"The most difficult in history" 618, but the head anchors are lying flat one after another?

Entertainment unicorns

2024-06-05 23:12Posted in Beijing Entertainment Creators

Author | Mia

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This is perhaps the most difficult 618 in history.

"We ushered in this year's '618' promotion, is it difficult? I think it's difficult, but I like to find a breakthrough in the difficulty, push myself in the difficulty, and then see what we can bring to the user. Previously, after the 2024 U.S. ONE 618 media conference, "Li Jiaqi said that 618 is the most difficult this year" appeared on the hot search.

This was confirmed by the first wave of war reports. According to the data of "Qingyan Intelligence", on the first day of Li Jiaqi's 618 pre-sale, the GMV (total merchandise turnover) of the beauty category in the live broadcast room exceeded 2.675 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 46%. Feigua data shows that the sales of the first live broadcast during the promotion of Guangdong couple, Qi'er, Pan Yurun, Little Biscuit and Luo Wangyu decreased by more than 70% year-on-year. During the first wave of 618 promotion (5.20-5.31), the conversion rate of top beauty track celebrities represented by Luo Wangyu and Pan Yurun fell sharply on Douyin, with sales falling by 75% and 90% respectively.

Platforms have lengthened their fronts, as early as around 520, simplifying the rules of the game to optimize the user experience: before the start of the big promotion, many mainstream e-commerce platforms such as Taobao, JD.com, and Douyin have successively announced the cancellation of the pre-sale system that has been in use for several years. The cancellation of pre-sales and spot purchases directly led to the poor performance of the top anchors in the first round of promotions.

The short dramas that stand on the content outlet have become the new favorites of 618, and Taobao has launched many brand dramas such as "Daddy Alliance" titled by L'Oreal Paris. Simba's Xin Xuan collaborated with Ou Shiman to launch "She Shines Like a Pearl".

When 618 is becoming more and more normalized, superimposed by the pressure of the general environment, consumer enthusiasm is declining, and the profit conflict has intensified the friction between suppliers and channels, 56 publishing institutions such as Motie have fought against JD.com, which is one of the manifestations. Looking around, Li Jiaqi, Simba, Dong Yuhui, Brother Xiao Yang...... Every overhead anchor is in shock, under heavy pressure.

In the rise of store broadcasting, the overhead anchor is gradually lying flat

"De-overheading" is a long-term trend in recent years, but in the most important 618 annual promotion node, it is still relatively rare for big anchors to "lie flat" and "retire" one after another.

On April 20, Simba's account was banned for one month because he angrily attacked the platform in the live broadcast room. On May 20, Simba, who had just been unblocked by Kuaishou and returned to the live broadcast room, once again said that he would "retire": "Simba can't broadcast anymore, and the countdown has begun." In the future, there will be fewer and fewer live broadcasts, and I hope that by using 10 live broadcasts, my company will slowly get used to the absence of Simba. Previously, Simba had also emphasized that he wanted to learn about artificial intelligence technology live broadcasting.

Also in the turmoil of public opinion are Dongfang Selection and Dong Yuhui. Recently, Dongfang Selection changed to Yu Minhong's disgusted "321, link!" because of the "sudden change in painting style" after "going to Dong Yuhui". The howling noise, coupled with the official complaint of the founder Yu Minhong, once again sparked heated discussions. Recently, Yu Minhong appeared in the live broadcast room of Zhang Wenzhong, the founder of Wumart, and responded self-deprecatingly: "Dongfang Selection is also doing a mess now, and I don't have any ability to make suggestions to you." On June 3, Dongfang Selection's stock price fell 9.92%. As of press time, the stock price of Oriental Selection has fallen by more than 15% in three days.

As for Dong Yuhui, he himself showed a not positive attitude towards 618, which may be related to his cautious attitude towards cross-border beauty, advocating rational consumption, and being distracted by the company's management. Dong Yuhui, who has been in the top three on the Douyin list for three consecutive months, has slipped to ninth place in April. After entering May, the traffic of the "Walking with Hui" live broadcast room continued to decline, and the momentum of increasing fans also slowed down significantly.

On May 24, Dong Yuhui responded in the live broadcast about the reason for the decline in traffic: "This is normal, because in the past two days, various platforms have started 618, and everyone's 618 traffic support will generally give priority to cosmetics, so during this time, if we sell food, the relative number of people will be small, and it is normal to be fine." He once said that he plans to spend only one-third of his time on agricultural products, and the rest for cultural tourism and interviews with cultural guests.

In addition to the recent special live broadcast in Shenzhen, Dong Yuhui's daily live broadcast is subject to 2 hours. The beauty field is directly absent, since Douyin launched 618 on May 24, Dong Yuhui has only appeared in the live broadcast room for four days, with a cumulative live broadcast time of 10 hours.

Another former "Douyin brother" Xiao Yang even laid out the conversion track early. Since the beginning of this year, the frequency of its live broadcasts has decreased, and as a result, it has fallen out of the list of goods, opened the "Three Sheep Theater", launched short plays, cross-border electronic music festivals, and transformed the entertainment track is his Plan B. Recently, he appeared in the short videos of his anchors Zhuo Shilin and Seven Bosses to attract traffic.

