标签： 龙凤上海shlf1419

In the past September, China’s auto market once again handed over a beautiful "report card", and auto production and sales have shown growth for six consecutive months. Against the backdrop of the global auto industry being hit by the pandemic, the rapid recovery of China’s auto market undoubtedly provides a good model for the recovery of the global auto market.

However, under the premise that the domestic auto market is recovering well, the market share of Chinese brand passenger cars has shown a decline, falling to 36.4% from January to September, a year-on-year decrease of nearly 2.3 percentage points.

"The sales performance of Chinese auto brands is directly related to the trend of the auto market in the fourth quarter." An industry expert expressed the above judgment to Securities Times Car Capital.

Securities Times · Car Capital noticed that in the process of major Chinese auto brands struggling to turn around the decline, FAW Hongqi has achieved a contrarian growth that far exceeded market expectations. In September, monthly sales exceeded 20,000 vehicles, an increase of 86% year-on-year. This is a huge contrast with its sales performance in previous years.

Why did FAW Hongqi’s sales rise against the trend? What enlightenment will its growth bring to more Chinese auto brands and even the entire industry? It has become a hot topic in the industry recently.

Thunder reform works

"The competition in the entire manufacturing industry is intense, and it is more organic when it is dangerous. We saw such a prospect in FAW. Your development this year is unique."

On July 23, the top leader of the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, the President of the State, and the Chairperson of the Central Military Commission praised the red flag, the representative of the national brand, during a visit to the General Research and Development Institute of China FAW Group.

In the context of the "black swan" epidemic in China’s auto market for two consecutive years, the rise of FAW’s red flag against the trend can indeed be called "the unique scenery here".

A few days ago, China FAW announced sales data in September, Hongqi brand sales reached 21,500, an increase of 85.9%; 1-9 cumulative sales of 130,000, an increase of 104.4%. In 2019, Hongqi brand sales achieved nearly 600% year-on-year growth, cumulative sales exceeded 100,000.

Compared with the sluggish sales performance in earlier years, these two sets of data are like a "shocking reversal". What exactly did the Hongqi brand rely on to achieve a breakthrough against the trend? This has not only become a hot topic within the automotive industry, but also a hot topic for some investors.

An Qingheng, director of the China Automobile Industry Advisory Committee, told Securities Times Car Capital that the soaring sales of FAW Hongqi are closely related to its internal reforms in the past two years.

In September 2017, Xu Liuping, chairperson of FAW Group, who had been in office for less than two months, launched the Thunder Reform and adjusted the Hongqi brand to be directly operated by the group headquarters.

"This time the reform movement is particularly large. The original FAW Technology Center has been delisted, but the R & D General Institute, the Modeling Design General Institute, the New Energy Development Institute, and the Intelligent Networking Development Institute have been established respectively." An employee of FAW Group headquarters told Securities Times Che Capital on condition of anonymity that after the new organizational structure was completed, the group also carried out a "all stand up and compete for posts" personnel reform, and more than 4,000 cadres and employees at the headquarters had to be re-hired through competition.

At the beginning of 2018, the previous system reform quickly bore an important fruit – China FAW released the new Hongqi brand strategy. It is worth noting that at this press conference, China FAW called out the sales target of Xinhongqi, that is, 100,000 units in 2020, 300,000 in 2025, and 500,000 in 2035.

"Although the industry has not publicly discussed the sales target set by Xinhongqi, there are still many doubts." An Qingheng told Securities Times Car Capital that practice has proved that this series of reform policies has effectively promoted the development of Hongqi. Objectively speaking, Xu Liuping, as the helm of the company, played a key role.

An industry insider told Securities Times Car Capital that although the market share of Chinese brand passenger cars has declined and most of them face challenges, in general, there is still a strong entrepreneurial spirit in the industry, and the overall reform atmosphere is strong. Each brand is seeking transformation in line with the "new four modernizations" of the industry.

"It should be said that the revival of the Hongqi brand has exported a positive sample to the Chinese auto industry." An Qingheng believes that the successful transformation of Hongqi has brought inspiration to more independent brands and provided an upward path for reference.

Who is buying the Red Flag car?

