Text/Fei Zhang
Editor/Letter Lee
The broadcasters who once served as green leaves have gradually become the protagonists of the live broadcast room of the big anchors.
Whether it is Li Jiaqi's previous assistant Fu Peng, or Wei Ya's assistant broadcast Qi'er, he was criticized by netizens in the early years. "Seeing That Wei Ya assisted Qi'er in the live broadcast with goods, she suddenly had the urge to quit the live broadcast room, and she didn't want to buy it, she also liked to grab the camera, the sound was loud, and there was a feeling of being the master." This is a note posted by a netizen in Xiaohongshu 2 years ago, which received more than 300 likes.
Just two years later, the audience's attitude towards the supporters changed 360 degrees. Since the tax evasion incident in December 2021, the comment area of the above Little Red Book notes has begun to appear calling for Qi'er to rebroadcast or fly alone.
The assistant broadcasters, who were once "disliked" by the audience, have now become the right-hand men of the head anchor, from the back of the stage to the front of the stage, and even assumed the heavy responsibility of some anchors to "make a comeback".
Wired Insight has written in "The Original Class of Centaurs, the same mode, "Bee Surprise Society" is Via's shell? In the article, it was reported that The Weiya supporting broadcaster group "debuted" through the "Bee Surprise Society", a Taobao live broadcast account. Although the new identity of the "entrepreneurial small team" has been emphasized many times, in essence, except that the anchor is no longer Wei Ya herself, other aspects have continued the cooperation style and process between Wei Ya's live broadcast. As of March 15, the number of fans in the bee surprise society live broadcast room has reached 2.601 million.
Bee Surprise Society live broadcast room, picture source Taobao APP
Assisting broadcasting to the "front desk" can be regarded as a watershed in the anchor industry. If Wei Ya is helpless to give way to the broadcasting group, Li Jiaqi and Luo Yonghao belong to the "active road opening faction".
From the second half of 2021, Luo Yonghao began to cultivate new anchors and weaken his sense of existence. Not only in terms of external publicity, emphasizing the brand IP of "making a friend", but also when broadcasting live, Luo Yonghao will arrange different new anchors to partner with them, so that the former can "mix faces" in the live broadcast room. Huang He, the founder of Make a Friend, once said, "Make a friend and leave Lao Luo, and still turn around." ”
In addition, Li Jiaqi, who is still popular today, "a brother with goods", has also been interested in supporting the IP of his own broadcasters since the end of last year.
On many channel platforms, the broadcast group has become an important content participant in Li Jiaqi's live broadcast. A search through Insight found that on July 12, 2021, Li Jiaqi's fashion support group opened an official account on Weibo; on October 23, it opened an official account in Xiaohongshu.
A user who has long paid attention to Li Jiaqi's live broadcast room can't help but sigh to the connection Insight: "Li Jiaqi seems to have grasped the traffic password, we like to watch Li Jiaqi's male model assistants too much, everyone has a very different style and a high appearance, and many fans will bump the CP of these broadcasters." ”
At the same time, since the beginning of this year, Li Jiaqi has also begun to intentionally reduce personal appearance time and increase the live broadcast shots of the broadcasters in the e-commerce promotion activities.
Nowadays, these assistant broadcasters who work with the head anchor are no longer rejected by various fans, but compared with the waist anchors in other live broadcast rooms, it is easier to gain the recognition and trust of consumers, so that the latter continues to "pay" for the influence of the head anchor, and even further broaden the fan base.
At the moment when live e-commerce enters the deep water area, the super head anchor is moving towards "de-heading", and the personal celebrity effect is gradually diluted. Behind this change, it is related to the change in consumers' thinking from obsessing with the anchor to now realizing that "buying good goods at low prices" relies on the supply chain and the quality of goods.
The era of relying on big anchors to support the entire live broadcast room has passed. If the first half of live e-commerce is the running of the business model and the creation of the personal IP of the big anchor, then the second half of the competition is through the advantages of the supply chain and service, leaving consumers.
At present, the top anchors who master high-quality resources may still be the biggest recipients of benefits, and vertical anchors or store self-broadcast anchors specializing in subdivisions will also have the opportunity to compete for the position.
The big anchor gave way and helped the broadcast group debut
The assistant broadcasters of the big anchors have "boiled" out.
