In recent days, in addition to publishing game advertisements and cheering for his brothers' brands, Luo Yonghao's Weibo has constantly debunked relevant news, indicating that he has not yet paid off his debts. In October last year, Luo Yonghao posted on Weibo, "Next spring, the same day we pay off our debts, we will return to the technology industry." From this point of view, Luo Yonghao is still some time away from really leaving the live broadcasting industry.
Almost 2 years ago, Luo Yonghao, who was in huge debt, chose to enter the Douyin live broadcast room. With the full blessing of the celebrity effect and Douyin, Luo Yonghao's first live broadcast GMV exceeded 110 million, and the name of Douyin live broadcast with goods was also launched. Statistics at the end of 2020 show that the GMV of Douyin reached 500 billion yuan that year, which was several times higher than in 19 years.
Despite this, Luo Yonghao, who indicated that he was not here at the beginning, was not moved by the huge income in the live broadcast room. In the past two years, Luo Yonghao's remarks on various occasions have shown that he only uses live streaming as a means of repaying debts. He characterized himself as an idealist, and an idealist eventually returned to the cause he loved.
Fast forward to 2016, when Wei Ya, the owner of the women's clothing store, was trapped in Taobao's traffic system and was at a loss. On the last double eleven, because it was not clear that the supply chain had just lost 6 million. At this time, she received a call from the Taobao terminal, inviting her to open the on-site sales business, that is, the live broadcast with goods that everyone is familiar with later.
At this time, Li Jiaqi was still working as a BA (cosmetics counter beauty consultant) at the Nanchang Maybelline counter. Every female user who comes to his counter inevitably has to buy one more lipstick. At that time, he did not know that he would become the most well-known person selling lipstick in All of China.
At the end of the year, Li Jiaqi and Wei Ya participated in the early qualifying tournament of Taobao Live. Li Jiaqi won the beauty category, while Wei Ya won the first place in the clothing category. A door to the future opened to the two.
In addition to Taobao, the emerging platform Kuaishou is quietly rising from the sinking market. Born in a small town in the northeast, Simba, a farmer, has just experienced several failed startups, this time, he took aim at the platform with tens of millions of daily active users, and found a means to quickly increase fans: brushing gifts in the live broadcast room of big Internet celebrities. Through this way of being a big brother on the list, Simba quickly changed from a no-name pawn to a million-fan big V. Later, through the "peasant entrepreneur" persona, Simba's position in Kuaishou became more and more stable.
Everyone knows what happened after that. The public watched these four rise and rise, becoming the famous "Four Heavenly Kings" in the live broadcasting industry. Then, quickly cut the domain, Simba is no longer the Lion King; Wei Ya was investigated for tax evasion, and the whole network did not have this person; Luo Yonghao returned to the technology industry; even Li Jiaqi gradually reduced his appearance in the live broadcast room, and instead of him, it was a broadcasting team similar to Luo Yonghao.
They all have a bright future.
Platform to create "king"
The live broadcasting industry needs benchmark people, so there is Wei Ya and Li Jiaqi.
Unlike the logic of most latecomers who have traffic first and then have sales, Wei Ya and Li Jiaqi are completely step by step from ordinary people to "stars".
At the beginning, Taobao also tried to transform internal influencers. In 2016, Zhang Dayi, who has 4 million Weibo fans and annual sales of his Taobao store of more than 100 million, was invited to speak for a new endorsement for his store at the 100-day node of Taobao Live. During the four-hour live broadcast, Zhang Dayi wore his own brand clothes, took fans to visit the production base, and constantly issued coupons, and the store transaction amount exceeded 20 million yuan within two hours.
This is an excellent verification of the prospects of the live e-commerce industry, and Zhao Yuanyuan, former head of Taobao live broadcasting, also said: "Zhang Dayi has played a role in demonstrating and literacy for everyone, and many people feel that this matter has a head. But the prospect of Taobao live broadcasting failed to impress Zhang Dayi, she said: "The live broadcast mode of the competition market will make everyone have aesthetic fatigue, and I think that after double twelve, this model will change, because the conversion rate of live broadcasting is decreasing." ”
The surge of the tide is not guided by the will of the individual, Zhang Dayi feels that it is not OK, and Taobao Live feels that it is OK. After Zhang Dayi and Sydney did not take live e-commerce too seriously, Taobao started the idea of "anchor draft". In an event of "10 hours of continuous broadcasting of anchors", Wei Ya won the championship in the clothing group, sold more than 20,000 orders in one hour, and was even suspected by the organizers to be a single. On the other hand, Li Jiaqi won the championship in the beauty category.
