Text/Feng Yi
"To say that you are not afraid of offending people, making movies, acting in stage plays, talking about talk shows, doing brokerage companies, the sum of these things has not done live broadcasting to make money!" In a talk show variety show, Luo Yonghao, who served as a judge, confessed. The other judges sitting next to him are Xu Zheng, who acted and directed you, Shen Teng, the "10 billion box office male protagonist", Li Tian, the "first brother" of Chinese talk shows, and Yang Tianzhen, a famous star agent, who "connotated" the biggest wrists in the entertainment industry in one sentence.
Lao Luo is also saying that in the past year, live streaming has been pushed to the outlet of "pigs can also blow up" at the fastest speed. In addition to Internet celebrities and celebrities, entertainment industry stars have also poured in, so that the traditional formats in the three fields of entertainment, live broadcasting, and e-commerce have been subverted more thoroughly.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="3" > where the audience is, where the stars are</h1>
Why did Lao Luo say this with such confidence? Luo Yonghao, as an English teacher in New Oriental, became the first generation of Internet celebrities, and then expanded his popularity by opening a website and doing a national lecture tour, and in 2012, he founded Hammer Technology to target the mobile phone industry, but after 6 years of entrepreneurial failure, the capital chain was broken, and he owed 600 million debts. On April 1, 2020, 48-year-old Luo Yonghao announced that he had changed careers and officially entered Douyin as an e-commerce anchor.
Before the live broadcast, Lao Luo had already advertised the live broadcast with "don't make money, make a friend" as a copywriter. In the 3-hour live broadcast debut, Lao Luo brought 23 pieces of goods, while the number of online people reached 3.9 million, the cumulative number of viewers exceeded 48 million, and the total transaction volume reached 110 million yuan, setting a new record for Douyin live streaming with goods.
Lao Luo is not the first celebrity to eat crabs. On June 30, 2019, female star Liu Yan made a live broadcast on Kuaishou, covering 18 products from 29.9 yuan shampoo to 139 yuan vacuum cleaner, with total sales exceeding 15 million. Liu Yan thus appeared on Weibo's hot search, but the associated words with it were negative comments such as "excessive", "too short of money", "bargaining" and so on. In fact, as early as 2016, Liu Yan has begun to try live broadcasting.
Before the arrival of the national live broadcast boom, in addition to Liu Yan, Aaron Kwok, Wang Zulan, Lin Zhiying, Pan Changjiang and other stars of various types on both sides of the strait also had the experience of carrying goods. But compared with the real anchor, the role of the star at that time was more like a "guest" to support the scene. Moreover, the platform at that time could not invite recognized "A-list stars" and "popular fried chicken". The entertainment industry has an invisible chain of contempt, which clearly divides the "class": those who act in dramas look down on movies, those who act in movies look down on TV dramas, those who act in TV dramas look down on Ai Dou, and Ai Dou look down on those who act in comedy cross-talk sketches, which does not mention the distinction between another line and eighteen lines in each industry. And all these celebrities look down on Internet celebrities.
It was not until 2020 that the strict sense of "star with goods" finally became a phenomenon-level term.
On May 9, 2020, actress Liu Tao joined Alibaba as "Juhuasuan Official Preferred Official", and she even had an extra stage name "Liu Yidao". On May 14, Liu Tao ushered in the debut of live streaming with goods, with a total of 21 million viewers, and finally refreshed Lao Luo's record with 148 million. The star effect is not only reflected in the debut, Liu Tao showed her continuous ability to carry goods, and even the turnover exceeded 220 million in the fourth live broadcast.
However, this record was not maintained for a few days, and on June 11, it was broken by the combined live broadcast debut of Zhang Ting and Tao Hong. The live broadcast, which was not officially promoted by Douyin, reached a transaction volume of 250 million yuan.
