©️ Deep Sound Original · Author|Zu Yang
Since the news of entering Tao, TVB has entered the "crazy" mode, and its parent company TV Broadcasting Group rose 98% intraday within a week, the largest increase in history; Last night's Taobao Live debut, as of today's close, up more than 85%, with a total market value of 5.869 billion.
At 6 o'clock last night, TVB saw the emperor Chen Hao and TVB leader Hua Dan Chen Minzhi took the lead and opened TVB's first live broadcast on Taobao, with a total sales of 23.5 million yuan in six hours. During the live broadcast, the number of viewers continued to rise, with the number of online viewers exceeding 100,000 in the first 19 minutes of broadcasting, reaching 4.86 million by the end of the live broadcast at 24 o'clock, and the Taobao account of "TVB Recognition" also increased its followers by 90,000.
According to statistics, in the live broadcast, the two anchors "relayed" 131 products, including food, cosmetics, clothing and luxury goods, 3C electronics, travel card coupons, sun protection and other categories, 9.9 yuan flash sale of small bread, cola, AD calcium milk, 4899 yuan of iPhone14 mobile phone, basically the line is the second space.
Such popularity is inseparable from the strong promotion of the platform, of course, there are also two Hong Kong stars brought by the "feelings" to form a strong attraction. When Chen Minzhi skillfully introduced the advantages of the product in Cantonese, the "one-second substitute Hong Kong drama" brushed the screen in the barrage; When Chen Hao sold the "Loose Heart Wind Abalone" abalone under the signboard of "Seafood Shop", and said the classic lines in "Heart Storm" such as "Okay and Nothing to Buy", it triggered a wave of large-scale memory killing, and #Chen Hao Live Selling Abalone Dream Back to Heart Storm# also rushed to Weibo hot search.
The field of live broadcasting is always indispensable for miracles that become popular overnight. Previously, Oriental Selection became a dark horse by relying on the live broadcast of "Poetry and Distance", and the stock price rose by nearly 40% on the day of the live broadcast, and the stock price trend is still rising. Before the Oriental selection, star anchors exploring the way out of live broadcast also came wave after wave, and high-popularity players quickly iterated.
At a time when live streaming has become an e-commerce infrastructure and phenomenal anchors are accelerating iteration, can TVB still become a "catfish" to bring about changes in the pattern? Will the growth myth brought by the previous phenomenal anchor be copied to TVB again?
TVB's road to goods
Before entering Tao, TVB had actually tested the waters on Douyin for more than a year.
In April 2022, TVB entered Douyin and created a "delivery matrix", TVB Goods Recognition (Hong Kong-style selection), TVB Goods Recognition (Hong Kong Strict Selection), and TVB Goods Recognition (Delicious Selection) three major accounts respectively targeting the three popular categories of big-name beauty products, daily goodies and local food in Hong Kong. The idea of live broadcast is that amateur anchors live broadcast for a long time every day, and stars use short videos to "call" to create momentum.
After nearly a year of operation, the number of fans of these three major accounts is currently around 1 million. In terms of the amount of goods carried, Cicada Mother data shows that the cumulative live broadcast of the "Hong Kong-style selection" reached 59 in one month, with an average of 73,000 viewers per game and an average sales of 100,000 to 250,000 per game. The average sales of the account "Hong Kong Yanxuan" is 50,000 yuan ~ 75,000 yuan, and the average sales of food "delicious selection" is between 10,000 yuan and 25,000 yuan because of the low unit price of customers.
TVB Douyin account matrix
In addition to Douyin, TVB has also settled in Kuaishou.
However, TVB did not copy the operation ideas of Douyin at all, and only made a "TVB official" account in Kuaishou, and the daily live broadcast content is to play back classic Hong Kong dramas, and the short videos released are mostly intercepted highlights of the dramas. The main sales are in Kuaishou small stores, and what it sells is only "self-operated" products, including membership annual cards of the Burying Pile App, derivative peripherals of dramas, and there are no other types of goods.
TVB in Kuaishou
In the attempt of Douyin and Kuaishou laid a certain foundation, TVB "into Tao" has a new set of gameplay.
