Gree’s store transformed into a “Dong Mingzhu’s health home” overnight, and consumers were stunned!

Wen| Interesting understanding of business Hao Wen

Overnight, Gree’s offline stores were replacing their doors one after another.

Following the official release of Dong Mingzhu Health Home, a new strategic brand, at Gree Electric Appliances (Sichuan) 2025 Brand Strategy Conference on February 13, recently, Gree Electric Appliances offline stores in many places including Sichuan, Shandong, Hainan, Chongqing, and Jiangxi have been renamed Dong Mingzhu Health Home, and the store decoration and upgrade have been completed. At the same time, Gree’s online channels are also keeping pace. Among them, the Douyin platform has the word Dong Mingzhu Healthy Home in the official account names of Gree stores in many places.

Photo source: Weibo

Gree said that Dong Mingzhu Health Home will reconstruct the retail value chain through scene-based experience data visualization and intelligent interactive services to provide consumers with a more convenient and intelligent shopping experience.

From Gree’s perspective, this is not only an update of the brand identity, but also a bold transformation and strategic adjustment of Gree’s brand marketing.

01. Gree strengthens Dong Mingzhu’s IP again

In fact, this is not the first time that Gree and Dong Mingzhu’s personal IP have been strongly bound.

For example, in 2015, Dong Mingzhu threatened that Gree Mobile would kill Xiaomi within three years and become the world’s number one. To this end, Dong Mingzhu personally participated in the launch of Gree mobile phones and used her personal avatar as the start-up screen of the mobile phone. However, due to the lack of competitiveness of Gree’s mobile phones, it is difficult to gain market recognition, and they are mainly only circulated within Gree.

Photo source: Weibo

In 2019, Gree began to reform its sales system and adopted a new marketing model of direct sales at headquarters-WeChat distribution. Among them, Dong Mingzhu’s store in Gree’s online distribution mall was launched. In this distribution mall, more than 90,000 Gree employees have Dong Mingzhu’s store with their own exclusive code name.

In 2020, with the rise of the live broadcast craze, Dong Mingzhu personally went to the venue to launch multiple live broadcast activities to promote various Gree products. According to statistics, in 2020, Dong Mingzhu toured 13 live broadcasts across the country, creating a total sales of 47.6 billion yuan.

Obviously, Dong Mingzhu’s personal IP has played a huge role in promoting the promotion and sales of Gree’s brand, but it has not been successful every time. But to say the least, every marketing activity closely related to Dong Mingzhu has successfully brought a lot of exposure to Gree and attracted the attention of many media and consumers.

The launch of Dong Mingzhu’s health home strategic brand has raised the binding of the two to a new height. The comprehensive renaming and upgrading of offline stores and online platforms is undoubtedly another important measure for Gree to deeply explore the value of Dong Mingzhu’s IP.

As of February 18, Fun Solutions Business conducted a query through the enterprise search platform and found that Dong Mingzhu and Dong Mingzhu’s store had been registered as trademarks by Zhuhai Gree Electric Co., Ltd., but no registration of Dong Mingzhu’s health home related trademarks was found.

Source: Enterprise check screenshots

However, although Gree’s move once again attracted rapid attention from public opinion, some industry people and netizens were also worried about its potential risks. ldquo; Interesting Business observed that there are also some netizens on social media platforms who questioned or opposed Gree’s move.

Source: Douyin Screenshot

Some netizens said that no one can control her?” rdquo; Does Gree belong to Dong Mingzhu alone? rdquo; Will Dong Mingzhu change his name again after retirement?& rdquo;

It is worth mentioning that at the Henan Gree 2025 Annual Marketing Summit held in August last year, Dong Mingzhu once said that I am also an old man and I have not retired yet at the age of 70. You must take the baton well.” rdquo;

Zhan Junhao, a well-known strategic positioning expert and founder of Fujian Huace Brand Positioning Consulting, said that from the perspective of consumers ‘mental cognition, changing the name of Gree’s exclusive store to Dong Mingzhu Health Home was a failed decision. Based on positioning theory, brand name is the core of brand awareness in consumers ‘minds. Changing the name will lead to confusion and lack of security in brand positioning in consumers’ minds. For a listed company like Gree, it is extremely risky to strongly bind the brand to Dong Mingzhu’s personal IP; once Dong Mingzhu’s personal reputation is negatively affected, it will directly affect the Gree brand, which is an obvious hidden danger. Most consumers purchase Gree products based on their trust in the Gree brand, not their personal admiration for Dong Mingzhu. This name change ignores the existing brand positioning in the minds of consumers and forcibly merges personal brands with corporate brands. Not only is it impossible to enhance brand value with the help of personal IP, but may also damage the image of Gree brand due to the unstable personal reputation. rdquo;

