On the afternoon of December 27, under the guidance of the Foshan Ceramic Society and sponsored and undertaken by China Ceramics Network, the "One Rock and Nine Tripods" Slate Industry Development Strategy Summit and the 2nd "Golden Rock Award" Award Ceremony were held at China Ceramics in Nanzhuang, Foshan The Ceramic Theater of the headquarters was held grandly.
On the same day, Chen Xiaodong, founder and managing director of Foshan Sendi Building Materials Co., Ltd., gave a keynote speech titled "Exploring the Branding of Slate Slabs".
The following content is a transcript of Mr. Chen Xiaodong’s speech (not verified by myself):
Chen Xiaodong
I think there are actually two reasons why I can stand on this stage. The first reason is my career, first of all, design and R&D. I have more than ten years of experience in stone marketing, and more than 20 years of experience in the ceramic tile and slate business. The second reason is that our company benefits the most from the branding of rock slabs. This year’s performance growth due to the branding of rock slabs has been four times that since the epidemic. Before the epidemic, we were growing at a rate of 100% every year.
I am one of the general agents of Orist in China, and Orist is the number one brand of IRIS. IRIS's rock slabs are sold at the highest prices in the world. After I represented this brand, I studied its methodology and started my own brand from scratch. In one year, the growth of my business was at least 5 times higher than this year.
Stone slabs are the future
But we did it wrong
What’s going on with the rock slabs now? The first is the price. The price of most slates is already lower than that of ceramic tiles. The other is that slates are not like the ceramic tile industry, which began to decline before it flourished. So now many companies that make slates have turned back and continue to make ceramic tiles. But this road is a dead end.
Why? Invest in slate because ceramic tiles are no longer easy to make. The investment cost of slate is 2-3 times that of ceramic tiles. The boss of a company told me that if he didn’t invest, he would still have one to two hundred million in cash in his account.It became a negative equity. It turned out that the slate was not finished, so I wanted to turn around and continue making ceramic tiles. This is just like what you were doing was not easy to do, and you thought it was hopeless. Then you changed something, but it turned out that you didn't do it well. You found that you are more desperate than before, and then you want to continue to do the original hopeless thing. This in itself is a dead end.
It is difficult to make rock slabs now, but if we don’t make rock slabs, where will our future be? The ceramic industry has actually reached the lowest end of this value curve, but rock slabs are still at the opportunity point. The answer is that there is no future if we don’t make rock slabs. There is a future for rock slabs, it’s just that we don’t know how. No one can see hope simply because the past methods have failed.
Whether we are a human being or a business, we must remember that this word is called cause and effect. Many people think cause and effect is mysterious, but in fact, cause and effect is not mysterious in business, it is scientific. If you want to produce a result, you must have the factors that produce this result; we did not get this result because our factors were not complete; or because time and space are easier, the corresponding factors have changed, but we did not Find all these factors and that’s it.
So, rock slabs are our hope, but the way we do things is wrong.
Building a brand requires "love"
The rock slab is hope, but the method is wrong and the factors are wrong. So how do we get this factor back?
The brand itself is the cause and effect, and the cause and effect is to stretch the time long enough. Let me emphasize that building a brand is running a marathon. In the past, our so-called brands relied on luck and popularity.
In my opinion, brands need "love". Love requires resonance and attraction, not event marketing. So what we have to do is plant grass. In the past, we have been doing things to promote, rather than doing things to attract. Our brand needs to reflect on this issue. What consumers need is that you are on the same channel as them, rather than forcing you to push them some product. Resonance and attraction require us to create value. It's like when a girl loves a man, she must love some qualities in the man.
Chinese people feel that Italian marketing is very lousyw, because Italian counterparts only do two things a year, hold exhibitions and conduct research and development in their bases. But even if we only do these two things, our Italian counterparts have always been growing steadily. For example, Orist's growth has more than tripled this year. One project in Qingdao is 400,000 square meters, while we only have 400,000 square meters a year. It can be seen that it is not that the brand is not easy to make, but the way we make it is wrong.
Olister’s rock slabs are the most expensive in the world, so how do they do it?
It follows natural aesthetics, and then rises from natural aesthetics to systematic aesthetics, such as plane, space, planning, etc. All production, standards, management and control, chemical industry, materials and the integration of the entire industry chain are all working around the core of system aesthetics. Then they created a marketing system called "Cultural Resonance." Cultural resonance refers to the spiritual level of consumers. They will do whatever touches them in their hearts and stay on the same page as consumers. They are building this system, not doing marketing, but after building the system, their marketing will be finished. This is what our company has been lacking.
Slate marketing benchmarking stone
Such a structure has been formed around the world: stone is the highest end, followed by slate, and ceramic tiles are at the bottom. The pain point of making stone is that it cannot be standardized or normalized, but the marketing of stone is the most high-end, because all the big names in design and all top projects use stone. We sell the world's most high-end stone, and we can earn 1 million yuan per piece.
