Wen | Deep Burning, Author | Li Qiuhan, Editor | Jia Wei
The live broadcast platform is trying to get rid of the dependence on the head anchor.
Recently, the most obvious signal came from Aauto Quicker. The listing is just around the corner, because e-commerce occupies an important part of its commercial map, its subtle relationship with Simba, the anchor with the goods in the head, has once again become the focus of discussion. According to public data, in 2019, Simba and his family announced that the total GMV of their live broadcasts reached 13.3 billion, and Aauto Quicker’s prospectus showed that the total GMV of Aauto Quicker e-commerce was 59.6 billion that year, which accounted for nearly 25% of Simba’s family. However, in the third quarter of 2020, according to the statistics of Gecko Watch, a third-party data platform, Simba family’s e-commerce flow only accounted for 6% of the GMV of Aauto Quicker e-commerce in the quarter, and its relevance and influence were greatly reduced.
Taobao is also weakening the influence of the head anchor on the platform. According to People, a person familiar with the matter said that in 2020, Simba had negotiated with Taobao, saying that he could live on Taobao and be the head anchor within one month, but Taobao refused because Taobao wanted to promote brands and businesses to broadcast themselves, and did not want the anchor to be the only one.
Xuande, general manager of Taobao Content E-commerce Division, also stressed in an interview with the media that more than 70% of the transactions of Taobao live broadcast came from self-broadcasting in stores, 30% came from live broadcast by people, and the GMV of Taobao live broadcast in Viya and Li Jiaqi accounted for less than 10%.
Except for Tik Tok, who joined the e-commerce battlefield relatively late and is still supporting the head anchor and improving the live broadcast ecology, Taobao and Aauto Quicker have chosen to weaken the influence of the head anchor, and the purpose is self-evident.When the traffic is too concentrated, it will be choked by a single factor, which is not conducive to the ecological health of the platform.. However, the absolute resources of the head anchor bring absolute bargaining power, and the unit price of the product customers is pressed against the cost price. More than one merchant told Deep Burning that cooperation with the head anchor is "to a large extent losing money", and it is also not conducive to the development of the industry.
This is the reason why Aauto Quicker supported small and medium-sized businesses with 1 billion traffic and hundreds of millions of cash subsidies, and Taobao Live announced the opening of six support programs for small and medium-sized anchors.The platform began to look for the backbone of the live broadcast industry besides the head anchor..
According to the prediction of the third-party data platform Mama Chan, the scale of live e-commerce will be expanded from 1.05 trillion yuan in 2020 to 2 trillion yuan in 2021, and the penetration rate will be as high as 14.3%, and the industry will continue to maintain a high-speed growth trend. The anchor team also needs to enter a new stage, which requires the orderly growth of the head, middle waist and tail anchors, as well as the development of professional and refined personnel quality.
The next step of live broadcast with goods is not the next Viya, Li Jiaqi and Simba.
Nearly 100 million people snapped up online, and products with a price of 10,000 yuan were emptied in one second. In the live broadcast rooms in Li Jiaqi, Viya and Simba, consumers can easily buy the lowest-priced goods in the whole network and enjoy the benefits. However, the carnival of consumers is not so beautiful in the eyes of merchants, MCN institutions and even platforms.
"To broadcast live in Viya, Li Jiaqi, is to pass your head," more than one merchant told Deep Burning. With brand endorsement, online sales have soared, and the benefits brought by the head anchor to the merchants are direct, but the hidden cost behind it can not be ignored.
There are too many businesses eager to go to their live broadcast room.The queue is slow, the waiting period is long, and the ultra-low price is almost equal to the cost.. "It’s almost selling at a loss." Zhang Fei, a food merchant, once cooperated with Viya. After deducting the courier fee, tax, labor cost and commission fee, the customer unit price given by the other party was "almost just a zero". The Simba family’s bargaining power is more famous in the industry. Previously, some merchants revealed that the Simba team would calculate the cost of each link of the product and cut it to almost the ex-factory price. "It was cut according to the top of the world."
