How Lei Jun's Speeches Built Xiaomi's Powerful Brand Image

How Xiaomi Built Its Brand Through Lei Jun's Powerful Speeches

As a diverse technology brand, Xiaomi's branding strategy deserves a closer look. This article analyzes how Xiaomi utilizes Lei Jun's impactful speeches to build a vivid and compelling brand image.

Over the years, Lei Jun's speeches, often accompanied by Xiaomi's surprising product launches, have become integral to its overall brand identity.

What is a brand? It's the collective perception consumers have of it. They decide how you are perceived based on their experiences. For example, Volvo is known for safety, earning the nickname "the car that won't die anywhere" among consumers. This is a shared understanding. In today's fragmented media landscape, every brand needs a core narrative to define itself, allowing consumers to form a clear perception.

Nike, with its "Just Do It" campaign and related themes like "Give Me the Ball," "Just Go Out There," "Play for Real," "Ran Know What I Mean," and "Live Your Greatest," exemplifies this. These phrases act as Nike's brand core text, remaining consistent across platforms and formats – print, video, GIFs, or tweets – conveying a unified brand image.

Xiaomi, however, presents a challenge. It offers not only smartphones but also laptops, tablets, televisions, refrigerators, air conditioners, washing machines, power banks, smartwatches, purifiers, extension cords, towels, routers, balance bikes, robot vacuum cleaners, luggage, drones, and even cameras. These products are developed by Xiaomi itself or its ecosystem partners, sold through Mi Stores, the Xiaomi Mall, and now venturing into the automotive sector.

Defining Xiaomi's brand with a single word or phrase becomes nearly impossible. Its early "Born for Speed" tagline no longer effectively encapsulates its diverse offerings.

01. Lei Jun: The Chief Storyteller of Xiaomi

Xiaomi's core narrative lies within Lei Jun's speeches.

Examine his annual themes:

• 2020: Unwavering Progress
• 2021: My Dream, My Choice
• 2022: Always Believe in Good Things to Come
• 2023: Growth
• 2024: Courage

Each energetic speech, brimming with positive energy, often generates memorable "golden lines" circulating on social media platforms like WeChat Moments, Xiaohongshu, and Douyin. You might not own a Xiaomi product, but chances are you've encountered Lei Jun's powerful quotes and their associated brand content.

02. Content as the New Centralized Platform

Ancient Greek leaders used public speeches to influence the masses; it was the earliest form of centralized media. Newspapers, radio, and television followed, with state-controlled media like CCTV dominating domestically for a period. Now, with the decline of centralized media, this format has resurfaced, reclaiming its "centralized" status.

Speeches remain the most effective way to narrate a brand story. They offer sufficient content density, focus, and conciseness, reaching audiences globally through live streams.

03. The Anchor of Brand Strategy

Many brands today operate across various social media platforms, creating diverse content forms. However, those lacking a core narrative guiding their operations often struggle with inconsistency. Their different content appears fragmented, resulting in confusion for both consumers and internal teams.

Conversations with some brand teams reveal a disconnect in understanding their brand identity. Some rely on market advantages or channel strengths to maintain performance, but team members offer disparate interpretations of the brand – "a wall," "a pillar," etc. This lack of clarity hinders efficiency and leads to wasted resources.

Without a core narrative, brands become undefined. When CEOs establish strategic goals, department heads create tactical plans, and execution teams carry them out, everyone operates based on intuition alone.

The core narrative acts as a strategic anchor. It aligns internal brand perceptions, enabling every team member to understand the brand's essence. This consistency permeates everything from research and development to marketing efforts. Externally, it reduces marketing costs by allowing customers to instantly grasp the brand's spirit or purchase instructions, fostering organic word-of-mouth promotion.

This article was originally published in Chinese on the "人人都是产品经理" platform and has been translated into English for wider accessibility.