Wei Jianjun of Great Wall: No need for Zhou Hongyi, rely on value not traffic, netizens: Then what is the purpose of your live broadcast

360 Chairman Zhou Hongyi is undoubtedly a natural internet celebrity. He was a traffic star more than a decade ago, and had verbal battles with Lei Jun, Ma Huateng and other bigwigs. As time goes by, some bigwigs in the automotive industry have begun to sneer at Zhou Hongyi's traffic, such as Wei Jianjun, Chairman of Great Wall Motors.

On August 22, some netizens suggested that Wei Jianjun invite Zhou Hongyi to test drive the new Wei-branded Blue Mountain. Wei Jianjun bluntly said, "We don't need him to test drive. We need to let the majority of users recognize it. You can't use traffic to represent the value of a product."

Wei Jianjun's words had hidden meaning, implying that "other manufacturers rely on traffic, while Great Wall Motors relies on value." This was equivalent to raising a big banner for himself and establishing a "white lotus" persona.

If you have not paid attention to Great Wall Motors, or if you have not paid attention to Wei Jianjun's updates in recent months, you may highly agree with what Wei Jianjun said.

But has Great Wall Motors really drawn a line between itself and attracting attention and earning traffic?

In fact, in the past few months, Wei Jianjun himself has become a traffic star in the automotive circle, and his popularity has even overshadowed the new car-making forces that are good at creating traffic.

Let's take a quick look at the timeline of Mr. Wei's mad dash on the traffic road:

On March 26, Wei Jianjun updated his Weibo again after a long hiatus;

On April 15, Wei Jianjun personally tested Great Wall Motors' full-scenario NOA;

On April 18, Wei Jianjun appeared on the TikTok platform;

On May 10, Wei Jianjun changed the 2024 shareholders' meeting from a closed-door meeting to an online live broadcast;

On May 26, Wei Jianjun livestreamed a test drive of the new generation Haval H6;

On June 30, Wei Jianjun live-streamed the test of the new Blue Mountain NOA in Chongqing. . . . . .

It can be said that they are always on the move, trying to gain Internet traffic. As netizens said, if it is not for traffic, why would they personally go live?

At the same time, Wei Jianjun also made remarks such as "Haval H6 doesn't sell well because it doesn't know how to market", "The entire automotive industry should undergo an audit", "Foreign manufacturers don't engage in intelligent driving because there is no demand", and "We must be defenders of order in the automotive industry". In short, ever since he returned to social media, he has always been at the forefront of the traffic war.

Especially this time, firing at Zhou Hongyi who was not at the scene at all, isn't it also a means of generating traffic?

Traffic can come from everywhere. They say that traffic does not represent value, but in fact they used Zhou Hongyi to create a hot search out of thin air at zero cost.

Think about it, if it weren’t for this video, wouldn’t so many people know that Weipai has launched the new Blue Mountain?

Wei Jianjun's attack on someone out of thin air has become a hot topic on the Internet, which proves that he actually knows how to manipulate traffic. In Zhou Hongyi's words in response to Wei Jianjun, he has a strong "internet sense".

The question now is, why is traffic so important that even entrepreneurs in their 60s have to become internet celebrities themselves?

It has to be mentioned here that automobile marketing in the new energy era is fundamentally different from traditional automobile marketing.

Of course, there were online promotion channels in the era of fuel vehicles, but at that time, car manufacturers still focused on cars. Large-scale promotion only began after the cars were available. Even if there were some exaggerated advertising slogans, they were based on the vehicles themselves.

The new energy era is different. What it pursues is "conversion rate". For example, how many people watch a live broadcast of a car test drive? How many of those viewers really want to buy a car? How many of those who want to buy a car can afford it? How many of those who can afford it want to buy this model of car?

Therefore, the larger the base number, the more people are willing to buy. This "base number" is actually traffic. The conversion rate cannot be controlled, but the traffic should be increased.

This phenomenon has become a trend.

In Gu Long's martial arts novels, there is a character called "Bai Xiaosheng" who is good at fabricating "Weapons List" to cause disputes in the martial arts world. Everyone knows that this is an open conspiracy, but the major sects still fight for the ranking list.

The same is true for automobile manufacturers. Many manufacturers hate to compete for traffic, but if a manufacturer cannot even make it to the hot searches, it may really be forgotten by consumers.

However, what car manufacturers should really do is not to criticize traffic, but to focus on improving product performance while generating traffic. Traffic should not be the main work of car manufacturers, and the theme of market competition should still be based on product performance.

What's more, traffic itself is a double-edged sword. It is a kind of public opinion amplifier, and this "amplification" effect can be positive or negative.

Have you noticed that the smart driving live broadcasts by car company CEOs are very smooth and there are almost no problems, but various rear-end collisions, loss of control, and crashes involving new energy vehicles keep occurring?

The higher the tone you set, the faster your image will collapse when things go wrong.

For example, as soon as someone said “it’s hard to crash into something”, his SUV created a “world famous painting” of riding on the rear roof of a car while reversing.

This is a common problem in the current automotive industry. Zhou Hongyi does not manufacture cars, nor is he an "insider" in the automotive industry, but he is involved with cars all day long.

In fact, it is not just Zhou Hongyi. Boss Jia Yueting, who has only sold a dozen cars so far, and Evergrande Auto, which is on the verge of bankruptcy, were once big traffic players in the automotive industry.

This shows that there is too much and too diverse traffic in the current automotive industry, professionalism has been diluted, and the development of the industry has deviated from its original normal track.

The automobile industry is a serious one and does not need so much traffic. What consumers really want is not Zhou Hongyi who can "bring goods", but high-quality models with powerful performance and reasonable prices.

If the products are excellent, the car companies can have good development even without traffic; if the product performance is not up to standard, can "traffic" solve the problem?

Traffic is something that should be left to the market to regulate. There is no need to "appeal" every day, nor is there any need to establish a persona that "relies on value rather than traffic". Netizens are all masters of gossip, who can praise you to the sky or trample you underfoot.

Moreover, today's consumers are also very knowledgeable about cars. If your car is good, you will be an Internet celebrity; if your car is not good, even if the boss himself climbs onto the roof of the car, he will be no different from a clown.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.