On September 19, 2024, the 3rd Ecological Branding Conference was held in Qingdao.

This conference invited heavyweight guests from the academic and business sectors to gather together, with the theme of "Ecology without Boundaries, Value without Limits," to deeply discuss the new paradigm of "Ecological Brands - Ecological Enterprises - Ecological Economy" and to share the winning strategies for business transformation and brand dimensionality.

At the conference, the 2024 Ecological Brand Certification list was released, and the first edition of the "Ecological Brand Development Report (2024)" was launched.

Haier has been in the highest quadrant of the Ecological Brand Potential Map for three consecutive years, winning the title of "Pioneer" in ecological brands.

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From product brands to platform brands, and now to ecological brands, each leap in the brand paradigm is not only an upgrade direction for corporate strategy but also a reflection of profound insights into the trends of the times and user needs.

At the conference, Zhou Yunjie, Chairman of the Board and CEO of Haier Group, shared his understanding of ecological brands and Haier's leading exploration with the theme "Creating Infinite Possibilities with Boundless Ecology."

Ecological Brand: A New Paradigm for Brand Evolution.

With the continuous improvement of the ecological brand theory system and the deepening of industrial practice, the transformation to ecological brands has become a global consensus in industrial development.

The Ecological Brand Certification, as a new brand assessment system in the era of the Internet of Things, has rapidly become a benchmark for measuring the effectiveness of brand ecological transformation since its inception in 2022.

This year, the enthusiasm for ecological brand certification continues to rise, and the certification system is also continuously improving.

Based on the three perspectives of "co-evolution," "value circulation," and "brand ideals," and the five core dimensions of "user experience interaction, open collaborative co-creation, lifelong user value, win-win value-added utility, and social value contribution," as well as 17 assessment rules, a combination of "brand application + certification party selection" is adopted to achieve intelligent certification and data informatization.

Facing the new era and new journey, "ecological brands" are increasingly showing strong vitality and appeal, becoming a hot topic in the field of brand construction and being put into practice by more and more enterprises.

In 2024, the number of brand applications for ecological brand certification increased by 30% year-on-year, and the number of industries covered increased from 19 in 2022 to 41 this year.

Through three assessment methods: quantitative research on brand audiences, expert review of brand cases, and review of key brand data, more than 580,000 valid data points were collected.

After comprehensive assessment, 28 brands such as Apple, Huawei, Haier, Baidu, and Tesla successfully obtained the 2024 3rd Ecological Brand Certification.

The total annual revenue of the listed brands exceeded 6.8 trillion yuan, with 32% of the listed brands having a revenue of over 100 billion yuan.

The new paradigm of ecological brands is increasingly showing strong transformational driving force and profound value influence.

Haier, with its strong ecological construction capabilities and excellent results in ecological brand construction, has obtained ecological brand certification for three consecutive years and has won the title of "Pioneer."

Liu Jian, Vice President and Party Member of Xinhua News Agency, believes that brands are not only an important symbol of high-quality development but also an important carrier and promoter of high-quality development.

The rise of ecological brand construction in recent years perfectly fits the internal requirements of high-quality development, accurately grasps the development trends of the global economy and technology, continuously stimulates new momentum and advantages for high-quality development, and increasingly becomes a leading brand new paradigm that goes beyond traditional brand concepts and resonates with the times.

As the pioneer, practitioner, and promoter of ecological brands, Haier is firmly advancing the ecological brand strategy and has built a three-level brand system of high-end brands, scene brands, and ecological brands, becoming a benchmark for research and exploration in the global academic and industrial sectors.

Ecological Enterprises: A New Direction for Enterprise Development.

In today's complex and changing market environment, the boundaries of enterprise development are becoming increasingly blurred, and traditional business models are facing unprecedented challenges.

Zhou Yunjie, Chairman of the Board and CEO of Haier Group, pointed out in his speech at the conference: "Taking the iterative experience of users as the direction, building an ecological enterprise where ecological partners are eager to join and co-create has become a new direction for enterprise development."

Zhou Yunjie believes that an ecological enterprise should have at least three characteristics: First, experience innovation.

Adhere to maximizing human value, take innovative user experience as the direction of iteration, break through core technologies, just like species in an ecosystem that continue to evolve to adapt to environmental changes.

Second, platform openness.

Openness attracts multiple resources to join the ecosystem, just like an open ecosystem that provides living space for various organisms.