In December 2021, Wei Ya was not only fined 1.341 billion yuan for tax evasion, but also major social accounts such as Douyin and Weibo and Taobao stores were blocked, and for a time, similar views such as "the era of super big anchors is coming to an end" abounded.
According to a textile brand owner who cooperated with Via's team, he revealed to Wired Insight that they did not interrupt their cooperation in the two months after Via's suspension, and Via's team was also actively seeking solutions.
Two months later, on February 12, 2022, a Taobao account called "Bee Surprise Society" officially launched. There are 6 anchors in the live broadcast room, 5 of which were once the "original class assistants" of Wei Ya's live broadcast room, and constituted the "three men and three women" anchor team configuration.
"Bee Surprise Society" six anchors, image source "Bee Surprise Society" live broadcast room
Thanks to Via's super-sticky fans and the word of mouth she has accumulated in the live broadcast, the Bee Surprise Club live broadcast room helped Via recall some of the traffic as soon as it was launched.
The "fan effect" has a good effect in the early stages. The debut of the Bee Surprise Club, the number of live viewers reached 1.12 million, and the number of fans rose by 260,000 that night. On March 12, the number of viewers of the Bee Surprise Club reached 10.78 million. As of March 15, in just one month, the "Bee Surprise Society" has more than 2.62 million fans, which can be called the number one seed player of the platform.
Although the anchor of the Bee Surprise Club does not recognize the relationship with Wei Ya, many fans who have long paid attention to Wei Ya have found that the background of the live broadcast room of the Bee Surprise Club also adopts the urban night scene background board and selection logic of the Wei Ya live broadcast room, and there are still many categories of products such as beauty, daily necessities, snacks and clothing. Even some of the clothing on the shelves in the early days are suspected to come from Via's own brand, VIYA NIYA.
The innovation is that in terms of anchor combination, unlike the previous customary configuration of "anchor + broadcast assistance" in the live broadcast room, the six anchors of the Bee Surprise Club take turns to leave the country in two or two, there is no primary and secondary distinction, giving more new anchors the opportunity.
A live broadcast practitioner analyzed to Connect Insight: "The live broadcast room of the Bee Surprise Society appears as the image of the anchor team, which is intended to focus on the brand of the live broadcast room, rather than creating the personal IP of a certain anchor. The branding of the live broadcast room can lift the strong binding relationship between the live broadcast room and the anchor, reduce the influence of the excessive dependence on the individual anchor in the live broadcast room, and the anchor is no longer unique. ”
However, the branding of the live broadcast room is not the first initiative of the Bee Surprise Society, Luo Yonghao successfully made his own "broadcasting group" the main force with goods as early as the second half of last year.
At the beginning of Luo Yonghao's announcement of entering the live e-commerce industry, the outside world speculated about "making a friend" or becoming a studio with Luo Yonghao as the core, but this was not the case.
Luo Yonghao, forced by the pressure of debt repayment, had no choice but to enter the starting point of the live streaming industry, and was doomed to "make a friend" and could not rely on the anchor's personal IP Evergreen. Luo Yonghao once publicly confided that "the company may do a lot, but even so, it will not be like doing hammer technology, because live broadcasting is not my ideal and love direction." ”
So it's not hard to understand why Huang He "has always been committed to making friends technology into a real business, rather than relying on a star studio that only relies on a big Internet celebrity to survive." ”
From the beginning of the "Make a Friend" live broadcast room, it has always emphasized the IP of making a friend, not Luo Yonghao's personal IP. For example, Lao Luo will say every time he starts broadcasting, "Welcome to the live broadcast room of making a friend, make a friend and everything in the live broadcast room is fidelity, false one loses ten." ”
Therefore, on the Douyin account of "making a friend", in addition to Luo Yonghao, more and more young anchors appeared, forming an anchor matrix.
"Make a friend" anchor, the source of the picture to make a friend official Weibo
In September 2021, Make a Friend announced a 7×24-hour live broadcast system, in addition to arranging Luo Yonghao's weekly fixed live broadcast time, the rest of its matrix anchors took turns to appear in the live broadcast room in the remaining time. Luo Yonghao's own appearances in the live broadcast room have slowly decreased, which can be said to be "a retirement from success".
