Recently, Lei Jun has become popular again with Xiaomi SU7.
In the past 30 days, his personal social media accounts have gained 4.05 million, 200,000, and 260,000 followers on Douyin, Xiaohongshu, and Bilibili, respectively, with a total increase of over 4.51 million followers across the entire network.
On Weibo, Lei Jun follows 1,525 accounts covering 31 interest areas in five categories, which can be grouped into four categories: finance, automotive technology, the Internet, and entertainment stars.
Lei Jun, founder of Xiaomi, waves at the launch of the sports four-door sedan SU7 in Beijing, March 28, 2024.
Although Lei Jun only follows 41 entertainment stars, almost all of them are his cross-industry partners or help Xiaomi gain traffic. As Zhou Hongyi, the boss of 360 Group, praised, "Lei Jun is the god of marketing."
In his cross-border interactions with the entertainment industry, Lei Jun has sung, danced, filmed movies, and played cosplay... No wonder fans have two soul-touching names for Lei Jun, "Lei Busi" and "Lei Dehua".
However, Lei Jun's cross-border approach is by no means random. What he has always conveyed to users is innovation and youth.
In the fan portrait of Xiaomi, the proportion of people aged 20-29 is 25.4%, 30-34 is 31.7%, 35-39 is 11.8%, which adds up to 68.9%. If you add some people who are exactly 40 years old, it is about 70%. In other words, the proportion of Xiaomi users aged 20-40 is exactly 70%. When Lei Jun chose spokespersons, he highly matched the preferences of this group of people. These 41 entertainment stars cover the middle-aged and young age groups, basically covering the "star chasing range" of this group of people.
In 2016, Xiaomi debuted with the national mobile phone packaging and invited three spokespersons at the time - national uncle Wu Xiubo + national goddess Liu Shishi + national junior Liu Haoran. At the 2017 Redmi new product launch conference, Liu Haoran's slip of the tongue when interacting with Lei Jun also unexpectedly brought a wave of traffic to Lei Jun.
In his interactions with spokespersons, Lei Jun is well aware of the traffic value of celebrities. Wang Yuan, one of the members of TFBoys, was once a brand spokesperson for Xiaomi. At Wang Yuan's concert, Lei Jun sent a flower basket to express his congratulations, which was praised by Wang Yuan's fans.
In 2022, Wang Yibo became the spokesperson for Xiaomi. Lei Jun chartered a plane to take Wang Yibo to the Xiaomi Technology Park. Lu Weibing, partner and president of Xiaomi Group, accompanied Wang Yibo for a night run in the Xiaomi Park. That night, many employees in the park took the initiative to work overtime to stay and see the star. The night run was spectacular, and Lei Jun also checked in for Wang Yibo's movie "Nameless". In his interaction with Wang Yibo, Lei Jun left an intriguing copy: The most charming look is love with a little cruelty.
In addition to brand spokespersons, Lei Jun also pays attention to many powerful actors such as Liu Mintao, Yao Chen, Liu Ye, Tong Liya, Zhao Liying, Hu Ge, etc. When the popular TV series "The Pretender" and "Nirvana in Fire" were broadcast, Lei Jun publicly expressed his appreciation for actor Hu Ge and promoted Xiaomi TV by the way.
Although Lei Jun is a typical engineering and technical man, he also extends his marketing tentacles to variety entertainment and movies, which is inseparable from Lei Jun’s other two friends Ma Dong and He Jiong. In 2017, before the release of Xiaomi 6, Lei Jun sponsored "U Can U Bibi" for a high price of 140 million yuan and participated in the recording of the program.
At the recording site, Lei Jun showed his courage to make fun of himself. He not only burst out with the joke "Are you ok?", but also said the golden sentence "Anyone who talks too much can't be trusted". It is said that the slogan in the program "The phone that is used to cause trouble" was thought up by Ma Dong. And He Jiong jokingly called Lei Jun's financial sponsor "godfather" on the program, which also made Lei Jun a little embarrassed.
In addition to variety shows, Lei Jun also tried to cross over with singers. In April 2015, Lei Jun, host Xie Na, and singer Zhang Jie jointly announced on Weibo that they would cross over. Lei Jun himself performed the rap "What's Nao Sha Zi Ma Nao" with Zhang Jie at the press conference. It is said that a Sichuan dialect song by Zhang Jie also appeared on Lei Jun's playlist. I can't sing well, but I love to sing. If you open QQ Music, you can even find Lei Jun's single collection, including the masterpiece Are You OK.
Lei Jun will not let go of any IP on the Internet. Many Xiaomi products have appeared in popular movies and TV series. A Xiaomi suitcase appeared in the hands of Ma Yili, the star of "My First Half of Life". The Xiaomi sweeping robot has also appeared on the Weibo of actresses Shu Qi and Ma Li, and the content of these Weibo posts also fermented at the time. Some netizens shouted in Shu Qi's Weibo that "Lei Jun's bouquet is on the way."
In the movie "The Richest Tomato" starring Shen Teng, Xiaomi's product placement is also very strong. Xiaomi headphones, Xiaomi projectors, Xiaomi bedside lamps, Xiaomi toothbrushes, Redmi phones, wireless microphones, and Xiaomi walkie-talkies all appear in the movie. It is worth mentioning that Xiaomi Pictures is also one of the producers of this film.
Not only "The Richest Man in Xihong City", Xiaomi Pictures has continued to focus on film investment, product placement and other businesses. Xiaomi Pictures also appeared in "Shock Wave" and "Detective Chinatown 2".
In November 2015, the movie "Ex-Files 2: The Backup Strikes Back" held a press conference, and this press conference teamed up with Xiaomi Technology Company, turning a movie release into a product launch. Huayi's artist Zheng Kai came on stage to help Lei Jun promote new products such as Xiaomi TV and balance bike. Zheng Kai even wore a black pullover and blue washed jeans, which were standard for Steve Jobs, and took a Xiaomi 4C to read the script, calling himself "Kaibusi". At this press conference, Lei Jun announced that he would delve into content production and cooperate with Huayi Brothers President Wang Zhonglei to establish the "New Shengtang" company.
Lei Jun not only invests in movies, but also dares to "act in movies". In April 2015, CCTV6 Movie Channel held the 5th Beijing International Film Festival Chinese Film New Focus event to explore the possibility of the Internet + movie model. The trailer named "Wind Outlet" was launched. Huang Xiaoming and Lei Jun started a mysterious dialogue with the opening of "The Godfather" to find the next wind outlet. "Standing on the wind outlet, even pigs can fly", as Lei Jun's famous saying, once swept the Internet.
From the above stories of interaction with entertainment stars, we can see that Lei Jun is good at using Internet thinking, user-centric, active interaction and word-of-mouth marketing. In the interaction with partners, Lei Jun's goal is also "win-win". After the launch of Xiaomi SU7, Lei Jun's interaction with actor Zhang Songwen reflected their high emotional intelligence and life wisdom.
In a program hosted by Sa Beining last year, Robin Li was asked: "If Jack Ma, Pony Ma, Liu Qiangdong, and Lei Jun all fell into the water, who would you save?"
Robin Li replied: "Save Lei Jun."