Lei Jun leads the live streaming trend among industry leaders

Author | Cao Anxun

Editor | Zhou Zhiyu

Xiaomi Group's founder and chairman, Lei Jun, who brought a wave of traffic from the internet industry, is baptizing the automotive industry with an internet marketing approach.

He is like a "catfish" crossing over from the tech industry to the automotive industry, stirring up the automotive industry and causing many low-profile automotive industry leaders to be unable to sit still. Recently, many of them have followed Lei Jun's example and joined the live streaming trend.

On April 18th, Lei Jun went live on Douyin. Dressed in classic jeans and white shoes, he drove a Xiaomi SU7 in Gulf Blue to the Xiaomi car factory delivery center. He then got out of the car with a Lava Orange Xiaomi 14 Ultra, interacted with the car owner, and talked about the Xiaomi SU7's sales in the past 20 days while occasionally praising its various features in front of the camera.

Lei Jun not only brings traffic with him but also knows how to cater to it. This time, he seized the current hot topics and received a return in traffic. Within two minutes of going live, the viewership exceeded tens of millions, and within two hours, the likes reached 180 million.

Regarding online rumors such as "the first male lead in refreshing articles," "having only a cold 4 billion in the poorest times," and "imitating Jobs, imitating Musk," Lei Jun responded to each one. The live stream ultimately accumulated 33.94 million viewers, with a peak of 1.01 million concurrent viewers, ranking first on Douyin's hot list.

Before Lei Jun's live stream, after Xiaomi's car listing, three rare automotive industry leaders had already gone live within half a month.

At the end of March, Geely's chairman, Li Shufu, visited the Geely satellite factory live with New Oriental founder Yu Minhong. On April 14th, Chery's chairman, Yin Tongyue, invited the founder of Get App, Luo Zhenyu, for his first live stream, joking that it was Lei Jun and Richard Yu who forced this sixty-year-old man out. Even Wei Jianjun, chairman of Great Wall Motors, appeared in a live stream on April 15th after the Xiaomi SU7 launch event, driving the Wei brand Blue Mountain to test the new generation of intelligent driving system.

In the past, it was not uncommon for automotive executives to go live, but it was mostly founders of new forces or marketing executives of traditional car companies. It is very rare for top executives of car companies in their sixties with high status and authority to go live.

These automotive industry leaders, who were previously immersed in technical research and rarely appeared, are gradually stepping into the spotlight, becoming the spokespersons for their own company's brand and products, trying to attract more consumer attention.

It can be seen that leveraging Lei Jun's expertise in internet marketing, Xiaomi's entry into the automotive market has generated significant traffic and achieved remarkable results, making automotive industry leaders somewhat anxious and inwardly competitive.

While marveling at the spirit of automotive industry leaders to keep learning and growing old, we can also see that as the automotive industry enters the era of new energy, car companies are facing changes in sales channels and traffic anxiety.

In recent years, car companies have been trying to reduce their reliance on traditional 4S dealerships and dealers, instead focusing on building and utilizing online platforms. Through live streaming, car brand apps, car executive Weibo accounts, and other channels, they aim to increase public recognition of their products, technology, and brand culture stories, expand the voice of the car companies, and solidify their customer base.

However, compared to the internet industry, the automotive industry's approach is still relatively conservative. Apart from a few new forces using exaggerated language to attract attention, the focus is still on highlighting their technological advantages rather than getting closer to consumers and meeting their needs Xiao Mingchao, CEO of Zhi Meng Consulting, stated that compared to other industries, the automotive industry is slightly lagging behind in building an internet ecosystem. Executives, especially founders, naturally bring traffic with them. When executives engage with consumers through live streaming, it not only empowers the brand with their traffic, increases consumer stickiness, but also strengthens the relationship between the brand and consumers, allowing them to listen to consumer demands in real time.

This has led to automotive industry leaders seeing new marketing strategies, particularly after Lei Jun entered the automotive industry. In addition to technology and price wars, executives are now engaging in a battle for traffic, aiming to further capture consumers' minds. This will accelerate the transformation of the automotive industry.

Over a decade ago, Lei Jun entered the mobile phone industry and became an instant success, like a "catfish," driving continuous progress in the entire Chinese mobile phone industry, with various domestic mobile phone brands flourishing.

More than a decade later, Lei Jun has launched his "final battle in life" and sparked the "catfish effect" in the automotive industry. As Lei Jun's influence grows stronger, the future of the automotive industry will also undergo changes in various areas following the disruption by new energy technologies. The industry's dynamics will evolve accordingly