The number of fans increased by more than 3 million in 5 days, and young people flocked to the live broadcast room of "Three Little Old Men"

After the September 10 Li Jiaqi incident, domestic brands have started marketing and have tried their best to jointly promote products. It is against this background that the three old men in the Douyin live broadcast room of the "Huili 28 Clothing Cleaning Flagship Store" opened up the situation with their clumsy and down-to-earth promotional style. Behind the lively live broadcast room of the "three old men" lies the dilemma of domestic products. After the short-lived "anti-bone" traffic is gone, where should they go?

On Saturday, September 16, at 8 a.m., 100,000 people gathered in the Douyin live broadcast room of the Vitality 28 clothing cleaning flagship store. What they saw was a "little old man" wearing glasses in front of the camera, with an unpretentious factory behind him and no "little yellow car" - when there was a little yellow car, 79 yuan could buy 31.2 kilograms of laundry detergent.

This is the second day in a row that this "old man's live broadcast room" has more than 100,000 people online at the same time as soon as it starts broadcasting in the morning. The peak number of real-time viewers in the previous morning's live broadcast even exceeded 270,000.

This is part of the marketing of Chinese brands after the Li Jiaqi incident on September 10. Who would have thought that when Huaxizi stumbled, countless Chinese brands would "stand up".

The sentence "79 yuan is not expensive, reflect on whether you are not working hard enough" has set off a huge negative public opinion, which Li Jiaqi's tearful apology has not been able to completely calm down. Domestic brands have launched 79 yuan packages, with the pride of "see how much you can buy with 79 yuan in my house", absorbing the surging "anti-bone" traffic.

In the past five days, domestic brands have tried their best to live broadcast, and even formed an "alliance", contributing many classic scenes. Fenghua and Hongxing Erke have joined forces. The latter used Fenghua to wash his hair in the Douyin live broadcast room and rubbed his head with the soles of its own shoes. The CEO of Guirenniao wore Hongxing Erke's clothes to live broadcast, washing his hair with Fenghua while drinking Huiyuan juice. If you don't look up to see the name of the live broadcast room, you don't know "who I am and where I am".

It was against this background that the three old men in the Douyin live broadcast room of "Vigor 28 Clothing Cleaning Flagship Store" stood out and opened up the situation with their clumsy and down-to-earth style and touching background story.

In 5 days, the Douyin account "Vigor 28 Clothing Flagship Store" gained more than 3 million followers, held 11 live broadcasts, with an average peak number of 100,000 online viewers per show, and live broadcast sales ranging from 10 million to 25 million yuan.

However, the story behind Vitality 28 is far more than just a "conscientious brand's counterattack", and behind the lively live broadcast room of the "three old men" lies the plight of domestic products.

After the brief spring, will domestic products bloom and bear fruit, or continue to be "malnourished"? After the "anti-bone" traffic fades, domestic products may still be in trouble.

01

Why is Vitality 28 so popular?

Even if you missed the old man’s TikTok live broadcast, you can still read their legends in the comment section and catch a glimpse of their classic moments in the screen recordings from all sides.

Three uncles who have no idea how to live broadcast have made this generation of netizens treat watching live broadcasts and buying things as a development game.

At the beginning, fans asked them to call them "babies", but the uncles couldn't say that, so they called them "children" instead; fans reminded them to turn off "late delivery compensation", worried that they would be fined if they couldn't keep up with the delivery, and the uncles looked at each other, not understanding what they meant at all; the uncles had no concept of "banned words" in the live broadcast room, and they always said the wrong things and had their live broadcast room blocked. At the suggestion of fans, they prepared a piece of paper with "self-service ordering" written on it, but they didn't know how to turn off the mirroring effect, so they could only display the paper upside down.

Fans suggested that they send out some welfare red envelopes. The uncle studied for a long time and gave himself a live broadcast room gift. The "hot air balloon" animation swept across the screen, and the uncle asked the fans expectantly: "Did you receive it?" Even when the live broadcast ended at night, the "three little old men" waved goodbye to the fans, turned around and left, without even turning off their phones.

When fans gave gifts, the uncles tried their best to stop them, telling everyone "not to spend money", and even said, "I checked, one XX is one yuan, how much laundry detergent can you buy with it!" The yellow carts in the live broadcast room were sold out as soon as they were stocked. The uncles looked up and said, "You have lost your mind" and "I'm going to put the brakes on you."

What makes all this so touching is that netizens have learned through word of mouth that "the story behind it is heartwarming": Vitality 28 is actually a 70-year-old domestic brand, but is now on the verge of bankruptcy; this live broadcast room hastily joined the domestic brand trend, but it does not even have a professional live broadcaster, and it is the executives of the main company behind it who are personally on the stage.

Fans called for a young person to help, and the uncle adjusted his glasses and said, "I am the youngest." In response to fans' concerns about production capacity, the old man repeatedly emphasized that the logistics were strong, but behind the scenes there were several aunts of the same age who were working frantically.

