Picture source @Visual China
text | Interesting business, author | Liu Liang
was punished and suspended for 3 months due to inappropriate remarks. Oriental Selection anchor Tianquan resumed broadcasting in advance. Yu Minhong came to "escort"?
On November 16, Oriental Selection Tianquan, who was punished for inappropriate remarks and suspended for 3 months, resumed airing in advance and appeared in the Taiwu Ski Resort live broadcast of "Oriental Selection Watch the World" that morning, together with Yu Minhong and anchor Lin Lin Deliver goods live.
According to the Douyin list, as of 18:00 that day, the live broadcast room had received 5.8 million likes and gained 19,000 followers that day; according to data from the third-party organization "Cicada Mama", the GMV of this live broadcast reached 750,000 yuan. -1 million yuan, ranking first on the Douyin group buying list that day. However, compared with Dong Yuhui's first live broadcast results in "Walking with Hui" - 1.3 billion likes, 100 million yuan in gmv, and 3.3 million followers , it can be said to be "dwarfed by comparison".
It has been more than two months since Dong Yuhui’s “little composition incident” took place on December 5 last year, but Oriental Selection still has to clean up the “feathers” left behind by the incident. According to "Qujie Business" statistics, from December 5 to January 18, the share price of Oriental Selection (1797.hk) fell by 14.7%; and from January 1 to 15, the number of fans of Oriental Selection's Douyin account The volume continued to grow negatively, with 181,000 followers lost in half a month.
Picture source: Screenshot of Oriental Fortune
Without Dong Yuhui’s Oriental Selection live broadcast room, can Tianquan and others carry the banner? How to weigh the pros and cons and allocate resources between the two live broadcast rooms of Oriental Selection and Youhui? How can Eastern Selection restore its past "glory" in the future?
01 Dong Yuhui, who “can’t wait”, will he get the right to heaven after waiting?
On the evening of December 15, 2023, Oriental Selection anchor Tianquan made inappropriate remarks in the live broadcast room, which aroused criticism from netizens. Oriental Selection decided to stop live broadcasting for three months and severely criticized him; Since Tianquan stopped broadcasting until this time It resumed broadcast only one month later, and topics related to "Tianquan resumed broadcast early" and "suspended from 3 months to 1 month" also triggered heated discussions on social media.
html On January 16, Oriental Screening CEO Yu Minhong posted a video on the Douyin platform in response to Tian Quan’s comeback two months ahead of schedule. Yu Minhong said in the video that young people have made mistakes and should be given the opportunity to correct them in time, so he decided to change Tianquan's 3-month suspension into 1-month . In response to some netizens questioning Dongfang Selection’s “betrayal” and lack of integrity, Yu Minhong also responded, “ integrity may not be understood in this way; a society allows young people to make mistakes, and also allows young people to correct mistakes in a timely manner. A society that is willing to give young people opportunities in a timely manner is a tolerant and beautiful society.”
Picture source: Weibo screenshot
Yu Minhong may be telling the truth, but maybe Dongfang Selection has other considerations - just like Tianquan needs a comeback, Dongfang Selection also needs Tianquan's comeback.
After Dong Yuhui concentrated on running his personal account "Walking with Hui", perhaps the most difficult problem facing the Oriental Selection live broadcast room was how to fill the vacancy of "super anchor".
Oriental Selection was able to be pulled back from the cliff of "narrow escape", almost because of Dong Yuhui's "single effort". Then, although the live broadcast style of everyone in the live broadcast room is inseparable from "knowledge delivery" and "cultural core", compared to Dong Yuhui's super popularity, no one can match it; except for Tian Quan and Dong Yuhui In addition to the comparison of single-game data, the staged performance of the two major live broadcast rooms also explains everything.
As of January 10, Douyin platform data shows that the number of likes for Walking with the Fai since its launch was 1.27 billion, while the number of likes for Oriental Selection during the same period was only 150 million, a difference of 8 times; in terms of total sales, The total sales of Hehui Peer exceeded 100 million yuan, while that of Oriental Selection was between 10 million yuan and 25 million yuan.
Picture source: Weibo screenshot
From the current stage, Tianquan cannot become the "second Dong Yuhui", and it may be difficult for Oriental Selection to find an anchor who can completely replace Dong Yuhui in the short term; in the long term, each company currently Live streaming e-commerce organizations all have their own “top anchors”. If Oriental Selection cannot fill the gap left after Dong Yuhui's "solo career", it will inevitably cause the dilution of platform traffic and brand value.
