Product power, brand power, and communication power are the three pillars of steady development of Meichao as a leading enterprise that “brings color to the nation”
Germination, surge, reshuffle, precipitation… In the past thirty years, the home furnishing industry has undergone turbulent changes. Among the home furnishing companies that are constantly emerging with the help of the times, Meichao, a domestic brand that has been deeply involved in interior decoration accessories for 27 years, is like a horse in the development timeline of private enterprises, marching high and high.
With the maturity of the market and the rapid increase in sales, Meichao has completed the transformation from a regional brand in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei to a national brand. So far, Meichao has deployed 36 legal entities nationwide, building a “Mechao Service” China’s market network layout, product use area exceeds billions of square meters, serving tens of millions of households.
In the turbulent times of the times, Meichao Group has practiced a successful paradigm of a Chinese local enterprise from germination, growth to transformation and transcendence. It has carried the banner of a national brand in the field of interior decoration accessories and contributed new stories and new values to the industry.
The exploration journey of “2023 China’s Top 100 Most Valuable Companies in the Home Furnishing Industry” entered Meichao. Zhang Jingfu, Chairman and President of Meichao Group, accepted an exclusive interview with Sohu Home Furnishing. Focusing on the topic of “creating a national brand” and starting from the three dimensions of product power, brand power and communication power, he jointly explored Meichao’s steady and long-term development path in the past 27 years. .
Taking brand power as the soul to demonstrate the height of national brands
Meichao takes “protecting health, assisting environmental protection, and adding color to the nation” as its corporate mission, and creating a national brand is the goal that Meichao has always strived for.
Chinese attributes, growth trajectory, and leader are Zhang Jingfu’s annotations of national brands, which reflect feelings, excellence and responsibility. This also makes Meichao’s development not limited to economic benefits, but also interacts with it with feelings and visions. To this end, Meichao takes the initiative to shoulder and fulfill the mission of the times, leads the industry forward through innovation, and continuously demonstrates the height of Chinese brands.
In 2023, Zhang Jingfu made major adjustments to Meichao: the brand positioning was upgraded to “Guardian of Environmentally Friendly Homes”, and the brand value was updated to “Quality transcends the ordinary, and environmental protection synchronizes with the world.” Zhang Jingfu said, “The previous brand positioning of ‘China’s decorative accessories integrator’ was slightly broad. Over the past 27 years, Meichao’s operating model has been professional, focused, and only engaged in indoor accessories. The new brand positioning is conveyed more clearly in refined language. at this point.”
Strengthening brand building requires long-term investment, and Meichao’s focus on trademarks reflects this.Zhang Jingfu, who is known as the “trademark expert” in the industry and is also the vice president of the Beijing Trademark Association, talked about Meichao’s trademark development in detail.
Since the implementation of the new Trademark Law in 2003, due to the relaxation of private registration and reduction of industry restrictions, this node has become an explosive period for trademark registration. Although Meichao was still in its early stages of development at that time, Zhang Jingfu had already made forward-looking judgments in terms of intellectual property and trademark defense strategies, and quickly registered a large number of trademarks with decisiveness.
Facts have proved that this decision, which was not understood by most people at the time, has now shown great stamina. In an environment where trademark wars are rampant, Zhang Jingfu understood the value of trademarks to future business as early as 20 years ago, and realized that the maintenance of intellectual property rights and the establishment of a trademark system are a long-term topic. Judging from the results, Meichao currently has nearly 1,500 registered trademarks (including Huacai Paint). Both in terms of quantity and trademark usage system, it ranks at the forefront of the industry.
Of course, Zhang Jingfu also emphasized that a trademark is just a logo, and only with goodwill and popularity can it become a brand. Specific to the execution level, this means that Meichao must always follow two inevitable paths in brand building: on the one hand, it must achieve the ultimate product quality to support the brand’s good reputation; on the other hand, it must do a good job in brand communication, Let Meichao’s voice reach a wider group of people.
