An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
The essence of a brand is in the products. The products are the core of the whole brand and should be the physical manifestation of the brand. So all the work needs to be carried out around the products, as they are the ultimate brand representative. Dreametech spent a lot of manpower, material, and financial resources on developing and researching products. Improving the strength of the products to do brand marketing is a safe choice.
As a part of our series about how to create a trusted, believable, and beloved brand, I had the pleasure to interview Frank Wang.
Frank Wang, VP of Overseas Business and Director of International Marketing at Dreame Technology. Holding a doctorate from the Communication University of China, Frank established Dreametech’s overseas business system from scratch. He takes charge of the overall overseas marketing and branding, including product launching and brand collaboration. With his leadership, Dreametech has made constant breakthroughs and gradually established its brand position.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! To start things off, can you tell us what brought you to this specific career path?
The smart home industry has great advantages, especially in the world epidemic environment, many countries and regions have to experience lock down, more home time. And the demand for home cleaning has become higher. Our purpose in creating innovative channels is also to enrich consumers’ lives at home.
We want to use our R&D advantages to make this industry smarter. Overall, we can now call the cleaning robot as a robot in our general concept. The current sweeping or mopping robot can only do home cleaning. But in the future, it may become a home service robot.
Can you share a story about the funniest marketing mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
I remember that when we were doing international brands, well it was not exactly a mistake, just a misunderstanding that we had to adjust for. When we entered the German market, we invited many media outlets and KOLs to evaluate our products. Some of them would give them scores. And we were surprised that we received many scores that seemed extremely low. What we didn’t realize initially was that in Germany, when they score on a 1 to 5 scale, 5 points represents the lowest score and 1 point is the highest score. It was definitely a reminder to pay more attention to cross-cultural communication, especially when it comes to branding. The ability to localize is important for a brand. That’s why we have colleagues from different countries on our team to promote Dreametech internationally.
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
What makes Dreamtech to stand out the most is its R&D DNA.
Yu Hao, the founder of Dreametech, had great enthusiasm for airplanes since he was a child, and he was recommended to Tsinghua University, one of the best universities in the country, due to his results in a physics competition. During school, Yu was not only the chairman of the student union but also established an aerospace technology team named “Sky Factory”. Although Sky Factory was a technical team composed of a group of academic high-achievers gathered together based on interest, their aerospace project received financial support from the aerospace giant, Boeing, under Yu Hao’s leadership. As the inventor of China’s tri-rotor unmanned aerial vehicle, Yu Hao impressed Boeing with his expertise in the field of technical research.
The style of the founder largely determines the style of a company. Yu Hao, who is obsessed with technological research, also instilled this kind of research and development foundation into the company culture of Dreametech. Dreametech has come up with a series of core inventions and over 150 core patents, such as the high-speed motor, monocular machine vision, SLAM (simultaneous localization and mapping), and the multi-cone cyclone separation, among which multiple patents are in a global leading position.
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?
Yes, we are pretty much always working on exciting projects at Dreametech. There is a very high-tech project going on, however, I can’t tell you exactly what it is. But one thing is for sure, innovation will be a keyword for us in the next five-year period. We will expand more energy and time learning customer insights, which will also help us with our innovation and understanding of consumers’ needs. Dreame will remain deeply committed to delivering the most powerful product to create an easier cleaning experience for our global users. We’ve just concluded our 2022 Development road-map meeting, Dreametech will launch several products integrating the latest technologies, and there will be more cross-border cooperation in 2022.
We have multiple new projects that are under serious development, to not only optimize our existing product lines, but also to develop innovative products to help our customers with their daily life. At the end of 2021, we launched our latest scientific and technological achievement — the W10 self-cleaning robot vacuum and mop. The reason I think this one is so exciting is because traditional robot vacuums have difficulty in dealing with wet or dried-on messes from hard floors. That’s why Dreame’s robots all combine vacuuming and mopping. W10 takes this a step further by automating the process of cleaning the mops. I mean, cleaning the mops and drying them are considerable issues with mopping robots. First you take them off, scrub them, wring them out, air-dry them, and reattach them. This takes quite a bit of time and effort. And air-drying mops is kind of an issue because moist cloth is a breeding ground for bacteria and it easily mildews. Well, since it’s a 2-in-1 vacuum & mop the W10 easily handles wet messes, dry dirt, grime, and dried on stains. Plus, the mops are automatically washed, scrubbed, and then dried with hot air to ensure they are clean and fresh for the next cleaning session.
