It is difficult for top anchors to transform

With the rapid development of the live streaming e-commerce industry and changes in the market environment, some top anchors are beginning to face the challenge of transformation. From live streaming to self-operated brands, training courses, short drama production, and even attempts in the entertainment industry and AI field, their transformation path is full of uncertainty and risks.

The top anchors are stepping down from the "pedestal".

Over the past year, there have been reports that the once-popular top anchors have retired behind the scenes. First, Simba said that live streaming e-commerce could not make much money, and he would stop live streaming for two years to concentrate on studying AI; the returning Wei Ya never started a live broadcast again, and instead, like Xiao Yang Ge who was rumored to have quit the Internet, she started to play short dramas; not long ago, Li Jiaqi, who reduced the length and frequency of live broadcasts, also turned to the entertainment industry.

They all chose to fade out of the live broadcast room and turn to other fields. The top anchors obviously realized that the industry has reached a "turning point".

In March this year, the "China Internet Audiovisual Development Research Report (2024)" guided and released by the Network Audiovisual Program Management Department of the State Administration of Radio and Television at the 11th China Internet Audiovisual Conference showed that as of December 2023, 15.08 million people in the country will regard live streaming as their main business. The sharp increase in the number of anchors selling goods has made the industry competition fierce.

On the other hand, with the change of platform traffic mechanism, the power of mid-level anchors has risen, and more and more brands have begun to deploy store broadcasts, and the "bargaining power" of top anchors has gradually shrunk. In the past few years, the frequent promotion nodes and the almost identical promotion methods of various platforms have also caused aesthetic fatigue among consumers, and the "appeal" of top anchors to bring goods has continued to decline.

As the dividends of the times gradually disappear, top anchors have also begun to try to seek a second growth curve besides live streaming. However, at present, although there are many paths to try, there are not enough successful cases yet.

01. Lukewarm self-operated brands

It seems that the layout of self-operated brands is the first thing that every top anchor who is seeking transformation thinks of. By building their own brands, they can fully control the pricing of goods and avoid the "price war" common in e-commerce. Factory direct supply "has no middlemen to make a profit from the price difference", and the high gross profit of self-operated products means greater profit space.

In fact, incubating self-operated brands has indeed brought growth to many top anchors.

For example, Simba started to develop his own brand as early as 2017. In 2018, he promoted the sanitary napkin brand Cotton Code in the live broadcast room, and the total sales reached 3 billion. He also maintained a 43% repurchase rate on the Kuaishou channel.

At present, Simba's live streaming e-commerce company Xinxuan Group has launched dozens of self-operated brands, covering personal care and beauty, daily necessities, clothing, shoes and bags, home appliances, mother and baby, food and fresh produce and other categories. Among them, the food brand Jianfeng Shike achieved a GMV of 113 million yuan and 975,000 orders in its first live streaming.

Following closely behind, Wei Ya also launched her own cosmetics brand "Four Seasons Diary" in 2019. With a strong lineup of stars and endorsements from celebrities, it received a lot of exposure when it was first launched. Later, Wei Ya established her own clothing brand "VIYA NIYA" and launched her own brand "Feng Wei Pie" in cooperation with Nicholas Tse. However, with the outbreak of Wei Ya's "tax evasion" incident, the brand's voice gradually disappeared.

In addition to creating independent brands, the top anchors also have a "product selection" model for their own brand routes. They select suppliers to cooperate with and label the brands selected and selected by the live broadcast room. For example, New Oriental's "Dongfang Selection", Crazy Xiao Yangge's "Xiao Yang's Selection" and Li Jiaqi's "Mei ONE Selection".

Among them, "Oriental Selection" achieved the best results, with the GMV of its self-operated products exceeding 3.6 billion yuan from December 2023 to May 2024; "Xiao Yang Zhenxuan" was officially launched on the market in January 2023. After just over five months, the total sales volume of its products exceeded 10 million orders. On September 21 of the same year, the total sales volume reached 20 million orders, which was also an outstanding performance.

