A large-scale infighting

Author | Liu Baodan

Edit | Zhang Xiaoling

A company that has been founded for 30 years and has two listed platforms has been naked in front of the public for several days, behaving like a "grass platform team".

The contradiction between the editor of Oriental Selection, CEO Sun Dongxu and the popular anchor Dong Yuhui led to Dong continuing to stop broadcasting, fans escalating the scolding war, and the company's stock price plummeted.

The root cause of this infighting is that in the face of top KOL Dong Yuhui, Dongfang Selection still only treats him as an employee as before, and there is a psychological gap between the two sides, as well as misplaced identity and uneven distribution of benefits.

What Dongfang Selection needs to face up to is its approximate MCN nature, which is not deliberate by Yu Minhong, but just an accident, but the fact has come true, at present, except for Dong Yuhui, no one can support the brand of Dongfang Selection.

In the live broadcast e-commerce industry, super anchors such as Wei Ya, Li Jiaqi, Simba or Crazy Brother Yang are all roles with great voice in the company, and they are bosses or partners.

To a certain extent, Dong Yuhui represents the dream of a hard-working mortal, which should not only be bound by "beating workers".

Contradictions emerge

On December 6, the editor of Dongfang Selection revealed in the comment area of Douyin that every time a small essay is made, the anchor is in front of the camera, and behind it is the copywriting team and other friends.

Previously, Yu Minhong personally said that the small compositions were all written by Yuhui. The editor actually scolded him publicly.

6 days later, Sun Dongxu said in the live broadcast that Dong Yuhui's annual income is not only tens of millions, and this is only part of the income.

These remarks directly angered Dong Yuhui's fan group "mother-in-law", who went to the live broadcast room of the competitor Gaotu Jiapin to place orders one after another.

The capital market also moved, and the share price of Oriental Selection fell 7.13% on the 11th and 12.96% on the 13th.

In the early morning of the 13th, Dong Yuhui's signature on the social platform was found to have been changed from "used to be a teacher, now a salesperson" to "don't will, don't must, don't be solid, don't me". In recent days, he has not been live.

As a result, the infighting in the Oriental selection has become a public topic. Although Yu Minhong and Sun Dongxu came out to apologize on the 14th, the incident did not subside.

The small essay incident is essentially a realistic exercise for the selection of Dongfang to de-dong. In fact, after Dong Yuhui became popular in June last year, Dongfang Selection has always wanted to downplay his role and cultivate more anchors.

At the beginning of the year, the hot Dong Yuhui took a 12-day long vacation. After coming back, he moved to the semicolon of "Oriental Selection to See the World", and many products removed Dong Yuhui's recommendation label, and he was deliberately marginalized.

In September, more than 2,000 sliced videos of Dong Yuhui popped up on Douyin, and fans questioned the company's consumption of Dong Yuhui's credit, which finally ended with Yu Minhong's apology.

In fact, since the start of live broadcasting, Dongfang Selection has been cultivating many anchors, but only Dong Yuhui has become popular. Now there are more and more new anchors in the Dongfang Selection live broadcast room, but none of them can be remembered like Dong Yuhui.

At present, the incident is still fermenting, in addition to apologizing, Dongfang Selection has not yet given a result of the handling of the small composition incident, and Dongfang Selection has not further explained Dong Yuhui's stay or stay.

According to the latest preview of Dongfang Selection, Dong Yuhui's name is not included in the live broadcast arrangement from the 15th to the 17th.

Dong Yuhui's popularity is a miracle. More than a year ago, Dong Yuhui selected Douyin live broadcast in Dongfang to bring goods, and with his fluent English and handy sentences, he quickly got out of the circle and became a new Internet celebrity with goods.

At that time, Oriental Selection was still called New Oriental Online, which was the main body of New Oriental's online education business, and its development entered a difficult situation due to the impact of double reduction. After Dong Yuhui became popular, Dongfang Selection became popular and successfully transformed into an e-commerce company.

In fiscal year 2023, relying on live streaming, Dongfang Selection's total revenue and profit hit a record high, with a revenue growth rate of 401.9% and a net profit of 970 million yuan, successfully turning losses into profits.