"I was in my early 30s this year and bought a Hongqi H5 in 2019. At that time, I mainly liked the design and configuration of this car. You can’t enjoy this configuration by buying a joint venture car at the same price." Mr. Zhang, who lives in Zaozhuang, Shandong Province, told Securities Times Car Capital that in addition to high cost performance, what he values most is the overall tonality of the Hongqi brand. "Driving a Hongqi car, you seem to be very stable, and you have more face and personality," Mr. Zhang said.

Previously, people’s impression of Hongqi models was mostly "inspection cars" or concierge executive cars, which seemed to have little direct connection with the market. But with the launch of Hongqi H5, H7, HS5, HS7, H9 and other models in the past two years, this existing "stereotype" is gradually disintegrating.

A person close to China FAW told Securities Times Car Capital that according to his understanding, there are generally two types of consumers who buy Hongqi brand models. One is the more emotional and supportive, and the purchase of Hongqi cars is very national pride; the other is the more trendy consumer group. In recent years, the products launched by the Hongqi brand are more recognizable and can meet the personalized needs of consumers who pursue "different".

Pan Helin, executive dean and professor of the Digital Economy Research Institute of Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, told Securities Times Car Capital that the Hongqi brand has a deep historical sedimentation, and in this round of reform, FAW has made a good excavation of the value of the Hongqi brand. More importantly, the current market has undergone tremendous changes, and consumers’ car purchase preferences and habits are changing and becoming more diverse. This fundamental change in consumption trends will bring opportunities to Chinese car brands.

Indeed, in recent years, the rise of the national tide, Li Ning boarded the New York Fashion Week, the Forbidden City lipstick was snapped up, the white rabbit toffee, and the leap white shoes ushered in the red… Buying domestic products has become an emerging trend. Some analysts have pointed out that the rise of the national tide is not only related to the rise of young consumer groups and changes in consumer trends, but more importantly, it is closely related to the overall rise of national cultural self-confidence. Consumers can find a sense of satisfaction and belonging by purchasing domestic products full of cultural connotations.

The same is true of returning to the auto industry. At a Hongqi brand 4S store on Yaojiayuan Road in Beijing, a customer looking at the car told Securities Times Car Capital: "In recent years, Chinese brand models have improved in terms of design and product quality, especially the technology configuration is quite awesome. Driving Chinese brand models makes me feel quite proud."

Securities Times Car Capital noticed that even on weekdays, the Hongqi 4S shop is very busy, with consumers constantly coming to see the cars, and most of them are family units. "If it is on weekends, there will be a lot of consumers around every exhibition car, and there will be a queue when entering the cockpit to see the interior." Sales staff at Beijing Longze Hongqi Automobile Sales Co., Ltd. told Securities Times Car Capital.

In the most prominent position in the exhibition hall of this Hongqi 4S store, there is a Hongqi H9 that has just been listed. The above sales staff told Securities Times Car Capital that the new car has only been on the market for one month, and the order will be queued. At present, the most advanced configuration will take two months, and the personalized configuration will take almost half a year to pick up the car.

From little attention to ordinary consumers to monthly sales of 20,000 vehicles, the Hongqi brand has really moved to the end point market and completed its self-transformation.

"High-end is the right move!"

In the past period of time, some independent brands relied on price advantages to seize the market, and sales performance was also very good. But after a careful study of the pricing system of Hongqi’s main models, it will be found that "winning at a low price" is not the path chosen by Hongqi. Take Hongqi H7 as an example, its official guide price is 252,800 yuan – 317,800 yuan, and the newly listed Hongqi H9 has a guide price range of 309,800 yuan – 539,800 yuan. Obviously, the "200,000 yuan pricing ceiling" that continues to plague independent brand brands is being broken by Hongqi.

The salesperson in the Hongqi 4S store told Securities Times Car Capital that buying Hongqi’s new models does not require a price increase to pick up the car, which is a hard and fast rule of the manufacturer. However, Hongqi also rarely engages in promotional activities, and the price is relatively firm.

"Hongqi basically does not engage in promotions, and our discounts are more reflected in after-sales." The above-mentioned salesperson told Securities Times Car Capital that the purchase of Hongqi owners enjoys a lifetime free warranty service. At the same time, at the level of used car replacement, Hongqi can give the same value preservation rate as other luxury brands, relieving consumers of car replacement troubles.