When the head anchor has a strong voice, how passive is the business? Zhang Fei confirmed a rumor in the industry that domestic manufacturers need to make a "choice between two" in the face of Li Jiaqi and Viya. Going to Li Jiaqi means that it is impossible to go to Viya to bring goods, and merchants have no choice.
Even the glory of the mobile phone brand has faced the challenge of Simba. In September 2020, Glory refused to give a pair of headphones temporarily, so Simba asked the fans to refund, and said, "I just told the boss of Glory what I told you. I lost 40 million yuan and didn’t hand it over to you. I’m sorry I didn’t hand it over." Although the final incident ended in Simba’s apology, it also serves to show.
More importantly, for merchants, cooperation with the head anchor is only the beginning, and ultra-low prices have also laid hidden dangers for future cooperation.
"The anchors who have cooperated well before will take the unit price of Simba in Viya, Li Jiaqi as the standard, and think that we still have room to lower the price." Zhang Fei is somewhat helpless. At the same time, the head anchor has a large amount of goods and has requirements for inventory. It is also a lot of pressure for merchants to increase inventory, adjust goods and dispatch orders in a short time. "And the head anchor has obvious effects.But a business can’t move for a few months.",Wang Songjie, head of the food business Koushuiwa live broadcast, concluded.
Businessman Lao Zhu told Deep Burning that many high-quality businesses are playing long-term, with high-quality products but small inventory and low gross profit. "The head anchor lowers the price, basically,It’s like squeezing the merchants dry at once, which will lead to the real high-quality merchants’ flinching from the live broadcast.”。
The low-price strategy of extreme compression is practical for consumers, but the ultimate price of profit-making will be transferred to merchants, which is not conducive to the long-term development of the industry. In addition, the industry resources are constant, and the growth of small and medium-sized anchors is difficult under the head anchor take all mode, which also puts pressure on MCN institutions to incubate anchors.
Ming Na’s MCN organization began to lay out anchor incubation as early as 2019, and completely abandoned it in the second half of 2020. "At present, the anchors are only divided into Li Jiaqi Viya and other anchors. The data of these two anchors have soared, and most of the traffic has been divided. The remaining anchors have no right to speak in the merchants, and the effect of bringing goods once or twice is not good. The merchants have no patience to cooperate, forming a vicious circle, so they simply don’t do it," she explained. Wang Nan’s MCN organization is still insisting, but he can’t help but sigh, "They are so strong that they make others look small.”。
In Wang Nan’s view, the head anchor is a double-edged sword in the industry. "Without Li Jiaqi and Viya, so many people wouldn’t want to be anchors, and so many consumers came to Taobao to watch the live broadcast because they brought in traffic." But he also admitted that when the industry developed to a certain stage, it could not be supported by only one or two people.
The platform also does not want to be kidnapped by the head anchor.
This is also an important reason why platforms represented by Taobao, Aauto Quicker and Tik Tok spend money and resources to support small and medium-sized businesses. A person in charge of the head MCN organization close to Taobao told Deep Burning, "The platform will not tell us what kind of anchors to look for, but it will ask the head organization to recruit many anchors, and it must reach the number." The platform hopes that under the horse racing mechanism, a powerful anchor will emerge.
In November, 2020, Aauto Quicker E-commerce announced that it would provide hundreds of millions of cash subsidies to small and medium-sized businesses, in addition, it launched the "Good Things Alliance", lowered the recruitment threshold of "10 billion subsidies" anchors, and supported middle-waist anchors to bring goods with 10 billion subsidies, which was also an initiative made by Aauto Quicker to support small and medium-sized businesses.
Tik Tok started late in the field of e-commerce, and at present there are relatively few actions for small and medium-sized anchors. "At present, the platform still needs to be influential, such as stars or high-traffic KOL outside the station," an industry practitioner close to Tik Tok told Deep Burning.
