On TikTok, has the "Northeastern Father-in-law in the South" series become the secret to a hit?

"Warm Family", which became famous for its funny themes, has also begun to dabble in the field of live streaming e-commerce in accordance with the conventional script that "the end of traffic is monetization". However, how to seize traffic for monetization is an important point that they need to consider. At a time when the content dividend is gradually reaching its peak, finding more increments and possibilities is the key to finding a way out.

• "I want to buy 200 kilograms of cabbage!"
• "All I have is only about 100 pounds!"

In a southern vegetable market, an old man from Northeast China asked to buy 200 kilograms of cabbage to make sauerkraut. The stall owner took out all the cabbages but it was still not enough, so he borrowed a basket of cabbages from the stall next door. In the end, there was still not enough for 200 kilograms of cabbage. The old man could only helplessly say, "Then I'll just eat less."

This comical scene quickly attracted discussion among netizens. A southern netizen said that the stall owner had achieved his two-month sales target this time, and joked, "I have never seen so much cabbage in my life." A northern netizen said that it was common to buy hundreds of kilograms of cabbage at a time, and complained, "Only 200 kilograms, how can it be enough to eat."

Behind the video is a Douyin account called "Warm Family", which is also a dark horse in the Douyin life track recently.

Looking back on the process of how "Warm Family" became popular, we cannot avoid the core of "North-South differences", but choosing the right track and polishing high-quality content allowed the account to increase its followers from 0 to 8.88 million: it approached the North-South differences from the least controversial but most universal angle of "food", reduced possible controversies, and enhanced the content through funny plots and life tracks.

According to the data from Chan Mama, in December 2022, Wen Nuan Yi Jia surpassed Douyin influencers such as Zhang Lan and Xiao Yangge, and gained 2.47 million followers, becoming the account with the largest monthly increase in fans except for official newspaper media.

Since the era of pictures and texts, regional differences have been a hot topic of discussion. The South and the North, which have huge differences in geographical environment, climate, and cultural diet, have been discussed from time to time, and even sparked heated debates. In the era of short videos, regional differences are more intuitively displayed. Thousands of short video experts have worked on related topics. The number of views of the topic "#北北区别" on Douyin and Kuaishou platforms has exceeded tens of billions.

Following the conventional script of "the end of traffic is monetization", "Warm Family" has also begun to dabble in the field of live streaming with goods, but compared with experts in vertical fields, the frequency of live broadcasts is low and product selection is also limited. The main method of monetization is still limited to advertising promotion, and it is necessary to constantly weigh the balance between monetization and content.

It all starts with traffic, but how to really capture the traffic and monetize it is the most important issue for "Warm Home". When the content has become somewhat repetitive, "Warm Home" needs a new traffic code or a better content format to continue to obtain and undertake traffic.

1. Find the right transformation point and increase the number of fans by 8.37 million

The "Warm Family" account has two protagonists, one is the father-in-law from the eastern part of Inner Mongolia (geographically considered the Northeast), and the other is the southern son-in-law Jiahui. The daily lives of the two constitute the most attractive content of the account.

After reviewing the 203 videos of "Warm Family", we can find that compared with the original, there have been many changes in content, character settings and video design.

Early video of "Warm Family"

On January 4, 2022, "Warm Family" released its first video. The father-in-law from Mengdong drove more than 2,000 kilometers, pulling a large freezer to deliver local specialties to Shanghai and accompany his daughter during childbirth, which received 870,000 likes.

Southern son-in-law Jiahui continues to release more life recording videos, from his father-in-law cooking to experiencing labor pains himself, but the overall traffic is not as good as the first video, and only one video has more than 100,000 likes.

On January 26, a southern son-in-law took his father-in-law from the northeast to buy vegetables at a southern vegetable market. When the father-in-law saw that he only bought a piece of bean curd, the boss helped him cut it into shreds and exclaimed: "I helped you cut it into shreds? It would be better to just fry it for you. This service is too good!"

Starting from the most physical experience of "eating", the video introduces the differences between the north and the south, and adds exaggerated expressions and actions. This video quickly received 1.546 million likes, and also attracted netizens to discuss the differences between the vegetable markets in the north and south in the comment area, "Are your vegetable markets in the south/north really like this?"

Discussions sparked by Southern Vegetable Market

This hit video allowed "Warm Family" to capture the traffic code of "food + north-south differences", and slowly began to transform in content. However, it was not until around July 2022 that the content was completely finalized, and funny plots were created around the sub-field of food in the north-south differences.

