Author|Wu Junfu
Former General Manager of Southeast Asia Cathay Investment Co., Ltd.
If you don’t plan for the eternity, you can’t plan for a moment; if you don’t plan for the overall situation, you can’t plan for a region. Faced with a series of domestic and international situations and problems, such as frequent real estate thunderstorms, market saturation, industry involution, the Russia-Ukraine war, energy wars, Sino-US confrontation, global trade war and other unfavorable domestic and foreign environments, how are Chinese ceramic enterprises doing? Breakthroughs and how to break and establish situations? Strategic planning and top-level design should be carried out from the overall perspective of globalization and the high dimension of long-term layout.
Inject international talents
Specialize in international or professional things
During the Three Kingdoms period, talents emerged in large numbers. Cao Cao of Wei and Sun Quan of Wu both attached great importance to talents, so there were many talents. In the early days of Shu, Liu Bei was envious of the many talents under Cao Cao and Sun Quan. Liu Bei said from the bottom of his heart in Jingzhou: "Anyone who helps with great things must put people first."
Uncle Liu Huang realized that he should put people first and continuously inject talents, and then he had the complete Zhuge Liang and the Five Tiger Generals of Shu. The same goes for ceramic companies. To inject international talents and specialize in international or professional things, they must be people-oriented, especially marketing talents.
In fact, many products can also become product culture through marketing empowerment. The most successful marketing that makes marketing become product culture and makes marketing and culture fly together is the diamond marketing of De Beers Group. For more than 100 years, De Beers Group has been injecting international talents, allowing international talents to specialize in international or professional matters, and is committed to localized marketing of diamond culture.
Diamond itself is a pile of carbon atoms, not a rare and precious metal, and its storage capacity is very abundant. Diamond is extremely hard and its main use is to make diamond tools. But how diamonds climbed from the "King of Hardness" to the "King of Jewelry" was actually promoted by the De Beers Group through several very successful marketing campaigns.
By monopolizing about 90% of the world's diamonds for a long time, the De Beers Group has become synonymous with diamonds, and each of its marketing has produced sensational diamond culture and economic benefits.
In 1939, De Beers launched a classic advertising slogan: A diamond is forever. This simple, crude and classic slogan has made people all over the world remember that diamonds are eternal.
Chinese ceramic companies should learn from De Beers Group, pay attention to corporate publicity, and launch products that people on earth can easily remember.The advertising slogan for ceramics and slate is a classic advertising slogan here. It is inconvenient to write it down because knowledge has a price and advertising slogans are power.
In 1953, De Beers Group invited internationally renowned film and television star Marilyn Monroe to sing "Diamonds are a girl's best friend" affectionately in the film "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes", making diamonds a girl's best friend. Good friends have not only become the "motto" of most female friends, but have also become an eternal classic. This marketing planning campaign, through the sexy goddess "Monroe", turned hard diamonds into friends of the majority of women. Use the song of diamond marketing to directly touch the love and eternity deep in the hearts of female friends.
Chinese ceramic companies can learn from the marketing of De Beers Group, use ceramic movies and ceramic songs to promote ceramic brands and corporate culture to the world, and let the world know about the "world-wide brand" of Chinese ceramics. However, how many ceramics or slates have marketing movies and marketing songs?
In 1993, De Beers Group launched an upgraded version of its 1939 classic advertising slogan "A diamond is forever". Because De Beers Group knows that if the sentence "A diamond is forever" is directly translated into Chinese, it will appear pale and meaningless. As a result, De Beers Group spent heavily on translators in Greater China. Half a year later, a university teacher translated "A diamond is forever, a diamond will last forever" and was selected amidst the praise of the jury. After the classic advertising slogan was translated by God, De Beers Group's profits soared dozens of times.
This upgraded version of marketing is not only marketing the Greater China market, but also creating a larger market and spreading more diamond culture. It has to be said that knowledge is power.
There is no doubt that knowledge, marketing, and branding all have power.
Looking at global slate brands, the two most well-known brands at present are Laminam from Italy and Techsize from Spain. The Chinese brands are Lamina and Desaisi. These two brand names, whether in English or Chinese, are very easy to remember.
Looking at Chinese slate brands, most of them tend to be localized in China, which is not conducive to exports and difficult for foreigners to remember. What is the name of the Chinese slate brand? It is conducive to international publicity and promotion. It requires brainstorming and trusting the knowledge power of the masses.
Personally recommend understanding or learning YuanqiaoDong Enterprise's brand road of Qiaodong Ceramics, Mona Lisa Ceramics and QD Ceramics. After many years of brand research, if you need a brand name or slogan for slate slabs, please contact the website first.
Integrate with Italy to form a strong alliance
First of all, let’s discuss why Chinese ceramic companies want to integrate with Italy? Can the integration be successful?
Some people may think this is a fantasy and impossible. However, everything is possible, and it also includes some deep-seated international political issues, internal logic and corporate cultural identity.
