On June 27, Dongfang Selection was suspended for one day, and its anchor Dunton's recent speech in the live broadcast room continued to ferment on social platforms.
Dunton made it clear that he was "a little disappointed" with the company, for example, the company did not discuss with the anchor when the company opened an account, and the company's public relations department was "afraid of this and that" when Internet public opinion appeared, and claimed that it "seemed to be unable to do anything" for public opinion public relations and the company's internal management.
In contrast, at around 14:52 on June 27, the female anchor in the live broadcast room of "Zhongxue Gao Laolin" fainted during the live introduction. The moment the female anchor fell, she was still reading the script. At that time, the number of people in the live broadcast room had reached 108,000. It was once rumored that the female anchor died suddenly, and then the female anchor posted on Moments that the fainting may be caused by lack of oxygen, and said that the company did not squeeze employees.
The concentrated outbreak of hot events has aroused many people's attention and thinking about the anchor industry.
The end of the live broadcast is to bring goods
According to the statistics of the China Performance Industry Association, the market revenue of China's online performance (live broadcast) industry will reach 209.5 billion yuan in 2023, an increase of 5.15% over 2022. Douyin, Kuaishou, and WeChat Channels are three comprehensive content platforms, based on the advantages of their user base, leading the number of creators and business volume, and are in the top position in the industry; Platforms such as Bilibili, YY, Momo, and Huya have their own focus on content and users, and their business development is improving.
By the end of 2023, there will be more than 15,000 licensed market entities for China's for-profit Internet cultural units, and nearly 5,000 new ones will be added in 2023. The live broadcast and short video industry has become a stable content and consumption channel for users, and will remain in a stable development trend for a long time.
Live broadcast has developed into a 100 billion track. However, the explosive development of this track is not unrelated to the current economic situation.
In a sense, all content industries are advertising industries, and this is especially evident in China. Although China's content industry has made tremendous progress in recent years, "pay for content" is still not the mainstream of the content industry. Even in the content payment track, "asking for tips" is more common than the paid system. From the female anchor to thank the big brother on the list for throwing N million yuan, to the public account article to pay for appreciation, to the video to ask for praise and attention.
The entire content industry operates on a "free" basis. However, "there is no free lunch in the world", all content needs to be returned to the problem of monetization, otherwise it will not last long. In the process of continuous evolution, free content has finally developed its "highest" form - live streaming. Other forms of content need to be implanted if they want to be monetized, but live streaming can be said to be the online shopping guide, realizing the integration of goods and content.
More and more people see that the talent anchors and bloggers who follow come to a hard post from time to time to introduce a certain product, or connect with the merchant, or even more, directly "link to the family".
The live broadcast is popular and the price is breaking through
In the first two years, the live broadcast became popular, giving birth to "super head" (super head) live broadcast rooms such as Dongfang Selection and Li Jiaqi, with an average annual delivery of tens of billions. Many commentators are unclear, and they have found reasons from the anchor's speech, live broadcast room operation, product selection, etc. Try to find the traffic password and replicate the successful experience.
But behind the fire of live broadcasting, the essence is the profit concession of merchants driven by channel expansion. For businesses with mature channels, live streaming is expected to bring new customers, expand sales scale and brand marketing; For businesses that are still developing, entering live broadcast is also a good opportunity to break the situation and catch up. However, today, the merchants have "come back to taste".
Merchants give profits to anchors, which will help drive sales in the short term, but will bring vicious channel competition in the long run. Online is cheaper than offline, at first it is online and offline growth at the same time, gradually transitions to offline does not increase online growth, and finally online and offline are saturated. In this final stage, if online is still cheaper than offline, then sales will inevitably decline, and more and more offline consumption will go online.
At this point, the author wrote in "Why do snacks sell more and more at a loss? In this article, an in-depth analysis of the business status of snack companies such as Three Squirrels was conducted, and the most important point was the differentiation and competition of online and offline channels. The phenomenon of "snacks sell more and more at a loss" reflects the above logic.
In the same way, the live broadcast room is cheaper than the flagship store, and at the beginning it was an overall growth, and in the end, the live broadcast room will eventually grab the flagship store business. Consumers are not stupid, and the same brand products must be cheaper and where. On the other hand, the rise of live streaming and the rapid development of Pinduoduo also have a common reason. Many commodities and industries have been squeezed by the epidemic and geopolitics, and need to "clear inventory", which also creates favorable conditions for the live broadcast room to provide "the lowest price on the whole network".
has reached the stage of the same price of the flagship store in the live broadcast room, and the live broadcast has lost its biggest advantage and has become a normalized product promotion method.
Image source: BOSS Zhipin
This trend has already been reflected in the salaries of streamers. In the first two years, it was relatively normal for mature anchors to earn more than 20,000 yuan, but now the competition is becoming more and more fierce, and the income of anchors has generally dropped to around 15,000 yuan.
According to iiMedia Consulting data, in the first quarter of 2023, the monthly salary of anchors with goods across the country will range from 3,000 yuan to 30,000 yuan, and the monthly salary of most anchors will be between 6,000 yuan and 8,000 yuan. This year, the salary level of anchors fell by about 30% year-on-year. In addition to anchors, the salaries of "supporting roles" in live broadcast rooms such as operations and live broadcast central control have also declined by about 20%.
Corresponding to the decrease in anchor income is the general decline in anchors' ability to bring goods.
According to the "Information Daily", Feigua data shows that in the first live broadcast of Douyin's "618" this year, the turnover of several major anchors such as Guangdong couple, Qi'er, and Pan Yurun was 61.14 million yuan, 12.923 million yuan, and 6.748 million yuan respectively, down 86.4%, 88.46%, and 77% respectively from the same period in 2023.
Behind this phenomenon, on the one hand, it is because of the active promotion of the platform. Douyin adjusts the algorithm to promote the decentralization of talents, and since May this year, the rules of Douyin's live broadcast have changed from "intensive transaction" to "stay time", under the past "intensive transaction" rule, the head anchor can increase the number of orders in a short period of time by putting welfare products on the shelves, and drive traffic for the live broadcast room, while under the current "stay time" rule, it relies more on the personalized creation of anchors and promotes the decentralization of talents.
On the other hand, it also marks a decline in the stickiness of anchor users.
In addition, the author has also been puzzled in the past, the live broadcast industry is so hot, who is buying. Later, I learned from a friend that the traffic and sales in this field are also more serious. In order not to disrupt the existing channel pricing system, there are also anchors who inject water in order to get more advertising fees, and ask people to buy out the lowest-priced goods on the whole network in the live broadcast room.
After all, all live broadcast rooms and merchants will not disclose the return rate, negative review rate, etc., but will only promote sales, which also leaves room for relevant parties to operate.
epilogue
The anchor industry follows the Matthew effect. The head anchor eats meat, the waist anchor drinks soup, and the small and medium-sized anchor "does not earn as much as the courier". Such an industry pattern and income structure are obviously contrary to social expectations. As the industry comes under pressure, more adjustments and changes will emerge, and it is hoped that regulators, platforms and industry participants will form a joint force to build a more standardized industry system.
In this way, there can also be less sighs of "scientists are not as good as Internet celebrities".
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