In terms of character changes, at the beginning, the "Warm Family" video still featured a southern son-in-law who loved his wife as the protagonist, but later, the old father-in-law who looked honest and spoke funny with a stutter became the protagonist, and the southern son-in-law who liked to joke but was filial in heart became the supporting role.

In terms of video design, "Warm Family" grasped the principle of the golden 5 seconds. Around August 2022, "Warm Family" changed the cover of the short video to a unified style, using text to point out the theme of the entire video, and also added a title that reads out the theme of the video in dialect.

Tiantian, who used to work as an operator in an MCN agency, said that the short video industry has a "golden 5-second principle". If you can retain the audience in the first 5 seconds, you can get more traffic. The changes in the cover and opening of "Warm Family" are precisely to attract and retain audiences who are interested in the content.

After finding the right anchor point for transformation, "Warm Family" soon ushered in a peak in traffic. A short video updated on September 30, "A southern son-in-law takes his northern father-in-law to eat barbecue," became a hit, receiving 2.98 million likes, 171,000 comments, and 309,000 reposts.

In December 2022, the number of fans of "Warm Family" increased faster than that of Zhang Lan, Xiao Yangge and other influencers, with an increase of 2.47 million fans in one month and 8.37 million fans in one year. The current number of fans has reached 8.88 million, making it a dark horse in the fiercely competitive Douyin content ecosystem.

2. Dangerous traffic topics

Like "Warm Family", creators who discover the topic of differences between the north and the south are emerging one after another.

In the era of pictures and texts, many people discussed the issue of regional differences. After entering the era of short videos, regional differences were presented more intuitively.

On Douyin, the related topic "#North-SouthDifferences" has been played 33.64 billion times; on Xiaohongshu, there are more than 20,000 notes about the differences between the north and the south, and many related notes have received more than 100,000 likes; on Weibo, there are also related hot searches such as "Differences in New Year celebrations in the north and the south" and "Differences in New Year's money between the north and the south".

The content with its own topics has also attracted many creators to join in. Under the topic of "#北北区别" on Douyin, you can find content creators from many different fields, such as beauty bloggers, game bloggers, and knowledge bloggers.

But the risks hidden behind the topic are not small. Discussions on regional culture and economic development are prone to cause controversy or even verbal battles. Universal food is a relatively safe track, and there are many related accounts. "Wu Dafei and Liu Ermao" also focuses on the differences between the north and the south and food content. Most of the videos are "Take southern friends to eat Northeast braised noodles" and "Southern friends take me to have morning tea"; "Xiaohei is hungry" focuses on the differences between the north and the south and store exploration content, with content such as "Make meals for southern friends" and "Take southern friends to eat Northeast dumplings buffet".

However, the development of these accounts has gradually encountered bottlenecks.

An account featuring northern and southern cuisine

The account of "Wu Dafei and Liu Ermao" has been in operation for two years. It started with a funny plot of life with roommates. It was not until around November 2021 that it transformed into a content about the differences between the north and the south + food. It currently has 1.286 million followers, and its followers have only increased by 5,000 in the past 30 days. "Xiaohei is hungry" has been doing food exploration since 2021. In June 2022, it began to add "differences between the north and the south" content to its exploration videos. It currently has 2.931 million followers, and its followers have increased by 190,000 in the past 30 days. In comparison, "Warm Family" has gained 8.37 million followers in a year and 310,000 followers in the past 30 days. It is no longer in the same echelon as these accounts.

There are two main reasons why you can quickly jump out of many accounts.

First, in addition to "North-South Differences + Food", "Warm Family" also chose the life track. At the first Douyin Creator Conference in 2019, it was clearly stated that the field of life recording is the most popular content field of Douyin. The details of "Warm Family" are close to life, and the content is down-to-earth, which is more likely to resonate with netizens.

Second, it is the distinctive and interesting characters and content. Compared with other accounts, the father-in-law and son-in-law in "Warm Family" have more three-dimensional characters. In addition to the content in the video, the two people also play pranks on each other. The Northeast father-in-law tricks the southern son-in-law into licking the iron gate, and the southern son-in-law secretly draws faces on the Northeast father-in-law, etc., which is full of comedy effects. In the comment area, many netizens said, "I really like the feeling of your father-in-law stuttering when speaking." "Compared to the son-in-law, the father-in-law is more like father and son."