Under the strategy of making a friend and "going to Luo Yonghaohua" and the branding strategy of the live broadcast room, Luo Yonghao does not appear on camera now, and the live broadcast room can also operate as usual.
Huang He shared at an exchange meeting hosted by Blue Shark Consumption that in September last year, he and Luo Yonghao traveled on business to promote the work of their own brands, and as a result, the two were forced to quarantine for 21 days due to the epidemic. "But the amazing thing is that in these 20 days, our GMV and profits have not been less at all. That's a bit of validation, the company can do without us. ”
Huang He also explained, "Our live broadcast style is unified, any accident in the live broadcast room is guaranteed, and this model has run out." Nowadays, if Luo Yonghao appears in the live broadcast room, it is a rare sight.
Similar to Luo Yonghao, Simba's team's "de-Simbaization" strategy is also underway.
Simba, once known as the "Fast Brother", established the Simba family, and after experiencing controversial human design and the "fake bird's nest" incident, he gradually retreated into the background, and was provoked by his apprentices. For example, Simba Gravity's popular female apprentice egg, the cumulative sales of three months exceeded 6 billion, and the current number of Kuaishou fans reached 55.49 million, becoming the top 100 anchors of Kuaishou in 2021.
On the one hand, Wei Ya, Luo Yonghao, Simba, etc. have completely "de-head anchorization", on the other hand, Li Jiaqi, as the top anchor of the widow, also intends to improve the existence and function of the broadcasting group.
Previously, Li Jiaqi and the more than 300-person team behind the company, Mei ONE, all operated around Li Jiaqi's "personal IP", and were committed to maximizing Li Jiaqi's personal value. From 2021, Li Jiaqi intends to operate a broadcasting team.
According to Taobao live broadcast replay records, Connect Insight found that from March 2021 to now, Li Jiaqi's live broadcast room has been a special broadcast. And in addition to the special promotion activities, the current Li Jiaqi live broadcast room can be roughly divided into three major time slots, namely the fashion broadcast special that starts at 6 o'clock in the evening, the daily live broadcast led by Li Jiaqi at 7:30 pm, and the life \ snack help broadcast after 11 o'clock.
Therefore, the "one main and one pair" anchor configuration led by Li Jiaqi has become a thing of the past, and the "human sea tactic" has become the norm. During this year's 3.8 promotion, Li Jiaqi once appeared in the live broadcast room where five anchors left the country at the same time.
At present, the auxiliary broadcast of Li Jiaqi's live broadcast can be divided into two categories, one type of Li Jiaqi's auxiliary broadcast, mainly Wang Wang, Yi Wen and other people, need to rely on Li Jiaqi's personal celebrity effect; the other is responsible for the independent plate of fashion, snacks and other independent plates, without Li Jiaqi's appearance, and is solely responsible for the delivery of certain categories.
Moreover, unlike the early days of the broadcaster who only showed his face in Li Jiaqi's live broadcast room, starting from the second half of 2021, Li Jiaqi's fashion support group has successively settled in social platforms such as Weibo, Xiaohongshu, and Station B, and began to incubate the IP of the fashion anchor group and expand the new traffic outside the live broadcast room.
From the super head anchor alone, to the debut of the broadcast group and the shaping of the IP in the live broadcast room, "de-head anchorization" has become an irreversible trend. The era of big anchors is coming to an end.
The head anchor "retreated to the second line",
Is it a win-win for the streamer and the MCN?
Perhaps for the MCN institution behind the anchor, "de-head anchorization" is not a bad thing.
Li Jiaqi and Wei Ya, in the early years of the live e-commerce industry, were not as strong as they are today. Li Jiaqi once admitted in an interview with the Daily People, "Before 2020, we basically have no right to speak, we can only accept." For the preferential plan further proposed by Li Jiaqi, the brand side will directly refuse with "then we will cooperate later".
The turning point comes in 2020. The sudden attack of the new crown epidemic has made live e-commerce as a new e-commerce channel, seem to have blown into the "people's homes" overnight, and the voice of anchors who have already entered the industry will naturally rise. In particular, the Li Jiaqi, Wei Ya and Simba families, who are already in the super head position in the field of live streaming with goods, have more confidence to reduce prices to the brand side.
The Matthew effect of live streaming with goods is much higher than that of shows and live games, and industry resources are rapidly concentrated to the head. As a result, the super-head anchor is like stepping on the "hot wheel" and riding the dust.
