What will be the dividing line for super top anchors in 2024?

2023 will be a year of volatility for live streaming e-commerce. From the brand turmoil of Huaxizi to Dongfangxuan, no one can control the risks. So how should we deal with it? Let's take a look at the explanation in this article.

2023 seems to be a year of collective "Mercury retrograde" for live streaming e-commerce.

The Oriental Selection turmoil ended with the removal of CEO Sun Xudong and the promotion of Dong Yuhui, but a series of dazzling company operations seemed to have just begun.

On December 26, a new account "Walking with Hui" was created for Dong Yuhui. On the second day of the new account, the topic #董宇辉新号早上增过600,000粉# became a hot search on Weibo. As of the evening of the 28th, the number of fans had increased to 1.73 million. It is foreseeable that Dong Yuhui will have greater personal freedom and economic benefits in the future.

However, this account, which is regarded as Dong Yuhui's personal studio, is actually still 100% controlled by Dongfang Zhenxuan, and the GMV of the new account is included in Dongfang Zhenxuan's financial report. Even the entity behind the account, the legal person of the holding company is the dismissed Dongfang Xiaosun.

I don’t know whether the “mothers-in-law” who were outraged before can fully understand the complicated relationship between Dong Yuhui and Dongfang Zhenxuan. At least these measures have temporarily calmed public opinion.

But have the internal conflicts been resolved? I'm afraid no one can guarantee it.

At the end of the year, Mei ONE transferred the equity of its subsidiary company to Li Jiaqi's mother, and this small detail was captured by the Tianyancha APP. The delicate relationship and interest distribution between institutions and super head anchors are always unstable factors that may be detonated at any time.

2023 is destined to be a bumpy year for live streaming e-commerce.

In addition to the controversy between Dongfangzhenxuan and Dong Yuhui, Li Jiaqi was also plagued by crises in 2023. Because of a sentence he made when selling Huaxizi eyebrow pencils that angered consumers, Huaxizi also fell into a brand image crisis. Not long after, Li Jiaqi was involved in the "price control controversy" of Haishi and JD.com. Xiao Yangge, who has always maintained an exaggerated and humorous style, was criticized for being "vulgar", and then there were disputes such as quality control.

They are all real super heads, and their every move affects their companies and even platforms. While they enjoy flowers, fame and fortune, they are also suffering backlash.

No one likes this kind of risk, and no one can fully digest and grasp this huge unknown risk. 2024 may be the dividing line of the fate of the super head anchors.

Will everything be calm after Mercury retrograde?

1. Dangers lurking everywhere

No one expected that Dong Yuhui, who had a likable personality and had never made any mistakes, would ignite a workplace topic under the current social sentiment - "honest workers against dirty capital" because of a dispute over the division of labor for a few live broadcast promotional copy. Fans turned into a "trade union" to seek justice for Dong Yuhui.

The public opinion was overwhelming, and soon the contradiction was pointed to the internal management problems of Oriental Selection. Dong Yuhui, Yu Minhong, Sun Dongxu and other core figures of the incident were listed on the hot search for more than ten days. In the end, Yu Minhong personally came out to calm the public anger and stabilize the morale of the troops.

As a result, the CEO position of "Eastern Little Sun" was removed and Yu Minhong took over concurrently. Dong Yuhui became a senior partner of Oriental Selection, received company stock rewards, established his own studio, and was given a month-long vacation. It seems that Yu Minhong was making a choice between the two, keeping Dong Yuhui and giving up "Eastern Little Sun".

But the problem is far from being as simple as this or that. The conflict between super anchors and companies in the live broadcast industry has a long history. Dongfang Selection is not the first, and it will not be the last. In addition to the controversy over whether personal efforts or company operations have contributed the most to the popularity of Dong Yuhui and others, the fluctuations and trends of fans' collective emotions are also a huge destabilizing factor. It may even burn the anchor and the company.

Li Jiaqi has the deepest understanding of this.

Li Jiaqi disappeared for 109 days and did not return until September last year. Just one year after his return, he caused a "tragedy" because of an eyebrow pencil. After that, he was cautious in his words and deeds, but it did not bring peace. Two months later, he was once again involved in a melee with JD.com and Hai's.

Li Jiaqi spent the entire second half of 2023 in turmoil. Completely different from Dong Yuhui's "credit dispute" turmoil, Li Jiaqi's two crises were both related to the prices of products sold in the live broadcast room.

In the live broadcast room, the host, brand and consumers all have their own opinions on whether the Huaxizi eyebrow pencil, which costs 79 yuan per piece (with two replacement packs), is expensive or cheap; as for whether the "bottom price agreement" signed between the brand Hai's and Li Jiaqi mentioned by JD.com's purchasing and sales department actually exists, the truth may no longer be that important.

