Do you still remember Kuaigou Taxi, which grabbed unlimited limelight during the Chinese Valentine’s Day?

Amidst all the complaints, yesterday (September 10), Chen Xiaohua, chairman of Kuaigou Taxi, once again responded to the outside world:

The name change was very successful, with 100 million more people knowing about it and 3 times more new customers!

Wow, this dog whose life was like a joke suddenly became the king? ? !

I have dug up the history of Kuaigou Taxi’s fame. It turns out that it is not just a simple matter of the boss changing the name on a whim…

Woof woof woof, Qixi became famous in one battle,

But it caused a lot of "scolding"

This dog’s fame started from the Chinese Valentine’s Day not long ago. Unexpectedly, around the Chinese Valentine's Day, the Internet was flooded with messages not about dog food, but about an app called "Kuaigou Taxi".

In a livelihood program, several Henan "Kuaigou Taxi" drivers complained in a very funny accent:

This video quickly topped the Weibo hot search list, and the WeChat index also skyrocketed on the same day. At one point, everyone knew that the travel platform originally called "58 Express" was renamed "Kuaigou Taxi".

Although the popularity has soared, ridicule and controversy account for a large part of it:

In order to calm the public's anger, Kuaigou Taxi issued a statement on the same day, pointing out that "Kuaigou Taxi" is the name of the App platform of our business model, specifically referring to an App platform that can be used quickly and conveniently for various demand scenarios such as hauling goods (businessmen), moving (families), and transporting things (various items). Apart from the business name, there is no other associated meaning. ”

Despite the timely response, the name "Kuaigou Taxi" still met with dislike from many netizens, with some even thinking it was a deliberate hype.

As the netizen @谁言了竹马 said: "The name Kuaigou obviously objectifies customers and contains insulting words. Is it the dog who uses the car, or is your company the dog? Anyway, I will not use your service in the future. Many friends around me who need cars have said that they will not like it and will use Huolala instead."

However, public opinion and business performance do not always match. Amidst a chorus of criticism, Kuaigou Taxi announced its performance after the name change yesterday.

Chen Xiaohua, founder and chairman of "Kuaigou Taxi", revealed at a press conference on September 10 that the name change brought in three times more customers, made the company known to 100 million more people, and attracted the attention of hundreds of media outlets.

The boss did not come up with this strange name on impulse. Chen Xiaohua said: "The name 'Kuaigou Taxi' was chosen from at least hundreds of names. It took six months and hundreds of meetings. Whether it is the labor spent, the consultants hired, or the materials, brand , product development, and advertising involved, it was a decision that cost at least 500 to 1 billion yuan."

This decision of 500 million to 1 billion refers to moving from the B-end to the more popular C-end.

Chen Xiaohua said in an interview with 36Kr : "We want to move from the small B segment of the wholesale market to the general public and provide freight transportation for the entire city. We need to tell everyone who we are simply and clearly. The name 58 Express cannot carry more business information, and it is difficult to get rid of the perception of 58 Home Classification Portal."

The reason for choosing "Kuaigou Taxi" is that 58 Express merged with the Hong Kong freight company GOGOVAN last year. Its Chinese name is "Kuaigou". "Kuai" means fast and "gou" means trustworthy. In the minds of C-end consumers, the word "take a taxi" means "transparent prices", "on-demand", and " internet- based".

Chen Xiaohua said: "In this way, urban travel platforms can be directly divided into two types, one is passenger travel, and the other is freight travel." - "Kuaigou Taxi" can also be seen as wanting to be a "freight version of Didi ". At the same time, in Chen Xiaohua's view, the market space for freight travel will not be smaller than that of Didi.

As the marketing classic "Positioning" says, "Names are like hooks, hanging brands on the product ladder in the minds of potential customers. In the era of positioning, the only important marketing decision you can make is what to name your product."

The main party behind the name change of Kuaigou Taxi is the strategic positioning company Trout. Chen Yilun, partner of Trout (China), said: "The reason why we feel that 58 Express must change its name is because we see new demands for cargo transportation and want to create new value for the team. We must give it a new identity. Just like the name Guazi, it also has the same strategic significance as the transformation of Taobao Mall to Tmall ."

Is the sudden increase in customers due to the name change?

No, the reason is not that simple...

A controversial name in exchange for three times the number of customers seems to be a successful name change. However, the reasons behind it are not that simple.

Invest 30 million in targeted advertising

According to Bangmei's observation, after announcing its brand name change, "Kuaigou Taxi" launched a wave of targeted advertising across the country. Focus Media CEO Jiang Nanchun also praised Kuaigou Taxi on Weibo: "In life, you need two types of taxis, one for transporting people and one for transporting goods. For transporting goods, moving, or transporting things, use Kuaigou Taxi."

According to a person familiar with Focus Media, Kuaigou Taxi invested more than 30 million yuan in this round of Focus Media advertising.

According to a research report by Tianfeng Securities in May this year, in an environment where traditional advertising has dragged down the growth of the advertising industry, the growth of building cinema media is still impressive: "From the perspective of advertising effectiveness, Focus Media's elevator posters and elevator TVs achieved good publicity results in April. The top new advertisers have increased their Baidu index compared to February. Among them, new brands Miu Car and Luckin Coffee have seen the largest growth. Their Baidu index from February to April increased by 427.8 and 229.9% respectively, verifying the logic of Focus Media's new product explosion in a short period of time."

Luckin Coffee , which has built up from scratch this year and vowed to have 2,000 stores by the end of the year, has invested billions of yuan in Focus Media. If a brand wants to explode its influence in a short period of time, focusing on targeted advertising is indeed one of the effective ways.

“Kuaigou Taxi” new body packaging: big big big LOGO!

In addition, after the brand upgrade, "Kuaigou Taxi" also updated its body packaging.

Its biggest feature is just one word: big!

We can compare the body packaging during the "Kuaigou Taxi" and "58 Express" periods. Although the latter is the legendary red and green "shit match", the brand name and logo are not so obvious.

The main color of the new body package is pure red. A large white word "Kuaigou Taxi" and a dog image are printed on it. The aesthetics of this new packaging is another matter, but it is indeed eye-catching. No wonder a certain netizen shared, "I came across Kuaigo Taxi on the road, and the font... is big and eye-catching enough."

Share a little story about Jack Ma

Therefore, "Kuaigou Taxi" is not just a joke. Behind the threefold increase in new customers is the transformation of this travel platform from the B-end to the C-end market. It first attracted attention on social media with its controversial name, and then cooperated with measures such as targeted advertising and new body packaging to undertake and convert traffic .

Judging from the buzz it generated in a short period of time, this "name change" has indeed achieved a small win-win situation and saved the brand a lot of advertising costs. But in the long run, whether this is a successful transformation or not, it will take time to tell.

Finally, let’s review a passage that Jack Ma once shared in Alibaba ’s internal message (according to Zhihu expert “Zhang Shisan”), which is quite interesting when compared with the name change of “Kuaigou Taxi”: