Author/ Author of "Finance and Economics" Weekly Liu Dongxue
Editor / Chen Fang
Alone
On the evening of March 24, after Li Jiaqi's Taobao live broadcast room with 62.37 million fans began broadcasting, li Jiaqi's fans who could not see li Jiaqi anxiously typing on the screen asked: "When will Old Man Li come?" "What about Li Jiaqi?"
In front of the camera, watching the fans ask questions reluctantly, the assistant broadcast Qingzi sister repeatedly explained: "Jiaqi is about 8 o'clock, don't worry. While appeasing the fans, Qingzijie and her partner Yiwen worked hard to carry the goods.
When recommending dried fruits and vegetable snacks, Yiwen moved the radio microphone from off-camera to her mouth, and talked to Qingzijie next to her: "Do you know what Jiaqi will say?" After asking, she put a piece of dried fruits and vegetables into her mouth and chewed it a few times, imitating Li Jiaqi's tone: "I can eat dentures, and everyone can eat it." ”
Although the live broadcast ability is not bad, the assistant broadcasters know that Li Jiaqi is the soul of Li Jiaqi's live broadcast room, so it is necessary to cue Li Jiaqi from time to time. At 8:26 p.m., fans finally waited for Li Jiaqi, and a large number of comments such as "coming" and "happy" rose from the bottom of the screen.
In front of the camera, Li Jiaqi has a recently dyed yellow hair, and in the light, the wrinkles are clearly visible, and the cheeks are a little thinner than last year. Due to the perennial daily broadcast, Li Jiaqi's voice of "human voice" is not as clear as before, hoarse and rhinitis caused by spring, and there is often a short pause in the live broadcast room because he sucks his nose.
Photo/Dot Tao
Perhaps due to inertia, Li Jiaqi still firmly controlled the right to speak during the live broadcast, and assistant Wang Wang occasionally wanted to insert a few words, but he was quickly overshadowed by his volume. It took about 3 hours, after Li Jiaqi introduced more than 30 products, the live broadcast room was handed over to the supporting broadcast again, until the end of the live broadcast at one o'clock in the morning, Li Jiaqi never appeared in the live broadcast room again.
"Finance and Economics" Weekly noted that since January 13, Li Jiaqi rarely appeared in front of the camera at the beginning of the live broadcast at 7:30 pm, but only entered after the assistant broadcasters broadcast live for one or two hours, and the live broadcast time was reduced from the original 5 hours a day to 3 hours a day.
Taking the initiative to shorten the duration of live broadcasting, Li Jiaqi, the Taobao "live broadcast brother", is deliberately reducing the dependence of the live broadcast room on itself, which may be a deliberate arrangement of the company's US ONE. The lessons of Sydney and Wei Ya's banned cars are vividly remembered, and the company Chenfan and Qianxun culture where the two anchors are located are seriously injured, and the United States ONE also has to consider the problem of reducing business risks.
However, when the "Finance world" weekly asked the United States ONE about the relevant questions, the other party refused, saying that it was inconvenient to answer.
In fact, since the end of last year, the United States ONE has the meaning of supporting the broadcast group to take office. On December 22, 2021, two days after Wei Ya was banned, Li Jiaqi's official Weibo of the fashion broadcast group released a promotional video, saying that the support group had been upgraded and "officially opened the 2.0 stage". After that, the assistant broadcasters gradually walked to the front of the stage, competing for qi, Su Chang began to support the fashion field independently, assistant Wang Wang also began to appear frequently in the beauty field and snack field, Yi Wen and Qing Zijie gradually found their own style in a live broadcast, singing a harmony in front of the camera, pulling homely.
At the same time, the United States ONE is also reducing Li Jiaqi's dependence on taoism, and recently staged a "taotao" drama. The reason is that Li Jiaqi's official WeChat Mini Program "All Girls Member Service Center" (hereinafter referred to as "All Girls") has added some new functions, and users can directly place orders in the Mini Program.
As a "live broadcast brother" cultivated by Taobao, Li Jiaqi has been strongly bound to Taobao in the past, even if Douyin spends a lot of money digging the foot of the wall, he is not moved, and his fate has changed because of Taobao, and he knows the importance of Taobao to his live broadcast career.
