Looking back on 2023, dividends have faded, cost reduction and efficiency increase have become the consensus of more and more brands, compared with the "easy" to find big anchors to bring goods a few years ago, brands have to step out of their comfort zone, or engage in content, or start a money-throwing mode, or explore new platforms and new ways to play, looking forward to truly accumulating their own corporate digital content assets.
After many attempts, some people frantically placed orders for the "three little old men" of Vitality 28, some people frequently praised the hormone live broadcast of the coconut tree, and some people began to rethink the brand's marketing actions because of the 79 yuan eyebrow pencil incident......
The editorial department of Xinbang has taken stock of the 8 most representative brand live broadcast cases in 2023, hoping to use these successful or failed experiences to sort out the opportunities and difficulties of brand live broadcast.
For more impressive brand live broadcast cases in the past year, please add them in the comment area.
Vitality 28, a super dark horse that detonates the goodwill of domestic products
If you want to select the brand dark horse in 2023, Vitality 28 must be on the list.
In September 2023, starting with the 79 yuan eyebrow pencil incident, Hongxing Erke, Bee Flower, Meticulous and others set off a domestic business war with a number of domestic brands, among them, the official Douyin account of the cleaning brand Vitality 28 "Vitality 28 Clothing Cleaning Flagship Store" has increased by more than 4.5 million fans in 1 month, bringing more than 50 million yuan, and the current number of fans is 7.21 million.
Vitality 28 was originally a 70-year-old brand in bankruptcy crisis, and the "Vitality 28 Clothing Cleaning Flagship Store" did not have many fans at first, but during the domestic business war, the "three little old men" who stumbled in the production plant to introduce their own products inexplicably hit the hearts of many netizens.
There is no skillfulness of "123, on the link", but it is clumsy that even forgets to close the live broadcast room; there is no exquisite live broadcast room set, there are just busy workers in the factory and machines rotating on the axis...... But in the eyes of more than 7 million netizens, these may not be professional and lofty, but they are the best portrayal of sincere and simple domestic products.
Looking back at the outbreak of the domestic business war, the 79 yuan eyebrow pencil incident may be just an accident, but consumers' dissatisfaction with the excessive marketing, insufficient quality, and high prices of some brands is real. At this time, the domestic brand of "a little poor, a little stupid, and not expensive" has become the best reference.
The popularity of Vitality 28 lies in the fact that it perfectly undertakes the dissatisfaction of netizens with some brands and their best wishes for domestic brands in a just right and vivid way.
The popularity of Vitality 28 may not be replicated, but the experience of various brands in the domestic business war can be used as a reference.
First, enough empathy. From the 79 yuan package on the shelves to the anchors' collective performance of washing their hair, to the mutual recommendation of major brands, although the actions are different, they are essentially to let netizens have a good impression of domestic products and form emotional resonance with netizens.
Although there is still an objective gap between many domestic brands and foreign brands from products to marketing, many netizens are still willing to give more tolerance to domestic products. This is an extremely large force, and whether it can empathize with netizens determines whether the brand can mobilize this force.
Second, quick response and execution. The fleeting nature of hot spots is a major feature of the live streaming e-commerce industry. In the domestic business war, most of the brands that have received the biggest dividends are those who respond quickly and implement in place.
Taking Yu Meijing as an example, the hot spot broke out on September 11, and a Douyin account was registered overnight on September 13, and it premiered on September 14, and the follow-up also brought Chairman Yu Meijing to dance live. In the brand industry, this is an excellent response and execution.
On the whole, with the changes in the external economic situation, with the domestic business war as the node, the brand marketing strategy is undergoing new changes: from high-concept to down-to-earth, from consumption upgrade to consumption downgrade, from international style to domestic flavor.
In 2024, how to tap user goodwill will still be an important issue for domestic brands.
Hua Xizi, and netizens are fighting against the dry seeds
If the domestic business war represents a new brand opportunity, Huaxizi in the 79 yuan eyebrow pencil incident is a typical example of avoiding pitfalls.
In September 2023, the 79 yuan eyebrow pencil incident broke out, but if it weren't for that open letter, the silent Hua Xizi might not have had a wider public relations crisis later.
Source: Weibo user "NewTaipu classmates"
Because of the wording in the open letter, Hua Xizi, who was complained about on a wider scale, was on the hot search. Since then, whether it is sending eyebrow pencils in the live broadcast room or "going crazy" online on Weibo, or forcefully outputting brand vision and explaining price questions, it has failed to alleviate Huaxizi's bad situation.