The platform has launched a support strategy based on its own advantages. So, what is the current effect?
According to the data of online celebrity today, as of December 21st, 2020, a total of 346 anchors have brought more than 100 million goods annually in 2020. Specific to the platform, in the "100-100 million" range, there are 147 people in Aauto Quicker, 97 people in Taobao and 73 people in Tik Tok. In addition, there are 18 anchors in Aauto Quicker who bring goods in the range of "1 billion-10 billion" every year, 12 more than Taobao’s 6. In contrast, Taobao is more dependent on the head anchor, Tik Tok is still supporting the head anchor, and the performance of Aauto Quicker anchor with goods is relatively more balanced.
Zhang Fei, a merchant, told Deep Burning that he was confused when he first came into contact with the live broadcast, and he could only "blindly select" and "try one by one" on the platform. After stepping on countless pits, he took the initiative to establish a stable cooperative relationship when he met a good anchor.Voting with their feet, businesses are also screening out the anchors they need..
Beyond the aura of the head anchor, with the development of the industry, anchors that are more in line with the needs of the industry are emerging. According to the feedback from many insiders, Deep Burning summed up four types of anchors needed by the industry in the future.
- Star anchor of deep cultivation industry
Not all star anchors make businesses "talk about the tiger". For stars who want to work hard in the industry, time has become a test stone.
One year later, the star anchors represented by Ji Jie, Shen Tao, Dani, Ye Yixi, Lin Yilun and Li Xiang have a stable cooperation team, and regard live broadcast as a career. Although ROI is hard to match with the head anchor, it has a stable output of goods. More than one merchant told Deep Burning that it has already had a stable cooperative relationship with the above-mentioned star anchors.
The MCN organization has a long-term cooperation with the star anchor. Fang Jian, the president, told Deep Burning, "In fact, as long as the live broadcast can persist, artists will generally get results if they give a fixed live broadcast time every week."
At present, the industry is canceling the pit fee and developing in the direction of pure commission, which is still rare among star anchors.However, with high conversion rate and firm pit position fee, the conversion rate and low pit position fee will decrease accordingly., has been stably regulated by the market. In this battlefield where live ammunition looks at the conversion rate, they are also facing cruel competition.
- Vertical domain professional anchor
Yang Ge, the founding partner of Xingyi Capital, once told Shen Yan that in 2020, the traffic platforms in the live broadcast field are all doing the god-making movement of the head anchor.In 2021, there will be differentiation, that is, cooperation with different vertical industries, such as second-hand luxury goods trading, maternal and child industries..
This is indeed becoming a reality. Restricted by the category, it is difficult for vertical anchors to have the sound volume of all-category anchors in the head, but thanks to their professional background, they have a more solid knowledge reserve in the vertical field than comprehensive anchors, which is easier to gain the trust of consumers and is sought after by merchants. Take the maternal and child category as an example. "Mothers pay great attention to their children’s growth. If they are willing to buy products with an anchor, it means that they already have strong trust. This kind of anchor is very sticky," said Ren Yanyan, director of marketing at MCN.
Koushuiwa, a food brand, has conducted a lot of live broadcast cooperation in Aauto Quicker. Wang Songjie, the person in charge of live broadcast, told Shenzhan, "The next step will be to find a big anchor cooperation. At present, the brand is still in the development stage. At this stage,Twenty anchors with 500,000 fans may be more effective than one anchor with 10 million fans.”。 They aimed at the mid-waist vertical anchor on Aauto Quicker and made a live broadcast plan, which also achieved the effect of broadening online sales and popularity.
- Brand self-broadcasting
Chen Minghui, director of content operation of Dasheng Media, predicted that "in the future, live broadcast will develop into personal branding and brand personalization", and brand self-broadcasting is the performance of brand personalization, which is an obvious trend in the industry.
