Virtual anchor with goods Wind Up Who are the players?

Economic Observer reporter Qian Yujuan reported from Guangzhou

Du Ming once saw a research institute estimate that the data shows that the number of users of live shopping in China in 2021 will exceed 400 million, but his question is how many of China's 1.4 billion people are still wandering in the live broadcast room at midnight to buy and buy?

Combined with my real situation, "Once I can't sleep, I always want to go to Taobao and buy something; brush off Douyin and watch a video." Du Ming gave a conjectural answer: "At least a few million people." ”

There are many examples of insomnia shopping, and he slowly found that the display mechanism of the platform will change when searching for goods in the late night period: who is in the live broadcast, the exposure of stores and products will increase, which will bring higher traffic, and the net income of merchants will also increase.

Not only does Taobao Live have such a bug, Du Ming also conducted a horizontal survey of the live broadcast room with goods on platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou, and found that it was the same logic.

Du Ming, who came from the film and television animation industry, now works for a digital live broadcast technology solution company. In addition to giving technical support to various e-commerce live broadcasting platforms in daily work, Du Ming will also communicate and cooperate with some brand merchants to develop exclusive virtual IP or digital human images for them.

In the process of dealing with the platform and brand merchants, Du Ming learned that the platform will mostly output the following cases to a brand merchant, comparing the revenue obtained by its competitors with the conventional situation of not broadcasting through virtual anchor live broadcasting. "The 10%-30% increase in revenue is a strong temptation for most brand merchants."

After such lobbying, and then calculating the cost offset, the merchant will naturally pay for the higher income - willing to spend tens of thousands of dollars to get a virtual anchor.

Virtual anchors with goods are windy

The reporter obtained from an insider on the supply side of Taobao Live, the "smart live broadcast room" promotion page opened by the platform to the merchant, seeing the functional advantages of the virtual anchor walking into the brand live broadcast room, it listed a whole 8, there is no lack of "one-click broadcast, intelligent generation script", "multiple official anchor image optional", "24 *7 real-time online, active marketing" and so on.

Du Ming mentioned that the virtual anchor will bring traffic side tilt to the business, and the reporter also saw that the "accurate operation of traffic between live broadcasts" was clearly listed in the above functional advantages.

In fact, the "24-hour all-weather, uninterrupted live broadcast" alone is already a difficult thing to complete in the live broadcast room that has just started, even the head anchor live broadcast room, but the virtual anchor can achieve it. In the non-prime time, the reporter browsed the Taobao live broadcast room and saw that not only beauty brands such as Kazilan, Polaria, and Perfect Diary, but even the Taobao live broadcast room of shoe and clothing brands such as Kabin and food brands such as Xinliangji had virtual anchors selling goods on the live broadcast.

In addition, what attracts the attention of Zhang Qiang, the manager of a home furnishing brand, is that with the hiring of a professional anchor for brand self-broadcasting, or through the live broadcast room of a waist anchor to carry out the sale of goods, the cost of the above model is often hundreds of thousands, and the cost of purchasing virtual anchor technical services is more like spending small money to do big things." ”

In addition to the price difference caused by individual image customization and services, the above-mentioned Taobao live broadcast supply side insiders revealed, "a set of 99,000 yuan for the basic virtual anchor program." Wang Lin, who works in the virtual digital human upstream technology company, feels that "from the perspective of the market, this price is relatively central." ”

Wang Lin introduced that at present, there are some new technology suppliers or enterprises with a high degree of customization that can set the service price of virtual anchors lower or higher. What he learned was that with an investment of 100,000 yuan, a high-quality virtual person technology solution provider can serve Internet platform enterprises for one year.

As a partner, when Taobao Live sells a virtual anchor service plan to merchants, "our percentage can be half." Du Ming even joked, "You give me 20,000 yuan, you can develop a virtual anchor image that starts directly for you." ”

Wang Lin and Du Ming invariably reflect that virtual anchors with goods are currently in the market competition, and the basic development costs brought about by them are also declining. In addition to reducing costs, e-commerce and live broadcasting platforms are also trying to show merchants the efficiency gains brought by virtual anchors. Like Taobao Live broadcast, it means that there are head brands that have opened a total of 100+ intelligent live broadcast rooms, the total number of UV viewing UV (the total number of visitors entering the live broadcast room) has exceeded 100 million, the total number of goods has reached tens of millions, and some cutting-edge brand merchants have reached a conversion rate close to that of real people, known as "big promotion artifact", "live flagship never sleeps"...

"The heart is moving, but the body does not dare to do it." Zhang Qiang expressed concern to reporters that the current virtual anchor is just a "smart robot", which seems to be able to interact with fans, but in the process of displaying goods, it is difficult to be as flexible and vivid as a real anchor, and even when consumers ask questions about a certain product or detail, the answer and service must rely on the real person behind it.