Zhang Dayi and Sydney failed to seize the opportunity and were arrested by Li Jiaqi and Wei Ya. Taobao Live, which previously invited Zhang Dayi to bring goods but could not, now bet on these two people.
Because she has been immersed in the clothing industry for a long time, and her face is good and eloquent, and she has operated a Taobao store independently for a long time, Wei Ya quickly gained a foothold in Taobao Live. In 2017, she brought goods for a fur shop, and the turnover exceeded 70 million, far higher than Zhang Dayi's 20 million results. Jiang Fan, president of Taobao, praised Wei Ya in a public speech, "The achievement of being able to achieve a live broadcast watched by millions of people and hundreds of millions of turnover is no longer an embellishment, but the mainstream of the future business model." ”
Compared with Wei Ya, Li Jiaqi started much slower, and the number of views of only more than 500 people per day made him have the idea of giving up, but with the encouragement of his agent, Li Jiaqi persevered. By showing off the talent he learned at the lipstick counter and demonstrating the strength of more than 300 lipsticks in one night, Li Jiaqi began to have a small flow. However, statistics at the end of 17 years show that Li Jiaqi is still not on the list in the Tao department live broadcast room.
In order to stimulate more merchants and anchors to participate in live streaming, Taobao began to operate an official event known as "qualifying" in July 2018. Competitions are held on a fixed day of the month according to product categories. Merchants and streamers with higher transaction volumes will increase exposure, and the final list will stay on the front page for three weeks.
The "Qualifying" campaign stimulated the enthusiasm of the anchors to participate. Statistics at the end of the year show that the Taobao live broadcast platform carries more than 100 billion yuan of goods. The year-on-year growth rate is nearly 400%, and the annual income of 81 anchors exceeds 100 million yuan. In the event, Li Jiaqi and Wei Ya were eliminated from the qualifying round again and again, and their positions became more and more stable.
On Singles' Day in 2018, Taobao arranged for Ma Yun and Li Jiaqi to wear lipstick in the competition. Letting ali core figures partner in marketing shows Taobao's emphasis on Li Jiaqi. On the same day, Li Jiaqi sold 15,000 lipsticks in 5 minutes, which was also a hit.
Li Jiaqi PK Ma Yun and won, becoming a gimmick for the media to compete for reports. His out-of-the-loop is undoubtedly the handiwork of Taobao Live. According to a late report, an Ali employee recalled that Zhao Yuanyuan would talk about it every time he held a meeting, saying that he communicated with Li Jiaqi's team and asked them to send their live broadcast slices to vibrate, and finally rely on vibrato, Li Jiaqi was on fire outside the station.
In fact, when Li Jiaqi began to divert traffic from emerging platforms such as Douyin, the emerging platform itself also started to directly use this part of the traffic to do live e-commerce business.
Live streaming, other players began to emerge.
The "king" comes from the wild jungle
The first to do this business was Kuaishou. At that time, many big anchors of Kuaishou began to use Kuaishou's traffic and do e-commerce business for their Taobao stores by hanging links in the comment area.
In the early years, most of the income came from the live broadcast of Kuaishou, and also thought of combining live broadcasting with e-commerce. In September 2017, Kuaishou took orders online and began to help merchants and Internet celebrities to match transactions, and in mid-2018, Kuaishou's official e-commerce tool "Kuaishou Xiaodian" was officially launched, supporting self-built small stores, and accessing Taobao, Pinduoduo, Suning, Jingdong and other e-commerce external links.
In the eyes of many industry insiders, Kuaishou has always been a more Buddhist company, for example, it has always adhered to the "long-term doctrine", defining the traffic division as 3:7, and the content made by the head big V is high-quality, and it can only get 30% of the traffic. In contrast, 3% of the early Douyin head videos accounted for 80% of the user's playback, and 5% of the head users covered 98% of the fans.
