Taobao Live Can’t Save Metersbonwe

As the times change, Metersbonwe (Metersbonwe), once a national clothing brand, is facing unprecedented challenges. This article deeply analyzes Metersbonwe's journey from glory to decline, as well as the self-rescue action of its founder Zhou Chengjian in returning to the live broadcast battlefield.

In 2003, thanks to Jay Chou’s advertising slogan “Don’t follow the beaten path”, Metersbonwe (hereinafter referred to as “Metersbonwe”) became the most popular clothing brand among a generation of young people.

Today, 21 years later, Metersbonwe, which had terminated its contract with Jay Chou for 10 years, has once again stood in front of the public. This time, the "spokesperson" is Metersbonwe's founder Zhou Chengjian, who is nearly 60 years old and personally conducts live streaming to sell goods.

In fact, Zhou Chengjian's personal involvement is seen as a way for the first-generation founder to save himself. However, judging from the problems presented in the financial report of American Apparel and the series of strategies actually implemented, Zhou Chengjian's self-rescue measures may not lead to any breakthroughs. Even the current drama of the CEO leaving the stage for a live broadcast reveals a kind of anxiety and panic of desperate efforts.

1. How does the “Tears of the Times” transform?

In February this year, Metersbonwe founder Zhou Chengjian officially returned to the stage, which immediately attracted the attention of the entire network. At that time, the media asked Zhou Chengjian whether he had ever thought of following Yu Minhong's example and becoming an "Internet celebrity" by leveraging his current huge traffic, but he smiled and said, "I do, but the team is not ready yet."

However, just eight months later, Zhou Chengjian announced on October 29 through the official Weibo account of Mebon that he would start his first Taobao live show on November 1. From being "not ready to be an Internet celebrity" at the beginning to frequently creating topics during live broadcasts, Zhou Chengjian's contrasting behavior is hard not to be understood as "breaking through himself" for the live broadcast effect. However, the reversal of the identity of the founder, who is nearly 60 years old, becoming a "live broadcaster" overnight actually reflects the current predicament of Mebon.

In 2016, Zhou Chengjian, who was over 50 years old, passed the baton to his eldest daughter Hu Jiajia, who was 30 years old at the time, hoping that she could lead Metersbonwe to take an unusual path again. Unfortunately, things did not go as planned. Except for making a profit in 2018, Metersbonwe has been in the red for a long time from 2017 to 2023. Among them, the loss amount in 2020 was as high as 866 million yuan.

In addition, after reaching a peak market value of 37.2 billion yuan in 2010, the market value of Metersbonwe has been declining since 2011. In June this year, the total market value of Metersbonwe fell to 2.538 billion yuan, a record low.

Faced with a series of operational crises caused by continuous losses, Metersbonwe chose to "sell buildings for blood transfusion".

According to media reports, in March 2021, Metersbonwe sold its subsidiary and its 38,000 square meter "Metersbonwe Clothing Museum" in Pudong, Shanghai, which was eventually acquired by Bacchus Wines for 448 million yuan.

In October and December 2022, Meibang sold two shops in Wuhan and Guiyang to Youngor at transaction prices of 190 million yuan and 130 million yuan respectively. By 2023, Meibang's pace of selling assets suddenly accelerated. That year, it sold five shops in Shenyang, Chengdu, Xi'an, Shangrao and Nanchang to Youngor again at prices of 300 million yuan, 680 million yuan, 40 million yuan, 60 million yuan and 170 million yuan respectively.

However, the frequent sale of shops did not help Metersbonwe completely escape from its financial difficulties. Financial report data showed that Metersbonwe's debt-to-asset ratio was 81.10%, 93.47% and 90.09% in 2021, 2022 and the first three quarters of 2023, respectively. In 2022, Metersbonwe was also exposed to have owed employees wages for more than three months, which made it a hot topic.

After a series of store closures and wage arrears, Metersbonwe once caused public speculation that it was on the verge of bankruptcy. For a generation of young consumers, as the "king of pedestrian streets" continues to close its stores in landmark shopping districts across the country, the once national fashion brand has become the "tears of the times."

