Before April this year, how much did you know about Wei Jianjun, the head of Great Wall Motors?

Many consumers may not even have heard of this name, but after the live broadcast on April 15, many people who do not buy cars but surf the Internet remembered him.

Perhaps this is the result that Great Wall Motors wants - the boss becomes an Internet celebrity, bringing tremendous traffic to the company's brand, and everyone at Great Wall is counting on all this to become the key to Great Wall Motors' breakthrough.

The 60-year-old internet celebrity with a net worth of hundreds of billions

The whole journey was 16.6 kilometers, driving the Wei brand Blue Mountain, starting the mapless city NOA and traveling in the not-so-wide urban area of ​​Baoding. This was the main content of Wei Jianjun’s live broadcast on April 15.

The effect was immediate, with more than 4 million people watching online in real time on the Douyin platform alone. For entrepreneurs like Wei Jianjun, who already has a net worth of hundreds of billions, they used to stay away from traffic, but now, whether for the company's long-term brand building or immediate sales, pressure At the age of 60, he still needs to stand in the spotlight like a hero again. When he should have retreated to the second line, he brought unexpected attention to Great Wall Motors.

At the subsequent Beijing Auto Show, Wei Jianjun became the focus of the entire venue. Wherever he went to a booth, he was a traffic star. He did not need to introduce the products or say too much. He was a natural big IP just standing there.

The reason why Wei Jianjun works so hard is very simple: Great Wall Motors needs attention so much right now.

Great Wall Motors has four sub-brands in China, namely Haval, Wei, Ora and Tank, with a large number of models, but none of them can achieve monthly sales of more than 10,000. In the fiercely competitive Chinese market, it is undoubtedly very dangerous for a leading manufacturer to come up with such a report card.

In the field of new energy, Great Wall Motor's decline is even more obvious. From January to April, the cumulative sales of Great Wall's new energy models were only 74,000 units, less than one-tenth of BYD, and the gap between it and its old rival Geely exceeded 100,000 units.

If it hurts, there will be no circulation. If Great Wall Motors cannot increase its sales, there must be something wrong with it.

The result of Great Wall's own diagnosis is "brand". In their opinion, the performance of their own products is still good, and what they lack is attention and brand influence. At present, the live broadcasts of the bosses of various car companies are nothing more than smart driving, power performance, and cruising range. Since users like to watch these, let their bosses follow the trend and have a live broadcast. After all, traffic is attention, and only with attention can there be sales.

Great Wall Motors' largest IP

Wei Jianjun pioneered the creation of the Wei brand named after his own surname, interacted with car owners from time to time, and appeared at the Alashan Heroes Conference in a racing suit in 2019. Compared with Wang Chuanfu, who always wears work clothes, he is already a relatively high-profile boss of the same level.

But compared with the traffic brought by live streaming, Wei Jianjun’s previous attention was obviously not on the same level.

Wei Jianjun was busy like a rock star, doing live broadcasts, posting on Weibo, and attending auto shows. Of course, the effect was obvious. With these opportunities, netizens learned about the progress of Great Wall Motors in intelligent driving, production technology, and technology research and development.

In addition, many consumers are still in a state of misunderstanding and distrust of smart driving. Wei Jianjun’s personal live broadcast can to a certain extent enhance their recognition of Great Wall Motors, and even establish a people-friendly image of Great Wall Motors.

Wei Jianjun's live broadcast is equivalent to a large-scale advertisement. Great Wall spends a lot of advertising money every year, but it is not necessarily as good as Wei Jianjun's live broadcast alone. This is an era where traffic is king.

Great Wall Motors relies on "traffic" to break through, are you overthinking it?

It is hard to imagine that a 60-year-old car company boss would suddenly change his personality at this age and step out from behind the scenes. The reason why Wei Jianjun did this is nothing more than hoping to add fuel to the fire of Great Wall Motors.

It's all about business.

So, can Wei's approach really help Great Wall Motors break through?

First of all, we need to figure out whether Great Wall Motors’ current predicament is due to “lack of traffic”?

Obviously not. The vast majority of China's own brands have been developing under negative traffic from the beginning. The public opinion environment faced by Great Wall is actually the same as that of BYD. Around 2020, BYD was called "BYD 30,000" because its new energy vehicle sales were not as good as its gasoline vehicles. Even the homonyms of the three words BYD have long been the object of ridicule by netizens. It was not until the past two years when BYD became a top brand that no one started to ridicule it.

In fact, in the eyes of the outside world, the poor sales of Great Wall Motors are mainly due to the lack of recognition of product performance, or in other words, they cannot keep up with the times. The rise of Haval H6, Tank 300 and Great Wall Cannon was due to the rare product performance among models of the same price, rather than traffic.

There is a famous saying on the Internet: Don’t lose weight, you are not ugly because you are fat.

Secondly, can the traffic brought by Wei Jianjun last for a long time? It is unlikely. Live streaming is actually a very time-consuming job. Before the live streaming, you need to make various plans and think about various emergencies. Given Wei Jianjun's age, it is unlikely that he will appear in the live streaming room for many years.

Moreover, live streaming is a double-edged sword. In the past few years, there have been many brands that have failed in live streaming. The higher the frequency of live streaming, the greater the possibility of failure. Once a mistake is made, all previous efforts will be wasted. Wei Jianjun only occasionally showed some characteristics of an Internet celebrity. It is impossible for him to really become an Internet celebrity.

Then, can traffic promote sales growth? Obviously, this cannot be concluded. In the past three years, the leaders of the new forces in the domestic car industry have all been called "Weibo Gods", but the performance of the new forces has been mixed. Some have succeeded and some have gone bankrupt.

A car is always a car, and the automotive industry relies on products rather than competing for traffic. In other words, only traffic based on product performance can play a positive role. If a few live broadcasts can save a brand, then all kinds of Douyin influencers would have become the heads of car companies long ago.

If Great Wall Motors wants to achieve a real breakthrough, it needs to come up with its own hit models as soon as possible. It needs to create a product series of the same level as Geely Galaxy and Changan Deep Blue, and use product performance to attract users. Live streaming is just a gust of wind, which will pass away. It is unlikely to last long, and it is impossible to create any sales for Great Wall out of thin air.

From an objective point of view, Great Wall Motors does need to improve its popularity. But in the long run, Wei Jianjun becoming an Internet celebrity cannot solve the fundamental problem. Great Wall needs to regain the feeling when it created the legendary cars Haval H6 and Tank 300. It is enough for the boss to become an Internet celebrity once or twice.

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.