With the rise of online e-commerce, many brands have chosen to invite celebrities to deliver goods live.
According to Red Star News, Shiliyan Shampoo, a subsidiary of Materia Medica Company, was a new brand launched last year. During this year's "618" period, it also hopes to bring a certain amount of traffic and sales through celebrities.
Materia Medica contacted Hangzhou Wuyou Media Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Wuyou Company) through a third-party intermediary company, and decided to have its artist Ming Dao conduct a special live broadcast for the brand on June 14. The contract amount signed by a third-party intermediary company on behalf of Materia Medica and Wuyou Company is 2.438 million, including special event fees and commercial launch fees. Materia Medica stated that they actually paid 3 million yuan to a third-party intermediary company.
In the end, after the entire live broadcast, the sales were only 348,000, and a large number of returns occurred within one month after the live broadcast, "the return rate reached more than half." The actual sales volume was only more than 2,000 orders, totaling more than 200,000 yuan.
"We spent several million to find Mingdao to do a special live broadcast, but
only sold more than 200,000 yuan after removing the refund."
According to Red Star News, "We spent several million to find Mingdao to do a special live broadcast during the '618' period. As a result, we removed the refund." We only sold more than 200,000 yuan, and the cost difference is too big, not even one-tenth. We hope to refund in proportion," Ms. Yang, the relevant person in charge of the Materia Medica Company, told reporters.
Ms. Yang also said that the original decision to let Mingdao do the live broadcast was based on its historical sales data. Since there was no guaranteed quantity contract signed at the beginning, “they were only willing to provide after-sales service and were not willing to provide refunds.” After-sales solutions include extending the duration of Mingdao’s live broadcast, allowing the artist’s exclusive link to continue selling products, and continuing to bring goods to at least 10 mixed live broadcasts. However, Ms. Yang said that the after-sales plan was only oral and did not have any contractual guarantee, so the two parties did not reach an agreement.
In response to this, Wuyou Company, where Mingdao is located, stated that they offered after-sales solutions such as extending the life of the live broadcast slices and continuing to bring goods for its live broadcasts. However, the other party's only demand was a refund, and they also found "internet trolls" to attack Mingdao. The company has fulfilled the contract as promised, and if it cannot be properly resolved, they are also prepared to sue to defend their rights. Wuyou Company believes that it is very inappropriate for the other party to try to use the celebrity's reputation as a threat. Next, the company will still communicate with the brand and fulfill its after-sales commitments. But if they continue to slander the artist's image, they will also use legal means to protect their rights.
Mingdao was born in 1980. He is well known for his roles in TV series such as "The Wedding Dress of Heaven" and "The Prince Turns into a Frog". He currently has more than 8 million fans on the Douyin platform. Third-party data platforms such as "Cicada Mama" and "Feigua" show that from January to August this year, Mingdao's sales of exceeded 100 million. Judging from June, its daily sales have fluctuated, ranging from hundreds of thousands to tens of millions. The sales volume of Shiliyan shampoo is almost at the bottom.
According to the official account of Wuyou Media on March 22, on March 21, the 2024 Cicada Mother Annual Conference and the 3rd "Star Cicada Award" awards ceremony ended perfectly in Hangzhou. Wuyou Media signed a contract with a celebrity anchor and Douyin head Mingdao, a business expert, won the third "Xingchan Award" for the annual surpassing celebrity sales king. At the
ceremony, Mingdao shared his journey of expanding his career from an actor and singer to a merchandise anchor. He said that in addition to his acting work, live broadcasting will be a career that he will not give up. In the future, he will continue to cultivate more excellent products and brands for everyone.
Since the official announcement of joining Wuyou Media in 2023, Mingdao has joined hands with Wuyou to continuously make breakthroughs in e-commerce live broadcasting, content creation and other fields, pursuing excellence, and has repeatedly reached the top of the overall list of goods delivery, and the supermarket live broadcast has topped the Douyin goods delivery list Ranking first in both lists, the cumulative number of viewers in a single game is nearly 20 million, helping brands in multiple tracks such as maternal and infant, daily chemicals, home furnishings, and beauty products to achieve growth.
Lawyer: Whether to refund depends on the specific contract terms
In recent years, cases of celebrities "overturning" goods have occurred from time to time. For example, a company hired national first-class actor Du Xudong to bring goods and paid a pit fee of 33,000 yuan. In the end, only A pack of fungus was sold, with a sales volume of 64.9 yuan; Tian Liang’s wife and singer Ye Yiqian sold tea sets live, with nearly 900,000 online viewers, and sold less than 2,000 yuan; celebrities Yang Zi and Huang Shengyi participated in the New Year Festival to sell goods, and some merchants I paid a pit fee of 100,000 yuan, prepared bacon worth 1.7 million yuan, and only sold one order in the end.
