Can “Liu Qiangdong” support JD Live as a host?

This article details the pros and cons of Liu Qiangdong’s first live broadcast of digital products. It is recommended for friends who are interested in brand operations to read and learn.

"Where is Dong Ge?"

At 6:18 pm on April 16, Liu Qiangdong's digital image "Purchasing Dong Ge" started its "live broadcast debut" and appeared in the JD Home Appliances and JD Supermarket Purchasing Live Broadcast Room. Just half an hour later, "Purchasing Dong Ge" announced that it would stop broadcasting, and the live broadcast room was continued by the real person purchasing and sales anchor. Users who came late were unable to see Liu Qiangdong's digital image debut.

Unlike the content promoted in the preview video, Liu Qiangdong's "digital clone" did not share his experiences and insights on food, reading, life, etc. in the live broadcast room, but only explained some products, rarely blinking and not smiling throughout the whole process. This "Dong Ge" made the audience feel unfamiliar.

This is almost the first time that Liu Qiangdong has made a public appearance since the "Minnesota incident", although in the form of a digital avatar. As 618 is about to start, the launch of "Digital Liu Qiangdong" has made the outside world curious about JD.com's next plan for live streaming, but the lack of emotion in the digital person's performance and the somewhat hasty ending have made the outside world question whether this is a marketing "live broadcast".

Although JD.com started live streaming early, it has not been able to break through the circle and lacks appeal to MCN agencies. According to a report by data monitoring agency Clour, only 1.3% of MCN agencies will choose JD.com Live for their live streaming business in 2023, while the data for Douyin is 85.7% and Taobao Live is 17.9%. The boss uses a digital avatar to live stream, perhaps because JD.com has felt the increasingly fierce competition in the live streaming e-commerce track.

However, the live broadcast room for purchasing and sales that JD.com has bet on has been regarded by many industry insiders as the "right way to live broadcast", and digital human live broadcast may also become the right direction for JD.com to revitalize content e-commerce and small and medium-sized businesses. It is undeniable that JD.com still has problems to solve, but it seems to no longer be confused.

01 How would you rate Liu Qiangdong’s “first broadcast”?

At 6:18 p.m. yesterday, the "JD Home Appliances and Home Furnishings Procurement and Sales" live broadcast room and the "JD Supermarket Procurement and Sales" live broadcast room were timely cut into the live broadcast screen of Liu Qiangdong's digital person. The "Procurement and Sales Brother Dong" in the live broadcast, wearing a navy blue suit, simply greeted and started the work of live broadcasting product presentation.

Liu Qiangdong's digital avatar is a typical broadcasting digital human, not an interactive digital human. A digital human practitioner pointed out to Dingjiao that "Purchasing Dong Ge" is a bit stiff and lacks authenticity, which is mainly reflected in the following aspects: he never lowers his head, turns his head, or smiles, and rarely blinks his eyes, and his expression does not change; his lip shape changes mechanically, and his timbre suddenly changes and freezes several times; three or four hand movements are repeated, which do not match the context; he does not interact with the audience in real time, and there is no sense of atmosphere.

Many users who often watch live streaming selling goods use words such as "boring" and "reciting words" to describe the "procurement and sales Dong Ge" they see.

Huanhuan is a loyal user of the live broadcast rooms of major platforms. She watched the performance of "Caixiao Dongge" in two JD live broadcast rooms and said that she had no desire to place an order.

Among them, the "JD Home Appliances and Home Furnishings Procurement and Sales" live broadcast room mainly sells 3C digital products such as televisions, air conditioners, and small household appliances, which are JD's advantage, but the product selection is relatively "biased towards the preferences of male users."

When it comes to products, "Purchasing and Sales Dong Ge"'s explanation is rather written. When promoting an air conditioner, he said, "It has fresh colors and will definitely become a beautiful scenery in your home. It's a rare opportunity, so don't miss it." However, he did not compare prices or parameters, and did not mention issues and indicators that users care about. The use of "you" throughout the process also created a sense of distance from the audience.

The live broadcast room of "JD Supermarket Procurement and Sales" mainly sells food and beverages, agricultural subsidies worth hundreds of billions, and rice, flour, grain and oil. When introducing a steak purchased directly from overseas by JD Supermarket, "Procurement and Sales Dong Ge" taught everyone how to make steak, but the whole process was based on talking without any physical display, so people couldn't imagine what the steak looked like and tasted like.