The twin anchor is coming

Looking at most of the virtual anchors who are currently walking into the live broadcast room, although the image is different, the voice and state when interacting with fan users seem to come from the same template.

Such a virtual anchor with goods obviously cannot poke at the interest of Remena, CEO of Dr. Sleep, a pillow brand. "We're all live streamers right now." She pays great attention to the interactive experience between virtual anchors and users.

In an interview with reporters, Remena felt that while meeting the purchase needs of users, virtual anchors with goods can indeed make the efficiency become higher, the live data is more accurate, and the process of carrying goods is easier to standardize and standardize.

"The future is more promising." Remena, who buys things in the live broadcast room of Kuaishou head anchor Yu Dagongzi, not only developed a virtual digital person, but also announced the "twin anchor" technology for the live e-commerce field in April.

On April 17, Grand Duke Yu conducted a live broadcast of Lian Mai in the Kuaishou live broadcast room, and Lian Mai's object was a virtual digital person who was like a replica in many aspects such as his demeanor and actions.

Due to the high degree of restoration of real people, fans have called this virtual anchor the "twin brother" of Yu Dagongzi and named it "Zhou Xiaoyu". Talking about the degree of realism, a true love fan of Grand Duke Yu couldn't help but sigh, "I have to be stunned, I am already stupid and can't tell which side is the real person." ”

Such a simulated "twin anchor" technology "is taken from the real world and made by scanning a real person." Xie Rudong, chairman of Yuanwang Network, said that this virtual digital person supports multiple people to replace only one person on the same screen, mainly based on the cloud computing server after intervening in AI deep learning, so that the expression of the model, the positioning of facial details, can fully reach the state of synchronization with the real performer.

In Xie Rudong's view, the "twin anchor" technology can be applied in short videos, live broadcasts, and TVCs to achieve the replication of anchors, and because of the higher degree of simulation, stronger interactivity, and a wider range of applications, "IP can have unlimited expansion possibilities." He believes that whether it is the extension of the length of time or the fission of the number of IP, it can be achieved based on technology.

"Let's say a head talent has more than 20 hours of live broadcast time in a month." Xie Rudong said that now based on twin anchor technology, anchors can do 200 hours a month or even longer live broadcasting, "24 hours a day can be achieved." He stressed that this can better continue the vitality of mature anchors.

Not only is the digital marketing service provider Remote Look network, which realizes the private customization of the anchor IP, another digital marketing service provider known for the "integrated operation of the head star live IP", Galaxy Stars, made a virtual live broadcast debut in the Douyin live broadcast room at the end of March this year for its star anchor Hu Bing.

In the whole live broadcast process, only Hu Bing alone, more than a dozen sets of looks, basketball courts, deserts, art galleries and other product use scenarios change, bringing consumers directly into an immersive virtual scene.

Whether it is a virtual digital person based on Hu Bing or the entire catwalk scene, it is too realistic, and even let the live broadcast be "pulled down" when it reaches more than 40 minutes. Talking about the interruption of the live broadcast, the relevant person in charge of galaxy stars told reporters the reasons behind it, "It is not that our technology is not mature enough, but that the fan audience thinks that it is a recording, not a live broadcast, and it is 'reported' by hand." In the view of the above-mentioned person in charge, this small episode proves that "the combination of e-commerce live broadcasting with virtual and technology is enough to subvert everyone's imagination."

Evolution also has its challenges

After the debut test of the virtual e-commerce ecology, the relevant person in charge of Galaxy Stars told reporters that not only received some brand cooperation needs, the company "is already doing the second star virtual person image." To keep the mystery going, he didn't reveal the star's identity.

After the image of The "twin anchor" of Grand Duke Yu was exposed, Huang Zitao, a star who already had two virtual human images of "Taosman" and "Cerlu", also called Xie Rudong to urge his "twin anchor".

However, in response to Hu Bing's virtual live broadcast debut and Yu Dagongzi's "face-changing" live broadcast, when the reporter asked the digital service provider behind the above two live broadcasts about the growth data such as traffic and sales, neither party made a relevant reply.

The reporter learned that the development of virtual anchors and virtual scenes launched by the above two parties is carried out in cooperation with upstream technology suppliers. Asked about the development process of twin anchors, Yuanwang Network replied that the development cycle is related to a variety of factors, and the regular live broadcast level can be completed in a short period of time, "If you want to fully reach the state of the simulation prototype, it may take several months of training." ”

It is not difficult to understand that Zhou Xiaoyu, who has been in the public eye for more than half a month, has not carried out a new live broadcast or brought goods after the live broadcast.

Referring to the virtual anchor with goods, the relevant person in charge of a head MCN agency commented that it can add points to the live broadcast room, but "the marketing significance is large, and it is difficult to become the mainstream in a short time." ”

Of course, compared with the past "paper man" and cartoon images, virtual anchors have now "evolved" to a state similar to real people and twin simulations, and "technology has tended to mature." Peng Chenhao, founder of Guoxiang, who conducts live e-commerce services for brands, feels that after the concept and freshness, whether the virtual anchor can achieve the reliable state of the real anchor when carrying goods and communicating still needs to wait and see.

