(Bilibili Vice Chairman and COO Li Yi)
Reasons for awarding
From the New Year's Eve party in early 2020 to the "Back Wave" speech that created the annual popular hot word, the many actions she led successfully swept the screen and became a phenomenon-level topic, bringing Station B from the multicultural circle to the public vision. She has successfully found a middle way between content king and commercialization, and strives to lead this highly concentrated cultural community and video platform of China's young generation to accelerate the breaking of the circle, and steadily move towards the goal of the mainstream cultural vane of society.
Industry Innovation of the Year 2020
Li Yi: The behind-the-scenes director of the "Broken Circle" of Station B
Reporter/Hossie
Published in China News Weekly, No. 976 on December 14, 2020
"Want to paint a home where mom and dad sit and never argue / Want to paint a picture of her Waiting for me at home to lie on a wide couch / Want to paint a bird with a green branch representing freedom in its mouth / Want a peaceful world that no longer has days and nights / Want to paint people who don't need to sleep anymore, no garbage and scraps piled up"
As soon as Subs (Zhang Yicheng) opened his mouth, Li Yi's goosebumps rose all over his body. At the end of August 2020, Station B was recording its first music talent show "Rap New Generation", and Li Yi, who likes music, was on the scene. Subs' voice is deep and slow, and it doesn't sound like he's singing a rap that keeps swallowing words, but rather reciting a poem or an aria, an atypical rap, as in the show.
Li is the Vice Chairman and Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Bilibili (Station B). In 2014, she joined Station B together with Chen Rui, chairman and CEO of Station B, and was responsible for the overall operation of the platform business, content ecological construction, commercialization and strategic investment, and market brand.
She is also the maker behind a series of blockbusters in B station in the past two years. From the B Station New Year's Eve Party to "Back Wave", from "The Sky of the Wind Dog Boy" to "Rap New Generation", and then to winning the exclusive mainland live broadcast rights of the League of Legends S Tournament for three consecutive years, every action she led is constantly breaking everyone's inherent cognition of station B: the "small broken station" in the mouth of fans is no longer just a niche community where two-dimensional enthusiasts gather, but a diversified and inclusive comprehensive video community.
Station B is "breaking the circle".
Station B has changed
"Everything can rap", this is the core of the B station's decision to do this variety show at the beginning, and it is also the slogan (slogan) of the show.
Li Yi said that whether it is the existing rap programs in the market or the rap commonly defined in the industry, it is biased towards hip-pop, that is, European and American types of rap. Its origins are the street culture of black Americans, who sing about their own values and lives, and these lack the basis of indigenous life in China.
In station B, unlike people's stereotypical rap, young people's expressions for rap are very diverse, such as a Up master of Peking University who wrote Lu Xun's 16 prose poems into rap content. Many UP masters are singing about their lives and what is happening around them. Therefore, when discussing what is more suitable for B station and more suitable for contemporary young people, "everything can rap" naturally appeared.
"The English slogan of 'Anything Can Rap' is rap for youth, rapping for young people. So, what young people really look like, what young people really want, we don't need to presuppose and limit. Young people are not only chasing anime in their own niche circles, they can also have a very grand perspective and pay attention to social issues. Of course, some young people only want to express their feelings for their parents and express their small family, which is also very good, just need to present what they want to express itself is enough. She said. In Li Yi's view, "everything can rap" is in the same line as "everything can be B station" in terms of core and values.
In October 2019, Station B, which was established in 2009, celebrated its tenth anniversary. This niche community, which started from the second dimension, has grown into a comprehensive video community with 15 content partitions and more than 7,000 cultural circles.
Generation Z, born between 1990 and 2009, has always been the core user group of Station B. At the third quarter of 2020 earnings report, Li Yi said that the average age of B station users is 21 years old, and the average age of new users is about 20 years old. However, there are two new situations worth noting, one is that young users are gradually spilling from first- and second-tier cities to third- and fourth-tier cities, and about 50% of new users are from third-tier cities and below. In addition, from the third quarter, new users over the age of 30 increased slightly year-on-year. This indirectly shows that Station B is "breaking the circle".
