LED Lighting Industry Calls for Breakthrough in Category

Homogeneity is the constant pain in the lighting industry. The imitation of light has become a huge shadow in the lighting industry. When you walk from the beginning to the end of the ancient town of Shili Lighting Street, or take a stroll around any terminal market across the country, you will be surprised to find that many products produced by different manufacturers actually have the same style, basically only There are some differences in details, and people in the industry call it "copy lights, imitation lights."

What is even worse is that in order to eliminate the homogeneity and formulate a "differentiation" strategy, under the influence of various channels, there has inevitably been a homogenous difference. In marketing, all brands have expressed that they should take the branding line, strengthen the interaction of dealers, and help dealers from the aspects of image store design, terminal advertising, store management, promotion, and after-sales service. However, when we opened the newspaper, we knew that the original marketing strategy of each brand considered itself to be "differentiated" was similar, but the details were different!

Products are homogenous, technologically homogenous, prices are homogenous, and channels are homogenous... The shadow of the homogenization of the lighting industry is shrouded. All people of insight understand the cruelty and fierceness of the final outcome of homogenous competition, but what is it about the storm?

Category breakthrough is the king's way

Faced with all kinds of homogenization, in order to avoid the emergence of the final evil, some people of insight put forward a new concept - "differentiation", "We want to do different products, provide different services," but we have just Also see that the so-called differentiation is only the difference of homogeneity.

How to break through? I think this will return to the first question mentioned in the previous article: What is the profit model of a company? Only by determining "what we have to earn" can we determine "what to make money," and this "what to earn money" involves a product positioning.

The author believes that an accurate product category positioning is more important than anything, that is to say, "What can I represent?" Because it is necessary to shape the psychological understanding of consumers, the core of brand marketing must be clear to tell consumers what I sell! A brand can only become a brand if it can represent something, just as NVC represents commercial lighting, and Op represents home lighting. In the past two years, in the field of severely homogenized electrical switches, a brand called “Home” has rapidly grown into a brand that can compete with front-line brands such as TNV, TCL, and Futian. The reason is that “steel frame switch” is the category. breaking point.

Of course, it is very difficult to differentiate product development, and product design is also difficult to differentiate. At present, many people of insight have mentioned technological innovation and the like, but in fact, the scale of the overall lighting lighting industry companies It will not be great, and it will be difficult to invest in major scientific research costs.

Then, is the lighting company's product category positioning different from the product concept? First put forward a lot of new product concepts, we often say, first of all to "product conceptualization", that is to do marketing, first of all to give the product a concept; then, we must "conceptualized product", that is to implement the concept Specific product development and design, so that the product can truly reflect this concept. Otherwise, there is no concept of product landing, it is just a skin. At present, many lighting companies have begun to carry out the first step of "product conceptualization" work, such as the same is the field of home lighting, Liang Di proposed intelligent lighting, Oakes scene lighting, Sheng Hao healthy lighting, etc., are good concepts . Just whether there is “conceptualization” or not is what these brands need to think about in the next step.

The author believes that brand positioning is focused on a distinct feature of the product, and brand positioning based on product feature differences or concept differences is also an approach to break through, and this product difference must adhere to the “profit model of the enterprise is What kind of body.

Product innovation has a process

If the launch of new products is easy to sell, then within a few days, the new lights developed with great effort will become "public resources" in the lighting industry. The R&D manufacturers have invested a lot of manpower and material resources in the research and development of new lights, which has resulted in high product costs, resulting in market prices that are higher than those of the “emulated lighters”. As a result, the development of new products has become miserable, which is why many companies The reason for not willing to innovate. What's more, due to the small overall size, it is very difficult for lighting companies to carry out some creative product technology research and development.

Taking the author's company as an example, in view of the limitations of the company's technological development capabilities, the author proposes to determine the profit model first, and then to carry out the product category positioning, and then let the "conceptualized product" fall to the ground. In specific operations, the author proposed that companies should focus on product development and sales. And starting from the company's realistic conditions, it is proposed that the company's product research and development can focus on appearance development and light source research. Light source is the foundation of the company and it is also a guarantee. As for appearance design, the company may employ a group of design masters or outsourcing professional design companies to meet the needs of the market. Monthly or quarterly assessments will be made. The company will manufacture parts and accessories with the outsourcing factory. The company will assemble and regularly produce new products. . In this case, the company's investment will not be great, and product innovation will be fast.

At the same time, the author boldly proposed the idea of ​​manufacturing outsourcing. According to the principle of the smile curve, the manufacturing link is the lowest input-output ratio and the most difficult to control. At present, many small and medium-sized lighting companies have large fluctuations in product quality, recruitment difficulties, and large-scale quality control teams. Derived issues. The author proposes that many non-core workshops can be outsourced or that these workshops can be “contracted within the system” to increase production efficiency. The company focused on the establishment of light source workshops and ceiling lamps assembly workshops, and many of the accessories manufacturing is completed by professional outsourcing factories. After all, the surgery industry has specialization.

Of course, lighting companies' product innovation has a long process. In particular, the increase in raw material prices this year, the market is not sufficiently active, and the retail sales and staff salaries have increased sharply. It is difficult for companies that imitate and follow to have a competitive advantage in prices, but brand lighting companies have highlighted the advantages of scale manufacturing and management. With the competitive advantage of products, the industry reshuffle is also imperative, but how many companies have product management departments? How many companies have established product manager positions?

"The players who are good players don't want to be good players." The same is true for companies. With strategies, the road is longer and will one day come. The lighting industry, which is in a stage of rapid development, should start to think about and choose the future development strategy. As Mengniu said, the train of thought determines the way out and the layout determines the outcome.