Dong Yuhui is the "spiritual successor" to Yu Minhong

The transformation of Oriental Selection and Dong Yuhui's independence mark the changes in the promotion of knowledge and the shaping of cultural IP, and reflect the game between economic interests and cultural pursuits in the new era.

Two years ago, when Oriental Selection took up the banner of knowledge-based sales, Yu Minhong once tried to make a fuss around cultural IP, which seemed like creating the next "Li Ziqi". Today, Oriental Selection is drifting away from knowledge-based sales, and coupled with a series of internal turmoil such as Dong Yuhui's resignation, Yu Minhong ultimately failed to achieve his idyllic pastoral dream.

But Dong Yuhui, who recently started his own business, is trying to combine agricultural products with cultural content such as tourism and books, and is producing a series of interview programs. Yu Minhong's unfinished work may be continued by Dong Yuhui, his former favorite.

"What we want to do is very simple. The first is to go to the front line in terms of agricultural products, from the fields to the relationship between suppliers, so that they can cooperate better; the second is cultural tourism; the third is books, cultural communication work with books as the core."

Recently, in an interview program "Raise Your Voice", Dong Yuhui once again talked about the independence of Yuhui Xingxing and said that what made him decide to become independent was the future plan of Yuhui Xingxing.

Dong Yuhui said that Yu Minhong expressed his support for this: "Teacher Yu also said that you can actually do more and go further, and he also wished us well." Dong Yuhui explained that the current separation was a tacit understanding that came about by chance, but it was just a result, "not the purpose of either of us."

Image source: Tencent Video "Raise Your Voice"

From these words, it seems that we can glimpse that the reason for the "breakup" between Dong Yuhui and Yu Minhong is inseparable from the differences between the two sides at the business level: Yuhui Xingxing wants to deepen its own cultural IP, while the current Oriental Selection is moving along the route of shouting and selling goods, and the knowledge concentration in the live broadcast room is much weaker than it was two years ago.

Economic interests are certainly an important reason why Dong Yuhui left Oriental Selection. However, from public information, it can be seen that Dong Yuhui and Yu Minhong have already reached an agreement on interests.

LatePost learned from an insider that the profit-sharing plan between Yuhuixingxing and Dongfangzhenxuan was a promise reached by both parties half a year ago, and it was not compensation for the "breakup". If Yu Minhong fulfilled his promise, Dong Yuhui's total pre-tax income for one and a half years would be about 600 million yuan.

In addition, Yu Minhong promised to provide office space and resource docking for Hui Tongxing, which also shows that there are no major differences between the two parties in terms of interest division.

Combined with Dong Yuhui's current plan for Yu Hui, it is not difficult to see that "if you have different paths, you cannot work together" may be the deep-seated reason why Dong Yuhui and Yu Minhong parted ways.

As a listed company, Dongfang Zhenxuan is under pressure from performance and stock price. What Dong Yuhui wants to do is not like live streaming, which can quickly bring huge economic returns, and making money is not Dong Yuhui's first priority after independence.

This can also be seen from Dong Yuhui's hope to travel with Hui.

In the interview program, the host Zhang Yang asked Dong Yuhui, "Do you hope that the performance will increase significantly?"

Dong Yuhui said, "If Huixingxing pursues performance and profit alone, the entire company will be distorted and deformed, and when it is deformed, it may do things that it originally did not want to do but has to do."

Image source: Tencent Video "Raise Your Voice"

Yu Minhong previously hinted that Dong Yuhui did not fully agree with Dongfangxuan's business choices. He once said at the shareholders' meeting: "There is really no gap between Dong Yuhui and me. Although we have different views on business, I feel that Dong Yuhui and I are close friends regardless of age."

After becoming independent, Dong Yuhui has removed the mountains of performance and stock prices. He no longer has to worry about having to do something he doesn't want to do. He is indeed doing what he wants to do - building his personal cultural IP.

During the Paris Olympics, Dong Yuhui's live broadcast room launched a series of interview programs "Athletes Say", in which he talked with five famous athletes, Yang Qian, Lang Ping, Jiao Liuyang, Su Bingtian, and Deng Yaping. Not long ago, Dong Yuhui participated in the Douyin interview program "I Love Myself to Be Great" as an interview host.

Image source: TikTok @与辉同行

In fact, since the establishment of Huitongxing in January this year, Dong Yuhui has started to build his own cultural IP.

Dong Yuhui has launched two series of IP content, "Walking with Hui and Reading Mountains and Rivers" and "Walking with Hui and Reading Ten Thousand Books", two iconic IPs. These two programs are presented in the form of visiting cultural and tourist attractions in various places and talking with cultural authors, covering beautiful scenery, delicious food, traditional culture and celebrity thoughts.

