Dong Yuhui, the "boss" is fierce

After "independence", at 19 o'clock on the evening of January 9, Dong Yuhui appeared in his exclusive live broadcast room "Walking with Hui". The first live broadcast took less than four hours, and the sales volume of the live broadcast room exceeded 150 million yuan. Before the broadcast, the account had less than 4 million followers, and near the end, the number of followers has exceeded 7 million.

On the evening of January 10, Dong Yuhui and his team conducted a live broadcast again, according to public data, the sales of this live broadcast exceeded 25 million yuan, and at the end, the number of fans was now close to 9 million.

With the large increase in sales and the number of fans, the development of "Walking with Hui" can be called "like a bamboo". This "farce" that developed from the "small composition" incident more than a month ago to the departure of the CEO and the suspension of the anchor seems to have come to an end.

In the live broadcast, Yu Minhong deliberately mentioned that "the company wants to give capable people the biggest platform for development", which sounds like a good thing for Dong Yuhui, a "worker", the opportunity is in front of him, and he has been seized. Dong Yuhui, who is the cultural assistant to the chairman of New Oriental, the vice president of New Oriental Cultural Tourism Group and the partner of Oriental Selection, has been compared with Li Jiaqi's status in ONE in the United States many times.

However, in the new live broadcast room, Dong Yuhui seems to be not much different from the way he brought goods in Dongfang Selection. It remains to be seen how far Dong Yuhui can develop his personal career, in fact, whether the Dongfang selection live broadcast room, which has been "de-Dong Yuhui", can still maintain its top position and whether it will fall behind in the future is also unknown.

Anchor Dong Yuhui, or boss Dong Yuhui?

At 19 o'clock in the evening of January 9th, a few days after the warm-up, "Walking with Hui", which has increased by more than 3 million fans, started broadcasting on time, and countless "mothers-in-law" stayed in front of the mobile phone and looked forward to Dong Yuhui, who had been "silent" for more than half a month, and 100,000 people were online at the same time as soon as the broadcast started.

After the live broadcast opened, Dong Yuhui led the team of seven anchors to perform a talent show, including a singing performance, a Chinese and English recitation, and a chorus of many songs, which made the atmosphere in the live broadcast room "high". Dong Yuhui in the live broadcast room seems to have demonstrated his management ability, "bringing people" instead of "bringing goods".

Dong Yuhui also emphasized in the live broadcast room that he wanted to use the opportunity of the premiere to let everyone remember every young person who "walked with Hui", they are as diligent, talented, and hard-working as they are, so they are full of hope;

Image source: "Walking with Hui" Douyin account

Subsequently, Dong Yuhui began to sell goods, but as soon as the director first started, he directly told him that "there is no stock". At the same time, the number of fans in the live broadcast room is still growing, with 1.77 million online people at the same time, and the cumulative number of likes exceeds 1.3 billion.

Internet observer Zhang Shule believes that in terms of Dong Yuhui and the team's live broadcast style, it is consistent with the previous selection in the East, but it is really good in terms of data effect, breaking a number of records, Dong Yuhui's "self-reliance" has strengthened a wave of personality, so that his fandom layer has expanded to another layer, and every fan who watches his live broadcast may feel "honored".

During the live broadcast, Dong Yuhui also responded to the news of "more than 500 million income" on the Internet. He teased: "My mother sent me a message and said, get the money quickly." In addition, Dong Yuhui himself seems to be more relaxed and open, often selling goods while joking, and has shown the ability to "take the lead".

In fact, the biggest change in this live broadcast is that Dong Yuhui's entire team began to "blatantly" "spoil fans". According to public media reports, an employee of Dongfang Selection revealed that the company once had to ensure the duration and number of live broadcasts of each anchor, and it was not allowed to mention the word "mother-in-law" in any official copy. But in the live broadcast room of "Walking with Hui", there is no taboo. Even Dong Yuhui himself mentioned the "mother-in-law", he understands fans and emphasizes the importance of fans.

Zhang Shule emphasized that for Internet celebrity anchors, it is inevitable to become a fan circle, which is the fan economy. In a sense, "Flying Solo" also allows Dongfang Selection's main account to go to the fan circle, so that the fan circle can land vertically in the exclusive live broadcast room, which can eliminate some hidden dangers for the subsequent development of Dong Yuhui and Dongfang Selection.

Photo/Visual China

Dong Yuhui, is the next Li Jiaqi?

On January 9, an hour after the start of the broadcast of "Walking with Hui", Yu Minhong appeared in the live broadcast room and communicated with Dong Yuhui in the live broadcast room. He mentioned, "Although there were some small turmoil before, I think the later result is better than no twists and turns, which makes Yuhui make his own platform ahead of schedule." Yu Minhong also said: "In fact, a year ago, I talked to Yuhui about the idea of making his own platform, but it has not been implemented, and this twist and turn has accelerated the progress of this matter." ”

In fact, the "small composition turmoil" more than a month ago brought a lot of tests to both Yu Minhong and Dong Yuhui. Dongfang Selection, which stood on the cusp of public opinion, has successively staged plots such as the dispute over the copyright of small compositions, the annual salary of Rashomon and the choice of executives. In the end, it ended with Sun Dongxu, who dropped his mobile phone in the live broadcast room, taking the initiative to admit his mistake and step down.

But that's not enough to calm the emotions of fans. During this period, Dong Yuhui's fans tacitly took the Guan Dongfang selection account, refused to place an order, and even went to the live broadcast rooms such as competing products Gaotu to buy wildly.

Under tremendous pressure, New Oriental quickly dealt with the relevant matters. On December 18, 2023, New Oriental Education Technology (Group) Co., Ltd. issued a notice to appoint Dong Yuhui as the cultural assistant to the chairman of New Oriental Education Technology Group and the vice president of New Oriental Cultural Tourism Group.

On December 26, 2023, Dong Yuhui's new account "Walking with Hui" was certified by the platform, and the authentication information is "Walking with Hui (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd." According to public information, Youhui Walk (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd. was established on December 22, 2023, with a registered capital of 10 million, and the legal representative is Dong Yuhui, which is 100% owned by Beijing New Oriental Xuncheng Network Technology Co., Ltd., and the legal representative of the latter is Sun Dongxu, which is 100% controlled by New Oriental Education Technology Group Co., Ltd.

Yu Minhong revealed in the live broadcast that the income generated by the account will be included in Dongfang Selection, but if Dong Yuhui leaves Dongfang Selection, the ownership of the account will belong to Dong Yuhui.

Previously, Luo Yonghao, who was upset with Dong Yuhui, had mentioned that it was relatively fair for Dong Yuhui to take at least half of the proceeds of Dongfang Selection, which was about billions. According to media reports, the valuation of personal IP in the industry is generally (GMV sales - cost) x 12 months x 100 months, and the current valuation of Dong Yuhui's IP in the market is about 1 billion US dollars.

Referring to the top Internet celebrities, they are basically self-supporting or becoming partners of the company, and Simba and Brother Xiaoyang are family businesses behind them and are the actual controllers of the company. Li Jiaqi became a shareholder in the cooperation with the United States ONE, shared a lot of interests, and established a number of joint ventures with the United States ONE.

Cui Lili, executive director of the Institute of E-commerce of Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, pointed out that the core of traffic logic lies in big IP, and in order to give full play to the commercial value of big IP, it must also be reflected in the benefit distribution mechanism, whether through equity or other means. If there is an irrational distribution of benefits, the cooperation is not sustainable.

Reporter: Meng Qian

Editor: Min Jie