In the mobile phone market in 2007, the power of copycat phones has already emerged. The result of adopting MediaTek's solution is not only the increasing homogeneity of mobile phones, but more importantly, the product cycle is greatly shortened. In the past, the practice of international brands was to launch new models in 8 to 12 months, but for copycat phones, this was shortened to 45 days. For newcomers, this ever-changing and highly competitive industry is full of traps.

Chen Mingyong is not too worried about this. The experience of following Duan Yongping made him firmly believe in some products and marketing concepts. First of all, we must choose an industry with a large market space. The mobile phone market is worth 200 billion a year. With consumers of all levels, at least survival is not a problem. Secondly, think clearly about what you can and cannot do. OPPO's target group is very clear, it is to impress a group of young consumers who pursue modern lifestyles. In Chen Mingyong’s view, the reason why many manufacturers fail is because they want to capture all kinds of people. Finally, Chen’s two most important requirements for products are exquisite and human-centered design.

According to popular saying, Chen Mingyong is OPPO’s largest product manager. On the header of the PPT template used by Chen Mingyong, there is such a dazzling sentence as a warning: We have never paid attention to user experience, and have always made products in a direction that is inconvenient for users to use.

At OPPO, market research is a very important thing. From appearance and shape to product color and fineness, OPPO collects data from large samples, and the selection of all components is based on international manufacturers. as standard. Chen Mingyong is the final gatekeeper for all problems. When OPPO's first machine was delivered to his office one month before it was launched, Chen dropped the phone to the ground because of appearance and other issues. Of course, for a company like OPPO that values ??marketing, commercials are another product. The columns, locations, and times of all advertising placements are also major concerns for this product manager.

OPPO’s first product, the A103, which was launched in May 2008, is quite reliable. The camera, selfie mirror and external speaker of the mobile phone are interestingly integrated with a smiley face pattern on the back of the fuselage. Deep memory. The market gave this product generous returns, and it was a hot seller as soon as it was launched. The final sales volume of this machine exceeded one million units, which was a figure that was difficult for domestic mobile phones to match at the time.

After becoming famous in one battle, OPPO’s next big move was to create sub-brands. There is little precedent for the same company to create sub-brands within a product. Apple and Sony both set up sub-brands for different categories of their products. Chen Mingyong is willing to make this attempt. He believes that the consumer groups should be further segmented and corresponding publicity and promotion should be carried out according to the pursuit points of different groups of people. In August 2008, the OPPO Real brand was launched, targeting a younger and more energetic student group. At the Hunan Satellite TV New Year's Eve concert at the end of 2009, OPPO launched its second sub-brand OPPO Ulike, targeting young urban women who pursue spiritual freedom and fashionable life.

In 2011, OPPO launched its first smartphone X903, and also launched its third sub-brand Find, focusing on the male market between 28 and 35 years old. In Chen Mingyong's view, this was not a particularly satisfactory appearance. Even before the product was launched, there were many internal discussions on whether to promote this product, which had invested a lot of money. Due to the twists and turns in the product solution selection process and the team's lack of experience in smartphone research and development, the launch of the X903 was delayed by nearly a year. During this year, the smartphone market continued to change, and the X903, which had just been launched, was already slightly behind in terms of configuration. , In addition, Chen Mingyong was quite dissatisfied with the heavy appearance.

After weighing several times, this machine is still on the market. This is the first time Chen Mingyong has felt passive since he started making mobile phones. Fortunately, OPPO’s always-advantageous advertising is still eye-catching. A few months ago, riding on the residual heat of "Inception", a set of scenes of Hollywood superstar Leonardo, similar to suspense dramas, frequently appeared in movie theater commercials. This segment was about Leonardo and a man. The plot about the search and pursuit of a mysterious woman in red is so similar to a movie trailer that when the OPPO subtitles appear at the end of the show, it often arouses a burst of exclamation from the audience.

This is the Find me series of OPPO smartphone advertisements. In terms of attracting attention, OPPO once again succeeded. It hired spokespersons at a sky-high price of 5 million US dollars and overwhelming advertising, which quickly made the market remember Find. Before the product was launched, OPPO counters in stores kept hearing people asking about this machine. . After its launch, a dealer store once sold 32 units in a single day.

OPPO’s advertising intensity is unmatched by its peers. According to peers, if OPPO holds offline events, one street is often green (the color of the OPPO logo). This company's lavish spending on brand building and advertising has scared off many peers who want to imitate it. They are all asking themselves, "How much of this investment method is the break-even point?" The industry has learned from the past. When the mobile phone dark horse Tianyu Langtong Jinpen washed its hands and turned into a brand, it invested about 100 million yuan, but in the end it achieved little results and let it go. Oppo’s annual investment in advertising is estimated by market participants to be around 400 million yuan. “The amount of effort that can be tolerated (spending money) varies. Generally, manufacturers may jump from the roof to the second or third floor as the bottom line, but OPPO can jump all the way to the basement.

