Xiao Yangge's comeback failed again

After a series of turmoil, Xiao Yangge, the former top anchor, tried to restart live streaming sales on WeChat Video Account and other platforms through "Xiao Yang Zhenxuan", but it only lasted for four days before being suspended again. However, whether it is the return of live streaming sales or the exploration of the field of short dramas, Xiao Yangge faces many challenges and controversies.

Less than a week after returning to broadcast, Brother Yang has stopped broadcasting again.

On January 10, "Xiao Yang's Selection" under Three Sheep started selling New Year's goods on WeChat video account, mainly including nut gift boxes, fruit juice drinks, etc. Previously, the account mainly published clips of Xiao Yang's live broadcast videos, which were not very popular. The number of collections of a single work was usually only 20 to 30, and it has been discontinued since May last year.

Image source: Xiao Yangzhen selects video account

According to Sina Technology, the peak number of online viewers for Yang's Choice's live broadcast on January 13 exceeded 140,000. As of January 14, the sales volume of the associated "Yang's Choice e-commerce store" increased by more than 1,000 orders.

The person who appeared in Xiao Yang's Selection live broadcast room this time was not Xiao Yang himself, but another anchor of Three Sheep. Despite this, after the news came out, Xiao Yang's fans quickly flocked to the live broadcast room, and the live broadcast was watched by more than 300,000 people in four days.

However, Xiao Yangge's comeback only lasted four days.

We noticed that "Xiao Yang's Selection" was originally planned to be broadcast live until late at night on January 13, but it was quietly stopped around dusk and did not start broadcasting again in the following days. Three Sheep told the media that its self-operated product team has new plans recently, and the video account may not be broadcast again for the time being.

At the same time, Brother Yang also has new moves on Douyin and Taobao.

The product display window of the Douyin account "Three Sheep Network", which has nearly 11 million followers, has re-listed 48 products, all of which are selected by Xiao Yangzhen. In November last year, Zizibang reported that the Douyin display windows of Three Sheep Network and its many anchors were suddenly cleared.

Xiao Yang Zhen Xuan also resumed live streaming on Taobao on December 24 last year, selling Xiao Yang Zhen Xuan's own products, but the number of viewers was not large. For example, the live broadcast on January 16 had less than 100 viewers. Xiao Yang Zhen Xuan started live streaming on Taobao as early as April 2023.

Image source: Xiao Yangzhen selects Taobao account

In addition, Three Sheep Network is also recruiting anchors with a monthly salary of 6,000 to 11,000 yuan. The work location will be Hefei, and they will serve in the Douyin live broadcast room selected by Xiao Yang.

Industry insiders said that under the current circumstances, developing self-operated products may be the best choice for Xiao Yangge. Judging from Xiao Yang Zhenxuan's actions on video accounts and Douyin, Three Sheep may hope to use self-operated products as a breakthrough. However, the resumption and then suspension of "Xiao Yang Zhenxuan" also indirectly reflects the outside world's controversy over Xiao Yangge's roundabout comeback; this top anchor with the most fans on the entire network still faces many difficulties in returning.

In addition to live streaming sales, Xiao Yangge’s short drama business has also made new progress.

On January 14, the Douyin account "Three Sheep Theater" updated a video, announcing the upcoming release of the short play "Let's Retire Together", which is known as the first live interactive drama. Four days later, the account updated two dance videos, which were located in Hengdian World Studios.

The "Three Sheep Theater" stopped broadcasting on September 30 last year, and tried to resume broadcasting at the end of December, but the host only chatted and interacted for less than an hour, and no goods were sold. Starting from January 15 this year, the account broadcast live broadcasts in the style of "live interactive short dramas" for many consecutive days.

Image source: Douyin @Three Sheep Theater

Last September, due to false advertising and other issues, the Three Sheep were ordered by relevant departments to rectify and fined nearly 70 million yuan. Xiao Yangge's accounts on platforms such as Douyin were also suspended. Now, Xiao Yangge has disappeared from the live broadcast room for 130 days, and his comeback is still a long way off.

During this period, Xiao Yangge's fans continued to dwindle, but he still has hundreds of millions of fans. Many fans are confident that Xiao Yangge will make a comeback, and they cheered him on in the comment section of the Three Sheep account, posted their experiences in the restaurant, dormitory, and classroom of the Three Sheep campus on social platforms, and reported the news of "Big and Small Yangge returning to the company" on a daily basis.

On the other hand, Xiao Yangge is also constantly trying to make a comeback. Whether it is Xiao Yangzhen's re-broadcast or the release of short dramas, Xiao Yangge's unconventional approach is similar to that of Wei Ya who disappeared from the live broadcast room.

01

Before the broadcast was suspended, Brother Xiao Yang invested a lot of energy and resources in his own live broadcast room, Xiao Yang Selection, which was quite similar to Oriental Selection.

Xiao Yang Zhen Xuan was founded in early 2023, and its sales exceeded 26 million orders in one year. In early 2024, Xiao Yang Zhen Xuan also entered the Singapore market through live streaming.

