With millions of followers in a week, how does "Laojiu Haocha" achieve appeal to both the elite and the masses?

How can the interpretation of tea culture be appreciated by both the refined and the popular? This article is introduced by the interpretation of tea products by "Laojiu Haocha", which explains that the form of interpreting "refined" tea in a "vulgar" way is more acceptable in the current cultural context. It then shows that the form of bringing goods with such a persona background is more optimistic. How to develop in the future is worth pondering. The commercial circulation form of traditional culture is an aspect worth thinking about now. Let's take a look at how "Laojiu Haocha" is appreciated by both the refined and the popular.

Lu Yu's "The Classic of Tea" records that "Tea as a drink originated from Shennong and was made famous by Duke Zhou of Lu." Since the development of Chinese tea, China has tried every possible means to retain young people, but there are still very few people interested.

Recently, Douyin short video blogger "Laojiu Haocha" has quickly become popular with a series of videos that interpret tea culture in an alternative way. The inside story of tea he exclusively reveals is both heartbreaking and realistic. In the video, Laojiu said frankly: "The cost of Laobanzhang is 20 yuan, and I can sell it to you at most 88,000 yuan." Many young people have also gradually understood Chinese tea culture through Laojiu's joke-like explanations of tea ingredients, production processes, etc.

Relevant data shows that within a week, Laojiu gained more than 1 million followers on Douyin, and currently he has a total of 1.871 million followers. For young people, tea culture seems to be far away from their lives. How did Laojiu capture young people by explaining tea culture?

1. An alternative interpretation of tea culture, what inside stories does "Laojiu Haocha" reveal?

Although the quality of tea on the market varies, the prices are similar. Well-known brands of tea can easily cost tens of thousands of yuan. But to laymen, these teas are mixed, and it is often difficult to distinguish the real from the fake, and there are many people who have been cheated. In this regard, Lao Jiu joked: "If you lose money, you can earn it again, but if you lose your conscience, you can earn more."

When revealing the inside story of tangerine peel and white tea, Lao Jiu introduced that the longer the tangerine peel is rotten, the better, and it can be paired with aged white birch. An old friend who works in sanitation has a lot of it. It can be made into cakes, pressed into slices, and mixed together, and sold for about 680 yuan.

When explaining the price of Pu'er tea, Lao Jiu said bluntly: "You think the tea that costs 88,000 yuan a cake is too expensive, and the tea that costs 31 yuan a cake is too rubbish, so the best-selling one is still the one that costs 800 yuan a cake. You can't make any money all year round, so the price has to go up."

Judging from Lao Jiu’s popular video “Please Protect Your Wallet”, he sharply complained about the phenomenon of flavors mixed in tea, “Don’t search for tea flavors, these are industry secrets”, and even made up jokes about the chaos of tea, “Pu’er plus silk stockings, we are not afraid to travel around the world, stinky tofu and Dahongpao, we don’t need to shake when dancing in the bar”, the style is both magical and funny.

As for whether the inside story told by Lao Jiu is completely credible, we still don’t know, but Lao Jiu really knows how to unlock the traffic password. It is reported that Lao Jiu is actually a boy born in the 1990s, which can be seen from his Douyin avatar, but Lao Jiu claims to have been working in the tea industry for more than 60 years in the video, and uses the beauty function to add wrinkles to himself, dressing up as an elder in his 60s to enhance the credibility of the content of his explanation.

Judging from the overall style of Laojiu's videos, he is very good at setting contrasts in his videos. Tea that costs 9.9 yuan and 88,000 yuan often appear in his videos and are ridiculed, forming a sharp contrast. In addition, Laojiu can also complain about the chaos of tea by telling talk show jokes. His expression is very down-to-earth. Although he occasionally inserts a few swear words, the truth he tells can also help fans who don't understand tea to successfully avoid thunder. His videos such as "Price affects taste", "How to buy tea for the first time?", "How to show off good tea?", "How to ask when buying tea in the store?" all reflect some truths of life through tea. The black humor jokes are actually thought-provoking.

However, if Lao Jiu only joked about tea culture in the video, it might be difficult for the audience to buy in. The jokes he told in the video also have cultural connotations. In the video "Tea People, Tea Affairs, and Tea Life", when talking about the reasons for drinking tea, Lao Jiu said frankly: "Some people drink tea to calm their minds, some drink tea for business, some drink tea to quench their thirst, and some drink tea to pretend." In just a few words, he outlined the various aspects of life and integrated the philosophy of drinking tea with the philosophy of being a human being.