Compared with ten years ago, today's B station has long been not only a gathering place for fans of animation and games, but also the top three traffic of B stations, which are entertainment, life and technology areas. In addition, Station B is also known as the "largest online learning platform". In the past year, nearly 100 million users have watched knowledge videos on Station B, equivalent to 9 times the number of college entrance examinations this year. These partitions are automatically formed with the broadening of user interest, according to Li Yi, when the main UP video of a certain category and users accumulate to a certain extent, B station will specifically open up new partitions.
The first "breaking the circle" in the true sense of Station B began with the New Year's Eve party in 2020.
On the last night of 2019, the New Year's Eve party jointly organized by Station B and Xinhua network stood out in a crowd of satellite TV evenings, reaching 110 million views. The next day, U.S. stocks rose nearly 12.51% at Station B. If you reopen the party video now, you will see a full screen of "make-up" bullet screens, that is, many people are not the first to watch, which proves that it still has lasting appeal after a short period of popularity.
Yang Liang, the general planner of the party and the general manager of the B station market center, said that when planning the program, they consciously kept a distance from the mainstream entertainment form, and did not use the common routine of satellite TV across the night - choosing the hottest traffic star of the year, but combining some IP that has a good reputation among B station users, such as film and television, animation, music and games to adapt and interpret.
For example, when "Chu Yunfei", one of the protagonists of the war-themed TV series "Bright Sword", stood on the stage of Station B, the whole network boiled. This is because "Bright Sword" has been created a lot of secondary works on the B station, and its popularity is not lost to many games and anime IP.
The day after the cross-night broadcast, the media have analyzed the reasons behind the explosion of Station B with themes such as "this is not a victory of the second dimension, but a victory of respecting young people". The People's Daily and the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League also praised by name, saying that "this cross-night session is very understanding of young people."
In the specific selection of songs, the main creative team "pulled over" the B station data and sorted out the preferences, categories and age levels of B station users. At the beginning of the planning, Li Yi proposed that the positioning of the first cross-night of station B was: do not please everyone, but let young people like it.
At the starting point of the next decade, in 2020, Station B created more "out of the circle" hits - the promotional video "Back Wave" on May Fourth Youth Day became a phenomenon-level cultural event, "Rap New Generation" became a clear stream of music variety shows, and the self-made drama "Sky of the Wind Dog Boy" jointly produced by Huanxi Media defeated many "sweet pet dramas", triggering extensive discussion among young people. The latest news shows that Station B is about to get involved in movies, and Ning Hao, Zhang Yibai, and Chen Sicheng are all on the list of cooperation.
In addition, official institutions and mainstream media have also become up masters, and the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League has 7.5 million fans. "Today, you can do too many things on the B station and learn too many things." At a marketing conference in October this year, Li Yi proposed that "everything can be B station": any content can be found on the B station, and any category B station has it.
Traffic, fans, commercialization
Li Yi likes to quickly open up new territories, and he is often one step ahead in business thinking. After the first five years of ecological construction, starting in 2019, she began to boldly layout.
PUGV (Professional User Generated Video, professional user-made content) is a proper noun created by Station B, that is, the high-quality video created by UP, which is the core of the creative ecology of Station B.
How to guide up masters to continue to create better videos is the core of the B station algorithm. Therefore, Station B did not adopt the traffic optimization model most commonly used by other video platform giants. Li Yi explained that the business model of the traffic-driven platform is an advertising model, and it must exchange high traffic for higher advertising revenue, so in terms of content recommendation, it is more inclined to entertainment, society, current politics, celebrities and other categories.
But high traffic does not necessarily represent high quality, B station is more concerned about high-quality content, so the logic is the opposite: first content, then traffic, with more traffic to support better quality content. Therefore, in the weight of the B station algorithm, the most important thing is not the number of video clicks, the core of this algorithm lies in interaction.
