On September 13 last year, 30,000 fans poured into the Douyin live broadcast room of the "Vitality 28 Clothing Cleaning Flagship Store", opening the "buy, buy, buy" mode, creating a "miracle" of 5 million yuan a day for this brand that almost disappeared.
Different from other handsome men and beautiful live broadcast rooms, the anchors in this live broadcast room are three uncles in their fifties and sixties, who are called "three old men of vitality" by netizens. In the past 8 months, they have joined hands with 8 million "cloud shareholders" to start an action to save old domestic brands and old foundries.
Just a few days ago, they ushered in the 8-month anniversary of live broadcasting, and held a special live broadcast on Douyin, launching the "8-month commemorative gift package" to give back to everyone's company.
Three uncles "anchors"
The live broadcast room is not big, and the three old men create "myths". In 8 months, they successfully revitalized the brand, kept the factory, kept the jobs of the old employees, and found a new way for the old domestic brand and the old foundry to be renewed in the live broadcast.
"Direct discharge from the intensive care unit"
For Vitality 28 and the foundry Chengdu Yizhong Detergent Co., Ltd., the first half of last year was a "darkest moment".
"At the beginning of last year, it was already very difficult (Hubei Vitality Group), Chengdu Yizhong was a large-scale layoff, and in June they (Hubei Vitality Group) announced its dissolution, and we continued to lay off employees, which was really difficult during that time." Hu Wenzhong, deputy general manager of Chengdu Yizhong Detergent Co., Ltd., recalled.
Vitality 28 was once a well-known old domestic brand, formerly known as Shashi Oleochemical Factory, which was founded in 1950. For a long time, Vitality 28 occupied more than 60% of the national washing market, reaching more than 70% at its peak. The outside world has labeled it as "the first enterprise to sponsor the CCTV Spring Festival Gala" and "the first national top 500 daily chemical enterprise".
In the tide of the times, Vitality 28 has gone through ups and downs, and gradually cannot keep up with the pace of the market. After receiving new investment in 2017, Vitality 28 fell into trouble again due to rapid expansion. At the same time, domestic and foreign brands developed rapidly, competing to occupy the market, and Vitality 28 gradually faded out of the public eye.
In 2022, Hubei Vitality Group Co., Ltd., an affiliate of Vitality 28, filed for bankruptcy liquidation. Who would have thought that this 40-year-old brand would go into decline in the year of confusion. The foundries of Vitality 28 have also been hit hard, and Chengdu Yizhong Detergent Company almost collapsed.
Hu Wenzhong in the factory building of Chengdu Italy
"If there is no change by the end of the year, Chengdu will not exist." Hu Wenzhong said. They have a deep affection for this old brand and rely on OEM to support hundreds of employees. They don't want to give up and try to find a way to save themselves. In July last year, Chengdu Yizhong obtained the authorization of Douyin e-commerce operation of Vitality 28 and began to try online sales.
In the first two months, although there was not much improvement, more than 100,000 products were sold every month. It wasn't until September 13 that they took a real turn for the better. On that day, the account was broadcast live on the production line as usual, but I didn't expect more than 2,000 people to suddenly pour in. The operation called Hu Wenzhong, and he realized that this might be a turning point, and immediately went to the factory to arrest the "strong man". But the workers on the production line are all working, so Wan Zhong, assistant to the general manager of Chengdu Yizhong, Shen Jun, director of product quality, and Wan Jie, warehouse manager, who are relatively "idle", walked into the live broadcast room.
The three uncles in the live broadcast
They are also the "glasses uncle", "bald uncle" and "handsome uncle" in the mouths of netizens. Unexpectedly, these three old men with zero live broadcast experience actually broke out of the world in the popular live broadcast rivers and lakes, with more than one million fans on the same day, 5 million yuan of products sold, and inventory emptied. Netizens were surprised by the tenacity of Vitality 28, and sighed "I used it when I was a child, and it is still there", "Cheap and easy to use conscience domestic products, we must revitalize it"......
Since then, there have been more and more people in the live broadcast room, and sales have also risen. For a long time, due to the inability to keep up with production capacity, the Douyin store of Vitality 28 has been out of stock. In the factory, Hu Wenzhong increased the number of personnel and production lines, and worked in shifts around the clock. Three months later, Hu Wenzhong opened the "Cloud Shareholders' Meeting" for the first time in the Douyin live broadcast room to report on the development. He said the "cloud shareholders" led them "straight out of the intensive care unit."
8 million "cloud shareholders" will never give up
"Cloud shareholder" is the affectionate name of the three uncles to netizens, which contains a sincere gratitude and cherishment.
In the face of tens of thousands of people who poured into the live broadcast room in a short period of time, they recalled that it was "catching ducks on the shelves": zero live broadcast experience, not knowing what to say, and not knowing how to operate the page, "the brain is confused, and the heart is extremely nervous". It can be said that it is "war and chaos".
Seeing someone say hello, they walked to their mobile phones and picked up the product introduction, and after speaking, they didn't know what to say, so they were embarrassed to quickly retreat and replace it with another person. But these are the three simple old men who impressed netizens with sincerity. An employee sent them a message saying, "These three old men want to be on fire."
"We do production, how can it be popular if we don't understand anything?" Wan Zhong recalled. In his impression, the people who do live broadcasts should be handsome men and beautiful women, which is far from their image.
In fact, the factory also urgently mobilized a few young guys to live broadcast, but the popularity declined. Later, they found out that fans just like to listen to uncles talk about products and talk about daily life.
