The new Meizu 15 is about to be released, but internal executives are having an internal conflict. What is going on?

There was only one week left until Huang Zhang released the Meizu 15 on April 22. In the early morning of April 15, Meizu Technology Director @Gaiwen Zhang suddenly complained about his company's CMO Yang Zhe on Weibo:

Let me put it this way, I love Meizu fans and I am grateful to Meizu and Huang Zhang, but I do not agree with Yang Zhe. If he can lead Meizu out of the predicament then I will accept it. However, judging from his performance in the nearly one year since he joined the company, he cannot.

This is a huge embarrassment for Meizu as a company, or for Huang Zhang or Yang Zhe personally.

Although @Gavin Zhang admitted that he was about to leave the company, it is rare in the mobile phone industry to openly complain about one's own people.

Gavin Zhang's complaints immediately attracted responses from many fans (a nickname for Meizu fans). For a while, Huang Zhang's personal account was filled with messages such as "Fire Yang Zhe, get rid of the alpaca...", while Yang Zhe's personal account was filled with abusive comments such as "Why don't you just leave?"

So the question is, what exactly do netizens think Yang Zhe did wrong? How should Huang Zhang react at this time? Where is the future of Meizu heading?

These three small explosions have to be explained one by one:

Yang Zhe's "Three Sins"

Just like @GavinZhang complained about Yang Zhe, the first question people had about Yang Zhe was whether his marketing concept could save Meizu, which was in deep trouble?

Gavin Zhang's answer was no. Even the marketing big V @万能大熊 left a message in the comments saying "Give me half of Yang Tuo's salary, and I can also bring down Meizu." Here, Daxiong also mistakenly called Yang Zhe's name as Yang Tuo. I wonder if he did it on purpose.

And more fans are also complaining about "Is Meizu suitable for business positioning?" and "Is the marketing vocabulary of "carving time, being precise and unique" the brand essence of Meizu?"

@Test Reviewer: Interpreting Meizu’s Changes from Meizu’s Mobile Phone Slogans

Meizu PRO6 'Small yet different'

Meizu PRO6 Plus is 'more powerful and calmer'

————Dividing line————

Meizu PRO7 'Double pupils like small windows with clear views'

Meizu 15 'carving time?'

'Metaphysics' and 'Buddha', this is not the real Meizu.

Because Yang Zhe was once in charge of the marketing of the Mate series of mobile phones at Huawei. From the P7's "Gentleman Like Orchid", the P8's "Time Flies Like Water" to the Mate 7's "Jazz Life", Yang Zhe wanted to replicate Huawei's success with Meizu. However, Yang Zhe, who had just been in the company for only one year, ignored the employees' original impression and persistence of Meizu.

Obviously, abstract concepts such as "carving time" have not been understood and accepted by some fans, and some people even feel that the Meizu brand has been overly elevated, resulting in Meizu losing its original positioning.

The poor sales of Meizu Pro 7 became evidence of Yang Zhe's anger, despite the fact that Meizu Pro 7 was not designed by Yang Tuo. He was only responsible for brand marketing and it was not his responsibility to take the blame for the product.

But he couldn't get rid of the second blame, that is, when faced with doubts from fans, Yang Zhe chose to confront them head-on - when Meizu Pro 7 used MediaTek's configuration, Yang Zhe used the concept of "sufficient configuration" to confront fans:

Almost 100% of cars have a top speed of over 200km/h, while almost 99% of people never exceed 180km/h in their lifetime... In an era of great material abundance and excessive configuration requirements, how much of the parameters are purchased for ultimate enjoyment? How much is just following the crowd? This is a question.

Now, before the launch of Meizu 15, he described netizens as "mad dogs wearing masks":

I have always considered myself a scholar. Therefore, I personally like sincere interaction and academic discussion. However, the Internet does not have real names, which has indulged hooligans and rogues. There are too many masked mad dogs inside and outside Weibo, which has ruined the mood. To put it in an analogy, it is like a group of mad dogs circling around the door. Do you close the door or not? You can only let them bark outside the door and leave Weibo a quiet place...

The only person who can be compared to this is Luo Yonghao, who chose to block a large number of netizens just after the press conference. However, Luo Yonghao "broke up" with some netizens after the press conference, and Yang Zhe did this on the eve of the Meizu 15 press conference. Will it disrupt Huang Zhang's "trial run"?

The third question that "scholar" Yang Zhe faces is that he uses his old subordinates from TCL within Meizu, which is suspected of nepotism.

Netizen @陈兆雄雄雄雄 revealed that Yang Zhe replaced the director of the department under his jurisdiction with his former colleague from TCL, making a major change in Meizu's internal marketing structure, which caused serious dissatisfaction among Meizu's internal employees.

Weibo user yingxw also revealed the inside story:

Gavin Zhang is gone, Deng Da is gone, Bigo Technology has been dismantled, Yang Zhe, what on earth do you want to do? This is the first time I see a fan group and internal employees so dissatisfied with a leader. Please don't apply the TCL approach to Meizu. Meizu is not TCL, it is not what you call the only and the best, it is a pursuit born from passion.

