This year’s 618, what is the situation in the live streaming industry? What kind of new moves do the head anchors have? What new paths are MCN institutions exploring? This article will reveal them to you one by one.
On the afternoon of June 15, Luo Yonghao, who rarely appears in the live broadcast room, appeared in the premiere live broadcast room of Baidu’s e-commerce platform.
At first glance, Luo Yonghao still sat at a table with another anchor, Zhu Xiaomu, as usual, tilted his head slightly, introduced the goods to the audience, and from time to time borrowed the barrage sent by the audience to respond to some jokes with a bit of “Roche” accent.
It’s just that the expressions of both of them are a little stiff, because they are both digital people.
However, probably out of curiosity about Luo Yonghao’s digital human, the live broadcast attracted more than 13 million views, and the total transaction volume of a single session exceeded 55 million yuan.
Source: Luo Yonghao’s personal Weibo
This year’s 618, the big anchors are still active on the front line, Luo Yonghao uses digital people to appear on the camera is only one of them, Li Jiaqi, Dong Yuhui, Simba and other head anchors are attracting the attention of consumers in various forms.
Nowadays, after years of accumulation, super anchors have gradually grown into an indispensable existence in the live streaming industry.
At the same time, on the one hand, the major MCNs are accelerating the process of “de-centering anchors” to allow more anchors to emerge, and on the other hand, they are also exploring new models, such as launching self-operated malls, paying attention to segmented groups, opening up new live broadcast forms, etc.
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The current live broadcast industry has developed into a new node, and under the action of multiple external forces such as technology and the environment, the industry still has room for imagination, but it is becoming more and more difficult to tell new stories well.
01 This year’s 618, the head anchor is still the “top stream”
This year’s 618 is particularly hot under the stimulation of the platform’s vigorous promotion and national subsidy policy.
It can be seen from the 618 “midfield” data released by Tmall on May 30 that as of 9 p.m. on the 30th, the turnover of 217 brands exceeded 100 million, and the turnover of national supplement categories such as home appliances and 3C digital increased by 283% year-on-year.
Under such circumstances, the former head anchors have also come to grab the cake.
The most obvious increase in the “appearance rate” is Li Jiaqi and Simba, one has appeared in the live broadcast room for many consecutive days, and the other has not fallen behind in every live broadcast.
According to the incomplete statistics released by Li Jiaqi’s Austin official account, since June, Li Jiaqi has been present in the Taobao live broadcast room on the 5th, 6th, 7th, 12th, 13th and 14th.
Simba’s Xinxuan did not broadcast live every day during the 618 period, and the official account of Xinxuan Group showed that it only conducted two live broadcasts on May 25 and 31, and Simba appeared in both live broadcasts.
The difference is that Li Jiaqi’s team’s preview will be more detailed, while Simba’s trailer will be more brief.
Li Jiaqi’s team will release live broadcast preview information on the official account every day, and the content can be called “everything”. For example, the live broadcast trailer released at 8 a.m. on June 12 was almost filled with the product, giveaway and price forms in the live broadcast room, and it may take some time to draw to the end.
Source: Li Jiaqi Austin’s official WeChat public account
Li Jiaqi’s live broadcast room mini program will also rank the number of daily reservations, and the top products in the reservation can also become the object of consumers’ “copying homework”.
Simba’s live broadcast trailer did not write in detail the specific discounts, but Simba himself moved more outside the live broadcast room. For example, on the eve of 618, he specially filmed a concept video for himself to help warm up the live broadcast room on major platforms; He will also post a short video of selfies and face-to-face on Kuaishou’s homepage to remind fans to pay the final payment.
Li Jiaqi and Simba are not the only super anchors who have borrowed 618 to brush up on another wave of popularity, and Luo Yonghao, who once announced the change of track, also has a high sense of presence during this 618 period.
Luo Yonghao passed a “AI addiction”, and after Baidu’s preferred live broadcast, he posted several updates related to the live broadcast of digital humans, lamenting the realism of the digital human Luo Yonghao.
