Automotive PR and Internet/ICT PR, who is more powerful?
Previously, I wrote an article titled "Is Auto PR Really Lame?" and was invited by the Crab Boss from Electric Planet to join a live discussion with Brother Cannon, an old-school veteran, and Lei Wei, the founder of Sanyi Life, about "Who is More Capable: Auto PR or Internet PR?" The Crab Boss had actually prepared an outline, but due to the open nature of the live broadcast, some of the prepared content was not discussed. Therefore, I have written some additional thoughts based on the Crab Boss's outline to further explore my new considerations regarding auto PR and internet PR.
01
Who is less capable between auto PR and internet/ICT PR, and why?
First and foremost, I might not be fully aware of the capabilities of internet PR, but at least the auto PR that I am familiar with is quite capable.The reason for this perspective is that, in my view, the automotive industry has become the wealthiest industry of all since 2014, surpassing the previous real estate and FMCG sectors, and it is also the industry with the highest density of public relations (PR) needs. Over the past decade, dozens of car manufacturers in China, ranging from small to large, have required PR teams, with the smaller ones having around ten members and the larger ones possibly having hundreds.
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The entire automotive industry chain's PR could involve tens of thousands of people, and many PR firms specializing in the automotive sector are quite substantial. Therefore, there is definitely a pool of talent, and the annual marketing budget of hundreds of billions of dollars also requires smart people to manage it—although not all of this money may be used at the PR level, the relationship between marketing and PR is actually complementary, and PR also has a significant driving effect.
I do not know the approximate promotional costs for a new smartphone launch, but the leading car manufacturers can allocate tens of millions for the promotion of a single car model, and there are hundreds of new car launches each year. Even if the PR costs are only a tenth of that, it is still quite considerable—ultimately, wealthy car manufacturers can really splurge in this industry, and the experience, ideas, and strategies that are "splurged" are actually a form of accumulation.
At the same time, this intensive, high-investment strategy poses an extremely significant challenge to the entire market and PR teams. The costs may seem large, but the KPIs they carry are also extremely high. The pressure of a failed car model launch can be, to put it mildly, a matter of life and death for a car manufacturer.
The most typical example is the recent round of Ideal MEGA, where the pure electric products were not very successful, directly leading to a drop in Ideal's market value and the postponement of the entire pure electric product line, as well as significant adjustments to the internal organizational structure.So we can see that the public relations teams of car companies often seek stability, but they are not weak. They have detailed workflows to ensure the successful promotion of each model.
People might think that a car naturally sells well once it's on the market, but it's important to know that hundreds of models are launched each year, and only about ten or so new cars can achieve monthly sales of over ten thousand. Let's take another example: when both the Mercedes-Benz E-Class and the BMW 5 Series were updated, why was the Mercedes-Benz E-Class able to quickly recover to sales of over 10,000 units, while the BMW 5 Series failed?
This still tests the market and public relations capabilities of each car company.
If we focus solely on the public relations aspect, it might be evident that the automotive industry is currently significantly impacted by the wave of Huawei and Xiaomi, especially in terms of tactics. Some people feel particularly weak in this regard. Brother Cannon cited an example, saying that Xiaomi's response to public opinion is quite fast. Xiaomi SU7's Q&A has been done for more than ten sessions, with a daily requirement that public opinion responses should not be delayed overnight. This has never been seen in the traditional automotive industry, and now many new forces are also starting to learn from it.
I personally believe that this is indeed a long-standing issue in the automotive industry. The response to market feedback and public opinion is often slow, and there is even a sense of deliberate delay. The tactics of procrastination and passing the buck have always been common in the automotive industry's public relations, but with the new forces bringing in internet strategies, it becomes clear that traditional methods are no longer viable.Although the slow response of traditional automotive public relations can be attributed to process and organizational issues, such as the need for foreign cooperation in response from joint venture car companies, a more significant reason is that the automotive industry is still very stability-oriented. Many issues may not have a standard answer in the short term.