Compared with the spoofs and nonsense in Xiao Yangge’s live broadcast room, Xiao Yang Zhenxuan only has product display and audience interaction, and is more inclined to the traditional and standardized way of selling goods, similar to the Oriental Selection live broadcast room.

In terms of product selection, like the live broadcast room for self-operated products of Oriental Selection, Xiao Yang Zhenxuan’s live broadcast room only sells self-operated products, such as self-operated garbage bags, daily nuts, coconut water, etc.

Before Three Sheep got into crisis, Xiao Yangge had already increased his investment in self-operated products, including directing traffic to Xiao Yang’s Selection through his main live broadcast room. About 15% of the top five brands listed in Xiao Yangge’s live broadcast room came from Xiao Yang’s Selection.

In addition, Three Sheep is trying to use Xiao Yang's appeal to organize various training programs to discover and cultivate more small and medium-sized anchors, which is the so-called "Ten Thousand Sheep Plan". After these small and medium-sized anchors have completed their training, the goods they carry will come from the self-operated products selected by Xiao Yang.

In July last year, Lu Wenqing, chairman of the Three Sheep Company, revealed a "Ten Thousand Sheep Plan" to incubate 10,000 anchors, consisting of 1,000 live broadcast rooms. In the following six months, the plan was gradually rolled out. So far, the plan has been carried out for two phases, and the second phase of the "28-day Ten Thousand Sheep Plan" will start in December 2024.

"Crazy Pancake x" has participated in the Three Sheep Classroom Ten Thousand Sheep Project and has 190,000 followers on Douyin. On January 11 this year, he posted a video on Douyin, claiming that "three days and two nights, with only a few hundred yuan, you can become an excellent anchor." In the past month, he has brought less than 50,000 yuan of goods for Xiao Yang Zhenxuan.

Chen Li (pseudonym), who participated in the "28-day 10,000 Sheep Plan" in December last year, said that the 10,000 Sheep Plan was not affected by the incident involving Xiao Yangge. "They have no shortage of students. I couldn't even get into the first few classes at the beginning. They refused to accept me."

Chen Li said that the tuition fee for participating in the program is 6,980 yuan, and there are 20 people in a class. Taking this opportunity, she met Brother Xiao Yang. Now, Chen Li has a small account with several thousand fans, specializing in selling Xiao Yang's selected products, and sells less than 5,000 yuan a month.

The staff of the Three Sheep Classroom told Alphabet List that a lot of students have signed up for the "28-Day Ten Thousand Sheep Plan". The 3-day and 2-night course is priced at 980 yuan. The class is small and has no more than 30 students. It mainly teaches how to do live broadcasts, short videos, operations, etc.

According to the Three Sheep Classroom, there will be three 28-day courses of the Ten Thousand Sheep Plan from February to May 2025, priced at 19,980 yuan. The rights and interests include authorized promotion by Xiao Yang Zhenxuan, sharing of Three Sheep supply chain resources, and face-to-face exchanges with the President of Three Sheep (i.e. Brother Xiao Yang).

02

Before being suspended, Xiao Yangge and his apprentices sold goods worth hundreds of billions of yuan each year. In 2022, the output value of live streaming sales of Three Sheep exceeded 10 billion yuan, with operating service income of 860 million yuan; in 2023, it will exceed 30 billion yuan, with operating service income reaching 1.5 billion yuan.

This also means that although the 10,000 Sheep Project is still going on, at present, small anchors who contribute a few thousand or tens of thousands of yuan in sales each month are far from being able to support Xiao Yangge's business blueprint. How to get Xiao Yangge and big anchors such as Qiao Mei, Qi Laoban, and Zui Ge back on the air as soon as possible is the top priority for the three sheep.

Many anchors chose to break up with Three Sheep. According to Feigua data, in October last year, the number of Douyin accounts signed by Three Sheep was about 2,400, but in January this year, it was less than 800.

But at the same time, some anchors tried to change the MCN contract entity to circumvent potential risks, hide their connection with Three Sheep and Xiao Yangge, and resume broadcasting on Douyin.

For example, the Douyin account "Xiaoyu Women's Wear" with 2.76 million followers signed a contract with the MCN agency Yuqing Culture in the second half of last year. Equity penetration shows that the company is actually controlled by three sheep. Starting from the end of October 2024, Xiaoyu Women's Wear live broadcast for about 20 days, with a total of 19.6 million viewers and sales of over 100 million yuan, which is about 1/5 of Xiao Yangge's.

This operation is not unfamiliar. After Wei Ya was banned, the assistant Qi Er switched to other MCN agencies, but the contract agency behind her also had connections with Qianxun. However, there are not many Three Sheep anchors like "Xiao Yu Women's Wear" who borrowed other MCNs and resumed broadcasting.

In addition to the fact that the top influencers have not yet made a full comeback, another challenge facing the Three Sheep is that the live streaming slicing business (cutting live streaming videos of goods into short videos and authorizing others to re-disseminate them through different channels, thereby bringing in more sales), which has brought both fame and fortune, is facing a shutdown following the "collapse" of Brother Yang.