But whether the top stream anchor will be lost and become the sword of Damocles hanging over the head of the MCN agency. Once the main broadcast is gone, the fans will also be lost, and the account in the live broadcast room will directly "collapse", leaving the MCN behind it in trouble.
As a result, the MCN institutions that signed the top Internet celebrities avoided risks according to their respective situations: Wei Ya, Simba, Luo Yonghao, etc. were their own bosses, and the United States ONE and Li Jiaqi were deeply bundled, and the share ratio with Li Jiaqi was adjusted many times, and the position of the partner of the United States ONE was also given to the united States ONE, so that both sides could achieve a win-win situation in the subsequent distribution of benefits.
However, the deep binding between MCN institutions and super anchors also means that the personal problems of anchors will affect the company's basic disk.
For example, You Shu, the former founder of the company of the original big stomach king "Lang Wei Xian", complained that Lang Wei Xian took the team employees to set up their own portal, took the company's shooting equipment away for a long time, and even deleted all video materials. Not only did it cause the Douyin food account "Lang Stomach Immortal" to stop for nearly two months, but You Shu also faced the problem of how to benignly operate and lose the short video account of Lang Wei Xianhou.
The "Lang Wei Xian" Douyin account has been renamed "You shu", the source of the Douyin App
In addition, the bundling of IP and anchors also increases the risk of live broadcast accounts. For example, in June 2020, Li Jiaqi was forced to stop broadcasting for a week because of surgery. If at that time, if like Luo Yonghao, it would help the broadcast group to take over, Li Jiaqi's live broadcast room might be carried out normally.
"De-head anchorization" can not only avoid the mcN institutional resources are too concentrated on the head, resulting in single income, poor anti-risk ability and other business problems, but also reduce the pressure on the head anchor himself. More core point is that live streaming is no longer only the "super anchor", and the supply chain capabilities owned by institutions have become the core competitiveness.
The early live streaming industry was in a stage of staking land and growing wildly, and it revolved around anchors with a huge fan base. Not the competitiveness of the product and supply chain itself. The result is that good products cannot be sold without traffic, while counterfeit and shoddy products can be sold out as long as the anchor with a certain influence brings goods.
Compared with the cult of the anchor individual, today's fans pay more attention to the goods resources in the hands of the anchor team. In 2022, the live broadcasting industry will enter the "post-anchor era", and if the anchor wants to develop in the industry for a long time, the supply chain behind it is the core competitiveness. Whether the supply chain can keep up with the demand determines whether the live broadcast effect can be continued and whether the user can be retained.
Zhuang Shuai, the founder of Bailian Consulting, has also previously analyzed to Connect Insight, "The core factors of online shopping are brand and cost performance, and consumers will not buy the goods they need because they do not have an anchor."
A head of an MCN agency once explained to Connect Insight: "A head anchor like Wei Ya, whether it is her own industry influence or the official resources controlled by her hand, belongs to the top of the industry." They must know more about the platform than any other team. ”
Dong Haifeng, chairman of Qianxun, has publicly revealed that from 2013 to 2016, he and Wei Ya established contact and communication with local factories when they were in Guangzhou, and "the supply chain system was relatively perfect." After 2017, the supply chain began to develop from clothing to all categories, and now, the supply chain resources accumulated by the investment team composed of nearly 300 people are enough to be delivered to the anchors of the second echelon.
After the first stage of the era of high-speed running of head anchors such as Via and Sydney, and hundreds of millions of sales of goods at every turn, the second stage of the live e-commerce industry began to become rational and calm, and the live supply chain and professional capabilities began to be valued. For the MCN institutions behind the anchors with goods, "creating live broadcast room IP" and "de-head anchorization" is undoubtedly one of the best solutions for cultivating new forces and gaining a firm foothold.
Brands and consumers are more rational,
The era of big anchors is coming to an end
The era of big anchors is coming to an end, and the live e-commerce industry has entered the second half.
After Taobao launched the live streaming business in 2016, the live e-commerce industry has been in the era of big anchors, monopolized by several super-head anchors such as Li Jiaqi and Wei Ya, and has absolute dominance and bargaining power. In order to win greater benefits for fans, head or super head anchors are "striving for the lowest price in the whole network", which also makes the relationship between brands, merchants and anchors from tense to distorted, and many brands have issued a sigh of "bitter live broadcast for a long time".
