Gree changed his name, how much can the three words Dong Mingzhu be worth?

Text | Pacific Technology

When I first saw these two photos posted on the Internet, I didn't think they were real.

Not to mention that the photos look all pulped, just the texture of this signboard design, is it really not the "Leibi" of the fourth and fifth tier small counties?

Emmmm turned out to be a slap in the face.

Two days ago, the official account of "Sichuan Gree Electric Appliances" just released a document, and Gree has officially released "Dong Mingzhu Healthy Home".

According to Jiupai News, a staff member of the Gree store who has changed its name said that all the Gree stores across the country will be changed to Gree Dong Mingzhu Health Home, "It's just that the door has been replaced, and the nature has not changed, it is all Gree." The headquarters is unified, (the name) was changed when the Chinese New Year was approaching. Because now Dong Zong (Dong Mingzhu) is very well-known, so it is more accessible to the people. ”

PConline noticed that at present, the account names of 4 Gree stores on Douyin have been changed to "Dong Mingzhu Healthy Home", one of which is an official Gree certified account.

Compared with the past two years, many of Gree's Douyin stores have been renamed "Gree Dong Mingzhu Store", and on the road to gradually becoming "Ma Bao", it seems that "Gree" is even beginning to lose its name.

How much does Sister Dong believe in the influence of her IP......

When Gree lost his name

There are not many people who want to be entrepreneurs, but the one with such a strong sense of existence is indeed Sister Dong.

It is true that Dong Mingzhu and Gree have always been strongly bound. 10 years ago, the sentence "Gree, let the world fall in love with Made in China" on the street billboards was overwhelming, and the photo of Dong Mingzhu next to it is still difficult to forget.

"Gree is not Dong Mingzhu's."

If we look at the shareholding structure, we can say this with complete certainty; But if you want to look at Dong Mingzhu's influence on Gree today, it is really difficult to make this judgment from the perspective of the market.

A hot knowledge is that the founder of Gree, which was born out of a state-owned enterprise, is not Dong Mingzhu, in a sense, Dong Mingzhu is even just a "professional manager".

But since taking office, Gree's public opinion field has rarely lacked Dong Mingzhu's figure, this extremely personal female entrepreneur, with her wolf management style, let Gree run at high speed at the same time, but also let "Dong Mingzhu = Gree" gradually become a stereotype.

As Gree's indisputable "gold medal sales", Dong Mingzhu has made his personal image a mental anchor for Gree consumers. When a company's name becomes a footnote to its personal IP, and the individual image is deeply bound to the company, any negative public opinion will directly impact Gree's performance in the capital market.

Today's Gree is facing an unprecedented deconstruction of brand subjectivity.

Gree is getting farther and farther away from young people

There is no doubt that Dong Mingzhu's potential energy is strong.

Even when the dream of the Gree mobile phone of "destroying Xiaomi in minutes" was shattered, he could say bluntly: "I never thought I was a failure!" ”

Even today, when the market mentions Gree mobile phones, people can only remember the personal photos of Dong Mingzhu in the boot screen.

But in fact, the iron lady, who has repeatedly called for "real investors, to follow Gree Electric to invest all their lives", has also become a benchmark as a typical representative of female entrepreneurs.

The reversal of the trend of public opinion stems from Dong Mingzhu's beginning to put himself and Gree in front of the stage. In the era of new media, Dong Mingzhu chose to live broadcast in person, in addition to coping with the crisis of offline channels, and more importantly, Gree is facing the pressure of diversification and younger transformation.

In terms of effect, this is actually a good marketing strategy, injecting personal credit into the brand, and bringing goods through live broadcasts, so that the entrepreneur's IP becomes a trust intermediary, and Dong Mingzhu's cost of bringing goods is much lower than that of conventional marketing.

According to the Hurun Research Institute's "Business Influential Talent List", Lei Jun, founder of Xiaomi, Yu Minhong, chairman of Dongfang Selection, Wang Shi, founder of Vanke, Zhou Hongyi, founder of 360 Group, Dong Mingzhu, chairman of Gree Electric Appliances, and other "Internet celebrity" entrepreneurs are listed.

Among them, at the level of 100 billion market value, there are only Lei Jun and Dong Mingzhu. But if you want to eat the bowl of rice of the Internet, you must accept the public opinion of the Internet.

Later, the Internet fermentation took another script, which wanted to further strengthen the consumer cognition of "Dong Mingzhu = Gree" and form a quality mentality, but in the end, because of the duality of traffic dividends and intergenerational conflicts, it slipped to "Dong Mingzhu = controversial symbol".

On the road to young people, Gree uses "reverse gear", even if it is reversed, it is also drag racing. After repeatedly verbally criticizing the "former successor" he once identified, Dong Mingzhu gradually stood on the opposite side of the workers.

Dong Mingzhu is not Lei Jun

If you mention Gree a few years ago, you will think of air conditioning, then when you mention Gree in the past two years, it must be Dong Mingzhu first, then Meng Yutong, and then Dong Mingzhu's speech of kindly educating young people, and finally it may be air conditioning.

In the past two years, the entertainment public opinion around Gree and Dong Mingzhu has skyrocketed, and these non-business topics have not only consumed public attention, but also enhanced the popularity of the Internet and dissipated Gree's own brand influence in the hearts of consumers.

2024 Gree Annual Meeting, Allegro program "Big "Grid" Bureau, New Charm "Force"

According to Gree's 2024 semi-annual report, the revenue of Gree's air conditioning business accounts for 78% of total revenue, showing its high dependence on the air conditioning business; In the same period, Midea's air conditioning business accounted for less than 50% of its revenue.

Even so, Gree has lost the No. 1 market share of air conditioners as early as 2020.

Attempts at diversification are still ineffective, and now, can betting on Dong Mingzhu's trust endorsement become a new way out? It is conceivable that the competitive landscape of smart home is not something that can be dealt with by changing the name.

Consumers' purchase decisions are based on trust in the Gree brand, rather than the personal worship of Dong Mingzhu. Dong Mingzhu does not have Lei Jun's rice noodles, and Lei Jun will not change the name of "Xiaomi Home" to "Lei Jun's Home".

The short-term traffic dividend of personal IP can never replace the long-term value of technological innovation and organizational change. There aren't that many Chanel and Louis Vuitton in the world.

When Dong Mingzhu's personal will dominates the brand strategy, the historical turning point where Gree is located is at the moment when the smart home battlefield needs rapid iteration of Internet thinking, Dong Mingzhu's personal controversy has increased the public opinion risk of its IP, but has become a resistance. Just like Xiaomi's current layout of "people, cars and home ecology", the home appliance industry located in the Red Sea also needs to find a new way out.

Having said that, if you want to go to an offline store to buy an air conditioner, you should type "Dong Mingzhu" instead of "Gree" when typing the navigation location, would you be willing?