2. Taobao Live may not be able to save the “outdated CEO”

For Mebon, which is in a difficult transformation situation, it may be a good attempt for founder Zhou Chengjian to personally participate in the live broadcast. After all, after the failure of his business, Luo Yonghao, the "industry's dark light", repaid his debt of 548 million yuan in cash by getting involved in the live broadcast e-commerce field since April 2020.

Zhou Chengjian naturally also wanted to get the same script as "Luo Yonghao Niu Hulu". But it is easier said than done.

Since announcing their entry into Taobao live streaming, Zhou Chengjian and Meibang have embarked on the path of becoming "Internet celebrities". Whether it is making pre-launch posters and other promotional materials, creating topics on the first day of the live broadcast, or holding a media conference after the live broadcast, and using various media to spread the live broadcast report. Zhou Chengjian's series of actions after starting Taobao live streaming are all attempts to attract people's attention, and netizens seem to see another Internet celebrity CEO rising.

However, in recent years, the originally niche track of "CEO live broadcast to repay debts" has become crowded, and the script of "True Debt Repayment" has multiple endings.

On the eve of 618 this year, Lin Sheng, the founder of Zhong Xue Gao, opened a live broadcast room called "Zhong Xue Gao Lao Lin" on Taobao, and started selling sweet potatoes, tripe, tea and other products on the first broadcast on May 28, while also promoting his own ice cream. With the multiple melon-eating buffs of "ice cream assassin backstabbing consumers" and "CEO in trouble selling goods to pay off debts", the live broadcast room of "Zhong Xue Gao Lao Lin" attracted more than 80,000 people in just ten minutes.

However, after standing in the live broadcast room for 4 hours, Lin Sheng did not get the forgiveness of the majority of consumers. After the live broadcast, Lin Sheng revealed through his personal social account that he had been reported and complained by a large number of netizens, and his two accounts had their live broadcast and work publishing functions suspended. Zhong Xuegao, which had entered Taobao in a high-profile manner, also eventually collapsed on the eve of Taobao's 618.

Looking back at Zhou Chengjian’s performance on Taobao Live, we can only summarize it as “it’s hard to comment.”

In particular, Zhou Chengjian openly created conflicts during the live broadcast. This kind of "back-stabbing" behavior not only ruined his popularity among passers-by, but also discouraged fans of the star and could potentially develop into a public relations incident.

In addition, whether it was a mistake made in a hurry or because of an overly strong desire for GMV, the highest single product transaction volume in Zhou Chengjian's Taobao live broadcast data was "magnified" 10,000 times in media reports. According to the data that the transaction amount exceeded 15 million yuan and the highest single product transaction volume was 24 million pieces, the average price of the product with the highest sales volume was less than 1 yuan. This mistake is not a disaster, but it also reflects to a certain extent that Metersbonwe's Taobao live broadcast debut was indeed not very professional.

Interestingly, when observing the CEOs who started live streaming, we can find that there are some commonalities in the CEOs’ choice of live streaming platforms and the sustainability of their live streaming thereafter.

For example, in the past few years, Wu Rongzhao, chairman of Erke, Jiang Lin, chairman of Tianfu Cola, Huang Ping, founder and CEO of China Library Network, and Yu Minhong, founder of New Oriental, have all made their debut on Taobao Live, but most of them ended up being suspended after a brief appearance.

When the CEO enters the live broadcast room, his purpose is not just to sell products to the fans in the live broadcast room, but to focus on expressing opinions and sharing knowledge, using high-quality content to continuously attract fans and achieve the purpose of two-way communication.

Taobao Live started out as a trading platform. From the beginning, the various "CEO live broadcast rooms" on Taobao Live were like trading live broadcasts with the goal of selling goods. Not only did the live broadcast content lack the underlying logic of knowledge sharing, but the platform itself also lacked content genes. All users saw was that the platform was frantically trying to attract CEOs to join the game, and fans could not be continuously attracted by the content. Therefore, whether it was Zhou Chengjian or the previous CEOs, they all had to stop in the end.

3. The “super head” ecosystem cannot accommodate new anchors

When there is wind, waves rise; when there is no tide, the water level will calm down. When CEOs enter Taobao Live in droves, but end up in a mess, the problem may not lie with the CEOs, but with the platform.

