There is no need for Wei Ya to "replay".

Connect to Insight

2024-06-27 20:53Creators in the field of finance and economics

Text: Wang Huiying 

Editor/Pony 

Wei Ya's absence in the live broadcast rivers and lakes is still circulating her news.

In the past few years, news about Wei Ya's resumption of broadcasting has come out from time to time, but in the end, it was replaced by the anchor "Qi'er" and the bee surprise club in the live broadcast room, and Qianxun has officially entered the "post-Wei Ya era".

In recent years, the live streaming industry has also undergone significant changes, as the platform accelerates the decentralization of traffic and gets rid of the strong dependence on a single head anchor, live streaming is bidding farewell to the era of big anchors and moving towards a healthier and more prosperous anchor ecology.

Behind the changes, it no longer matters whether Wei Ya can resume broadcasting as an anchor, what matters is how she leads Qianxun to find more possibilities with her new identity.

Source: Qianxun Holdings' official website

Wei Ya's identity is now more diverse.

On June 17 this year, Wei Ya appeared in the "first lesson of entrepreneurship" of Zhejiang's platform economy, and served as a guest as the co-founder of Qianxun Culture Media Co., Ltd.; In March last year, Wei Ya won the honorary title of "Fuding White Tea Recommendation Officer for Rural Revitalization".

At the same time, the business territory behind Qianxun is also expanding.

It completes the transformation from an MCN to a digital-driven company; Based on the live broadcast business, incubate new brands and explore overseas markets; 618, which has just passed, launched a "live broadcast + short drama" integrated gameplay; It also invested in two listed companies, Giant Biotech and Delmar Technology, within two years.

Wei Ya's own identity and Qianxun's business layout have undergone essential changes. The current Wei Ya is no longer the Wei Ya in front of the stage in 2021, being an entrepreneur, mentor, and investor may be more suitable for the current Wei Ya.

1. Not being an anchor or IP, Wei Ya is still active

After leaving the live broadcast room, Wei Ya did not leave the public eye.

On June 17, Wei Ya stood in the spotlight again. Zhejiang platform economy "entrepreneurship first lesson" in Qiantang District, Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province was officially launched, in this officially hosted background of the entrepreneurial activity, Wei Ya as the co-founder of Qianxun Culture Media Co., Ltd. as a guest of honor, and made on-site comments on the event case.

Wei Ya's identity is a serial entrepreneur. At the event, Wei Ya shared some of her experiences about entrepreneurship, and Wei Ya attaches more importance to long-term value than industry popularity and return on investment.

As early as April last year, Wei Ya attended the Zhejiang "Time-honored Brand Guochao Digital Salon" as the "Chief Tutor" of Zhejiang Century-old Brand Research Institute and Guochao College, and shared her experience on "How to Use Live E-commerce to Empower Time-honored Brands".

In October 2022, Wei Ya taught as the "chief tutor" of Guochao College at the fourth China Time-honored Brand Heads Seminar, using her live broadcast e-commerce experience to empower time-honored brands in Zhejiang Province.

In fact, as the former head anchor, although Wei Ya has retired from the live broadcast room for a long time, her every move is still watched with a magnifying glass.

After leaving the position of anchor in front of the stage, Wei Ya not only devoted herself to entrepreneur training and the revival of time-honored brands, but also appeared in the fields of rural revitalization and charity. In 2023 alone, Wei Ya's exposed itinerary will involve hot words such as the revival of time-honored brands, rural revitalization, industry innovation, agricultural assistance, and public welfare disaster relief.

If you find a common denominator on the above topics, it is still live streaming. Wei Ya did not leave the live broadcast track, but went from the front of the stage to the backstage. After all, Wei Ya's influence is still there.

Since last year, Wei Ya has frequently appeared in the content of her husband Dong Haifeng's video account, and this year her official account "Wei Ya Surprise Club" has migrated to "Dora's Magic Wand", and Wei Ya will update her recent life every Friday, including sharing outfits, travelogues, life insights, etc.

Image source: WeChat public account "Dora's magic wand"

On social platforms, from Chaohua to Weibo, from video accounts to Douyin, as long as Wei Ya appears, many fans will leave messages for her, and some will shout to her "when will she return".