At the end of the video, Lao Jiu's reason for drinking tea was quoted from the "Hengqu Quotations" by Zhang Zai, a great scholar in the Northern Song Dynasty. It is to establish a mind for heaven and earth, to establish a destiny for the people, to inherit the unique knowledge of the past sages, and to create peace for all generations, which shows his understanding of traditional culture. Some netizens commented: "Is the threshold for selling tea so high now? This is the most advanced reason for drinking tea so far." Now, Lao Jiu has also taken a differentiated route among a group of traditional culture short video bloggers with his distinctive personality and recognizable joke style.

Judging from the number of likes on Lao Jiu's videos, the one with the highest number of likes is only 213,000, and the average number of likes is around 100,000, which is still a long way from a million. On the one hand, it is because tea culture is relatively niche, and on the other hand, swear words often pop up in Lao Jiu's videos, which is indeed a bit inconsistent. In terms of polishing popular works, Lao Jiu may start with traditional tea culture, reduce the frequency of swear words, and take into account the entertainment and depth of the video.

2. The GMV of live streaming sales ended dismally. How can traditional cultural bloggers achieve commercialization?

Lao Jiu wrote in his Douyin profile: "A stinky tea seller", and he does have his own tea shop. Since Lao Jiu repeatedly reveals the cost secrets of high-priced famous teas in his videos, the tea he sells is naturally mostly affordable, but there are also high-priced teas costing hundreds or thousands of yuan.

The Dianhong Jinluo loose tea in Laojiu's store is 59 yuan, and the Baihao Yinzhen loose tea is 59.9 yuan. The sales of these two kinds of tea are about 5,000 to 6,000. The Banzhang ancient tree pure raw tea and the Lao Man'e ancient tree pure raw tea are 4,900 yuan and 3,600 yuan respectively, and the sales volume does not exceed 10 pieces. In terms of sales, Laojiu has not successfully converted the fan traffic into commercial realization. One netizen left a message: "I don't miss a single joke, I don't buy a single tea cake, I watch it when it's on and sell it when it's off. I don't spend any coins, I just accompany him."

After becoming popular through a series of short videos that explained tea culture, Lao Jiu started live streaming to sell tea. When he was selling tea in the live streaming room, he finally took off the mysterious veil of 60 years old and turned into a young man. Although he still explained tea to fans in the live streaming room, the sense of humor presented in the short videos was weakened, which also led to some disappointment among the audience who entered the live streaming room looking for "60-year-old Lao Jiu", and naturally it was difficult for them to have the desire to buy the tea he sold.

In addition, tea is a niche product. Although Laojiu has promised to compensate four times the price of fake products and created a tea tasting scene in the live broadcast room, there are not many people who really understand tea. The occasional viewers buy it just for fun. In the product evaluation, some viewers said: "I don't understand tea. I just drink the taste of tea. It's not bitter, but I can't say I rarely drink it." This has led to a low repurchase rate for Laojiu tea. With a sales volume of 5,000 to 6,000, there are less than 200 repeat customers.

According to relevant data, the cumulative number of viewers of Laojiu Haocha live broadcast has reached more than 1.9 million, and the live broadcast sales are between 2.5 million and 5 million. For mid-level bloggers, such sales results are relatively optimistic. As content e-commerce gradually becomes a new outlet, how to continuously attract new customers through content and increase the repurchase rate through products is an unavoidable proposition for Laojiu.

3. Final Thoughts

Looking at the short video content on platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou, there are more videos in the fields of entertainment, comedy, and drama, while videos in the field of traditional culture are relatively scarce. In this sense, Lao Jiu's videos of tea culture and the tea industry with jokes just fill the gap in this field and are appreciated by both the elite and the masses.

From a commercial perspective, traditional bloggers tend to choose products that match their style and positioning when live streaming. For example, Lao Jiu chose to sell tea. As for how to create a GMV record for live streaming sales, it still depends on how bloggers build content e-commerce.

Although traditional culture belongs to the serious field and is less interesting, young people do not reject traditional culture. Short video bloggers may try to interpret traditional culture in a younger narrative way.

Author: Rain and smoke

Source: WeChat public account "KOL User Manual (ID: KOL-TOPKLOU)"