In recent days, the raging World Cup has attracted the attention of the global audience. Although the national football team failed to enter the World Cup in Russia, the active performance of Chinese companies in the football feast was impressive.
As a new force made by China, China’s home appliance industry has been rushing to seize the opportunity of the World Cup. Various companies are competing fiercely outside the stadium. The market strategy and actual results are also worthy of attention.
Enthusiasm for enterprises is high
Football and business have long been associated. There are football superstars who once said that 'rolling on the pitch is not football but gold.' According to a report released by Deloitte & Touche, football is the largest single project in the sports industry. More than 500 billion US dollars, accounting for more than 40% of sports production.
As a global sports IP with great commercial value, the World Cup’s own traffic has inspired the industry. Especially in this World Cup, due to the insignificance of the time difference problem, there are quite a number of kick-off times that are the evening's prime time for the Chinese audience. For Chinese fans looking at the ball, this is the 'best of the best' of the 2002 Korea-Japan World Cup. To catch the World Cup this time, Chinese home appliance companies are competing for sports marketing.
Play as early as last year. As early as April last year, color TV industry leader, Hisense, spent nearly US$100 million to obtain the 'Admission Ticket' from FIFA, becoming the official sponsor of the 2018 FIFA World Cup, creating a sensational effect in the home appliance market. Not long ago, Hisense Group announced that British famous actor Benedict Cumberbatch became the latest spokesperson for Hisense TV and played with Hisense at the World Cup.
Unlike Hisense, most home appliance companies have adopted a way to invite soccer superstars to endorse or sponsor the World Cup. In April of this year, TCL awarded the Brazilian star Neymar a stamp bearing the status of “Global Brand Ambassador” and responsibility. Related topics Advertising The 13 cities around the world were exposed and launched the TCL global sports marketing campaign of the World Cup. Changhong signed a contract with the Belgian national team and made it the highlight of this year's sports marketing. As the official sponsor of the French national football team, Vantage is on the media. Played the 'French team wins, Vantage retired' announcement, trying to combine the aggressive promotion policy with the 2018 World Cup, allowing fans to feel the enthusiasm of sports events.
How good can the market be?
China's home appliance industry rides the 'World Cup' with high heat and movement. Many people can't help but ask, How much benefit does the World Cup bring to the home appliance industry?
Since the beginning of this year, the domestic appliance market has performed poorly. Data released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology shows that from January to April in 2018, the household appliance industry sales rate was 97.7%, which was a year-on-year decrease of 0.5%. Data provided by Ovid Cloud Network shows that this year From January to May, the sales of home appliance market increased by 4% year-on-year, and the growth rate slowed down obviously from last year. Among them, the growth of the traditional category was sluggish and the TV market experienced a negative growth. From January to May this year, total sales of color TVs were 18.2 million units. It was down 0.3% year-on-year, with sales of 59.7 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 3.9%. Under this circumstance, the home appliance industry is looking forward to the World Cup market.
Recently, the online color TV market has experienced significant growth. According to Ovid data, in the 24th week of this year (June 11-17), the retail volume of color TVs in the online market was 573,400 units, which was a 46.5% increase from the previous month. However, the online market was The price was only 2,396 yuan, which was a quarter-on-quarter decrease of 45 yuan.
'From the current data is more difficult to reflect the impact of the World Cup on the color TV sales. After all, the Dragon Boat Festival, the World Cup, 618 promotions and other factors arrived together, can not be said that alone on the World Cup will bring a strong line of the upstream situation. Director of Black Power Research Jiemei Juan believes that the home appliance industry has a positive impact on the World Cup marketing. First, it can boost the product structure. The company focuses its promotional points on the World Cup on relatively high-end products. The needs of fans are mainly concentrated on Large-screen color TV. Second, diversified marketing methods have driven the market atmosphere. Channel marketing and branding companies around the World Cup will play a role in promoting market growth.
Information from companies shows that Hisense TV's sales in Russia have risen steadily since May. With the official start of the World Cup competition, sales of Hisense TV in Russia in the 2018 World Cup have seen an explosive growth. Week 24 of this year (6 From the 11th to the 17th of the month, its TV sales reached the highest in a single week, nearly 3 times of the 22nd week.
In response to the surge in consumer demand, Hisense International Marketing and Hisense Electric actively 'prepared for war' and sent a batch of 55-inch and 65-inch 4K TVs to Russia through emergency transportation of China-EU classes. Liu Changhai, deputy general manager of Hisense Russia, stated: 'From Qingdao It takes only 19 days to get to China's normal sea transportation cycle for 42 days.
Product brands complement each other
The World Cup marketing drama staged by home appliance manufacturers can be watched lively, but also can watch the door. Do not rule out individual companies only follow suit hype, market momentum, more manufacturers are looking at creating a world-class brand, accelerate and grow bigger and stronger.
As China's home appliance industry becomes more mature, leading companies must go out and embark on. To expand overseas markets, not only must have sufficient strength, but also start the brand. According to statistics, every 1% increase in brand awareness will cost US$20 million. Advertising costs; and with the help of sports events, the same cost can increase visibility by 10%. In 2016, Hisense became the first Chinese sponsor in the 56-year history of the European Cup. Only one month later, with the help of global TV live broadcasts and other media. After extensive exposure, Hisense’s global visibility increased by 6 percentage points, and in the second quarter European market sales increased by 65%. Hisense’s internal assessment believes that sponsoring the World Cup is the fastest and most economical global brand growth path.
It is worth noting that Hisense continues to sponsor large-scale sports events and plays a major role in marketing cards. At the same time, Hisense fully leverages its TV display technology and video image processing technology, and continues to develop globally with its international design philosophy and global R&D resources. Launch high-quality, high-value and high-experience TV products to achieve a rapid increase in the global market share of Hisense brand.
According to Orvie Cloud's user insights, color TV products suitable for fans watching the World Cup, the big screen is the standard, and 65 吋 has become the first choice for fans; the fluency of the screen determines the viewing experience, the trailing, the motion compensation, and the image stabilization becomes the focus of the fans. This puts relatively high demands on display technology.
Obviously, to win the World Cup business opportunities, it is ultimately necessary to rely on strong innovation and outstanding product power. Truly winning the favor of the majority of fans will only be a quality product that effectively meets the demand, provides the best experience, and is not a low-priced major domestic product. Hisense, a technology-based enterprise, not only launched the world's leading ULED LCD TV products around the 'partition', but also established a new market with blue lasers based on cutting-edge laser TVs. With innovative technology, Hisense launched a number of customized versions of World Cup products to accelerate development. Global Markets. For those household appliances companies that are still competing in the homogenization competition, they are far more worthy of pondering than a World Cup hotspot.