Picture source @Visual China
text | Mantis Observation, author | Qingyue
One day ago, college student Qi Xia would never buy a book like "The Right Bank of the Ergun River" in the live broadcast room.
She likes to read novels, but she only loves suspense and endless themes. As for "The Right Bank of the Ergun River", a novel about the tenacious struggle and beautiful love of a small and weak nation, from Qi Xia's previous perspective, Too "pretentious" and "painless moaning", she never imagined that one day she would be interested in it, and would even place an order directly in the live broadcast room.
What made Qi Xia desire to buy was the "distant, mysterious, clean and translucent picture" described by Dong Yuhui in the live broadcast room. In the end, she also read from the book that "reindeer roost in the moss" , the beauty of the shaman dancing in the moonlight.
In the past year, the "magic" contained in live broadcasts that can maximize consumers' potential and desires has become increasingly powerful.
business big data monitoring shows that in the first 10 months of 2023, my country's live broadcast sales exceeded 2.2 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 58.9%, accounting for 18.1% of online retail sales, driving online zero growth by 7.5 percentage points.
Live streaming has gradually become a digital economic force that cannot be ignored. In this process, the role of the anchor, who occupies the main information output point, naturally plays an important role in promoting. However, in 2024, the role of the anchor will not be ignored. There seem to be some subtle changes between the anchor and the live broadcast delivery.
Celebrities "fade out" of live broadcasts with goods
In the current live broadcast market, there are mainly four types of anchors, namely celebrity anchors, professional anchors (including head anchors, mid-waist anchors, and small anchors), store self-broadcasters, and just-in-time anchors. The rise of AI digital human anchors.
Compared with the other three categories, celebrity anchors have unique advantages.
Most celebrity artists have a certain fan base, which is destined to make it easier for them to obtain traffic and attention than ordinary celebrities, thereby achieving better sales results.
According to incomplete statistics, at least more than 500 artists have tried live streaming to bring goods so far in 2020, and have also created good live streaming data. For example, during last year’s Double Eleven, Jia Nailiang, known as the “number one celebrity live broadcaster”, had a total sales of The sales exceeded 1.36 billion yuan, an increase of 323% compared with last year's Double 11, helping 8 brands break into the top ten in the industry, and creating 27 tens of millions of single products and 106 million-level single products; Lin Yilun's live broadcast room in " There were live broadcasts almost every day during the "Double 11" period. The two live broadcasts on November 10th and 11th had more than 10 million views...
star bonus also benefited many mcn organizations that have arranged star live broadcast tracks, among which The most famous one is Yuanwang Technology.
As one of the earliest mcn organizations to accurately arrange celebrity live broadcasts, Yuanwang Technology has recruited more than 40 well-known celebrity artists such as Cecilia Cheung, Ying Er, Chen Yiru, Zhang Yuxi, Jia Nailiang, Huang Yi, etc., and has reaped all the dividends. From the end of 2019 to the beginning of 2020 , Yuanwang Technology even reached 16 daily limits in 25 trading days, and its stock price soared by about 400%.
(Source: Snowball)
However, the good times did not last long. Starting from 2023, , Yuanwang Technology and the celebrity live broadcast delivery products it relies on seem to have hit the "ceiling". Li Xiang, Liu Tao, Chen He and other former delivery products “Top-tier players” have gradually faded out of the e-commerce arena, and Yuanwang Technology has also fallen into the quagmire of “increasing revenue without increasing profits.” The latest financial report data of
shows that in the first three quarters of 2023, Yuanwang Technology’s operating income was 3.444 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 13.42%; the net loss attributable to shareholders of listed companies was 450 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 317.39%. Among them, revenue in the third quarter was 1.181 billion yuan, down 4.39% year-on-year, and net loss was 241.7 million yuan, turning from profit to loss year-on-year.
Yuanwang's losses are due to the continued slowdown in economic growth, but more importantly, Yuanwang Technology is still a human resources company, and its performance will inevitably be dragged down by labor costs and R&D expenditures. According to
data, in the first three quarters of this year, Yuanwang Technology’s R&D expenses were 60.4586 million yuan, and management expenses were 357 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 50.41% from the beginning of the period. At the end of the period, operating costs were recorded at 3.318 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 41.4%.
