Live broadcast rooms are "fighting" for Messi, who can take over the traffic of the "King of Football"?

Now all major platforms have introduced top resources. But what is the problem? How to avoid the short-lived flow of traffic is something that platforms need to pay special attention to. This article analyzes this issue from the example of Messi's fan meeting. Let's take a look!

Messi's fan meeting was moved to the live broadcast room for the first time.

At 15:02 on the afternoon of June 14, Messi appeared in the Taobao live broadcast room and accepted interviews from CCTV football commentator He Wei and wine anchor Li Xuanzhuo. For this reason, Li Xuanzhuo specially changed the name of his live broadcast room to "Messi is coming - looking at the Azhu Pavilion from afar".

This is Messi's seventh trip to China in six years, and it is also the first time that he has moved his fan meeting online. As offline meetings and commercial activities have been cancelled, the live broadcast room has become an important channel for fans to interact with Messi.

People familiar with the matter revealed that Xie Rudong, chairman of Yaowang Technology, also came to the Four Seasons Hotel where Messi was, and posted on his WeChat Moments that 120 security guards were mobilized for the first live broadcast.

Despite the grand momentum, many unexpected events occurred on the day of the live broadcast, such as the temporary change of live broadcast time, screen freezes, and Messi's voice becoming louder and softer.

Although the host repeatedly emphasized that Messi would not promote products and any commercial elements had nothing to do with Messi, many brand names still appeared in the live broadcast room. After Messi's live broadcast ended, Li Xuanzhuo quickly restarted a live broadcast to promote products , and put 76 links to Messi's same jerseys, drinks, snacks, etc.

The day before Taobao started broadcasting, Kuaishou also broadcasted Messi's interview video in a live broadcast format. As of 8 pm on June 13, the live broadcast had accumulated 150 million views, with a peak of nearly 6 million people online at the same time. Even if there were problems such as no subtitles in the live broadcast room, it could not stop the enthusiasm of the fans.

Messi has single-handedly stirred up changes in China's Internet traffic. Wherever he is, there is a topic of discussion.

1. Messi appeared on the live broadcast for 15 minutes, and nearly 3 million people flocked to watch

Without any warning, Messi's Taobao live broadcast debut started more than three hours earlier than announced.

The original live broadcast of "Looking at the Azhu Pavilion" was scheduled to start at 17:05, but it actually started before 14:00. Taobao explained that this was done after repeated discussions between the two teams in order not to disturb Messi's normal training and rest.

Many netizens have been waiting for Messi in the live broadcast room since the show started. Finally, after more than an hour, Messi finally appeared.

"Do you know how to say your name in Chinese?" The host He Wei started by teaching Messi to read his Chinese name. The only drawback was that Messi's voice when greeting was almost completely covered by the translator, making it difficult for the audience to hear Messi's Chinese expression.

As a professional sports media person, He Wei interviewed Messi on issues that fans are concerned about, such as "whether he will participate in the next World Cup" and "whether he will become the head coach of the national team like Maradona."

The football king who was a powerful figure on the football field seemed a little restrained in the live broadcast room. His "golden left foot" stepping on his right foot and his hands that had nowhere to put undoubtedly exposed Messi's "social phobia" attributes.

The problem of the translation being too loud at the beginning was promptly adjusted, but soon another problem arose - the translation was too quiet in the second half, causing many netizens to switch from "not being able to hear clearly" to "not being able to understand". In this "Schrödinger's volume" and unstable live signal, the live interview lasted about 15 minutes.

Near the end, the host took out the rice dumplings and taught Messi the second Chinese phrase "Dragon Boat Festival Happy Health". Messi tried hard to make the sound "Duang Duang Duang Duang". Finally, the host suggested taking a group photo and turned off the camera, and the live broadcast came to an abrupt end. Facing the Messi poster frozen in the live broadcast room, fans left messages saying that the live broadcast was too hasty and they were not satisfied.

Although there was no picture, the live broadcast signal was not cut off, and the fans had not left the stadium. The live broadcast audience slowly increased in the frozen picture. As of press time, the live broadcast audience was 2.98 million.

In terms of overall performance, this live broadcast was not perfect. There were many problems such as temporary changes in time, fluctuating sound, and picture freezes, which were also complained by fans.

But Messi's influence cannot be underestimated. Hundreds of related topics such as #MessiLive# and #MessiLive was so nervous that he stepped on his right foot# have been trending on multiple platforms. Taobao officials revealed that the live clips have been viewed by more than 10 billion people on major platforms.

Judging from the live broadcast data alone, the traffic of Messi's live broadcast is not even as good as Li Xuanzhuo's first live broadcast on Taobao, which attracted more than 3.61 million viewers, but it did not go viral. The live broadcast cooperation with Messi made Li Xuanzhuo's name and his live broadcast room remembered by many netizens, and successfully used Messi's influence to start investment promotion.

2. Can the platform handle the traffic from “Messi”?

Messi did not directly promote the products, but the shadow of commercialization was everywhere in the live broadcast room.