Brother Yang, who claims to be the second man in terms of the number of fans on Douyin, was "crazily" attacked in 2023 and was frequently plagued by negative public opinion.

In April 2023, the "Livestreaming Consumer Rights Protection Public Opinion Analysis Report" showed that among the 14 livestreaming consumer rights protection public opinion data covered in the report, the most public opinion involved "Crazy Little Brother Yang", accounting for 29.27%. The problems involved false propaganda, product quality, price misleading, delivery problems, returns and exchanges, and uncivilized livestreaming.

At the beginning of 2023, Brother Xiao Yang began selling products of his own brand "Xiao Yang Zhenxuan" in the live broadcast room. Within the year, many suppliers cooperating with "Xiao Yang Zhenxuan" were ordered by the Market Supervision Bureau to rectify.

In addition to quality control issues, Xiao Yangge was frequently criticized for his vulgar live broadcast style. Anyone who knows the history of Xiao Yangge's popularity knows that these exaggerated and absurd earthy performances are the reason why he was loved by traffic in the first place.

It’s just that this love has been interpreted in a new way by the audience and the market. Whether it’s Brother Yang, Dong Yuhui, or Li Jiaqi, after they have tens of millions of fans, their words and deeds are gaining recognition and love and then converted into purchasing power, but they are also being backfired and questioned.

Just as Dong Yuhui and Yu Minhong mentioned during the live broadcast to clarify the controversy, everyone likes Dong Yuhui now, and I can bring sales to Oriental Selection. But what if one day I say something wrong and it affects the company?

Second and third level contradictions

Live streaming has been around for seven years. Problems between top anchors, platforms, and brands continue to be exposed, and conflicts are becoming more intense.

The platform is the soil for the anchors to survive, and the anchors are the nutrients that enrich the platform. The two are mutually beneficial and complementary. Taobao, Douyin, Kuaishou, and Xiaohongshu all need anchors to attract people's attention and bring them a steady stream of traffic and considerable transaction volume.

While relying on the anchor, fear and gaming will also occur.

On Kuaishou, the story of Simba and other big anchors "using the emperor to control the princes" was staged, and the platform had to weaken the power of Simba's family.

Douyin hopes to solve the problem from the root and adjust the traffic distribution mechanism. According to a report by Founder Securities, Douyin has weakened manual operations and strengthened algorithm recommendations since the second half of 2017. With a "centralized" traffic distribution model, the platform plays the role of "God's hand."

Therefore, Douyin does not have a fixed target for support. Most of the time, the platform is fixed, but the influencers are changing. Dongfang Zhenxuan was suddenly suspended from broadcasting on Douyin in a similar way. Although in the subsequent public response, Dongfang Zhenxuan said that "there is no contradiction or conflict with Douyin." However, on the day of the suspension, Dongfang Zhenxuan announced that it would switch to its own app to broadcast.

In fact, although both the anchors and the live broadcast rooms are content producers on the platform, they do not have actual initiative. Caijing Tianxia Weekly once interviewed a person in charge of a live broadcast e-commerce platform who said, "Douyin itself does not want to create super anchors, because if the platform becomes too dependent on super anchors, it is equivalent to letting others control its lifeblood."

For the sake of interests, if any anchor dominates, the platform may lose its bargaining power. This is the same problem that all platforms are worried about in the attention economy. Taobao's way of checks and balances is to support mid-level anchors, new anchors and vertical experts.

The influencers also have their own siege. In addition to the constraints of the platform, their relationship with the institutions behind them is also very delicate.

MCN agencies are the boosters of internet celebrity anchors. Oriental Selection is a super large MCN agency, and Dong Yuhui is the real head. MeiOne has Li Jiaqi, Bee Surprise Club has Viya, and Weinian has Liziqi.

One common feature among them is that after these well-known anchors and internet celebrities, there is no second top anchor or internet celebrity. The distribution of benefits among the top anchors is crucial. Compared with Dong Yuhui, who considers himself a "salesman" in Oriental Selection, Li Jiaqi is more closely tied to Mei ONE.

Li Jiaqi is not only the top anchor of Mei ONE, but also a partner. This is a concession made by Mei ONE to give Li Jiaqi more practical voice. After the incident of Dong Yuhui's "small essay", Luo Yonghao posted a Weibo to defend Dong Yuhui, hoping that he could get a fair share of market value. In his blog post, he wrote that Luo Yonghao and Li Jiaqi both took most of the profits from the institution, while Dong Yuhui only got a small part.

