The Change of Marketing Ideas of a Chinese State-owned Enterprise

UnionPay (Chinese: 银联; pinyin: Yínlián), also known as China UnionPay (Chinese: 中国银联; pinyin: Zhōngguó Yínlián) or by its abbreviation, CUP or UPI internationally, is a Chinese financial services corporation headquartered in Shanghai, China. It provides bank card services and a major card scheme in mainland China. Founded on 26 March 2002, China UnionPay is an association for China's banking card industry, operating under the approval of the People's Bank of China (PBOC, central bank of China). It is also the only interbank network in China that links all the automatic teller machine (ATMs) of all banks throughout the country. It is also an electronic funds transfer at point of sale (EFTPOS) network. (From Wiki)

On the 70th National Day of China last year, it launched a 16 mins commercial: The Last Transfer of Western Tang Empire.

If you know something about the enterprise system in mainland China, you can tell how unusual this campaign is. Financial sector is one of the most typical Industries regulated by the government, and union pay may be the most bureaucratic company among it.

“union pay is like the most familiar stranger for Chinese people. Everyone knows UnionPay and has been using it, but even the closest people around me can hardly tell what UnionPay is doing exactly”, says Gong Zhongrui, having worked for UnionPay for 15 years, the deputy general manager of the China UnionPay planning department.

This is an open secret in the industry.The mission of inter-bank transfer and transfer settlement is too difficult to be recognized by the public. Many people even subconsciously think that UnionPay is just a company with some credit card business. To a some extent, the business model that can't even talk about the merchant-side business makes UnionPay of that period seem to need no changes.

The time came to 2017, the launch of Union Pay App marked the beginning of UnionPay's overall mobile transformation and market transformation.Transformation necessarily means a change in strategy. After the organizational structure adjustment and the establishment of the planning department, the first thing UnionPay did was to start to sort out itself.

How to spread the brand and the products, services and technologies under the brand to the public, consumers and merchants? What is their relationship with each other and what business role do they assume? Which products are only for consumers? Which are both for consumers and merchants?

Over the past year, UnionPay has gradually changed its position in consumers' minds from "the most familiar stranger" to "close friend”. While activating brand values and influence, the effectiveness of the business level is also concerned by more people. Six months years ago, UnionPay officially announced that the number of users of its app grew from 100 million to 200 million. It took less than 10 months, which took less than 10 months. This also exemplify that good brand values and marketing methods can transform ideas into business. It stimulate consumer interest and recognition to help expand, and then further arouse the desire to use.

At the end of last year, when the phrase “Every single penny counts" appeared on the hot search rank and became a buzzword on the street, UnionPay did not complacent, but actually offered a discount. The day of Double 12 shopping carnival last year, both marketing and subsidies achieved the number of new users of union pay App that exceeded 1 million on the same day. 

The combination of product and effect that the industry has always emphasized has been achieved in a wave of casual and interesting marketing. This is the victory of Dao Zhongrui's mouth and Tao.In the era of mobile payments, UnionPay, which takes social responsibility as its own responsibility, is more like an enhanced version of the attached energy emphasized by all platforms-whether it is the UnionPay for 62 consecutive years, the Double Twelve UnionPay half price subsidy, or the Supermarket FestivalIn the event, UnionPay subsidizes users in real money, rather than the traditional mode of profit-making. The higher the interest of merchants in cooperation, the more consumers and potential merchants will join in.When multiple scenarios such as subway, bus, 12306 ticket grabbing, and even mountain village and offline brand queuing are all radiated by Cloud Flash, the overall UnionPay brand upgrade has achieved results in stages.In order to better measure its own marketing effect, UnionPay has separately developed an accurate evaluation system for online transactions and an overall offline evaluation system.In this regard, Gong Zhongrui also gave his own understanding of big data technology: everything goes back to the transaction, the whole process is opened, how much the transaction has been increased, how many users have been added, and how much activity has been improved.The data is evaluated consistently, and this big data includes UnionPay itself and operators, including institutions such as HKUST.Big data is to make the effect real, not to play with fictitious.At the same time, the effect evaluation will not only evaluate the brand, but must evaluate the business, based on the change of the business-after the broadcast of "The Last Transfer of Datang Mobei", the number of self-registered users of the cloud flash payment app increasedMore than 25%.The process of brand upgrade is never easy. In China, whether it is the change of UnionPay or the catch-up of the Yunfun app, it is inevitable to be compared with Alipay and WeChat.

In this regard, UnionPay believes that it is not only good to have one or two participants in the market. The open model allows UnionPay to better combine with various banks and partners in a higher dimension. At the same time, the original intention of paying for the people also allows UnionPay toMore scenes and fields, especially some non-commercial fields, show their influence.UnionPay also believes that each app has its own positioning. 

Everyone coexists, and there is no question of who should replace them.At the same time, for the future, UnionPay, which is developing rapidly, has entered the second half of marketing.The brand itself has an image metaphor. UnionPay is an air force in the first half, and it went to the wide net. In the second half, not only the air force but also the advancement of ground forces.The second and third tier cities, counties and townships will be the place where UnionPay will work in the future. 

What is their preferred way?Does the content that you paid for before still apply to them?How can the Air Force and the ground be coordinated to ensure the effectiveness of the Air Force and promote effective results on the ground?For UnionPay, although this is not easy to do, it is also its own opportunity.After all, compared with Alipay and WeChat, UnionPay's state-owned enterprise background and trustworthiness have an absolute advantage in China's wider region. How to make good use of this is a must for brands to think about.The upgrade of product experience is the core competitiveness of the future. 

UnionPay is a brand that is responsible for the wider social population. To achieve sustained growth, consumers' use experience is extremely critical.In China, UnionPay's road to ice breaking is worthy of attention, and there is still a long way to go before this brand that breaks through itself and thinks clearly.