Haier

On January 27, WPP Group and Millward Brown ACSR jointly released the 5th session of Brandz Most Valuable Chinese Brands Top 100. In the sub-list of the household appliance industry, Haier ranked first with the brand value of USD 1.93 billion (About RMB12.06 billion), up by 34% than a year earlier, sharp ahead of other household enterprises. 

In 2015, the value of Chinese top 100 brands totals USD 464.2 billion, up by 59% compared to that of 2011. The growth rate has already exceeded that of BrandZ most valuable global brands top 100, and also that of most valuable Brazil brands and most valuable Latin American brands. This means that Chinese brands have entered a new stage of fast growing in the world.

Wang Xing, the President of Millward Brown ACSR’s global BrandZ, suggested that more and more users accepted Chinese brands and believed that these brands are vigorous and valuable. In future, the successful brand building of Chinese enterprises depends on enterprises’ deep understanding of users’ behaviors and demands, as well as improved brand experience and meaningful differentiation by technological integration.

The brand value list released this time just proves this statement. Taking Haier, the most valuable brand of household appliance industry as an example, Haier has constantly carried out the strategic model innovation exploration in the era of internet. Under the strategic theme, “platform-based enterprises, entrepreneur maker employees, and customized user experience”, Haier has strived to construct the open and creative ecological system of innovation and entrepreneurship for the global entrepreneurs. On one hand, Haier provides the open innovation platform to global entrepreneurs to make everybody an entrepreneur, promoting an open and innovative social atmosphere. On the other hand, by constructing and combining with the innovation ecological circle of the platform, Haier has made it possible an end-to-end user participation in the product innovation process, creating a better user experience. 

The brand building model for better user experience by end-to end user participation through a constant interaction with users already obtains a good effect. In this model, users have not only become the power for brand building, but also constantly promoted the product innovation. Innovation products like iSee mini, water box, air box, and air cube are all products under this innovation model. In 2014, Haier got 36 million registered users, with 15 million active users, and 1.76 million geek fans. 

Through a constant interaction with users, Haier obtains the vast popularity with users. In Europe, Haier carries out the VOC (Voice of customer) activity, and has got thousands of user comments and photos from various countries in Europe within 1 monthly. At present, Haier’s Facebook is followed by more than 500000 fans in just 6 major European countries including France, Italy, German, Spain, England, and Russia.

Upon this, David Roth, the CEO of The Store, WPP Group’s global retail business in Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Asian, said that the enterprises which had profound understanding of technologies and user behaviors with fast development, have realized the promotion of global value by constant innovations. In the industry with increasingly fierce competition, brand building, innovation input, and interaction with users are key factors for a successful brand operation.  

The list of Most Valuable Chinese brand Top 100 2015, which is jointly promoted by the global leading market research and brand consultancy institution Millward Brown ACSR and WPP Group, clearly shows the fast growth of brand value in technological brands and retail brands related to technology.