For tens of thousands of people in the live broadcast room, this is a completely different experience from the live broadcast rooms of big anchors represented by Li Jiaqi. Here they are not only understood and cared for, but also regain their dignity as consumers.

For a time, the "live broadcast room of the three little old men" became a symbol and the vanguard of "anti-Li Jiaqi/Hua Xizi", regardless of their original intentions.

Domestic brands are divided into "domestic marketing" and "genuine domestic products". Huaxizi is a representative of the former. The three eyebrow pencils sold for 79 yuan have been calculated by netizens and questioned by the weight being more expensive than gold. However, Vitality 28 has become the dawn of the latter, with low prices, "hard work", and a close relationship with consumers.

02

Vitality 28 became a hit, so what?

At 11 p.m. on September 15, the number of viewers in the Vitality 28 live broadcast room dropped to 50,000, which is still high, but it is much lower than the "grand occasion" of 100,000 viewers in the morning of the same day. Although the "old men" are still not as good as professional anchors, they have become much more skilled, and the "babies" have learned and are no longer surprised by the "runaway" of the small yellow bikes, and there are no more problems like the day before.

The uncle on night shift told everyone that they would not be broadcasting all night today and would end at 1 a.m., and called on everyone to rest early.

Some people left messages in the comment section saying "Boss Qi Qiang is crying, let's all go and support him". That night, Chairman Qi Qiang was "operating" in the Douyin live broadcast room. When the number of viewers suddenly increased from 50 to several thousand, he was so excited that he cried. Moved netizens ran to other live broadcast rooms to "call for people", and comments began to appear in the comment section saying "I came from Vitality 28". Later, when talking about his earlier tears, the chairman choked up again, then lowered his head to wipe his tears.

It is not the first time that a Chinese brand's live broadcast room has suddenly become popular and "wildly consumed", but the sudden flow of traffic is like a tide, and there will always be a time to ebb. This also means that product sales may return to normal after a wave of peaks.

In July 2021, despite years of losses, Erke donated 50 million yuan to the disaster-stricken areas in Zhengzhou, Henan. Moved by the "bankruptcy-style donation", netizens flocked to Erke's live broadcast room, calling for "wild consumption". Erke's sales peaked at 22 million yuan in a single live broadcast, and its sales increased 52 times.

Afterwards, Erke donated several times, but users seemed to be tired, and the sales in the live broadcast room fell back to less than 1 million a year later. According to Xin Dou, in the current wave of domestic products, Erke's average sales in the past 7 days were between 1 million and 2.5 million, but if we look at the data in the past 30 days, its average sales were only between 250,000 and 500,000.

At the CCTV 315 Gala in 2022, the exposure of "Tukeng Pickled Cabbage" affected instant noodle brands such as Master Kong and Uni-President, but Baiyang gained favor with "eating with confidence". The traffic of "ambitious consumption" also surged. Baiyang's Douyin account gained nearly 300,000 followers in a week, and the live broadcast sales exceeded 15 million yuan in a month. The real-time number of live broadcasts was often at the level of tens of thousands.

However, half a year later, the monthly sales of Baixiang's live broadcast room had fallen back to 5.5 million yuan, and the number of real-time viewers dropped to a few hundred. Even in the past two days, there was no improvement. On the evening of September 15, the number of real-time viewers of Baixiang's live broadcast room was only more than 1,000. According to Xindou, its average sales in the past 7 days exceeded 5 million, but in the past 30 days it was between 1 million and 2.5 million yuan.

Traffic even has a certain reactionary force. After becoming popular, Erke experienced a controversy over "fraudulent donations", while Baiyang was pushed to the forefront because some consumers complained that there were live ants in the instant noodles purchased from the Baiyang e-commerce flagship store.

The above two brands also have responsiveness that Vitality 28 has not yet demonstrated. They have made innovations in products and marketing and are actively expanding their scale.

03

The popularity, which is almost destined to fade, can satisfy the short-term needs of domestic brands, but it cannot solve the fundamental problem.

It is worth noting that the story behind Vitality 28 is not as simple as “striving to move forward on the verge of bankruptcy”.

The popular Douyin live broadcast account "Huoli 28 Clothing Cleaning Flagship Store" has a store information showing that it belongs to "Chengdu Yizhong Cleaning Products Company". The Hubei Huoli Group, to which the Huoli 28 brand belongs, has an official account on Douyin called "Huoli 28 Official Flagship Store", which has ceased operations several months ago.

The entity behind the now popular "Three Little Old Men's Live Broadcast Room" may be one of the production lines of Vitality 28. It is not clear whether it is also owed debts by Vitality 28 Group as rumored online, and whether its popularity can hope to "revive" this troubled brand.

As the "three little old men" said, Vitality 28 is a 70-year-old brand. During these 70 years, the brand has experienced several ups and downs. At its peak at the end of the last century, Vitality 28 accounted for more than 60% of the national laundry market share, and was the first company to sponsor the CCTV Spring Festival Gala and the first company to be listed in the top 500 in China.