Li Jiaqi and Taobao Live are mutually successful. In 2016, Taobao, which is vigorously developing the live broadcast business, wanted to enhance its influence by supporting anchors, and finally selected Li Jiaqi, who had worked as a shopping guide at L'Oréal, and with the strong support of Taobao, the number of fans in Li Jiaqi's live broadcast room broke through 100,000 in just one year. In 2018, Li Jiaqi successfully went out of the circle with the image of "lipstick brother" and became a dark horse in the live broadcast industry. In 2019, the GMV of Li Jiaqi's live broadcast exceeded 5 billion yuan, soared to 20 billion yuan in 2020, and reached 10.6 billion yuan in 2021 alone in "Double 11".
After Sydney and Wei Ya were banned, Li Jiaqi's status in Taobao Live broadcasting went up to another level. According to the observation of "Finance and Economics" Weekly, from August to November last year, the general number of viewers in Li Jiaqi's live broadcast room was less than 20 million, and now it has stabilized at 20 to 30 million, and the pre-sale activities of 38 Goddess Day are as high as 77 million, with total sales of 2.825 billion yuan, which is 3.5 times the cumulative sales of Li Jiaqi and Wei Ya in the same period last year.
In contrast, other well-known live broadcast rooms such as "Shiitake Mushrooms Are Coming", "Lie'er Baby" and "Bee Surprise Society" have been watched by about millions of people, and it can be said that Li Jiaqi has become the head anchor of Taobao fault. Industry insiders analyzed that this has both advantages and disadvantages for Taobao and the United States ONE, and the advantage is that Li Jiaqi's traffic is huge and can easily produce results; the disadvantage is that it is too dependent on the top stream, and the risk is also huge.
Like the United States ONE, Taobao has also been thinking of ways to reduce its dependence on head anchors in recent times, vigorously supporting small and medium-sized anchors, shop broadcasts, and also vigorously recruiting new talents. The wish is very beautiful, the reality is very cruel, whether it is Taobao or the United States ONE, in a short period of time, can not bear the consequences of completely "going to Li Jiaqi", Li Jiaqi has also become the only anchor in the live broadcast "Four Heavenly Kings" who is still standing in front of the stage and working hard to broadcast live.
Lao Luo started a business again
Luo Yonghao in the live broadcast of the "Four Heavenly Kings" was much more decisive.
Different from ALL IN Li Jiaqi's Beauty ONE, "Make a Friend" has been weakening the presence of big anchor Luo Yonghao since the second half of last year, cultivating a number of new anchors, opening up multiple vertical categories such as wine and food, beauty and skin care, and trendy men's clothing, and also intentionally highlighting the brand of "making a friend" in external publicity.
Luo Yonghao's live story began two years ago, and he found a shortcut to pay off his debts by live streaming. On April 1, 2020, with the support of Douyin, the first live broadcast achieved a good result of 110 million yuan in just three hours, and the cumulative number of viewers exceeded 48 million, and Luo Yonghao became famous because of this.
In less than 2 years since the first live broadcast, Luo Yonghao has done more than 100 live broadcasts, and "Make a Friend" has thus sat on the throne of the champion of the Douyin live broadcast with goods. In January this year, the Make a Friend Live Room released the 2021 annual live broadcast data: it ranked first in the Douyin live broadcast with 5 billion yuan of actual paid sales.
Relying on live broadcasting, Luo Yonghao staged the "True Return". On March 21, an article titled "Luo Yonghao's "True Return" Finale" pushed Luo Yonghao, who has his own "Internet celebrity" physique, to the outlet of public opinion, saying that Luo Yonghao's huge debt of 670 million yuan will be paid off next month, and Luo Yonghao himself will leave "make a friend" to return to the science and technology world that he has in mind.
In fact, Luo Yonghao's departure was not sudden, and in January this year, he officially announced his return to the technology industry on Weibo, telling iron fans to see you on the next platform. On March 18, in reply to the article "Luo Yonghao took the "sky-high" breakup fee from making a friend and will enter the AR industry", Luo Yonghao revealed that although the final chapter of the second part of his entrepreneurial trilogy of "Zhen Huan" has not been officially released, the third of the entrepreneurial trilogy has already been established.