Yang Zhe’s “three sins” raised corresponding questions from the three aspects of his marketing ability, crisis public relations, and internal management, but the bottom line is that Meizu currently has problems with its products and sales, otherwise a company’s CMO would not have been scolded so badly.

Some people say that Yang Zhe is somewhat wronged because it was Huang Zhang who made the decision to produce the Meizu Pro 7, but the sales were not good. It was Huang Zhang who found Yang Zhe and made him the CMO. All the responsibilities should be borne by Huang Zhang's family.

Indeed, the success or failure of a company is directly related to its founder.

Yang Zhe was criticized, perhaps because he was suffering on behalf of Huang Zhang.

Xiaobao has lost count of how many times Huang Zhang has come out in the past 15 years. Huang Zhang, who used to stay in his own world to make products, has to come out to save the company every time a crisis occurs, and give the majority of fans a reason to continue to like this brand.

But today is different from the past. The innovation and replacement of the mobile phone industry has reached a bottleneck, and the target groups of different mobile phone brands have become more segmented. However, Huang Zhang has not been able to come up with a product that suits the reputation of the fans in the past two years. Instead, he has used Yang Zhe's "literary marketing" to try to explore the market for high-end business phones.

At present, it seems that the products are not enough, and the marketing method is not very effective.

When Yang Zhe was criticized, he was actually suffering on behalf of Huang Zhang.

Zhao Hongjun, general manager of Computer News South China Office, who was familiar with Huang Zhang in his early years, once used the fact that "all previous marketing directors of Meizu did not stay in the job for long" to prove Huang Zhang's hands-on approach and stubbornness.

Therefore, perhaps Yang Zhe, who has just been at Meizu for less than a year, is not the originator of "Be precise and unique, and carve time", but the result of Huang Zhang himself finalizing the direction and Yang Zhe being responsible for execution.

If the kerosene guys knew this detail, would they still criticize Huang Zhang?

Huang Zhang, the flagship product developer, should be held primarily responsible for the failure of the Meizu Pro 7, but the two sales executives Chu Chunmin and Pan Yikuan were ultimately held responsible.

Meizu 15 is about to be released, but at such a critical moment, discordant voices broke out within the marketing team. I wonder if Huang Zhang will break out in cold sweats.

Will 2018 be the year of life or death for Meizu?

A week ago, the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released the "2018 March Domestic Mobile Phone Market Operation Analysis Report". The report shows that in the first quarter of 2018, China's smartphone shipments were 81.87 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 27%. This shows that domestic mobile phone users are not motivated enough to change their phones, and major mobile phone manufacturers need to face more brutal competition.

For Meizu, which is currently experiencing declining sales, 2018 may even be a crucial year of life and death.

After Luo Yonghao's Nut 3 launch event, some self-media listed for him the most worthwhile mobile phones in the price range of 899-3000 yuan in the eyes of netizens:

1,000 yuan price range: Meizu Note6, Meizu S6

1299 yuan price: Nut 3 (Small note: Should there be a Redmi Note 5 here?)

1499 yuan price: 360N6 Pro

Price: 1799 yuan: Meizu E3

2000 yuan price range: Meizu E3, Nut Pro2

2500 yuan price: Honor V10

3000 yuan price range: Xiaomi MIX2S, vivo X21 (If you don’t mind the processor, you can also choose OPPO R15 Starry Purple, the color is really beautiful)

Among the models currently on sale, the mid-range and low-end Meizu Blue has become the absolute main force of Meizu. Meizu, which has not released a new product for nearly a year, has long lost its image as a high-end flagship brand in the eyes of the public. The Meizu Pro 7 released last year can now be purchased for 1499. This failure has brought fatal damage to Meizu. After a year, Huang Zhang wants to use a small trial model to enter the high-end market, which must be difficult.

It is said that the prices of Meizu 15 Lite, Meizu 15 and Meizu 15 Plus are 1,699 yuan, 2,499 yuan and 2,999 yuan respectively. It can be seen that Huang Zhang has not given up on the impact on high-end mobile phones. Rather than saying that its design pays tribute to the classic Meizu MX3, it is better to say that it still has the obvious Huang Zhang style.

The mobile phone market in 2018 will see a more intense price positioning war. As the saying goes, "forced purchases" will be wiped out. If Meizu still positions itself as a high-end mobile phone, but is always pushed down to the mid-to-low-end price range by the market, this will be a damage to the experience for both the Meizu brand and its competitors.

I hope Huang Zhang can seriously think about his positioning of Meizu and unify his product design with Yang Zhe’s marketing.

It shouldn't be like it is now, where kerosene is complained about at the marketing level and users do not accept it in terms of market price. This embarrassing situation, once it occurs in the general environment of 2018, there may be no chance of recovery.

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.