Enhance Competitiveness With Brand Strategy

At present, China has entered the transitional period after joining the WTO, the market has accelerated to open up, and domestic enterprises have already integrated into global competition. How to enhance brand competitive advantage is a major and urgent practical topic before Chinese enterprise interface. Recently, our reporter interviewed Ma Yuhua, President of China Merchants Bank. "For an enterprise, having a brand that is enduring and is honed by the long history is the most competitive advantage. Therefore, brand is a kind of reputation, which is a kind of value, a strength and an image. "Ma Yuhua values the brand very much. Ma Yuhua believes that in the face of the strong brand influence of international trade, China's financial enterprises must be good at learning from the successful experience of foreign excellent enterprises, and give full play to their existing advantages and strengthen their independent innovation in order to build strong brands. Financial brand can only be owned by itself through independent innovation, otherwise the brand will become an empty shell and lose its unique competitiveness. Taking credit card as an example, in 2001, China Merchants Bank declined the cooperation invitation of a world-renowned financial institution, creatively explored the new model of introducing mature advisory team, and adhered to the road of independent development. In just 13 months, the bank successfully developed international standard credit cards and quickly occupied the market, creating a new record for the first year in the Asia Pacific region. Nowadays, China Merchants Bank's credit card has more and more brand influence both at home and abroad. It has become the largest dual currency credit card issuing bank in China. Credit card is a case in which CMB successfully combines brand creation with experience grafting. In fact, China Merchants Bank always adheres to the development of international advanced banks and relies on independent innovation. In 1995, the first all-in-one card was developed in China. In 1999, it launched the first comprehensive online bank in China. In 2003, it launched the "golden sunflower financial management". In 2004, it launched the "wealth account", which was called the "3G era of personal financial services". It is the continuous innovation of these products, services and technologies that has won the brand competitiveness and relative leading edge for China Merchants Bank. In recent years, the bank has been awarded numerous awards such as "China's best commercial bank", "China's most respected enterprises" and "China's top ten listed companies" by domestic and foreign media. Looking back at the way China Merchants Bank has taken the brand strategy to enhance its competitiveness in recent years, Ma Yuhua pointed out: "the reason why China Merchants Bank has certain brand independent innovation ability is largely due to a relatively sound corporate governance structure. Diversified ownership structure, specialized board organization and market-oriented incentive mechanism have strongly protected the initiative, scientificity and enthusiasm of independent innovation of China Merchants Bank. "From the practical experience of China Merchants Bank, the bank has adopted three strategies in brand building. First, the strategy of brand positioning differentiation. China's banking market is a typical diversified market, and domestic banks have relatively large differences in terms of system, scale, culture and customer resources. This provides natural conditions for banks to implement differentiated brand positioning. China Merchants Bank has been committed to the implementation of differentiation strategy for many years, aiming at the three major customer groups including young people, urban white-collar workers and high-end customers, and launched financial products such as "Netcom", "wealth account" and "golden sunflower". This series of innovative products has received positive market response due to its accurate positioning and high quality service. Second, precision strategy of brand marketing. With the increasing diversity of media, it is becoming more and more important to choose the appropriate communication platform. The cooperation between China Merchants Bank and CCTV is a win-win result. Third, the internationalization strategy of brand management. Brand building must have an international vision, but not limited to the original ideas, from name selection, logo design to brand positioning, product publicity, planning and operation. Commercial banks should take account of the international market factors and continuously enhance the value of financial brands. At present, China Merchants Bank is actively drawing on the international advanced bank's brand operation mode and skills, and implementing visual image project. From the visual unification of advertising, the planning and design of business hall, the revision of website design and the national unification of staff dress, the China Merchants Bank is quietly carrying out a visual image revolution. "Famous brand is not only an important symbol of an enterprise's economic strength and market reputation, but also a symbol of a country's economic strength. One of the top 100 most valuable brands in the US Business Week 2004 is not. Therefore, building a strong brand is an important force in building core competitiveness. China's financial enterprises must shoulder the responsibilities entrusted to us by the times, strive to enhance their capability of independent innovation and realize the grand blueprint for national rejuvenation. "Ma Yuhua finally said to reporters.