Of course, this does not mean that Dongfang Selection will not be able to "support itself" in the future. 's anchor matrix represented by Tianquan also includes Yoyo, Dundun, Qiqi and others. They all have the "Oriental Selection Label" anchor standards - high education, extensive knowledge, and strong communication skills; they all have " The "battle-tested" and systematic language structure can form high interactivity and strong stickiness with the audience through "knowledge delivery" and "cultural core".
On the one hand, if the effect of a single anchor cannot meet the company's expectations, then live broadcasting by multiple anchors may be a sound transition strategy. "Qujie Business" found that many popular e-commerce live broadcast rooms require at least 2-3 anchors. Even "top streamers" like Li Jiaqi once had assistant Fu Peng live broadcast with him. Fans The general response is that "strong forces join forces to complement each other and achieve better results"; the "Big and Little Yang" live broadcast room also adopts the same strategy. Therefore, if Oriental Selection can create a model similar to "live broadcast of two people CP" or "Qiang Qiang three people", it may be able to achieve the effect of "1+1>2".
Picture source: Can Gallery
On the other hand, it may not be a good thing for to blindly follow Dong Yuhui's style. It is likely to be considered by the outside world as deliberate imitation or lack of innovation. In other words, Oriental Selection should create new features in the "post-Dong Yuhui era"; this "new feature" is difficult to model in a unified way and needs to be deeply explored based on each anchor's own style.
cannot imitate Dong Yuhui blindly, it is difficult to surpass Dong Yuhui, and it has to "pk" Dong Yuhui. This may be one of the most difficult issues for the Oriental Selection live broadcast room and all its anchors.
02 After Dong Yuhui’s “solo career”, how to balance resources and anchors?
Dong Yuhui once said, "Walking with Hui is a live broadcast room for Oriental Selection to explore new businesses. I am now a partner of 'Oriental Selection', and I wish both companies well."
Picture source: Weibo screenshot
Currently, with Dong Yuhui and Sun Dongxu are responsible for the Hui Peer and Oriental Selection live broadcast rooms respectively. The business models and product selection categories of the two live broadcast rooms are very similar. According to "21st Century Business Herald" citing people familiar with the matter, Dongfang Selection's self-operated products will definitely be sold behind the Youhui Peer live broadcast room. From this point of view, the two major live broadcast rooms may form competition and conflicts in the future, and the Oriental Selection Group may face the problem of "rebalance of resources" within the group.
"resources" include products, anchors, supply chains, operations teams and other resources. Yu Minhong once said, "In the past, Yu Hui could only listen to arrangements for broadcasting. Now he not only arranges for himself, but also arranges for the team. He has a sense of control than before." However, is in the core team of Oriental Selection, and all kinds of resources are limited. The two accounts need to divide the cake. How can we achieve a balanced .
In addition, has a certain "long tail effect" due to the fermentation of the previous "little composition storm" that was too high and lasted too long. ; Including Dong Yuhui's "Mothers-in-law", many netizens expressed their disapproval of Yu Minhong and Oriental Selection Doubts arise, thereby affecting trust.
Picture source: Weibo screenshot
"Interesting Business" found that some netizens now compare the two accounts of Oriental Selection Live Broadcast Room and Yuhui Peering in multiple dimensions, including sales results, product reputation, etc.; perhaps regardless of "Yuhui" Whether "peers" are doing well or not will easily lead to public doubts about Dongfang Selection's "favoring one over others" and "removing Dong Yuhui". may also have an impact on Dongfang Selection's strategic decisions.
Previously, Li Jiaqi asked the audience in the live broadcast room, "Have you worked hard for so many years?" caused an uproar. In the following period, Li Jiaqi kept a low profile and even reduced the frequency of live broadcasts. Similarly, Oriental Selection may also need some time to reshape its brand image.
Oriental Selection must not only deal with the "aftershocks" of the Dong Yuhui incident, but may also need to consider whether to continue to create "super IP anchors" in the future.
's strategy for "making friends" is very clear: make friends who are "iron" and "famous" Internet celebrity anchors. Huang He, the founder of Make a Friend, said last year: "Making friends will not create the next Luo Yonghao. The logic is to 'make an account rather than a person'. Because being an expert will have a lot of uncertainties and is not stable enough; next , when making friends, you will create a category account, and will not focus on praising a certain person. Instead, you will invite professional experts in the industry to come over and give the account a strong endorsement like Mr. Luo."