In 2024, the "decline" and "fatigue" of celebrity sales may continue. On the one hand, the past few years have been mainly affected by the epidemic. The crew has been unable to start work, offline activities cannot be carried out, and the job opportunities for celebrities have decreased. Live streaming has high commissions and can guarantee exposure, so it is naturally the best choice at that time.
Now as the impact of the epidemic gradually fades, in order not to consume their own influence, most celebrities will still choose to gradually return to their main business. may only be used in some special promotion nodes, such as Double 11, anniversary celebrations, etc. etc., as guests, spokespersons, and welfare officers, parachute into the live broadcast room.
On the other hand, as the live streaming industry gradually matures, brands have gradually realized that the role of star effect is becoming more and more limited.
In March this year, the topic "200,000 yuan asked a celebrity named Cao to bring goods and the transaction was 278 yuan in March" was the top trending topic. In 2021, a verdict published by the China Judgment Documents Network showed that the well-known artist Chen Xiaochun "overturned" because of his live broadcast. The merchant signed a live broadcast contract worth 510,000 yuan and arranged for Chen Xiaochun and Internet celebrities to carry the goods together. As a result, only 5,000 yuan was sold in several live broadcasts.
In addition, there are more and more incidents of celebrities "rolling over" during the delivery process. For example, the 1999 yuan mobile phone of Gazi brother Xie Mengwei in the live broadcast room can actually be purchased for 1880; Jia Nailiang's beauty instrument brand in the live broadcast room is accused of being inferior to offline channels. It’s 1,600 yuan more expensive… After many lessons, consumers no longer “vote with their feet” and place orders blindly for the influence of celebrities.
2024, more and more brands may no longer use celebrity live broadcasts as the core marketing method and sales channel, and the value of the star artist resources of "Yuanwang Technologies" will also be further "shrunk". How to show their own differences? , becomes an important topic that "Yuanwang Technologies" need to think about next.
The "dependence" of top anchors is difficult to cure
If it is a silent process for celebrities to fade out of the live broadcast room, then the game between the top anchors and the live broadcast organizations is particularly powerful.
For example, Dong Yuhui's "little essay controversy" at the end of last year not only attracted attention and discussion across the Internet, but also affected the performance and stock price of Oriental Selection. In just three trading days, the stock price of Oriental Selection fell by 14%.
When discussing this matter alone, Dong Yuhui is undoubtedly the "victim". This is why public opinion is overwhelmingly biased towards Dong Yuhui and feels unfair to him. But from the perspective of the industry, Dongfang Selection's approach is also reasonable. After all, live broadcast organizations have always had a love-hate attitude towards top anchors.
This is because for live broadcast organizations, the head anchor is both a "cash cow" and a "stumbling block".
is a "money tree" because these top anchors have outstanding personal abilities and already have a fixed fan base. They are not only highly sticky but also have strong purchasing power.
Li Jiaqi once stopped broadcasting for 109 days, and the first rebroadcast set a record of "63.528 million views and 163 million likes within two hours. 18 of the 26 products were sold out, and the total sales were probably A record of more than 130 million. The "stumbling blocks" of
are due to incidents such as Li Jiaqi's suspension of broadcasting, Wei Ya's tax evasion, and Simba's false propaganda. With , more and more live broadcast organizations have begun to realize the risks of relying on super anchors.
And because personal IP as a goodwill asset is not stable for listed companies, as the popularity of the anchor changes or the cooperation between the company and the anchor is terminated, the company's income may fluctuate drastically in a short period of time, which is why there are few There are mcn institutions that can successfully capitalize.
As a result, a very strange phenomenon began to appear in the industry. Those who had no head in wanted to cultivate heads, and they did not hesitate to spend money and set benchmarks. However, those who had heads invariably began to choose "de-heading".
Some institutions choose to train assistants to spread risks. The assistants of 's original Viya live broadcast room formed vertical live broadcast rooms such as Bee Surprise Club, Bee Wish Club, and Bee Happy Club; Xin Youzhi also incubated in the name of recruiting apprentices There are many mid-waist anchors such as Chu Dandan, Shi Dameili, Zhao Mengche, Mao Sister...
Some institutions hope to increase their imagination by adding their own brand business with a higher ceiling. , such as making friends, launched The home furnishing brand "What Horse", the clothing brand "Reload" and the accessories "Love Joshua Tree"; Qianxun also gave birth to the clothing brand "viyaniya", the cosmetics brand "Four Seasons Diary", and also co-created with Nicholas Tse " "Xingweipai"...
