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Knowledge-based live streaming is just the beginning

Live Content 2.0

In June last year, the popularity of the Oriental Selection Live Broadcast Room allowed the e-commerce industry to see the new possibilities of live broadcasting.

Bilingual live broadcast, from astronomy and geography to firewood, rice, oil and salt, a live broadcast room with goods regards "bringing goods" as a secondary task, and knowledge sharing has become the main content of the live broadcast.

This was a rare outlier in the live broadcast wind at that time. But this unusual oriental selection live broadcast room is on fire.

The market began to think about the current situation and future of the live broadcast model: compared with the Oriental selection live broadcast room of the Yangchun March and Xialiba people, the traditional hawking live broadcast room, whether it is the head or the middle waist, seems to be weaker in aesthetic level and knowledge.

Content live streaming and knowledge live streaming were proposed in line with the trend. Is there a need to develop in a more content-focused direction with live streaming goods? Is the traditional hawking live broadcast beginning to reach the end of its life cycle? Similar problems have become hot spots in the industry, and some people say that the live broadcast industry 2.0 stage is coming.

In September last year, the Taobao Live Festival was held in Hangzhou, and the word "content" was mentioned more than 30 times in the core speech and follow-up communication of Taobao Live.

Cheng Daofang, general manager of Alibaba's Taobao Live Business Group, pointed out that the development of the industry has reached a turning point, "In the past, many people's impression of e-commerce live streaming was 'hawking', and we have clarified the new value proposition of Taobao content, that is, 'professional and interesting people take you to buy'. ”

At another recent Taojie press conference, Peng Yanping, general manager of consumer electronics marketing at Taobao Tmall Industry Development and Operation Center, revealed that Ali's strategy for hand-to-hand shopping in 2023 will move from graphics to video: "Brands that have not yet launched live broadcasts or have not yet laid out short videos may have to speed up." ”

Live broadcasts and short videos will split up the traffic of graphics and text. Originally, 70% of the information streams recommended by Taobao will be allocated to graphic content, and in the future, 70% will be allocated to live broadcast and short video content. Changes in the traffic distribution mechanism are bound to put forward new requirements for the content of e-commerce live broadcasting.

As a party leading the change in the direction of the industry, Yu Minhong also recently expressed his opinion: "I completely despise the howl of selling, buying, buying and buying on the Internet. ”

"The characteristic of live streaming is that it can speak well... It should be a calm and informative explanation of the product, and other knowledge can be disseminated in addition to the explanation. ”

Diverse needs

From the education and training industry to live broadcast goods, New Oriental was initially a complete layman in the e-commerce industry.

The first live broadcast of the Oriental Selection, Yu Minhong attached great importance to it and personally sat down. But the ability of the entire team is far from keeping up with the planned goals.

"At that time, I didn't know how to choose the products, but I chose the most expensive agricultural products in China."

Yu Minhong himself held a map, compared with geography books and history books, and tried to explain the origin of each product and the history of each origin to the audience in the live broadcast room.

But viewers who are accustomed to hawking live broadcast rooms don't buy it: "We're not here to buy things, we're here to listen to classes."

The transaction volume of this live broadcast was only more than five million in the end, which is not an outstanding number compared to the live broadcast of stars and celebrities in the same period. And without the gimmick of Yu Minhong himself, the traffic of the Oriental Selection live broadcast room also plummeted.

That is, this unfavorable live broadcast left an impression on the outside world: New Oriental's live broadcast room is expensive and boring. This made the Oriental Selection Live Room unknown for half a year.

This means that the audience at that time was not used for the model of knowledge delivery. The short, fast, emotionally stimulating live broadcast room is the stage for lively transactions.

But this situation, half a year after the popularity of the Eastern Selection, still shows no signs of changing.

At the end of last year, the education and training giant Xueersi announced the official launch of the "Excellent Scholar" in the full-category Douyin e-commerce live broadcast room. At the same time, there were also teaching and training enterprises such as ape tutoring and homework help.

