Dong Jie made "slow live broadcast" popular

The author of this article introduces several typical examples of slow live streaming and analyzes the reasons why slow live streaming is popular with audiences. Readers who are interested in slow live streaming can read it.

When it comes to celebrity live streaming sales, word of mouth can be said to be polarized.

First, Pan Changjiang and Xie Mengwei failed to promote liquor and made a joke of "Pan Ga's friendship". Later, Zhang Ting and Yang Kun were suspected of "brushing orders" and were almost complained by the merchants. Of course, there are also people who cherish their reputation and the public's trust, and use their popularity to attract orders from manufacturers and bring benefits to fans.

In January this year, Dong Jie started her first live streaming show on Xiaohongshu, and ranked first on the Xiaohongshu daily sales list. The estimated GMV exceeded 50 million, and she also received a lot of praise from passers-by. Before that, Dong Jie had been plagued by negative public opinion due to the divorce storm with Pan Yueming. After the live broadcast, Dong Jie and Pan Yueming interacted on Weibo for the first time in many years. The comments on the Internet also changed from overwhelmingly supporting Pan Yueming and scolding Dong Jie to CP and playing "he loves" literature. After the change of wind direction, Dong Jie continued to maintain a stable performance in the Xiaohongshu live broadcast room.

On February 24, Dong Jie livestreamed her second sales on Xiaohongshu. According to Xiaohongshu's official data, the livestream had over 2.2 million viewers and a cumulative GMV of over 30 million. In addition, Dong Jie's Xiaohongshu account gained 220,000 followers that week, ranking first on the platform's weekly sales ranking. Compared to the livestreams of celebrities on Douyin and Kuaishou, which easily surpass 100 million viewers, Dong Jie's sales performance is average.

But she has brought about a new type of "storytelling" live streaming style, which is different from the live streaming rooms of most anchors today, which have noisy background music, shouting and hawking, and continuous sales jokes. There are no slogans such as "3, 2, 1 to link" or "Buy it, buy it, buy it". Instead, she shares her favorite things with fans in a gentle, relaxed tone and has a clear understanding of the product selling points, and finally lets fans choose to buy on their own.

Dong Jie is not the first person to try this kind of "slow live broadcast" similar to sharing and chatting. Dong Yuhui, YOYO, Dun Dun and others all did the same in the live broadcast room of Dongfang Selection, which became popular last year. Celebrity expert Jiang Sida also turned off the beauty filter and the bright light to create a quiet and non-noisy live broadcast room. Slowing down the live broadcast seems to be gradually becoming a trend.

1. “Quiet” live broadcast room

There was no noise of "3, 2, 1 to link", no impatient urging to place orders, and not even an assistant to "support the show" on the side. Only Dong Jie was facing the camera, introducing the products in a soft voice, so that people who had just entered the live broadcast room did not even realize that this was a live broadcast room for selling goods.

One netizen accurately summarized: What Dong Jie sells is not goods, but a lifestyle.

In addition to her live streaming style that is different from other celebrities, Dong Jie also demonstrates the qualities of a professional anchor in terms of her live streaming professionalism. On the evening of February 24, Dong Jie's live streaming categories included home furnishings, beauty and skin care, jewelry, daily necessities, food, etc. She personally experienced every product on the shelves, tried on every piece of clothing herself, and showed the effect of wearing it from all angles; in addition to these, for food that needs to be cooked, Dong Jie will also go to the kitchen to cook it on the spot and show the finished product to fans.

Jerry, operations manager of an MCN agency in Hangzhou, believes that there are three main reasons why Dong Jie has received such positive reviews: first, her unique live broadcast style and professional explanation ability; second, her active participation in live broadcasts; and third, her high-quality supply chain product selection and after-sales service capabilities.

