2.9 million people watched Messi's live broadcast, and the behind-the-scenes trader was actually a shoe seller? Cecilia Cheung "moved bricks" for it

On June 14, the Messi live broadcast, originally scheduled for 18 o'clock, was advanced.

At 15 o'clock, in the Taobao live broadcast room of Li Xuanzhuo, the anchor of Yaowang Technology, Messi finally appeared. Anchor Li Xuanzhuo, host He Wei and Messi discussed their career plans and impressions of China, and the conversation lasted about 15 minutes, and no commercial links appeared during the live broadcast.

Although the start time was greatly advanced, which caught people off guard, Messi's appearance still brought huge traffic to the live broadcast room. After 10 minutes of broadcasting, the number of views increased from 1.5 million to 2.122 million. At the end of the live broadcast, the number of viewers in the venue finally stayed at 2.895 million, and the number of followers in Li Xuanzhuo's Taobao live broadcast room also increased from 16,300 to 57,000, and the number of fans increased by 250%.

For fans, this live broadcast is the only opportunity to interact with fans during Messi's trip to China, so Messi's hasty appearance of just 15 minutes has made many fans feel not too enjoyable.

But that's enough for Remote View Technology, the behind-the-scenes promoter of live streaming.

With the help of Messi's "celebrity card", the MCN trader behind the live broadcast of Remote View Technology is recognized by more people.

In fact, many people do not know that the predecessor of Yaowang Technology is a women's shoes company Saturday, its brands include Saturday (ST&SAT), Fiberil (FBL) and Sofiya (SAFIYA), etc., and was once the "first stock of women's shoes" in China.

Because the business is too single to cope with the impact of online e-commerce development, since 2017, the company began to fall into losses. In desperation, the introduction of Internet business as a springboard for transformation. In 2018, Saturday acquired MCN Yaowang Technology for 1.771 billion yuan. Since then, the live streaming e-commerce business has become Saturday's new cash cow. According to the financial report data, in 2018, the company's Internet advertising business revenue accounted for only 11.02%, but it jumped to 91.64% in 2022.

Also in 2022, Saturday completely threw out the burden of the shoe industry by listing and selling equity, and officially changed its name to Yaowang Technology, concentrating resources to promote the development of mobile Internet marketing business.

In the live broadcast circle, Yaowang Technology is widely known for its ability to use the "celebrity card" to win for itself.

"Yaowang Technology is almost one of the first MCN institutions in the circle to pull stars 'into the sea', and it is also an institution with a relatively large amount of live broadcast of artists in the industry." An industry insider close to Yaowang Technology said that star IP has always been the "good show" of Yaowang Technology. Yaowang Technology disclosed in its 2022 annual report that the company signed a total of 25 new artists this year, and the cumulative number of signed artists reached 51. Among them, star artists include Cecilia Cheung, Jia Nailiang, Wang Zulan, Huang Shengyi, Lou Yixiao, Chen Yiru and so on.

Although there are many star artists and star anchors like Li Zhuoxuan, remote view technology is not worry-free.

Financial report data shows that although Yaowang Technology's live streaming e-commerce business achieved a 50% year-on-year increase in GMV in 2022, the growth rate has slowed down significantly compared with the growth rate of more than 130% in 2021.

The "celebrity card" of remote technology seems to be difficult to play.

In the view of Hu Hengyi, vice president of Jingtang Culture, the "celebrity effect" of the e-commerce live broadcast industry is gradually weakening. "At the beginning, everyone was in a sense of freshness, and they were still willing to step into the live broadcast room and pay for it, but now users are gradually 'disenchanting' the celebrity live broadcast room, and the celebrity effect brings less and less bonus to the sales conversion of the live broadcast room."

Zhao Zhenying, a researcher at the National Engineering Laboratory for E-commerce Transaction Technology, believes that this Messi live broadcast is actually a good opportunity for Yuanwang Technology to play a brand. Many MCN institutions cannot leverage more platforms and anchor resources due to their limited influence, and with the help of Messi, a global big IP, can help Yaowang Technology quickly establish a brand reputation on the C-end. "With the accumulation of brand resources, MCN institutions can leverage resources and find more successful live broadcast rooms that can be replicated."

It is understood that Yaowang Technology is incubating more small and medium-sized anchors through clothing categories. In the second half of last year, the company cooperated with Hangzhou Linping Technology on a clothing project, summarizing the live broadcast experience of big anchors into a template and copying it to small and medium-sized anchors.

In Hu Hengyi's view, for MCN institutions, it is a relatively stable profit structure.

At present, whether it is the beauty wrist wants to use Li Jiaqi's IP to find the next "successor", or Yaowang Technology wants to support more amateur anchors to "ascend", it means that in the second half of the live broadcast e-commerce where the head anchors are gradually withdrawing, more and more small and medium-sized anchors need to support "half of the sky".

"After the formation of scale, the anti-risk ability of small and medium-sized anchors' live broadcast rooms will definitely be greater." Hu Hengyi said frankly that once MCN institutions can find ways to replicate small and medium-sized live broadcast rooms with relatively low cost on a large scale, the overall GMV will still be considerable. Removing the signing fees, commissions and sales sharing of celebrities can also play a role in reducing costs from the cost point of view.

Zhao Zhenying also said that the traffic of celebrity IP is only temporary after all, and whether the traffic can be retained and converted into his own brand equity is a more important thing.

- END -

Text | Qiao Xinyi

Editor|Kong Yaoyao

Image source|Live screenshot, remote view science and technology official micro, Cecilia Cheung live broadcast screenshot