A perfect-score brand, why is it still far from users?
State Grid's brand shows virtually no weaknesses in the data.
China's 500 most valuable brands, with a total value of 7152.58 billion yuan, ranked first for the tenth consecutive year. The Global Top 50 Utility Brands, ranked first for the eighth consecutive year, with a brand strength rating of AAA+. Brand Finance's Global 500 Most Valuable Brands, with a value of $86.3 billion, entered the global top 10 for the first time. The central enterprise brand construction benchmark ranked first with a perfect score.
If brands could be evaluated with scores, State Grid would be the student who not only scores 100 but also completes the extra-credit problems.
But that's exactly where the problem lies.
When a brand achieves a perfect score in the system evaluation framework, what kind of relationship does it have with ordinary users? Can this relationship be fully explained by the figure of "brand value of 71.528 billion yuan"?
I'm not here to praise Guowang today, as there are already plenty of people doing that. Nor am I here to deny its achievements, which are indeed solid. I just want to do one thing: put a perfect brand like Guowang to the test in terms of "user relationships" and see if there are any cracks.
The answer is yes. And this fissure is precisely the result of its greatest achievements and greatest limitations, which have occurred simultaneously.
How 'Full' is the State Grid Brand?
The slogan "You use electricity, I use my heart" was formally established in 2011, standing out from 18,230 candidate works and replacing the previous internal staff-oriented "Strive to exceed, pursue excellence".
This change was revolutionary at the time.
A slogan change from "How about us" to "You and me" indicates that State Grid has made genuine efforts in its branding.
But the slogan is just the surface. What truly supports the slogan is a complete and integrated brand management system.
It has become a truly global brand in the international market with 25 overseas social media accounts, 2 million overseas fans, and 450 overseas public welfare projects, making "State Grid" a household name. The Brazilian Beautiful Mountain UHV project has become a textbook example of "grid connectivity and people-to-people connectivity".
From strategy to system, to matrix, to internationalization, the brand development of State Grid is unparalleled in the global utility industry. However, it is this "unparalleled fullness" that makes the following question all the more glaring.
What Separates Perfect-Scoring Brands from Their Users
"Power for you, care from me." Everyone has seen or heard it, but if you ask an ordinary user: what does the State Grid really mean to you?
Last summer, a region in Henan experienced persistent high temperatures. A transformer in an old residential complex caught fire at 8 pm, leaving hundreds of households without power. Repair personnel arrived at the scene 40 minutes later and restored power at 1 am. The next day, someone posted a message in the community group, saying, "You arrived quickly, but couldn't you have replaced the transformer beforehand?"
In terms of service efficiency, State Grid has achieved the ultimate. Arriving within 40 minutes and restoring power within five hours on an extremely hot summer night is a remarkable feat. However, users do not see it that way. They think: why wait until it's burned out before coming to replace it?
This is where the crack lies.
The State Grid brand has been extremely successful in terms of organizational management, but in terms of user relationships, it has never accomplished one thing: making the name "State Grid" become a "person that can be talked to" in the minds of users.
Users' feelings towards it are not affection, but dependence. Not closeness, but habit. It's not "I feel like someone is putting their heart into it when I use electricity," but rather "I'm using my electricity, just don't have any problems with it."
This relationship is essentially a form of "system dependence" rather than a "brand relationship".
System dependence refers to a state where you can't do without something, but it doesn't excite you either. It's like air, tap water, or the circuit breaker at home. You're aware of its existence, you can't live without it, but you won't share your electricity bill on social media or develop emotional affection for it just because it's working smoothly.
This is not a problem unique to State Grid. All infrastructure-based brands face this dilemma, but for State Grid, the issue is magnified by its "perfect score".
Because the better, more complete, and more ubiquitous a brand is, the more it resembles a system. And the more perfect the system, the harder it is for people to establish an emotional connection with it. You can like a person, but it's hard to like a system.
"'You use electricity, I use heart'," from a branding perspective, is an excellent slogan. It is symmetrical, it has warmth, and it puts the service attitude upfront. However, from the user's perception, it has a difficult obstacle to overcome: users cannot feel the "I".
Who am I?
Is it the 95598 customer service representative? The repair team master? The State Grid Corporation of China on the electricity bill? Or the "electricity iron army" who always wears overalls, always wears a safety helmet, and always appears in the news?
Where Did This Rift Come From
It's not that State Grid is not making an effort, as it is working harder than most central enterprises. The rift is the result of a combination of three factors.
The first is the natural abstraction of the brand entity.
State Grid Corporation of China, a gigantic central enterprise managing 26 provincial power companies nationwide, serves 1.1 billion people, with its brand reaching into hundreds of millions of moments of electricity use, yet its brand entity is a massive, faceless organization.
User interactions almost all take place at "touchpoints". Bill payments are through the app, repairs are through 95598, and power outage notifications are via text messages. Behind these touchpoints are individual people, but they are invisible to users. What users see is always the unified name of "State Grid".
A unified name brings unified trust, but it also dissolves individual character. When all services are grouped under a single name, that name must bear all the good and all the bad. It has no separate identity, no personality, and no distinct "who" that can be liked or disliked independently.
The second is the infinite liability of brand commitment.
"'You use electricity, I use my heart' is a promise of unlimited liability. It has no boundaries. It implies 'as long as you are using electricity, I am using my heart.' But in reality, no individual or organization can truly achieve 'always using their heart' in every moment and space."
This is why the satisfaction rate of 95598 can be close to 100%, but on social media, once there are power outages, electricity bill disputes, or service disputes, negative emotions can be extremely intense. Because of that slogan, "using heart" has become something that users think "you should" do. If you do it, it's what you should do; if you don't, it's a dereliction of duty.
The third is that the sub-brand matrix lacks "personality growth".
Activities are a brand's "actions," while personality is a brand's "character." When a brand takes action, users will nod in approval; when a brand has character, users will remember and cherish it.
They look like a batch of meticulously designed mascots—but with no temperament, no preferences, no missteps, and no endearing moments. For a brand to have a personality, it has to have "lived." It needs moments people remember, even reasons to forgive its small mistakes. State Grid's sub-brands are all too "correct." So correct that no one remembers a single one.
So, the brand matrix of State Grid is a "management matrix", not a "relationship matrix". It can categorize services very clearly, but it cannot allocate emotions very specifically.
Doubao's Problem Isn't Low Scores, It's Lack of Engagement
It is evident that the State Grid's brand is a typical example of a "strong organizational brand, weak personal brand". The strength of its brand comes from the ultimate output of its organizational capabilities: unified strategy, unified standards, unified image, and unified assessment. In these aspects, it has achieved the first among central enterprises and the first among global utilities.
However, its brand warmth, which comes from the meticulous operation of user relationships, is about making users feel that "this person is really putting in effort" at a specific moment, and it has not yet achieved this.
It can't be blamed for this. Because it's too large, any attempt to give it a personal touch is diluted by the solemn name "State Grid". Because its services are too fundamental, users only remember it when the power is cut off. Because its promises are too grand, all the good it does is taken for granted.
However, these "whys" are precisely the real issues for its next stage of brand development.
Specifically, there are three directions.
Third, give sub-brands some "incorrect space". Let them have their own personality, their own story, and even their own imperfections. A brand that has never made a mistake is impossible to be liked.
These three points do not involve strategic adjustments, nor do they involve organizational changes, but rather one thing: changing the brand from a "management object" to a "relationship carrier".
The next step for a perfect brand is not to score 101, but to make the person it has served for ten years occasionally think: this company seems to be really putting its heart into it when paying the electricity bill.
This is more difficult than topping the brand rankings.