"Sun Xiaofeng, a senior researcher at Sano Market Research Company, described it.

In the opinion of an anonymous executive of OPPO mobile phones, this perspective of thinking about problems in terms of the amount of funds is not their way. He said, compared with When looking for spokespersons for smartphones this time, their only purpose is to complete the promotion task perfectly. Funds are not a problem, and spending money is not the purpose. "When doing market research among all European and American male stars, Leonardo was originally ranked. The second one, but it is closest to OPPO’s original idea. If we can’t reach an agreement with his agent, we may not even need a spokesperson. The most important investment is how big your expectations are for the future. ”

OPPO has received quite generous returns. For example, as smartphones gradually become mainstream in the market and prices are further reduced to less than a thousand yuan, non-smartphones of all brands have dropped to 2,000 yuan. The price of OPPO’s U529 remains at around 2,500 yuan, and its sales volume exceeds 10,000 units per month. “The profit margins of domestic mobile phone brands can be described as mythical. "A domestic mobile phone manufacturer said with envy. OPPO's myth seems to be driven by advertising, but on a deeper level it is a unique relationship with agents. In the OPPO system, OPPO is called a "factory", and most of the provincial agents are As a shareholder of "Factory", "We are two families from the inside, but we are one family from the outside. "An agent explained the relationship between agents and OPPO like this.

The person who created this relationship is Duan Yongping. As a legend in the home appliance industry, Duan, who has now retired, has many things that are praised for. The most important thing is that he promoted full shareholding. In 1995, he left Xiaobawang and founded BBK Electronics Co., Ltd. The company implemented a joint-stock system, and almost all middle-level and high-level employees, including ordinary employees, became shareholders. The salesmen sent by the company to various places later gradually evolved into agents in various places.

For these people who relied on Duan Yongping's support, Duan Yongping was the undoubted spiritual leader. Everyone believed that following him would "make a difference." "Eating meat", "Everyone's thoughts can be highly consistent with A Duan's. How terrible. "The agent said. Duan Yongping also confirmed this. When he was interviewed by the media, he said: As long as I say a word, these people can take out their wealth. In order to develop the company better over the years, Duan Yongping has continuously diluted his shares to With more employees, these agents are doing the same thing.

Now these agents are rich, and some agents have also begun to get involved in real estate, golf courses and other projects. Projects with 'Factory' are profitable, others are not. "An agent said. In their view, this is an unreasonable thing, and precisely because it is unreasonable, it strengthens their confidence in following the "factory".

Duan Yongping After retiring, this spiritual power is quietly transferred to Chen Mingyong. It is said that when he was doing OPPO, Chen Mingyong asked the dealers that according to the expected OPPO development model, they would lose money for three years. Everyone cheered and shouted. , unanimously approved, “Other agents will not do it in three months, let alone three years. "The above-mentioned domestic mobile phone manufacturers lamented. In the early days of the launch of mobile phones, promotional activities in various places were organized and arranged by agents themselves, sparing no effort, which ensured OPPO's advantages in terminal stores in various places.

It is the agents The survival-prosperity relationship formed by shareholding allows OPPO to have a certain guarantee in capital investment, and it can truly do what others cannot. OPPO has rarely encountered major setbacks when switching from digital to mobile phones. OPPO started out as home appliances, but until now it has little connection with the Shenzhen mobile phone circle. Its way of thinking about making mobile phones is often different from the mainstream in the mobile phone circle.

In the domestic mobile phone market in 2007, there was only the dark horse Tianyu. Langtone is relying on channels to make money. Most manufacturers have been hit by copycat phones and have lost their direction. In order to survive, they follow the trend and launch new phones when they change the casing. If they make some money, they will change the casing again. OPPO is doing this. In this environment, they chose to enter the mobile phone industry, and from the beginning they would take what their insiders call the "hero product" route, which is the premium route.

So far, according to the OPPO website, OPPO has launched models. There are 31 models in one model. And some domestic mobile phone manufacturers who are good at operating mobile phone tactics will have dozens of machines on the market in a single month. What a disparity! One of Duan Yongping's mantras is: fast is slow. Slow is fast.