Pan Helin said that in recent years, the Hongqi brand has made great efforts in marketing and channel construction, especially through the digital management model to transform the service chain, which has provided important support for the growth of sales.

It is not difficult to see that the re-started Hongqi brand is fully positioning itself as a luxury brand. In fact, many industry authorities have automatically included the Hongqi brand in the luxury brand camp in the process of ranking the sales list of automobile companies. In September, Hongqi successfully exceeded the monthly sales of 20,100 vehicles with 21,500 sales performance.

Industry insiders believe that compared with other independent brands, Hongqi’s high-end road has a natural brand advantage. An Qingheng told Securities Times Car Capital that the competition in China’s auto market is very fierce at present, and some mid-to-low-end enterprises have been gradually eliminated by the market, but independent brands, including, and so on, continue to move up and carry out high-end transformation. In his opinion, Hongqi’s sales have risen sharply against the trend, which further reflects the strength of Chinese auto brands and fully verifies the importance of high-end independent brands.

Shengang Securities analysis pointed out that the current Chinese auto brand products are no longer limited to low-price competition, and the idea of brand upward is becoming more and more obvious. Among them, higher profit levels are the driving force for brand upward.

Securities Times Car Capital learned that, taking Volkswagen Group as an example, the profit level of Volkswagen Group’s Volkswagen brand in 2019 was 4.3%, while the profit margin of its luxury brand was nearly twice that, reaching 8.1%, and the more luxurious brand reached 16.2%.

At the same time, Shengang Securities also analyzed that the solid growth of China’s automobile market in recent years has provided a solid foundation for Chinese automobile brands to move up the brand, and has also brought sufficient capital and technology accumulation space to enterprises.

However, An Qingheng also stressed that China’s auto market is very large, with both high-end and low-end markets. Companies should target precise market segments according to their own positioning. At the same time, whether it is high-end or low-end, the most important thing is to improve product quality. This is the foundation for building brand power and influence.

Author: Li Zhi

In recent years, a number of traditional cultural programs have been popular on the screen, which has aroused enthusiastic response from the audience, media and society, and has become a highly regarded cultural trend phenomenon. From Chinese Character Dictation Conference, Chinese Poetry Conference and Reader, to National Treasures, Classical Poems, China in Stories, China in Classics and China Festival Series, it can be said that traditional cultural programs mark the development trend of industry culture turn for us, and they are "speaking well" in the new era.

Henan Satellite TV’s "Wonderful Tour of Tanabata in 2023" dreams of returning to the Red Chamber, showing romance.

The scene telling the story of Sanxingdui in the third season of National Treasure.

New national style: a distinctive feature as a trend phenomenon

Despite the different themes and forms, the new national style is the most distinctive style label of these excellent traditional cultural programs. The new national style, that is, the emerging China style, is manifested in the popular fashion that generally uses traditional cultural elements in popular culture. On the basis of spreading Chinese excellent traditional culture, traditional cultural programs explore the greatest common denominator with youth culture, network culture and other cultures of the times, and become a popular program type with the new national characteristics of integrating the old and the new and aesthetic mutual learning.

In fact, looking back at the development history of TV programs in China, as early as the 1960s, Beijing TV Station had launched cultural programs such as Cultural Life and Life Knowledge. In the 1980s and 1990s, traditional cultural programs with distinctive features emerged, such as "Bookstore Painting Garden" and "Kyushu Theater". However, although traditional cultural programs have always been an important part of the TV program sequence in China, they have long been caught in an embarrassing situation of applauding and not being a hit. Especially in the wave of TV industrialization, faced with the arduous journey of viewing, traditional cultural programs have always been difficult to become realistic choices and symbolic programs that TV stations are keen on.

Fortunately, in the past ten years, traditional cultural programs have gradually explored a new national style innovation road of "entertaining" and become popular in the whole network with a gesture of "cultural return".

Looking at the present through the long lens of history, the valuable question is how traditional cultural programs change and jump. What is more worth asking is, why is it that traditional cultural programs continue to "break the circle" to form a trend phenomenon of the times?

