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Seek new growth from new technologies.

Text | Chen Shoucheng

Editor | director

Super anchors seem to have the same disease.

At the beginning of March, the news that Xiao Yang’s brother faded out of the live broadcast room was hotly searched. Before him, from Dong Yuhui to Li Jiaqi, they all showed their fatigue in live broadcast. As for Luo Yonghao, he got out of the live broadcast room earlier, and only stood up and pointed out at key nodes and hot search moments.

It seems that in the second half of e-commerce, the super anchors have encountered new problems, which is different from the downfall of Viya, Sydney and other head anchors. The super anchors have fallen into a common mental dilemma, which has become a new unstable factor within their companies.

Live e-commerce is an industry where personal energy is infinitely amplified, and super anchor is one of the leaders and leaders of the industry. Their personal problems will also form common problems in the industry.

Super anchor doesn’t want to do it?

Superanchors are generally tired of their jobs.

In June, 2022, Luo Yonghao officially announced that he had retired from the network just two years after the live broadcast. As early as the end of the 21st century, Luo Yonghao drastically reduced the duration of the live broadcast, so the news that he was going to stop broadcasting was reported many times.

Huang He, the founder of making friends, once explained to the Hedgehog Commune (ID: ciweigongshe) the core reason of Luo Yonghao’s "quitting the net": Lao Luo didn’t want to work, so we couldn’t stay. To this end, Luo Yonghao, which is particularly powerful in energy, resolutely (half) gave up the lucrative live broadcast e-commerce industry and devoted himself to the wave of AR entrepreneurship.

In September 2023, in a daily live broadcast, Li Jiaqi suddenly collapsed and broke the defense because of a comment from the audience. "Where is it expensive" became a hot stalk, but what people ignored was Li Jiaqi’s subsequent true feelings: "It hurts to die sitting here every day, and the previous state of Li Jiaqi can never be found again."

Although there is quite a sharp comment: "If you don’t want to do it, don’t do it." But obviously, Li Jiaqi’s interests have been tied to too many people. It is not for him to decide whether to broadcast live or not, and he doesn’t have a new career like Luo Yonghao’s.

In February, 2024, Dong Yuhui emptied Weibo because he was tired of hot search. In previous interviews, he repeatedly expressed his unhappiness in his live broadcast career: "slander, humiliation, attack and satire came from all directions."

Dong Yuhui didn’t have much pleasure in becoming a super anchor and wealth freedom. In the live broadcast room, he publicly said: "If life can be chosen, I would rather be anyone in the company." This may sound like Versailles, but Dong Yuhui, as an intellectual, does have his own pursuit to become an anchor with goods, which is somewhat like a joke of fate.

Recently, at the beginning of March, the news that Brother Xiao Yang fell out of the TOP20 of Tik Tok’s list of talented people rushed to the hot search. Then I responded online: the reason is that only one live broadcast with goods will be held in February, and then the number of times with goods will be reduced. Prior to this, Brother Xiao Yang once said that he wanted to quit the Internet and that he was unhappy and could do nothing. Buying a yacht will be said, and going to a bar to disco will also be said. "

In mid-March, Simba, who has always been a miracle, seemed to show his disappointment with the live e-commerce industry. He told the media that the live e-commerce can’t make any money and will stop the live broadcast for two years to concentrate on studying AI.

This common dilemma of the whole platform and the whole generation of super anchors seems to have hidden common reasons.

On the one hand, although the super anchors are the biggest beneficiaries of the myth of making wealth by live e-commerce, they are also firmly bound by their work. Although some netizens call them capitalists because of their high income, this statement is obviously unfair. Capitalists can naturally benefit from the flow of capital, but they still need to pay high-intensity labor.

On the other hand, super anchors, as personal IP directly facing C-end consumers, will naturally have more abundant emotions and more grounded responses. When the public opinion field that public figures are bound to bear is overwhelmed without reservation, some of them can handle it with ease, such as Luo Yonghao in ancient online celebrity, but others can’t, such as Xiao Yangge in online celebrity, a grassroots, and Dong Yuhui, an intellectual.