The first is that the main artists "group" into the live broadcast room, directly converting the influence of stars into the purchasing power of real money. In addition to Chen Hao and Chen Minzhi, who took the lead, TVB will arrange more star artists to do live broadcasts with representative works in the future, such as Ma Guoming, who won the title of TVB's best actor for "White Strongman", Chen Xiaohua, the title of Miss Hong Kong 2018, and Huang Zhixian, who starred in "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" and "Clean Government Sniper", and so on.
The second is to amplify the elements of "Hong Kong opera", move classic Hong Kong opera scenes and characters into the live broadcast room, and emphasize the differentiation of live broadcasting. For example, Chen Hao and Chen Minzhi broadcast live on the same screen in the "Abalone Shop" full of Hong Kong flavor last night, which instantly recalls the classic famous scene of "Heart Storm" 16 years ago; At the same time, the gin soup fish maw, abalone, morning tea three-piece, Jenny cookies and other goods sold by it also have Hong Kong-style flavor.
In addition, TVB has also designed some "small highlights" in the live broadcast, such as setting up a welfare lottery to attract users by giving away signed photos of TVB artists; A voting entrance was set up above the live broadcast room to allow viewers to vote on "whether they want the artist to speak Cantonese or Mandarin", and the interactive form of bilingual switching is also novel.
TVB Taobao live broadcast room
Judging from the performance of last night's debut, TVB's cold start idea on Taobao Live is clear: direct cooperation with the platform, borrowing artists to attract traffic, and using Hong Kong drama feelings and product selection to make a difference.
In fact, compared with the stars who have done live broadcasts on Taobao in recent years, in addition to Liu Genghong and his wife, who have become the "top stream" of Douyin, and Luo Yonghao, who has paid attention to the whole industry, the basic elements of the cold start of the live broadcast of other second- and third-tier star artists are none other than these points. Since 2019, more than 100 star actors have poured into the live broadcast room from the set. Among them, what can continue to form fan stickiness and gradually pass the cold start period to normalization are unique and differentiated personal IP positioning.
For example, Liu Tao, who was originally known for his concise and neat style, was nicknamed "Liu Yidao" after several live broadcasts on Taobao; Lin Yilun's professional chef style helped him quickly show his prominence in the field of gastronomy; Hu Ke, on the other hand, is the main "Baoma" identity, not only has become the champion of vertical categories, but also its cargo amount is close to that of professional anchors. Nowadays, TVB's main "Hong Kong drama" style is also this idea.
During the cold start, the stars actually faced many difficulties, but fortunately, the mature MCN behind them gave full support. For example, Hu Ke mentioned in an interview that at the beginning of the uncomfortable and unfamiliar, the team increased the frequency of live broadcasts, changed from monthly to weekly, while enriching goods and gradually accumulating fans.
Looking back at TVB, the official has only announced that there will be 48 live broadcasts throughout the year, and there is no preview of the follow-up performances after the first show, the overall live broadcast rhythm, and the follow-up star arrangements have not yet been announced, and how to maintain popularity and attention after the debut is still unknown.
From Douyin, Kuaishou, and now Taobao Live, TVB can be said to keep up with the mainstream trend of "global" operation. However, live streaming is essentially a "marathon", and the performance of front-end artists, backstage team cooperation, and cooperation strategies with Taobao will continue to affect TVB's subsequent live broadcast performance, and now it has just begun.
A victory is needed
Live streaming e-commerce is the "second growth curve" of many companies, but TVB is a commercial TV station that has been established for 56 years, producing many classic Hong Kong dramas, launching many first-line artists, and even being called "Asia's strongest film and television label". There are many leading bosses with high achievements, and now they are transforming into e-commerce live broadcasts, is it necessary?
If you look at the development of TVB in recent years, the answer is yes.
On the one hand, TVB's revenue has fallen into a bottleneck, and it is urgent to expand new businesses. Advertising has always been the most important source of revenue for various broadcast and television groups, but even if it is a single company, the problem of limited advertising growth space in a single region is inevitable. Coupled with the overall reduction of the advertising market due to the external environment in recent years, this has brought another risk. From the financial report, TVB's advertising revenue has been declining since 2014, and in 2019, 2020 and 2021, TVB's advertising revenue was HK$2.140 billion, HK$1.076 billion and HK$1.2 billion respectively.