Being able to squeeze into the super anchor live broadcast room once became the glory of brand owners. Not only because the super anchor brings millions or tens of millions of super high orders in a short period of time, but more importantly, with the endorsement between the super head anchors, many emerging brands can become famous overnight and be called "broadcast brands". So far, the Network has also circulated a formula for a new brand to create a blockbuster: the explosive model = 5,000 little red books + 2,000 Zhihu Q&A + Weiya Li Jiaqi with goods.
But brand exposure is only the first step, how to get out of the endorsement of the head anchor and improve the repurchase rate, not a few times into the top stream anchor live broadcast room can be solved.
At that time, consumer purchase decisions mainly depended on the anchor recommendation, rather than the quality of the brand itself. Therefore, many brands have begun to appear "take once, sell a batch, and sell without bringing" situation. The more the brand side relies on live broadcasting, the lower the right to speak, and in the long run, most of the brand side is losing money and making money, which is not conducive to the shaping of the brand image.
Subtle changes, starting in the second half of 2021, are already happening in merchants. A domestic beauty brand e-commerce head told Wired Insight, "Now we will find the right anchor according to different scenarios and time nodes, and now we prefer to cooperate with the mid-waist anchor." ”
According to the above-mentioned person in charge, in the early days, brand owners had an almost superstitious dependence on anchors, doing promotion or rushing KPIs, and the first time they would think of finding anchors. With the popularity of live e-commerce in the past two years, merchants have gradually become rational.
In addition to the marketing method of the merchant taking the initiative to give up the head anchor after self-awakening, the platform also intends to dissolve the "super power" of the super anchor. Taobao, Kuaishou and other live broadcast platforms are bundled with various super head anchors, which is too risky for the platform.
According to the statistics of the data agency Cicada Mother, during the Double Eleven period last year, the first echelon brands in the top 5% of Douyin's sales accounted for 80% of the traffic, and the third echelon brands only had 2% of the traffic.
Therefore, at the end of 2021, the three major platforms of Taojiao Fast began to adjust. Taobao has carried out a series of structural adjustments and product iterations to support small and medium-sized businesses, Douyin launched an independent e-commerce APP "Douyin Box", and Kuaishou supported industrial belt merchants.
While the live broadcasting industry has undergone rectification and reshuffle, consumers do not regard the personal charm of anchors as the only purchase standard. An old fan of Li Jiaqi's live broadcast room told Insight, "A few years ago, I would treat Li Jiaqi's live broadcast as a variety show, and now in addition to the big promotion activities, I basically will not open the live broadcast room." Even if you visit the live broadcast room, you will not impulsively buy because of the lowest price, but place an order according to your own needs. ”
As Li Yongjian, director of the Research Office of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' Institute of Financial and Economic Strategy, said in a previous interview with Securities Daily, today's big anchors have basically completed their historical mission and promoted live e-commerce to enter a normalized development stage.
Live e-commerce in 2022 has entered the "post-anchor era". The situation of mainstream live broadcast rooms with individual anchors as the core may be broken, and the number of live broadcast rooms led by platforms and institutions will increase.
The challenge this brings to live e-commerce is that the anchor not only needs to shout in front of the stage, but also pays more attention to the strength of the supply chain and the quality of goods. Zhu Xiaomu, the anchor who made a friend, also put forward the same view, "If the product is good and the price is good, the dog can also sell the goods." Although everyone is talking about live streaming with goods as a human cargo yard, the most important thing is actually the goods and supply chain."
However, supply chain building is not an easy task for small and medium-sized MCN institutions. It is necessary to organize the supply of goods, provide logistics and delivery services, and provide live broadcast service operations. More importantly, it is necessary to accurately control the strength of anchors to avoid the situation of "blowing up today and closing tomorrow".
Nowadays, the shock of the live broadcasting industry has not stopped, and people standing on the live broadcast industry chain have begun to turn around. Wei Ya, Luo Yonghao, Simba and other top-stream anchors have successively retreated behind the scenes, and "de-head anchorization" has become a tacit consensus of platforms and institutions. Who has the ability to grasp the core competitiveness of supply chain, product quality, etc., who can go further.