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After enjoying the excitement and excitement brought about by the creation of the brand and the birth of the product, SAIC-GM-Wuling’s management had to face the brutal growth environment facing the “second child” Baojun Automobile.

On September 1st, with the end of the listing conference in Harbin, the Baojun 630's tour listing activities in the eight major provincial capital cities in China have come to an end. With a warm heart and a reliable partner, Baojun will fully accept the test of the market.

"If Baojun does not include the word "car" behind it, many people do not know what Baojun is." At the site of the Nanjing listing conference on August 30th, Assistant General Manager of SAIC-GM-Wuling and General Manager of Sales Company Yang Jie pointed to a poster. The "Powell Motors" confided in a few words. Although the words were brisk, it was difficult to hide their frustrations. The Wuling witnessed a step-by-step growth and witnessed Wuling’s success as a brilliant sales company manager. For the new Baojun brand, how to marry Wuling's successful marketing experience to Baojun is a big test.

According to Yang Jie, Bao Chun's 150 previous dealers, of which nearly 60% came from the original Wuling dealers. As far as we know, although some of the dealers acted as investors and hired professional managers to manage them, it was hard to say that these investors were free to change their business ideas after the long-term concept of marketing impregnated in the mini-vehicle market was solidified. Fully adapt to the marketing and promotion of car brands, especially for a brand that is still not well known. Of course, in the initial stage of brand promotion, a part of Wuling dealers who have accumulated sales experience in certain cars through sales of Le Chi (there are news that Le Chi will complete full-scale replacement work within the year) will be used by the Baojun brand to quickly establish a pre-sales network. , And rely on the long-term cooperation with these dealers to form a trust and communication mechanism to reduce channel risks. However, in the face of weak product line support, Baojun's future dealer recruitment will be difficult. Because in the case that there are only a few cars that can be sold and optimism is expected to take several years to recover the investment costs, many dealers will be discouraged.

For SAIC-GM-Wuling, the shortcomings of brand shortboard, single product line, and laying of channels are all problems that can be predicted. As marketing promotion and branding mature, these will be readily resolved. However, SAIC-GM-Wuling does not share the concept of joint ventures with its high-level contacts and exchanges, and its enthusiasm for digesting and absorbing technology is not high. This is the real worry.

As the concept brand promoted by Guangzhou Automobile Honda, SAIC-GM-Wuling also uses the background momentum of the shareholders, especially the foreign ones, to publicize the “dynamic quality mid-size car based on the newly developed universal technology” as a selling point. The low market price, close to the product quality of the joint-venture model, and the mature and complete supply chain system, etc., together form Baojun into a brand with a strong brand background and technical resources, and a very cost-effective new brand. Of course, this is also a publicity method used by the joint venture's own brands.

We believe that this kind of publicity is understandable, but if this type of publicity is not well-understooded, it is likely to leave a catastrophic hidden danger for future development. "The technology platform that originated from the old Excelle" has been heated up. Consumers can easily find out about the past and present lives of the Baojun 630. We learned from a person who is close to the management of SAIC-GM-Wuling that Baojun will launch a 1.8L model based on Cruze's engine and transmission in 2012. The price will be around 90,000 to 100,000, compared with Shanghai GM Excelle. The market price and a variety of performance parameters can not help but feel pressure on the pressure on the Baojun brand follow-up models. At the same time, the data we obtained from related sources shows that during the development of the Baojun 630, the Shanghai Pan-Asia Automotive Technology Center had almost undertaken nearly 90% of the project's volume. However, in the research and development of the Baojun brand's follow-up models, Pan Asia still Will be the leader. It is reported that Liuzhou branch of Pan-Asia will be formally established in mid-September, and its duty is to “fully devote to SAIC-GM-Wuling’s vehicle development work and improve local passenger vehicle development capacity in Liuzhou”.

There is no doubt that SAIC-GM-Wuling could not form its own R&D system if it did not do a good job of absorbing and digesting relevant platform technologies in the early stages, and it would be difficult for the foreign parties to respond quickly to market demands. More importantly, GM’s share in SAIC-GM-Wuling’s shares has increased to 44%, but due to comprehensive system considerations for product planning in China (although Shanghai GM has always been used as a base for passenger vehicles), perhaps It does not want to see SAIC-GM-Wuling’s car business making significant progress, which will not only disrupt its product layout, but also the concerns of technology leakage. Therefore, whether or not Universal's support for SAIC-GM-Wuling will continue to be a question mark in the future.

How long can Baojun's brand life last? It depends on SAIC-GM-Wuling’s winning approach.