I really like that about the W10. It allows you to be pretty hands off with your cleaning by washing and replacing mops. I think that is a significant upgrade. We are also developing innovative products to enrich people’s lives, especially during COVID lockdown. It really seems like getting along with this virus will become a long-term thing, which means that we, at least for the foreseeable future, will spend a lot of time at home. Ensuring that a space you spend so much time occupying is clean and healthy is a very time-consuming and energy-intensive activity. Hopefully, we can complete these new projects and launch them soon.
Ok, let’s now jump to the core part of our interview. In a nutshell, how would you define the difference between brand marketing (branding) and product marketing (advertising)?
The word “brand” is called “Pin Pai 品牌” in Chinese. The Chinese language uses two characters for this, and each of the characters has a specific meaning. So breaking down the term “Pin Pai 品牌”, would be the most comprehensive way for me to explain my view.
The first character “Pin 品” is about the product. The premise of product marketing is the product, and we need to get the product quality right before we can actually “market” something. Although Dreametech was founded in 2017, the founding team has been developing core technologies since 2015. The vacuum cleaner category is the most outstanding category of Dreametech products. At the time, vacuum cleaners already included hand-held vacuum cleaners, sweeping robots, dry and wet integrated vacuum cleaners, and a few other types. In recent years, many brands have embedded AI obstacle avoidance technology, automatic dust collection, and other new technologies into traditional products. The overall home cleaning industry is also becoming more competitive as the frequency of replacement increases with the adoption of these technologies, just like the current situation of the big 3C category. During the two years of preparation, we have been making breakthroughs in motor speed, and the target is to have the motor that powers the best vacuum cleaner on the market. Dreametech has been focusing on research and development from the early days up to the present.The most obvious manifestation of a company focusing on R&D is a high proportion of R&D personnel. At Dreametech, R&D personnel accounts for 70% of employees and R&D expenditure generally accounts for 15% of the revenue.
The dimension of the product is, horizontally speaking, a series of household cleaning products and personal care products extended from the core technology, which is motor technology. But vertically speaking, the product power of Dreametech originates from user experience, and that is the second core competitiveness. Dreametech is based on real usage scenarios to find users’ demands, to make product upgrades. And the second competition barrier will be erected. For example, indoor living scenes in Europe and Asia have significant differences. European families often live in a house that has more than one floor and a lot of cleaning robots may be prone to falling down stairs. Therefore, obstacle avoidance technology and anti-fall sensor technology needs to be improved to account for this aspect. Additionally, European families have the habit of laying down rugs, so we apply ultrasonic carpet recognition technology to our products.
That’s why the product, or “Pin 品” is of such important to marketing.
so I’ll move on to “Pai 牌”. “Pai 牌” is about unique qualities, it is a trademark and symbol that distinguishes from similar products. But it’s not simply about qualities that make Dreametech different from other similar products. Branding is like telling a story, and characters are the key to the story. Every brand has its character, and the formation of character comes from consistency and stability. So if Dreametech has any personality, he would be a young man marching steadily forward. Since its establishment in 2017, Dreametech has set up the vision of “becoming a world’s top technology company that constantly seeking and growing”. Brand marketing Dreametech has done or will do is based on its research and development ability and product strength. Engineers at Dreametech are from world-class universities, comprised of leading experts in aerospace dynamics. The R&D department hosts science and tech seminar events every week for product evolution, non-engineers are most welcomed for practical applications from the lab. Besides engineers, people who work at Dreametech also share similar values. They are always enthusiastic, positive and open. More than work, we are explorers traveling toward a common goal and the grand goal that is to use technology for the benefit of all humanity. Dreametech is making steady progress in this context.
