Did Wei Jianjun succeed in betting his last name to endorse the Great Wall?

How are Wei Jianjun and his WEY doing?

The answer cannot be explained clearly in one or two sentences. In recent years, the domestic automobile market is undergoing an unprecedented structural change. Under the trend of consumption upgrading, consumers' car purchasing concepts are more independent and full of personalized labels. Many Chinese brand car companies have begun to focus on high-end brands. It is hoped that we can further seize new market share and achieve the final breakthrough of the brand. Great Wall's high-end SUV brand WEY came into being at this time, but its development path has not been smooth sailing.

Four years of hard work

As we all know, since the peak of China’s auto market in 2017, the domestic auto market environment has not been ideal, with “slowing growth”, “auto market downturn” and “cold winter” Words such as "We have arrived" are common. At that time, Chinese brand car companies basically did not have a clear market position in the luxury car market, and high-end car brands were also blank. When Chinese brands were still struggling to compete in the low-price car market, Wei Jianjun launched a unique Wei Jianjun chose the high-end SUV brand WEY named after his surname, and facts proved that Wei Jianjun’s choice was correct.

Building a high-end brand is not easy. As the Chinese auto market gradually moves from incremental competition to the stage of stock competition, competition among auto companies has become increasingly fierce. Faced with the double attack of joint venture brands and imported luxury brands, domestic high-end brands can be said to have found a way out. Personalized and differentiated automobile products have begun to be favored by consumers. High-end Chinese brands have also changed the "price" in the eyes of consumers. The impression of "cheap" and "shoddy" domestically produced cars.

Previously, Wei Jianjun specifically put forward the slogan of "over-investment, over-research and development, and over-configuration" to express WEY's intention to create a sense of luxury. Wei Jianjun himself is also very concerned about technical investment. In most of his few external publicity images, he is either standing in front of the engine or in front of the gearbox. Obviously, WEY has also inherited Wei Jianjun's consistent proposition. Whether it is the VV5, VV6, VV7 and other models that have been continuously intelligently upgraded before, or the Tank 300 that was later built based on the modular off-road platform, every model under WEY is A true portrayal of its technological achievements. In the past four years, the collection of nearly 400,000 users is also the best feedback for WEY.

The high-end brand camp is fighting fiercely

Since its establishment, the WEY brand has indeed occupied a place in the high-end brand camp, but there are still hidden worries behind the results. Geely's high-end brand Lynk & Co, which debuted almost at the same time as WEY, sold 21,868 vehicles in October this year, and its cumulative sales from January to October were 127,800 vehicles. Also on the road to high-end, the Hongqi brand sold a total of 23,000 vehicles in October this year, and a total of 153,000 vehicles from January to October, which is very close to its annual sales target of 200,000 vehicles. In comparison, the WEY brand sold only 9,076 vehicles in October, and its cumulative sales from January to October were 59,348 vehicles.

From a brand perspective, Hongqi has more historical accumulation and richness than Lynk & Co, WEY and other brands. This distance cannot be caught up overnight. However, as two brands that debuted at the same time, Lynk & Co's youth strategy has indeed achieved initial results. According to official disclosures, Lynk & Co's users born after 1985 account for more than two-thirds. Whether it is at the marketing level or the product level, its young and personalized style has opened up the automobile market in the shortest time.

In addition, from a product perspective, although Lynk & Co also focused on SUV models in the early stage, it soon launched the Lynk & Co 03 sedan model and the Lynk & Co 05 coupe model to segment the market. The product matrix on the car is more abundant, among which Lynk & Co 05 has become an important driving force for the increase in sales of the Lynk & Co brand. In contrast, WEY, as a Chinese brand that focuses on high-end SUV models, obviously has a somewhat monotonous product matrix, and its youthful marketing strategy is also slightly inferior to Lynk & Co.

It is worth mentioning that while many Chinese brand car companies are pursuing brand improvement, electrification and intelligence have also become the focus of development. Changan Automobile announced that it will jointly build high-end intelligent products with Huawei and CATL For car brands, SAIC Group has also raised tens of billions of yuan with Alibaba to build high-end smart pure electric vehicles, and Dongfeng Group has launched a new high-end new energy vehicle brand Lantu Automobile... On the road to high-end Chinese brands, competition will only intensify, and who can control it? More market share, everything is still unknown.

Fourth Anniversary of Silence

In fact, more than four years have passed since the establishment of the WEY brand. On November 16, 2016, the WEY brand officially debuted. On November 20, 2019, WEY released its third anniversary brand night. Now it has entered December 2020. Except for a few sporadic news on the Internet, no news has been seen. More information from WEY on the fourth anniversary. But this brand, like Wei Jianjun, has always been adhering to a low-key style, but in fact it has a lot going for it.

When attending a public event, Dongfeng Motor Group Co., Ltd. Chairman Zhu Yanfeng once commented on Wei Jianjun: "Baoding is a city that has neither the support of high-land talents nor the support of huge amounts of capital, nor is it a high-tech city. (Wei Jianjun) Going to the meeting in red today shows that he came out of the red sea. "The pragmatic and tenacious personality of Baoding people is undoubtedly revealed in Wei Jianjun. For a long time, marketing to Great Wall has been more like a kind of self-promotion apart from the product. , "make a little progress every day" and "spend every penny wisely" have become slogans that can be seen everywhere in Great Wall's factories. The "most outrageous" thing that the pragmatic Wei Jianjun has ever done is probably to bet his last name to support WEY.

From the previous peak of monthly sales of 20,000 vehicles to the recent monthly sales of less than 10,000 vehicles, has WEY failed? It's too early to tell. In the four years since its establishment, WEY's main models such as VV7 and VV5 have achieved good sales results. To date, the brand's cumulative sales have reached nearly 400,000 vehicles. In order to win the recognition of more consumers and seize market share, WEY began to change its development philosophy. One of the most obvious changes was to change the fixed mindset of building cars behind closed doors in the past. WEY began to absorb more user demands from the research and development stage to improve products, whether it is appearance, interior, color matching, through technical reserves to the final realization of integrated production. WEY accepted more consumer feedback and fully released the value of both parties. .

In addition to research and development, product sequence is also a top priority. Although VV7 and VV5 have received relatively satisfactory market feedback and sales performance, the product line is still relatively single. Therefore, under the background of focusing on SUVs, WEY has developed a tank product series, which will cover a more comprehensive product series in the future. Great Wall revealed that the Tank 300 is a new layout at the brand strategic level and reflects the dual product line pattern. It is foreseeable that WEY will further derive multiple product series in the future to occupy more sales shares in market segments.

"Can Great Wall Motors survive next year?" Wei Jianjun's micro-movie has passed its popularity, but it still leaves us with thoughts. As a new brand established just four years ago, the emergence of WEY has also provided new assistance for Great Wall to cope with the current consumption upgrade pattern. There are always more ways than difficulties. This sentence also goes to WEY, which is struggling bravely, and more Chinese car companies that are breaking through on the road to brand improvement. The future will be "hanging by a thread", but hope is always on the road.

This article comes from the author of Autohome Chejiahao and does not represent the views and positions of Autohome.