In the view of Liu Buchen, a senior analyst in the home appliance industry, over the past 10 years, Gree Electric Appliances and Dong Mingzhu’s personal IP adhesion has become higher and higher, and Gree Electric Appliances has gradually transformed from a manufacturing-driven enterprise to a personal IP-driven enterprise. In fact, Gree Electric has never been a technology-driven enterprise in the true sense of the word.& rdquo;

02. Diversified and empty calls for many years?

In recent years, the performance of Gree Electric Appliances (000651.SZ) has been significantly surpassed by competitor Midea Group (000333.SZ).

In terms of performance, according to the financial report, as of the first three quarters of 2024, Gree achieved revenue of 147.4 billion yuan, a growth rate of-5.39%; and achieved net profit of 21.96 billion yuan, a growth rate of 9.3%. In contrast, in the first three quarters of 2024, Midea achieved revenue of 203 billion yuan, a growth rate of 2.17%; and achieved net profit of 15.15 billion yuan, a growth rate of 15.27%.

In terms of market value, as of February 18, the total market value of Gree Electric Appliances (000651.SZ) was 242.4 billion yuan, and that of Midea Group (000333.SZ) was 554.5 billion yuan. There is a big gap between the two.

Source: Screenshot of Oriental Fortune

A major factor is that Gree relies too much on the air-conditioning business, and the results of diversified development are not significant.

As of the first half of 2024, Gree Electric’s revenue from the air-conditioning business was 77.96 billion yuan, accounting for 78.14% of the total revenue. As for other household appliances, green energy and other businesses, revenue accounted for less than 10%.

Source: Screenshot of Gree’s 2024 semi-annual report

However, Midea is relatively balanced in terms of diversified development. In the first half of 2024, Midea’s HVAC business revenue was 101.5 billion yuan, accounting for 46.7% of revenue; consumer electronics business revenue was 75.14 billion yuan, accounting for 34.58% of revenue.

In fact, Gree realized this problem very early, and it began its diversification transformation even earlier than Midea.

According to interesting business knowledge, as early as the end of 2012, Gree established a business division within itself and began to lay out the intelligent equipment industry; in 2015, Gree independent the intelligent equipment manufacturing division and established Gree Intelligent Equipment Co., Ltd., whose products cover CNC machine tools, industrial robots, intelligent warehousing logistics, factory automation and other major sectors.

According to Dong Mingzhu’s plan, smart equipment will become Gree’s second pillar industry after air conditioning. However, as of the first half of 2024, Gree Electric’s smart equipment revenue was only 259.9 million yuan, and the revenue was not even a fraction of that of air conditioners, accounting for only 0.26% of the total revenue. This shows that the layout of the smart equipment industry was not successful.

Weak performance growth and weak diversification development seem to have made Gree realize that in the absence of other breakthrough innovations, strong binding of Dong Mingzhu’s personal IP is Gree’s most recognizable brand power; this kind of person-made IP+ product The dual advantages of Gree have strong market influence.

At this brand strategy conference, Gao Jie, head of terminal construction of Zhuhai Gree Electric Appliances, said that the new release of Dong Mingzhu Health Home will be a brand revolution of Gree from products to services, from space to experience; Gree Electric Appliances Sales Director Lu Luqun said that refined position construction planning and multi-category development and promotion are Gree’s future direction.

According to interesting business understanding, the upgraded Dong Mingzhu Health Home will bring together all categories of products such as Gree intelligent IoT interactive products, air conditioners, water purification, and refrigerators.

Source: Sichuan Gree Electric Public Account

Dong Mingzhu had previously publicly responded to the deep binding of Dong Mingzhu’s personal IP with Gree Electric Appliances. In May last year, at the 2024 10th China Brand Economy (Shanghai) Forum, Dong Mingzhu said that doing IP is not to be an Internet celebrity, but to give consumers a promise. I am the manager of this company. I face consumers, tell him that if you have any questions, you can come to me. This is a promise, not to be an Internet celebrity.” rdquo;

In this regard, Shen Meng, director of Xiangsong Capital, believes that Dong Mingzhu’s voice in Gree has been further strengthened after the privatization of Gree. Against the background of intensified competition for white goods, Dong Mingzhu’s IP may become a breakthrough for Gree to break through the competitive deadlock.

It is true that the personal charm of Dong Mingzhu, the topic queen, is strong, but Gree’s core competitiveness needs to be further consolidated through more technological innovation and diversified business expansion, rather than relying on the chairman’s personal IP for a long time.