"Looking at the problems that have occurred in celebrity live broadcasts in the past few years, we can find that the minefields of failure are mainly concentrated in two aspects. One is the product selection problem. The relevant teams and personnel did not carefully select products, resulting in product quality and after-sales service that made consumers dissatisfied. The second is that some teams knew that there were problems with the products they sold, but took risks for the interests of all parties." Jerry said.

The success of Dong Jie's live broadcast also stems from her long-term accumulation of content and fans on Xiaohongshu.

Opening Dong Jie's Xiaohongshu, we can find that she posted her first note on Xiaohongshu on January 22, 2021. In the more than one-minute video, most of the time is about Dong Jie's nervousness and awkwardness when recording this video. After many NGs, she finally greeted the Xiaohongshu users smoothly. Dong Jie has maintained this real and life-like content tone in her subsequent notes.

Earlier, the reason why Dong Yuhui and other Oriental Selection anchors became popular was similar.

Take Dong Yuhui as an example. When he was selling ham in the live broadcast room, he said, "The smell of wind, the smell of salt, the magic of nature and the pickling of time"; when he was selling shad, he talked about "I hate that the crabapple has no fragrance, I hate that the shad has many thorns, and I hate that the Dream of the Red Chamber is unfinished"; when he was selling "The Three-Body Problem", he said, "Imagine for a moment, my friend, the atoms that make up your left hand and the atoms that make up your right hand may come from different stars. Just thinking about this is romantic enough. So we are the stars, we are born from the stars, and we will eventually return to the stars."

Sometimes, Dong Yuhui often forgets to sell goods because he keeps talking, and needs the staff to remind him to remember his main job. This atmosphere of bringing goods, which is like wandering in the ocean of knowledge, and the companionship and chat style make many people immersed in it, and it is natural for them to spend money and place orders.

In addition, Chai Biyun, a celebrity who sells products on Douyin, also has a quiet live broadcast room. There is no shouting, only storytelling. Jiang Sida, a celebrity influencer on Xiaohongshu, also turned off the beauty filter to create a quiet and non-noisy live broadcast room, which was well received by netizens.

As live streaming sales have developed to this point, in addition to the "involution" of the top anchors on various platforms, many well-known celebrities and movie stars have also joined the game. As a result, there are more and more ways to attract attention, such as cosplaying classic characters, exaggerated acting, shouting and dancing, crying, making funny jokes, hysterics, etc. It seems that only when there is enough "trouble" will consumers pay for support. The appearance of Dong Jie has once again strengthened the personality of another type of anchor, who quietly broadcasts, sells goods decently, and impresses the public with sincerity, and can also gain the support of fans.

2. “Slow live broadcast” has become a trend

The concept of "slow live broadcast" originated abroad. In the early days, it referred to a live broadcast format without a host, relying on a surveillance camera, with the dissemination and occurrence of events being synchronized, without any traces of production such as quick cuts, editing, and music rendering. With the development of the live broadcast industry, slow live broadcast has gradually become a form of live broadcast that is opposite to the fast live broadcast with strong subjectivity and fast pace. It has now been extended to a quiet live broadcast that is opposite to the fast-paced live broadcast. In fact, the scene of netizens across the country supervising the construction of Huoshenshan and Leishenshan in early 2020 is a typical scene of slow live broadcast.

In addition, slow live broadcasts of the construction of Wuhan Tianhe Airport, Wuhan Fangcang Hospital, etc. have also become popular.

There are also many tourist attractions that use slow live broadcast to interact with netizens. A typical example is the Guangzhou Daily launched "Guangzhou Small Waist Slow Live Broadcast", which is online 24 hours a day, 365 days a year to provide a "panoramic view" of Guangzhou's most prosperous scenery; Nanjing Hongshan Forest Zoo, Shanghai Wild Animal Park, Xining Wildlife Park, Qingdao Forest Wildlife Park and many other zoos also use slow live broadcast to broadcast the life scenes of various animals in the park to netizens across the country.

