The rain is coming from the wind.
The explosion of LED lighting applications has brought an unprecedented revolution in the lighting industry. Traditional lighting has increased the intensity of LED lighting. The pace of enterprise channel construction has obviously accelerated. The traditional lighting brand camp has gradually diverged. The LED lighting brand is rewriting the industry pattern with the speed impact scale.
With the fierce competition in the domestic lighting market in the next three years, how can the lighting brand be upgraded? With the continuous penetration of LEDs, how should lighting brands fight the rivers and lakes?
In the next three years, the LED lighting industry is about to happen. The era of four major events and large channels has come to the forefront of channel construction. However, the channel environment has changed over time, especially the high-speed transformation and upgrading of the lighting market.
In the 1990s, China's lighting market mostly used shantytown architectural market, and some were still in the downtown area. With the acceleration of urbanization construction and the increasing demand of consumers for the shopping environment, high-standard professional hypermarkets gradually dominate the development trend of the lighting market.
In recent years, brand home stores and lighting stores have expanded rapidly. Such as: Red Star Macalline, Real Home, Jimei and other well-known brands of home stores in the country triumphantly, lighting investment is in full swing. The professional lighting stores have sprung up like mushrooms. From 2012 to now, the lighting stores for opening or attracting business are innumerable, such as Changzhou Guanghui Boutique Lighting City Phase II, Yancheng's Binhai Lighting City, Chengdu Zaili Light Huanggang, Jiangxi Xingan International Lighting Plaza, Chongqing Weinan International Lighting Wholesale City, Chongqing Light Nest Lighting Wholesale Market, Xi'an North Third Ring Daming Palace Lighting Plaza, Foshan South China (International) Electric Light Source Lighting City, etc.
Taking Dengdu Ancient Town as an example, following the Times Lighting Plaza, the World Trade Lighting Expo Center, Dongfang Yusheng Square, Yinquan Hotel, Modern Lighting City, Taikoo Lighting City, etc. have been put into use, as well as the ancient town Starlight Alliance Lighting City under construction. The launching and implementation of large-scale lighting store projects such as Xinxing Square, Guyi Lefeng Lighting City and Huayi International Lighting City.
At the same time, terminal single store lighting hypermarkets continue to appear, there are nearly 100 lighting supermarkets with more than 5,000 square meters in the country, and there are mega-megastores with a single store area of ​​3,000 square meters such as Chongqing Lampat and Zhengzhou. Although the lighting industry has not yet emerged as a strong terminal such as Gome and Suning in the home appliance industry, the branding development of China's lighting channels (stores) has become inevitable. The expansion of these lighting stores is leading and changing the lighting sales of each city. pattern.
However, the emerging power of LED makes this rise more full of more variables. Professional hypermarkets with LED themes have emerged, such as Jiangmen Guangbohui, Guzhen Star Alliance Lighting Plaza, China LED Kyushu City, Guangzhou Optics Valley and so on. In order to adapt to the development of this emerging technology industry, traditional lighting stores are also unwilling to lag behind. Changzhou Zou District brilliant lighting city has more than 20,000 square meters of LED area, Shilihe Lighting, Sichuan Shili Denghuanggang and other large chain stores have also begun to divide the area to introduce LED brand monopoly. Shandong Linyi Tianma Lighting re-installed a large exhibition hall of 3,000 square meters, officially launched the LED channel sales strategy.
The pattern of the traditional Shili Deng Street gradually faded out of people's vision. The expansion of professional lighting chain started, the transformation and upgrading of lighting stores, the development of scale, brand and fashion, announced that the era of large channels of lighting industry has arrived!
Channel layout is starting to crack down Generally speaking, the channels of lighting enterprises are mainly divided into five types, one is engineering channels, mainly government and large-scale engineering projects. The second is export channels, including OEM and ODM exports. The third is a multi-level distribution agent represented by dealers, agents, supermarkets, and professional stores of building materials and home lighting. The fourth is the direct sales model of lighting companies that build their own stores and experience stores. The fifth is the emerging marketing FromEMKT.com.cn channel represented by e-commerce.
The expansion of lighting stores and the intensification of LED lighting applications are rewriting the channel pattern. The LED industry is growing in the middle and lower reaches, and the indoor lighting growth in the application field is the fastest, and the price decline is also the largest year-on-year. Gao Gong LED CEO Dr. Zhang Xiaofei pointed out.
Indoor lighting products are directly oriented to customers and consumers, which fundamentally determines the importance of the channel. Whoever occupies high-quality channel resources, whoever takes the lead in the future lighting market, so the focus of many lighting companies' brand assault is largely on the channel. To this end, the choice of channel construction and channel mode has become the top priority in front of every lighting enterprise. The choice of speed, quantity and quality has arisen, and the channel layout war has started.
The core resource of the manufacturer is the brand, and the core resource of the merchant is the channel. The main business objectives pursued by both parties are the increase in market share and profits. Manufacturers need high-quality channel resources, and high-quality distribution channels can help enterprises quickly open up the market, increase sales, and expand brand awareness and influence. What the business needs most is a good product, and through the cooperation with the manufacturers to obtain rich profits.
This revolution brought by LED, whether it is manufacturers or businesses, there is not much time to wait in the channel layout. Since 2012, various types of enterprises, such as traditional enterprises, export enterprises, multinational enterprises, and state-owned enterprises, have begun to build large-scale channels. Many international lighting brands have even defined this year as the channel development year.
