Dongfang selection is infighting, and Dong Yuhui is in danger

A fire broke out in the backyard of Dongfang Selection, Dong Yuhui was "backstabbed" by the behind-the-scenes team, and the internal contradictions were suspected to be public.

The reason is that under the video of "Trip to Jilin", Dongfang Selection pinned the answer comment of "Who is the promotional copywriter", saying that most of the classic essays are created by the copywriting team, and not all of them are from the anchor.

This reply sparked strong dissatisfaction among Dong Yuhui's fans. They questioned one after another, why did they deny Dong Yuhui's contribution to Dongfang Selection?

In order to calm the crisis, Sun Dongxu, CEO of Oriental Selection, responded. However, the sentence "The company recognizes Dong Yuhui's contributions, there is no indebtedness in treatment, and his annual salary is more than tens of millions of dollars on the Internet", instead of extinguishing the anger, it made netizens taste the taste of unloading the mill and killing the donkey, crossing the river and demolishing the bridge, which added fuel to the fire.

In this "small composition" crisis, in just a few days, Dongfang Selection lost 120,000 fans, the company's stock price plummeted, and the market value evaporated more than 4 billion Hong Kong dollars. Not only that, those fans who besieged Dongfang Selection poured into the live broadcast room of Gaotu Jiapin in large numbers, bringing the wealth of splashing sky to competitors.

Dongfang Selection needs to downplay Dong Yuhui's personal influence, but Dong Yuhui's fans, how can they give up? An action to "defend Dong Yuhui" kicked off.

01, a small composition storm

In the middle of last year, Dong Yuhui became popular on the Internet, and his eloquent style, strong bookishness, and unique mode of teaching knowledge while bringing goods have become a clear stream in the field of live broadcasting. In less than 20 days, Dongfang selected fans to exceed 20 million, with sales of more than 600 million yuan.

Until today, when it comes to Dongfang Selection, a star company that has transformed from the education and training industry to live broadcast goods, people will first think of Dong Yuhui. His personal influence even overshadowed Yu Minhong, the founder of New Oriental.

Yu Minhong said, "Dongfang has been selected, but fortunately there is a Dong Yuhui." The successful transformation of New Oriental is, of course, inseparable from Dong Yuhui's personal charm.

Although there are now more than 30 anchors under Dongfang Selection, most of its sales performance is contributed by Dong Yuhui.

At the beginning of this year, Dong Yuhui took a few days off, and the rumors of "flying solo" once made a fuss. And the data shows that without Dong Yuhui's Oriental Selection, the average daily live broadcast sales in those days fell directly from more than 20 million to 10 million.

Nowadays, many consumers go to the Dongfang Selection live broadcast room to place orders, just to Dong Yuhui. In their eyes, Dongfang Selection is not like a large enterprise, but more like a highly personalized IP product.

Different from the cold transaction in the traditional e-commerce era, in Dong Yuhui's live broadcast room, buyers and sellers have established a deep emotional link.

Fans buy not only products, but also emotional values, and consumers are not only consumers, but also loyal fans of anchors. Dong Yuhui's personal influence overflowed, giving live streaming a more distinct attribute of the idol economy.

When Simba angrily scolded Dongfang Selection, brainwashed fans to make huge profits under the banner of helping farmers, and bought corn for 6 yuan a piece, fans were still willing to place orders to support and pay for the premium of Dongfang Selection, which is the value of feelings.

As the pillar of Dongfang Selection, Dong Yuhui and the high stickiness of fans have opened up sales channels for Dongfang Selection. Not only that, but fans will also take the initiative to maintain the reputation of their idols.

After Dong Yuhui became popular, Internet celebrity scholar Chu Yin once said that Dong Yuhui was at the level of "Reader's Digest in the 90s", and he stabbed the hornet's nest all of a sudden, and was subjected to cyberbullying by Dong Yuhui's fans, and finally the turmoil ended with Chu Yin's apology.

This time he was caught in the "small composition" incident, Dong Yuhui came forward to respond, saying that he opposes the fan circle culture and also opposes stigmatizing anyone in the name of "fan circle".

But it is an indisputable fact that the fan circle culture that Dong Yuhui opposes is an important force that has made him and Dongfang Selection.

The firepower of those fans crusading against Dongfang Selection is no less than that of some fans of celebrities and artists - in order to express their support for Dong Yuhui, they were about to capture the comment area of Dongfang Selection and the comment area of friends and businessmen.

Before live e-commerce became popular, I am afraid it is difficult for anyone to imagine that people would maintain a person who sells goods to themselves in this way.

02, go to Dong Yuhuihua

It doesn't matter who wrote those small essays with frequent golden sentences.

The stable triangular structure between Dongfang Selection, Dong Yuhui and a large number of fans is broken, and the internal contradictions become public, which is actually a matter of time.