Third, ecological win-win, where ecological parties on this platform can maximize benefits, just like species in an ecosystem that are interdependent and develop together.

Today, Haier has transformed into an ecological enterprise, through the layout of three main tracks: smart living, big health, and industrial Internet, and has joined hands with global ecological partners to exert ecological synergy, continuously meeting the continuous iterative needs of users, creating value, conveying value, and sharing value for users and ecological parties, forming a value cycle.

In the smart living track, Haier launched the world's first smart home scene brand, Sanybird, and joined hands with more than 3,500 ecological partners to design, build, and serve smart homes for users, and ecological partners have also gained high value-added sharing; in the big health track, Yingkang Life took the lead in establishing the country's first medical and industrial technology innovation industrialization platform, "Haiyi Hui," actively linking medical, industrial, financial, and service ecological parties to accelerate the transformation of scientific research results; in the industrial Internet track, Haier's Cacos Industrial Internet platform helps small and medium-sized enterprises achieve quality improvement, cost reduction, and efficiency enhancement through digital transformation.

It has now connected more than 900,000 enterprises and served 160,000 enterprises.

Dr. Cao Yangfeng, co-founder and dean of the Hong Kong Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and a professor of management practice at Guanghua School of Management, Peking University, proposed after years of attention to the development of ecological enterprises, "Enterprises with a user base, an empowerment platform, and ecological connectivity with knowledge, capital, and data often play a leading role in the ecosystem.

For example, Apple, Haier, etc., are typical ecological enterprises."

Ecological Economy: A New Engine for High-Quality Development.

As the ecological brand paradigm is practiced in more industries and enterprises, the ecological model is gradually reshaping various industries, promoting deep integration and collaborative development between industries, continuously creating the best experience for users, and promoting high-quality economic and social development.

This phenomenon not only empowers and achieves a group of ecological enterprises but also stimulates deeper economic changes, promoting economic development from internal competition and zero-sum games to a co-creation and win-win ecological economy.

In the "Ecological Brand Development Report (2024)" released on the same day, the definition of the ecological economy is clarified: in the process of industrial digitalization and intelligence, centered on the best user experience, with new generation science and technology as an important driving force, and with the intelligent interaction engine as the main carrier for sharing and empowering, it promotes resource sharing, value co-win, and remaking hundreds of industries among multiple ecological partners in the ecosystem, thereby achieving a new economic model of high-quality development, inclusive and inclusive growth, and maximizing the value of all ecological parties.

Under the challenge of global economic structural changes, the ecological economy, as a new economic model, fundamentally reshapes the way industries and economies operate by deeply promoting the symbiosis of enterprises, users, and society, promoting progressive evolution from ecological brands to ecological enterprises, and then to ecological economies.

In this evolutionary chain, ecological brands are not only committed to maximizing the value of users and ecological partners but also take it as their responsibility to enhance the overall value of society.

Taking the Cacos Industrial Internet platform of Haier Group as an example, Cacos has built an ecological empowerment model of "large enterprises co-building, small and medium-sized enterprises sharing" at the industry end, with Cacos contributing platform capabilities, leading enterprises in various fields contributing industry knowledge and experience, sharing digital capabilities, processes, and modules with small and medium-sized enterprises, helping enterprises improve quality, reduce costs, and increase efficiency, and driving the industry to become bigger, stronger, and better.

Among them, the first large-scale customized industrial Internet platform built with Chery in the automotive industry has empowered 401 small and medium-sized enterprises upstream and downstream of Chery, helping enterprises reduce production costs by 15% and increase production efficiency by 50%, effectively promoting industry transformation and upgrading and high-quality development of regional economies.

Brands, as an important symbol of high-quality development, are a comprehensive embodiment of the competitiveness of enterprises, cities, and even countries.

With the steady improvement of China's comprehensive national strength, Chinese brands represented by Haier have become a shining Chinese business card in the global market.

Haier, as a leader in ecological brands, has continuously explored and practiced for 40 years, setting a benchmark for the industry and providing valuable experience and insights for the transformation and upgrading of global enterprises.

Zhou Yunjie said, "Ecological brands are not the beauty of a single flower but the elegance of a hundred flowers; they are not the wonder of a solitary peak but the grandeur of continuous mountains."

Looking to the future, Haier will adhere to "maximizing human value," continue to build a more open, collaborative, and win-win ecosystem, allowing ecological partners and users to co-create and share value in the Haier ecosystem, and contribute valuable Chinese wisdom and solutions to the sustainable development of the global economy.