The reporter found that "one key and three consecutive" is the unique way of supporting up masters of Station B, which includes the praise, coinage, and collection of works. Among them, the "coin" required for coin trading is a virtual currency of the B station community. Choosing to throw coins into a video means that users really like the video, and those who are willing to do this many times are often the "true love fans" of the UP master.
Under this system, UP owners can really have their own fans, that is, private domain traffic. If you compare it with other video platforms on the market, it is extremely rare for a platform to do this. The gameplay of most video sites is determined by the platform what the user can see. The platform screens out high-traffic content for recommendation, and even if a creator has a lot of fans, his content cannot be effectively distributed to fans. The recommendation algorithm of Station B is based on interaction as the core, which can ensure that high-quality content must be seen by people who like it. B station users will find that they often brush the new UP master with few fans on the home page.
Therefore, the logic of the creator ecology with PUGV as the core is that up mainly creates high-quality content, high-quality content attracts fans, fans motivate UP main, and promotes UP main creators to create more high-quality content, forming a positive cycle.
In December 2019, the up main IC laboratory in the knowledge area released the first video on the B station "Behind Li Jiaqivia's PK, Taobao Live is killing big data". IC Lab founder Cheng Only recalled to China News Weekly that the first test video, originally expected to play 10,000 in the most ideal situation, did not expect to break through 100,000 on the same day, the bullet screen is so many that she can hardly see the picture.
Cheng did not expect that after a few months, IC Labs would begin to commercialize effectively, much faster than she expected. Before 2016, similar to niche communities such as Douban and Tianya, the overall atmosphere of Station B was "talking about commercialization and discoloration".
The head game of B station UP master Yaoyaoshan recalled that at that time, all users were very disgusted with up main business orders, and they generally believed that commercialization was equivalent to compromising with capital. Therefore, although he likes game commentary, due to the limited level of commercialization and the very unstable income, his parents are very opposed to him becoming a full-time UP master.
Li Yi firmly believes that high-quality content must have good business capabilities, and the key is to see how to explore and guide. Patch ads are just the most traditional way to monetize, and people's aversion to interrupting video viewing will make brands' previous optimizations and marketing of products in vain. In the era of mobile Internet with unprecedented development of information channels, young people have a variety of choices, and their relationship with brands has undergone profound changes.
On the psychological level, only "recognition" will translate into consumer behavior, so in content marketing, co-creation mechanism is a better strategy. B station's bullet screen culture, high stickiness community is a natural co-creation platform, when the UP master uses B station terrier to create ads that fans will like, these private domain traffic are all converted into commercial value, with one of the most popular concepts in 2019, it is to occupy the "user mind".
Under the guidance of Station B, Cheng is the only one who will choose some brands that are consistent with the tone of his own creation when receiving business orders. In terms of content marketing, it is not a simple hard broadcast, but through industry analysis to cut in, these soft broadcasts have both knowledge, attitude and opinion, and it seems that there is no obvious difference from other videos.
Idlers observed that around 2017, the station's attitude towards commercialization began to change. And now, when the UP owner releases an advertisement, the bullet screen is full of "please just eat", which is the kind ridicule of fans.
Ic Labs analyzed in its video "How up masters can eat just enough not to be annoying" that the three major factors of a community's demise are over-commercialization, degradation of the community atmosphere, and the failure of head users to make money. The contradiction between creation and commercialization is difficult to balance. Only the creation but lack of commercial ability, the community atmosphere is good, with love power generation sooner or later will be lacking; and too much advertising consumes the credibility accumulated by UP owners with good content, the community atmosphere will deteriorate. Community platforms such as Station B, Douban, and Tianya have all swung at both ends of the seesaw. Station B has maintained its balance for the time being.
Idealism doesn't mean just talking about feelings, the moon and sixpence must be there. "Why can't I support myself with my interests, Station B wants people to change this stereotype." Li Yi said.