The method of "double creation": the leap of butterfly as an artistic creation

Since the policy of "promoting the creative transformation and innovative development of Chinese excellent traditional culture" was put forward, the artistic creation of traditional cultural programs has a fundamental methodology, that is, adhering to the integration orientation of "thought+art+technology", refining Chinese excellent traditional culture in a flexible and diverse way, and achieving a deep image description of "cultural China".

5,000 years of Chinese traditional culture is extensive and profound. Traditional cultural programs regard it as a treasure house of creative inspiration, and select representative cultural symbols to describe it. This kind of "metonymy" strategy can be seen only from the program name: China in Classics, which tells the story of selecting classics, Chinese Poetry Conference, which relives the beauty of Chinese poetry, and China, which shows the extraordinary skills of intangible heritage. With the continuous excavation of Chinese excellent traditional culture, the theme of this kind of programs has been subdivided from the popularization of general knowledge such as poetry quiz, idiom quiz and Chinese character contest to the interpretation of professional contents such as cultural relics and archaeology, intangible techniques, piano, chess, calligraphy and painting, which highlights the vertical thinking of program creation.

With the help of this kind of program, the audience stepped into the historical Milky Way, which is separated but in the same strain, and picked up brilliant cultural treasures. Traditional cultural programs deeply rooted in different fields appeared one after another, and a polyphonic "cultural suite" was compiled.

When the Internet platform becomes the infrastructure of the digital age, "brush" has become a common way of life, and attention has become the object of competition for programs. Based on the audio-visual communication ecology with diverse supply channels and overloaded information content, traditional cultural programs do not stick to the existing model, but follow the platform thinking and innovate the program model with light program duration, modular program units and strong narrative program content. Take a series of out-of-the-circle parties of Henan Satellite TV as an example: "Wonderful Tour of the Dragon Boat Festival" takes the astrological meaning of "Long Xing Zhongzheng" in the Dragon Boat Festival as the theme, and invites the "Mahua FunAge" team to join in the dragon boat race, and the dramatic chapter story of fighting for tokens is connected in series with modules such as Feng Wang Caige, Flying Dragons in the Sky and wormwood Qingqing, so as to show the traditional customs of the Dragon Boat Festival, and the duration is controlled within one hour. The relatively independent and distinctive special programs are very suitable for the communication logic of the Internet platform. The classic is The Banquet at the Tang Palace, which can trigger a hot discussion on the whole network. It is precisely because of its short, pithy and eye-catching features that it grabs the audience’s attention with colorful clips on the Internet platform, and then it plays a role of diverting from short to long, improving the popularity of the whole series of programs.

In addition, the new model increasingly pursues that a single work can produce the climax effect of visual wonders and soul shock, and puts forward higher requirements for the quality of the program. Based on digital technology, traditional cultural programs form an ultra-real virtual-real space and construct a dynamic perception field of "audience-work-artistic conception", which not only makes traditional cultural elements come to the fore, but also moistens the Chinese aesthetic spirit. For example, "Poetry and Painting China" refines the scenery into a single element and draws it in layers in the presentation of "Journey to the West Mountain", and strives to retain the natural Chinese painting texture in the special effect reorganization of later modeling. During the lens push and pull, the mountains with high peaks and steep peaks echo each other with the waterfalls flowing with silver lines, outlining the magnificent mountains and rivers with long mountains and thousands of images, so that viewers can truly feel the character of the ancients "the mountains stand on their backs and the scenery stops" Another example is the interpretation of "Imitating Yang Dazhang’s Painting of Jinling in Song Courtyard", in which the program gives the picture a 3D animation effect of ink and wash. In the painting, when people wander from the countryside to the city, the audience seems to have crossed back to the prosperous Jinling, where "the king is full of gold and beautiful", and feel the beautiful painting meaning of "people are happy in the rich years, and they walk on the streets in Gansu".

The visual presentation from the real to the virtual makes poetry and painting break through the limitations of physical laws and live in the way of reappearance of image wonders. The surreal artistic spirit not only extends the imagination boundary of the audience through the visual impact, but also brings the immersive experience by capturing the details that must be present, thus realizing the virtual reality of traditional classical aesthetics in the audience’s psychological level in the spiritual immersion that is also true and illusory.