What makes users "distracted" is the rhythm control of the live broadcast room. For example, as soon as the previous product was put on the shelf, "Purchasing and Sales Dong Ge" seamlessly switched to explain the next product, without pausing the whole process and leaving no time for users to place orders; the operator was asked to pin a certain product link to the top, but it did not do so.

The above-mentioned digital human entrepreneur said that he could feel that when making the digital human "Purchasing Dong Ge", the team behind the scenes tried to add interactive and on-site content, but because of the lack of tacit cooperation in operation, it gave people a feeling of "memorizing the lines in advance but without supporting performances". At the same time, the written copywriting and the repeated emphasis on words such as "Purchasing is very professional" also made this sales promotion more like a marketing performance rather than a real sales promotion. "Liu Qiangdong is more like introducing and recommending the JD Purchasing brand." He said.

Fortunately, the price is really cheap. For one of the 250ml*16 boxes of Mengniu Truensu milk, the price in the "JD Supermarket Procurement and Sales" live broadcast room is 99 yuan for 3 boxes, the price in Taobao's 10 billion subsidy is 39.9 yuan per box, and the price in Pinduoduo's flagship store is 53.6 yuan per box. A Midea Cool energy-saving 3-horsepower vertical air conditioner is priced at 5,899 yuan in the "JD Home Appliances Procurement and Sales" live broadcast room, 6,099 yuan in Taobao's official flagship store, and Pinduoduo does not have the same model.

"Such a live broadcast room is more suitable for viewers with strong needs to place orders directly after watching," Huanhuan said.

Although the performance of the digital man is not perfect, the traffic of Liu Qiangdong's IP cannot be underestimated. 30 minutes after the broadcast, "Purchasing and Sales Brother Dong", who only explained some products, suddenly announced that he would stop broadcasting. However, the number of viewers in the "JD Home Appliances and Home Furnishings Purchasing and Sales" live broadcast room reached 11.453 million, an increase of 8.77 million people compared with the start of the broadcast; the number of viewers in the "JD Supermarket Purchasing and Sales" live broadcast room reached 11.277 million, an increase of 9.41 million people compared with the start of the broadcast. After "Purchasing and Sales Brother Dong" went off the air, both live broadcast rooms were continued by real purchasing and sales anchors.

Before Liu Qiangdong, Ding Lei, Zhang Chaoyang, Liang Jianzhang, Lei Jun and other entrepreneurs have also promoted their own products. But among the four live-streaming e-commerce platforms, Kuaishou, Douyin, Taobao and Dongfang, Liu Qiangdong is the first founder to personally promote products.

Using virtual people instead of physical bodies for live broadcasts is a more pleasing form of communication, according to Maizi, a senior practitioner in the live e-commerce industry.

He explained that, firstly, it would reduce Liu Qiangdong's cost of rehearsal and familiarity with live streaming, and secondly, Liu Qiangdong had not appeared in public for a long time, which would reduce the uncontrollable factors of real people appearing on camera. Thirdly, users' expectations of digital people selling goods through live streaming would be much lower than those of real people, which would alleviate the pressure of the first broadcast.

Some entrepreneurs also expressed "disappointment", believing that Liu Qiangdong's digital human is more like a "mascot" and leaves no room for Liu Qiangdong to perform. "Liu Qiangdong's sales ability is well known. The digital human neither reflects his personal charm nor has room for impromptu performance. It's all scripted, not fun and not sincere enough," a veteran entrepreneur told "Dingjiao".

02 The boss goes live not only to sell goods

It is understood that "Purchasing and Sales Dong Ge" was produced on a large scale by JD Yanxi, and Liu Qiangdong's digital man personally did the live broadcast. What is the intention behind it?

The most obvious of these is to set up a benchmark for experts based on emphasizing the advantages of JD.com's live streaming.

Last year, JD.com’s live-streaming purchasing and sales room started a price war with Taobao’s top influencer Li Jiaqi, and became famous for its model of “no influencers, no commissions, and no slot fees.”

This time, Liu Qiangdong did not open a separate account for his first broadcast as usual. Instead, he appeared in JD.com's procurement and sales live broadcast room as "Brother Dong of Procurement and Sales". He not only repeatedly emphasized that JD.com's procurement and sales are "cheap", "professional in the supply chain" and "good service", but also activated the gradually declining traffic in JD.com's procurement and sales live broadcast room.

Many users only have the impression of JD.com that it has goods and a store, but not benchmark anchors. For JD.com, "Purchasing and Sales Dong Ge" may become a benchmark.

