Text | Eye entertainment
The Douyin live broadcast room set off a craze of "opening blind boxes".
Initially, this craze was mainly concentrated in the live broadcast room of card splitting. A box of cards sold in 10 packs ranges from 100~200 in price. The card dismantling anchor picked up the scissors to open the box, open the card, and check the cards, and easily ran out of tens of thousands of yuan in turnover overnight. According to the data, the sales of the head card company card game on the Douyin platform in the first half of 2024 alone will be as high as 278 million, exceeding the annual sales of nearly 200 million in 2023.
Driven by the "blind box opening" gameplay, other ACG-related products such as bar chirp and pinching have also entered the card opening room live broadcast room. For example, the popular card splitting live broadcast room "Roast Chicken Split Card" on Douyin currently promotes the "Spell Return" bar product, and its window sales have reached 22,000.
If blind box live streaming stops there, it may only be seen as a new form of fan economy. The market may admire the strength of the second dimension should not be underestimated, and after saving the old shopping mall, it can continue to save the live broadcast room, but it will not have a deeper understanding of it.
However, the "blind box" craze did not stop at the two-dimensional field. More and more blind box live broadcast rooms began to emerge, and some goods that had no desire to buy were put on the cabinet, such as outdated nail art and cheap handicrafts. Although these items deviate from the mainstream market aesthetically, they all generate phenomenal sales in the live broadcast room.
Some "ugly things", even the anchor can't hide his embarrassment when he shows it, so he can only be silent for a while, and then sincerely suggest to the user: "Give it to your girlfriend." ”
Behind the ugly but bought, useless but bought, how does the live broadcast of "opening the blind box" sell expensive waste to consumers?
01
Lailai, who lives and works in Changsha, after continuing to pay attention to a card-splitting live broadcast room for a week, placed an order to buy her first product in the live broadcast room on a weekend night, taking advantage of the warm atmosphere in the live broadcast room.
Lailai said that her purchase of millet in the live broadcast room is a process of "consuming first and then making up". Before buying the character of "Spell Return", she didn't know anything about the plot of this drama. At first, she was attracted to the live broadcast room just because she liked the sound of the anchor, and then gradually learned how to play the lottery in the live broadcast room, which was very interesting, so she became a squatting guard every night.
The gameplay of the blind bag is usually as follows: in the limited product, there are two hidden models, one is to randomly appear 1 pack out of 60 packs, and the other is to get 2 packs out of 60 packs. When the user places an order in the live broadcast room, if the hidden money of "3:60" is drawn, the anchor will give an additional 3 packs; If the hidden "1:60" is drawn, the anchor will give an additional 7 packs.
Since the gifted blind bag also has the opportunity to open hidden money, even if the user only places an order for 3 packs, it is possible to continue to receive additional gifts by obtaining hidden money in a row, until all the blind bags in front of the anchor are emptied. The audience is looking forward to the birth of this lucky plot, and they are also happy to see the expression of pretending to be annoyed and saying "It's a big loss". Whenever this kind of moment occurs, the number of people online and the number of orders placed in the live broadcast room will reach a peak.
However, Lailai's luck was not too good. The three packs of goods she ordered over the weekend did not come out as she wished. After seeing her order remarks "I haven't watched "Spell Return", I just want to compete with the anchor for luck", the anchor casually suggested to her: "If you buy it, you can actually make up for it, the plot is still very warm, you can see the happy ending of the character drawn." ”
Lailai didn't go to watch the drama, but she invested more time and money in the live broadcast room. Three days later, she finally got her wish and opened two grand prizes and a small prize in a row in one box, winning a total of 23 packages of goods, so much so that the anchor couldn't hold it with one hand. Although her investment in the live broadcast room was close to four figures at this time, when she made her screen recording in the live broadcast room into a short video and shared it, she received comments from passers-by and netizens who "breathed European gas" and liked the card opening anchor, which made her very satisfied with the entire consumer experience.
"In fact, the fun of the blind box live broadcast room is very simple," said Lailai, "just like when I was a child, I had no money and could only watch adults play slot machines, no matter whether others won the lottery or not, I would feel excited." When you have the conditions, you will inevitably want to try it. ”
02
Gameplay is often more important than products in the blind box live broadcast room.
A typical case is "Turtle Pair Collision", the craft turtle sold in the live broadcast room, whether in terms of function or aesthetics, there is no place to take out, but its rich gameplay is very popular.
In the regular "turtle against each other" live broadcast room, 9 craft turtles are sold, and the anchor puts them into the nine-square grid and redeems the prize according to the following rules:
1. Make a wish: The user can choose a wishing color, and open a turtle of the same color to get 1 pack
2. Bumper: Two turtles of the same color in the nine-square grid will get 1 pack;
3. Three-in-a-row: 5 packs of three-in-a-row color;
4. Family photo: 5 packs of turtles in the nine-square grid with different colors;
5. Clearance: All turtles will be sent 5 packs due to the removal of "bumpers" or "triples".
Compared with other blind box products, the winning probability of "turtle pair collision" is undoubtedly a kind of refreshing tour. Since there are only 10 turtle styles, under the restriction of the nine-square grid, it is very likely to form a "bumper", buy 9 in the live broadcast room, and basically win the lottery in various ways and leave with 18. Even if you are unlucky, the anchor will take the initiative to help make up for one to help users start the happiness of serial encounters and become the "happy king" who is swiped by the barrage in the live broadcast room.
