Who could have imagined that what started as a desperate attempt to clear unsold second-hand cars in Dubai would lead Wu Zhen to break through in the TikTok automotive livestreaming track, becoming one of the few operators in the world capable of continuously delivering overseas automotive sales leads.

From Zhengzhou’s “Automotive Circle Hegang” with its natural traffic genes, to starting from zero followers in the Middle East lead generation competition and surpassing local accounts with 200,000 followers, from a single session generating 320 valid leads, to covering the entire markets of the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Europe and America, Wu Zhen, together with the Tuke Carco automotive business team, has turned the Chinese automotive livestreaming model into a hardcore weapon for car companies to conquer the globe.

As the founder and general manager of Tuke’s overseas automotive business (Beijing Tuke Carco Automotive Technology Co., Ltd., Tuke&Carco), Wu Zhen has never defined himself as an “architect,” but rather as an overseas automotive marketing consultant+ lead generation livestreaming operator—no empty talk, only actionable leads and real sales conversions.

Along the way, there were no shortcuts, only attempts made in desperation and a sleepless perseverance that never let go of any opportunity.

In today’s exclusive interview, let’s step into Wu Zhen’s story of automotive livestreaming together.

 

Wu Zhen posing with cars at the base

Originating in Zhengzhou: The Livestreaming Fertile Ground Occupying Half the Country, Hiding Seeds for Going Global

Before doing TikTok automotive livestreaming, Wu Zhen was already a veteran in domestic automotive livestreaming.

Henan Zhengzhou, the “Automotive Circle Hegang” that accounts for half of China’s automotive livestreaming, was his starting point. Thousands of square meters of livestreaming bases, hundreds of hosts taking turns doing natural traffic livestreams.

At the 2024 Guangzhou Auto Show, a media report’s phrase “paid traffic can’t beat Zhengzhou’s natural traffic” directly confirmed the hardcore nature of this approach.

At that time, China’s “new trio” of intelligent manufacturing was stirring up a wave of automotive exports, while the domestic market had already reached its peak, a complete red ocean.

Watching Chinese car manufacturing overtake European and American giants on the curve, Wu Zhen had a thought: If the domestic market is too competitive, why not go overseas! The blue ocean abroad is the new opportunity for Chinese cars.

 

Domestic second-hand car market

This idea, like a seed, slowly sprouted in his heart. And Dubai, this world automotive trading center, became his first testing ground—he wanted to use Dubai as a springboard to spread the Chinese automotive livestreaming model to more markets worldwide.

But at that time, he didn’t know that this much-anticipated overseas venture would not be a smooth road, but an unexpected inventory crisis. In just one year, the market share of Chinese cars in Dubai soared from less than 10% to over 30%, and the hundreds of zero-kilometer second-hand cars shipped by the team turned from hot commodities into unsellable stock!

 

Every few months, new Chinese car brands settle on Dubai King’s Avenue

Cutting losses? That was not Wu Zhen’s choice. When pushed to the brink, he suddenly thought of his old profession—livestreaming. “If natural traffic livestreaming can sell cars in China, why can’t we bring this model to TikTok?”

Thus, what started as a reluctant move to clear inventory became the starting point for Tuke’s overseas (Tuke&Carco) livestreaming. No one expected that this seemingly desperate choice would become the key to unlocking the overseas automotive livestreaming track, and what made Wu Zhen firmly believe “this road is feasible” was a 20-year-old Moroccan young man.

 

Host learning about cars

This young man could only speak Arabic and knew nothing about livestreaming—a complete novice. Wu Zhen’s team did not give up, trained him from scratch, set up a livestreaming room for him, started the account from zero followers, and did pure natural traffic livestreaming. In three days, three livestreams, each only one hour, but in just these three hours, they delivered a result that amazed everyone.

The third livestream, 1 hour and 6 minutes, 4,526 views, of which 4,155 were unique viewers, with a peak of 323 people online simultaneously, and 95% of the traffic coming from livestream channel recommendations.  


“These numbers would be hard to achieve even for experienced hosts in China’s mature Douyin ecosystem, let alone a novice who has only streamed three times.”