Looking back at the development history of Taobao Live, it is not difficult to find that creating stars has always been the strategy of Taobao Live. Wen Zhong, the first head of Taobao Live, was in charge of Taobao Mobile content before taking charge of Taobao Live business. He was also the head of Taobao Girls and Taobao Talents. The first batch of Taobao anchors came from Taobao Girls.

In May 2016, Wei Ya, a Taobao girl with a small following, was on vacation in Huizhou when she accidentally received a call from a Taobao shop assistant inviting her to join Taobao Live. On the previous year's Double 11, Wei Ya's store had a loss of more than 6 million yuan despite sales exceeding 10 million yuan. For this reason, she had to sell a house of more than 120 square meters in Guangzhou to get some funds for turnover.

A phone call set the wheels of fate in motion. On November 11, 2017, Wei Ya's live broadcast sales reached 70 million yuan; in 2018, Wei Ya's sales in a single 2-hour live broadcast exceeded 267 million yuan, making her the goddess of Taobao live broadcast sales. On the other hand, "counter brother" Li Jiaqi also found a new starting point on Taobao live broadcast and gradually became the "lipstick king". During the 2020 November 11, the total amount of Taobao live broadcast sales reached 72.9 billion yuan, of which Wei Ya and Li Jiaqi brought a total of 22.1 billion yuan, accounting for 30%.

In 2020, when live e-commerce was booming, Wei Ya and Li Jiaqi worked together to create the era of the duopoly of live streaming e-commerce. Taobao Live also relied on Wei Ya and Li Jiaqi to become the only one in the live streaming e-commerce field. However, when you can't see the danger, it means that the hidden danger has been buried.

On the one hand, the market appeal and commercial value of celebrity anchors have shown platforms that they can achieve the goal of the strong getting stronger only by tightly tying their fate to that of the top anchors. Therefore, the reliance on anchors has become stronger and stronger, while also relaxing the compliance requirements for anchors themselves.

On the other hand, the excessive focus on celebrity anchors has also caused the platform to ignore the interests of small and medium anchors and the overall ecological construction of live e-commerce. More and more traffic has flowed to the two super anchors, and small and medium anchors have to intensify their internal competition because of the worrying living environment.

In addition, as the cost of cooperating with top anchors rises with their fame, most small and medium-sized businesses find it difficult to get into the live broadcast rooms of Wei Ya and Li Jiaqi. In this context, some businesses that are still eager to explore the live e-commerce business may choose to broadcast themselves, but because of the monopoly of top anchors in platform traffic distribution, small and medium-sized businesses will find it difficult to get natural traffic unless they invest more costs.

Taobao Live relies on the super-head, which makes it difficult for small and medium-sized anchors and merchants to develop. The ecological model has developed to this day and has formed path dependence.

In the past two years, as Taobao's top anchors such as Wei Ya, Xue Li, and Lin Shanshan were fined and had their live broadcast rooms shut down for tax evasion, Li Jiaqi became the only top anchor carrying the banner of Taobao's live GMV. This year on Double 11, Li Jiaqi was the absolute C position in Taobao's live broadcast.

In fact, Taobao has also thought about alleviating its reliance on super-heads by supporting new anchors, and indeed has poached a large number of anchors from Douyin, Kuaishou, Xiaohongshu, and WeChat public accounts. However, just like the hasty end of the "fallen CEOs" on Taobao Live, anchors such as Li Dan, Dongfang Zhenxuan, Liu Genghong, and Zhang Xiaohui, who have achieved some success on other platforms, still cannot escape the curse of "peaking at the first broadcast, and then falling off a cliff."

In 2022, Li Dan, who had less than 1 million fans, attracted more than 11 million viewers in his first broadcast on Taobao, creating more than 32 million in sales. In the following two years, he did no more than 20 live broadcasts. He then moved to Xiaohongshu and became a unique anchor representative.

In the same year, Liu Genghong and his wife returned to Taobao Live. At that time, according to media reports, the total number of viewers of Liu Genghong's account "ViVi Feiyou Kakadiao" exceeded 2 million, but according to the sales situation shown in the link in the live broadcast room, the GMV of the first broadcast of the live broadcast room was less than one million. Today, the live broadcast room has long been stopped.