For instance, in public opinion incidents related to braking, whether it was a misstep or a genuine brake failure, the traditional automotive public relations logic dictates that a statement should only be issued after an accurate test. If a statement is made casually and it turns out to be incorrect, it could lead to more complications.
Therefore, automotive public relations and internet/ICT public relations each have their own industry characteristics. One cannot conclude that traditional automotive public relations are inadequate simply because of the aggressive strategies employed by Xiaomi, Huawei, and others in the recent round.
I personally believe that there is a logic behind each industry's approach.Does public relations also have a hierarchy? Is there a distinction between high and low? Is it based on the industry, or is it based on intensity?
It is quite clear that public relations capabilities also have levels of distinction, and the level of public relations capability mainly lies in the leadership vision of a company. The ICT industry indeed has a higher horizon for public relations, and most joint venture car companies do not pay enough attention to public relations. Especially for companies like Toyota and Volkswagen, they have a very standard market approach and do not place much emphasis on public relations—this can be seen from the number of people in their public relations departments and their internal structure.
Recently, I read a book about Huawei's marketing, which talked about "saturation marketing," which is essentially a strategy of firepower coverage. This is similar to the early tactics used by General Motors, Volkswagen, Toyota, and Nissan in China, except that some companies choose to solve problems through comprehensive advertising coverage, while others opt for high-density public relations soft article coverage.
This is probably similar to the situation in developed countries in the 1980s, where 4A advertising agencies bombarded with creativity, and advertising was the core communication tool. Later, including Ries and others, they proposed the idea that public relations come first and advertising second, and overseas began to pay more attention to public relations strategies, which is essentially using a combination of soft articles and advertising to capture consumer minds.
However, each company's approach to public relations has some secretive elements, including the management of media relations and the distribution of media content.In the public relations aspect, I believe the biggest difference and the current source of hostility between the automotive and digital industries is actually:
The ICT industry has much stricter control over content than the automotive industry.
For example, when I previously engaged in collaborations in the digital field, I found that they would provide a media manual during actual filming, detailing how to shoot, what to say in every sentence, what kind of lighting and positioning to present, and so on, down to the smallest details. It is said that if the invited media make some unfriendly remarks, they will not be invited next time, or they will not be given trial units, which of course has a significant impact on digital media.
The automotive industry never had these tricks before; once they got the car, they would just go all out with their output. If they were to say this is wrong or that is wrong and wanted to make changes, they would probably be countered by the media. As for not providing media with test drive cars, the media can approach dealers or rent cars themselves, actually having more channels and a richer variety of viewpoints, which can still be published in the end.
Moreover, automobiles are part of a long-cycle industry, with the average life cycle of a car being about four to five years. Now, some car companies have started to have such filming manuals, but in reality, very few established influencers would actually follow the car company's manual.Because seasoned creators care more about original ideas, they are not willing to follow the script. As for the shooting angle and the effect presented, the difficulty of shooting with digital products compared to cars is obviously not in the same league.
Regarding the issue of intensity, during the live broadcast, Brother Cannon mentioned a point: in the past decade, the public relations competition in the automotive industry has not been intense enough. For example, there would be no so-called excessive public opinion warfare, nor would there be situations where paid trolls would tarnish reputations. Automotive public relations still adhere to the rules, but it is clear that in the past one or two years, with the rise of new forces and the entry of internet ICT companies, the internet public relations' definition of "public relations" is obviously different.
Internet public relations have survived through the hundred-group wars, web portal wars, and e-commerce wars. In Brother Cannon's words, they have "crawled out from a pile of corpses," so the internet industry and the automotive industry have completely different understandings of the intensity and role of public relations.
There are many things that cannot be explained behind this, but the general idea is that the automotive industry is still too gentle, and now that internet public relations have come in, they have increased the intensity, and the original automotive public relations are a bit overwhelmed. At this time, it can be seen that many new forces are starting to recruit public relations talents from the internet and ICT companies, and the reason is that these people have been in long-term confrontations and are very clear about each other's actions.