Finally, applying Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory, it is obvious that super anchors have gained considerable money and industry status, which will usually lead to the improvement of social status. But the super anchors, as "online celebrity", are misplaced in this respect. It is difficult for them to gain respect in a broader sense, and therefore they are vulnerable to psychological trauma.

There is no big anchor, okay?

Super anchors need to get away from the heavy live broadcast affairs and reduce the live broadcast time. Now it seems that this should not only be the best choice for live broadcast e-commerce institutions to minimize personal IP risks, but also be the best choice after fully considering the mental state of super anchors.

So, what have different e-commerce organizations done? Without a big anchor, can live e-commerce still work?

On March 26th, Jiaoyou Friends Holdings (HK01450) released the 2023 annual performance announcement. The annual report shows that the company’s revenue during the reporting period was 1.074 billion yuan, up 152.4% year-on-year; The adjusted net profit was 180 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 601.3%. This is the first annual report after making a friend’s backdoor listing. It seems that making a friend is still living well after being forced to divest Luo Yonghao.

The high growth may be due to the comparison with the extremely low performance base of the original Century Ruike, but on the other hand, the profit scale of nearly 200 million a year is also "stable happiness". This is enough to show that Luo Yonghao’s departure did not have an essential impact on the business operation of making friends.

Making friends can do this, probably because of the earlier layout. Unlike Dong Yuhui and Li Jiaqi, who became increasingly agitated, Luo Yonghao decided to withdraw from the live broadcast room earlier. Carrying goods is a means of paying off debts, which is only a stage of his life and will not become Luo Yonghao’s lifelong career. This makes it easier to make friends than peers in the layout of institutional branding.

As a latecomer, the oriental selection should be even more thorough in this regard, although it is impossible to really take off the MCN hat and change the industry’s inherent cognition of itself. However, Dongfang Selection has always denied that it is a online celebrity incubator, but claimed to take the "product route" and build a supply chain to optimize the industrial chain.

Although the small composition incident once made the selection of the East go to a dangerous moment, Yu Minhong did take a clever move. The establishment of a personal live broadcast room for Dong Yuhui actually completed the divestiture of Dong Yuhui’s IP and the IP of the Oriental Selection Agency. In the future, even if Dong Yuhui leaves or stops broadcasting because of job burnout, it will no longer have an essential impact on the selection of the East.

On January 24th, Oriental Selection announced its interim results for fiscal year 2024 (from June 1st to November 30th, 2023). The financial report shows that from June 1 to November 30, 2023, the total income of Oriental Selection was about 2.8 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 34.4%. The adjusted net profit was 509 million yuan, down about 15.4% year-on-year.

The decrease of net profit may come from the increase of employees’ salary expenses. According to the financial report data, the total salary expenses of Dongfang Selection in the six months to November 30, 2023 were 625 million yuan, while in the six months from June 1 to November 30, 2022, the salary expenses of Dongfang Selection were 233 million yuan, an increase of 167.7%.

Despite this, the annual profit scale of Oriental Selection is about six times that of making friends. The reason is likely to come from the high gross profit brought by the selection of self-built brands in the East. According to the data, the GMV of the East for half a year is 5.7 billion yuan, which is almost the same as the GMV data of 12 billion yuan for a friend. However, in terms of revenue, the selection of the East has reached six times that of making a friend, and the gap in profit is likely to come from this.

In fact, the capital market has also given a fairly high valuation for the self-owned brands selected by the East, and there is no denying the success of the East Selection in self-built supply chains and brands.

According to the third-party data platform, the GMV of US one one2022 exceeded 65 billion yuan, and the sales volume was about five times that of making friends in 2023. Considering that US one has no self-built brand at present, if the ratio of revenue /GMV and profit rate are similar to making friends, the annual profit of US ONE may be around 1 billion yuan. Of course, if the profit margin of beauty products is higher, this data may be relatively improved.