With differentiated operations, "Warm Family" can successfully break through even in fierce competition.

3. “Funny” is popular, but difficult to monetize

For "Warm Family", the official label given is the life field, but the more detailed classification may still be in the funny plot track, and this track has always faced the problem of monetization.

Many funny story accounts have not started live streaming

Tian Tian, ​​who once operated a Douyin celebrity account with more than 3 million followers, said that the account follows a funny plot route, has a wide audience, and is easy to gain popularity, but on the one hand, the content is not vertical enough, and on the other hand, it is difficult for live broadcasts to achieve the same effect as short videos, which may conflict with the character setting. "It is impossible to have as many laughs as short videos in a live broadcast of several hours. If you want to realize it, you should mainly take advertisements. It is more difficult to sell goods through live broadcasts."

Star Map data shows that the bidding price for an advertisement of more than 60 seconds for "Warm Family" has reached 390,000 yuan, and advertising promotions from Dewu, Vipshop and Yangyuanqing have also appeared.

However, when it comes to live streaming sales, "Warm Family" has limited monetization capabilities.

According to Chanmama data, in the past 180 days, Wen Nuan Yi Jia has broadcast 29 shows, with an average daily sales of 1 million to 2.5 million yuan and a total sales of 25 million to 50 million yuan. In the most recent live broadcast on December 29, 37 of the 40 products were fresh fruits and vegetables and food and beverages, and 18 of them were labeled with Inner Mongolia and Northeast China - the father-in-law's eastern Inner Mongolia and Northeast China personality will make these products more convincing.

"Warming the Family" Live Products

However, compared with the "Real Langweixian" in the food vertical track, the sales performance of "Warm One Family" is not outstanding. "Real Langweixian" currently has 4.33 million fans, and has 187 live broadcasts in the past 90 days, with an average daily sales of 1 million to 2.5 million yuan, and total sales of 75 million to 100 million yuan.

In comparison, because "Wen Nuan Yi Jia" does not have the support of a professional team, the frequency of live streaming sales is lower, and the SKU is also restricted by the personal settings. Currently, its ability to monetize live streaming sales is limited.

"Warm Family", which wants to maximize its monetization, can only look for incremental monetization in other areas.

"Wonton Daddy", which once became popular for "differences between the north and the south" and "interesting things in life", is a good example. In the early stage, the protagonists of the content were brothers and sisters, but in the later stage, it caught the hot topic of "urging marriage" and a series of related content creation appeared, gradually enriching the roles of parents. The mother also opened an account "Qiong Niangniang" and started shooting fashion cross-dressing content. Among the 16 videos, 6 videos had over one million likes, and the number of fans increased by 1.18 million.

Although the "Qiong Niangniang" account has not yet started to monetize, it provides more monetization directions, including promotion or live streaming of fashion and beauty products.

Co-create accounts of different styles

"Warm Family" also started a matrix account for content based on the main account, extending to accounts such as Uncle Xiaowei, Grandpa's Little Lemon, and Little Lemon. Uncle Xiaowei's protagonist is the Southern Grandpa, who also follows the "food + north-south differences + funny plot" route. He currently has 845,000 fans and has also opened Douyin Star Chart to accept orders, which has a new path for monetization. Little Lemon and Grandpa's Little Lemon are mainly maternal and childcare content. Although the number of fans is not high at present, they can monetize in the maternal and childcare track in the future.

However, from the current perspective, the matrix account of "Warm Family" still cannot do without the appearance of the Northeast father-in-law. The same topics and characters will also make the content repetitive. The reporter observed that the content of making pickled vegetables has appeared twice, the content of shopping in the vegetable market has appeared 6 times, and the content of making cooking bags has appeared twice. Sooner or later, the audience will get tired of similar content.

Similar topics to "A Warm Family"

On January 30 this year, the Wen Nuan family started to lose followers. Although the number of followers lost was not large, it was already a signal of traffic crisis.

Monetization is inseparable from traffic. Traffic will expire one day, and no matter how many differences there are between northern and southern cuisines, they will be exhausted. As the content dividend gradually reaches its peak, "Warm Family" still needs to find more growth and possibilities.

Author: Wang Zhan; Editor: Si Wen

WeChat official account: E-Commerce Online (ID: dianshangmj), see sharpness and insights, and focus on innovative media on the Internet and new business.