The broken and unbroken of station B
In Li Yi's eyes, with the continuous expansion of the B station user group, the needs of users are becoming more and more diverse, UP main video represents a kind of personalized creation, but users also need institutional creation, so there is OGV (professional institutional content). "Around the needs of users we think, feel that these categories still have to cut in, otherwise users come in and find that in addition to good animation, there is no variety show, no self-made drama, so this year we made these two attempts, and the result exceeded our expectations." She said.
At the third quarter of 2020 earnings report, Li Yi also analyzed the considerations behind the content upgrade: "Video is the core business of Station B, which includes PUGV, OGV and live broadcasting. We also mentioned in the brand upgrade, 'The videos you are interested in are all on station B'. We will continue to cultivate the field of video according to the needs of users. OGV we will naturally continue to invest. ”
Whether it is a rap variety show or a youth drama, this kind of theme has been developed by the market too many times, but station B can still break through in the aesthetics of many competitors and audience fatigue.
"Because Station B really understands what young people like to watch." This is the only answer given by Cheng. As an Internet analyst, she has studied why Station B will be successful from the logic of market laws, but as a post-90s, her answer is more realistic: "Some video websites launch many dramas every year, but there are very few high-quality ones." They think that young people love to watch sweet pet dramas, and indeed there are a group of people watching, but when "The Sky of the Wind Dog Boy" came out, young people found that I liked this kind of youth drama expression more. But until all this good content comes out, there may not be a single person who can say what young people really like, including us young people ourselves.
"Rap New Generation" is also a special program, it digs into a very small point in the entire ecology of the B station, such as young people are particularly concerned about brave expression, young people want to explore some social topics, and then put these subdivided points into the program is enough, so it is also reasonable for it to become a hit. She said.
Cheng only believes that Station B has fully played the point of "I understand young people". If it can go down this path now, it has been firmly grasping the group of young people, and it will always be the youngest platform in the whole Internet, as long as it insists, whether it wants to incubate its own IP in the future, self-made dramas or invest in consumer goods, it is expected to be done.
2020 is indeed an important time node for Station B, but this is the conclusion of retrospective. In Li Yi's view, the series of actions of B station this year are natural.
Expanding and breaking the circle will inevitably bring a certain degree of popularization and mainstreaming, and old users are worried about this, which is the inevitable question that any niche platform that has made its own from the community will inevitably face in the development. Developing and maintaining the original intention has become a pair of contradictions that cannot be bypassed, and Douban and Zhihu are like this. The former maintains its niche literary tone, but the "sword of Damocles" of survival and death is always hanging high. Although the latter is mainstreamed, the content is sometimes reduced to "story meeting", and the original elite tone is diluted.
When capital breaks the original high-cultural concentration community, and the influx of new users will bring about a mixture of fish and dragons and mud and sand, the two still point to the same question sentence: Will Station B change? That's the original question – what is Station B going to be?
Li Yi was not a two-dimensional enthusiast at first, but she still did not hesitate to join Station B in 2014, because she felt that she and Station B's values were very compatible, firmly believed in idealism, and let it land in reality.
For self-made content, Li Yi rarely formulates KPIs in terms of broadcast data, and she pays more attention to whether the team has content ideals than program traffic. "Content ideal means that you can balance the relationship between short-term benefits and long-term value, don't use competition to frame your thinking about content, and good ideas are unlimited." I can't guarantee that Station B will be successful at every step of the way, but I hope that we are serious enough in doing every content to keep them in this era as much as possible. She said.
In March 2018, Station B went public on nasdaq. "Internet companies will tell a new story every quarterly report, but the story told by Station B has not changed, and the expectations and positioning of Station B in the prospectus are exactly the same as the introduction of Station B to the outside world now, because at the beginning Chen Rui and I thought very clearly: What will Station B be like." Li Yi said.
As an idealist, Li Yi's ideal is to let more young people in Station B maintain their idealism. She hopes that the dreams of all creators can be realized, and she hopes that Station B can become a cultural way of life for Young Chinese people and grow up with this generation.