Li Jiaqi can’t get away, perhaps because of his super ability to carry goods. In the strong growth period of live broadcast e-commerce, when his energy can be infinitely amplified by the outlet, Li Jiaqi can’t and won’t retreat from the live broadcast room. As the behind-the-scenes organization, US one also made corresponding decisions. They fired hundreds of anchors signed by the company, and poured all their resources into the live broadcast room in Li Jiaqi, thus achieving unimaginable success.

However, times have changed, which has become a cage for Li Jiaqi.

New technology and new direction

The change of the underlying technology will deeply affect the development of the industry. The idea of live e-commerce may have been put forward as early as 20 years ago, but it was not until the popularity of 4G networks and cheap Android phones that there was really room for display.

Nowadays, the development of new technologies such as digital people and AI is also deeply affecting the live e-commerce industry, amplifying the influence of super anchors on another level, and even liberating the real body of super anchors.

Both AI digital people and short video slicing are trying to maximize the IP effect of the super anchor itself, but at the same time reducing the boring and repetitive work of the super anchor.

As Sima Huapeng, the founder of silicon-based intelligence, said, "Live broadcasts can’t be done well, and digital people can’t play. Those who have already done well with short videos and live broadcasts will use digital people to expand their business, and the effect will be good. "

There have been considerable precedents in the industry in the authorization of AI digital people. Roughly speaking, there is a real-life video slice authorized by Zhu Zixiao. In the live broadcast room, Zhu Zixiao sits there and eats chicken feet without saying a word. Similar videos may be infinitely copied and placed in other live broadcast rooms to attract users’ attention and bring about transaction conversion.

Image source: News Morning News video screenshot

In this case, the super anchors are weakened into a symbol and endorsement, and obviously they can’t achieve similar results as in the live broadcast room. However, the traffic brought by the super anchors and the large-scale delivery of batch copying can still bring some transformation and sharing benefits.

A more mature business case comes from Xiao Yang’s short-sighted frequency band cargo slicing. According to the official data of Three Sheep, in 2022, more than 11,000 people were authorized to slice the Three Sheep Network, with a per capita income of 17,000 yuan, and 316 brands sold millions of goods through slicing. According to some media estimates, in 2022, Brother Xiao Yang will earn 187 million yuan just by broadcasting live slices, which is close to the annual profit scale of making friends. This may also be one of the important reasons why Xiao Yang can steadily reduce the number of live broadcasts.

The CEO of a Tik Tok head brand service provider told Hedgehog Commune that Xiao Yang’s content slice is more effective, naturally has traffic value, and can attract a lot of free traffic, which is an important reason for its success. In contrast, it is difficult for Luo Yonghao to introduce the live broadcast form of goods in the field of short video, deus ex.

"There are also good traffic, but all of them are caused by Teacher Luo. For a long time, what the audience sees is that Luo Yonghao is angry every day in the live broadcast room, as if his temper is very bad, which has also caused a bad influence on Luo Yonghao’s personal brand image."

As for Oriental Selection and Dong Yuhui, the service provider thinks that the risk is greater. "Dong Yuhui is an intellectual after all and has pride. He may be infinitely magnified if he accidentally says something, and there will be certain speech risks. On the other hand, the brand tonality selected by Dong Yuhui and Dongfang is not suitable for making grandiose slices. "

From this point of view, slicing with goods is destined not to be applicable to all anchors, and new technologies may not necessarily benefit everyone. However, the existing directions and cases still give the super anchors a certain imaginable space in the future.

Tired super anchors are still trapped in the relatively backward production mode of live broadcast e-commerce, using repeated labor to dig gold, while making money happily and living painfully.

Perhaps Simba, who stopped broadcasting at this time to concentrate on learning AI, is the one who has seen through the development of the industry.

Original title: "Super anchor, collectively tired"

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