I have also personally noticed a characteristic that many public relations people in the internet and ICT industries have transitioned from the media—this includes both traditional online media and internet portals—while in the automotive industry, apart from the earliest batch who transitioned from state media, traditional manufacturers have rarely seen media personnel move to public relations in the last decade.Recently, a new group of emerging forces has begun to engage with the media for corporate public relations, but I won't delve into that here. However, one can imagine the underlying logic.
Of course, Boss Crab believes that the public relations of independent brands are not actually weak. On the contrary, the public relations of independent car manufacturers have emerged from the competition of the past thirty years, growing from nothing and thriving under the pressure of joint ventures. Therefore, it can be seen now that the public relations of independent car manufacturers are very flexible and resilient, capable of responding to the current situation, and they have a quick learning ability and a fast replication capability.
In my personal view, moving forward, the intensity of automotive public relations will remain as it is, and it won't get higher. This is because the top two players have already demonstrated their strategies, and the intensity of public relations in the automotive industry is not unlimited. Eventually, everyone will reach an implicit understanding, maintaining a balance after a period of excessive competition and the elimination of some players. After all, the automotive industry is still primarily led by professional managers.
For example, the launch strategy of Xiaomi SU7 in the automotive industry can be considered a surprise attack. The strategy is quite formidable, turning a battle into a campaign, but ultimately it is not a strategic-level action.Xiaomi's intensive strategy, especially its mobilization of social media, is quite formidable. After focusing its efforts for two months, it directly took away the traffic, and the short-term pressure on new forces was very evident.
In fact, traditional car manufacturers are also watching, but when it comes to "learning and imitating," I believe there are two reasons why this is not happening: first, they lack the capability, and second, it is not really necessary.
Everyone is a professional manager, and it's impossible for everyone to be Lei Jun. Moreover, Xiaomi's SU7 only affects pure electric vehicles priced around 200,000 yuan, which is not that relevant to most car manufacturers.
03
Whether in the automotive industry or the IT industry, what are the common problems and challenges everyone faces?
I believe the biggest issue is an excessive desire for traffic. Nowadays, all PR and marketing departments only focus on KPIs, and it doesn't even matter whether these KPIs are real or fake.In order to drive traffic, all current strategies involve copying and pasting, which actually has little effect.
Xiaomi's campaigns in March and April were successful, ultimately due to thorough preparation. Lei Jun's live broadcasts and factory shoots were all planned for a long time before being executed. Car companies now see that Lei Jun's live broadcasts and factory live streams are very effective, and they are following suit, but in reality, not many people are watching.
Currently, marketing departments are taking the lead, having the boss go live, creating short videos, and making clips, but the results will definitely not be as good as Lei Jun's. However, these are all considered achievements of the marketing department.
There is also a problem that I believe is that the organizational structure of car companies is indeed still too outdated and not adapted to new developments.For example, in the past, the largest department in automobile companies was sales and marketing. Under marketing was public relations, which was mainly responsible for media communication, and then produced some media soft articles for cooperation. The bulk of the marketing department was actually product strategy, market strategy, and advertising placement. The advertising placement mentioned here refers to traditional media spots such as CCTV, television stations, airports, and outdoor billboards.
However, traditional media has declined, and new media has risen. So, for new media, such as the "Zoo Car Talk" show, should they be considered media or advertising spots? Therefore, when it comes to liaising with the hosts of "Zoo Car Talk," should it be the marketing department or the public relations department? And who should address their negative aspects?
So now, in fact, the pressure on the automobile company's marketing department is very high. The marketing department is constantly looking for KPIs, and there is no small conflict with public relations. The entire communication chain has been dismantled, and the responsibilities of the marketing and public relations departments are overlapping, making it difficult to communicate effectively.
But from what we understand from the ICT and internet industries, the marketing and public relations departments are basically the same system and are not separated. In contrast, the automotive industry still uses an organizational structure from a long time ago.