With characters, the plot is also very important if a story is to be engaging. One scenario we often see in stories is meeting people that have sung the same songs. A partner is like a mirror, it reflects the qualities in you and the qualities you want. In 2021, Dreametech become the official partner of Borussia Dortmund (BVB), one of the most successful Football Clubs in Germany. With 270 million fans worldwide, BVB is ranked as the most powerful brand and the most likable club in Germany. The Dortmund team has won eight German league championships and five DFB Cups. In 1966, BVB became the first German club to win the European Cup Winners’ Cup and won the 1997 UEFA Champions League title. BVB has made many significant achievements in their respective fields, and we really respect that. Dreametech recognized many of its own traits in BVB, such as being young and powerful, and advocating teamworks. The collaboration between Dreame and BVB not only represented a convergence between sports and technology but also a chance for Dreame to better serve customers in the European markets.
We’re still going on to tell stories about Dreametech, but it’s not going to happen in an instant. Product marketing or advertising is always sales-oriented for different needs, such as Black Friday marketing campaigns. We will have a target ROI for advertising, which is an exact number, and we also have a lot of specific forms. Advertising is about conversion rates in a short period, however, brand marketing is long term.
Can you explain to our readers why it is important to invest resources and energy into building a brand, in addition to the general marketing and advertising efforts?
American advertising executive, Leo Burnett always inspires me a lot. He had a sentence that impressed me very much, “Advertising cannot perform magic for an unwanted or undesirable product. But a skilled advertising man can present previously overlooked virtues in a product in a way that will make people reach for it.” Advertising or marketing is the microphone which can make your voice louder.
Can you share 5 strategies that a company should be implementing to build a trusted and believable brand? Please tell us a story or example for each.
Ok, what I’m about to say is only the preliminary work of brand building, and does not involve specific operations and work development. Or let’s just say they are my personal, humble opinions for reference. The most important thing is the product itself, around which I have a few points to share.
First of all, the essence of a brand is in the products. The products are the core of the whole brand and should be the physical manifestation of the brand. So all the work needs to be carried out around the products, as they are the ultimate brand representative. Dreametech spent a lot of manpower, material, and financial resources on developing and researching products. Improving the strength of the products to do brand marketing is a safe choice.
After you select a product, comes the second step. Which is to determine the industry attributes of the product, which is mainly because the different consumer groups have different characteristics when they purchase a selection. Only determining industry attributes can help the decision-maker target your consumer base.Third, I would recommend that you refer to many existing brands and identify your brand innovation. What are you doing that others don’t? What makes you unique? It doesn’t need to be a big change, just a micro innovation is enough.
The fourth thing is to establish your brand positioning. A very small number of unique products have strong scientific and technological attributes or irreplaceable capabilities, so their position in the market is as an “industry pioneer”. Putting these exceptions aside, most products already exist in the market. That is also the reason why branding is so important; to go beyond the difference between individual products and establish expectations for everything your brand does that makes it more familiar and known than other products in the industry. All subsequent marketing activities need to revolve around this identity. This can help consumer groups quickly understand you. Good positioning can bring a lot of loyal consumer groups. Dreame Technology is a technology company built around innovation. As mentioned earlier, Dreametech’s products rely on R&D, which enables us to attract customers who have a desire for technology and want a high quality of life.
Finally, the most important one is that the brand is both nothing and everything. It matters a lot how it’s expressed, and it’s expressed in everything that people interact with in relation to you. If there is no brand, the product is the product. You will probably never care about the brand of a bag of oranges, But if the oranges said that it comes from Pluto or something, then it becomes something unique and exclusive. It still comes down to a matter of product and positioning.
In your opinion, what is an example of a company that has done a fantastic job building a believable and beloved brand? What specifically impresses you? What can one do to replicate that?
First of all, excellent product design and stable product experience is what I think the most important element for a believable and beloved brand. From the product level to meet or even exceed consumer expectations.