The moment the host finished streaming, Wu Zhen instantly had the answer in his heart: TikTok automotive livestreaming, it works! The natural traffic genes of Zhengzhou have truly taken root and sprouted in overseas soil.

It was also this livestream that enabled Tuke’s overseas (Tuke&Carco) to rise rapidly in the overseas automotive livestreaming track, becoming one of the few domestic and even global suppliers capable of sustainable delivery of overseas automotive livestreaming leads.

 

Zhengzhou livestreaming base

Breaking Through in the Middle East: Zero-Starting Comeback, 3 Novices Competing Against a 200,000-Follower Local Account

If the Dubai attempt was Tuke’s overseas (Tuke&Carco) breakthrough from 0 to 1, then the TikTok official MENA Middle East and North Africa automotive livestreaming lead generation competition was their stage to prove themselves to the entire industry.

The only criterion for this competition was the number of leads generated—precisely the core capability of Wu Zhen’s team.

Wu Zhen insisted on the hardest challenge: starting from zero.

Two new accounts registered for less than a week, just over 50 followers (the minimum requirement for TikTok Middle East livestreaming), three new hosts who had only been on the job for a week, only spoke Arabic, and had no experience in automotive livestreaming—this was their competition lineup.

The model they chose was Ji Shi 01—a model little known in China, but in the UAE, thanks to its “Land Rover Defender alternative” high cost-performance, it was ranked alongside Jetour and Fangchengbao as one of the three hottest Chinese car brands locally.

“I just wanted to verify whether our methodology is truly effective, whether we can really quickly start accounts and replicate teams.”

For this competition, the team perfected every detail: researching the market, refining scripts in Chinese/English/Arabic, revising the core script 12 times, making it as tightly linked as a crosstalk performance; the livestreaming room was decorated in Arabic style, from the car roof sign to benefit prompts, all repeatedly tested.

The competition was like a thrilling uphill race. Pure natural traffic livestreaming from zero followers, in the first 5 days, the average daily leads were stable at 10; from the 6th day, the numbers soared: 18, 40, 77, and by the 9th day, stabilized at 80. That day, a 4-hour livestream brought 14,614 viewers, 73,889 likes, and 320 valid leads.

 

At that time, four business leaders from the Ji Shi brand came to watch the livestream in person, and Wu Zhen had mixed feelings. On one hand, he was excited by the data explosion, on the other, he quietly hoped “that’s enough”—he was worried that such crazy lead numbers would make the brand expect too much from future delivery, increasing the difficulty of subsequent implementation.

The final result amazed everyone: the Ji Shi account took second place, the second-hand car account ranked fourth, while first place went to a local account with 200,000 followers that had been operating for a long time!

This comeback also established two conclusions as Tuke’s overseas (Tuke&Carco) standard approach: First, Douyin/TikTok algorithm logic is the same, human nature knows no borders, and domestic methods are fully applicable overseas; second, overseas livestreaming must be localized, and native language hosts are the key to capturing 90% of the blue ocean market.

 

Establishing a Global Presence: Rejecting Personal IP, Creating a “Universal Solution” for Car Companies Going Global

In the minds of many brands, the effectiveness of livestreaming depends entirely on the “star host,” but Wu Zhen bluntly says: this is the most dangerous kind of personal heroism! Countless domestic companies have built up IPs only to be undermined by their hosts, parting ways—a lesson that has long sounded the alarm for him.

“Water can carry a boat, but also overturn it. Once a host gathers all the attention, it’s hard to resist the temptation, and in the end, all the brand’s early efforts and investment will be in vain.”

For this reason, Wu Zhen led Tuke’s overseas (Tuke&Carco) to build a unique, highly risk-resistant livestreaming system: hosts never appear on camera, the lens focuses only on the vehicle.

 

Tuke’s overseas (Tuke&Carco) livestreaming room on TikTok

What viewers remember is the brand’s livestreaming room, not a particular host; the team can replace unqualified hosts at any time without affecting traffic and conversion. This model makes the livestreaming system truly replicable and scalable, and has become one of Tuke’s overseas (Tuke&Carco) core competitive advantages.