Holding Dong Yuhui's trump card, Yu Minhong should have given more room to play, which was out of the need for performance growth and a bargaining chip for future development, however, a series of simple and crude de-directors caused an open crisis.

Go and stay puzzled

The root cause of the internal strife in Dongfang Selection lies in the transformation of the identities and relationships of Yu Minhong, Sun Dongxu and Dong Yuhui, as well as the imbalance in the distribution of interests between the platform and the anchor.

It's not just about money, it's also about fairness and recognition.

A few years ago, Dong Yuhui was just a teacher at New Oriental, and the first to join was Xi'an New Oriental, which was no different from other training teachers.

However, in more than a year, Dong Yuhui has become a super anchor with more than 15 million fans on Douyin alone, forming his own personal IP, and only Li Jiaqi, Simba and others can compete with him on the whole network, which is an undoubted fact.

As a live broadcast e-commerce platform, Dongfang Selection is passively turning into an MCN agency, similar to Mei ONE, Make a Friend, Qianxun, etc.

At present, the most valuable and value-creating asset of this institution is Dong Yuhui. His stay can affect the performance of Dongfang Selection, as well as the stock price and market value.

However, Yu Minhong does not seem to recognize this reality. He still regards Dong Yuhui as an employee, but a high-paid employee. In addition to the salary increase, Dong Yuhui's current position in Dongfang is only one of the anchors, and his identity is still an employee. Yin Qiang, CFO of Dongfang Selection, once said, "We are not an MCN company and do not give anchors shares. ”

There is a detail that can reflect Dong Yuhui's status internally, at the 30th anniversary celebration of New Oriental, Dong Yuhui was nestled in the corner with the cast and crew, without seats.

In the eyes of the outside world, Dong Yuhui did not get the respect he deserved within the company. "If you were any other person, you would be disappointed," said an e-commerce practitioner.

The small composition incident is a reminder that Dong Yuhui has a strong appeal, and de-Donghua can only cause greater risks. As of 22 o'clock in the evening of December 14, the number of fans in the Dongfang Selection Douyin live broadcast room was 30.67 million, down 500,000 in five days.

On the 14th, Dong Yuhui's Douyin account increased by 187,000 fans in just one day, and as of 20 o'clock on the evening of the 15th, it had exceeded 15 million.

The revenge of fans also brought the opponent of Dongfang Selection, Gaotu, to the highlight moment, as of noon on December 15, the number of fans of Gaotu Jiapin Douyin exceeded 1.28 million. On December 14, Eastern time, Gaotu stock price rose 29%.

When anchors with huge traffic become core assets, this will inevitably break the original pattern of interests, and whether the company can adapt and change is also the key to greater development.

Previously, Li Ziqi and the MCN agency behind it, Wei Nian, finally faced Bo Gongtang, and Li Ziqi has not yet made a comeback;

At present, the live broadcast e-commerce outlet is gradually fading, and the probability of giving birth to a super anchor is very small, and it is even more difficult for Dongfang Selection to cultivate another Dong Yuhui.

At present, Dong Yuhui contributes about 50% to the live broadcast of Oriental Selection, and for Yu Minhong, it seems obvious how to choose between the supply chain operation of the company represented by Sun Dongxu and Dong Yuhui.

After all, a platform without traffic can't talk about anything else.

If you want to retain Dong Yuhui, Yu Minhong must show real sincerity and re-examine the relationship between the two and the distribution of interests, and Dong Yuhui should also consider the opportunities and risks after flying solo, for them, it requires great wisdom.

The complex emotional entanglement and unwillingness in this lies in the fact that the former bosses, CEOs and the subordinates they recruited and cared for are now about to reset their right to speak.

In June last year, Dong Yuhui became popular, and Dongfang Selection turned over, Yu Minhong sent a WeChat message to Dong Yuhui to thank him, "Win glory for New Oriental".

At the beginning of this year, when the round of going to Donghua was frequently reported, Sun Dongxu once said, "Even if you go to Xiaosun, you won't go to Dong Yuhui."

Now, it's time to be honest.

This article is from Wall Street News, welcome to download the APP to see more