However, judging from the current situation, these de-heading measures have certain limitations.
The combined influence of multiple account matrices is far less than that of one head account. gives a simple example. As of January 11, "All Girls" has a total of 3.269 million fans in the Taobao live broadcast room. "Wardrobe" has only 2.563 million fans. Compared with Li Jiaqi's 82.722 million fans, the sum of the first two is less than 10% of Li Jiaqi's.
Not to mention the private brand business. Although the mcn organization understands user needs and has accumulated certain supply chain resources through long-term live broadcasting, this does not mean that it can create an excellent private brand. The clothing brand owned by a friend reloaded and launched bk casual shoes. The "deja vu" design made the brand fall into public opinion, which brought a certain degree of negative impact.
The account matrix is not strong, and the private brand is still in the exploratory stage, which leads to the lack of confidence of the live broadcast organization to "remove the head".
Li Jiaqi weakened Li Jiaqi in the live broadcast room, but Luo Yonghao pointed out in the live broadcast that when Mei One was founded, Li Jiaqi was a minority shareholder. Over the years, Li Jiaqi has become the major shareholder, and Li Jiaqi takes the lion's share of Mei Wan's profit sharing.
Oriental Selection made its fear of Dong Yuhui obvious, but in the end it chose to remove Sun Dongxu from the position of executive director and CEO of Oriental Selection, and gave Dong Yuhui the position of Cultural Assistant to the Chairman of New Oriental, Vice President of New Oriental Culture and Tourism Group and Oriental Selection Partner identity as a person to appease the grievances of fans and passers-by.
can foresee that at least in 2024, and even in the near future, live broadcast organizations will continue to insist on "de-heading", but they will not be able to completely cure "head-anchor dependence".
The snipe and the clam are fighting, and the store will benefit?
Celebrity anchors and top anchors who once occupied an important role have not withdrawn from the "script" of live broadcast e-commerce, but they are no longer the protagonists. The technology of virtual digital people is not mature enough at this stage, and has been ignored by the market. My store self-broadcasted, and finally we were blessed by the goddess of luck.
Tmall data shows that as of November 11, 2023, Taobao has produced 58 live broadcast rooms that exceed 100 million yuan. Among them, 38 live broadcast rooms have a transaction volume of more than 100 million yuan, and 451 live broadcast rooms have a transaction volume of more than 10 million yuan. Cheng Daofang, general manager of
Taobao Live Broadcasting Division, said with emotion: "Store broadcasting has ushered in the first year of explosion." The emergence of
store broadcasting is more due to the passive status of the brand. In fact, early brands are more accustomed to looking for top anchors to bring products, but the conditions for being "flipped" by top anchors are quite harsh. Even if they are selected, the high commissions and pit fees are still a heavy burden. As dividends fade and cost reduction and efficiency increase become the consensus of more and more brands, brands and merchants have chosen to launch in-store broadcasts.
The growth of the store broadcasting team is inseparable from the support of the platform. For example, in order to improve the private domain operation measures, Taobao has successively opened up stores, live broadcast rooms and wandering fans, and also opened membership operation rights for all merchants, adding more resources to the store broadcasting A large number of entrances make live broadcasting an important part of the closed loop of merchants' public and private domains. The complete explosion of
store broadcasting is the inevitable result of the verticalization of the industry. In the early days of the development of live broadcast e-commerce, most of the products sold by anchors did not have obvious vertical attributes. However, as the requirements of live broadcast e-commerce users are increasing day by day, consumers are paying more and more attention to content and product quality. A more vertical live broadcast room will provide a better experience. Well, it’s also more professional.
Is there any more vertical live broadcast room than store broadcast?
But more business entities are beginning to recognize and re-understand the value of store broadcasting, which is not good news for mcn organizations.
There are more and more players entering mcn institutions, and competition in the industry has become increasingly fierce. According to Crowley statistics, the number of mcn institutions in China will exceed 24,000 in 2022; the "honeymoon period" with the platform has also passed. In order to avoid content ecology It is too single, and the platform even provides greater support to store broadcasters and small and medium-sized anchors. It can be foreseen that the life of mcn organizations may be even more difficult in the future. In the new round of "qualifying competition" of
, will celebrity salesmen and top anchors be the first to be beaten to death, and can store broadcasters become the biggest winners? 2024 may provide an answer.
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