Now, more and more stars have added the level of goods to their resumes: on May 16, actor Chen He and host Zhu Zhen brought goods on Douyin Live, with total sales reaching 82.6913 million yuan; the next day, the host Wang Han launched the live broadcast program "Towards Beauty" in Taobao, which mainly promoted domestic goods, with more than 20 million views; actress Fan Bingbing sold masks live, and sales exceeded 110,000 in a few minutes; Hunan TV host Li Xiang's Taobao live broadcast room sold 100 million Us air conditioners in 2 hours Hong Kong's veteran tianwang Aaron Kwok sold 50,000 bottles of shampoo in 5 seconds, and Hong Kong funny artist Wang Zulan sold 100,000 masks in 12 minutes...
Isn't filming fragrant, why should you be an Internet celebrity? Compared with ordinary people, being a "star" is definitely a high-return profession, but if it is compared to Internet celebrities, it is difficult to say. In 2019, Liu Tao's salary for an episode of a TV series was 400,000, and the annual income of Internet celebrity Li Jiaqi has been able to beat 60% of listed companies! Liu Tao filmed for 6 years to help her husband Wang Ke pay off 400 million debts, and Luo Yonghao repaid 400 million of the 600 million in just 5 months by live broadcasting. Chen He recorded a season of "Run Bar Brothers" for a season of 8 million, and now the personal commission of one night of live broadcasting has been earned back.
In essence, "stars" are the products of being shaped by the audience. At the beginning of the last century, with the emergence of movies, a large number of movie stars were created, and when television became a mass media, countless TV stars were produced. In the Internet era, pan-entertainment stars were born. With each change, the psychological distance between the profession of "star" and the general audience is getting closer and closer, and the cost of watching star performances is getting lower and lower. No matter how the communication media changes, the underlying logic of "where the audience is, where the stars are" has not changed.
Therefore, when the live broadcast platform that was smashed out of the hot money obtained barbaric growth, the mass consumption model also changed, the marketing dimension of the brand side began to diversify, and the live broadcast with goods even became an important indicator of the business ability and commercial value of the star, coupled with the global epidemic, many large projects in the entertainment industry were shut down, and online consumption increased. During the "May Day" holiday in 2020, the number of e-commerce live broadcasts and live broadcast products increased by 1 times and 4.7 times respectively year-on-year, and many stars who are "unemployed" or unable to catch "good resources" have naturally begun to "go down".
Today, there is even a bit of "if you don't participate, you won't be red" taste - Taobao's "6·18" live broadcast just released the news to invite more than 300 stars, and agents began to squeeze their heads to pull relationships. The star team not only does not shy away from it, but even "shows off" the live broadcast sales and topic degree of the artists on the social platform to create momentum for themselves. After all, with the vigorous development of e-commerce live broadcasting, the "top stream" of all walks of life - famous mayors, secretaries, and well-known entrepreneurs have joined in, which naturally relieves the psychological burden of being an "Internet celebrity" for celebrities.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="44" > not all stars are good</h1>
Celebrity live broadcasting is also a disguised endorsement - but the scene has shifted from the show, ceremony, party, airport to a more grounded live broadcast room, which is also a new way of marketing spawned by consumerism + traffic economy.
Compared with the anchors who start from ordinary people, the advantage of stars is to bring their own traffic. Especially in the contemporary era, when the commercial value of celebrities is measured by the ability to carry goods: "idols" chat with themselves on the screen and try out the products, which can easily arouse the desire of fans to buy. Some fans are not concerned about whether the products recommended by the idol are easy to use, but about the value of the idol through purchase. "How much of my idol brings goods" is essentially no different from "my idol's acting skills exploded". Therefore, "rushing for the performance of idols", buying is the right one. From this point of view, celebrities are inherently more important than Internet celebrities.
In order to create a star effect, major platforms scrambled to act: Ali invited Ouyang Nana to join Taobao as a P8-level "styling partner", followed by "official preferred officials" Liu Tao and Wang Han, who joined in May, followed by Jing Tian, "Juhuasuan Beautiful Sweet Official"; Kuaishou recruited "Innovation Laboratory Partner" Jay Chou and Zhang Yuqi with their own topics at a high price.
At present, there are two main types of live streaming with the participation of celebrities: one is to open an exclusive celebrity personal live broadcast room on the e-commerce platform; the other is to cooperate with a brand, an anchor or an e-commerce platform, and the leader of the goods is still a professional anchor, and the star is like a guest, only playing an auxiliary role.