Image source: Canned Gallery
Last year's "Double 11" During this period, Luo Yonghao appeared in a total of 6 live broadcasts in the Make a Friend Live Room, and then faded out of the live broadcast industry as mentioned before; then the Make a Friend Live Room invited Li Dan to "take over" Luo Yonghao's live broadcast. The advantage of 's "flowing seat" style of play is that there is no dependence on a single super anchor; but the disadvantage is that it is difficult to maintain a consistent style in the live broadcast room, which may lead to insufficient fan stickiness.
It’s hard to have your cake and eat it too. A single "head anchor" earns the most traffic but the risk is too great. Multiple "neck anchors" can check and balance each other but reduce the efficiency value; may also be something that the current Oriental Selection Team, Simba Team, Li Jiaqi Team, etc. need to consider. The problem.
03 "Betting" on self-operated products, where is the "moat" of Oriental Selection?
In addition to anchors, the future development of Dongfang Select live e-commerce, which uses self-operated products as its core SKU, may lie in whether it can provide good products and a good product line.
Oriental Selection’s 2023 fiscal year data released in August last year showed that Oriental Selection’s GMV for the whole year reached 10 billion yuan, the total number of orders reached 136 million, and the number of self-operated products exceeded 120. The total revenue of the self-operated products and live broadcast e-commerce segment was RMB 3.9 billion; of which the total revenue of self-operated products exceeded RMB 2.6 billion, with a gross profit of RMB 1.5 billion and a gross profit margin of 38.2%.
Picture source: Financial report screenshot
Oriental Selection is committed to strengthening the supply chain management system, expanding product categories, increasing product quantity and SKU, especially self-operated products. According to a research report released by Huachuang Securities in December last year, the number of SKUs of Oriental Selection's self-operated products has exceeded 200, and live broadcast sales accounted for about 60-70%.
Picture source: Huachuang Securities Research Report screenshot
Oriental Selection app also launched a paid membership system in October last year. The membership price is 199 yuan/year, officially entering the online membership store track. So, in the future, will Oriental Selection adopt a low gross profit margin, membership-based profit model like Costco and Sam's, or a high gross profit margin, non-membership profit model? But no matter which one, Dongfang Selection needs to continue to improve the competitiveness of its self-operated products.
In addition, Oriental Selection does not yet have a physical store, which for many consumers "cannot smell or touch"; Although Oriental Selection's self-operated stores have word-of-mouth products including grilled sausages, shrimp cakes, blueberry juice, etc., However, compared to Hema and Sam's, which frequently produce hot-selling products, the new products recently launched by Oriental Selection have not caused much splash.
Picture source: Huachuang Securities Research Report screenshot
The expansion of the product line has brought the difficulty level to a higher level compared to the product.
On December 10 last year, Oriental Selection launched cultural tourism products on its own app for the first time; on the first day of the live broadcast, the Oriental Selection app achieved sales of cultural tourism products exceeding 16 million yuan, and the results exceeded expectations.
However, cultural tourism products are very different from agricultural products and daily necessities, including consumption frequency and repurchase rate; In addition, the unit price of cultural tourism products is also relatively high, often costing several thousand or even tens of thousands of yuan, which is not a live broadcast. Regular commodities for “impulse consumption” within the space.At present, all the cultural and travel products of Oriental Selection come from third-party organizations; to a certain extent, there is no difference between the cultural and travel products sold by Oriental Selection and other OTA platforms. So why don’t consumers place orders with Ctrip, Qunar.com, and Fliggy? Woolen cloth? What’s more, the product selections on these large platforms are even richer. How
embodies the word "selection" may be one of the keys to establishing a moat for Oriental Selection, and "selection" products and product lines are no less important than "selection" of anchors.
Picture source: Can Gallery
After Dong Yuhui had a "new identity", no matter how he and Yu Minhong reconciled and explained, many netizens still believed that their relationship had undergone a "qualitative change" to a certain extent, which may also open up the future for Dongfang Selection The development has planted variables. From the change of anchors to the reshaping of the internal structure, Oriental Selection will explore "changes" in 2024. We will wait and see whether
Oriental Selection can get through this "pain period" as soon as possible, and what kind of "butterfly change" it will show.