Subjectivity and Identity: Deep Logic as Cultural Practice

An era has an era of literature and art. The reason why traditional cultural programs can stand out from numerous literary and artistic creations and form a phenomenon of "cultural program fever" that lasts for several years is not only because of the renewal of creative ideas and the improvement of production ability within such programs, but also because program production is a typical cultural practice with reflective experience that germinates in social culture and will respond to it interactively.

In other words, artistic production is deeply connected and mapped with the collective mentality and common emotion of the times, and the common emotion of each era will also give birth to the cultural trend belonging to that era.

Then, in order to further clarify the deep logic of the popularity of traditional cultural programs, it is necessary to base on the vivid experience of the times and explore the active and tense potential text structure of programs that are outside the text structure and coupled with the current collective emotional psychology.

Facing the globalization context of comparison and communication between Chinese and Western civilizations, the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation cannot be separated from the realization of Chinese modernization. However, in the world discourse system about modernization, "western modernity" once monopolized the definition of modernization, and western modernization was even directly equated with the only model. Therefore, only by reflecting on the western paradigm, establishing China’s legal expression and establishing his subjective position in the global pattern can we endow "China modernity" with Chinese modernization and realize the reinterpretation and rewriting of the discourse system of "modernity". In this process, both the country and the people are experiencing the thinking of "what is China", and the questioning of "who am I" reflects the collective mentality and common emotional demands of contemporary China society eager to consolidate cultural subjectivity and condense identity. Excellent traditional culture is the "root" and "soul" of the Chinese nation, and it is an important way to distinguish "the other" from "self" and gain subjectivity and identity.

Indeed, the top-down policies at the national level, such as "inheriting and carrying forward the Chinese aesthetic spirit" and "telling the story of China well", and the bottom-up cultural consumption at the public level, such as the craze for Chinese studies and Hanfu, all indicate the effectiveness of answering "China" with Chinese excellent traditional culture.

Returning to traditional cultural programs, whether the theme is to pay attention to festival culture, to focus on the art of poetry and painting, or to focus on historical archaeology, is a useful exploration of the policy of "double innovation", and the underlying logic it follows cannot be separated from "two combinations". The media performance of "Cultural China" gives the audience great imagination. In the auspicious film feather with traces of civilization, the cultural relics restorer makes the old things new and shows the distant and gorgeous history to future generations. In the endless stretch of Tang poetry and Song poetry, countless stars shine in it, writing the most vivid footnote for "Why China"; In the intangible skills that bear the context of a thousand years, the inheritors have persisted for decades to realize the identity of the nation as a nation … On the one hand, these traditional cultural programs have stirred up the national cultural genes in the same strain by excavating and presenting the cultural memories behind cultural symbols, greatly satisfying the imagination needs of the audience to gain a sense of historical relevance from the long-standing Chinese civilization, and effectively enhancing the national self-esteem and cultural self-confidence of the audience. On the other hand, following the principle of "keeping the right and not being old-fashioned, respecting the past and not restoring the past", we should reconstruct Chinese excellent traditional culture in the times, and integrate the spiritual concepts attached to traditional excellent culture, such as the unity of family and country, the common good of the world and the coexistence of all things, with the core values of contemporary socialism, so as to consolidate the cultural subjectivity in the deep echo of China in the past, China in the present and China in the future.

It is true that traditional cultural programs are highly in line with the common feelings of the times, and with the unparalleled communication power of audio-visual media, they produce and spread the cultural power that condenses collective sensibility, which is the deep motivation to harvest the emotional resonance of the audience and generate a huge emotional community. However, it still needs to be emphasized that the audience’s aesthetic needs and appreciation ability continue to grow and improve. In specific creation, traditional cultural programs still need to stimulate imagination and creativity, be innovative in content, form and other aspects, and fully demonstrate the essence and charm of Chinese excellent traditional culture to meet the audience’s aesthetic expectations, so as to avoid homogenization and stand on the forefront of the highly competitive mass cultural products track.

(The author is a doctoral student at Shanghai Film Academy of Shanghai University)

Source: Wen Wei Po