With Li Ziqi's long-term disappearance, the domestic Internet lacks a super cultural celebrity who has both substance and fan appeal, and Dong Yuhui is the most likely to inherit Li Ziqi's mantle.

Oriental Selection pioneered knowledge live streaming, but is now moving further and further away from cultural IP. Facing performance pressure, it is difficult for Yu Minhong to completely reverse the company's direction. The ambition for cultural IP back then may now have to be shouldered by Dong Yuhui, who has just separated from the company.

1. The rise of knowledge-based marketing

In the middle of 2022, Oriental Selection soared to the sky, and Yu Minhong opened up an unprecedented live broadcast road with "knowledge-driven sales". When Dong Yuhui and Oriental Selection became popular with knowledge-driven sales, Yu Minhong also wanted to dig deeper into the cultural IP of Oriental Selection.

In October of that year, less than half a year after Oriental Selection became popular, it launched three episodes of short video content on Douyin. The content style was comparable to A Bite of China, and the length was also close to that of A Bite of China, combining the themes of "rural life, food making, and visiting farmers".

Oriental Selection is also recruiting for positions with a style similar to that of "A Bite of China", such as documentary investigators, documentary directors, etc., and also welcomes staff who participated in the production of "A Bite of China" and "Flavorful Origins".

Image source: TikTok @东方选

Yu Minhong, who wants to shoot "A Bite of China", has a tendency to develop towards Li Ziqi. Yin Qiang, vice president of New Oriental Education and Technology Group, also said in an interview that Oriental Selection will not only become an agricultural technology company with agricultural products as its core, but also a cultural communication company that brings users a pleasant shopping experience.

However, such documentaries soon disappeared from the Douyin account of Oriental Selection. But the road to creating a "cultural IP" has not stopped.

At the beginning of this year, Oriental Selection tried micro-variety shows and launched its first self-made micro-variety show "Let's go to your house for a meal after work". The anchors participating in the recording are the more popular anchors of Oriental Selection, such as Mingming, YoYo, Dun Dun, etc. Dong Yuhui did not appear in the recording.

From the B station account of Oriental Selection, it was found that this variety show premiered on January 15 this year. A total of three episodes were recorded, each divided into upper and lower parts, with a duration of about 40 to 60 minutes. The main focus was on eating and chatting at the same time, talking about life and current hot topics.

However, the recording of this variety show came to an abrupt end after the New Year's Eve dinner special on February 8. The cumulative number of views of these three episodes on Bilibili did not exceed 70,000, and the cumulative number of likes on Douyin reached 140,000.

Image source: TikTok @东方选

It's not just this variety show that has a poor effect, but also the long-standing live broadcast of character interviews on Oriental Selection, the frequency of which is also decreasing.

According to statistics from Zimubang (ID: wujicaijing), in the first half of this year, Oriental Selection had only three live interviews, namely the live conversation with Ni Ping on January 17, the live conversation with writer Yu Shicun on January 29, and the conversation with entrepreneur Li Shufu on March 28.

In 2023, there were as many as 20 live interviews of Oriental Selection in which Yu Minhong alone participated.

In other words, the cultural IP attributes of Oriental Selection are gradually fading in 2024. This change actually first occurred in the Oriental Selection live broadcast room. Since last year, the content of knowledge-based sales in the live broadcast room has been weakening.

Many viewers noticed that the time spent explaining the products in the Oriental Selection live broadcast room was getting longer and longer, and there were even "OMG"-style shouts and calls for sales;

The frequency of the arts, calligraphy, painting, history and humanities that made him famous is decreasing. Most of the time, the atmosphere of the live broadcast of Dongfang Selection is not much different from other live broadcast rooms that sell goods.

Oriental Selection no longer relies on knowledge-based sales, but instead strives to align itself with super anchors such as Li Jiaqi. The fundamental reason is the pressure of sales efficiency.

Oriental Selection has opened up a niche track for knowledge-based sales, but this gentle and elegant way of selling products, in addition to bringing praise and traffic, also puts Oriental Selection under pressure to improve monetization efficiency.

After all, compared with the traditional way of bringing goods that focuses entirely on brands and products, the anchors' use of live broadcast time on irrelevant topics is bound to lead to lower product exposure, which in turn drags down the order conversion rate. For live broadcast rooms that bring goods, this is not the most efficient option.

The bigger problem is that Dongfang Zhenxuan is a listed company and faces greater financial growth pressure than other live broadcast rooms. As Dongfang Zhenxuan expands its business, it will inevitably seek a balance between commercialization and cultural style, and this balance will sacrifice its original characteristics to a certain extent.

