Super anchors go overseas, ice and fire

This article introduces the trends and challenges faced by China's top celebrity anchors and MCN agencies as they go overseas, target the Southeast Asian and European and American markets, and try to replicate China's successful experience in the overseas live e-commerce field.

Recently, Mei ONE, the company to which Li Jiaqi belongs, is recruiting.

Among the positions related to content operation and product operation, the recruitment information for TikTok account operation and live broadcast control has attracted widespread attention. The former indicates that Mei ONE is preparing to enter the overseas version of TikTok; the latter directly states that "you need to know Indonesian and be able to travel overseas 1 to 2 times per quarter", which has positioned Indonesia as the first destination for Mei ONE's overseas expansion.

Meanwhile, Fan Bingbing is currently filming in Malaysia, a neighboring country of Indonesia. During the filming breaks, she also recorded videos to share the products of her brand Fan Beauty Diary with her fans.

On May 31 this year, Fan Bingbing officially announced that Fan Beauty Diary had entered the Southeast Asian e-commerce platform Lazada. The first stop of her brand's overseas expansion was Malaysia and Singapore. She also humbly said: "We are still new to the brand's overseas expansion, but this is also an opportunity to learn. We are still very confident!"

It is not difficult to find that when many "outdated stars" have just learned the survival rules of live streaming e-commerce by lowering their face and shouting, the top star anchors who are well versed in the various tricks of live streaming e-commerce are no longer satisfied with the limited domestic market growth, and have turned their attention to the wallets of foreigners.

Whether hoping to leverage the influence of celebrities and super anchors to promote the name of domestic brands, or using the mature experience of domestic MCNs to create the next "Southeast Asian Li Jiaqi" or "European and American Li Jiaqi" overseas, the newly emerging overseas live streaming e-commerce always exudes an attractive aura, driving the top celebrity anchors and the companies behind them to dive into the wave of going overseas.

But the question is, although going overseas to seek gold has long been the only choice for finding a second growth curve, can the top anchors and MCNs achieve greater success without the hot soil of domestic e-commerce?

01 Super anchors, targeting foreigners’ wallets‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

In 2024, the domestic live streaming e-commerce field can be described as "hot searches every month and hot discussions every day."

From the love-hate relationship between Dong Yuhui and Oriental Selection to the century-long war of words between Simba and Xiao Yangge, the anxiety over traffic has brought about the struggle for discourse and the seizure of public opinion. Even for top-tier anchors known to all, it is difficult to maintain dignity if they want to stand out in the domestic live streaming competition.

The growth difficulties of the top anchors were exposed to the public during this year’s 618.

According to HSBC's 618 research report data, sales of many leading live broadcast rooms have declined during this year's 618: the GMV of Li Jiaqi's beauty live broadcast on the first day of pre-sale exceeded 2.675 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 46% compared to last year's 4.977 billion yuan; Xinxuan's 618 live broadcasts this year had only 10 sales exceeding 100 million yuan, while last year the number was 16; according to Feigua data, the top three Douyin influencers in this year's 618 promotion were the Guangdong couple, Jia Nailiang and Yuhui Xingxing, and the crazy little Yang Ge didn't even make it into the top ten.

Image source: HSBC Research Report

But for the top anchors who are rooted in the industry, the undercurrent crisis has already reached a point where they have to face it.

As early as before the start of 618 this year, Li Jiaqi publicly stated that "this 618 will be difficult", and the underlying dilemma behind this is that in China, the channel advantage of super anchors is declining. As more and more brands no longer believe in the ability of super anchors to bring goods, and are unwilling to endure the bargaining space being squeezed to the extreme, a large number of brand self-broadcasting and store broadcasting began to appear.

According to the 2023 China Live E-commerce Industry Research Report, brand merchants' store broadcasts accounted for 51.8% in 2023, which shows that the proportion of live broadcasts by experts was surpassed by store broadcasts last year. As a platform for live broadcasting, in order to maintain the vitality and richness of platform content, it is also intended to direct more free traffic to brand store broadcasts.

Domestic e-commerce is developing too fast.

It has only been five years since 2019, the first year of live streaming e-commerce, and the top anchors have gone through the process from birth to popularity. Now they are being pushed into the competitive quagmire of the second half of live streaming e-commerce, running blindly and exhausted.

Therefore, since the beginning of this year, top celebrity anchors and well-known MCNs have been making frequent moves in the overseas field, hoping that the time difference in the development of live e-commerce abroad can give themselves a chance to breathe.

In January, Three Sheep Group took the lead in conducting a joint live broadcast with Singapore’s local influencer @shop with sasax, and immediately ranked No. 1 on TikTok’s sales GMV ranking in Singapore.