“Seriously, this digital human effect shocked me. Xiao Mu’s two digital people and I were looking back and forth there, telling jokes in the same style as me, a little in a trance…… But that’s the reality. ”
When Luo Yonghao announced his plan to achieve “100% de-Luoization”, how reluctant fans were to be curious about the digital Luo Yonghao, and the results of this digital human live broadcast actually reflected that the former super anchors were still attractive.
In contrast, it seems that the most “calm” is Dong Yuhui, who is more enthusiastic about local special live broadcasts than 618.
According to the live broadcast trailer released by the official Douyin account of Walking with Hui, Dong Yuhui only broadcast three times from June 16 to 29, one of which was a special live broadcast in Guangxi from 12:30 to 16:00 on June 17.
Compared with the live broadcast with the theme of “Splendid Tianfu, Comfortable Sichuan” from May 25th to 28th, Dong Yuhui will be broadcast in the Sichuan-themed live broadcast time every day on the 4th, and the number of broadcasts has reached 13 times.
However, placing the more “talkable” Sichuan special live broadcast during the 618 promotion node may also be Dong Yuhui’s special arrangement during this promotion, which not only ensures the characteristics of his knowledge live broadcast, but also keeps up with hot spots.
Overall, in this year’s live streaming market, the potential energy of the above-mentioned super anchors is still there.
On the first day of the 618 pre-sale, Li Jiaqi’s team won a GMV of 25-3.5 billion yuan; Simba team premiered with sales of more than 4 billion; Dong Yuhui’s team set a sales result of 176 million yuan in a single game on the first day of 618.
02 This year’s 618, the way of playing live e-commerce MCNs has also changed
Behind the super anchor’s best efforts in 618, it is actually the MCN behind him who is exploring new development paths.
The most obvious is the “Qianxun Super Member” mini program launched by Qianxun Group, which is actually Qianxun testing the waters of the self-operated mall.
“Qianxun Super Member” sells products from various brands, including clothing, beauty, food and daily necessities. And in the mini program, the relevant price is not high, and there are many low-priced flash sale products.
Judging from the interface information of this mini program at present, its overall construction is not perfect, but from June 5 to now, all the products in the “605 Snack Festival” and “612 New Day” have been sold out in just a few days, which shows that Qianxun’s test of the waters during the 618 period has been very successful.
Source: Qianxun Super Member Mini Program
In fact, the head anchor is not only the main force to promote sales for MCN, but also an IP-like existence, and the MCN’s route is no longer centered on a single live broadcast room, but to open up more channels and cooperate with the live broadcast room.
In addition to Qianxun’s launch of the “Qianxun Super Member” mini program, Li Jiaqi’s beauty ONE launched its own brand “Beauty Wrist Preferred”.
It is understood that “Beautiful Wrist Preferred” has been online for a year, and the product categories are becoming more and more complete, with 72 products covering life, food, pet supplies and other categories in the store, serving more than 1.5 million users, and the cumulative sales of the whole network exceeding 2.5 million.
In addition, a more obvious feature is that during the 618 period, MCN no longer only focused on impacting GMV, but paid more attention to combining its own advantages to innovate live broadcast content.
For example, Mei ONE opened a new account “All Parents’ Happy Home” before 618, which premiered on May 5, and Li Jiaqi also brought his mother to appear in the premiere, which is undoubtedly preparing for this year’s 618.
However, “All Parents’ Happy Home” actually did not focus on impacting GMV, but focused on making content that was more suitable for middle-aged and elderly consumers, which was quite different from Li Jiaqi’s other live broadcast rooms. For example, the set of the live broadcast room is more lifelike, and the anchor’s speech speed and the rhythm of the live broadcast are very slow.
According to the live broadcast on May 13, “All Mods’ Happy Home” was broadcast for 10 hours, with 52 single products, which is about one-tenth of Li Jiaqi’s live broadcast room at the same time.
Screenshot of the live broadcast room of “All Moms’ Happy Home”, source Taobao APP
Another MCN that pioneered new content forms is Wuyou Media, which cooperated with Luyuan Electric Vehicle on May 20 to try the industry’s first “social group broadcast” form, and the set of the live broadcast room is more like a show, and the 14 artists and anchors of Wuyou Media will also perform dances during the live broadcast.