Compared with the overall live broadcast output value of Three Sheep, the slice business accounts for a small proportion, but its significance lies in expanding the IP influence and traffic ecology of Brother Yang. Because of this, the scale of Three Sheep's external authorization has gradually expanded.

Brother Xiao Yang once said that in 2022, more than 11,000 people obtained the slicing authorization of Three Sheep, with an average income of 17,000 yuan per person, and the income from slicing was about 190 million yuan. It is expected that the number of authorized accounts and average income per person will double in 2023.

However, with Xiao Yangge's suspension and his reputation plummeting, it is difficult for his slices to continue to be widely circulated on major platforms. An influencer who used to promote Xiao Yangge's slices said that he dare not do it now, after all, the current public opinion environment is still there, and if he wants to continue to take advantage of the traffic of Three Sheep, he will be scolded.

In fact, even if there was no "collapse of the house", Brother Yang's slices would no longer be the code to wealth.

As early as January 2024, Alphabet List reported that it was becoming increasingly difficult for Brother Yang to sell sliced ​​goods. It took a lot of effort and luck to earn four or five thousand a month. Many people who entered the game chose to withdraw.

Nowadays, many people who used to do Xiao Yangge slices have turned their focus to other anchors' product-selling videos, such as Mr. K and Make Friends. Taking the Douyin account "Make Friends Good Things Selection" as an example, before September 2024, it had been doing Xiao Yangge's slices of products, and after October it turned to Make Friends.

03

Viya also failed to make a comeback. Her development path after falling from the position of “No. 1 Live Streamer on Taobao” may give Brother Yang some inspiration.

Both Yangge and Wei Ya chose to strengthen their control over the supply side by developing their own products.

As early as 2021, Qianxun and the star Nicholas Tse founded the food brand Fengweipai, and Qianxun is its controlling shareholder. Now Fengweipai is not only available on major mainstream e-commerce platforms, but also in offline supermarkets, such as Hema Fresh and RT-Mart.

According to Euromonitor International research data, from 2022 to 2023, based on the retail sales of juicy grilled sausages through retail channels, Fengweipai's juicy grilled sausages ranked first in the country for two consecutive years.

On the other hand, Xiao Yang Ge also established his own brand "Xiao Yang Zhen Xuan" in 2023, with annual sales exceeding 26 million orders. However, unlike Feng Wei Pai, which is developing rapidly on major e-commerce platforms, Xiao Yang Zhen Xuan's traffic on Taobao, Xiaohongshu, and JD.com is not as good as Douyin, and its fans on Taobao are less than 30,000.

In addition, the core IP of Fengweipai is Nicholas Tse, while the core IP of Xiaoyangxuan is only Xiaoyangge, and it has benefited from the traffic dividend of Douyin. Now that Xiaoyangge is in crisis, if Xiaoyangxuan continues to use him as a selling point, it will be somewhat inappropriate; how to find new representative faces and memorable points will be a long-term challenge.

Another business that Xiao Yangge and Wei Ya are targeting together is short dramas.

In the first half of last year, Xiao Yangge and Wei Ya both set up companies specializing in short dramas. As the most popular short video vertical content, short dramas can be connected with live streaming and short video e-commerce to bring in advertising revenue and product sales.

Xiao Yangge and Wei Ya have been live streaming for many years and have a lot of brand resources. As of January 2024, Three Sheep serves 4,755 brands. For Xiao Yangge, short dramas are another way to release the value of his brand resources.

In addition, in recent years, Wei Ya and the MCN agency Qianxun behind her have been doing more and more business. Wei Ya's identity has evolved from anchor to investor, entrepreneur, e-commerce mentor, and later short drama practitioner; Qianxun's business is not only live streaming with goods, but also includes investment companies, the establishment of training institutions, investment in the short drama industry, and the launch of AI digital human live broadcast business.

For example, in the investment field, Wei Ya invested in Juzi Biotechnology and Deerma, both of which have been listed. As for Deerma alone, the market value of Wei Ya's shares once reached nearly 150 million yuan.

In the AI ​​industry, Wei Ya has already made plans, established an artificial intelligence company, and released the results of artificial intelligence applications in 2023 - AI digital human live broadcast business and a one-stop AI smart live broadcast comprehensive service platform.

For Xiao Yangge, who has faced many difficulties in making a comeback and has previously revealed that he does not want to do live streaming or become an internet celebrity, he may need to change the way he eats the live streaming business, just like Viya.

References:

"Three Sheep Quietly Make a Comeback?" China Newsweek

"Three Sheep resumes broadcasting before the New Year, why is it "Xiao Yang's Selection"? "Jiang Jiemian News

"Xiao Yangge disappeared for 120 days: the company's contract number plummeted by 70%, and the team began to quietly resume broadcasting" Sina Technology

New list of "Super Head Anchors in the Second Half, Collectively Betting on Self-Owned Brands"

Written by: Xue Yaping Edited by: Yan Fei