The latest slow live broadcast was also related to animals. On February 3 this year, the Memphis Zoo issued a statement announcing that Lele, a giant panda traveling in the United States, had passed away. As soon as the news came out, it aroused the concerns of domestic netizens, who called for the giant panda Yaya, who went to the United States with Lele, to be brought back to China. On the evening of February 21, some media began to follow Yaya's latest developments through slow live broadcasts on platforms such as Weibo and Douyin. As of the afternoon of the 22nd, more than 13 million netizens had accompanied Yaya online through their screens.

For many young netizens, watching slow live broadcasts allows them to temporarily forget their fast-paced lives, while experiencing a more casual and relaxed way of socializing. New forms such as "cloud travel", "cloud companionship" and "cloud adoption" have also become topics of conversation among young people after dinner. Since May last year, the Bilibili website has launched several late-night companionship live broadcasts, adding the "companionship" function to the original slow live broadcasts.

For example, the series "Crossing the City to Accompany You into Dreams" places the live camera in the car's cab. As the car moves forward, the audience can immerse themselves in the feeling of "taking a ride" in the city late at night; the series "The Whole Universe to Accompany You to Sleep" places the perspective in space, broadcasting the slow rotation of the earth; in the series "Midnight Song Request Station", there is no host on the screen, only an old-fashioned tape recorder that plays classic songs in turn.

Since then, "Study Room Live Broadcast" has appeared in Bilibili's learning area. The up-host broadcasts his study process in the live broadcast room, with a study schedule posted on the screen and white noise playing. The audience in the live broadcast room puts the screen in a suitable position and studies with the up-host.

The live broadcast method was used to form a field, creating a study room atmosphere for viewers. Later, Tencent QQ also followed suit and launched a new "study room" function. In the same "study room field", there is no longer only one live broadcaster, but 4 live broadcast slots. The audience can also turn on the camera and live broadcast with the host, which is more like a real study room.

This type of slow live broadcast meets the needs of users to find study partners to encourage and supervise each other, forming a kind of simulated companionship between users, providing a warm community for many struggling students. Xiaoxue, born in the 2000s, is a college student who is about to graduate. As a college student of the "epidemic generation", she spent almost half of her college life in online classes.

Xiaoxue said, "I watch slow live broadcasts because I enjoy the company of netizens, and it is difficult to concentrate on studying when I am alone at home. With an online study room, I can supervise my learning progress in disguise." Xiaoxue, who is adapting to her first internship in her life, has recently insisted on spending her weekends watching slow live broadcasts, because the deadline for submission of her graduation thesis is less than a month away, and she has to seize every opportunity to improve her thesis.

"I specifically follow five or six anchors, whose live broadcast time is from 9 am to 9 pm. In order to avoid wasting time, I dare not sleep in on weekends. I start writing my paper immediately after eating at noon and in the afternoon.

One of the anchors was in a similar situation to me. Her master's thesis was about to be completed, and I sent her a private message to ask some professional questions. Although it took several days to receive a reply, I did feel a sense of achievement from helping each other academically. "Xiaoxue said.

Meng Wei, a researcher at the Institute of Journalism and Communication of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, believes that slow live broadcasting may seem boring, but it is actually rich in content. "Because it involves public cognition and emotional interaction, the participation of the imagination of the online community, and warm and powerful social support. This makes the slow live broadcasting experience richer for the audience, and the audience's autonomy is fully mobilized."

Luckin Coffee's video live broadcast room and slow live broadcasts have also been used by some brands in commercial actions. Take Luckin Coffee as an example. Starting from June 2021, Luckin Coffee began to focus on regular live broadcasts on the video account. What is different from other brands is that Luckin's live broadcasts have no anchors throughout the whole process. It just finds a store to set up a camera and aim it at the barista and the clerk. Data shows that after two months of operation, Luckin Coffee's live broadcast room can attract about 200,000 viewers every day, and many people have completed the operations of receiving coupons and placing orders.

