Five years of Steve Jobs imitation show: Chinese mobile phones are stuck in an acting dilemma

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Life depends on acting. Since August 16, 2011, when Lei Jun (Weibo) wore a Vancl T-shirt and canvas shoes to launch the Xiaomi mobile phone in the 798 Art District, domestic mobile phone manufacturers have gone through five years of "Steve Jobs-style" mobile phone launch conferences.

The groundbreaking press conference on August 16, 2011, told the story like this: configuration and running points, feelings and dreams, craftsmanship and workmanship, all the key words were put into a "Steve Jobs imitation show", although it was clumsy and boastful, it brought a breath of fresh air to the domestic mobile phone market where contract phones were everywhere. From product and corporate positioning to marketing strategy, Lei Jun and Xiaomi have always used Apple as a reference, and this approach created a different ocean in the domestic mobile phone market that was monopolized by "China Cool Union" at the time.

Now, five years have passed. I have watched dozens of press conferences, big and small. Some talked about configuration, some talked about workmanship, some talked about feelings, some talked about dreams, some told crosstalk, and some attacked competitors. But the press conferences are getting more and more boring - the routines are basically similar, the content is basically the same, and domestic mobile phone manufacturers have fallen into an acting dilemma.

Five years of Steve Jobs imitation show

The routine of "Qiong Yao-style" romantic dramas is often like this: the male protagonist has two images, either gentle and elegant like Qin Han or roaring and roaring like Ma Jingtao. The female protagonist is a typical "soft on the outside and strong on the inside", pitiful and tearful, but they are all crazy about love, even paranoid. The male and female protagonists go through thousands of hardships and overcome many obstacles to do only one thing from beginning to end - fall in love. The ending is nothing more than a happy or tragic proof of true love, and finally together.

The press conference routines of domestic mobile phone manufacturers are becoming more and more like "Qiong Yao-style" romance dramas:

The CEO stood on the stage in casual clothes, performing a Jobs-style imitation show. Behind him was an exquisite PPT, and he slowly told a story about a group of engineers who were driven crazy by obsessive-compulsive disorder. The paranoid CEO also took on the heavy responsibility of the product manager, and with a group of hard-working engineers, they started a hard journey of mobile phone manufacturing for the four words of user experience. They conducted N million tests for the metal frame, they polished the curved back cover N million times, and they discarded N million mobile phones for the design finalization. All this useless paranoia is for perfection and user experience. After N months of hardships and obstacles, a group of obsessive-compulsive disorder finally created a perfect mobile phone that beats iPhone in seconds, sweeps Samsung, and steps on friendly companies, and this phone is priced at only 1N99. After the release of the mobile phone, there is also One More Thing, a super practical gadget that subverts traditional industrial design and has a unique craftsman spirit. It is priced at only N99...

It is hard to imagine that such a bloody press conference has been staged in China for 5 years. And such a plot is spreading from the mobile phone circle to the electric car circle, bicycle circle and even the intellectual property industry. It is even harder to imagine that at each press conference, a group of IT reporters and self-media can endure the pain of guessing the ending after seeing the beginning and sit for two hours. It is even harder to imagine that these IT reporters and self-media can sit on a small bench and watch such a repetitive bloody plot over and over again for 5 years. (PS: Is the power of travel expenses really that great?)

The format and content of media communication meetings are vulgar

The launch conferences of domestic mobile phone manufacturers are getting bigger and bigger, and the scale is getting more and more grand, from large hotels to the National Convention Center, from the National Convention Center to the Aoya Exhibition Center, from the Aoya Exhibition Center to the Water Cube. (PS: The author has a wild imagination, will the mobile phone launch conference be held in the Bird's Nest one day?)

The day before yesterday, ZTE's annual new flagship AXON Tianji launch conference was held at the Water Cube. A self-media teacher in the communications industry told me that the budget for such a conference, including venue fees, equipment fees and other expenses, should be around 5 million. In May this year, LeTV's mobile phone and LeTV ecosystem launch conference invited thousands of media outlets, and the morning and afternoon sessions lasted a total of 8 hours, creating the most lavish domestic mobile phone launch conference in recent years. The budget is conservatively estimated to be as high as 10 million.

Large-scale press conferences are time-consuming and labor-intensive, and the media public relations effect is too low in cost-effectiveness. Many domestic mobile phone manufacturers have changed press conferences into small-scale "media communication meetings". Invite dozens of media or self-media to hold a closed-door meeting. The "tasting meeting" of the top-end version of Xiaomi Note and the media communication meeting for Didi Kuaidi's financing at the beginning of the month are typical examples of "media communication meetings".

The "media communication meeting" seemed to have shortened the distance, but in terms of form and content, it was still more of a smaller version of the "Steve Jobs imitation show", with similar routines and content, and the themes of configuration, workmanship, feelings, and dreams remained unchanged. Although the media communication and question-and-answer session satisfied the media's desire for knowledge, over time, the form and content became vulgar, and it still lacked the earth-shattering effect of the "Steve Jobs imitation show" when it was first staged in China, which was a pity to discard.

The perfect phone is always at the launch conference

The perfect mobile phone is always at the press conference, and the press conference and user experience often show a gap between the buyer's show and the seller's show.

Whether it is a product launch conference, a media communication meeting or a new product tasting meeting, domestic mobile phone manufacturers can always describe their products as flawless, making consumers pay for the sentiment, workmanship, configuration and price. However, after the actual mass production and listing of the mobile phones, there are constant problems, and consumers can only suffer the consequences.

This has happened to me more than once in my circle of friends: after the Xiaomi Note top-end "tasting session", the self-media teachers who were very excited at the time suddenly turned from Mi fans to Mi haters when they found that the phone was damaged for no reason a few weeks or months later. I have also found more than once that the "perfect" OnePlus at the press conference was exposed by netizens for yellow screen problems, the "perfect" Meizu at the press conference was exposed for quality control problems by the review media, and the "perfect" Hammer at the press conference was eventually dethroned because of a live video fight...

Perfect mobile phones are always at the press conference. No matter how good the domestic mobile phone manufacturers are at acting, they can't escape the miserable ending of being ridiculed by others. Such stories even make people develop immunity and get used to it.

At a press conference of a mobile phone manufacturer a few days ago, a CEO was constantly belittling competitors and praising himself. During his speech, the media friends in the audience kept laughing. When the CEO needed to mobilize the atmosphere, the employees were excited, and the media friends also applauded and booed. During the One More Thing session, the media left early. After the One More Thing ended, only about half of the audience was left, and several guests continued to talk about their feelings without changing their expressions. The whole press conference scene was so funny that I couldn't help laughing and blushing.

postscript:

History is always strikingly similar, but it will not simply repeat itself. But when Hegel faced this sentence, he believed that history often repeats itself strikingly, the first time appearing as a comedy, and the second time appearing as a farce.

In European history, when Napoleon I was crowned emperor, France dominated the European continent and was well-known all over the world. Napoleon II also thought of himself as a Napoleonic hero and tried to repeat the glory of Napoleon I, but the answer given by history was nothing less than a farce and clown.

In today's domestic mobile phone market, many players are like Napoleon II, trying to recreate the "Jobs-style" glory, but they don't know that their whole acting is nothing but a farce.