The digital human "Purchasing and Sales Dong Ge" has also developed a new way to play with digital humans with the help of Liu Qiangdong's IP. " JD's two live broadcast rooms rely on Liu Qiangdong's IP to attract traffic. After the traffic is increased, it is replaced by real people to receive and convert the traffic. This gameplay is quite interesting and easy to copy . In the future, can the number one position in other live broadcast rooms of procurement and sales categories come to live broadcast with digital humans? Can the bosses of other brands come to live broadcast with digital humans? There are many possibilities." Yang Ming, head of the e-commerce of maternal and infant brands, said.

Another purpose of the digital live broadcast of "Caixiao Dongge" is to directly target JD.com's content ecology. JD.com wants to recruit creators and MCN agencies to fill the content on the JD.com platform.

The reason why JD.com is focusing on the content ecosystem is obvious. Yang Ming told Dingjiao that on the one hand, JD.com does not have top anchors who sell goods, so it needs good content to retain users and increase the activity of the platform's existing traffic pool; on the other hand, good short videos and live broadcast content can also improve the shopping experience and increase conversion rates.

A more direct reason is that JD.com’s original short videos and live broadcast content were not diverse enough - the live broadcast rooms were mostly populated by JD.com procurement and sales staff or brand store staff, and the quality of short videos in the “Shopping” section of the JD.com App was also uneven.

"Now after entering the 'Browse' section, the first recommendation is a clip of Dong Ge's digital human live broadcast. JD hopes to attract more people with IP influence and content creation capabilities through this live broadcast to accumulate content on JD," said Maizi.

After e-commerce traffic stabilized, increasing the content ecosystem has almost become a consensus among e-commerce platforms. On April 10, JD.com announced that it would invest 1 billion in cash and 1 billion in traffic as rewards to attract more original creators and high-quality content organizations. At the end of March, Taobao also announced that it would add 10 billion yuan to promote content e-commerce operations.

All major live streaming e-commerce platforms have launched content-based strategies. Douyin is interest-based e-commerce, Kuaishou is trust-based e-commerce, and Video Account is relationship (social) e-commerce. The core behind them is content rather than traditional shelf-based e-commerce . JD.com and Taobao also need to upgrade their original shelf-based e-commerce, and digital humans and large models are one of the important driving forces.

In addition, JD.com may also want to use its technological strength to improve the transaction efficiency of live e-commerce.

Most people who go to JD.com to buy things have clear needs, and leaving immediately after buying is the norm for many users.

In Maizi's opinion, JD's user groups and advantageous categories are also suitable for digital live broadcasting. " Live broadcasting is more of a tool for merchants to increase the efficiency of store visits, retention, conversion rate, and traffic . JD cannot incubate a big anchor internally, so it treats live broadcasting as a tool and makes full use of its role. There is no need to imitate Douyin and Taobao."

At the same time, Maizi said that for some merchants who currently do not have content capabilities and want to reduce live streaming costs, JD.com is a platform where they can try to use digital people to bring goods.

Previously, JD Cloud's Yanxi digital people worked with real anchors to create a "sun-never-setting" live broadcast room during off-peak hours, driving GMV of over 1 billion yuan. According to JD's 2023 annual report, Yanxi digital people have been broadcasting in over 4,000 brand live broadcast rooms, including home appliance and digital brands such as TCL, Haier, and Lenovo, increasing the average off-peak conversion rate by 30%.

03 JD Live, has it found the right path this time?

JD Live has been working hard, but every time it makes a splash it quickly calms down and has never really broken through.

JD.com's live streaming business was established as early as 2016, which is similar to the establishment time of Taobao Live. In that year, Luo Yonghao was still the president of Smartisan Technology and held a "Luo Yonghao Special" on JD.com. In the same year, Liu Qiangdong also personally live-streamed cooking and said that "all ingredients can be purchased from JD.com."

However, JD.com's early operations focused on self-operation and back-end fulfillment. Xu Lei, former CEO of JD.com Group, said in 2019 that live streaming is a particularly good marketing tool, but don't build your business on it. This means that JD.com has always regarded live streaming as a tool rather than a channel. In 2020, JD.com is still expanding its live streaming business by cooperating with Kuaishou.