Many netizens began to take a magnifying glass to examine Huaxizi: some compared the price of a single gram of eyebrow pencils of Huaxizi and many international brands, and extended hot search words such as #Three catties of Huaxizi can buy a suite#;
According to the statistics of Xindou, a Douyin data tool under Xinbang, at the peak of public opinion, the single-day GMV of Huaxizi's official Douyin live broadcast room "Huaxizi Official Flagship Store" dropped significantly: it is estimated to bring 1 million to 2.5 million on September 10, and 75,000 to 100,000 yuan on September 11.
Source: New Shake
Huaxizi, which has grown into a leading domestic beauty brand in just a few years, has stepped on a big hole in 2023. During the Double 11 in 2023, Huaxizi fell out of the top 20 on the Tmall Double 11 makeup pre-sale list, while in 2022, Huaxizi ranked 4th.
In the era of social media, as brands and consumers are infinitely closer, user sentiment has become a huge force that can make or break a brand.
In the Huaxizi incident, although there are also many opinions such as "can domestic products only be low-priced" and "domestic products should not hurt each other", they are too weak in the trend of condemning Huaxizi.
Don't go against the user's emotions, and at the same time use this power carefully, which may be the biggest lesson left by Huaxizi. In 2024, restraining the desire of brands to express themselves and being cautious of public sentiment will be an important topic for brand public relations.
Gree, a failed case of brand talent incubation
Once, with the title of "the next Dong Mingzhu" hand-picked by Dong Mingzhu, Dong Mingzhu's assistants Meng Yutong and Gree won a lot of hot searches. At that time, many industry insiders speculated that Meng Yutong was a new attempt for Gree to incubate brand experts and bring goods to the brand. Until May 2023, Meng Yutong announced his departure from Gree, which also means that Gree's talent incubation plan has temporarily failed.
After losing Meng Yutong, Gree quickly renamed the Douyin account "Pearl Yutong Selection" to "Pearl Gree Selection", and the avatar was also changed to Dong Mingzhu's avatar.
According to the statistics of Xindou data, at present, Gree has formed a live broadcast pattern on Douyin with "Gree Pearl Selection" as the main account and 70 verified accounts as the matrix. Among them, "Pearl Gree Selection" has brought a total of 25 million to 50 million yuan in the past 90 days.
After leaving Gree, Meng Yutong focused more on his Internet celebrity career, sharing his experience as the "secretary of the president of the top 500", and currently has 2.14 million Douyin fans and 1.33 million Xiaohongshu fans.
According to Xinhong's Xiaohongshu data tool Xinhong, a subsidiary of Xinbang, Meng Yutong's Xiaohongshu account "Meng Yutong Morita" quoted 240,000 yuan for graphic notes and 260,000 yuan for video notes.
Previously, Meng Yutong revealed that his salary in Gree was the same as that of fresh college students, "basically in the range of 5,000 to 10,000 yuan". If you roughly calculate according to this statement, Meng Yutong only needs to receive a business order in Xiaohongshu, and his income can exceed that of working in Gree for 2 years.
It seems that each has its own gains, but in fact, Gree and Meng Yutong have been subject to a lot of controversy.
In the era of live broadcast e-commerce, more humane and flexible personal IP has unique conditions, and in addition to brand store broadcasting, personal IP has always been a very important direction to try.
Of course, the boss is the best solution to go into battle in person, such as Lei Jun, Yu Minhong, and Liang Jianzhang, who are very active on social media. In addition, Want Want, Hollyland, Xtep, Jieliya, etc. have also sent their own "brand heirs", but limited to energy, hobbies, talents, bosses, "brand heirs", only suitable for a small number of brands, incubating their own personal IP is a more sustainable direction.
We can't conclude that brands must not be able to incubate and retain their own personal IP, but the experience of Gree and Meng Yutong probably gives a wrong example.
Putting aside the moral accusations, the core reason for Gree and Meng Yutong's "breakup" lies in the misalignment of cognition between the two parties: Gree regards Meng Yutong as an employee he has cultivated and can be paid a dead salary, but Meng Yutong hopes to become an Internet celebrity with personal account assets.
In 2024, no matter whether there will be new success stories in the incubation of brand talents, this will always be a necessary direction to try.