In this case, Kuaishou's live e-commerce business is almost the real "welfare for the family". The live e-commerce business of Kuaishou Internet celebrities began to do it, but it was not big. Simba's appearance caught the platform a bit off guard.
Unlike other rather fierce fast-handed big V, Simba does not have any special talents. His means of increasing fans include, but are not limited to, marketing chu Ruixue's boyfriend identity on Kuaishou, giving the head big V a reward and listing, and scolding other family big V.
After having a certain number of fans, Simba caught up with the opportunity of Kuaishou to let go of the goods. He has done supply chain business before, he is more proficient than other Internet celebrities, and he has multiple Taobao stores before he starts live streaming. In the live broadcast, he also revealed that only his three Taobao stores have a monthly turnover of more than 10 million.
But live streaming is where Simba really comes to the fore.
Simba, who claims to be a farmer, accurately grasps the psychology of Kuaishou users. In his list of sellers, 50-100 yuan is the most common customer unit price, and the brand is the least valuable thing. When selling "sandwich buns", he tears the bread in half and compares the thickness of the sandwich of different breads compared with the small bread sold in the "supermarket" to show that it is more sufficient to reassure the audience. Brand premium? The fast-handed old irons are absolutely unwilling to pay this money.
The most out of the circle, the public is also the most familiar, is Simba's initiative, in the live broadcast room with the brand Fang Lianmai speculation, angrily denounced the brand side price is too high for the old iron, in a tearful condemnation, the brand side finally compromised to give the lowest preferential price, and even Simba "out of his own pocket" to the family welfare, and finally the price "down".
This series of combos is very useful in the eyes of Kuaishou Lao Tie, and also helps Simba become the king of Kuaishou with goods. Simba has always been generous, often giving lottery to the audience, giving away multiple gifts while selling goods, and even intimidating Kuaishou and capitalists on various occasions.
In the eyes of Kuaishou Lao Tie, Simba has a personality that is not afraid of power and confronts capitalists. No one understood him, just as all other Internet users at the time did not understand Kuaishou users.
At the end of 2019, Kuaishou announced a total transaction of 40-50 billion yuan, and Simba's team announced that its personal GMV reached 13.3 billion. The proportion of kuaishou has reached nearly 1/3.
"The reason why Kuaishou this company exists is that it can hope to connect with most of the ignored in society, Kuaishou does not exist for stars, nor does it exist for big V", Cheng Yixiao, founder and current CEO of Kuaishou, once introduced kuaishou's values. But after Simba, more and more family-style big Vs have become strong players in live streaming, and the official cannot deny their existence, and even rely on them on various levels.
Simba's presence has also attracted the attention of Taobao Live, who claims to have been in contact with Taobao-related personnel, but in order not to attack the Fast Hand he grew up here, he eventually refused. In another version of the story, Simba wants to reproduce the routine of subsidies, but Taobao Live is unwilling to have another head, so it rejects him.
The two stories are hard to tell if they're true or fake, but the interesting contrast is. Taobao executives have directly come out to stand for Weiya Li Jiaqi, and even joined the Weiya team after the former head of Taobao live broadcast operations left, while kuaishou senior management has been silent about Simba. Even, because of Simba's overly high-profile personality and love to scold people in the live broadcast room, the official banned him many times. There were also rumors that "Su Hua wanted to ban Simba", but it was quickly refuted.
Kuaishou wanted Simba's traffic and didn't want him to be so high-profile. It can only be done slowly.
It is better to make God than to ask God
Compared to Kuaishou's actions, TikTok is relatively slower. Or, in other words, almost no improvement.
At the end of 2019, Douyin launched a number of live broadcast policy reforms internally to mobilize the live broadcast guild and MCN to invest in live streaming with goods. At that time, as the earliest batch of MCNs to enter the douyin, Vision Entertainment Chen Pengbo had found business opportunities with goods: "The content and tips of each live broadcast are uncontrollable, but every link of e-commerce live broadcasting is easier to quantify, which is a sustainable business model, and live broadcasting will become one of the important scenes of e-commerce." ”
Vision Entertainment then began to choose anchors with stores on Taobao, and "talents with goods" became a more urgent need. Another head guild, Worry-free Media, has also begun to shift from live broadcasting on the show to live streaming with goods.
