"News Queen" is a big hit, but TVB's live streaming is still "a little short" of success

As a popular business model, live streaming is attracting more and more companies and brands. In order to seek new business opportunities and growth points, TVB has also entered the field of live streaming. Through active transformation and expansion of new businesses, it is expected to find new growth points. Let us look back on TVB's live streaming e-commerce journey and see the motivation and prospects behind this decision.

"News Queen" became a hit, but TVB's dark moment has not yet passed.

As TVB's last anniversary drama this year, "News Queen" became popular almost immediately after it was released. The fierce and sophisticated lines seem to take the audience back to the glorious period when TVB and Hong Kong dramas "killed all the way". But TVB is indeed no longer "golden". According to public information, from 2018, when it recorded its first loss in 30 years, to 2022, TVB's net profit attributable to its parent company has never turned losses into profits, and the accumulated losses have exceeded HK$2.2 billion.

Just 10 days after the launch of "News Queen", TVB announced layoffs again and the reorganization of its television broadcasting and e-commerce businesses. It plans to merge Hong Kong's local e-commerce platform "Ztore" into the e-commerce operating platform "Neighborhood Buy" to provide more diversified products and services.

Under the loss, TVB, which is in urgent need of transformation, regards "live streaming with goods" as a lifeline , and entered Douyin in April 2022 to build a matrix account for selling goods. In March this year, it also entered Taobao Live in a high-profile manner, using the sentimental card to start "Hong Kong drama-style selling goods", which once drove its stock price up. The 2022 interim report shows that e-commerce business contributed 25% of TVB's revenue.

One year into the live streaming e-commerce, although there has been no "miracle of great effort", TVB is clearly interested in playing the card of "film and television entertainment on one hand, and live streaming e-commerce on the other hand". So, looking back on TVB's entry into the live streaming e-commerce, can live streaming e-commerce become another powerful driving force as expected?

1. TVB bravely ventures into live streaming

In "News Queen", Sister Wen, played by Charmaine Sheh, faced the issue of TV department reform and proposed to change the company's previous celebrity anchor model to the "content is king" model to strengthen the solidity of the content. The "content is king" strategy also runs through TVB's entire process of developing live e-commerce.

In the mainland, TVB chose Douyin as the first platform for live streaming sales. In April 2022, TVB announced its entry into Douyin and opened a matrix account. Not long after, Oriental Selection, which was also forced to transform, became popular with its content, and TVB immediately followed suit and created a "Hong Kong-style selection".

@TVB知货Taobao Live

According to Yicai Global, when talking about the expanded e-commerce live streaming business, Peng Mingye, president of Shanghai Jade Oriental Communication Co., Ltd., said: "After investigation and analysis, we found that the three elements of the business, 'people', 'goods' and 'venue', are naturally compatible with our business and that of our parent company (TVB). The advantage of 'people' refers to the fact that TVB has a large number of artists with high comprehensive qualities; as for the advantage of 'goods', 'TVB knows goods' can integrate cross-border goods from all over the world. And 'venue' refers to the live streaming platform on the one hand, and the live streaming scene on the other hand."

As the first stop for TVB's cross-border e-commerce, Douyin's advantage lies in its high entertainment value. The platform gathers a wide range of Hong Kong drama fans, and the interaction from artists can help awaken potential users .

Douyin, TVB's official account has 12.53 million followers. It is mainly used to publish film and television information, highlights and wonderful drama clips. One of the collections, TVB Hong Kong drama classics, has been updated to 514 episodes and has received over 3.65 billion views. The recently popular "News Queen" has also received nearly 100 million views.

The three live streaming accounts that serve as e-commerce incubation bases include @TVB识货 (Hong Kong-style selection), @TVB识货 (delicious selection), and @TVB识货 (Hong Kong strict selection). After more than a year of honing in the live streaming market, the "Hong Kong-style selection" live streaming room has made the most outstanding contribution to sales . According to Chanmama data, in the past 30 days, the account has broadcast 68 shows in total, with sales reaching 7.5 million to 10 million yuan; the sales of "Delicious selection" in the past 30 days are also in the range of 7.5 million to 10 million yuan; and the homepage of "Hong Kong strict selection" has not been updated since June this year.

@TVB识货TikTok matrix account

Hong Kong-style selection, which has the largest number of fans (1.189 million), targets women who have a stronger desire to consume beauty and skin care products. The products on the shelves in the live broadcast room are mainly beauty and skin care, daily necessities, ranging from small and medium-sized brands to international brands, such as La Mer Essence Water with a customer unit price of 649 yuan and Kiehl's Moisturizing Cream with a customer unit price of 329 yuan.