It is difficult for outsiders to understand the pressure on mobile phone manufacturers to make a high-quality machine. Rong Xiuli said that high-quality products are expensive and require courage. There are young children here, but if Alibaba’s children make a product and find a problem, a new version may come out in 20 minutes. But we can’t do that. Our children make a drawing and we take it to open it. Model, maybe hundreds of thousands are wasted, gone. ”

As soon as the mobile phone was made, a company approached Chen Mingyong and said that it could cooperate with TV shopping. At that time, after more than a year of research and development, OPPO had already invested a huge amount. What’s more important is that after this product was launched, No one can predict the sales volume. TV shopping can guarantee sales of 300,000 units per month, and the returns will be seen immediately.

In Chen Mingyong’s view, TV shopping can be a success. , it’s making money that you shouldn’t make, and it’s against your duty.

Duty is the corporate culture that has been emphasized since Duan Yongping. "This is the core of OPPO's healthy development for more than ten years.".

To some extent, OPPO’s emphasis on corporate culture is similar to Huawei’s. Huawei often mentioned in its early days that "a bird that cannot be burned to death is a phoenix" and "it will take ten years to sit on the bench", which are familiar to all employees. OPPO is not inferior in the implementation of corporate culture. Every OPPO employee you meet, from factory workers to agents, from executives to ordinary maintenance personnel, will mention words like "duty and integrity". At OPPO, "Duty is the root of all culture. Duty is to isolate external forces and grasp the reasonable direction of what should be done in a normal state of mind. It is one's duty to keep one's word; it is one's duty to not make any money; it is not It’s your duty to do everything; it’s also your duty to do what you can,” said the aforementioned executive. According to OPPO internal employees, even after many years of separation from the front line of management, Duan Yongping returned to OPPO and sometimes personally provided corporate culture training to company employees. Most of the employees of OPPO mobile phones are fresh graduates, which also keeps OPPO culture extremely pure.

OPPO’s first machine eventually sold over one million units, which was almost a miracle for a manufacturer that was involved in mobile phones for the first time. At that time, home appliance manufacturers switched to mobile phones, but most of them collapsed before they even took off. Chen Mingyong said, "The reason why we have survived to this day and are living well is not because we are extraordinary, but because we have made fewer mistakes, with fewer mistakes and a greater chance of success. Pursue making more mistakes This is also an important aspect of OPPO’s culture.” Chen Mingyong said, “From DVDs to mobile phones, 90% of the rules are the same.” This can explain to a certain extent why OPPO can continue to be brilliant. But everything is different in the smartphone era. Smartphones are “the integration of the entire value chain from front-end technology to patents.” According to Chen, OPPO and iPhone are equivalent to a battle between immortals. Apple can kill everything with its thoughts from thousands of miles away.

This is not the kind of competition OPPO is used to. Since the Duan Yongping period, BBK and OPPO have had an unwritten so-called "tasteless principle" when choosing to segment industries. Regardless of the market development trend, only the company's existing technical capabilities, production capabilities, market experience and market potential are considered. If the conditions are met, you can enter. From VCDs to digital products, there was no competition from international manufacturers at that time. In 1997, BBK entered the VCD industry. At that time, the market thought that the industry was in decline. The mobile phone industry in 2007 was also useless to a certain extent. In this kind of market, OPPO is more familiar with local competitors. But OPPO now has to fight the most powerful opponent.

This is a crisis for the entire Chinese mobile phone industry. The hardware is being strongly invaded by soft forces. Rong Xiuli said that we can only fully embrace the Internet, there is no other way. OPPO obviously has not found a better way for this. From what we know about OPPO’s vague future blueprint, the strategy it will adopt is more like a mediocre version of plagiarism: to build a software store and cloud services.

In Chen Mingyong’s plan, there are two ways to combat the current situation of Internet intrusion into terminals: first, rely on brands to pull terminals, and use the power of terminals to pull cloud services; second, regardless of cloud or terminal , all must be more in line with local needs.

Chen Mingyong is aware of OPPO’s crisis, but it is obviously difficult for most agents of Honor and Shame to understand it. OPPO's first smartphone, the X903, was a test piece. When it was launched, serious conflicts arose between the factory and some agents over the price of the machine. "The initial market price was about 4,000 yuan, and in the end it was only 2,900 yuan, which is not much higher than the price of ordinary OPPO machines, so many people can't accept it. Everyone is used to living a comfortable life." An agent revealed that many people still can't understand Chen Mingyong’s plan. "The boss said that everyone should regain the mentality of being prepared to pay for three years. He also said that if anyone is not happy, stop doing it as soon as possible."

Duan Yongping and Chen Mingyong's goal for OPPO is to become a world-renowned Enterprises and set a healthy and long-lasting model for Chinese enterprises around the world. Can they succeed? This transformation is obviously the most severe test ever. Chen Mingyong’s team is quite confident in all the industries it has been involved in, but in the current smartphone battle, he cannot guarantee it.