On May 26 this year, Zhang Xiaohui, the "top influencer" on Xiaohongshu, started her first Taobao live broadcast, which attracted more than 10 million viewers. However, starting from the second live broadcast, the number of viewers dropped sharply to 5.495 million. In the next two live broadcasts, when Zhang Xiaohui did not appear, the number of viewers dropped to 2.39 million and 1.72 million. In addition, according to media reports, after 618 this year, Oriental Selection has suspended Taobao live broadcasts.

4. Don’t let the “tears of the times” turn into “crocodile tears”

Frankly speaking, it is commendable that Metersbonwe founder Zhou Chengjian has returned to lead Taobao Live. After all, when the second generation of founders is not taking over smoothly, he can still return to live streaming. At least he has not given up on his old age psychologically and is ready to accept the pressure of public doubts. However, the new strategy Zhou Chengjian has formulated for Metersbonwe after his comeback is still open to discussion.

According to the latest third-quarter report released by Meibang, the company achieved operating income of 525 million yuan in the first three quarters of this year, a year-on-year decrease of 37.28%; at the same time, the net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company was 51.8106 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 24.46%. However, in terms of a single quarter, the net profit attributable to shareholders of Meibang from July to September this year was -24.96 million yuan.

As for the decline in revenue in the third quarter, Metersbonwe disclosed in its financial report that it was mainly due to the decline in its main business during the reporting period. At this time, Metersbonwe's main business was already outdoor business, and Metersbonwe's brand positioning also shifted from "fashionable leisure" to "fashionable outdoor".

In August this year, Metersbonwe held a new product launch in Wenzhou and clearly announced its development direction of becoming an "Arc'teryx alternative". Zhou Chengjian also told the media, "We need to pay attention to traffic and spread the message that Metersbonwe is doing outdoor business. We don't avoid such statements. Metersbonwe wants more consumers to know that we are an alternative to Arc'teryx in the trendy outdoor field."

Combined with these remarks, it is not difficult to see that Zhou Chengjian’s first live broadcast on Taobao was mostly based on the purpose of “focusing on traffic”. But it must be said that Meibang Live may have made a wrong investment.

Looking back at the development path of Metersbonwe, from the initial signing of Jay Chou as the spokesperson to quickly open up the young people's market, to the increased sponsorship of the TV series "Let's Watch Meteor Shower Together", to the continuous sponsorship of the phenomenal IP "The Debater" in the early days of the online variety show explosion, and the replacement of spokesperson Guan Xiaotong... The strategy of big-money marketing and emphasis on traffic did allow Metersbonwe to open up the market, but the result of over-reliance on marketing was the neglect of product quality.

In 2020, Metersbonwe launched a hoodie with the traditional Chinese characters "中華有為" (Chinese words for "promising" in Chinese) based on the idea of ​​national trend marketing, but it was soon questioned for "touching" Huawei and plagiarizing Li Ning. This low-level mistake also indirectly reflects that Metersbonwe's emphasis on traffic has exceeded the basic requirements for products.

As early as in the article "Domestic Fast Fashion is Aging", Jingzhe Research Institute pointed out that from brand image to sales channels, domestic fast fashion brands have been trying to keep up with the pace of young people, but the cruel fact is that defects in product design make it impossible for consumers to say they like it.

Zhou Chengjian also mentioned in a letter to all suppliers released in January this year that "consumers have more and more negative comments on product quality and price, and some even say our current products are 'ugly made and expensive'". At a previous media meeting, Zhou Chengjian concluded that the fundamental reason for the decline in performance over the past 10 years was that the company did not make good products, did not establish new retail channels, and had lax internal risk control.

Combining various public statements, Zhou Chengjian has been very clear about the problems facing Meibang and the direction of solving them. But what is puzzling is why there was a misjudgment from decision-making to execution.

Fortunately, Metersbonwe's transformation and Zhou Chengjian's "live broadcasting career" have just begun. Facing the curse of Taobao Live broadcasting peaking as soon as it was launched, Zhou Chengjian still had the capital to make a comeback as long as he paid close attention to product quality before being "abandoned" by Taobao Live broadcasting.

Author | Early Summer