Mu Jiangnan, the pioneer of live broadcast of the video number brand
From the Royal Mudfang and Three Squirrels, which started on Taobao, to Shi Peisi, Reload, who relied on Douyin to complete performance growth, and then to the large-mouthed crocodile and Dora Duoshang who relied on Kuaishou to achieve brand growth, it has been repeatedly proved that becoming an "X brand" by taking advantage of platform dividends is a proven brand path.
Now, as various platforms enter a stable period, the video account, known as the "hope of the whole factory", has become a key platform for countless brands to find new increments, hoping to become the next "visual brand".
In March 2021, the offline clothing brand Mujiangnan entered the video account and quickly established a business model based on talent distribution. It is understood that Mu Jiangnan has reached long-term strategic cooperation with hundreds of video number talents. In 2022, Mu Jiangnan's cumulative GMV on the video account will exceed 100 million yuan, and the cumulative GMV will be nearly 300 million yuan in 2023.
As we said in the article "It's Time for Channels to Talk About Money Out Loud", although there were problems in the early days of Channels such as imperfect infrastructure, inaccurate traffic, difficult to grasp methods, and aging users, based on WeChat's huge traffic, as well as the characteristics of high customer orders, high repurchases, high stickiness, and low returns, Channels still allowed many brands to dig dividends.
Among them, 40+ women are currently the most consuming and existential user groups of the video account, not only running out of brands such as Mu Jiangnan and Langzi, but also holding out head video account experts such as "Fashion Matchmaker Qiao Sect Master".
Zhou Dashuai, the founder of Mujiangnan, believes that users aged 50-55 are the most powerful user groups of Channels, and the core users of Channels are mainly post-60s and post-70s, supplemented by post-80s, basically over 35 years old. "Mu Jiangnan started by selling silk scarves, which is very compatible with video users. ”
"The last traffic depression of the Chinese Internet", this is probably one of the most widely circulated descriptions of the video number. Recently, it was revealed that the total transaction volume (GMV) of Channels e-commerce in 2023 will be about 100 billion yuan, and Tencent will further expand the Channels e-commerce team.
With the increase in Tencent's investment in related resources, 2024 will also become a year of acceleration and involution for Channels.
On January 23-24, Zhou Dashuai, the founder of Mujiangnan, will share as a guest at the 2024 New List Conference, welcome to come and communicate. Click "Read More" at the end of this article to learn more.
Zara, a new player in high-end live streaming
On November 17, 2023, the international clothing giant Zara conducted a costly live show-style live broadcast on Douyin, which once again sparked a discussion in the industry about the value of live broadcasting.
Users can not only see Zara's interpretation and explanation of a variety of Zara's new autumn and winter products in the form of a catwalk, but also see the models change their makeup and the photographer follows these off-camera scenes, which is full of immersion.
In addition, in order to increase the professionalism of the live broadcast, more than 9 cameras were set up for this live broadcast, using professional equipment such as Steadicam, vertical and horizontal slides, movie machines, and broadcast stations, and the cost may be less than the rumored million, but it will not be too little, and it is a veritable live broadcast of money ability.
The live broadcast around Zara has sparked a lot of discussion in the industry.
Some people say that this is a live broadcast with topics but no sales, and it costs money and effort. According to the statistics of Xindou data, "ZARA" is estimated to bring between 250,000 and 500,000 yuan on the same day, and the cumulative number of live viewers is 1.21 million. Compared with other brand live broadcasts that break 100 million at every turn, this achievement is not amazing.
Some people say that this is a high-end live broadcast that can greatly enhance the tonality of the brand, and it is another benchmark after the live broadcast of Oriental Selection Culture. Indeed, compared with the popular hawking live broadcast in the industry, Zara's live broadcast greatly improves the user's viewing experience and has a high-end texture, which is especially important for fashion clothing brands.
It is true that Zara's live broadcast has not achieved amazing results in bringing goods, but brands have too much experience to learn from in this regard, but in terms of exploring more content possibilities, the live broadcast e-commerce industry still lacks enough successful cases. Even now, there are only a few cases such as Herborist's palace live broadcast, Luckin's male college student catwalk, and Coconut Tree's hormone live broadcast.
In the past year, many clothing brands have tried live show-style live broadcasts, some in the studio, some in stone caves, and Zara live broadcast is more like the ultimate presentation of this trend. This may also represent a certain collective subconscious of the brand: live streaming can not only serve sales, but also make a difference in brand value building.
The lessons of blood and tears of countless brands have proven that sales alone cannot support a brand. Zara's Live Show may not be the right direction, but it is a necessary attempt for brands to explore more value from live streaming.