In the clarification text, Luo Yonghao once again stressed that his Douyin account plans to transfer the operation right to Beijing To Make a Friend Digital Technology Co., Ltd. for N years, but denied the 100 million breakup fee, saying that his signing fee is much higher than this, after all, he is the fourth in China's live broadcast "Four Heavenly Kings". Luo Yonghao also revealed that his restriction on consumption has long been lifted, and he has been flying on business for nearly a year, but he has given a preventive shot to the future, saying that in case the entrepreneurship fails again, he will have to rely on live broadcasting to repay debts.
Photo/Visual China
In fact, since the beginning of the business of carrying goods, Luo Yonghao has stated more than once that live streaming with goods is not his career pursuit, and he has always wanted to return to the high-tech field again to continue to start a business. After not having too much debt and clarifying the direction of entrepreneurship, Luo Yonghao began a scientific and technological journey to find investment and build a team.
After understanding Luo Yonghao's "ambition not to bring goods in live broadcasting", luo Yonghao's friendship technology has also begun to continue to approach MCN institutions after Luo Yonghao stood out from the Douyin platform in the live broadcast room. In less than two years, Make a Friend Technology has incubated more than a dozen vertical categories of live broadcast rooms, with a cumulative number of fans exceeding 4 million. At the same time, Luo Yonghao's time in the live broadcast room is also getting less and less.
According to data, in September last year, Luo Yonghao's live broadcast room opened a 7X20-hour live broadcast system, but in 30 days, Luo Yonghao only appeared for 3 days. After him, the former purser, radio host, and members of the female group have successively become anchors who make friends, and have integrated into the live broadcast room, and the "luo content" of the live broadcast room has declined visibly.
At the data level, Luo Yonghao's personal live broadcast sales in 2021 contributed 20% to the GMV of making a friend, but in recent months, it has plummeted to less than 5%, and its personal live broadcast time is less than 3% of the company's total live broadcast time.
"The length of Mr. Luo's live broadcast is decreasing, which is determined by the company's strategy." Make a friend Technology told the "Finance World" weekly, "Make a friend is not an Internet celebrity studio, but a healthy development of e-commerce enterprises." In the future, in order to meet the requirements of fans and brands, making a friend will also invite Luo Yonghao to return to the live broadcast room from time to time.
After Luo Yonghao put his main energy into the field of science and technology, for other anchors, "make a friend" will also do a certain promotion, such as shooting short videos and telling the story behind the anchor, the company also encourages the anchor to open social accounts and interact with fans, but the company will not deliberately promote, and will not create a new "Luo Yonghao" teacher such a level of IP, "in fact, can not be built." Make a friend technology added, "Because our strategy is to be a 'number' rather than a 'person'." ”
From the front of the stage to the backstage
Compared with Luo Yonghao, Wei Ya and Simba (Xin Youzhi) in the live broadcast of "Four Heavenly Kings" were forced to leave.
In the second half of 2021, the network anchors with goods have been planted on tax evasion, and Wei Ya has not been spared. After the relevant departments recovered taxes, collected late fees and imposed fines totaling 1.341 billion yuan on Huang Wei (Wei Ya), similar to Sydney, Wei Ya's live broadcast account, Taobao store and social media account were all suspended. According to the previous statistics of the media, the number of fans in Weiya's store reached 77.13 million, and the live broadcast account had 92 million fans, with an average of more than 20 million viewers per game.
Since then, the "live broadcast sister" Wei Ya has completely disappeared from the public eye, and the solution that Qianxun Culture finally found is to recreate a live broadcast room through internal entrepreneurship, but this time it will no longer focus on one.
On February 12, the "Bee Surprise Society" turned out, and the outside world believed that this was The comeback of Via's curve. Although this live broadcast room called "Bee Surprise Society" cannot see any connection with the humble culture in terms of equity penetration, and the anchor also calls itself a "small team entrepreneurship", but both the anchor and the selection are inextricably linked to Via.
The audience who often watches Wei Ya's live broadcast room is not unfamiliar with the 6 anchors of the "Bee Surprise Society", Xiao Han, Hao Hao, Kaizi, Duoduo, and Facai have all been the assistant broadcasters in Wei Ya's live broadcast room. In the previous promotional map of the "Bee Surprise Society", the caption was also written: "Hello everyone! We're back! ”
Not only that, on the first day of the broadcast, Qianxun employees publicized and drained, Weiya fan group warmed up interaction, and even the coupons distributed in the live broadcast room also had the words "0214 Weiya Live Room". For another example, Bee is Dong Haifeng's fan name, and the "Surprise Society" is similar to the public account "Weiya Surprise Society" known as the Universal Treasure Book of Weiya Live Broadcasting.