Around 2021, live streaming has become a standard feature of e-commerce platforms. JD.com tried to break through the influence of celebrities and entrepreneurs, such as inviting Dong Mingzhu, Wang Feng, Luo Yonghao, Jin Xing, Huang Shengyi and her husband to live stream. Although the single-game results were impressive, these well-known anchors were unable to broadcast for a long time on JD.com, and could not bring about sustained and stable growth . JD.com's path to increase the popularity of live streaming did not fully work out.

In 2023, JD.com launched the "10 billion subsidy" and joined the "low-price" e-commerce battle. JD.com found a starting point. On October 24, 2023, JD.com's procurement and sales staff shouted to Li Jiaqi in the circle of friends to "choose one of two". The next night, the "JD.com Home Appliances and Home Furnishings Procurement and Sales" live broadcast room was launched while it was hot, staring at the prices in Li Jiaqi's live broadcast room and lowering them, and quickly became popular. Subsequently, JD.com's various business lines quickly established JD.com's procurement and sales live broadcast team. Data shows that the total number of viewers of JD.com's procurement and sales live broadcasts during Double 11 exceeded 380 million.

Theoretically, the live broadcast mode of JD.com's procurement and sales can become JD.com's feature. Compared with other live broadcast rooms, JD.com's procurement and sales are all hosted by their own employees, without middlemen to make a profit from the price difference, because the in-depth understanding of the industry supply chain also has a price advantage. If the cost-effective mentality can be maintained, coupled with JD.com's logistics and after-sales service, JD.com can find its own direction in live broadcasting.

In 2024, JD.com’s main focus in live streaming will be to further deepen its own characteristics and focus on digital human live streaming.

At present, it seems that digital human live broadcast is also a path that JD.com has to take. In the traditional live broadcast track, Taobao, Douyin, Kuaishou and even Xiaohongshu have all produced super anchors, and users have formed the habit of watching short videos and live broadcasts on these platforms. JD.com has missed the window period of "massive subsidies can produce miracles".

In comparison, digital human live streaming is the differentiation of JD Live. JD’s user groups are more efficiency-oriented and have a relatively higher acceptance of digital humans.

In addition, Douyin and Taobao have no shortage of real-life anchors and content selling goods, and the platforms also have relatively strict rules on digital people selling goods - in May 2023, Douyin issued a platform specification for AI-generated content; Taobao opens digital people to merchants, and the price is higher than that of third parties, but there is also a possibility of being blocked.

Industry insiders analyzed that the reason why Douyin is the most stringent is, on the one hand, because the cost of controlling content risks is very high, and on the other hand, digital human live broadcasts do not contribute much to Douyin's business. Douyin's interest e-commerce focuses on emotions and randomness, and digital humans cannot compare with real people.

In this environment, JD.com embraces the digital human live broadcast ecosystem, which can attract a group of institutions with accumulated digital human resources, as well as merchants who want to quickly get started through digital human live broadcasts.

In fact, since 2023, JD.com has begun to introduce POP merchants (third-party merchants) on a large scale. These third-party merchants can be both suppliers for JD.com's procurement and sales, and the main purchasers of JD.com's digital human live broadcasts.

In December last year, JD.com announced that in the categories participating in the discount reduction policy, the category discount rate of all POP merchants through JD.com live broadcasts will be reduced to 2% or 1%, which is lower than the 2%-5% category discount rate of mainstream live broadcast e-commerce platforms. Such policies are also constantly expanding the ecological scale of JD.com's digital human live broadcasts.

618 is a shopping festival created by JD.com. Before 618 is approaching, Liu Qiangdong’s live broadcast has a different meaning.

According to the financial report, JD.com's total revenue in 2023 will continue to maintain a trillion-yuan scale, and its net profit attributable to the parent company will be 24.2 billion yuan, 13.8 billion yuan more than in 2022. Many interviewees mentioned that the direction of JD.com's live broadcast adjustment is correct, but these actions still face a lot of resistance and may not see results in the short term.

For example, Yang Ming mentioned that the biggest problem with digital people selling goods is that there is no accountability, "Who will be responsible if there is a problem with the goods sold?" In addition to live streaming, JD.com also needs to face the fact that the entire live streaming e-commerce industry is facing a slowdown in user growth and a decline in purchasing power.

In the eyes of many e-commerce practitioners, JD.com's overall strategy has always been clear - go deep into the supply chain, offer low prices and provide services. As long as the number one person is willing to persist in finding the direction, JD.com still has the opportunity to grow.

Author: Su Qi, Editor: Jin Yufan

WeChat public account: Dingjiao (ID: dingjiaoone)