At about the same time, Oriental Selection also began recruiting for its overseas expansion. New positions such as TikTok operations manager and TikTok business manager were added to the recruitment positions on its official website, and a monthly salary of 20,000 to 40,000 yuan was offered.

In April, it was reported that Jia Nailiang's company Yaowang Technology was testing TikTok live streaming in Southeast Asia and North America and setting up an overseas team. Then, in May, Fan Bingbing officially announced that Fan Beauty Diary had been launched on the Lazada platform in Malaysia and Singapore, officially starting its overseas journey; in June, Fan Beauty Diary officially entered TikTok.

This summer, there were reports that Simba was planning to enter the TikTok channel and had already submitted an application for an advertising account. In August, the Three Sheep Group and Jitu Express reached a global strategic cooperation. Jitu Express will provide a global logistics network and services for the Three Sheep, and the Three Sheep's overseas expansion process has gradually accelerated.

In September, the overseas business of the Three Sheep Group has expanded to markets such as Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam. However, due to the recent "mooncake incident", the branch originally planned to be opened in the United States in September is still unknown. In the same month, Mei ONE, where Li Jiaqi works, started recruiting to catch the last train to go overseas.

So far, the country’s top celebrity anchors and their MCN agencies have all plunged into the wave of going overseas.

02 First Southeast Asia, then Europe and the United States, betting on TiKTok

In the outside world, the overseas expansion activities of top celebrity anchors and their companies would be summarized as "XX anchor is going overseas", but in fact, different celebrity anchors and different MCN agencies have different purposes and methods of going overseas.

One is to use the celebrity effect to sell their own brands and products overseas, a typical representative of which is Fan Bingbing.

In June this year, in the introduction video of Fan Beauty Diary’s official entry into TikTok, Fan Bingbing stated that the account will "share everything related to beauty" on TikTok and "hopes to bring the unique oriental beauty to good friends all over the world."

In fact, what this means is that Fan Beauty Diary is a beauty brand that embodies oriental aesthetics, and beauty lovers from all over the world are welcome to buy it.

Obviously, the main point of Fan Bingbing's appearance in the introductory video of Fan Beauty Diary is to leverage her powerful celebrity influence to promote and attract traffic for her own brand, following a common approach taken by domestic products going overseas.

It’s just that because Fan Bingbing herself is an internationally renowned actress, Fan Beauty Diary’s overseas activities are always referred to as “Fan Bingbing’s overseas activities”.

The other is the "MCN going overseas" path that is more commonly used by super anchors and the companies behind them. In essence, it is still engaged in talent incubation, agency operation and other businesses. Typical representatives are Three Sheep, Yaowang Technology and Make Friends.

In July 2023, Three Sheep Network established an MCN agency called "Three Sheep Network" overseas, focusing on the Southeast Asian market, with the slogan "Do Douyin again on TikTok". According to relevant reports, by releasing Xiao Yangge's live streaming videos overseas, Three Sheep Network gained momentum and entered the top ten of the Southeast Asian cross-border MCN list in just three months, accumulating 2 million fans.

Entering 2024, the achievements of the top MCN agencies overseas have been frequently reported back to China. After Three Sheep and Singapore local talent @shop with sasax broke TikTok's sales record in Singapore in January, in June this year, the US talent @Simplymandy, operated by Yaowang Technology, also broke TikTok's sales record in the US with sales of US$737,000.

But soon, the new record created by Yaowang was broken by American anchor Stormi Steele with a score of 1.0481 million US dollars. Behind this American anchor was also a Chinese MCN agency - Make Friends.

If Three Sheep and Yaowang Technology are rising stars in MCN's overseas expansion, then Make Friends, which started to develop its overseas business as early as seven years ago, is a mature player on this path.

In 2017, Jiaogepengyou, which had just gone overseas, also chose Indonesia in Southeast Asia as its first stop, incubating its first overseas local company in Indonesia; a year later in 2018, Jiaogepengyou began to build a Southeast Asian talent matrix; after a successful trial in Southeast Asia, it established a live e-commerce company in the United States in 2020. It is reported that in the past year, Jiaogepengyou's overseas revenue has increased by 4 times year-on-year, and its monthly revenue at the end of 2023 has increased by 3 times compared with the beginning of the year.

But no matter what specific type of overseas expansion, overall, these anchors and MCN agencies that initially grew up relying on super personal IP and fan economy have all chosen the same overseas expansion path: first Southeast Asia and then Europe and the United States, betting on TiKTok.

It’s easy to understand why we chose Southeast Asian countries as our first stop.

Southeast Asia has a geographical location, living and cultural habits similar to those of China. In addition, the online consumption power of Southeast Asian users has gradually increased in recent years, and local young people have a high acceptance of short videos and live e-commerce. No matter how you look at it, it is the safest choice for domestic top anchors and MCN agencies to go overseas in search of a second growth curve.