In 2024, brands are bound to experiment more with live content.
Fila, Taobao store broadcast the first brand to break 100 million
With the acceleration of Taobao's content-based strategy, Taobao Live has also undergone many changes in 2023.
In 2023, Taobao will not only strengthen the brand's private domain operation capabilities through the "integration of accounts and stores" and the opening of membership operation functions for all merchants, but also successively introduce top institutions such as Dongfang Selection. According to statistics, in 2023, Taobao Live will attract more than 500,000 new online celebrity anchors from various platforms to take root in Taobao.
During the Double 11 in 2023, the sportswear brand FILA bet heavily on Taobao store broadcast, not only opening the "sun never sets" mode for 25 hours of continuous broadcasting, but also inviting a number of celebrities to stay on the site to create a content-based live broadcast room, and finally the transaction volume exceeded 100 million yuan in 4 hours before the pre-sale of Double 11, breaking the industry record.
More than 10 million fans are an important foundation for FILA's store broadcast results
In recent years, many brands have set their sights on emerging platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou, but as industry dividends fade, content platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou have made great efforts to do shelf e-commerce, Taobao has engaged in content, and several mainstream platforms have formed a certain balance. At this time, some brands began to rethink the value of Taobao.
As we said in the article "Dabo and Store Broadcast Double Outbreak, Taobao Begins to Walk on Two Legs", Taobao's consumption mentality accumulated over the years has made many brands believe that "Taobao Tmall is the end of the brand", Taobao's unique store-centered merchant management system, as well as the traffic increase brought by Taobao's content, so that Taobao storecast still has considerable dividends to be tapped.
According to official data, during the Double 11 period, more than 402 brands on Taobao had transactions exceeding 100 million yuan, and the transactions of 38,000 brands increased by more than 100% year-on-year.
Li Xuanzhuo, a leading wine anchor, believes that several mainstream platforms have formed their own characteristics: "Taobao is like a national chain of specialty stores, Kuaishou is like a shop for locals in a third- or fourth-tier small city, and Douyin is like an Internet celebrity store in a tourist attraction." ”
In the second half of live e-commerce, learning from each other and accelerating make-up lessons between platforms is the core, and in the process Xi of platform evolution, some dividends are bound to be released. If the previous brand was betting on a single platform to eat dividends, the next step is a multi-platform layout, looking for dividends in the gap between platforms.
2024 is a year of fierce competition on the platform, and it is also a year for the rollout of multi-platform brand live broadcasts.
Coconut tree, fired the first shot of macho marketing
In the past, many people thought that the advantage of talent was traffic and content, and the advantage of the brand was goods and management, and the mystery of live broadcast e-commerce was to combine the two and take what they needed, but as the industry became more and more involuted, Simba and Crazy Xiaoyang brothers have built their own supply chains, and more and more brands have begun to learn to build their own content and create their own traffic.
is different from the 2022 deep "rubbing" question, in 2023, Coconut Tree's live broadcast will change from dancing with beautiful women to dancing with macho men, and finally not only achieved a word-of-mouth counterattack and gained a large number of fans, but its anchors "KK God of War", "Huanhuan Sweet" and "Qizi" have also become well-known Internet celebrities.
Clip from the coconut tree live broadcast room
In addition, "questioning the coconut tree, understanding the coconut tree, becoming the coconut tree, and surpassing the coconut tree" has also become the "marketing bible" of many brands.
Represented by coconut trees, brands are becoming more and more playful, and they are also beginning to get traffic that does not lose to talents.
In the live streaming e-commerce industry, brands are usually the "lagging behind" side, because individual heroism is prevalent in this industry, and the most capable talents often choose to go it alone. To a certain extent, brand store broadcasts rely on goods and money, and most brands still have a big gap with talent anchors in terms of content, creativity, and traffic.
However, as the industry becomes more and more involuted, the brand will sooner or later become a "hexagonal warrior", and the improvement of the industry's talent base provides soil for the evolution of the brand.
The most typical example of this is the official account of China Post Hong Kong Douyin "China Post Hong Kong Official Account". Under the control of the professional team, the "China Post Hong Kong Official Account" can not only rub on the "Everywhere Mess" that only young people can understand, but also play the Hong Kong style card, and shoot short video content that does not lose to the talent, and is even professional enough to help the talent shoot a video in turn.