Both guilds launched their own anchors, vision entertainment's "cousins", selling 430,000 items worth 17.3 million in a live broadcast. The "big wolf dog couple" under Worry-free Media tried to bring goods for the first time, and the first batch of products were sold short on the line, with a total order number of more than 100,000.
Tens of millions of sales are already staggering, but such data is only comparable to the Zhang Dayi period in 2016. 2019 Singles Day is the era when Simba, who was also incubated from within, has won 2.1 billion sales.
In comparison, vibrato is not enough to see at all.
Douyin needs a benchmark character, this character is best to have the same topic degree as Simba, and has the same ability to carry goods as Li Jiaqivia. Who is this person?
It was Luo Yonghao.
Because of the debt crisis, Luo Yonghao also began to think about a new way out earlier. 2020 coincided with the epidemic situation, live broadcast with goods rapid development, on February 21, Luo Yonghao launched a vote on Weibo to investigate whether netizens will watch e-commerce live broadcast. On March 6, someone broke the news that Luo Yonghao was going to do Taobao live broadcast. Some Taobao employees shared on the pulse that some relevant personnel confirmed that they had been talking for a long time.
On March 19, 2020, Luo Yonghao announced that he would switch to the field of live e-commerce. At that time, many people felt that Luo Yonghao would eventually join Taobao Live. But on April 1, April Fool's Day, Luo Yonghao made his debut, but the place was in Douyin. Taobao, which supports two head anchors, has long focused its business on brand store broadcasting and mid-waist anchors. Taobao does not need a third head anchor, it really needs, but it is only a preventive need.
Under the blessing of celebrity effect + topic degree, Luo Yonghao brought 110 million yuan of GMV on the same day, far exceeding Li Jiaqiweiya's usual achievements of almost tens of millions. Of course, this also depends on the bonus of the first effect.
Luo Yonghao's entry, on the one hand, has played a loud signboard to the outside world, and he can also buy things on Douyin. On the other hand, it also gave MCN and Internet celebrities a shot in the arm. This cost-effective transaction helped Luo Yonghao solve the debt crisis, and the benefits to Douyin were even greater, and the live broadcast ecology that had not been revitalized in the past six months was suddenly alive.
In Douyin, the distribution of traffic is almost always decided by the authorities. Although in the statistics of the year-end general list, Luo Yonghao is still a brother of Douyin without a doubt. However, after April 1, 2020, the GMV of the live broadcast room of making a friend has been declining, and even within Douyin, Luo Yonghao may not be able to sit firmly in the position of a brother in Douyin. This is very different from Simba and Via's position on Taobao and Kuaishou.
Even the title of the four heavenly kings of the live broadcast industry is somewhat unworthy of the name. According to the statistics of third-party data agencies, in the TOP20 of the 2020 live broadcast with goods, Luo Yonghao only ranked 12th, not only not as good as Weiya Li Jiaqi Simba, but also difficult to match compared with Simba's apprentice Shi Damei. Except for Luo Yonghao, Neither Wei Ya Li Jiaqi nor Simba claimed to be the Four Heavenly Kings of the live broadcasting industry.
If you want to find a supplement, you can only say that three platforms, Taobao out of two, a platform and a head, and finally together to put together a four kings.
Of course, Luo Yonghao also understood this. From the beginning, he did not plan to continue to work, in order to smoothly withdraw from the live broadcast career, the team has long arranged a smooth transition stage for him, slowly reducing the length of live broadcasting, until the moment he leaves, and then use the broadcast team to fully replace.
Douyin did not want Luo Yonghao to become the second Simba, and Luo Yonghao did not use Douyin to come out and say that he had already handed over the scepter himself.
When communicating with a friend, the other party also told Poison Eye that over the past year, douyin's live broadcast policy has undergone many changes, and making a friend is to try to cooperate with all, from SaaS to vertical operation, they all follow up.
Changing
In just 6 years, the rapidly developing industry of live e-commerce has reached a buffer point. At the very least, the giants have almost disappeared.