The main source of income of the former is "pit fee" + sales commission, "pit fee" is like the basic salary, according to the popularity of the star, the number of fans ranges from tens of thousands to 2 million yuan, mainly shared by the brand, and the commission ratio is generally 20%-30% of the actual sales amount. Most of the latter are paid in advance by the brand side in the name of publicity or endorsement fees to the star, no matter how much is sold, the star receives a "dead wage".
Doing well naturally can establish a good personal reputation, and when there is no work or the heat is needed, live broadcasting can maintain the high exposure of stars. Zhang Yuqi, who made her debut on Kuaishou, sold 230 million yuan in 4 hours, surpassing the highest single-game data of Liu Tao and Chen He, which is absolutely eye-catching in the star array. For her personal influence, a single game of fans rose by 3 million, especially her straightforward remarks during the live broadcast, unauthorized price reductions and other behaviors, whether it was a script prepared in advance or a temporary intention, which added footnotes to her maintenance of the "Tiger Girl" personality.
More and more celebrities have begun to live stream with goods, is it not robbing the jobs of ordinary anchors? More examples in reality tell us that a good actor is not the same as a good anchor, and not all stars can be anchors. Live broadcasting is not equal to variety shows, because it has the most intuitive monetization needs. And all the premium of the entertainment star comes from the "imagination given to him/her by the work", which is difficult to monetize. In addition, many celebrities themselves have bubbles in popularity and traffic, in addition to a few die-hard fans will buy a single or two for idols, more people are still concerned about the credibility of the anchor itself and the price concessions.
What's more, in the "guest-style" live broadcast with goods, the dedication of many stars often does not meet the requirements of the audience. There are network reports that Li Xiang live skin care products never tried, food never tried, eyes always stared at the teleprompter, with 5 minutes of 800,000 appearance fees, a piece of mink did not sell; Xiao Shenyang live broadcast liquor, completely ignorant of the product, only more than 20 orders were sold on the same day, and returned 16 orders the next day; Li Xiaolu's live broadcast of the number of times to speak is less than 1/10 of the assistant's, stumbling when reading product information; Yang Ying spent most of her time looking down at the mobile phone when she was live; Wang Zulan recommended a dental instrument, He said that he used it often, and he didn't even know how to use it when he operated. Sitting next to Li Jiaqi, Zhou Zhennan, Zhu Yilong, and Deng Lun are simply "2G Heavenly Regiment", not only silent and unresponsive, but also unskilled in introducing goods, so that full-time anchors have encountered professional Waterloo...
It is good to have no merit, and the agents are most afraid of the artist's live broadcast overturning.
Zheng Shuang, who was holding millions of pit fees, openly said "what does performance have to do with me" and "disgusted with this kind of sales behavior" during the live broadcast, which caused the merchants to angrily rebuke him for "simply never seeing such a person without professional ethics"; Li Xiang caused controversy over "Hong Kong and China" during the live broadcast; Lang Lang's wife Gina promoted products that she was not familiar with in the live broadcast, suspected of false publicity; singer Zhang Shaohan promoted the sunscreen spray of "pro-testing and good use", and finally it was confirmed that it was a three-no product, and the ingredient content was fake.
As more and more celebrities "enter the game", merchants are becoming more and more rational, after all, they have to pay the anchor pit fee, commission, and give the lowest price to the whole network, and it is ultimately they who pay for the false carnival.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="45" > disrupted traditional format</h1>
What kind of star has the possibility of being a first-line anchor:
First of all, this star should have a lot of free time, although Zhang Yuqi's live broadcast record is not great, but she still has 5 network dramas and 4 variety shows to go on, compared to the anchor, Zhang Yuqi is obviously more concerned about her actual achievements in the entertainment industry. After Liu Tao's new drama in April 2020, he did not enter the new crew until mid-September, and during the sideline work, the "Great Song Palace Words", "I Really Love You" and "Starting Line" to be broadcast can also let the audience not forget her identity as an actor.