The marketing of stone can sell the added value so high, but neither slate nor ceramic tiles can, so the real marketing is not the original routine of our ceramic tiles, it is foam and moisture. . Now that I am making slate, I will only tell you the result. The result is fashionable, international, youthful, and modern. You must understand what design language is.
This is my own summary and personal opinion, and the facts have produced results. In the past, the designs and colors of rock slabs were randomly made, and only one material was sold, which led to today's embarrassing situation. The logic we used is still the same as before when we made artificial stones. The result is that we earn 5 yuan per square meter. Our logic is the same as that of stone. Which stone colors are the most popular and which ones are the best at the moment?, we make slates and sell them to stone-making channels.
So it is very simple to add value when making rock slabs. That is to make the best-selling varieties in the natural stone industry, the most popular varieties in the natural stone industry, and then follow the layout of the natural stone industry. Make products based on standards, and then build an industrial system that meets these standards, such as equipment, presses, specifications, designs, transportation, packaging, etc. Finally, we build an operating system based on the natural stone industry, which includes two aspects: one is the brand's operating logic, and the other is the entire service system.
If our ceramic tile channels can complement this system, why not worry about the lack of slate? There is no shortage of stores, teams, brand concepts, or service systems. It just lacks the system. As long as we make up for this lesson, the breaking point of our slate is exactly the original tile. This is what our colleagues abroad do.
The core of the system is aesthetics
I believe that more than 90% of current companies have not seriously studied this system because they have not studied aesthetics. From the team structure to the entire research direction of our company, we focus on silicates, presses, and powder formulations. We just made the rock slab, but it is a worthless rock slab.
But Italy is different. What is the aesthetic design direction of Milan Design Week? Their production line studies how to realize it. Our company does not have this, which is why we are in this predicament now. But if we study these things seriously, we can naturally go with Italy.
Lay the foundation first, and then upgrade step by step. The first is the basic upgrade, such as polishing, color, and transparency; the second step is to upgrade the texture, then upgrade the mold, and then upgrade the material aesthetics and material art. This is the Italian upgrade process. This is the Italian approach, with design taking the lead and industry, equipment and chemical engineering working in reverse.
In comparison, domestic peers are somewhat weak. However, the industry has been developed for more than 20 years and has already matured. Why is it still worse in China than in Italy? What's wrong? What is poor is the basic research on aesthetics, such as the relationship between aesthetics and glaze, the relationship between aesthetics and ink, the relationship between aesthetics and inkjet, and the relationship between aesthetics and temperature. 90% of these companies have not done research, but if you don’t do research in the future, you may not be able to turn your production line back to making ceramic tiles.
Are these actually difficult to say?It’s difficult because you don’t understand it, but it’s really easy to say it’s easy because there are fixed suppliers, fixed parameters, and fixed standards. This system corresponds to building the ink system, building the glaze system, building the polishing system, building the anti-fouling system, etc. It is very simple. I only need five or six pieces of paper to finish it. When you achieve it, you can actually compete with your peers at the same time.
But the difficulty lies in whether our original production team, R&D team, and marketing team are willing to change. From now on, if a company does not study this system, then the company cannot be said to be a decorative materials company at all, because decorative materials serve space, and space serves the quality of life. What is needed is aesthetics, material aesthetics and decoration. aesthetics.
Correct your attitude and work together
How to plan the current production? I use my own imagination to copy a little bit here and a little bit there, and then combine them together. Once the result is made, the method is wrong, or it is too short, or it is too long, or the specifications are wrong. Use the requirements of large specifications to make small-sized products. Therefore, what Chinese companies are most lacking now is product managers, and this package of adjustments must start from the source.
Is there any hope for us to adjust? The Italians helped us calculate the Chinese market and said that our Chinese market is so big that it could reach 200 billion a year at least. The original estimate was 240 billion, but now because of the epidemic, it has dropped to 200 billion. Where there is a market, there is a future, so we have hope.
But I hope everyone can correct our attitude, correct our understanding of the brand, and work in a down-to-earth manner.
Why can’t our slate be better than Italy’s? Basic subjects were not studied well. Research on glaze, but half of it, in order to cater to the low-price market and reduce costs. In order to reduce costs, the designs and colors were reduced, and in order to reduce costs, the cost of glazes was reduced, falling for three consecutive years, four consecutive falls, and five consecutive falls. The whiteness of bricks has been set from the standard of 82 degrees to 65 degrees, then dropped from 65 degrees to 55 degrees, from 55 degrees to 40 degrees, now to 35 degrees, and then to 26 degrees. How can you say there is hope?
So I hope that companies that are not suitable will be eliminated, so that we can have hope. Those companies that stick to one thing, learn from Italy and study basic disciplines, can There is hope. Our company is just like Huawei. Even if it is suppressed, this is the right attitude. We must pursue technology, industry and trade.path, rather than the path of trade, industry, and technology.