This is what Yu Minhong doesn't want to see. He once said at an event: "I think it (live broadcast) should be a kind of calm and knowledgeable explanation of the product, and other knowledge can be disseminated in addition to the explanation."

He used his first live show on Oriental Selection as an example, saying, "I took a map, a geography book, and a history book, and explained in detail the sourcing locations and the history of each product to the first batch of Oriental Selection buyers."

Caption: Yu Minhong’s first live streaming

However, Yu Minhong is determined to continue to promote knowledge and build cultural IP, but Oriental Selection cannot be trapped in the "cage" of promoting knowledge. Oriental Selection has finally become what Yu Minhong hates the most.

Yu Minhong is also very sorry about this change, which is not difficult to understand. At the end of May this year, when talking to Wumart founder Zhang Wenzhong, Yu Minhong half-modestly and half-exclaimed, "Dongfang Selection is now a mess."

Oriental Selection is apparently trying to make up for this shortcoming by re-launching character dialogues, but the effect is obviously not as good as Dong Yuhui's.

Yu Minhong also admitted that Dong Yuhui is more talented. In April this year, Yu Minhong said in the interview program "Phoenix TV Answers China", "Dong Yuhui has a good knowledge structure and a good way of expression. Until today, he is still loved by netizens. This is a gift from God, in a sense."

Image source: Weibo @Phoenix TV Q&A China

2. The Beginning of IP Creation

Obviously, Yu Minhong encountered some difficulties in creating cultural IP. Micro variety shows and food documentaries could not continue. Under pressure from performance and stock prices, he could not further cultivate the cultural attributes of the live broadcast room. Dong Yuhui did not have much external pressure. After receiving a considerable "breakup fee", he had the conditions to create Huixingxing according to his own ideas.

Before leaving Oriental Selection, Dong Yuhui had expressed his interest in creating cultural IP many times. But as a senior executive of a listed company, he was bound to be constrained by both internal and external constraints; even as the "number one" of Oriental Selection, it was difficult for him to act completely on his own.

During the controversy over the short essay, Dong Yuhui repeatedly stated that he did not want to be just a peddler. He had his own things he insisted on doing: one was agricultural products, two was cultural tourism, and three was reading and interviews, and then to create Dong Yuhui's cultural IP.

Yu Minhong tried to reconcile the conflict of ideas and directions between Oriental Selection and Dong Yuhui by giving them more freedom to play.

He later explained in a "breakup letter" that "in order to ensure that Yuhui can design the future of Walking with Hui according to his own wishes and respect his interest in knowledge and cultural dissemination, the board of directors and I have not made any requirements for the income of Walking with Hui. He can focus on recommending books, interviewing writers and promoting cultural tourism."

However, as a senior partner of Oriental Selection and vice president of New Oriental Culture and Tourism Group, Dong Yuhui must act according to the rules of a listed company. The performance of Dongfang Selection's peers affects Dongfang Selection's performance, and his personal movements also affect Dongfang Selection's stock price.

On June 9 this year, Dong Yuhui confessed in the talk show "I Love Me, I'm Great", "I am very resistant to selling things. To be honest, I still don't enjoy this job today... I often think that I don't want to do this job anymore."

Image source: @TikTok Assistant "I love me, I'm great"

On the first trading day of Hong Kong stocks after these remarks, the share price of Oriental Selection fell again, with a single-day drop of 9%. The fluctuation of the share price proves that Dong Yuhui's words and deeds are enough to affect Oriental Selection; and his resistance to "selling things" is an unstable factor that the management and investors of Oriental Selection cannot ignore.

After becoming independent from Oriental Selection, Dong Yuhui can do what he wants to do to the greatest extent and display his talents outside the live broadcast room.

After the establishment of Yuhuixing, Dong Yuhui gradually reduced the frequency of bringing goods. During the 618 period this year, he did not spend time and energy on the big promotion and missed many live broadcast special sessions. Instead, Dong Yuhui strengthened his cultural IP attributes in multiple dimensions and launched two series of IP content "Yuhuixing·Breaking Ten Thousand Volumes" and "Yuhuixing·Reading Mountains and Rivers".

"Walking with Hui and Reading Ten Thousand Books" is a personal interview program. Since the beginning of this year, Dong Yuhui has talked with well-known figures such as Chen Xingjia, Zhang Ruimin, Wu Jun, and Yu Chengdong in the live broadcast room.

"Walking with Glory and Viewing Mountains and Rivers" is a monthly cultural and tourism live broadcast, which intersperses intangible cultural heritage and local art performances to promote local culture and showcase local cuisine.

Dong Yuhui also brought cultural and tourism-related content overseas. In July this year, the Weibo account of the Greek Embassy Press Office released pictures of Dong Yuhui visiting the Acropolis Museum in Athens.