Image source: Oriental Selection

However, if a self-operated brand is not careful, it may have problems with poor supervision, which will damage the reputation accumulated over a long period of time. Both "Dongfang Zhenxuan" and "Xiao Yang Zhenxuan" have encountered a series of product quality problems. The former has been frequently hit by counterfeiting and quality control crises, and the latter has had multiple product OEM factories ordered to rectify due to quality issues.

In addition, self-operated brands are also affected by the reputation of the anchor. After the conflict between the company and anchor Dong Yuhui, "Dongfang Zhenxuan" fell into a reputation crisis. After Dong Yuhui left, the number of fans in his Douyin live broadcast room dropped sharply. The "Mei ONE Optimization" store, which was officially launched on June 15 this year, has dismal sales. In addition to its late entry, it may also be due to the decline in Li Jiaqi's reputation after the "Hua Xizi Eyebrow Pencil" incident.

Essentially, the top anchors set up their own brands to serve the purpose of live streaming. But this is back to the starting point. When the top anchors no longer have traffic, can their own brands still run?

02. "Cutting leeks" training course

Many top anchors have also set their sights on the business of “selling training courses”.

In November 2020, Wei Ya's team went to Hefei and agreed with the local government to build a national live broadcast talent training center in Hefei. In March 2021, Qianxun Culture, the MCN agency behind Wei Ya, launched the Qianxun Academy business and launched the Qianxun Academy, an internet celebrity training camp with a high tuition fee.

According to public information, the offline course of Qianxun Academy lasts for 15 days, with a price of about 25,000 yuan per person and a class size of about 30 people. This means that a complete training course can bring in 750,000 yuan in revenue. According to the information released by Qianxun Holdings' official WeChat public account, as of the end of October 2021, Qianxun Academy's live broadcast training camp has been opened to the fourth session in more than half a year.

In April 2021, Luo Yonghao, who said that everything is about money, also announced the launch of live broadcast training and agency operation business at the Douyin E-commerce Ecological Conference, and planned to increase the revenue of the entire business to 10 billion to 15 billion yuan. In order to achieve the above goals, in February 2022, Luo Yonghao even appeared in the live broadcast room of the Jiao Ge Pengyou E-commerce Academy for the first time to personally promote the anchor course. Data shows that this live broadcast attracted a total of 396,800 viewers and sales reached 1.1541 million yuan.

Whether the goal has been achieved has not been officially announced, but the course selling business of Jiaogepengyou has continued to advance, and live-streaming course selling and training have become an industry. At present, the number of fans of Jiaogepengyou E-commerce Academy on the Douyin platform has reached 926,000, and the online and offline training courses launched are dazzling, including anchor training camps, operational practical training classes, etc. The most expensive online course tuition is as high as 31,600 yuan.

Recently, Crazy Xiao Yangge has also expanded this business. More than a month ago, Three Sheep Network CEO Du Gang released a video announcing that the Three Sheep Group will soon launch the "Three Sheep Live Classroom" project, provide live broadcast training courses, and open an @三只羊大课堂 account on the Douyin platform.

Image source: Douyin @Three Sheep Classroom

According to public information, Three Sheep currently offers two types of offline training programs, namely novice courses and advanced classes, priced at 3,980 yuan/person and 9,980 yuan/person respectively, but the fees do not include food, accommodation and transportation.

In terms of recruitment scale and time arrangement, the advanced class is expected to recruit about 50 students for two days and two nights, starting on August 2. The beginner course for beginners is planned to recruit about 30 students for three days and two nights, starting on August 24.

Obviously, for the top anchors, selling courses is a highly profitable business. However, in the eyes of many netizens, these businesses are suspected of "cutting leeks".

Searching the keyword "live broadcast training" on the Black Cat complaint platform yielded more than 10,000 complaints, with many students saying they were scammed by false advertising. "I paid a high price for the training course, only to find it was not applicable. I have to figure it out on my own in real life."

“If the courses are really useful, why don’t they train more anchors to help them sell goods, instead of selling courses to earn our tuition money?” asked Xiaoxin, a clothing anchor who has just been in the industry for three months.