The fragrance of wine is also afraid of the deep alleys, so that the brand can have a stronger awareness at the public level, and channel construction is the key.“Intensive channel cultivation and brand empowerment” is what Meichao proposes in this regard.8 wordsTactical essentials.
Channel intensive cultivation. For more than 20 years, Meichao has insisted on not doing direct sales and has delivered its products and services to thousands of households through a large dealer group. In this way, selecting dealers with greater distribution capabilities, lofty ambitions and higher business prospects, thereby improving the overall level of the dealer team, will be crucial to Meichao’s future results in the regional market. Up to now, Meichao has deployed 36 legal entities across the country and built a channel network to serve Chinese consumers with 8 sales regions.
Brand empowerment can be summarized from two dimensions. The first is to expand brand promotion through traditional media and new media, including strengthening the release of advertisements and strengthening offline brand empowerment in various forms. The second is to make good use of offline dealer channels and let dealers have a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of Meichao through plans and other specific measures, thereby passing on Meichao’s good reputation to peers and users.
In order to more vividly convey the value of the Meichao brand, Zhang Jingfu told Sohu Focus Home, “At a dealer annual meeting two years ago, a dealer partner shook my hand with me and was very excited. He walked with Meichao. After 19 years of experience, he expressed his high recognition of the Meichao brand and hoped to cooperate for another 19 years. I also heard the emotion of another dealer. He mentioned that there are two reasons for choosing Meichao. One is The quality is good, and secondly, the Meichao brand itself can attract a lot of potential customers even without promotion.”
Take product strength as the cornerstone and “do a good job” in terms of quality
“The best interpretation of integrity is to make good products.” Interior decoration accessories are closely related to home life and health. Zhang Jingfu has repeatedly expressed the importance of “good products” and emphasized “doing a good job” in terms of quality, and the influence of brand Strength must ultimately be consolidated by products.
As for how to create good products, it depends on the three dimensions of advanced equipment, high-quality raw materials, and excellent R&D teams.
The first is the application of raw materials,Zhang Jingfu clarified Meichao’s material selection standards: good products must use good materials. In order to ensure the green and environmentally friendly quality of its products from the source, Meichao insists on cooperating with the world’s top brands, carefully selecting materials and improving technology. It is reported that in 2018, in order to pass the world’s four most stringent environmental certifications, Meichao specially customized formulas and processes with top international emulsion suppliers. After research and production, Meichao Water Solid became the first dual-component product in China to pass the European Eurofins IAC official website certification. waterproof products.
As far as production equipment is concerned,For Meichao, good equipment is not only about efficiency, it also makes an important contribution to the high-quality development of products. Therefore, Meichao purchases globally, and its current production lines all use top-notch manufacturing equipment. At the same time, the entire industrial bus control system and intelligent scene operations are at the forefront of the world.
It is precisely this kind of close attention and continuous pursuit of internationally leading quality that Meichao has received various praises from global peers for its mortar product production line, such as “the top of the world’s mortar”. Zhang Jingfu proudly mentioned, “The world’s No. 1 brand and the world’s best equipment can be found in the Meichao factory. To use the expression of industry insiders: There is no need to go abroad for inspection, just come to Meichao.”
The third dimension goes back to technology-driven.When visiting the Meichao laboratory, the global vice president of ABB expressed this view: This is one of the best laboratories I have ever seen in the world.
Meichao is not only a manufacturer of traditional excipients, but also a technology-driven enterprise! To this end, Zhang Jingfu has a clear understanding that Meichao relies on the industry’s more advanced technology to bring more valuable products to consumers.
Driven by technology, R&D will be increased. Meichao has a high-quality technical R&D team. Taking the Beijing headquarters of Meichao Group as an example, the proportion of doctors is about 3%, the proportion of graduate students is nearly 20%, and the proportion of bachelor degree or above is over 60%. Meichao has a high-quality team that is different from traditional excipient manufacturing companies, providing long-term driving force for the company’s sustainable development.
