Local life live broadcast: from 123 link to 123 boss

With the rise of live streaming, merchants in the local life sector have also begun to try new marketing models. Among them, a notable trend is that the business owners personally go live to show the brand personality through live streaming, provide exclusive benefits, and attract consumers' attention and purchases. This article will explore the business logic behind this phenomenon and analyze how the boss live streaming has become a new trend in the local life live streaming field.

Not long ago, Wang Xiaofei, the founder of Ma Liu Ji, appeared in the store's live broadcast room. However, this time he was not selling the hot and sour noodles that accounted for 70% of the brand's revenue, but Ma Liu Ji restaurant group purchase coupons and discount vouchers.

When the conversation got heated, he would suddenly reveal a free meal bonus - fans who won the lucky bag could eat a 215 yuan set meal for 1 cent. When he saw some netizens questioning whether the restaurant served pre-prepared dishes, he immediately responded with a straight face: "We don't have any pre-prepared dishes in our Ma Liu Ji restaurant."

Then, he began to explain the daily operation of the store's kitchen: in order to have a lively atmosphere, all dishes are cooked on the spot. During the peak meal time, more than a dozen chefs are busy swinging big spoons...

At this time, Wang Xiaofei had only one identity - a restaurant owner; his goal was also very clear, which was to talk about Ma Liuji's special dishes and the ingredients in the live broadcast room, and then help sell group purchase coupons.

In recent times, the probability of live broadcast users seeing local store owners dropping into the live broadcast room has increased, and various "boss welfare specials" have become new tools for live streaming.

The boss' live broadcast was quite popular in the physical e-commerce and automobile industries. In these industries, the brand attention and the founder's popularity already have a certain mass base, and the boss's "face recognition" is equivalent to the monetization of attention. Take the automobile industry as an example. Lei Jun became a god in the live broadcast of the Xiaomi Automobile Conference in March this year. Since then, Wei Jianjun, chairman of Great Wall Motors, Li Shufu, founder of Geely, Li Bin, founder of Weilai, and Zhang Yong, CEO of Nezha Automobile, have all started to enter the live broadcast room to make up for lessons.

However, most of the local life sector is traditional industry, relying more on offline physical stores and service experience. Therefore, most of the bosses are relatively low-key. They are either hidden behind stores and signs, or have a low presence in public spaces. Behind the competition to airborne live broadcast rooms, are these bosses just following the trend, or do they see some new possibilities in the field of local life live broadcast?

01 New style of local life live broadcast 123, the boss

Live streaming is becoming a new addition to local life, but the style of local life live streaming is always different from physical e-commerce.

The latter has physical objects for the host to display and explain in all aspects, and the visual effects of the products are clear at a glance; local life is different. Restaurant flavors, cultural and tourism experiences, and supermarket services are sometimes difficult to present intuitively through live cameras, thereby fully mobilizing user emotions. Moreover, due to geographical limitations, coverage population, and store size, the liveliness and scene richness of local life live broadcast rooms are not as good as those of e-commerce.

For local businesses hoping to increase their business, improving the attractiveness of the live broadcast room and activating more natural traffic has become one of the most important online marketing topics. Bosses with a sense of the internet and outstanding personalities personally taking part in the live broadcast are born out of the "trend".

According to observations by NoNoise, in Douyin live broadcast rooms, there are all kinds of owners of restaurants, supermarkets, bakeries, and shopping malls. Among them are a Northeastern woman who has opened 85 franchise stores, a high-end cake shop returnee who has received venture capital, a commercial real estate operator in a third-tier city, and a hot search celebrity like Wang Xiaofei, the owner of Ma Liu Ji. What these owners have in common is that from the first moment they appear in the live broadcast room, the store broadcast atmosphere, the number of viewers, and the fan interaction are all pushed to a peak.

▲Wang Xiaofei promotes Ma Liu Ji

Different from the live broadcast style of bosses of physical e-commerce, most "amateur" bosses in local life are more down-to-earth and down-to-earth in front of the camera, with fewer signs of discipline and more casual speech, but their appearance is no less than that of bosses in other industries - this "appearance" is mainly maintained by their unique interpretation of the brand and their behavior of pampering fans by giving them benefits anytime and anywhere.

"Give as much as you can." In July this year, San Yu San Shan, a new internet celebrity in the cake chain with over 110 stores across the country, invited founder Liu Dan and CEO Han Jingxu to a brand live broadcast. After distributing a batch of FENDI fragrance boxes in the form of lucky bags, the number of people in the live broadcast room exceeded 1,500, and the two suddenly decided to add cake benefits.

When the two bosses were discussing the number of copies to be distributed, the number of viewers exceeded 2,300. Han Jingxu immediately decided to distribute 200 cake bags worth 198 yuan. The probability of fans winning the prize was close to 10%, and the average user stay time increased from 40 seconds to 90 seconds. Within two consecutive days of the founder's visit, the GMV of "San Yu San Shan" exceeded 5 million, and the number of viewers reached the highest point since the broadcast.