On the other hand, Dong Yuhui launched a special interview program "Athletes Say" on Youhui Xingxing, discussing topics such as the Olympic spirit, cultural exchanges between the East and the West, and art with guests.

In June this year, Yuhui Tongxing Company added a radio and television program production and operation license. Obtaining a radio and television program production license means that Dong Yuhui will have more rights to independently create and produce radio and television programs, providing him with greater space for exploring content creation and cultural communication.

3. Brand Blossom

Cultural IP is Yu Minhong's "white moonlight". In April this year, Yu Minhong recalled his previous knowledge-based sales. In the three hours of his first live broadcast, two hours were spent on geography, humanities and history.

In the past two years, Yu Minhong has made many attempts to shape the cultural IP of Oriental Selection. His greatest success was the launch of Dong Yuhui, who has also been following the cultural IP route favored by Yu Minhong.

But he might not have expected that only by leaving Oriental Selection could Dong Yuhui be a better "spiritual successor" to Yu Minhong, and even become the next Liziqi.

Li Ziqi not only has more than 100 million fans on the Internet, but the industrial chain extended by the IP also has huge commercial value. According to data released by Dolphin Think Tank, the sales of the Li Ziqi brand reached 1.6 billion yuan in 2020, and Li Ziqi snail noodles alone sold 500 million yuan in sales in one year.

Alphabet List once analyzed in "Yu Minhong Targets Liziqi" that if Yu Minhong created a food documentary similar to "A Bite of China" and gained content influence, he would be able to integrate "media, retail channels, brands, and platforms" together, obtain continuous influence through good content, and then seek commercial monetization.

Image source: Screenshot of Li Ziqi’s video at Station B

However, for Oriental Selection, Li Ziqi's popularity is of the times and accidental. It is quite difficult to fill the market vacated by Li Ziqi.

Two years have passed, and Yu Minhong has not turned Dongfang Zhenxuan into the next Li Ziqi. Moreover, many of Dongfang Zhenxuan’s cultural moves have come to nothing, and it has gone further and further on the road of shouting and selling goods. In contrast, Dong Yuhui has the desire and opportunity to wear the “cultural shirt” that Yu Minhong took off.

In Dong Yuhui’s journey of shaping his cultural IP, the role of Douyin cannot be ignored.

In March this year, Dong Yuhui revealed in a live broadcast that the Douyin team held a meeting with him for an afternoon and put forward many development ideas and expectations to Yuhui Tongxing, especially hoping that Yuhui Tongxing would develop faster.

However, Dong Yuhui said that although Huixingxing was fast enough, there was still a gap between him and Douyin's expectations, which made him feel "under great pressure."

It is not difficult to see that Douyin not only hopes that Dong Yuhui can make a breakthrough in bringing goods, but also hopes that he can make a breakthrough in content. Dong Yuhui's latest interview program "Athletes Say" is not only exclusively launched on Douyin, but also specially supported by Douyin and Dayouxuewen. Dayouxuewen is a celebrity knowledge event initiated by Douyin, supporting celebrities to create their own series of IP content.

ByteDance has invested in multiple MCN organizations and cultural IPs, such as Taiyang Chuanhe, Fengma Niu Media, and Wei Nian, behind Papi Jiang. However, with the "breakup" between Li Ziqi and Wei Nian, ByteDance also withdrew its investment in Wei Nian. After 2021, ByteDance is no longer obsessed with investing in the next Li Ziqi.

According to an MCN agency source, ByteDance invested in Li Ziqi because it was interested in Li Ziqi's IP and Li Ziqi's brand, the former for traffic and the latter for commercial realization. The emergence of Dong Yuhui's IP just filled ByteDance's regret.

The Yuhuixingxing IP and Dong Yuhui IP are completely in the hands of Dong Yuhui. He not only has a loyal middle-class fan base, but also has appeal and influence that cannot be underestimated, and has experience in live streaming.

Compared with Dongfang Zhenxuan and Liziqi who have already built their own brands and industrial chains, Dong Yuhui has not yet completed this step. The commercial value behind Dong Yuhui has not yet been fully explored, which also provides an opportunity for Douyin to bet on Dong Yuhui.

Dong Yuhui, who left Oriental Selection, has the opportunity to "revive" Yu Minhong's dream of cultural IP; and Li Ziqi's long-term disappearance has also left a huge market gap for Dong Yuhui.

Perhaps in the near future, we will see Dong Yuhui’s portrait and “Yuhui strongly recommends” appear on the packaging of a certain product, and Dong Yuhui will also complete the “spiritual succession” of Yu Minhong.

Editor: Yan Fei Writer: Xue Yaping This article is written by the author of Operation Party [Alphabet List], WeChat public account: [Alphabet List], 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.