This kind of interaction between fans and Wei Ya also proves that out of the live broadcast room, Wei Ya is still influential, and operating her own IP has also become her new focus.

Looking at it now, it doesn't matter whether Wei Ya will be broadcast again or not.

Judging from Qianxun's live broadcast business, the original "Bee Surprise Club" has long passed the start-up period and entered a stable period of development.

Bidding farewell to the old identity and welcoming the new environment, Wei Ya and Qianxun are still active in front of the public, and putting their energy into more business sectors may be what Wei Ya will do in the new stage. 

2. Turning behind the scenes, Wei Ya has to do more

In addition to various new identities, Wei Ya's most important identity is the co-founder of Qianxun. For Qianxun, Wei Ya used to be the C position in front of the stage, but now Wei Ya has retreated to the backbone behind the scenes.

In the past few years, under the leadership of Wei Ya and Dong Haifeng, in addition to the live broadcast itself, Qianxun has constantly broadened its boundaries and sought new stories.

During the 618 period this year, taking advantage of the east wind of short dramas, Qianxun began to test the waters in the way of "live broadcast + short drama", and launched the work "The 37th Sole Pet of Mr. Bee", which integrated the new gameplay of live broadcast and short drama. During the warm-up period, the multi-platform account of "Bee Surprise Club" updated the "Boss" series of short dramas simultaneously.

Source: Bee Surprise Club Douyin account

In order to focus on producing high-quality short dramas, Qianxun Culture established Qianmeng Culture.

Recently, the posters of Qianmeng Culture's three short dramas "Stand-in Boyfriend", "My Family Comes to My Male Nanny" and "Don't Fall in Love with My Brother" were unveiled. On the poster, Dong Haifeng, CEO of Qianxun, is impressively listed as the producer, which has attracted wide attention in the industry. According to the poster information, the three short dramas will start in mid-to-late June.

In fact, it is not new for players in the live broadcast industry to make short dramas, and the crazy Xiao Yang also went out to make short dramas. From the perspective of the entire market, the short drama market continues to heat up, and it is a gold mine to be tapped.

What's more, traffic and users are pouring in, and brands are also investing their marketing budgets in skits. Previously, some media statistics showed that the mainstream ways for brands to launch short dramas can be roughly divided into three types: implanting short dramas, customizing short dramas, and cooperating with talents, of which customized short dramas will account for more than 70% of all brand short dramas in 2023.

Qianxun has rich live broadcast experience and fan base, which can not only attract the brand's budget and increase its own revenue, but also grasp the judgment of the market through short dramas, strengthen the link with fans, and enhance its influence for itself. This is undoubtedly a new business that kills two birds with one stone.

At present, Qianxun Culture alone has seven major layouts, including content production, e-commerce, operation, marketing, brokerage, IP licensing, and community/knowledge payment.

In order to ensure the stability and competitiveness of the supply chain, Qianxun has also built its own supply chain base. At present, it has a super supply chain base of more than 10,000 square meters, with tens of thousands of SKUs in storage, providing strong support for e-commerce live broadcasting.

Last year, Qianxun Holdings invested 22.06 million yuan to win an industrial land covering an area of 16,000 square meters in Binjiang District, Hangzhou, and planned to invest 300 million yuan to build a "new retail e-commerce live broadcast industry base" project.

In fact, Wei Ya and Dong Haifeng have a keen sense of business, and they basically start a business along the lines of emerging markets and potential markets.

As early as 2020, they also built a SaaS platform that links MCN institutions, influencers and merchants, Lingke, to provide one-stop services for the industry.

Subsequently, they also joined hands with silicon-based intelligence to establish a joint venture company, Qianyu Intelligence, to fully enter the field of digital human live broadcast and further expand the business territory.

What surprised the market even more was that Wei Ya and Dong Haifeng also set their sights on the investment field. Since 2020, Dong Haifeng and Qianmeow Capital, a subsidiary of Qianxun, have successively invested in the humidifier brand Delmar and the medical aesthetic product company Juzi Biotech. Today, both companies have landed in the capital markets.