A senior lawyer told the "Daily Economic News" reporter that in this type of case, if the celebrity's delivery of goods fails to meet the brand's expectations, whether a refund should be given to the brand depends on the brand, the intermediary (if any) and Specific contract terms between celebrity parties. If there is a relevant clause in the contract that the star party must refund based on the actual completion rate if the star party fails to complete the sales target, then the star party needs to refund, but not vice versa. And if the intermediary makes false promises to the brand without telling the celebrity, the intermediary may be suspected of fraud and must bear legal responsibility.
Previously, "Daily Economic News" reported a case. A company in Suzhou spent 200,000 yuan to hire "Big V" to live stream goods, but only made 2 transactions, with sales of less than 500 yuan. It then sued the cultural company to which the "Big V" account belonged, demanding a refund.
In this case, a business company in Suzhou took a fancy to a cultural media company's account with a huge number of fans, and signed a "Live Broadcast Promotion Service Contract" with it, stipulating that the cultural media company would arrange anchors to live broadcast the repair cream produced by the company. Sales promotion, basic service fee is 200,000 yuan.
Cultural Media Company guarantees that the actual sales amount of the repair cream will reach 500,000 yuan. If the sales amount is not achieved, an equal portion of the basic service fee will be refunded.
After the contract was signed, the business company paid a service fee of 200,000 yuan as agreed. However, only two sales of the repair cream were made through the live broadcast, with a total amount of only 456 yuan. Faced with a huge psychological gap, the business company sued the Huqiu Court and requested a refund of 200,000 yuan in service fees.
The Huqiu Court held that the "Live Broadcast Promotion Service Contract" between the two parties was legal and valid. After the plaintiff paid the service fee to the defendant, the defendant failed to perform its obligations as agreed, which constituted a breach of contract. The plaintiff has the right to request a refund of the service fee according to the agreement. Because the two parties agreed that the service fee would be refunded based on the actual completion rate, the court ruled that the defendant should refund the service fee of 199,817.6 yuan.
Many celebrities have stopped selling goods through live broadcasts
According to Jiupai News, the "favorite" of celebrity live broadcasts for selling goods seems to be beginning to ebb. From 2020, the "first year of celebrity live broadcasts", more than 500 celebrity artists have poured into this blue ocean; to the first "crab eaters" to come ashore, Li Xiang, Chen He, Liu Tao and others have all "retired" one after another.
According to Jiupai News, celebrity agent Gu Xing (pseudonym) once said that popular A-list stars will definitely not bring goods because bringing goods and filming are not compatible. In addition, another reason why celebrities' craze for bringing goods has waned is that there are too many cases of overturning. Celebrities who still want to film must take good care of their feathers. Selling fake goods or failing to sell them will affect their public image.
In recent years, live broadcasts have been booming. Many celebrities and celebrities have overturned their characters and live broadcasts due to poor delivery and quality problems. Moreover, the sales volume of many celebrity artists are seriously inconsistent with their status, which has also caused a large number of celebrity artists to choose to withdraw from the live broadcast room.
From the bustling year of 2020, when hundreds of celebrities and artists promoted products, in just a few years, the popularity of celebrity products has obviously cooled down.
In August last year, Li Xiang posted on Weibo claiming "I have retired", which made many netizens confused. The one-time sales leader among celebrities has not done live broadcasts for a long time.
In 2019, Li Xiang launched his first live broadcast with the theme of "Private Goods Revealed for the First Time", becoming the first crab-eating warrior in the entertainment industry. In half a year, she did more than 30 live broadcasts and successfully attracted millions of fans.
According to incomplete statistics, at least 500 artists will launch their first live shows in 2020. Stars such as Liu Tao, Chen He, Li Chen, Qin Hailu and others have launched new careers. This year, it is also known in the industry as the live broadcast show of celebrity artists. The first year of goods.
Chen He created the "Youdong Live Broadcast Room" and shared the stage with the host Zhu Zhen to promote products; Juhuasuan's selection officer Liu Tao has a new persona of "Liu Yidao", and it is said on the Internet that his contract price reached an annual salary of one million. Relevant reports show that the total transaction volume of Liu Tao’s live broadcast exceeded 148 million yuan.
However, anchors are an industry with a strong head effect after all, and celebrities are no exception. This will be particularly obvious in 2022. The vast majority of celebrities' live broadcast business capabilities quickly hit the ceiling. In addition, the platform's battle to grab people has basically come to an end. Targeted support will no longer be provided in the later period, and the stars' live broadcast data began to fall off a cliff.
According to statistics, starting from 2022, Liu Tao, Qin Hailu, Chen He, Jing Tian and other "top-tier" celebrity anchors who were once popular for selling goods have also faded out or stopped completely. Among the celebrities who are still carrying goods, only a few people such as Jia Nailiang can remain at the top.
Editor | Duan Lian Gai Yuanyuan
Proofreading| Liu Siqi
Daily economic news is synthesized from Red Star News, Wuyou Media official account, Every Economic Network, Jiupai News, public information, etc.
Daily Economic News