How to gain the trust of consumers with live broadcast is the threshold, but for brands, it has been endorsed in the hearts of consumers for many years, and it is more direct to recruit anchors for training than to find third-party anchors.The anchor of brand recruitment can also be highly matched according to brand positioning.. MCN organization Jitao has the experience of being a live broadcast training anchor for first-line jewelry brands. Ren Yanyan told Shen Yan that when recruiting anchors, brands not only pay attention to the requirements of image and temperament, but also pay attention to whether the anchors have the background of studying abroad and have requirements for cultural heritage.
Li Haizhen, the founder of Dorado, a domestic beauty brand, settled in Aauto Quicker, and accumulated 680,000 fans in three months. The total sales volume of small shops in Aauto Quicker exceeded 468,000, and the benefits increased significantly through brand self-broadcasting. In Aauto Quicker, Jamie Milan, a small brand of children’s wear, steadily accumulated fans through short video preview and live broadcast, and after only two months, the daily GMV was nearly 10,000.
- Self-broadcast by merchants/self-broadcast by original goods
For small and medium-sized businesses, inviting anchors is under great pressure, and self-broadcasting is also a good path. In the development process of the live broadcast e-commerce industry, self-broadcasting by merchants will also become an important force to support the market.
According to the data released by Taobao in early 2020, 70% of the turnover of Taobao live broadcast comes from store live broadcast, and in terms of the number of games, merchants account for 90%. Ren Yanyan told Shen Yan that when consumers searched for the product on Taobao, they already had a consumption scene and willingness to consume. "If there is a live broadcast in the store, consumers can directly ask what they want to know, and the anchor will blow a little. It is easy to reach a deal, and we all recommend merchants to broadcast it themselves."
Brother Taiping is an early live broadcast merchant on Aauto Quicker. He broadcasts the real life of herders and accumulates fans on the platform. He told Deep Burning that in order to build trust, "customers can return it if they are not satisfied with it after receiving it." This kind of merchants with community culture broadcast themselves, which has a higher conversion rate than ordinary live broadcast. "There are more than 300,000 fans at present, but the effect of bringing goods is good. In 2020, they can bring 8 million pieces of goods a year, and the maximum consumption of iron powder is 10,000 or 5,000." There is nothing wrong with it, he said.
Sister Mi, a clothing merchant, entered Aauto Quicker in June, 2019, without brushing gifts, attracted accurate fans through short videos and live broadcasts, and self-broadcasted by the merchant based on the trust foundation established by Aauto Quicker community ecology. In November, 2020, she became the tenth in the Fat Ball Data "TOP50 of Live Broadcast Sales", with a GMV exceeding 1 billion in the whole year, and rapidly grew into the head anchor of the clothing industry in Aauto Quicker. According to Sister Mi’s team, with the increase in sales, their clothing factory has expanded from hundreds to thousands.
According to the data of online celebrity today, in 2020, a total of 346 anchors will bring more than 100 million goods a year, and the anchors at the middle and waist are also jumping upward. Together with small and medium-sized businesses and anchor echelons, the pyramid structure of the anchor team in the live broadcast industry with goods is taking shape. However, Wang Nan said frankly to Shenzhan that "talents in every industry are scarce, and good anchors can’t be found casually". How to cultivate anchors recognized by businesses was once a difficult problem in the industry.
Ren Yanyan revealed to Shen Yan that because the live broadcast of clothing has low requirements for anchors, MCN institutional incubation anchors often choose clothing to cut in. "Live clothing, as long as the anchor looks good on the body, the product is cost-effective, and it is easy to make an order by explaining the interest points to stimulate consumers. However, beauty requires the anchor to have a certain content and grass planting ability, and the requirements are higher. There are only fans, but their own ability to explain and understand the brand is poor, and the effect of bringing goods is not necessarily good. The clothing anchor has reached 300,000-500,000 fans, and it is difficult to transform into other fields. "
Not only is it difficult to incubate high-quality anchors, but the reality in front of the anchors is that,Not every category has a chance to have a vertical anchor..