In fact, some automobile companies now have so-called digital marketing departments or social marketing departments, but they are all small departments. So, in my opinion, the marketing department should transform into a digital marketing department, with the public relations department engaging with the media and mainly responsible for producing high-quality content, while the marketing department is responsible for placement and effective delivery, making everyone's direction more clear.For the Car/IT Industry's Bitter Medicine
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Within the scope of my personal capabilities, I can only discuss public relations within the car industry. I believe that at this stage, the most important thing for car companies internally is to have a sense of public relations, and secondly, public relations personnel must have a sense of bottom line.
Let's start with the sense of public relations.
After so many years of development in the automotive industry, some have summarized that the product managers in the automotive industry are actually "managers of brand assets." Maintaining these century-old brands with new products is the most important thing. This maintenance involves technology, price ranges, target audience definitions, and so on.
In fact, public relations professionals are the same. Car public relations professionals are there to maintain the brand asset of the car, to ensure its reputation and reputation are preserved, and to keep the media constantly remembering the brand's stories. Therefore, from the perspective of the brand, it is not a short-term job; it inevitably requires doing some long-term, potentially short-term gainless things, and it must be content that provides positive feedback.So, within traditional automotive companies, many public relations professionals actually have an awareness, but the marketing department, sales department, and even the entire executive team lack the consciousness of "public relations first, advertising second," and still rely on advertising placements and lead generation by habit. However, without public relations to pave the way for reputation, if you are not a highly recognized brand like Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi, Toyota, or Volkswagen, leads simply will not stick.
Having a public relations consciousness does not mean that one can constantly create trending topics; there must also be a sense of bottom line.
Currently, there is a popular saying in the automotive industry, "bad publicity is also publicity," which is actually quite risky. The internet has a memory, and one day old accounts might be brought up. Running a century-old brand is somewhat akin to managing Andy Lau's persona; it is essential to maintain one's posture, to know what is good, what is right, what can be done, and what must be absolutely avoided. This must withstand the test of time and not cater to the preferences of internet trends like a viral internet celebrity.
Let's take an example: we were chatting with a global executive of a traditional car company, saying, "Chinese new forces start boasting before they achieve anything, thus raising user expectations. You've shown us so many cars from years in the future (concept cars), you could also express, give dealers and users an expectation."
But they said it's not possible; they must wait until the product is completed before they can talk about it externally. Even if you know what model the concept car corresponds to, we cannot directly say it; we have to wait until the product is truly released. I understand this as a way of managing expectations, after all, companies may have changes, or suddenly cancel a project; not all plans proceed according to schedule.So, automotive public relations professionals need to have a sense of boundaries and cannot make unfounded claims.
Additionally, a point agreed upon by both Brother Cannon and Teacher Lei Wei is that:
Public relations should always remain in the background, subtly influencing without being overtly noticeable.
Compared to public relations professionals in the internet and ICT industries, automotive public relations may be even more low-key. Both Brother Cannon and Teacher Lei Wei have mentioned that the automotive public relations they have encountered are basically from agency personnel, and there are very few direct contacts with public relations departments from automotive companies, which is a point of dissatisfaction for them.
Personally, I can understand this to some extent. Due to having more funds and resources at their disposal, automotive industry public relations tend to be more discreet in their external communications, and they generally do not engage in direct communication with unfamiliar media. However, behind this low profile, there is a clear understanding of the boundaries by automotive public relations professionals. For instance, they are aware of what many brands are doing, have reviewed a lot of content, and understand which red lines are absolutely not to be crossed and which words cannot be spoken directly. For PR professionals from ICT companies to the automotive industry, as well as those in the marketing department, what I want to say is that PR professionals from ICT may also have a rhythm dependence, believing that the company's growth rate will always remain at 50% or 80%, so their plans will be based on 100%& mdash; This will make the entire gameplay very aggressive, and what is needed is the feeling of not waiting for me. However, the automotive industry is not like that. It is already good for the overall market to maintain an average annual growth rate of 3%. It may be easy for a new force with a small base to achieve 30% or 50% annual growth during a certain period of turbulence, but once a gust of wind blows, it quickly retreats and returns. Many new forces have encountered this problem, thinking that they can continue to achieve exponential growth, but suddenly the wind stops, and growth immediately stagnates, with redundant personnel. Another point is that in the automotive market, the management logic for a scale of 100000 vehicles is completely different from that for a scale of 300000 vehicles. This was a problem that early Taiwanese automotive practitioners encountered when they entered our automotive industry. They may have advanced thinking, but their management logic cannot cope with such a huge market, let alone build a million level system power. Why do so many domestic car companies quickly fall back as soon as they reach a million level scale? The reason is that the thinking and operational management capabilities of the million level scale system are completely different. ICT's public relations professionals and marketers alike, upon first glance, see themselves bringing over internet strategies and achieving a 50% growth with ease. "Your automotive PR skills are lacking; you don't know how to wage public opinion wars or information wars. Look at me, as soon as I step in, the volume increases exponentially."