Because they couldn't grasp the forbidden words, the uncles once communicated with netizens through text
For them, the hardest thing is to not use these new things well. Because he didn't understand the rules of live broadcasting, he once "lost" the little yellow car with the link, and in the face of anxious netizens, the glasses uncle bluntly said "I can't run away, there is a security guard at the door"; has been banned many times for prohibited words, and the uncles are so frightened that they only dare to write on the paper to communicate with fans, and because they can't open the mirror, they can only turn the paper back to illuminate it with a flashlight, so that the words can be displayed through it; Someone rewarded a "carnival" worth 3,000 yuan, but the uncles thought it was a "brick" and shouted that they wanted to "fork out" netizens......
On the second day of the live broadcast, due to unskilled operation, the uncles raised the price of a laundry detergent by 10 yuan. Afterwards, Hu Wenzhong insisted on refunding the money, "I won't do this thing if I don't refund it", and finally returned more than 2 million yuan. Netizens did not get angry because of this, but expressed concern - "Can you still make money?" Isn't the shipping and platform fees not factored in?" Don't want it, it's cheap if you don't return" "You don't need to return, it's not easy for uncles to broadcast live"...... After that, even though it was out of stock, the popularity of the live broadcast room increased instead of decreasing, and 2.89 million people poured in overnight.
The uncles' "clumsiness" made fans amused and anxious, and they taught them how to broadcast live online, including the title of "fan baby", but because of shyness, the three uncles couldn't be called at first, and "children" and "cloud shareholders" became the exclusive titles of fans.
In their opinion, it was the kindness of netizens that saved them. The "cloud shareholders" not only broke their hearts on the other side of the screen, but some also came directly to the Chengdu Yizhong factory to teach them to operate the live broadcast room. According to the uncles, 40% of these enthusiastic "cloud shareholders" are young people aged 18 to 35, and more are people over 35 years old, who know Vitality 28.
For the reward of the "cloud shareholder", the uncles felt deserved and wanted to donate it, but netizens did not agree. So they organized an online vote, agreeing to improve the welfare of the factory netizens "deduct 1", agree to donate "deduct 2". The uncles recalled: "Full screen buckle 1. Later, the money was turned into employees' salaries, food expenses and a new factory uniform, and the slogan that fans had drawn up for them printed on the back of the clothes: "If you can't keep the peak, then go back to the past!"
Chengdu's new factory uniform
Now, Vitality 28's Douyin followers have soared to more than 8 million. Hu Wenzhong introduced that on October 13, 20 million yuan of goods were sold on the day of the full moon of "turning red", and since then, more than 100,000 orders have been sold almost every day, and now the sales volume of Douyin e-commerce has accounted for 96.7% of the total.
活下来,重回巅峰
Looking at it now, although Vitality 28 is not as good as it was back then, there are 8 million more "cloud shareholders" who will never give up, and the "wealth and wealth" they bring have saved the brand and the factory, and converted the traffic into energy for the continued development of the brand.
Online sales continued to be hot, and Hubei Vitality Group also ushered in a turnaround. On November 22 last year, Hubei Vitality Group added a new bankruptcy review case for the first time, and the court ruled to accept the reorganization case of Hubei Vitality Group Co., Ltd. according to the application, and Vitality 28 changed from applying for bankruptcy liquidation to reorganization.
Hu Wenzhong said that at present, the restructuring has been completed by 90%, which not only retains the old brand, but also keeps the jobs of the old employees behind the brand. "It's definitely a real life."
In the factory building of Vitality 28 Chengdu Italian-Chinese foundry, workers are busy
When catching the traffic, they also forced themselves to exercise and consolidate their own strength. Hu Wenzhong said that since September last year, Chengdu Yizhong has improved product quality five times, and the wages of employees have increased by two or three times, and with the increase in production capacity, more than 100 people have been recruited. At the same time, the company set up a new e-commerce department and ushered in several post-90s generations.
"The spirit of the employees is better, and everyone is motivated." Hu Wenzhong said that the popularity of live streaming has also driven the development of the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain and revitalized many supporting enterprises.
It is not easy to "get out of the circle", and the "cloud shareholders" are still very worried, worried that the heat is too much, that they are worried that their fans will lose money due to their fan welfare, and they are busy fighting fakes when they see someone pirating the broadcast. Hu Wenzhong mentioned that they also created the concept of "I have a factory on Douyin" in the live broadcast room, inviting "cloud shareholders" to seek the future of the factory together and listen to their opinions from time to time.
A message from the "Cloud Shareholder".
In their words, "we will produce what cloud shareholders want", which can be said to be very persuasive. Not long ago, the camellia-scented laundry detergent voted by fans was launched, triggering a new round of purchases. In addition, Chengdu Yizhong also created a sub-brand Haizhirou to make up for the previously missing categories.
Eight months later, Vitality 28 and Chengdu Yizhong are still moving forward, and they have also become a microcosm of the trend of domestic brands and source factories, and such stories are continuing to play out. In the past year, with the help of the "Meet Good Domestic Products" plan, more and more domestic brands have taken root in Douyin e-commerce, with cutting-edge domestic products emerging and old domestic products rejuvenating, and many brands are "out of the circle".
The development of e-commerce platforms has undoubtedly brought a position for brands to go out of the circle, especially old domestic brands like Vitality 28, which may have slowed down in the new trend, but if it is given a platform and opportunity, it may be able to return to the top.
(China News Weekly)