Today, Tuke’s overseas (Tuke&Carco) has already formed the “universal solution” for car companies going global: core cooperation with various automotive OEMs, covering four-wheel/two-wheel fuel vehicles, new energy passenger cars, commercial vehicles, agricultural vehicles of all categories; business footprint across the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Central Asia, Europe, South America in global core markets; and global bases + multilingual hosts + phased livestreaming strategies, precisely solving pain points at all stages of car companies going global—pre-production feedback, first batch rollout to expand channels, clearing unsold inventory, channel maturity to reduce costs and increase efficiency, with lead costs 50% lower than other social media!

In Wu Zhen’s view, the essence of TikTok automotive livestreaming is bringing professional sales online and directly selling cars in the livestreaming room. And for a livestream to go smoothly, three bottom lines must never be broken: smooth network, correct tagging, and not reciting dead scripts—this is also why they never do AI livestreaming, as the core of livestreaming is real human interaction.


Host livestreaming on site

Staying True and Moving Forward: Lessons Learned Become Nourishment, Sleepless Nights Just to Seize the Opportunity

On the road to conquering the world, Wu Zhen has made mistakes and faced misunderstandings, but these experiences have ultimately become nourishment for the team’s growth.

The most common misunderstanding is that brands want both “branding + performance”: they want efficient lead generation, full brand exposure, and insist on using old accounts to go live.

Wu Zhen gave a vivid analogy: “Old brand accounts are like blunt sickles; what we need is a sharp sickle to quickly harvest wheat. TikTok’s algorithm has already set the tags, it’s almost impossible to have both, in 90% of cases you can only choose one!”

The most unforgettable mistake was an account that died due to unprofessional intervention: an Arabic new account, during the nurturing phase, was required by the brand to switch to English livestreaming and took over the script modification rights, resulting in the loss of the Arabic audience and algorithm tag confusion, so it had to be abandoned and restarted.

“Respect market rules, maintain localization and professionalism in livestreaming, and don’t let unprofessional intervention ruin the whole account.” This is the conclusion Wu Zhen drew from his mistakes, and what he always emphasizes when working with new clients.

 

Wu Zhen reviewing with the team

Now, standing at a new starting point and looking to the future, Wu Zhen is convinced that the golden age of TikTok automotive livestreaming has just begun.

In the next 6-12 months, two major opportunities are certain:

First, TikTok commercialization is accelerating, and as a core industry, automotive will receive key support from the platform. Domestic car companies are already familiar with the livestreaming model and will surely be the biggest beneficiaries! Second, TikTok livestreaming business in the Saudi market is about to open. As the largest automotive market in the Middle East, it will surely become a battleground for car companies. And Tuke’s overseas (Tuke&Carco) has already built a local team in advance and is fully prepared.

He often tells overseas clients that there are two Chinese companies that have thrived despite being fully suppressed by the US: one is Huawei, the other is TikTok.

“The paper tiger of imperialism fears them, and there must be a reason.”

And that reason is the innovative power and explosive force of the Chinese model, which is also the confidence for Tuke’s overseas (Tuke&Carco) to compete globally.

 

When asked to describe the past two years in one word, Wu Zhen chose “sleepless”.

Not because of busyness, but because the track changes too fast—the pace of TikTok automotive overseas livestreaming cannot be measured in years, but in months, weeks, or even days. Opportunities are fleeting, new ones emerge every day, making him reluctant to sleep, afraid of missing a chance to further accelerate Chinese car companies’ overseas expansion.

From livestreaming rooms in Zhengzhou, to a do-or-die battle in Dubai, to a comprehensive global layout, Wu Zhen has led Tuke’s overseas (Tuke&Carco) to break through and grow all the way.

His story is a microcosm of Chinese automotive companies going global, and a true portrayal of countless Chinese entrepreneurs seizing the opportunities of the times, daring to venture and try.

And in the wave of automotive exports, the story of Tuke’s overseas (Tuke&Carco) continues; Chinese cars, riding the wind of livestreaming, are heading towards a broader world.