Opportunity in Front

ChangAn Auto, a leading local automotive brand in China, launched its new sub Electric Vehicle brand Deepal (深蓝) in the midst of a pandemic and auto market downturn. The new brand was entering a fiercely competitive market with strong existing players such as NIO and Tesla in the mid/high-end EV track. The challenge for ChangAn was to stand out and rejuvenate its old track brand image, raise consumer awareness, recognition, and ultimately loyalty of the new EV subbrand through branding.

The Journey from Insights to Impact

ChangAn Auto engaged a professional management consulting company to assist with the Deepal brand experience design upgrade. The project journey involved a comprehensive digital and experience strategy to enhance the brand’s category differentiation and maintain consistent expression across touchpoints.

The project was implemented through the following stages:

1. Digital Brand Strategy & Roadmap: The consulting team developed a digital brand strategy and roadmap through owned brand experience models. The strategy aimed to enhance the brand’s digital presence by developing an online magazine, IP events, and membership systems.

2. Unique Integrated Design Strategy, Visual System, Brand Applications: The consulting team developed a unique integrated design strategy that included a visual system and brand applications, all integrated into one brand style guide. The guide included guidelines for the brand’s logo, typography, color palette, and imagery. This ensured a consistent brand expression across all touchpoints.

3. Tailored Sonic Identity: To enhance brand recognition, the consulting team tailored Deepal’s own sonic identity, which included sound logos, brand soundscapes, and audio signatures.

4. Holistic Brand Experience Design: The consulting team designed a holistic brand experience design that included four signature touchpoints – a branded environment (pop-up store), online magazine, IP events, and membership system. The branded environment was designed to offer customers an immersive experience of the brand. The online magazine provided customers with the latest news and trends in the EV industry. The IP events aimed to create an emotional connection with the brand, and the membership system was designed to create a sense of exclusivity and community among the brand’s customers.

Value Created through Innovation and Transformation

The Deepal Brand Experience Upgrade Project resulted in the following value creation:

1. Realization of ChangAn’s belief: The project helped ChangAn Auto to realize its belief and bring out its uniqueness to achieve long-term goals.

2. Strategic value of the new subbrand: The project helped escalate the strategic value of the new subbrand in ChangAn’s portfolio landscape to lead corporate brand modernization.

3. Enhanced customer experience: The holistic brand experience design and tailored sonic identity helped to create a more engaging and immersive customer experience. This led to increased consumer awareness, recognition, and ultimately loyalty of the new EV subbrand.

In conclusion, the Deepal Brand Experience Upgrade Project was a successful initiative that helped ChangAn Auto to differentiate its new subbrand in a fiercely competitive market, and achieve its long-term goals of brand image transformation and corporate brand modernization.