With the strong support of the above three dimensions, Meichao’s products have sufficient confidence to continue to upgrade towards quality and environmental protection. All Meichao products have previously passed the French A+ standard, one of the world’s four most stringent environmental certifications, and have been upgraded to Finnish M1 certification. The new odor evaluation has further improved the overall level of Meichao’s environmental certification. Today’s four major environmental certifications: American UL Green Guard[Gold Level]certification, European Eurofins IAC[Gold Level]certification, German GEV[EC1PLUS]certification and Finnish RTS[M1 Level]certification provide society and consumers with assured and environmentally friendly products. Indoor accessories products.
In addition, Meichao’s paint brand “Huacai Paint”, which is committed to becoming “China’s best paint”, has attracted much attention in recent years. Zhang Jingfu was very surprised by the high attention Huacai Paint has attracted in society. He revealed that the Huacai paint assembly line will adhere to Meichao’s strict standards in the manufacturing of auxiliary materials and use the best equipment. “I can responsibly say that Meichao Huacai Paint’s production line will be one of the best in the world.”
In terms of raw materials, Huacai Paint has currently established an advanced color mixing system, and has cooperated with NCS (Natural Color System), the world’s leading brand of water-based paint systems, and obtained its five-year right to use in China. After years of hard work, Meichao insists on pursuing perfection at a steady pace. We believe that the first barrel of Huacai paint after entering the market will deliver benchmark quality.
Use communication power as a medium to amplify the voice of “Meichao”
Brand consists of two important dimensions: awareness and goodwill.
Zhang Jingfu vividly said that visibility is to shout your voice louder so that more people can hear your existence. Goodwill fills in the reputation more fully. An important means to expand brand awareness and improve goodwill is communication.
20 years ago, people got to know Meichao through public media such as Beijing TV Station and Beijing Communications Station. In today’s new media era, Meichao is widely advertised in 19 cities in China every day and cooperates with Sohu Focus Home, etc. Relevant friendly business media have in-depth cooperation in content planning, project co-construction and other aspects.
In addition to media promotion, Meichao consciously carries out brand communication through offline channels. For example, during the Spring Festival of 2024, Meichao held the third New Year Annual Meeting. The main theme of the annual meeting was to pay tribute to employees and their families who have worked hard for a year, and invited the planned representatives of “Guarding health, supporting environmental protection, and Dealer partners who have a stronger understanding and practice of the mission of “adding color to the nation”.
At the end of the conversation, Zhang Jingfu reviewed and summarized the 27-year history of Meichao’s stable business. Zhang Jingfu replied: “I always stick to my values, be an honest person, and do things honestly. If running a business is also a science, then We must follow a realistic attitude; at the same time, Meichao employees are witnesses of the company’s development process, and their rights and values must be respected. Only by allowing Meichao employees to realize their vision can the company grow.”
postscript:
The “Outline for Building a Quality Power” issued by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council pointed out that by 2025, China’s brand construction needs to make greater progress, form a group of corporate brands with excellent quality, obvious advantages, and independent intellectual property rights, promote high-quality development and create high-quality products. quality life.
In the past few decades, some companies have withdrawn from the stage of history due to poor management, while some companies have persisted due to their differentiated competitive advantages. Now, they are standing at the starting point of the upward cycle and are about to face new challenges and opportunities. As people pay more and more attention to environmentally friendly life at home, some home furnishing brands have gradually entered the public eye. For enterprises, how to strengthen “brand building” is undoubtedly a new topic.
If we summarize the key words of China’s outstanding local enterprises, “toughness”, “innovation” and “high standards” will definitely be ranked at the top; as a representative of national brands, Meichao adheres to brand power as the soul and product strength as the cornerstone. , communication power as the media, the three forces combine to precipitate the brand advantages of Meichao. While expanding the scale and increasing profits, Meichao will continue to practice the corporate mission of “escort health, help environmental protection, and add color to the nation”, and help traditional The excipient industry is accelerating towards modernization, and the home life of the majority of consumer groups will also be more environmentally friendly and of higher quality.