, and then he was "out of control". Up to now, Li Bin has released 31 videos on Douyin, with 4 live broadcasts and more than 857,000 fans, which is a cut higher than Wei Jianjun.

Almost every video of Li Bin is shot at himself with a mobile phone, showing a sense of intimacy. In addition, Li Bin used the same self-introduction at the beginning of the video, deliberately creating a memory point. Li Bin will pull a person to chat with him in most short videos, including Lei Jun, founder of Xiaomi Auto, Fang Hongbo, chairman of Midea Group, Wang Chuanfu, chairman of BYD, and Yu Chengdong, chairman of Huawei's intelligent car solution BU. Li Bin's methods of shooting videos are similar to the shooting techniques that Internet celebrities are familiar with on major short video platforms.

Li Bin once explained that he did live broadcasts and made short videos, first of all, he did not "always live broadcast", but took more short videos, but he did not deliberately master any skills in shooting videos, and they were all shot at will. The purpose of doing this is to enhance the interaction and communication with users and fans.

In addition, He Xiaopeng is also expanding his influence on platforms such as Douyin and Weibo, and has only released 55 works since he entered Douyin in April 2020, of which 28 will be released in 2024, accounting for more than half. Recently, He Xiaopeng took the opportunity of a business trip to the United States to release 9 videos, which not only include topics related to experiencing Tesla's FSD (autonomous driving function) and automobiles, but also daily life arrangements such as watching the NBA and bull riding.

Among the top leaders of many car companies, He Xiaopeng's video style has the most humor, including funny videos such as interacting with talk show actors and using Internet celebrity toys to reach ducks for chips. He Xiaopeng has been on the Weibo platform for a long time, and his current number of fans has reached 1.357 million.

Daniel Zhang's position is mainly on the Weibo platform. On this platform, Daniel Zhang has a very low posture and often interacts with fans and asks questions. In addition, Daniel Zhang has done many live broadcasts this year, including he led Zhou Hongyi, chairman of 360 Group, an investor in Nezha Automobile, to visit the factory. At present, Daniel Zhang has 337,000 followers on Weibo.

In terms of live broadcast style, Daniel Zhang also humbly accepted the advice of Zhou Hongyi, the "new Internet celebrity in the car circle", and made some changes. At an automotive industry conference, Zhou Hongyi said: "He (Daniel Zhang) used to be very bad at doing, (during the live broadcast) quarreling with customers every day, crossing Erlang's legs, sitting behind the desk every day, and the distance between the customer (referring to the distance between the body and the mobile phone during the live broadcast) is very far, and then I sprayed him every day, and he humbly accepted it when he sprayed more, and now he holds his mobile phone live every day like me." Zhou Hongyi believes that Nezha Auto's latest model, Nezha L, has won "tens of thousands of orders", which has a lot to do with Daniel Zhang's live broadcast style change.

In addition to live streaming on the Weibo platform, Daniel Zhang also entered Douyin in March this year, and has released 138 Douyin works so far, with 324,000 fans. On this platform, Daniel Zhang's more works are to do some publicity for Nezha Automobile's models.

Like Daniel Zhang, Li Xiang was once one of the most active car company bosses on Weibo. However, since the beginning of this year, due to the poor performance of the new model MEGA after its launch, Li Xiang has posted a lot less on Weibo. However, due to the style of daring to think and speak in the early stage, Li Xiang has gained 2.351 million fans on Weibo, far exceeding the number one leader of other car companies.

Although a large number of executives of car companies are devoting themselves to social platforms to create personal IPs, they hope to attract consumers' attention and direct traffic to enterprises and products to achieve sales conversion. But there is also no shortage of car company executives who remain cautious about live streaming. Yuan Xiaolin, Senior Vice President of Volvo Car Group and President and CEO of Volvo Cars Asia Pacific, once pointed out that many concepts of traffic need to be vigilant. There is a good side to traffic, but if you pursue absolute traffic, all flow-only theory is not only ineffective but even harmful.

In the matter of creating personal IP in live broadcasts, the executives of independent car brands are now entering the market, so it is more like a collective carnival of independent brands. Joint venture brands and foreign brands have not yet come to an end for a variety of reasons.