But up to now, the former education and training giants have not achieved much success on the live broadcast track. Competitors, who also have high-quality talents and education and training genes, have not been able to replicate the success of Oriental Selection.

Looking at the entire live broadcast industry, there is no newcomer selected by the Orient. Li Jiaqi, the head of the live broadcast industry, Make a Friend, Simba, and Xiao Yangge's live broadcast room, continued the success of the past and did not break away from the fence of the shouting live broadcast room.

This means that the audience of live streaming has not changed as a whole, and the traditional style of streaming still exists in the vast market. The live broadcast industry needs to make a fuss about watchability, but the aesthetic orientation and consumer psychology of the group have not undergone a major deflection.

Compared with some netizens who are willing to gain knowledge in the live broadcast room of Oriental Selection, more viewers in the live broadcast room have different preferences and purposes: to obtain more convenient and price-competitive product selection, and to ease their own consumption decisions; Watch the small talk and interaction between the anchor and the assistant, and relax the tense emotions in the immersive companionship; There are also a considerable number of consumers who can't stop the small theater of TV-like shopping...

iMedia consulting data shows that more than half of users choose live streaming e-commerce because of preferential prices, accounting for 58.8%. The second is the convenience of procurement and the intuitive authenticity of goods.

In 2021, the total scale of China's live streaming e-commerce industry has reached 1,201.2 billion yuan, and the number of anchors in the industry has exceeded 1.23 million, and the number of users has reached 660 million.

Based on such a population base, the knowledgeable and content-based live broadcast advocated by Yu Minhong, although it has gained widespread support, is still in the stage of high and low to a certain extent. Because the content is excellent enough and the user stickiness is strong, Dongfeng Selection Live Broadcast Room can maintain high traffic and convert it into gratifying GMV data.

The general failure of imitators is on the surface, and this path of live content upgrade has not completely gone through. Content-based live streaming is difficult to replicate on a large scale in the field of live broadcasting, and entertaining shouting live streaming is still the mainstream of the industry.

The e-commerce logic of the people and goods yard

On the other hand, the head players such as Li Jiaqi and Make a Friend have not explored the innovation of live broadcast content and form in depth, but they have also continued to explore new possibilities in the industry under the logic of e-commerce.

Their answer is brand and supply chain. By continuing to expand to the upstream and downstream of the industry, we will create our own supply chain system and MCN model, and even empower merchants to form our own brand ecology.

Despite the variety of changes in content forms, the logic of the "people and goods yard" of live streaming e-commerce has not changed.

Coincidentally, the Oriental Selection Live Broadcast Room, which attaches importance to live broadcast content, is also working in the same direction. On January 31, 2023, Oriental Selection announced that it will invest 17.52 million yuan for the expansion of Oriental Selection's self-operated grilled sausage.

The growth of the customer group targeted by live streaming e-commerce has basically reached the top, the structure is basically fixed, and how to serve the existing user group well has become a more important thing.

Douyin and Kuaishou have begun to actively layout shelf e-commerce. It is revealed that the "new mall" project of the new shelf e-commerce scenario that Kuaishou will focus on operating in 2023 has entered the reporting stage, and it is expected to be launched on a large scale in March.

The layout of TikTok is still before Kuaishou. In August 2021, Douyin Mall was launched, which is regarded as the first step for content platforms to develop shelf e-commerce. In May 2022, Douyin upgraded "interest e-commerce" to "global interest e-commerce", focusing on the layout of shopping malls, searches, windows and other shelf scenes in addition to short videos and live streaming goods, and Douyin Mall has gradually occupied a more prominent position in the APP.

All indications are that the industry opportunity is shifting from a single upgrade of live content to a more complex challenge. The iteration of the platform strategy of content e-commerce + shelf e-commerce also puts forward higher requirements for the operators of the live broadcast room.

Author | Wu Xin

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