The behind-the-scenes operation of the Oriental Selection account, saying that the "small composition" was created by the team rather than Dong Yuhui and other anchors, in order to solicit credit from the majority of fans, it angered Dong Yuhui's fans, and a core issue behind this contradiction is:

Is Dongfang Selection a listed company of a certain scale, or is it a personalized company? In order to make its operation more stable and safe, to what extent does it want to dilute Dong Yuhui's personal influence?

In the star-making model of heaping capital, all the traffic is concentrated on the anchors who appear at the front desk, over-reliance on the head anchors, and personal IP overshadows the brand value of the enterprise, which may be a headache for many enterprises in the live broadcast e-commerce industry.

The head anchor has a large traffic and high exposure, which can contribute a huge result of bringing goods, but it is highly dependent on a single anchor, and the risk will continue to magnify. The anchor is blocked for saying the wrong thing, and being poached by competitors with high salaries will bring fluctuations to the company's operation, and even make the company fall directly.

Needless to say, Li Ziqi's story is needless to say. Those well-known anchors, the companies or MCN organizations behind them, in order to maintain long-term stable development, are almost trying to weaken the influence of the top anchors.

For example, Li Jiaqi, the "first brother with goods", is also gradually reducing the duration of the live broadcast after encountering many turmoil, and Wei Ya, the former "first sister with goods" who was fined for tax evasion, has long transformed behind the scenes and gave more opportunities to show her face to other new anchors in Qianxun.

The cooperation between Luo Yonghao and "Make a Friend" will gradually reduce the number of live broadcasts in the later part of 2020, laying the foundation for "Make a Friend" to strip Luo Yonghao.

And Crazy Brother Yang's banner has already signed and incubated a number of artists, so even though it is like its anchor "Yellow of Traffic Light", he was banned from the live broadcast room because of vulgar and bad taste, it does not affect the performance fundamentals.

In fact, in order to disperse traffic, form a diversified ecology, and reduce the risk of putting eggs in one basket, Dongfang Selection has been trying to "de-Dong Yuhui" in addition to switching from Douyin to Taobao and building its own APP.

For example, at the beginning of this year, in the "Oriental Selection Book Number" in the live broadcast room under the name of Oriental Selection, the personal label about "Yuhui Push" was removed, and the image of Dong Yuhui, the "square-faced teacher" on the packaging of Oriental Selection's own brand steak, was also missing......

03, the paradox of defending Dong Yuhui

Without Dong Yuhui, there would be no Oriental Selection, but only Dong Yuhui's Oriental Selection is very fragile. What Yu Minhong wants is that after leaving Dong Yuhui, Dongfang Selection can also run, so he wants to dilute Dong Yuhui's personal influence.

After all, it is not a private company, but a listed company that needs to be accountable to investors, and needs to have a more diversified growth path to tell a story in the capital market.

And according to the financial report, as of May 31, 2023, the number of Dongfang's selected overall self-operated products and live broadcast team has reached 1,103 people. Behind Dong Yuhui, there are thousands of behind-the-scenes staff, and their efforts also hope to be recognized.

Therefore, it is difficult to say whether the "small composition" crisis this time is as CEO Sun Dongxu said, but the editor's team "works with emotions and communicates inappropriately", or whether it is a public opinion stress test of "de-Dong Yuhui" that Dongfang Selection took the initiative to do.

In other words, it doesn't want to coax those "mothers-in-law" anymore. It's just that the high stickiness and loyalty of Dong Yuhui's fans made Dongfang Selection encounter an unexpected traffic backlash.

In the eyes of fans, it was Dong Yuhui, not the CEO Sun Dongxu who "held a meeting" to reprimand netizens, the veteran who participated in the online listing of New Oriental, the great changes in the education and training industry, and the transformation of Oriental selection, who saved New Oriental.

Then, "de-Dong Yuhui" is tantamount to denying Dong Yuhui's value, and it is an immoral way to cross the river and tear down the bridge. And the clumsy public relations response of exposing Dong Yuhui's salary and educating netizens in disguise directly added fuel to the fire.

However, "defending Dong Yuhui" may be a paradox.

When fans try too hard to defend Dong Yuhui and go to Dongfang to select the palace, the management of Dongfang Selection may be more vigilant to realize the urgency and necessity of downplaying Dong Yuhui's personal influence.

The most embarrassing thing now may be Dong Yuhui. His situation is no less than being roasted on a fire - there is no meaning of "yellow robe", but in the hearts of fans, he is irreplaceable and even highly accomplished, and this is exactly the situation that the listed company Dongfang Selection is worried about.

Dongfang Selection and Dong Yuhui were originally mutual achievements, and even without Dong Yuhui, it would be difficult to have the successful transformation of Dongfang Selection. Now the hot search of "Oriental Selection Infighting" has made this intimate relationship a mess, which is really regrettable.

How will this tug-of-war between "de-Dong Yuhui" and "defending Dong Yuhui" continue? Will Dong Yuhui leave the East for selection in the future? Perhaps time will give us the answer.

And although many fans don't want to see it, a fact that must be faced is that when fans crusade against enterprises like a fan circle, Dong Yuhui, who is difficult to ride a tiger, will become more and more passive and closer to danger.