This live broadcast finally allowed Luyuan to achieve a 720% sales increase, with sales exceeding 13,000 units, topping the Douyin electric vehicle category sales, exposure and brand group buying list.
In addition, it is crucial to solve consumer pain points in a more targeted manner during the 618 period.
Dongfang Selection and Yuanwang Technology have joined the 618 sanitary napkin hot war in different ways, one is produced by itself, and the other cooperates with larger traffic stars.
On June 16, Dongfang Selection’s self-operated sanitary napkins were officially launched on the Dongfang Selection App. According to the data revealed by Dongfang Selection, more than 300,000 packs of self-operated sanitary napkin products have been sold in the first 14 hours.
After Huang Zitao, a former member of the boy group, became popular again with his “beloved wife”, he entered the sanitary napkin industry in a high-profile manner, and was in charge of the sanitary napkin brand Duowei and achieved great success.
On the evening of May 18, Duowei was officially launched for sale, and achieved 40 million sales and sold out spot, more than 800,000 orders in the live broadcast room, and more than 55 million exposures in the live broadcast room.
It can be seen that in this year’s 618 live streaming market, all companies are seeking differentiated breakthroughs, after all, relying only on “cheap” is no longer tenable.
03 What new stories can be told in live streaming?
Today’s live streaming market has shifted from extensive GMV growth to refined user operations, and the market size is still growing.
According to iiMedia Consulting data, China’s online retail sales will reach 15.52 trillion yuan in 2024 and are expected to reach 16.65 trillion yuan by 2025. iiMedia Consulting analysts believe that live streaming e-commerce is undergoing a key transformation from barbaric growth to high-quality development, and with the joint efforts of capital, platforms and government, the industry has gradually built a benign development framework of “efficiency-order-rationality”.
The industry has entered a mature period, which actually means that players in the industry are facing more fierce competition.
For example, Gong Yu, CEO of iQIYI, also announced at the iQIYI World Conference that it would launch content e-commerce and enter the live streaming industry, intending to use resources such as celebrities and film and television IP to drive traffic in the live broadcast room.
In this case, how to tell the new story?
Tapping the needs of more segmented groups is one direction. Expanding categories is what most players are doing, and the routes of subdivision tracks can be diverse.
For example, middle-aged and elderly groups, female groups, male groups, pet families, small town youth, fan groups, urban white-collar workers, exquisite mothers, etc., are all directions worthy of attention and deep cultivation.
It can also be seen from the actions of major MCNs during the 618 period, MeiONE entered the silver market, intending to create a “family matrix” in the live broadcast room around the family environment; Make a Friend launched a live demo special session, which is specially aimed at people who like to “gather wool”.
In addition to further tapping the needs of segmented users, some MCNs are also entering overseas markets to find new incremental markets.
Among them, Yuanwang Technology, MeiONE, and Xinxuan are the main representatives. Yuanwang laid out short video and live broadcast business on TikTok in March 2022; Xinxuan Group released its international business overseas plan in 2023; ONE established the International Development Department in September 2024.
At present, the overseas business of several MCNs is also doing well. In 2024, Yuanwang will achieve a large-scale overseas expansion, training local anchors through a professional system, and the words in the live broadcast room are all English versions of “3, 2, 1 link” and “flash sale” and other marketing words with Chinese characteristics.
According to data from TikTok’s third-party data platform Fastmoss, MTYN is mainly a head talent who has signed more than 500,000 fans in the Indonesian market, and there are currently 5 talents signed by the agency, and the total amount of recent goods is about $95,000.
According to data from the Crowley Index Research Institute, nearly 30% of MCN institutions in China are currently trying to go overseas, and another 14.9% are preparing and waiting and seeing.
In addition, the success of Luo Yonghao’s digital human live broadcast also confirms that the live streaming industry has entered the AI era, and the new forms and new stories of the live broadcast e-commerce industry are still waiting for players to continue to explore.