"Previously, because the face of the twin anchor could not be covered, there would be some restrictions on interactivity." Remote look network related people responded that at present, virtual anchors can not do some of the more complex interaction and expression related to the face, such as lipstick, skin care products, etc. If you want to achieve the same sense of interaction between live anchors and fans, you must break through technical difficulties, "by supplementing various efficiency improvement algorithms in the process of performing machine learning." ”

Standing on the technical supply side, Wang Lin, when talking about the current domestic real-time rendering engine technology for digital people, real-time motion capture and 3-dimensional character and video image-level production technology, used the term "thriving", in his view, the market that was originally monopolized by foreign brands for several years is emerging a lot of new domestic "productivity", which directly affects the technological progress and development of the virtual digital human industry in the mainland. "The key variable affecting costs today is hardware." Wang Lin saw that there are already manufacturers such as Qingyi Vision, which are known in optics, and gradually release greater cost advantages in the market.

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Since last year, not only the real head anchor tax evasion incidents have occurred frequently, but even celebrities have repeatedly collapsed, and many brand owners have begun to do image endorsements through virtual idol IP, "Never worry about IP will collapse." Du Ming told reporters that his company guangjie brand avatar customization development, "the order is very hot."

However, after contact, he perceives that Internet platforms such as Ali, ByteDance, and Kuaishou are more active in promoting virtual anchors to "run into" the live broadcast room.

Du Ming takes Tao's e-commerce as an example, in addition to resisting the traffic division of JD.com, Pinduoduo and other types of e-commerce platforms, the market share has been continuously plundered by short videos such as Douyin and Kuaishou after live e-commerce, and he believes that virtual anchors are becoming a non-negligible part of the ecological layout of e-commerce platforms. Behind this model of service, it is not only robbing users, but more importantly, competing for merchants.

There will be brand merchants across the platform to directly find the upstream virtual person technology supplier where Du Ming and Wang Lin are located, in order to create a set of virtual anchor live broadcast solutions. "We are not willing to take [such an order]." Du Ming called the company's cooperation with Taobao "simple trading", which can be divided after selling, and once it is directly docked with the merchant, it will take tens of thousands of yuan to put it in for a whole year to do technical maintenance and other after-sales services.

"I can make hundreds of thousands of dollars a month doing a digital human live broadcast technology solution, why spend a year to worry?" In Du Ming's view, docking brand merchants is a "hard and unflattering tiring job", and the Internet platform has to do this under the closed-loop business logic, but also in the process of drawing cakes, until the brand merchants are convinced of the virtual anchor's live broadcast ability to carry goods, they will choose to let the virtual digital people into their live broadcast room.

Of course, the reason why virtual anchors are an inevitable trend, the person in charge of a live broadcast platform also said another key problem - the contradiction between big anchors and MCN.

"It's an eternal topic." The person in charge of the above-mentioned live broadcasting platform took the conflict between celebrities and anchors such as Li Ziqi and Lang Weixian and the MCN institutions behind them as an example, from the perspective of the long-term development of MCN institutions, "they need to control their own IP without feelings."

You know, any anchor is set up, especially in such a labor-intensive industry as live e-commerce, a traffic anchor often aggregates dozens or even hundreds of people team capabilities, once the anchor loses or brings IP risks due to negative problems, the loss of MCN institutions is self-evident. The person in charge of the above-mentioned live broadcasting platform believes that "the virtual anchor fills this gap." ”

In the interview, the relevant person in charge of Galaxy Stars said that virtual live streaming with goods will be easier to occupy the minds of consumers than traditional e-commerce live broadcasting. However, a reality that cannot be ignored is that as digital service providers from MCN institutions, they lack the innovative technologies required for the development of virtual anchors, and they cannot answer the essential topic of "the ability of virtual anchors to monetize businesses".

Du Ming found that after the virtual digital people entered the e-commerce field, the participants in any link in this industrial chain were spreading out the plate as much as possible, "Only the 'cake' of the virtual anchor is getting bigger and bigger, and everyone can make money." ”

It is precisely because of the existence of the above consensus that many brand owners have tried to live stream goods with virtual anchors, even if they spit that "'cake' is not fragrant to eat", they will still "lose" and chase this outlet.

Of course, Du Ming also saw some smart merchants "living" on the platform, late at night, their live broadcast room is broadcasting, neither live anchors, nor see the shadow of virtual anchors, only put a standing sign, on which is written "people are not there, to buy what to order." Du Ming found that in such a live broadcast room, the traffic is also there, and the transaction is also in progress...

(Du Ming and Wang Lin are pseudonyms in the text)