Hong Jie, the owner of "Hong Jie Chuan Chuan Xiang", is known as a "natural performer in the catering industry". Due to her personal charm, every time she appears in the live broadcast room, she can bring a small climax. During the Paris Olympics, the brand's live broadcast room moved to the basketball stand under the stadium. After shooting the ball, she sat down to talk about basketball and table tennis with fans. She mentioned that she was on the school table tennis team when she was a teenager and won the 8th place in Harbin. But in the next second, she can professionally enter the role of a vigorous female boss and sell the super-value group purchase coupons of "99 yuan 88 skewers for two people".

▲Sister Hong appeared in the live broadcast room to give out benefits

According to the observation of NoNoise, when Sister Hong appears on camera, the live broadcast room will arrange exclusive vouchers, group purchase packages, kettle benefits, etc. Because the boss's personal IP is bound to the brand's voice, the live broadcast room has a relatively high audience and stay time, so basically no advertising is needed.

Jialeyuan Group, the leading supermarket chain in Xingtai, Hebei, had its general manager of supermarket business, @Jialeyuan Little President, appear for several hours in the company's 25th anniversary live broadcast, which also achieved a total GMV of more than 1 million yuan that day, with a maximum number of 5,500 viewers.

▲The CEO of Jialeyuan warms up for the live broadcast

Analyzing Jialeyuan’s live broadcast strategy, one obvious point is that the biggest discounts are reserved for the boss’ live broadcast, exclusive small trays are designed for the boss, and large-value items such as air conditioners and mobile phones are made into lucky bags to stimulate fan activity.

Since the purpose of the boss’ live broadcast this time was not to sell goods, the brand subsidized nearly one million yuan out of its own pocket. This also made the supermarket coupons with "hard currency" attributes a hot item in the whole venue, because the benefits of supermarket discount coupons are real.

Since the local life industry entered the short video and live broadcast mode in 2021 through the store visits of experts, and then to the store broadcast strongly supported by the platform, and the integration of store broadcast and instant retail, local life live broadcast has been in rapid iteration. Currently, more and more "boss specials" are more like a small tributary in this rolling torrent - it may not be suitable for all local life companies, but for many who have entered the market, it can still provide business certainty as a reward.

Judging from the trend of bosses from all over the world joining in to build personal IP value, this marketing model has certain growth potential. It is understood that in the "Boss Arrives" IP event initiated by Douyin Life Service, the cumulative GMV of the 51 "Boss Arrives" live broadcasts in July exceeded 40 million yuan.

Considering that in addition to official activities, there are many local bosses who are quietly testing this model themselves, there is reason to believe that the "Boss Special" is expected to become a novel brand marketing method besides mainstream methods such as short videos and expert broadcasts. Bosses who are popular with the audience may become new "strategic resources" for local life live broadcast rooms.

02 Why can the “boss price” attract users?

In the local life live broadcast room, the boss's identity attributes have at least three value points:

The first is to magnify "willfulness" - more exclusive benefits, more sales. When the boss parachutes into the live broadcast room, what attracts users the most is the visible and tangible benefits. Most of the special live broadcasts with the boss's presence try to shape the special event into a user mindset similar to the e-commerce Double 11 through the boss's business voice - that is, the most favorable time of the year, just like the boss of Sanyu Sanshan said on the spot, "give everything you can give."

The specific implementation method can be summarized as "boss price" + "exclusive benefits". For example, Dalian's high-end seafood buffet restaurant "Qianchao" rarely had discounts before, but the boss took the opportunity of the new store opening to provide Douyin users with discounted goods and "lucky bags" subsidies, among which the "lucky bags" can directly reduce 500 yuan. Sanyu Sanshan Cake Shop, in addition to giving away luxury goods and cakes, also provides users with an additional 1% product subsidy during the boss's online period.

The benefits brought by the boss's live broadcast are visible to the naked eye, so users naturally buy more and the live broadcast GMV rises. According to third-party data, in the two days when Hongjie did a large live broadcast, she achieved a GMV of 4 million yuan and more than 30,000 orders.

The second value point is to enhance business resilience. The boss's "willfulness" in making concessions is only superficial, and brand resilience is the prerequisite for the long-term operation of the enterprise. Since the beginning of this year, the local life industry has faced considerable growth pressure, and timely adjustments to marketing methods are also in line with the development needs of reducing costs and increasing efficiency.

The gross profit margins of some local life segments were not high, such as supermarkets, which only had a gross profit margin of 10-20%, while the commission rate for live broadcast and short video influencers was about 3%-8%. If the bosses could bring their own IP effect like "Hong Jie" - accumulating 600,000 fans by filming bosses visiting stores and making surprise visits to stores, they could not only directly attract traffic for the brand and save the influencer commissions, but also sell more products. While reducing costs and increasing efficiency, brand resilience is enhanced.

The saved expenditure can be further invested in product pricing to allow consumers to obtain more benefits, thereby forming a positive business cycle and increasing the company's resilience in crossing cycles.

After all, only good products, good services and good reputation can make a business go further.