In terms of bringing goods, unlike other accounts' "123, on the link", "China Post Hong Kong Official Account" half brings goods and half sings, and the live broadcast is also differentiated. According to the statistics of Xindou data, the "official account of China Post Hong Kong" has brought 5 million to 7.5 million yuan of goods in the past 30 days.
The results of the "China Post Hong Kong Official Account" may not be impressive enough, but it proves that with the blessing of professional talents, the content power and delivery power of the brand account are not inferior to the talents, and the single digit number of video likes is not the only solution for the brand account.
In fact, the explosion of coconut tree live broadcast also comes from a young professional team. It is understood that the person in charge of the live broadcast behind the coconut tree is a post-90s girl, and there are only twenty or thirty people in the trading company, who are specially gathered for the live broadcast of the coconut tree.
In the future, whoever can attract professionals to join faster, and who can adapt to the fast-paced and creative brand live broadcast as soon as possible will be one step ahead.
2024 may be the year when brands accelerate the upgrade of their live broadcast teams.
Hongxing Erke, a brand live broadcast of "gradually making smaller".
When some brands want to make the live broadcast bigger and love to cooperate with the head anchor and make the store broadcast big, another part of the brand begins to make the live broadcast smaller, with the help of a huge number of matrix numbers and KOCs, to achieve the growth of ants.
On the one hand, with the maturity of the business model of each platform and the improvement of the talent base, more and more brands choose to layout the matrix number.
Taking Hongxing Erke as an example, after the explosion in 2021, in order to undertake the flow of wild consumption, Hongxing Erke accelerated the layout of matrix accounts. As of press time, Hongxing Erke has at least 74 blue V accounts on Douyin, including 1 account with 10 million fans and 4 million fans. In addition, Wu Rongxi, chairman of Hongxing Erke, has 9.12 million followers on his Douyin account.
According to the statistics of Xindou data, the results of Hongxing Erke matrix "Hongxing Erke Sports Flagship Store" and "Hongxing Erke Sports Shoes and Apparel Flagship Store" in the past 30 days were 7 million to 10 million yuan and 2.5 million yuan to 5 million yuan, respectively, and the results of the two matrix accounts have been close to the main account "Hongxing Erke Official Flagship Store" in the past 30 days with goods of 10 million to 25 million yuan.
On the other hand, just like the rise of Taobao customers in the past, some brands have focused on KOC distribution.
In Douyin, KOC distribution has become a major contributor to the GMV of the daycare brand. According to the statistics of Xindou data, in the past 30 days, 11,900 live broadcasters have cooperated with plant protection, associated with 140,000 live broadcasts, and finally brought a total of 25 million to 50 million yuan.
Source: New Shake
In Kuaishou, the food brand Largemouth Crocodile has cooperated with more than 20,000 Kuaishou experts for a long time, which has made Largemouth Crocodile achieve an annual GMV of over 100 million in just one year after entering Kuaishou.
As we said in the article "Are 10,000 Influencers Worthy of 1 Crazy Brother Yang? Some Brands Rely on KOCs to Achieve Monthly Sales of Over 10 Million", relying on strong influencer organization capabilities, media execution capabilities, profit control capabilities, and material management capabilities, a number of brands have achieved performance growth by relying on the scale effect of massive KOCs.
From cooperating with big anchors to doing store broadcasts in person, and then to today's matrix accounts and KOC distribution, a relatively obvious trend is that the granularity of brand mining traffic is becoming more and more fine.
To a certain extent, matrix accounts and a large number of KOC influencers are not only tentacles for brands to get closer to more potential users, but also a necessary attempt for brands to resist uncertain risks.
Many brands have mentioned that compared with shelf e-commerce, one of the major disadvantages of live streaming e-commerce is the lack of stability, which does not meet the expectations of stable brand operation. Matrix accounts and KOC distribution are making brands have stronger operational flexibility through a distributed layout to cope with possible risks.
In 2024, more brands may change their strategy of grasping the big and letting go of the small, and make up for the live broadcast with small traffic.
epilogue
In fact, there will be many brand live broadcast cases in 2023, from the perspective of category and content, there are not only pure B-end businesses such as cement and coal to start broadcasting, but also a large number of brands to try AI digital humans.
If 2019-2022 is the bonus period for brand live broadcasting, 2023, when the infrastructure is basically perfect, is like the beginning of accelerated competition. In 2024, the competition intensity of brand live streaming is bound to reach a higher level, from multiple dimensions such as content, traffic, money, and platform.
In 2024, brands still have an uphill battle to fight.