For the store owners, this is a live broadcast mode with almost zero cost and pure profit. However, due to the characteristics of slow live broadcast such as long duration and weak plot, it has certain defects. In the new media era, audiences are influenced by fast food culture and fragmented viewing habits, and it seems that they no longer have enough time to slow down.

From this perspective, slow live broadcast and short videos form two extremely complementary forms of information dissemination. Short videos can extract important information points and exciting content from slow live broadcasts, so that viewers who do not have time to pay attention to slow live broadcasts can also quickly understand everything that is happening.

For example, in March 2020, a building collapsed at the Xinjia Hotel in Quanzhou, Fujian. The local authorities live-broadcast the rescue process for 111 hours. During the live broadcast, the story of the search and rescue dog Beibei digging the soil to save people until his claws were worn and infected moved many viewers.

The relevant scenes in this slow live broadcast were edited to form short videos, which were circulated on platforms such as Douyin and Weibo. Even if many viewers did not pay attention to the search and rescue team's slow live broadcast, they still learned about the incident through short videos.

The story of rescue dog Bei Bei has received a lot of likes on multiple Douyin accounts. This "slow live broadcast + short video" model has been widely used in various fields. It not only makes up for the information omission caused by people's inability to watch various slow live broadcasts for a long time, but also gives people a place to slow down when they want to slow down, so that they will not be immersed in the fast pace of short videos.

3. The essence of live streaming is companionship

Luo Zhenyu mentioned in his 2018 New Year's Eve speech that previous online games would create an excitement point every half an hour, but the mobile game "Honor of Kings" would create an excitement point every ten minutes, and the "Chicken Eating Game" would create an excitement point every three minutes.

If we dig deeper into Luo Zhenyu's words, we can find that in the era of short videos, there needs to be an exciting point every minute, or even every few seconds, otherwise the audience in front of the screen will swipe away.

In the past few years, consumers' demand for "excitement" has become increasingly higher, and the fast pace has also deepened our loneliness.

In the slogans of "Do you want to brew coffee?", "3, 2, 1 to go to the link", "Buy it, buy it, buy it", "All boys and girls, get ready", with the help of 2-5 people and the constant urging of words, consumers' desire to buy is frequently stimulated. Not to mention whether the product quality is good enough or whether the promotion is different from the actual product, the daily complaints such as "Why did I stock up so many unnecessary things again" are already full of forum communities.

In addition, there seems to be a tendency towards standardization in both live broadcasts and short video shooting, and their content is becoming more and more similar, which has caused some netizens to feel bored.

Internet industry analyst Gao Boxue said that at this stage the live broadcast industry has a fixed skill model, and short video shooting also has different routines depending on the type.

After a long period of development, bloggers seem to have formed a tacit understanding: how to display products, what kind of words to use to attract users; what kind of stories can increase the number of views and get more viewers; what kind of copy can resonate with users and gain attention, etc. All of this is like the poses when taking photos have become routines, and homogeneity has become the general direction of live broadcast content production.

An investor told Value Planet that live streaming is not just about selling goods, but also about the cultural value of the anchor. With the development and progress of the economy and society, people are paying more attention to the experience and enjoyment of spiritual culture while pursuing material things. Live streaming is limited to traffic thinking, is satisfied with charging high slot fees and commissions, and stays at holding up goods and shouting loudly. It is inevitable that it will lag behind the changes in consumer demand and may eventually be eliminated by the market.

Perhaps at this moment when the live streaming industry is running blindly, slowing down a little, even slower, can really make people less anxious and make the relationships between people on both ends of the screen no longer filled with the smell of money.

Escape from fast live broadcast and enter slow live broadcast, study quietly online with tens of millions of netizens, watch pandas eat bamboo, or appreciate the beauty of the city and look up at the starry night sky. In addition to "planting grass" and "pulling grass", the content of the live broadcast room may need to take a 180-degree turn.

Author: Tang Fei

Source: WeChat public account "ValuePlanet (ID: ValuePlanet)"