Tonight's broadcast looked ordinary at first—stock phrases about prosperity and harmony, the anchor gliding through the leader's state visit to Germany—but then the camera cut to the motorcade on the tarmac. A row of gleaming German executive sedans fanned in to meet the plane, chrome catching the floodlights. And then, rolling out from the belly of the aircraft, came a different silhouette: a deep-black sedan with a low, imperious nose, the four interlocked rings glinting above a bold grille, the five-star red flags fluttering on either side of the hood. When the lens tightened, the badge on the tail said it plainly—A8—and the grille wore a discreet gold "W12." Across living rooms and phone screens, people gasped, laughed, shouted to no one in particular: "They switched cars! That's an Audi! Not an A6 either… must be brand-new!"
Clips of the segment hit every platform within the hour, reposted by media accounts and random users alike. There was nothing sensational in the narration; the sensation was the car. Overnight, that single image—an Audi leading the way with national flags—did what months of advertising couldn't. It burned a new idea into the public's mind: Audi equals state-level prestige.
The comment sections turned into bonfires. "From the moment those flags went on the hood," one popular reply crowed, "brands like BMW and Volkswagen can go cry." Another quipped, "So that's why Audi's official account kept quiet these days. They were holding aces." The usual hired flamethrowers, who'd spent a week spinning against Audi, went suspiciously polite. Nobody wanted to be the clown bashing a car that just chauffeured the country's top leadership. In the current climate, scorched-earth trolling could bring real heat. And so the chorus flipped on a dime:
"Audi is king! 666."
"Shiver, you other German marques."
"Daddy Audi's here to teach you a lesson."
Even the most shameless sockpuppets typed with trembling fingers, praying nobody checked their post history.
Executives at rival automakers—foreign and domestic—watched those same clips with a colder recognition: this was momentum you couldn't buy, spin, or litigate. In China, the symbolism of a leader's car mattered. And tonight, Audi owned that symbol.
Across Beijing, in a glassy villa paid for by a European luxury brand, Steve Tsien—the China chief of one of Audi's fiercest German rivals—went incandescent. Something fragile shattered against a wall, then a lamp, then a vase. "Damn Audi! Damn Heifeng!" he snarled, breath heaving. He'd spent days building a neat little trap, a PR snare lined with nails, and Audi simply refused to step in. Now a single blaze of red-flag optics had reduced his careful kindling to ash—and the people who lit the match were walking away grinning.
He tried to steady himself, pacing, talking into the empty room. So what if the motorcade showed an Audi? His company had a century of heritage; they'd weathered worse storms. A deep historical well, real influence with premium buyers—surely that couldn't be shaken by a single evening's broadcast. It sounded convincing in his own voice. It also sounded like whistling past a graveyard.
Because this wasn't "another country." It was China, where state symbolism could still redirect the flow of aspiration in a heartbeat. Plenty of buyers had been hesitating—afraid that choosing Audi wouldn't broadcast enough status compared with the usual badges. Those same buyers were now getting out their phones to find the nearest dealership.
In a modest apartment on the other side of the city, Heifeng's phone wouldn't stop rattling on the nightstand. He surfaced from sleep long enough to catch Huang Ming, the head of marketing, practically shouting into the receiver. "President Heifeng, we're taking off!" The man's excitement bled into reverence, as if a magician had finally pulled away the silk and revealed the tiger underneath. Heifeng sat up, rubbing at the bridge of his nose, and asked what could possibly justify a midnight call.
"Go online," Huang Ming said. "Our Audi A8 just showed up as the leader's car."
"What?" The word snapped him fully awake. He ended the call, opened Weibo, and didn't need to search. The A8 clip sat pinned at the top of the trending feed—flags, grille, the whole country watching. Even Heifeng, usually so controlled that his rivals mistook it for arrogance, couldn't help the rush in his chest. "Finally," he murmured. "Right on time."
This was the keystone he'd counted on when he walked back from Beijing and slashed the A6's price to the bone, daring the market to blink. People had asked where his nerve came from; enemies had called it recklessness dressed up as genius. But the truth was simple: the right doors had opened, and the right car had been accepted. Without that, the price war would have been a stunt. With it, the numbers would become a narrative, and the narrative would become a stampede.
Online, the tone shifted from giddy to predatory as armchair analysts spelled out what came next. If yesterday's fence-sitters now saw Audi as "the leader's car," then showroom foot traffic would spike; conversion rates would climb; the resale curve would stiffen; and every competitor's pitch would sound just a little more hollow. Water-cooler math works on vibes, not spreadsheets, and tonight the vibe was ironclad: buy Audi and wear the aura.
The rivals knew it too. Their PR teams could paste over a thousand cracks—boast about heritage, trot out long-wheelbase back-seat comfort, seed reviews about "true" luxury—and still the image would linger: flags, four rings, a W12 badge catching the camera's gleam. It didn't even matter that most buyers would never see, let alone afford, a W12. What mattered was that they could feel they were buying into the same family.
By dawn, dealership chats were already buzzing about early walk-ins "just to ask." Sales managers who'd groused about inventory targets last week were burning incense to the god of footfall. And somewhere in a polished boardroom, a European director of "Asia Strategy" would be demanding fresh talking points—anything to puncture the balloon swelling around a single three-minute news segment.
Heifeng didn't gloat. He checked the timelines, watched the repost counters spin, and exhaled slowly. The climb was never about a single trick. It was about patience and position: being humble when enemies wanted drama, being bold when they expected retreat, and trusting that when the right moment came, the whole board would tilt. Tonight, with an Audi A8 stepping into the most symbolic lane in the country, the tilt had begun.