And, if a brand does not want to be limited to the local market, it wants to have a broader market share, then it should respect multiculturalism and treat every consumer equally. We’ve had too many debates about race, about human rights, about fundamental issues about some peoples, that have led to the image of some brands being damaged in a certain area. If a brand wants to be trusted and embraced by consumers, it do needs a universal value and a harmony culture. Do relatively localized product development, consumer experience maintenance and user operation according to the cultural needs of different regional countries.
It’s easy to be a hero for a while, but it’s hard to be a hero all the time. The gene of innovation is the driving force for the sustainable development of a brand, and it is one of the fundamental reasons why a company can achieve long-term excellent results and be loved by the world.
From these perspectives Tesla is a brand that I really preferred. Tesla has changed the definition of a car. And the sales model, the consumer experience model as well, Tesla make the issue returning to the core and the root.
In advertising, one generally measures success by the number of sales. How does one measure the success of a brand-building campaign? Is it similar, is it different?
“To build” is not an instantaneous verb, it takes time, money, and human resource. The effectiveness of a brand-building campaign is hard to quantify and not particularly valuable if it can be evaluated at all. Branding should be a long-term, ongoing activity. In this long period, decision-makers need to ensure that each period of brand building activities creates a consistent brand image. All the energy comes together, when a consumer needs to buy a home robot, the first brand that comes to his mind is Dreametech, that’s what we want.
What role does social media play in your branding efforts?
The environment of the overseas market is much clearer. Overseas, the entire traffic system can be worked backward, so that we can determine how the total amount of traffic is distributed to various dimensions. Dreame Technology has built a BI system, combining first-hand data and data from reliable organizations. It is accurate down to even the city now. In addition to data, another point in social media marketing is that Dreame always does content innovation based on the tone of different platforms.
TikTok is a channel with a strong ability to drive traffic. However users browse TikTok for leisure and relaxation. Dreametech tends to conceal overt product marketing when content is released on TikTok. We don’t want to make the hard sell, there. We often produce interesting content on TikTok to interact with users, if they are interested, they can jump to the official website for more information.
On YouTube, besides the influencers who do home and lifestyle, I have tried to cooperate with content producers from other industries. Cars, technology, and other fields. Some of them have worked very well. We had a video collaboration with an Italian car influencer who had 400,000 followers at that time, and the video has been viewed more than 100,000 times. The audience is not put off by this kind of contextual advertising. On the contrary, it will enhance the brand image. Many audiences commented that it was the most interesting vacuum cleaner advertisement they had ever seen.
What advice would you give to other marketers or business leaders to thrive and avoid burnout?
These are just a few of the problems I pay more attention to in brand marketing. Take your product seriously, draw a clear and long-term plan for your brand, and please treat yourself better: )
“Take your product seriously”. This is incredibly important for consumers and for the long-term development of the brand. After all, if you don’t think highly of your own product, how can you expect customers to do so? “Draw a clear and long-term plan”. This means,be responsible for your team members, your time, and the money you spend. And “Treat yourself better”. As a worker, everything is consumed. A good leader should ensure that he has a nutritional intake, enough rest, exercise, and knowledge intake.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
It is my belief that Dreame is that movement. Our vision is to create more than a marketplace where people could get tools to meet needs, but to create a community hub where everyone could learn and discuss the next technology, and how they can have an impact for making better things happen.
Can you please give us your favourite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
There is a motto from Warren Buffett, “Seize an opportunity while you can.” Self-growth and change require endogenous motivation, as well as external factors and opportunities.When someone forces you to break through yourself, don’t scare but be grateful to him. Perhaps you will change and transform as a result. When no one is pushing you, please push yourself. Always make some change to yourself. Making a difference is painful, but every metamorphosis will come with surprise.
We are blessed that very prominent leaders in business and entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world with whom you would like to have lunch or breakfast? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂
I’d like to have a breakfast with Elon Musk, at any time. Let’s talk about universe and future of the Earth: )
How can our readers follow you on social media?
I hope you pay more attention to Dreametech than to myself.
Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. And our website if you want to know more about our technologies, please visit:https://www.dreame-technology.com.
Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.
Frank Wang Of Dreame Technology: Five Things You Need To Build A Trusted And Beloved Brand was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