With the added advantage of geographical location, TVB has been working hard to strengthen the advantages of "authentic products" and "generous discounts" in its live broadcast rooms, and has thereby retained a group of core consumers.

TVB, which has star and IP resources, has also shown its sincerity in the live e-commerce market. When Wen Jie was killing it in "News Queen", the lines, jokes, slices and commentary videos in the play were widely circulated on Douyin. TVB also took advantage of the opportunity to launch a live broadcast room for its actors to promote TVB's products.

Ho Yiting, who plays Xu Xiaowei in the drama, "acts like a spoiled child" to users: "Don't say you don't have money to buy expensive skin care products. There are so many low-priced and high-quality skin care products in the TVB live broadcast room." "You don't even know the discounts and benefits inside. If you do this, I will only think that you don't love me." Gao Haining, who plays Xu Shiqing, also shot a short video, "What era is it now? We just want to give customers this price and this quantity." Although the oral lines are not very novel, the Hong Kong drama faces "grasping" the Douyin gameplay is somewhat fresh.

Tik Tok @TVB识货 (Hong Kong Style Selection) Account

After nearly a year of live streaming on Douyin, TVB turned to Taobao Live and announced that it will cooperate in 48 live streaming this year. On March 7, @TVB Shihuo launched the first "immersive Hong Kong drama live streaming" show, with careful design in terms of artist image, product selection, and scene.

The theme of the first broadcast was related to the classic drama "Heart of Greed", and the scene was captured from the seafood shop with a strong presence in the drama. Chen Hao, who played Tong Chi-on, became a star anchor and partnered with Sharon Chan to sell goods. During the live broadcast, Cantonese and Mandarin were interspersed, trying to maximize the emotional flavor and lead users into the drama in one second. In the end, the entire live broadcast won sales of 23.05 million, which led to an increase in TVB's stock price.

Since then, TVB has brought Hong Kong drama themes such as "Triumph in the Skies" into live broadcasts, and the response has remained good. A "Miss Hong Kong" special at the end of May even had a GMV of over 100 million, which seems to indicate that TVB's live e-commerce has entered the second stage.

@TVB知货Taobao live broadcast Miss Hong Kong special

Compared with Douyin, TVB is more successful on Taobao. Taobao has been vigorously implementing its content strategy in recent years. Taobao, which is eager for content, and TVB, which has strong content production capabilities, can be said to be a perfect match. TVB also reached a cooperation with Taobao in this year's Miss Hong Kong pageant.

In terms of consumer portrait, Taobao is closer to the consumer side, and its users have stronger willingness and ability to consume, which also better fits TVB's target audience. After all, TVB obviously does not want to get involved in the low-price war, but rather wants to seize the supply advantage and win with high-quality product selection and content live broadcast.

On the other hand, Taobao's product pool is also deeper. Looking at the selection of TVB's "cross-border specials", there are both relatively affordable Hong Kong-style snacks and daily necessities, as well as more expensive skin care products, gold bracelets worth tens of thousands of yuan, second-hand luxury goods, etc. Overall, the average customer spending is relatively high, and most of the products on the shelves are from Tmall International or official flagship stores. In the more daily specials, in addition to home furnishings, there are also Martin boots for 599 yuan, nutritional fish maw for 958 yuan, and Gaofan down jackets for 2,499 yuan.

Although TVB initially relied on Hong Kong dramas to promote its products, live broadcasts with themes like "Heart of Greed" gradually withdrew from the market. TVB's "Hong Kong flavor" is mainly reflected in the Hong Kong-style faces of the celebrity anchors, the occasional Cantonese, and the selection of some Hong Kong-style products. Initially, how to balance the proportion of Mandarin and Cantonese was a difficult problem for TVB, but now the anchors can "insert" Cantonese when introducing products.

@TVB知货Taobao Live

At the same time, since the first live broadcast, TVB's ace anchors such as Sharon Chan have gradually cultivated their personal appeal, opened special sessions such as "Winter Outfits" and "Imported Goods", and the popularity of their live broadcasts has also increased significantly. TVB is also generous with its collaboration, and artists airborne live broadcasts have become one of its advantages . According to the live broadcast preview, Gao Haining will make an appearance in the live broadcast on December 17.

In general, TVB is moving towards "orthodoxy" in terms of people, goods and venues . This achievement is already very good for a film and television company in transition, but it is far from becoming another "trump card" for revenue. In addition to sentiment, TVB still needs to add its own characteristics.

