SANYO brand delisting appliance brand strategy blessing unknown

For a home appliance company with multiple brands on hand, what is more and better, or less and better?

A few days ago, the "SANYO" logo outside the Sanyo Electric Headquarters building in Moriguchi, Osaka Prefecture, Japan has been dismantled. From January 2012, Panasonic and Sanyo will carry out restructuring and integration work. The Sanyo brand will cease to exist in April. At the same time, after Sony completed the acquisition of shares in the joint venture company Sony Ericsson, it also confirmed that it would abandon the Sony Ericsson brand in 2012.

In addition to the "Sanyo family name song", "Sony's cut love", the "China Enterprise News" reporter saw in recent years in the Chinese home appliance market, Europe and the United States Electrolux, Philips, Japan's Hitachi, Toshiba, Pioneer, South Korea's modern, Foreign brands such as Kyocera suffered a decline in brand influence caused by the slump in their own market performance. At the same time, the acquisitions of Rongshida, Little Swan, Hualing, Kelon, Meiling, and Huayi by domestic companies such as Midea, Hisense, and Changhong have created a lively scene in which a company has multiple brands.

At present, the main contradiction existing in the domestic household electrical appliance enterprises is that: the development of the company's expansion depends on the drive of large-scale growth and the development of the industry begins to enter a slow or long decline channel is difficult to support. The increase in the number of corporate brands brought about by rapid capital mergers and acquisitions and the brand influence that global integration competition encounters are weak. For the implementation of multi-branded Chinese home appliance companies, when the industry enters a mature period, it is facing a leap from asset and personnel integration to brand and system resource integration.

Foreign companies: Brand delisting

Since Panasonic announced the acquisition of Sanyo Electric in 2009, news of the delisting of the “Sanyo” brand has been accompanied by the entire process of integration of the two companies. As Panasonic sold Sanyo's white electricity business to Haier in China, it means Panasonic's acquisition of SANYO's acquisition of a fully integrated new energy business and the external spin-off of a highly competitive home appliance business have basically stopped.

In order to realize the unity of corporate brand image in the world, “China Enterprise” reporter saw that as early as many years ago, Panasonic Electric Co., Ltd. resolutely gave up the “National” trademark that enjoys high popularity in the world and instead fully promoted the “Panasonic” brand. . After the Sanyo integration was completed last year, the reunification of Sanyo with Panasonic became a necessity.

At present, in the Chinese market, companies affected by the delisting of the Sanyo brand mainly include Hefei Sanyo with washing machines and microwave ovens, Shenyang Sanyo with air-conditioning, and Dongguan Sanyo with TV. In terms of market performance, once the Sanyo brand delisted, Hefei Sanyo was the one that suffered the most, and Sanyo's air-conditioning business was on the edge of delisting. Dongguan Sanyo’s TV business has just become the exclusive brand of Gome.

Unlike the Sanyo brand delisting that involves multiple Chinese partners, the delisting of Sony Ericsson is relatively simple. Since Ericsson is no longer involved in the competition of terminal products such as mobile phones, Sony hopes to use this platform to seamlessly connect multimedia entertainment and other content. As Sony Ericsson has fallen out of the mainstream brand camp in the global mobile phone market in recent years, the re-entering of the Sony brand will undoubtedly open up a new market situation.

Unlike foreign-funded enterprises that have completed corporate mergers and acquisitions, in the Chinese home appliance industry where brand concentration is low and brand recognition is not high, mergers and acquisitions between companies will not result in delisting of the brand but will be reactivated or even re-utilized. , Became a new direction for multi-brand operations after the expansion of diversified businesses.

Local: Strong advance

In contrast to mergers and acquisitions with foreign companies, the choice of brand delisting is different. In recent years, mergers and acquisitions and expansion of home appliance companies in China have staged a new round of “multi-brand” competitions. Through mergers and acquisitions, Midea Group added the operating rights of Little Swan, Hualing, Rongshida and other brands. Hisense Group added two brands, Kelon and Rongsheng. Changhong received many other brands such as Meiling, Huayi, and Gasibaila. The brands, even the GOME Group, have won the right to operate franchise brands such as Yongle Electrical Appliances, Dazhong Electric, Golden Sun and Black Swan. Haier Group has launched two new brands, Casa Imperial and Marshal.

In recent years, after the restructuring of the company, Little Swan, Kelon, Meiling, Huayi and many other market brands have been activated and rebuilt to become the new market leader. When Little Swan returned to the status of leading domestic washing machine, Midea Group once again expanded the expansion of Little Swan brand to air-conditioners and refrigerators. Some acquired brands have now become an important platform for companies to participate in market competition.

In contrast to Panasonic’s abandonment of the Sanyo brand, it is different from the fact that “its brand awareness is lacking in stamina and the brand value is beginning to decline”. The Chinese home appliance companies that have just completed the development of the first barrel of gold have just completed the diversified expansion of their products. Filled with the impulse to expand brand diversification, some brands are relatively young and still have room to be reshaped and enriched.

As China's home appliance industry has not yet formed a stable brand awareness and there is no clear brand positioning theory, under the dual market structure of urban and rural areas, enterprises face multi-brand operations of different consumer groups, instead they will form “1+1”. >2" effect. At the same time, China's home appliance industry has for many years developed a “big and strong” development path. From large-scale manufacturing to multi-brand operations, the logic of its business operations is the same, and companies are also rewarded for their brand investment.