The third value point is to outline "humanity" - the boss is regarded as the best spokesperson for the brand. The live broadcast room is to the boss of local lifestyle brands what the city bus body advertisement is to Dong Mingzhu, the chairman of Gree Electric Appliances, and the press conference podium is to Lei Jun, the founder of Xiaomi. It is a process of personalizing the brand and narrowing the distance with consumers.

Strong connections with consumers are one aspect of strengthening corporate resilience. This strong connection requires clear brand awareness. In a company, the boss is undoubtedly the most suitable person to tell the brand story, interpret the brand tone, and shape the brand's recognition. They have a higher position and have clear thoughts and understandings on the brand's history and development context, the brand's unique value points, and customer relationships.

Moreover, no one is better than the boss to establish a trust mechanism with users. Even in the live broadcast room, most of them are not for the purpose of bringing goods, but more to talk about product details. For example, Wang Xiaofei would talk about the yellow throat in the store, which is taken from the throat to ensure the taste; the boss of San Yu San Shan introduced the large amount of imported ingredients used in cake making in the live broadcast; or like Hong Jie, he talked about the current hot topics such as the Olympics and shared his personal feelings to narrow the emotional distance with users.

This type of live broadcasting, which does not have a strong sales purpose, can ultimately drive higher sales and win the trust of consumers.

Especially in the current consumption situation, trust is extremely precious.

03 How do local life merchants respond to the shift in marketing paradigm?

From the perspective of the macroeconomic situation, the "Boss Special" is also born out of "demand".

McKinsey's "2024 China Consumption Trends Research Report" shows that looking ahead to 2024, consumers are relatively cautious about their consumption growth, with an expected growth rate of only 2.2%-2.4%. The survey shows that domestic consumption potential has not been fully released.

The trend of more cautious and conservative consumer spending directly led to a decline in sales during this year's 618 promotion and a slow growth in the national total retail sales of consumer goods in the first half of the year. Taking the catering industry, an important pillar of the local life sector, as an example, in July this year, the year-on-year growth rate of national catering revenue slowed to 3.0%, the lowest since March 2023.

▲National catering revenue and year-on-year growth rate in each month since 2023, source: China Cuisine Association

How to stimulate new consumer demand and create new consumption scenarios has become the core OKR of local life bosses; how to drive more offline consumption and economic development through technological empowerment has also become the core essence of the platform to realize social value.

At this time, the operating conditions of physical stores are highly anticipated. As the basic unit of local life, the global operating capabilities of small stores, when gathered together, constitute a factor affecting the resilience of the real economy.

Before marketing turned to online, the touchpoint between stores and consumers occurred the moment customers entered the store. Later, through Meituan and Dianping, the touchpoint between stores and users moved online; the emergence of new channels such as short videos and live broadcasts represented by Douyin and Kuaishou continued to provide stores with new touchpoints and new incremental space. Public data shows that in 2023, the total transaction volume of Douyin's life service platform increased by 256%, of which short video transactions increased by 83% year-on-year, and live broadcast transactions increased by 5.7 times.

From this perspective, the boss live broadcast is not a temporary trend, but a shift in marketing methods developed in line with the changes in user consumption habits. The boss walks into the live broadcast room, conveys the brand's ingenuity, and uses his personal charm to attract loyal brand users, which is itself a new attempt and development; the essence remains unchanged - always using good products and good services to exchange for a good reputation. Those who cheat and sell dog meat under the guise of mutton will hardly last long.

The platform is naturally happy to see this. According to feedback from merchants, some local life live broadcast rooms can currently get additional subsidies and benefits provided by the platform. For example, Sister Hong mentioned in a live broadcast that part of the exclusive benefits were provided by the platform, and at that time Sister Hong Chuan Chuan Xiang was the only one selected in the Northeast region.

A person close to Douyin's life service revealed that in order to help physical merchants increase their revenue, the platform not only provides lucky bags, experts, tiered cards and other product tools, but also provides more official subsidies this year, trying to create more "boss arrival" scene IPs.

Among these tool options, experts help businesses to promote products and attract traffic; when users enter the live broadcast room, the anchor uses tools such as lucky bags to set tasks such as comments, joining groups, and forwarding the live broadcast room to heat up the business's live broadcast; and tiered cards further increase user stickiness through multiple experience discounts.

▲Luckin Coffee’s previously launched tiered card

Previously, Luckin Coffee adopted a tiered card promotion method. With a 10-time card, the 10th cup only costs 0.1 yuan; with a 3-time card, one can choose from 20 popular coffees.

The platform's motivation is also obvious. On the one hand, competition in the local life industry is intensifying. Whoever can bring growth to merchants will have more appeal in the ecological niche; on the other hand, by amplifying "discounts", further stimulating consumers' desire to buy and increasing their real motivation to go to offline stores for consumption, it will also help stimulate the overall vitality of the real economy.

As for consumers, hoarding coupons may not only be a form of consumption, but also have the emotional value of supporting brands and choosing a similar lifestyle.