"For example, it is impossible for the audience of electronic product anchors to change their mobile phones every day", Ren Xiyan told Shen Yan, except for products with large profit margins such as beauty, mother and baby, and products with large audience and high consumption rate such as food and clothing, which can support vertical anchors, many anchors tend to develop in a comprehensive direction after gaining a foothold in the vertical field. "Otherwise, if they stick to one category, their income will not support them to survive."
It is difficult to cultivate anchors, and the upside of vertical anchors is limited. However, this does not mean that after a year of rapid development, the industry has not honed a set of mature methodologies for cultivating anchors.
According TOP50 the big data of the small gourd, in the second half of 2020, about half of the three major platform anchors will be signed by MCN organizations. At the same time, MCN organizations show obvious platform inclination, Bajia Entertainment and Huayao Culture aim at Aauto Quicker, while Taiyang Chuanhe, Weilong Culture and Worry-Free Media with stronger content attributes grow rapidly in Tik Tok, and Qianxun, Mosquito Club, Nas and Taobao cooperate closely.
The advantages of mature MCN institutional incubation anchors are being highlighted. Take Qianxun, where Viya is located, as an example. Although it cooperates closely with Taobao, Qianxun successfully hatched a talented rabbit on Tik Tok in the past year, bringing 620 million goods a year, ranking eighth in the Tik Tok list. Looking at the Internet with a mature style of play, in a short time on the Aauto Quicker hatched the head anchor Yu Dagong. This is the first e-commerce anchor hatched by an e-commerce organization, which does not belong to any Aauto Quicker family, and the single-game payment amount has exceeded 300 million. After the launch of the powder-raising tool in Aauto Quicker, a number of mid-waist anchors have grown rapidly.
To build a big son of Yu, the network chooses the horse racing system. Fang Jian told Shen Burning that when cultivating the eldest son of Yu, there were 10 anchors competing in the same batch. In the first month, 50% of them were eliminated according to the data. After half a year, the eldest son of Yu finally won and became the target of the company. Next, he spent money and resources. He did not hide the company’s support and investment in Yu Dagong, and admitted that he was a "RMB player" in the industry.
“Many colleagues also come to consult, in fact, everything is full.Others smashed 2 yuan, I smashed 4 yuan, others smashed 4 yuan, and I smashed 8 yuan. You only spent 10 thousand yuan. What can you analyze? You have to hit 1 million first anyway. Then, the live broadcast data is disassembled and optimized, and how much it costs to buy a small store and how much it can earn with live broadcast, so as to find a profit balance point. If you lose 5 points, try to earn back the commission. "Fang Jian said. Reasonable use of the platform powder-raising tool, through data optimization, the powder-raising model is obtained, and in the same way, Li Xuanzhuo, a popular anchor who is good at wine, is hatched from afar.
Aauto Quicker has launched Xiaodian Tong and vermicelli, the purpose of which is to improve the speed of vermicelli increase and the transaction conversion rate of small and medium-sized businesses and anchors. The person in charge of Taobao Live also said that live e-commerce is developing at a high speed, and many small and medium-sized anchors are in their infancy. The live broadcast e-commerce ecosystem is constantly iterative. With the gradual establishment of industry norms and the increased support of the platform, the new generation of professional anchors are also gaining growth channels.
"The delivery speed is fast, and it has a certain product promotion effect. The effect brought by live delivery is obvious." Merchant Lao Zhu does not hide his optimism about the live delivery industry, "but the premise is to find an anchor suitable for his product.If the anchor and the product are not well matched, it is likely to be a nightmare to blindly pursue the main broadcast volume of the head.. "He added.
After the first food transformed and developed by the company gained a firm foothold through live broadcast, they are developing a second product recently. With previous live broadcast experience, they are now looking for an anchor, "not as confused as before", he said.
* At the request of interviewees, Zhang Fei, Wang Nan, Lao Zhu and Ming Na are assumed as pseudonyms.