Simba's fall is expected, after the Sugar Water Bird's Nest incident, his personal credibility with fans is still there, after the comeback, the first live broadcast with goods debut reached 2.042 billion, which shows its popularity among the fast hand old iron. But for Kuaishou, on the one hand, Simba clamored to sit on an equal footing with Kuaishou, on the other hand, outside the station, the bad effects of the Simba Sugar Water Bird's Nest Incident continued.
The cutting of the domain began, and this cutting of the domain was not only aimed at Simba. Another big family anchor, Er Donkey, said during the live broadcast: "The official has now changed the rules, and the traffic is scattered. Officials hope to cultivate 10 4 million accounts, not 1 40 million anchors. ”
In order to weaken the power of the family, Kuaishou on the one hand changed the principle of traffic distribution. On the other hand, mcN has also begun to be vigorously introduced, and in the first month after Simba's name was banned, many new faces appeared in the list of Kuaishou's top ten anchors. Including Li Xuanzhuo and Yu Dagongzi, both of whom are MCN invited by Kuaishou: The anchor of Yuanwang.
Compared with Simba and his family, MCN knows the rules better, everything is business, everything can be discussed. In the past, MCNs couldn't get up because no one took the lead. Now, the opportunity and traffic of live streaming with goods are there, and whoever takes it is taking it.
Luo Yonghao, or making a friend, is itself a personal IP to enter the market, and then drive the institutionalization of its companies. As his task of repaying his debts was gradually achieved, making a friend was gradually no longer equal to Luo Yonghao. And for TikTok, this in turn becomes a simple B2B relationship.
In fact, TikTok's move has also been a huge success. Many self-broadcast shop owners have reported to Poison Eye that it is easier to do store broadcasting in Douyin than on Taobao. Although Luo Yonghao, who ranks first in Douyin, ranks only 12th on the whole platform, Douyin completed 500 billion GMV in 2020, far surpassing Taobao Live and Kuaishou.
Taobao, which once led the direction of the industry, now has to make up for the dilemma of internal hematopoietic deficiency, and the embarrassment that Douyin may cut off the external chain of e-commerce. Taobao made a dot-amoy app, trying to increase entertainment and attract more users through short videos and live broadcast content.
On the other hand, Taobao is also trying its best to support small and medium-sized anchors. But the water in the pool is limited, upside down, and the space for the mid-waist anchor to be supported is still limited. In 2021, the dispute between Via Li Jiaqi and L'Oréal, although it finally became a oolong that was difficult to distinguish between right and wrong. However, the "hegemony" of big anchors affects pricing power, which has become a bad impression in the hearts of many people.
Taobao officials only characterize Weiya Li Jiaqi as market behavior, compared with the praise of Weiya in previous years, today's official attitude is only left with the "difficult to intervene" that Ali vice president blows snow and is not salty.
In this situation, Via's downfall has only eased the situation.
After Via was shut down, some Ali employees privately commented: "You can neither say that we are happy nor that we are unhappy." "To some extent, it reflects Taobao's dilemma for big anchors."
On the one hand, on the anniversaries of festivals such as the big promotion, it is still necessary for big anchors to cooperate with promotional sales, on the other hand, in daily activities, Taobao Live still needs a large number of mid-waist anchors to support MCN and play the role of the "person" who "carries people". All along, Taobao Live may not have been able to think of a thorough solution. Via offers a path to this exitless path, of course, passive.
Star salesman Li Jiaqi and its behind-the-scenes company, Mei ONE, also have insight into this direction. Although fans are still very sticky to him, he is still gradually reducing his live broadcast time. Betting on a person is dangerous, for Taobao, and for Li Jiaqi himself.
Since 2017, live streaming with goods began to exert force, when the annual market was only 20 billion, until 2021, the market is expected to exceed 2 trillion, 4 years of a hundred times the speed of improvement, enough to make many things fall into madness. Crazy performances, crazy money-making, and crazy disregard for the law. But now, everything is back to calm.
"Kings" are not allowed to exist, and there should be no kings in the live broadcasting industry.
Original author: Poison Eye Editorial Department, original source: Poison Eye, original title: "The Four Heavenly Kings of the Live BroadcastIng World, Only Half li Jiaqi remains?" 》