The overhead anchor who still insists on moving forward on the front line may only be Li Jiaqi. He chose to participate in Mango's head variety show, or out of consideration to increase exposure and expand new users. In the live broadcast on May 21, Li Jiaqi confirmed the rumors that he would participate in the recording of "Overcoming Thorns 2024", he said that the reason why he decided to participate in this variety show was mainly to make money, "I am here to make money, and I will give you red envelopes when I make money." In addition, Meione has also been more ruthless in content innovation. On June 18 this year, the "All Girls" live broadcast room will test the live broadcast of digital humans for the first time, embracing the AIGC outlet.

With the increasing convergence of the gameplay in the live broadcast room, higher requirements are also put forward for differentiated content output. The over-the-top anchors have chosen to retire one after another, which is related to the strengthening of supervision, the conflict of interest between the platform and the big anchors, the gradual emergence of live e-commerce into a red ocean, the increase in competitive pressure, and a series of negative public opinion events. From the "Huaxizi Incident" to the "Plum Vegetable Meat Incident", a series of negative products such as counterfeiting and poor quality have shaken the trust of consumers.

Considering factors such as insufficient matrix development and personal IP appeal, it is still difficult for big anchors to completely quit. They are not only involved in their own team, but also in the performance growth of the platform behind them.

According to the "LatePost" report, the growth of Douyin e-commerce has slowed down. Douyin e-commerce sales in the first quarter of this year increased by more than 50% year-on-year. Among them, the cumulative year-on-year growth rate in January and February exceeded 60%, but the year-on-year growth rate in March fell to below 40%. In 2023, the monthly sales growth rate of Douyin e-commerce will basically remain between 50% and 70%.

There is no overhead, but store broadcasters and vertical anchors are on the rise

When cost performance and price power become the first factors considered by consumers, big anchors cannot maintain the "lowest price", and they are faced with user loss and multi-party impact.

Brands are breaking down their dependence and superstitions on big streamers. Storecast is occupying the original market share of Dabo. According to the "2023 China Live E-commerce Industry Research Report", the scale of China's live broadcast e-commerce market will reach 4.9 trillion yuan in 2023, of which store broadcasts will account for 51.8%, and Dabo will drop to 48.2%.

The person in charge of Chiba jewelry e-commerce said that the penetration rate of store broadcasting has increased from 5% at the earliest to nearly 40% now.

Xiaohongshu announced that it would focus on live broadcasts, especially store live broadcasts, during the "618" period. According to the data, on the first day of 618, the number of live broadcast orders of Xiaohongshu e-commerce was 8.2 times that of the same period last year, the GMV of live broadcast transactions on the first day was 6 times that of the same period last year, the number of store broadcasts on the first day was 3.8 times that of the same period last year, and the GMV of store broadcasts was 4.2 times that of the same period last year.

As the so-called times create heroes, the birth of super-head anchors is inseparable from the evolution of e-commerce forms, platform boosts, user choices, etc., time has changed, and it is basically impossible to give birth to new super-head anchors at present, as the industry becomes more and more segmented, there will be a large number of vertical anchors in the future.

Zhang Xiaohui, the "first sister of Little Red Book" who was dug into Taobao, has just completed two live broadcasts after she entered Taobao. On May 20th, Zhang Xiaohui's beauty care collection store "Rose is Rose" settled in Tmall Global, and on May 26th, among the 284 single product links in the live broadcast debut, the goods priced at more than 1,000 yuan accounted for one-third. Its results are not impressive: the live broadcast has just exceeded 10 million, Zhang Xiaohui herself has increased her fans by 195,000, and the sales of single products are up to 3000+. Its high customer unit price and slow live broadcast style are unsuitable in Taobao.

Although Zhang Xiaohui has not been able to become the "next Li Jiaqi" for the time being, the flow of anchors between various platforms and the increase in vertical anchors are the inevitable direction of the second half of live broadcast e-commerce. The essence of the emergence of middle-waist anchors, newcomer anchors, and vertical anchors is the redistribution of platform resources and traffic, in order to form a more diversified ecology.

Platforms have vigorously supported the development of middle-waist anchors. In February this year, Taobao Live launched a fully managed service to provide "nanny-style" operation services from account cold start, official pallet support to marketing planning for celebrities, KOLs, and MCN organizations who are interested in entering Taobao to start broadcasting. During the 6.18 period, Taobao Live and Alimama launched incentives such as tens of billions of subsidies, transaction rebates, and the distribution of threshold-free direct reduction coupons, so that novice merchants can quickly open bills.

According to the data released by Tmall, on May 20, "Tmall 6.18" was on sale for 4 hours, and the sales of Li Jiaqi, Bee Surprise Club, Lie'er Baby, Wine Sister, Wei Junjie and other live broadcast rooms exceeded 100 million.

Continuing this line of thinking, on June 5, Taobao announced the launch of a live broadcast full hosting service for entrepreneurs. It is understood that CEOs who want to "speak" for their own companies can conduct live broadcasts on Taobao through this service, and Taobao Live will provide related services from revitalization to live broadcast rooms. Previously, Lin Sheng, the founder of Zhongxuegao, made his debut in his Taobao live broadcast room, "selling sweet potatoes to pay off debts", and said that he had not opened the Douyin account and denied the rumors that the Douyin account was blocked. Judging from the successful cases of live broadcasts of entrepreneurs in the past, in addition to Luo Yonghao, who is a big V himself, live broadcast selling classes to teach entrepreneurial experience may be a more suitable choice for them.

These vertical anchors who have changed their "over-reliance" and decentralization are usually more focused on specific categories, which means that they have improved their professionalism, including product services, content output and other aspects. With the breaking and reconstruction of the live broadcast ecology, the follow-up e-commerce promotion will also show a new look.

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