In the current international political game, the most important thing is that Western countries, led by the United States, want to further contain China and Russia. This is also the most important and sensitive international political issue. The fundamental purpose of Pelosi's visit to Taiwan is to detonate a crisis in the Taiwan Strait and create a series of troubles. Unfortunately, the Chinese government did not follow the trap designed by the United States, but took this opportunity to carry out large-scale military operations. Taiwan Navy exercise. To contain China is to contain China's powerful rise; to contain Russia is to carve up Russian resources and use Russia to kidnap Europe to maintain U.S. hegemony.
The Russia-Ukraine war has been going on for so long. It is actually a deep-seated and protracted war, a war of attrition, an energy war, and an economic war. This war has more or less affected the global economy. Natural gas in Italy is priced at about 35 yuan per cubic meter. If this hits a cold winter, European natural gas may cost more than 50 yuan, and it will be difficult to buy natural gas even if you have money. Europeans will cry that "it's hard to get a gas."
Although Italian ceramic companies are also facing skyrocketing raw material and energy prices, their production and sales of ceramic tiles and slates have increased. Italian ceramic companies have managed to prosper in both production and sales under extremely unfavorable circumstances. It can be seen that Italian ceramic companies have strong brand influence and good product quality.
Why are Italian ceramic companies able to prosper in both production and sales? There are many reasons for success, especially the following two points that are worthy of careful consideration.
First, Italian ceramic companies have always firmly grasped the European and American markets. There are more than 300 million people in the United States and more than 700 million people in Europe. It can be said that Europe and the United States are vast in land, sparsely populated, and big in houses. In fact, in most areas of Europe and the United States, there are few high-rise buildings, but the houses are very large, which is conducive to the construction of "small" ceramic tiles and "large" slates.
Second, Italian ceramic companies have always mastered the front-end (equipment manufacturing, glaze research and development, etc.) and back-end (ceramic tile and slate production, brand building, etc.) andMarketing strategy.
But Italy cannot control raw material supply and energy pricing, let alone European climate control and the next US kidnapping of Europe. China's society is stable and its industrial system is sound, and China has always been friendly to Italy and the EU.
The integration of Chinese and Italian ceramic companies, each with its own needs and complementary advantages, is the best policy. Italy can take advantage of China's relatively affordable natural gas, labor force, mature ceramic production chain, and huge Chinese and Asian markets; while China can also take advantage of the R&D technology, production technology, brand advantages, and marketing management of Italian ceramic companies to form a strong Chinese-Italian ceramic company. Join forces.
Dig deep into channels
Let exports become the biggest engine of growth
The development of rock slabs in China has only been two or three years, and the bosses of ceramic companies want to use rock slabs to upgrade and break through. Due to too rapid development and too many production lines, market demand has shrunk, resulting in overcapacity in most slate companies. This is a particularly confusing concern for many ceramic company owners at the moment.
In fact, there are many channels for slate slabs, including platforms, e-commerce, stone dealers, quartz stone, furniture factories, processing plants, designers/academies, decoration companies, engineering clubs, decoration companies, ceramic dealers, export trade, etc. channels, most of which are not fully developed. If the channels are fully opened, the future of slate can be expected.
Stone slab companies should dig more and deeper channels and operate under multiple brands, so as to form controllable internal competition within the company and form more competitive advantages externally to maximize market share.
The five major brands of Guangdong Zhongyan are Yihaoxing, Chuangwu, Cerato, Yanzhongyan and Yiyan One World. Because of the many brands, it is not difficult to sell over 100 million yuan.
The three major brands of Jiangjun Enterprise are Jiangjun Slate, Marshal Slate and Mulan Slate; the two major brands of Gold Medal Enterprise are Delifeng and Gold Medal. Multi-brand operations are beneficial to stone slab companies in product layout and market capture.
Think about how powerful the Huawei brand was back then. Why did it launch Honor? It was just to capture the market and seize market share.
It is strongly recommended that companies such as Xinyansu, Xinmingzhu, Jinqiang, Shunhui Slate and other companies that are doing very well with a single brand increase their slate brands. In particular, Guangdong slate companies should increase their brands so that foreigners can remember them.Forgot the brand of slate.
In the context of severe industry involution and domestic market saturation, we must try every means to export to Southeast Asia, or use Southeast Asia to maximize domestic sales and re-export, and make overseas exports the biggest engine of growth.
All walks of life in China must learn from the Huawei model or BYD model to carry out new layout and expansion, and ceramics and slate are no exception.
The conflict between Russia and Ukraine is getting worse every step of the way, and the confrontation between China and the United States is taking on new dimensions. Individuals, companies, and countries must be precise every step of the way in this new battle. Not willing to fight or afraid of fighting, full of confidence and positive energy, crossing the high dimension of BBK.
The above content is submitted by people in relevant industries
It does not represent the views and positions of China Ceramics Network