Now, as the backbone behind Qianxun, Wei Ya is looking for more possibilities for Qianxun as an entrepreneur.

3. Profit or loss, the future of Qianxun is still challenging

A number of actions are proving that Qianxun is no longer a simple MCN company, which is actually in line with the trend of the entire live broadcast e-commerce industry.

In the past few years, live broadcast e-commerce, as the last link of the e-commerce economy, fan economy, and Internet celebrity economy, has not only emerged many well-known anchors such as Wei Ya, Li Jiaqi, Simba, Dong Yuhui, and Xiao Yang, but also created a number of wealth-making myths.

However, for MCN institutions, the risks brought by a single business are self-evident.

It is a consensus to extend to the upstream and downstream industries of live streaming. Judging from Qianxun's current business, there is not a lot of real money invested.

Source: Qianxun Holdings' official website

As mentioned above, Qian has found a suitable target to invest in. Among them, Dong Haifeng personally invested 150 million yuan in Delmar, and Qianxun subscribed for 0.86% of the shares of Juzi Biotechnology with 168 million yuan.

In April 2023, Qianxun spent 22.06 million yuan to buy an industrial land in Binjiang, and plans to invest at least 300 million yuan to build a live broadcast e-commerce base in the future. Calculated up, buying land + building a building, Qianxun will cost 320 million.

Before buying the land, Qianxun had already rented 10 floors of the Binjiang Ali Center, which is only 230 meters away from Alibaba's Binjiang campus. Two of the 10 floors have been transformed into a supply chain base that showcases a wide range of products from merchants, and is open to the entire live streaming e-commerce industry.

From "renting" to "buying" now, behind the 320 million yuan spent by Qianxun, it is to take root in Hangzhou. As one of the fastest-growing cities in the live broadcast industry, Hangzhou has concentrated resources and supply chains, making it the choice of many industry companies. More importantly, the previous 10 floors can no longer meet the business needs of Qianxun, and only with its own building can it accommodate the rapid development of Qianxun's business and strengthen the construction of the supply chain.

Like Qianxun, the business blossoms more, and what you have to consider after a large investment is how to make money. So far, some businesses and investments have already seen a response.

According to Delmar's prospectus, Dong Haifeng became the seventh largest shareholder of the newly listed company with 10.5 million shares. According to the current stock price of 8.95 yuan, the market value of Wei Ya and his wife is now 93.975 million yuan. Compared with the 150 million yuan invested that year, it lost nearly 60 million.

Another listed company, Giant Biotech, currently has a total market capitalization of HK$44.985 billion. According to the prospectus, Wei Ya's husband Dong Haifeng holds 0.84% of the shares of Giant Biotech after the global offering, and the market value of the shares held by Dong Haifeng is about HK $378 million, compared with the cost of HK $167 million when he became a shareholder, with a floating profit of HK $130 million.

It is worth noting that these two companies were partners in Wei Ya's live broadcast room back then, and for Qianxun, this is the business he understands and is good at. However, as an investor, whether this is a good target in the end depends on the future market performance of Delmar and Giant Biotech.

Let's look at the short drama industry that Qianxun entered this year, for Qianxun, the combination of live broadcast + short drama is no stranger; For Wei Ya, stepping back into the background and shifting the focus to content can both reduce risk and control direction.

From the perspective of the entire industry, the short drama market is in a blowout stage, and e-commerce platforms and content companies are entering the game.

Under the savage growth, the most critical issue of short dramas is whether the quality is high-quality, if the content and style of the short drama cannot be adjusted in time, it is easy to lead to a disproportionate investment and return. And if you can't make money, the combination of short drama + bringing goods is also empty talk.

What is certain is that the business actions of Wei Ya and Qianxun in recent years, investment, land purchase, supply chain construction, and short dramas, are all aimed at making Qianxun develop more quickly and comprehensively. Whatever new territory it is, it's part of their business map, not the end.

For Wei Ya, the label of "Queen of Goods" is stuck in 2021, but more stories belonging to Wei Ya are still unfolding. More important than the past is the future.

(The header picture of this article comes from the official website of Qianxun Holdings.) ） 

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