Coincidentally, almost at the same time as the premiere day of the "Bee Surprise Society", the news that "Wei Ya may seek a comeback in March" also spread in the media and the industry, which seems to be deliberately creating attention for this small team, after all, Taobao Live has responded that Wei Ya's re-broadcast is unlikely.
The live broadcast results of "Bee Surprise Society" are far from being easily achieved in a new live broadcast room, the premiere has received 1.21 million views, the number of views in the first five days has exceeded 10 million, and the highest live broadcast on clothing is even as high as more than 12 million; 40 live broadcasts in 42 days, accumulating nearly 3 million fans, has surpassed the Lie'er Baby and Chen Jie Kiiki who were previously ranked in the top 5 of Taobao anchors, and became the TOP3 of Taobao Live Broadcast.
"Wei Ya and Ali have always cooperated, and the 'Bee Surprise Society' can make this achievement in a short period of time, which must be the key support of Taobao, after all, the traffic is in the hands of Taobao." An e-commerce practitioner told Caijing Weekly. Wei Ya has a strong supply chain support behind it, and the broadcasters are also familiar with wei ya's fan base, and if the start of the "Bee Surprise Society" can pull back the lost traffic, it is a win-win situation for Qianxun and Taobao.
"Taobao's traffic is more focused on people, and whoever has high efficiency will be distributed to whom." He revealed that after Wei Ya went behind the scenes, li Jiaqi's extra tens of millions of field views (single view) in the live broadcast room were naturally the choice of Taobao algorithms, and the rest of the traffic lost to other platforms was also a huge loss for Taobao.
In addition to Via, the former "fast brother" Simba also appeared less and less on the front line of live broadcasting. After experiencing the Sugar Water Bird's Nest incident and accusing kuaishou officials and being banned several times, Simba began to fade out of the live broadcast room in the second half of 2021, picked by his apprentices Egg Egg and Shi Damei. In the eyes of many merchants, Simba is trying to change his role, from a cargo anchor to an MCN agency boss who cultivates anchors.
An insider revealed to Caijing Tianxia Weekly that "Simba has long been out of the anchor's job, and as the size of Xinxuan Group continues to expand, he must free up more energy for the company's management affairs." ”
This is an active choice is also a kind of helplessness, in order to break free of the control of several major families on the platform, Kuaishou has frequently shot at the head anchor in recent years. After the platform single-handedly created a super large anchor, it was found that it was not as beautiful as imagined, and the success of the head anchor could indeed attract people to join the live broadcast army, but the head anchor was too large and would destroy the ecological balance of the platform.
Feng Nian, founder of MCN, said that in the current algorithm logic of Kuaishou, the start traffic of the super head anchor will be limited by its huge user base, and the platform is more willing to give new traffic to the pure e-commerce live broadcast room that can maintain high-frequency live broadcasting, rather than the super head anchor.
The highway that the platforms have built so hard can not allow others to set up a toll booth to collect fees. Industry insiders analyzed that the head anchor is too strong, the platform, the brand will be out of control of the situation, Li Jiaqi, Wei Ya last year's "double 11" and L'Oréal clashes, the contradiction is made public, the world's bitter head anchor for a long time.
All kinds of variables down, Li Jiaqi has become the only person who struggles in the front line of the "Four Heavenly Kings" of live broadcasting, "No way, there are too many brands behind Li Jiaqi, and there are too many brands that need his support." The above-mentioned practitioner sighed.
The successive fading out of the live broadcast giants has advantages and disadvantages for the platform and waist live broadcast masters. Li Chengdong, an e-commerce analyst, told Caijing Tianxia Weekly: "For practitioners, after seeing the experience of the head anchor, they will return to rationality in the judgment of the industry; at the same time, the head exits and the traffic is dispersed, which is an opportunity for the anchors of the second echelon and is also conducive to the healthy and sustainable development of the live broadcast ecology." ”