Betting on TikTok is more like a two-way rush between top star anchors and cross-border platforms.

Many top anchors and MCN agencies started out in China with the support of live streaming e-commerce platforms such as Douyin, Kuaishou, and Taobao Live. However, overseas, in the live streaming e-commerce field, TikTok is the only one that is most likely to succeed in the short term.

At the same time, after setting an e-commerce GMV target of US$50 billion by 2024, TikTok as a platform also urgently needs the participation of super anchors and top MCNs.

After all, in overseas markets where live streaming e-commerce is still in its early stages, the mature experience of domestic pioneers is urgently needed to ignite the first fire. Whether it is Three Sheep, Yaowang Technology, or Make Friends, they have all proved this in this year's overseas live streaming.

03 When celebrity anchors go overseas, they can’t just rely on “face recognition”

Similar path choices have become the overseas formula for top anchors and MCNs in their search for a "second growth curve."

The benefit of formulas is that they reduce hesitation and internal friction in the decision-making process. However, when everyone applies the same formula, they will not be able to widen the gap between each other and it is easy to fall into mental inertia and be unable to adapt flexibly.

When going overseas, most celebrities, anchors and their companies that have their own halo and attention will tend to use the influence of domestic super IPs to build momentum for their new businesses.

This is vividly reflected in Fan Bingbing's overseas expansion strategy.

Fan Bingbing has been attending events in Southeast Asia frequently this year, whether it was participating in Thailand's Songkran Festival in April, being invited to become the tourism ambassador of Malacca in the summer, or now filming a movie in Malaysia. With the help of the already highly recognized "My Fair Princess" in the local area, plus frequent appearances on local TV media, it seems to the outside world that Fan Bingbing's future overseas expansion should not be too difficult.

However, the complexity of the overseas market is certainly not as simple as relying solely on the faces of celebrities.

Although there is no public data on the sales of Fan Beauty Diary, judging from the attention paid to its official TikTok account, the situation may not be optimistic. After the first TikTok official announcement video received 664,000 views, the number of views of Fan Beauty Diary has been declining since the second issue, and the latest video promoting new products has not even received more than 100 views.

If the company fails to even establish basic brand awareness, one can imagine how the sales situation will be.

In China, Fan Beauty's product growth rate was very impressive. In 2019, it participated in the Double Eleven for the first time and achieved a transaction volume of 40 million in one hour; then GMV increased for three consecutive years, exceeding 300 million in 2021, 800 million in 2022, and 1.1 billion in 2023.

With the help of the star effect, the powerful influence was quickly converted into real sales, but in overseas markets, this trick failed.

The overseas e-commerce ecosystem is simple, and consumers have not yet established a trust relationship that binds the influence of celebrities and anchors to product quality. They care more about the quality and price of the product itself.

Fan Beauty Diary has not yet established a strong industrial chain and R&D line, and the overall pricing of its products is relatively high. Southeast Asian consumers cannot afford them, and European and American consumers do not buy into them, which can easily lead to poor performance in overseas markets.

Image source: TikTok

The underlying logic is that the domestic IP economy and fan economy are prevalent because China has the most mature e-commerce ecosystem in the world, while live streaming e-commerce abroad is still in its early stages and lacks perfect industrial support. As early entrants, the top anchors can only take the lead in "pioneering" on their own.

Brother Yang, who originally revealed that he would open a branch in the United States in September this year, has recently been embroiled in a dispute over the "mooncake incident," and his fate overseas is uncertain.

However, the idea of ​​Sanzhiyang in signing a cooperation agreement with Jitu was correct. Overseas "pioneering" is a competition of comprehensive capabilities. In addition to product research and development capabilities or product selection capabilities, supply chain, logistics and after-sales services are equally important.

After the infrastructure is established, even the aspects of talent networking, talent incubation and operation, which domestic MCNs are already familiar with, also need targeted localized adjustments based on the differences between different countries and regions.

Establishing an overseas account and announcing your entry into a cross-border platform is only the simplest first step. In this funnel-shaped clearance game, there are new problems to be solved at every step. Only by continuously improving overall competitiveness can you become the first to try something new in the great test of time.

October is already halfway through and the domestic Double Eleven battle has already started early and is extremely lively.

And in the distant overseas live streaming e-commerce market, Halloween, Thanksgiving sales, Black Friday sales, and Christmas season are also quietly waiting for intruders from the East to rewrite the rules of the game.

Text: Ah You, Editor: Director This article is written by the author of Operation Party [Hedgehog Commune], WeChat public account: [Hedgehog Commune], original/authorized to be published on Operation Party, and any reproduction without permission is prohibited.

The title image is from Unsplash, based on the CC0 protocol.