However, after just three months, sales inexplicably vanish, the smoke clears, and everything returns to square one—perhaps there are too many cases among the new forces where a surge ends after just three months.
Often, ICT marketers and public relations personnel might not even understand why the volume suddenly drops off, feeling that they've done everything they could, and theoretically, sales should have stabilized. Yet, after three months, it's just not working.
The real reason lies in the fact that products like cars and smartphones have completely different iteration rhythms and cycles. The automotive industry requires excellent management of communication的节奏, and the dissemination of product information needs to span the entire five-year life cycle, and even have a lead time. For example, the most classic "announcement-test drive-launch" triad is meaningful.
If the communication is only concentrated in the first three months, with a high-density bombardment, then whether the product sales will pick up after three months is likely to be a big question mark. Smartphones might be able to start over after six months, but in the automotive industry, it might take five years.The large-scale entry of IT public relations into the automotive industry: a good thing or a bad thing?
Undoubtedly, this is a good thing, as it strengthens the flow of talent. However, the automotive industry has always been relatively closed off, with very few people from industries such as clothing, beverages, and home appliances entering the field. It's not that there are none, but they are extremely rare. A notable example is the transition from Procter & Gamble's marketing to the automotive sector. The earliest batch of Chinese automotive public relations professionals came from China Daily and the national news agency, with experienced overseas public relations personnel guiding them through a process of standardization and systematization.
The reason is that other industries in China are not as financially robust as the automotive sector, and there are no so-called consumer-facing (to C) public relations teams. It's quite an achievement if they even have a spokesperson.
Of course, the typical issue with automotive PR in the past was that they didn't really understand the products, or there were very few who did, and they didn't particularly like cars. Now that IT public relations professionals have entered the field, regardless of whether they are right or wrong, they like to speak with products and focus on tangible aspects of communication, such as sun protection glass. These are points that only ICT professionals can identify. People in the automotive industry consider these as too normal, and their thinking has become limited.
It's just a matter of mutual respect for each other's expertise, and there's no need to look down on one another. In the end, it's not about whether one comes from an automotive public relations background or ICT, internet background; what truly matters is the professional capability itself.At present, the automotive industry still requires a significant number of public relations professionals, especially as Chinese automobiles are actively being exported. Currently, these public relations personnel are adequate for domestic purposes, but when it comes to going global, specialized talent becomes even rarer. Therefore, public relations professionals from ICT have a place where they can make a difference.
Moreover, public relations in the automotive industry must adopt a long-term mindset. It's not that short-term results can't be achieved; the question is whether they can be achieved and whether there is the coordination capability to do so. Short-term results often happen by accident, and event marketing often emerges suddenly, making it difficult to plan for them.
For instance, Chevrolet once planned for Tony Leung to feed pigeons before endorsing the Malibu, which had an immediate effect. However, you will find that such effects are most likely not replicable.
A suggestion is that all short-term results should be centered around long-termism. This way, there is at least a chance of creating a hit, rather than haphazardly trying different things without a main theme. The recent article by Brother Cannon actually put it very well: Chinese enterprises should first find their positioning. Although positioning theory is not very advanced, it is a foundation.After all, with the current level of effort, it hasn't reached the point of competing on talent.
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