Those who have access to the channel have the world. At present, LED lighting channels are in short supply, and there are so many good distributors, but all manufacturers are vying for it. Therefore, the competition for channels, especially high-quality distributor resources, has entered a stage of white-hot. Various investment advertisements and investment conferences across the country are not uncommon. Many middle and high-level enterprises and even bosses of many brands frequently appear in various investment occasions, and channel problems have never been seen before. Pay attention to it.
In this context, the channel resources of all lighting companies have achieved rapid expansion, because no one wants to lose the competitive opportunity, otherwise the brand assault will be nothing. It can be said that channel construction is only a matter of time.
Brand upgrade is imminent in the industry characteristics of the lighting industry and the extremely uneven current situation in the domestic market. It determines that the channel dispute has become the direction of competition in the lighting industry in China. As the intensity of competition increases, the brand must achieve successful assaults, in addition to through channels. In addition to gaining a successful advantage, it is an inevitable trend to strengthen brand building in channel cooperation. In 2013, the lighting market will usher in a breakthrough period. With the scarcity of superior channel resources, brand building will become the top priority of brand assault.
In the 21st century, China's lighting industry, led by NVC, Opp and other companies, has formed a number of brand enterprises in the industry for more than a decade. More than ten companies in the lighting industry have won the title of China's famous brand, and many companies have won the title of China's well-known trademarks, such as NVC, Op, Sanxiong Aurora, Sunshine, Yaming, Huayi and so on.
Moreover, with the advent of the era of large-scale lighting, more lighting companies need to think about how to make their brands not drown in the sea of ​​lights, how to make the power of the brand gradually deep into the hearts of the people; upgrade?
It can be said that with the continuous development of the lighting industry, the importance of lighting companies to build brands has reached a consensus in the industry, lighting companies also recognize that the competition in the lighting industry has evolved from product competition and price competition to brand competition. But the industry is very confused about how to achieve brand transformation or upgrade.
Looking at the current brand upgrade of the lighting industry, it is concentrated in the three axes: celebrity endorsement, CCTV advertising, import CIS.
The purpose of most companies signing the image spokesperson is to hope to expand the popularity of the products endorsed by the stars in a short period of time and increase sales. This is a means of marketing. In recent years, in the field of home lighting alone, there are Jonson, Zeng Zhiwei, Guan Hua, Jia Jingwen, Minnie, Qi Ying, Kaman, Wu Hao, Liang A, Fan Bingbing, Mei Diemei, Fu Yiwei, Qian Tai. Please wait, the industry is almost flooding with this method because companies believe that celebrity endorsement is the best way for industry brands to achieve brand popularity. However, few brands use strategic deep dissemination to consider the lack of star marginal effects to achieve value for money.
TV media has become the first choice for brand promotion of lighting companies. It has gradually become a marketing tool for lighting companies to promote new products, expand channels, and develop dealer teams. In 2010-2012, almost 30 brands appeared in CCTV every year. In addition, CIS has been introduced to transform the company's visual system in an all-round way in order to improve the brand image.
Celebrity endorsement is the wind, CCTV advertising is getting together, the image is visually following the trend, and it is hoped that through the three-axe axe to become a panacea for brand building, the brand building of lighting enterprises shows that the phenomenon of quick success is very serious.
The category breakthrough is the basis of the basic brand is the quality of the product and the unique value positioning. The author believes that an accurate product category positioning is more important than anything else, that is, what can I represent? Because to shape the psychological understanding of consumers, the core of implementing brand marketing must clearly tell consumers what I sell! A brand can only become a brand when it can represent something, just as NVC stands for commercial lighting and Opt stands for home lighting. In the past two years, in the field of severely homogenized electric switches, a brand that has been called home has rapidly grown into a brand that can compete with TNV, TCL, and Futian. The reason is that the steel frame switch is a breakthrough point.
At present, the number of LED lighting application enterprises in mainland China exceeds 10,000. Different from the embarrassing situation that traditional lighting enters the homogenization hutong, the technology of LED lighting application is constantly upgrading, giving many upgrade spaces for new brands. It is difficult to differentiate the product development of traditional lighting companies, and product design is difficult to differentiate, but LED has given many companies the opportunity to redefine the industry. For example, streetlight experts work on the photoelectric, such as the display expert mountain display.
So, can more product categories of lighting companies be differentiated from the product concept first? First, we propose a lot of new product concepts. We often say that we must first conceptualize products, that is to say, to do marketing, we must first give a concept to the product; then, we must conceptualize the product, that is, we must implement the concept into specific product development. And design, let the product truly reflect this concept. Otherwise, there is no product concept of landing, it is just a skin. At present, many lighting companies have begun to work on the conceptualization of the first step of the product, such as the field of home lighting, Liang Di proposed intelligent lighting, Ox's scene lighting, Hao Hao's health lighting, etc., are good concepts. Just the concept of productization is the next step for these brands to think about.
The author believes that focusing on a certain functional feature of the product and brand positioning based on product function differences or conceptual differences is also a brand assault. As for lighting companies to create brands and frequently put their ads on the market, they have launched brand promotion activities, such as advertising on the professional media and mainstream media, and on the other hand, hiring stars as brand image endorsements, etc., all based on brand positioning. The tactical behaviors carried out on the basis of these tactics are right and wrong.
The good players are tempted, the players are not good, the business is the same, the strategy is the same, the road is long, and one day will come. For the lighting industry that is rapidly changing due to LEDs, companies should start thinking about and choose future development strategies. As Mengniu said: ideas determine the way out, and layout determines the outcome.
Chengdu LST Science&Technology Co., Ltd. , https://www.lstmachinery.com