However, after 1994, Vitality 28 gradually lost its vitality and was eventually forced to stop production in 2006. In 2007, Vitality 28 cooperated with Hubei Daohuaxiang Group and announced its return to the market, but it was finally disbanded in 2015.

The most recent "resurrection" was in 2017, when Jingzhou signed a formal contract with Thailand's Anbao Group, which invested 3 billion yuan to restart the brand and appointed Li Jianfei, a former professional manager, as the legal representative to establish Hubei Vitality Group. He had worked at Procter & Gamble for 16 years. Soon after its establishment, Vitality 28 received investment from Shoujian Investment Capital, and in 2019, it successively received financing from Sequoia China, Star Capital, Challenger Capital, etc., and officially restarted its business.

In the following years, Vitality 28 seemed to have really "come back to life". In 2019, Vitality 28's revenue was 100 million yuan, and it continued to rise in the following two years: 560 million yuan in revenue in 2020 and 2 billion yuan in revenue in 2021.

It was also during this period that Vitality 28 began to appear in online channels, built its own e-commerce flagship store, and entered the live broadcast rooms of major anchors. In May 2020, CCTV hosts Zhu Guangquan and Li Jiaqi collaborated to carry out live broadcasts of domestic products, and the 300,000 items prepared by Vitality 28 were sold out within 30 seconds. On Double 11 of the same year, Vitality 28 sold a total of more than 25 million items of various types on the Tmall platform alone.

Just in February 2022, Vitality 28 received another round of financing, with Sequoia China, Star Capital, Challenger Capital and Beijing Future Venture Fund Management providing equity investment.

However, everything stopped in 2023. At the beginning of the year, Vitality 28 was exposed to have owed employees four months of salary and failed to honor some dealer loans. In June, it was reported that Vitality 28 decided to stop work and stop salary for all employees. Li Jianfei told the media that he had mortgaged his house and said that Vitality 28 would "restart".

However, the "restart" promised by Li Jianfei has not yet happened. What we see is that Qichacha shows that Li Jianfei was listed as a dishonest person by the court in a case in the past two months. The official Douyin account of Vitality 28 has not been updated since March this year.

The main body behind it is the Douyin account of "Chengdu Yi Zhong Detergent Products Co., Ltd.", but with the support of the "three little old men", Vitality 28 has become a hot topic.

04

In a report by the Daily Economic News in June this year, although Li Jianfei said that "the channels are fully profitable", many employees of Hubei Vitality Group questioned the company's profitability. After the restart, Vitality 28 has been favored by capital many times, but expanding channels, expanding the company's scale, and implementing a low-price strategy may have the problem of "burning money". The report mentioned that the low-price strategy has become the main topic of controversy among company employees, "Is the 9.9 yuan 2kg large single product profitable?" One employee said that "the company has never evaluated profits."

Furthermore, employees "conservatively estimated" the company's debt situation, which may include nearly 100 million yuan in bank loans, 120 million yuan in debts to suppliers, and more than 30 million yuan in employee wages.

The low-price strategy represented by the "79 yuan 31 kg laundry detergent" that has impressed consumers has not been able to take Vitality 28 far. We are not unfamiliar with such domestic brands with good products and low prices but in trouble: Hongxing Erke donated 50 million yuan and suffered an annual loss of 220 million yuan when it went viral; Baixiang proposed in 2018 to reach a scale of 30 billion within 5 years (Master Kong's instant noodle business revenue was 12.7 billion yuan in the first half of 2021), but its current market share is only 7%...

However, escaping from the low-price strategy is a dangerous road, and Huaxizi is the best example. Another typical example is Li Ning, which has been actively innovating and trying high-end shoe styles in recent years, but the sales of its most popular shoes have been declining rapidly in the past three years. Last year, Li Ning's Wade Way 10 topped the Dewu actual combat shoe king list, but 220,000 people marked their interest, and only 15,000 people actually bought it, with a purchase rate lower than Nike under the same conditions.

The 2022 annual report shows that Li Ning's inventory increased by 37% year-on-year, making it the only domestic leading sportswear brand to increase its growth rate. The revenue growth rate dropped from 21% in the first half of the year to 8.2%.

Just 23 minutes into the broadcast on September 15, the "Hui Li 28 Clothing Cleaning Flagship Store" ended its live broadcast, and the old man in charge of the evening broadcast looked a little tired. Although it was divided into four live broadcasts, there was almost no pause between the live broadcasts. On that day, the "three old men" broadcast live from 7 a.m. to after midnight.

I hope that after deducting the cost of raw materials, production, loss and logistics, the old guys can still make money. I also hope that this wave of efforts by the OEM factory can really help the revitalization of the Vitality 28 brand.

More importantly, do we have to follow the old path when we are reborn?

Author: Bi Andi, Editor: Wang Jing

Original title: Young people who abandoned Li Jiaqi flocked to the live broadcast room of "three little old men"

Source public account: Alphabet List (ID: wujicaijing), let the future be more than just big.