Secondly, it is necessary to be grounded, misbehaving the star shelf, and it is especially good to be extraordinarily sexual. This explains why popular star anchors are often not on the front line in the entertainment industry. Like Chen He, who is often criticized as a "variety show café", the sense of variety that he has exercised in variety shows for a long time has made him well versed in the gameplay of short videos and live broadcasts with goods, but he is deeply loved by netizens.
Third, the product and the anchor temperament are more compatible. A star's fans are mostly teenagers, and if he/she wants to bring home appliances, sales must be bad. For example, Wu Xiaobo, who has always shown himself as a well-known image, claims that the record of live milk powder sales is "the average viewing time of fans is 3990 seconds" and "the guidance sales performance is 52169263", in fact, he only talks about "more loyal fans watching time", which is suspected of beautification, does not talk about "direct performance with goods", but talks about "those sold before and after live broadcast are considered to guide sales performance", which obviously hits the face. Wu Xiaobo's fans will most likely pay for his year-end speech, but buy milk powder? It's not reliable to listen.
Last and foremost, of course, is professionalism. A live broadcast sale is finally put on the table of more than 30 products, but the number of anchors and team trials is often more than 10 times, and the anchor can not make any mistakes when introducing, displaying, and using these products, which is not simpler than when acting. As a star, the "starlight" of "fast man" Ji Jie has dimmed, but since he officially announced his entry into the Taobao live broadcast "Daystar Plan" and officially entered the post-star era, he has strict control and trial of the product, and when the quality problems of the products he recommends, he can also apologize for the first time, so his live broadcast has been stable in the top 5 of the star anchor.
Of course, there are many factors that determine the success of a live broadcast, such as early publicity, product quality, anchor reputation, display effect, discount strength, interactive atmosphere, professional endorsement... The official also did a survey on this, of which brand maturity accounted for 21%, price accounted for 18%, audience matching accounted for 13%, promotion accounted for 13%, live broadcast time, team response ability accounted for 26%, while star influence accounted for only 10%. In the increasingly mature and standardized field of live e-commerce, the star effect seems to have become a very small part, at least a part that does not play a decisive role.
At present, the form of "star + live broadcast + e-commerce" is still rapidly subverting the traditional formats in these three fields. Who can predict that the cultivation of stars in the future will not completely cross from the era of graphics and video to the era of interaction?
After all, not only "love beans" can be cultivated, but also anchors with goods. As early as October 2018, Taobao Live had joined hands with Alimama (an advertising trading platform founded by Alibaba Group in 2007 and later merged into Taobao.
In the future, there may be more stars who will not only "stand" for the brand, but also sell their own products through the outlet of live broadcasting.
At the end of 2019, when the movie "Beneficiary" was released, the lead actors Dapeng and Liu Yan opened the "first live broadcast of the whole network to grab movie tickets" on Taobao, selling 110,000 copies in 6 seconds. On the surface, this is a hitchhiking ride with live streaming, and behind it is the marketing logic that is in line with the tone of the movie IP to maximize the brand communication effect.
There is also a star and businessman Identity of Lin Yilun, in 2014 set up rice food technology co., ltd., 2 years later, when he first live recommended rice sauce, attracted 200,000 people to watch online at the same time, in one fell swoop set a sales record of 2 hours and 30,000 bottles. If 2016 is just a test of the waters, in 2019, when Lin Yilun came to Weiya's live broadcast room with rice and hot sauce, he more deeply experienced the sweetness of 3 minutes of selling out. This also made him finally decide to sign Wei Ya's MCN agency Humble Culture and officially join Taobao Live. What he opened up is a commercial channel of "private brand + e-commerce live broadcast".
But this is bound to produce another problem, the longer the time to be a full-time star anchor, the narrower the way back to the star, even if it is only the star who opens the live broadcast room with goods, how high the update frequency is maintained, so that the audience watching the live broadcast can cultivate a sense of dependence, and maintain a sense of mystery for people who like to watch him/her acting? Stars need to make choices.
"It's a good job." Luo Yonghao, who was about to pay off his debts, commented on his new identity. Yes, whether it is a star or an anchor, in essence, it is doing a job, and if you can keep a head, even if you succeed.