2. Traditional film and television media are transforming and relying on live streaming to sell goods as an emergency solution?

The end of the universe may not be live streaming sales, but live streaming sales may very well be the starting point for the transformation of traditional media.

Under the premise that TVB took the lead in "proofing" the market, film and television companies that are in the cold winter have also plunged into the live streaming sales trend, regarding live streaming e-commerce as a "life-saving straw" to turn the tide.

Another company striving for transformation is Huayi Brothers. Previously, Huayi Brothers had produced masterpieces such as "Aftershock", "A World Without Thieves", and "Gua Sha", but after the number of films it invested in and controlled dropped sharply, the company also suffered losses year after year. Since the end of 2020, the company's holding subsidiary began to prepare for the official Douyin live broadcast room "Rag Friendly Things", which was soon renamed "Yi Ren Xing Xuan", and later added the "Yi Ren Xing Xuan Love Beauty" account, targeting the fashion track.

Although the direction of the live broadcast business was clear, due to the serious lack of investment in the live broadcast track and the lack of planning, Huayi Brothers' live broadcast room did not become as famous as expected. After a series of dismal sales, the Yi Ren Xing Xuan account soon stopped updating and broadcasting, and the number of followers of the account remained at 65,000.

With IP resources and celebrity topics, Huayi Brothers is not the only one that has been aimless in the field of live streaming. After reaching a live streaming agreement with a brand, Huanrui's artists did not reach the expected sales, which led to a lawsuit for Huanrui. In the end, Huanrui refunded the brand more than 3 million yuan.

In June this year, Asia Television, another established TV station, also started live streaming to sell goods. Taking the 66th anniversary celebration as an opportunity, it invited Jin Xing to start her live streaming debut. The live broadcast lasted for more than 5 hours and eventually achieved 8 million viewers and sales of 10 million to 25 million. At the same time, Asia Television also set up an official sales account "Asia Television Star Selection", which has accumulated more than 990,000 fans. However, this account also ended up being quietly suspended.

@ATV Star Selection Joint Venus Live

The temptation of "making quick money" through live streaming continues to attract traditional film and television media. However, the transformation from a comfort zone to live streaming e-commerce requires not only the determination to make a decisive move, but also a professional team to ensure product selection, supply chain and after-sales service. Equally important is the investment of energy and content.

From this perspective, TVB's advantage lies not only in the source of goods and the establishment of a stylish live broadcast room, but also in the cooperation of the artists. They are willing to step into the less familiar field of live streaming and work hard to hone their professional skills. It is not surprising that they can "break through the siege."

At the beginning of live streaming sales, although there were also jokes such as "the end of actors is live streaming sales" and "TV sales are back", the overall evaluation of fans was positive. "TVB's camera is much higher resolution, there is no dead white filter, and the artists' work attitude is also very good."

Of course, it is not only film and television companies that have transformed. At the end of August this year, GQ Lab also announced its entry into the live streaming sales industry. In its first live broadcast at the end of August, GQ took "Maillard" as the theme and invited celebrities such as Chen Linong and Jike Junyi to be guests on the live broadcast. The products mainly featured fashion-related categories such as beauty and skin care, and the first broadcast GMV reached 6.95 million.

After the brilliant premiere, GQ's GMV of the subsequent live broadcasts dropped sharply, hovering between 100,000 and 500,000 for most of the time. However, as a self-media that produces 100,000+ viewers in the era of public accounts, GQ also has celebrity resources and is more familiar with trends and traffic methods, and is more adept at creating content.

Tik Tok @GQ Lab

For example, "MBTI" is popular on social platforms, and GQ also took advantage of the opportunity to create special sessions for I people, P people, and J people; this year, "old money style" has become a fashion buzzword, and GQ has followed suit, inviting fashion editors to talk about "old money" and "new rich" to create a special session for Double 11 beauty and luxury. Due to the high customer unit price of the products on the shelves, this live broadcast won 2.5 million to 5 million sales. After a few months of trial broadcasting on Douyin, GQ also rushed into the embrace of Taobao live broadcast. Although several live broadcasts have not yet brought goods, GQ's determination to bring goods is evident.

@智族GQ Taobao Live Room

As "content" gradually becomes a necessity for live streaming e-commerce, traditional film and television organizations and media that want to transform and enter the industry are better off following the "rules" of live streaming e-commerce.

Author: Lou Xingchui, WeChat public account: Kas Data