During the 15-minute live broadcast of Messi, the logos of brands such as Hengyuanxiang and Avita appeared on the screen in turn. According to people related to Taobao, these brand collaborations were the actions of the live broadcast room itself and had nothing to do with Messi himself.

After the interview, Li Xuanzhuo quickly started a 46-minute live broadcast to sell goods, and put 76 links on the shelves, mainly Messi-related souvenirs, drinks and snacks. He did not introduce the products one by one, and only focused on displaying the Argentine team souvenirs at the end.

In this live broadcast, Yaowang's name and logo are more eye-catching.

According to Titanium Media, on the day when the news that Messi would appear on Yaowang’s live broadcast account was announced, Yaowang Technology’s stock price rose by 5.13%. This live broadcast debut can be regarded as a "marriage" between Yaowang, the "first live broadcast e-commerce stock", and Taobao Live.

Before joining Taobao, Li Xuanzhuo was the top anchor of the wine and beverage category on Kuaishou, a subsidiary of Yaowang, with more than 12 million fans on Kuaishou. His Kuaishou homepage reads "Beverage and beverage anchor ranks No. 1 in number of fans and sales."

Public information shows that Li Xuanzhuo's Taobao live broadcast room began operations on May 31 this year, and conducted four live broadcasts mainly selling wine and beverages before Messi.

While Li Xuanzhuo is live streaming on Taobao, he also keeps up with the daily operations of his Kuaishou account. According to Xinkuai data, the "Li Xuanzhuo" account has hosted 24 live broadcasts in the past month, with a cumulative estimated GMV of more than 34.42 million.

Regarding Messi's live broadcast, Li Xuanzhuo posted several related videos on Kuaishou, among which the preparation video "48 hours to meet Messi" received 13,000 likes.

The big anchor of Kuaishou was live streaming with Messi on Taobao, but there was no sign of Li Xuanzhuo in the Messi live streaming room opened by Kuaishou.

On June 12, Kuaishou announced that the soccer king Messi would appear in the Kuaishou live broadcast room that night, with the text "The soccer king is coming". The live broadcast lasted less than an hour, with a peak online audience of over 5 million and a viewership of 190 million . Messi's appearance lasted less than a minute, just a pilot video, answering a question about the Champions League final.

"It was a very standard final, it was difficult for both sides, but both Manchester City and Inter Milan played at a very high level." Messi's interview video replay was watched repeatedly by fans.

The next day, Kuaishou released the full interview video in the live broadcast room. Liang Hongye, a reporter from Sports Weekly, conducted an exclusive interview with Messi for more than 30 minutes. However, there were no Chinese subtitles in the live broadcast, and the video showed Messi's original Spanish voice.

It is worth mentioning that Kuaishou has made great strides in expanding sports content in recent years. Messi’s "arch-rival" Cristiano Ronaldo joined Kuaishou in November 2020 and became the spokesperson for Kuaishou Sports.

In addition to signing international stars, Kuaishou is also willing to spend money on sports copyrights. Kuaishou is not only the broadcaster of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, but also has won the CBA league copyright, the 2021 America's Cup full match live broadcast and short video copyright, and the world snooker ten-year new media copyright.

Kuaishou attempted to break out of its circle through sports content, and Taobao facilitated Messi’s live broadcast in order to make up for its shortcomings in content.

During the 618 shopping festival this year, Taobao accelerated its efforts to develop live streaming content. In addition to Apple's global premiere and Coco Tree's entry into Taobao, The Voice of China, Street Dance of China, and Dragon TV have also entered Taobao.

Taobao Live said that Messi's arrival on Taobao will have long-term value far exceeding the GMV and data value in the short term, and that Messi's arrival on Taobao demonstrates Taobao's determination to invest heavily in diversified content.

In this "Internet Messi battle", Taobao, Kuaishou and Yaowang both got tickets, and Taobao was the platform that truly grabbed Messi's live broadcast. The fact that an international superstar like Messi could appear in Taobao's live broadcast room was groundbreaking to some extent. In other words, whether this live broadcast lasted a few minutes or a few hours, it would add a lot of color to Taobao's content-based live broadcast.

The problem after introducing top resources is how to operate top star IP well.

Whether it's Jackie Chan and Jay Chou joining Kuaishou, or Andy Lau and Stefanie Sun live streaming on Douyin, every time the traffic comes with criticism and dissatisfaction from fans, and the platform never seems to be fully prepared.

On the one hand, reaching top-level IP resources requires huge amounts of manpower, material resources and financial resources, and is often time-sensitive and demanding, which is a double test of the team's physical strength and endurance.

On the other hand, the uncertainty of live streaming will bring about various unexpected situations. Mistakes are prone to occur in various links such as communication and coordination between different teams, and details are more likely to have problems. The platform needs more rehearsals to avoid mistakes in sound equipment and translation coordination, and risk plans for emergencies must be prepared in advance.

How to avoid the "flash in the pan" of traffic is a test question left by "Messi" to the platforms.

Author: Bamboo

Source: Newrank (ID: newrankcn)