Earlier, the most intense conflict between institutions and influencers was between Wei Nian and Li Ziqi. The two sides spent more than 800 days fighting for equity. At a time when traffic is fleeting, Li Ziqi, who disappeared and stopped updating, has not yet made a comeback.

The conflict of interest with the MCN agency is only one of them. In 2023, Li Jiaqi and Dong Yuhui encountered many public opinion crises, which shows that the relationship between the anchor and the user is not unbreakable. The anchor's every move is closely watched, and the slightest mistake will cause an uproar.

Brands are caught between the anchors and the platforms, and conflicts are also imminent.

In the past and even today, the "low price" in the live broadcast room has always been the driving force for the anchor to attract attention. Massive fans gather in a live broadcast room, thereby achieving massive orders, which has an instantaneous pulse effect.

Brand merchants have to rely on platforms and anchors to sell goods, but in this process, the pricing power of goods is often transferred to the party with strong traffic. So in 2023, Li Jiaqi and Xiao Yangge both felt the pressure from the "price" storm.

3. Reduce risks and seek change

On December 18, Dong Yuhui reunited with Yu Minhong in the live broadcast room of Oriental Selection with his new identities such as "Senior Partner" of Oriental Selection. While announcing Dong Yuhui's official return, it also seemed to be the beginning of the "de-Hui" journey of the Oriental Selection account.

That night, Yu Minhong said that in the future, Oriental Selection will jointly establish an independent studio with Dong Yuhui, create and open a new account, and reduce the frequency of live broadcasts on Oriental Selection.

When everyone thought that the matter was about to come to an end, Luo Yonghao did not think so. In his opinion, if Dong Yuhui alone made money, no matter how much money was given to him, Dongfang Zhenxuan would still be just an MCN in the capital market. Only by completing the "de-Dong Yuhuiization" can it tell the story of an e-commerce company or a brand product company. The valuations of these two types of companies are very different, so there will definitely be variables later.

Getting rid of the super head is the only way for live e-commerce to transition to a stable business entity. Luo Yonghao's Make Friends live broadcast room is a typical example of "getting rid of the head" in the industry.

Luo Yonghao revealed in his blog post on December 16 that the “de-Luoization” of “Make Friends” has been basically completed, and now whether he broadcasts it or not, the impact on the company’s revenue is only a few percentage points. But he also emphasized that this was 100% accomplished with his “personal cooperation.”

Amid the changes, one trend that everyone can observe is that, whether it is Taobao, Douyin, Xiaohongshu, or Video Account, merchants’ self-broadcasting/store broadcasting is becoming more and more common. The most obvious one is that on Double 11 in 2023, Taobao store broadcasting started.

This is the first time in 7 years since Taobao Live was launched that a merchant has achieved breakthrough results in the form of store broadcasting rather than data broadcasting. Store broadcasting has become an accelerator for brand business.

Not long ago, Cheng Daofang, head of Taobao Live, told Xinmei Daybreak and other media that live e-commerce will enter the middle and late stages in 2023, and now it will return to the essence of e-commerce, competing in goods, prices and services. Merchants who understand goods better, that is, people with professional backgrounds, will have more opportunities to conduct e-commerce live broadcasts.

From Taobao's internal perspective, 2023 will be the first year of the explosion of store live broadcasts, and more professional merchants will come forward to provide shopping guides. Data shows that in the past year, there have been more than 27,000 store live broadcast rooms with a turnover of over one million on Taobao live broadcasts, and nearly 4,000 with a turnover of over ten million.

Double 11 is a node where store broadcasting explodes. On Xiaohongshu, store broadcasting will also become a new growth engine for Xiaohongshu e-commerce on Double 11 in 2023. In the past, the people sitting in front of the screen were more real brand managers or brand designers, but now more store broadcasters are full-time employees of the brand. "Store broadcasting" has also naturally become one of the three steps of Xiaohongshu merchant operation.

Unlike Xiaohongshu, Taobao, Douyin and Kuaishou, there are still no top anchors in video account e-commerce to date. This is influenced by WeChat's "decentralized product philosophy", which is suitable for the growth of brands.

Li Hao, founder of Kas Academy, mentioned in his advice to brands and merchants who will enter the video account in the second half of 2023 that merchants should have a matrix operation mindset. The video account is not completely centralized and has a strong social recommendation logic. Matrix operation can cover different audiences in a refined manner.

So we also see that YaYa, a down jacket brand that adopts a matrix-style approach, was the first to come out. Suki, the public relations director of the down jacket brand YaYa, revealed that in November last year, YaYa officially launched its video account e-commerce business, and the GMV in the peak season of 2022 exceeded 30 million yuan.

Author: Li Huan, Editor: Zhai Wenting

Source: New-Daybreak (ID: new-daybreak)