In some live broadcast rooms where turtles collide with each other, they will further change the nine-square grid from the word "well" to the word "meter", and add "multiple touches" in the middle; Or in addition to the wishing color, add an additional "hidden item" that can be given when opened. The purpose of these new additions is to further increase the probability of winning and the gaming experience.
This kind of live broadcast room with "coolness" as the main logic not only enhances the ability to bring goods, but also gives the content attribute of the live broadcast room. For example, the live broadcast room of "Roast Chicken Splitting Cards" made a short video of the user's repeated winning process, which received extremely high likes and playbacks, thus promoting the rapid growth of fans.
In the turtle pair match live broadcast room, "coolness" has become the main emotional logic of the live broadcast room, and players are talking about the cool story of "placing 9 orders and emptying the merchant's warehouse", which leads to a live broadcast room with goods beginning to have content attributes.
The live broadcast room "Roast Chicken Card Split" makes a short video of the process of users repeatedly winning the lottery. These video data generally have tens of thousands of likes and more than one million playbacks, which boosted the number of fans of roast chicken to increase the number of fans, and the number of fans exceeded one million on the evening of July 28.
In addition, there is a kind of mahjong blind box that can be hu, touched, and paired. Its appearance makes the online live broadcast room closer to the experience of the offline game hall. The core value of the blind box live broadcast room is also almost clear: entertainment experience is the key to attracting users to pay, and the products in hand are only used as accessories to add fun.
03
The products in the blind box live broadcast room seem to have significant profit margins at first glance. For example, games such as Turtle Matchmaking sell 9 packs of craft turtles at a price of 19.9 yuan in the Douyin live broadcast room, while 100 can be purchased on the Pinduoduo platform for the same price. However, in the actual sales process, anchors often adopt the strategy of half-selling and half-giving, and the actual gift is up to 30 to 40 packs.
An anchor revealed to Eye Entertainment that the product cost of such a blind box live broadcast room around non-ACG official peripherals is roughly equivalent to the anchor's labor cost and express delivery fee, and the profit margin is usually maintained at about 30% after deducting various costs. Therefore, for some blind box live broadcast rooms with low product value, the profit space of goods can be larger, and the key is to make the audience in the live broadcast room happy and maintain the popularity in the live broadcast room.
For example, in the live broadcast room that sells nail diamonds, in the face of products that are more "useless" and "cheap" than craft turtles, the anchor fully demonstrates his whole skills.
The nail diamond blind box is packaged in the form of a "desert nugget", burying the nail diamond in a small pearl that symbolizes the "desert". The user buys a specific number of "spoons" as needed, and the streamer digs and sifs out the pearls according to the number purchased, and finally packs the remaining nail diamonds and sends them to the consumer.
However, in the actual consumption process, no matter how many spoonfuls the consumer buys, the anchor will eventually generously give the user a whole "desert".
The first is that users who make a purchase will get two chances to win the lottery. The anchor took the two winning results of "plus 9 spoons" and "plus 8 spoons", and asked the audience in the live broadcast room how many spoons they had won. Some viewers made a bad statement of 35 spoons, and the anchor pretended to be angry, saying: "You will be scolded by the boss for doing this, obviously 42 spoons." ”
The excavation process of 42 spoons is not simple, starting from the second spoon, from 1 to 2, and from 1 to 2, from counting to shouting passwords, and 20 spoons are sent out without paying attention.
On the 6th scoop, he paused again, kept shouting "666", and gave out 20 scoops again.
Finally, it reached 42 scoops, and "42" began to go back and forth again. Under the magical command of "42424242", the "42nd" spoon became the "24th" spoon in a blink of an eye. So, it all started all over again.
In the end, it's finally over. The last scoop was replaced with a large spoon comparable to a spatula, 1 scoop to the front 50 scoops, which was full of Dengden. The main one is to make consumers never come in vain.
Although these nail diamonds may not have any practical use value for consumers, the streamers' clever marketing and rich giveaway strategies can still make consumers happy and happy.
In this emotionally valued sales model, the goods become accessories, and the merchant cleans up the garbage in the warehouse and makes money.
There is a point of view that the words in the blind box live broadcast room are the ideas of selling cloth heads in the past, so that customers can feel comfortable, so as to effectively stimulate consumers' desire to buy.
However, Eye Entertainment Jun believes that the "open blind box" live broadcast is not only a simple copy of the traditional sales model, but also a comprehensive integration and innovation of the current live broadcast room function.
For example, a simple question is: Is the blind box live broadcast a show live broadcast that provides entertainment value, or a live broadcast with goods for selling goods?
If it is a live broadcast with goods, but the audience buys products that they don't use at all.
From this point of view, blind box live broadcast is more like an innovative monetization model for show live broadcast, with the help of "props" products, a more smooth monetization model has been innovated.
In the blind box live broadcast room, consumers only need to pay 99.9 yuan to experience the sense of dignity and attention of opening a bottle of Ace of spades in a nightclub.
The anchor's personalized nickname is like a certification on the LED screen, and the barrage on the full screen is like an atmosphere group cheering for you.
With the anchor's superb language art display, consumers witnessed the 9 packs of little turtles they bought, and in the anchor's "touch" command, they "grew" into a spectacular lineup of 99 packs.
The increasing number of such giveaways not only enhances the inner pleasure of consumers, but also further enhances the cost-effective shopping experience.
It's really useless to be useless, but happiness is also really happy.