Hi Guys,
Huawei Technologies as I understood from reading articles published in the Harvard Business Review and by going through all the press releases and smartphone launch events which I was a part of starting from P8 to Mate S to Mate 8 and recently P9.
The strength of Huawei lies in its aggressive yet thoughtful approach to spend money where it demands and save where it can be saved. This has been the key principle across many companies and sectors now but Huawei is lavish in all its launch events where Huawei employees, distributors and sponsored team players along with media supporting the brand enjoy to their heart desires. As every employee is the shareholder of the company, they work hard to earn the reward. I have seen the quality of Huawei smartphones against some top mobile brands and I can say that Huawei brings some of the best features at the value for money price tag. I have also used various versions of wifi data cards and USB dongles from the brand and found them to be the top class. Those have been my constant companion during all the launch events or trips to have wifi available for all my gadgets.
During P8 they launched the light painting feature along with multi-directorial video feature to club several shots using several P8 smartphones to make one video covering different angles. The brand ambassadors are always the latest and the ones who really inspires the youth and the brand is constantly looking for in every country for the same. MiCasa's J Something was made Creative Director since P8 launch and he has been instrumental in bringing a lot of value to the brand locally. P8 Lite managed to cross more than 10 Million Shipments in just 9 months of it's launch. They launched their own Smartwatches along with Swarovski which looks awesomely great.
The launch of P8 happened first in London which is the most sought after location giving worldwide recognition along with giving several top bloggers from every country an opportunity to attend the same. I know of some people who have been part of those trips and they have had an amazing experience of the launch along with the latest smartphone in their hands to actually make them the very first amongst their peers to review the devices as well to keep them too. Along with every launch event there comes an either Huawei branded product or something else that makes it way toward you in the form of goodies bag to each and every person attending the event. I have received Huawei Wifi Data card, Hugo Boss Sunglasses, Mont Blanc Card Holder, Huawei Band and Huawei OTG 16gb pen drive.
The marketing timing is next to perfect as I have seen the posters going up in Sandton City as I was coming back from the launch event of P9 a little bit early to match the timing that people leaving for their cars could easily remember and recap all the things of the event in mind. P9 has great Hollywood stars becoming brand ambassadors Scarlett Johansson and Henry Cavill. Just some months ago, expanding their association with Soccer teams Lionel Messi was announced the global brand ambassador. At this year Valentine’s Day in Sandton City, the brand gave a special chocolate card to everyone who was passing their pop-up store and a similar maze exhibition was launched for Mate7 along with a Group Selfie Contest to make public aware of the brand with an opportunity to win their G7 mid-range devices. In South Africa, they sponsors the Ajax Cape Town soccer team as a whole and recently was part of Huawei Media Tour 2016 to China. Huawei also bought out the networking stakes in MTN and all MTN network engineers are now on the payrolls of the brand. With their Media Pads they collaborated with Harman Kardon to provide niche audio experience to the beholders of the device.
Huawei has cultivated new partnerships to bring latest technology to further their ambitions. They were the manufacturers for Google’s Nexus 6P and with P9 dual camera they have tied up with German photography lens brand Leica who have assisted them in bringing the latest niche camera smartphone. The P9 has one colored lens and one black and white lens to give you the liberty to choose your own style and no need of post processing the images any longer. This is also one of the innovations as other brands have only brought dual lens to make use of wide camera shots or 3D shots. With the latest collaborations with 94.7FM and KFM the brand is going to reach each and every corner of Gauteng and Western Cape from which the business will drive the company forward. I am not aware of the Rest of Africa’s strategy but I think it will be the same worldwide to capture as many penetration as possible. Along with that this time they have tied up with Hugo Boss to offer their sunglasses worth R3000 with every purchase of P9 and P9 Plus.
Huawei have also tied up with top instagrammers and photographers to showcase their smartphone camera capability including Tim Moolman who was last seen promoting LG G4. He has been given an opportunity to travel to all 9 provinces in 9 weeks and people can follow his journey and share it on their social media channels to win premium devices. With several Instagram competitions running to giving people an opportunity to win several of their top devices, Huawei is not leaving any stone unturned to keep them trending on a daily basis. Earlier during Easter, they had fun competition with their telecom partners to hold a treasure hunt on the principle of Finders keepers. I did tried my luck but unfortunately went to the wrong location but I did had fun running from one shop to another.
African market has strong hold of Samsung and Apple but slowly and steadily with great products and price range the brand has reached a good stronghold. The same pattern is seen in Indian market when Apple quarters profit fell and CEO came running to India to open new App development centers to reach the market that’s so huge that only China and India is enough to make any brand successful. Huawei has done great with Honor brand in India but to replace Samsung in the niche market will be an uphill climb as was the case for Apple but I am sure that Huawei will surpass that too in the next 2-3 years. With the Brand Logo changing its color from Red to Black, it has opted for the color of choice of World’s top brands rather than just China's Splendid Achievement as mentioned on Wikipedia. The company is building itself by investing vast amount of money into the research and development of the new products.
I didn’t had any such luck to be travelling with the marketing team to the launch event in London or a trip to China till this day but I do get invited to the South Africa launch events. I have really spammed my social media channels to promote and showcase their smartphones and launch events. I took Mate7 to Drakensberg and shared photographs. Check out my Instagram feed for more than 300 photographs from several launch events as well from the time of actually reviewing the device along with more than 30 posts for the brand with 1000s of tweets going via twitter handles which I did all without any sponsorship and just for the love of the brand.
I am really looking forward to be become one of the sponsored unofficial ambassador to use their products in my day to day life. “So I will dream…until I make it real, for all I see is Stars” and Huawei will make this Dream Possible soon. Check out this Youtube Huawei theme song which is my favorite motivational song and I am hooked to the same listening it more than 100 times per week. Till the time my dreams are in the process of reaching via Universe to the brand...
Cheers!!!
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