Author | Cao Anxun

Editor | Zhou Zhiyu

Lei Jun, founder and chairman of the Xiaomi Group, who entered the market with Poppy Traffic, is washing up the automotive industry with the idea of internet marketing.

He is also like a “catfish” that crossed the border from the technology industry to the auto industry, stirring up a pool of “spring water” in the auto industry. Many car bosses who live in a simple situation can't sit still. Recently, they have been following Lei Jun's example and joined the live streaming bandwagon.

On April 18, Lei Jun began broadcasting on Douyin. Dressed in classic jeans and white shoes, he drove to the Xiaomi car factory delivery center building, then got out of the car with the lava orange Xiaomi 14 Ultra. While interacting with the car owner, he “talked about the 20 days since the Xiaomi SU7 went on sale” and praised the various configurations of the Xiaomi SU7 from time to time.

Lei Jun not only brings his own traffic, but also knows how to cater to traffic. His live broadcast this time focused on current hot topics, and also reaped traffic rewards. The number of views exceeded 10 million in two minutes, and reached 180 million likes within two hours of the broadcast.

Lei Jun also responded one by one to popular online rumors such as “Shuang Wen's first male lead,” “when he was poor, Kari only had a cold 4 billion dollars,” and “imitating Jobs and imitating Musk.” In the end, Lei Jun's live broadcast reached the top of the Douyin platform with a total total of 33.94 million viewers and a maximum of 1.01 million online viewers.

Before Lei Jun's live broadcast, in half a month after Xiaomi Auto went on sale, three car bosses had already started a rare broadcast.

At the end of March, Geely Chairman Li Shufu visited Geely's satellite factory live with Yu Minhong, founder of New Oriental; on April 14, Chery Chairman Yin Tongyue took the App founder Luo Zhenyu and did his first live broadcast. The joke was that Lei Jun and Yu Chengdong forced him out of 60; even Wei Jianjun, chairman of Great Wall Motor, appeared at the Xiaomi SU7 launch press conference. On April 15, he began his live broadcast debut, driving the new generation of intelligent driving systems.

In the past, it was not uncommon for car company executives to broadcast live broadcasts, but most of them were founders of new forces or marketing leaders of traditional car companies, such as Wei Jianjun, and other high-ranking car company leaders over sixty years old to broadcast live broadcasts.

This group of car bosses, who in the past were immersed in technology research and development and rarely showed up, gradually moved to the front of the stage and became ambassadors for their company's brand promotion and products in an attempt to attract more consumer attention.

It can be seen that, relying on Internet marketing, which Lei Jun excels at, after the launch of the Xiaomi car, it aroused huge traffic and set impressive records, causing car bosses to feel a bit anxious and angry.

In addition to feeling the spirit of car bosses living and learning from old age, we can also see that as the automobile industry enters the new energy era, car companies are facing changes in sales channels and traffic anxiety.

In recent years, car companies have tried to reduce their dependence on traditional 4S stores and dealers, and instead increase the construction and use of online platforms. Through channels such as live broadcasts, car brand apps, and microblogs for car company executives, car company executives, etc., car company executives have increased their acceptance of products, technology, and brand culture stories, and expanded the volume of car companies and consolidated their customer base.

However, compared to the internet industry, the automobile industry's style of play is still quite conservative. In addition to some new forces using exaggerated rhetoric to catch people's attention, the focus of the competition is still on highlighting their technical advantages, rather than being close to consumers and adapting to consumers' needs.

Xiao Mingchao, CEO of Zhimeng Consulting, said that compared to other industries, the automotive industry is slightly behind in building an Internet ecosystem. Business executives, especially founders, are born with their own traffic. Executives can not only use the executives' traffic to empower the brand and increase consumer stickiness, but also build relationships between brands and consumers, and listen to consumers' demands as soon as possible.

This also led to the fact that after Lei Jun got involved in the auto industry, car bosses saw new marketing ideas. In addition to technology wars and price wars, they also started a traffic battle in an attempt to further seize consumers' mentality. This will also accelerate the transformation of the automotive industry.

More than 10 years ago, Lei Jun entered the mobile phone circuit and was instantly popular. It was like a “catfish,” making the entire Chinese mobile phone industry continue to advance, and domestic mobile phone brands flourished.

More than 10 years later, Lei Jun started the “last battle of his life” and also set off a “pangasius effect” in the automotive industry. As Lei Jun's offensive intensifies, in the future, the automobile industry will also change in more fields after being disrupted by new energy technology. The gameplay of the entire industry will also evolve along with it.