Judging from the "second generation of broadcasters" cultivated by the top anchors in the past two years, the "live broadcast training course" is indeed unconvincing. Under the "feeding" of resources and traffic favored by the top anchors, the "second generation of broadcasters" not only failed to make a name for themselves like the top anchors, but also the sales of the live broadcast rooms collectively stopped after a group of top anchors "left the stage" during the 618 promotion this year. It can be seen that top anchors cannot be cultivated in classes.

03. A short play with much thunder and little rain

In 2024, the top anchors have collectively set their sights on making short dramas.

As an emerging trend in the content industry, short dramas naturally have marketing attributes. In the first half of the year, brand-customized short dramas and short drama-style live broadcasts have become the new marketing battlefield for e-commerce anchors.

In March, Xinxuan Group announced the establishment of a company focused on short video live streaming to further expand its footprint in the content e-commerce field. At the end of May, Xinxuan Group launched a customized short drama "She is as Bright as a Pearl" in cooperation with OSM.

There is no specific data on the effect of this drama as a brand-customized short drama, but as the 618 promotion period has passed, the number of brand-customized short dramas broadcast has decreased. At present, the enthusiasm of brands for customized short dramas is waning. After this drama, Xinxuan Group has not made any moves on short dramas.

Unlike Simba's "brand + short drama" route, Crazy Little Yang Ge and Wei Ya seem to be aiming for content short dramas. Wei Ya, who entered the market relatively late, even set up a company called Qianmeng Culture in May to focus on the short drama track, and brought in veteran players in the film and television industry as partners.

However, Qianmeng Culture only announced the launch posters of three short dramas, "Substitute Boyfriend", "A Male Nanny Comes to My House" and "Don't Fall in Love with Your Brother" in late June, and there has been no further news since then.

However, the crazy Xiao Yangge, who launched a short drama and made a lot of noise, received a lot of negative reviews. The first paid short drama "Master Fu, Your Substitute Bride is a Boss" launched in June was removed from the Internet 20 days after it was launched due to improper guidance. Even the Douyin account of "Three Sheep Short Drama" deleted all the relevant short drama content.

Although a paid short play titled "Why Doesn't TA Confess to Me Yet" was launched after the "Three Sheep Short Play", the number of likes and views were only a few dozen, and almost no one was interested.

Image source: Screenshot of the Douyin account of the Three Sheep short play

In fact, DoNews has already analyzed in the article "Why are all the top anchors doing short dramas?" that the road to short dramas for top anchors is not easy. The short drama track is getting more and more competitive, and the requirements for content quality are getting higher and higher. It is no longer feasible to apply the formula of hits. From the perspective of brand marketing, brands have limited investment in customized short dramas. With the entry of more professional short drama production companies, it is difficult for top anchors to have a competitive advantage.

04. Variety shows full of complaints and invisible AI

Some top anchors also have their own unique transformation paths. For example, Li Jiaqi participated in two variety shows, "Brother Who Overcomes Troubles 4" and "My Girl", bravely entering the entertainment industry, and Simba announced that he would devote his energy to the field of AI in the future.

However, at present, Li Jiaqi's reputation after appearing on variety shows is not satisfactory, and his performance in "Brothers Who Make Waves 4" has also made many fans call it breaking the live broadcast filter. Although being popular in the entertainment industry can also open up topics, for Li Jiaqi, the obvious shortcomings in singing and dancing skills and image in variety shows are meaningless for increasing his exposure, consolidating existing traffic and tapping new traffic, let alone bringing about a second growth curve.

And AI may bring new growth opportunities.

Nowadays, the combination of AI+e-commerce has shown its practical application value, such as virtual humans, data analysis and intelligent script generation, which has brought convenience to the e-commerce industry. But at the same time, the top anchors who have deployed in the field of AI should also pay attention to the fact that AI+e-commerce is developing rapidly, and if they want to jump on the "wave", they must seize the opportunity.

After the tide receded, the "golden age" of the top anchors has come to an end. If they do not want to be knocked down by the new wave, they have no choice but to accelerate transformation and innovation.

Written by Cheng Shushu Edited by Li Xinma