On the other hand, it is TVB's old ways over the years, which makes the management eager to break through and innovate. Li Ruigang, chairman and CEO of Chinese Culture Group and non-executive director of TVB's board of directors, revealed several small details in an interview with Hong Kong media: TVB's office has not been renovated for more than 20 years, and there are only two digital microphones on TV stations. At the same time, he also pointed out a more serious problem - TVB has seriously lacked investment in the past 10 or even 20 years, "only know how to save money, only talk about controlling costs, do not think about strategy, have no development vision, inertia all the way, and do not lay out future growth momentum." Those who should have invested, did not invest, and those who should have invested a long time ago have not invested, resulting in a serious backwardness now, and the green and yellow are not accepted. ”
The financial report shows that TVB has been losing money for consecutive years since 2018, with losses of HK $199 million, HK $295 million, HK $281 million and HK $647 million respectively from 2018 to 2021, and a loss of HK $224 million in the first half of 2022.
In the face of declining performance, e-commerce has become a battle that TVB must win.
In August 2021, TVB spent HK$200 million to acquire about 75% of the issued share capital of Hong Kong-based local e-commerce company Ztore Investment Limited, gaining control of the company, and the two major e-commerce platforms operated by Stol, Ztore and Neigbuy, have also become TVB's weapons to enter the e-commerce track. After the acquisition, TVB's e-commerce revenue reached HK$593 million in 2021, and in the first half of 2022, its e-commerce revenue soared 26 times from HK$17 million in the same period of 2021 to HK$461 million, and the proportion of e-commerce business revenue in the group's overall revenue increased from 1% in the same period in 2021 to 25%.
TVB revenue composition and proportion
Doing e-commerce business only in Hong Kong is obviously not the end game, and the mainland market is obvious to all. Therefore, TVB regards the success of e-commerce live streaming in the mainland as a clear long-term goal, and clearly mentioned in its financial report: it will increase the direct reach between viewers and consumers through content and e-commerce, and further leverage our brands, content and artists with Chinese mainland and around the world.
Of course, the acquisition of e-commerce companies is not everything, and judging from the losses in the first half of 2022, the revenue of e-commerce business in Hong Kong has not yet helped TVB turn around. As a Hong Kong e-commerce platform, Shiduo sells grain, oil, groceries and daily necessities, and has very little experience in live streaming goods in the mainland, which means that TVB still needs external help and self-exploration on how and where it can go in the mainland market in the future. Li Ruigang also said frankly: "We are still constantly exploring TVB's e-commerce development logic. ”
As an "external force", Taobao's unique advantages can indeed bring help.
Taobao, a traditional e-commerce platform, has an undoubtedly large overall traffic pool. At the same time, compared with short videos, Taobao users' shopping mind and purpose are more obvious. For TVB, this does not need to worry about what kind of short video content should be output to attract traffic, just superimposing "Hong Kong drama" elements in the live broadcast can become a highlight.
But how to make "content highlights" a real style of differentiation and barriers for live broadcasting? The first problem of TVB, which explores on its own, may be "how to improve awareness and influence".
Although TVB has enough classic representative works for the TVB veteran artists selected by TVB, their overall influence in the mainland is now limited, and the young main consumer group is not familiar with the veteran Hong Kong artists. If it is only limited to the audience group of "Hong Kong drama fans", TVB may not be able to normally play the advantages of stars in live broadcasting.
And "feelings" do not support repurchases. Even if the celebrity himself brings some of the traffic, in addition to the loyal fan base, more ordinary users place orders in the live broadcast room, and the consideration is always the cost performance and preferential strength of the product; And users are willing to place orders here many times, the richness of goods, after-sales service capabilities, etc. are the key. And this is all professional ability that TVB needs to continuously cultivate and stabilize in long-term exploration.
In general, "internal worries" At present, TVB jumps out of the inherent template and comfort zone to explore new businesses, which is worthy of encouragement and recognition. But if you want to revitalize, you must not rely solely on past works, feelings, and filters. The times are developing, consumers are changing, competitors are "stretching time" live broadcast every day, and this new road chosen by TVB is obstructed and long.
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