From Dong Yuhui’s cultural output to Li Jiaqi’s banking interest, to the transformation of Simba and Brother Xiao Yang, what kind of industry trends and market pressures are reflected behind the choice of the head anchors? This article will explore why top anchors are starting to give up their own features and try new strategies instead.
During this time, many netizens found that Dong Yuhui’s live streaming style seems to have changed slightly:
In January this year, Dong Yuhui began to throw away his perfect composition skills, replacing cod in Alaska and seagulls in the South Pacific with his childhood anecdotes, and even got a nickname “Brother Biao” that was completely different from his previous character.
In May, the prelude to the e-commerce platform 618 kicked off. When Dong Yuhui brought goods to an air conditioning brand, he also played the old trick of “acting” negotiations with brand owners. Once on the live streaming track, the anchor quarreled hoarsely with the merchant in front of the camera, and there were countless routines for the benefit of the “family”.
Today, Dong Yuhui, who relies on cultural output, has also embarked on this road. Obviously, since the small composition incident and several rollover accidents, Dong Yuhui’s team has been deliberately weakening the proportion of knowledge and goods. At the same time, in the entire cargo industry, Li Jiaqi, who is interested in silvering, Brother Yang, who is becoming more and more low-key, and Simba, who wants to turn to high-end……
The head anchors are trying to say goodbye to their past selves.
Daya is finally “invincible” to the vulgarity?
Before Dong Yuhui became popular, consumers were repeatedly disgusted by the crazy selling and acting in the live broadcast room, so when “cultural goods” appeared, it seemed to have become a clear stream in the industry. Today, it has been three years since Dong Yuhui became popular in June 2022 for his bilingual delivery.
In the past three years, the content track based on knowledge has gradually been filled.
Xiaohongshu focuses on petty bourgeois business; Many education and training institutions have followed in the footsteps of New Oriental and embarked on the road of live streaming; In 2025, Douyin will issue the “Tempering Plan”, focusing on cultivating the four major directions of natural science popularization, cutting-edge science and technology, humanities and social sciences, and famous courses in famous schools, and even in the field of humanities and social sciences, the platform tries to open up online and offline scenarios and develop the dual track of “cultural tourism + knowledge”.
In other words, Dong Yuhui’s clear stream began to become no longer fresh.
Secondly, compared with poetry and songs and philosophy of life, what consumers value most in live shopping is actually cost-effectiveness. According to iiMedia Consulting, about 80% of Chinese consumers have watched live webcasts on social platforms, and the main reasons for purchasing goods are limited time and cost-effective.
In the past, the middle class accounted for a large part of Dong Yuhui’s live broadcast room, with a total of 60% of cutting-edge white-collar workers, senior middle class, and exquisite mothers. But today, the middle-class “consumption winter” has to pay attention to.
According to public information, 67% of middle-class households in Beijing with a monthly disposable income of more than 20,000 yuan will switch to replacement consumption in 2024.
According to the “2024 Youth Consumption Trend Report in First-tier Cities”, the most frequently used shopping e-commerce platforms by young consumers are: Pinduoduo (45.8%), Taobao (40.3%), Douyin (29.9%), JD.com (28.1%) and Xiaohongshu (17.5%).
After 10 years of interaction design, why did I transfer to product manager?
After the real job transfer, I found that many jobs were still beyond my imagination. The work of a product manager is indeed more complicated. Theoretically, the work of a product manager includes all aspects of the product, from market research, user research, data analysis…
View details >
As for why they choose these e-commerce platforms to shop, as many as 70.2% of consumers bluntly say that they value their price advantages.
The above may be the main reason why the entire consumer market has forced Dong Yuhui to give up the “cultural personality”, but aside from the general environment, Dong Yuhui and the team behind him also urgently need to step out of their original comfort zone. From January to April 2024, the live broadcast room with Hui will be live for a total of 49 days, with a total of 1.54 billion viewers and an average daily viewership of about 31.42 million, and an increase of 10.6 million fans in four months.
However, from January to April 2025, the growth rate of the live broadcast room with Hui began to slow down, during which the live broadcast accumulated 71 days, with a total of 1.7 billion viewers and an average daily viewership of about 23.94 million; Four months of fans increased by 2.05 million. Even in these increments, there are still a large number of old Dong Yuhui fans.
According to the data, the main account of Youhui has more than 20 million followers on Douyin, contributing about 18-24% of e-commerce traffic, and even in the proportion of traffic in the live broadcast room with Hui, there are nearly 40% of the officially supported FEED push.
Dong Yuhui has circled a large wave of “mother-in-law fans” and eaten up the platform dividends, so it is worth studying where to go next.
At present, the effect of abandoning the inherent style and approaching the direction of the main flow of goods is good. It is reported that on the day Dong Yuhui pulled with merchants in the live broadcast room, 18.54 million people poured into the live broadcast room, and sales reached 167 million yuan, setting a new single-day sales high since the establishment of Dong Yuhui’s live broadcast room.
There are various signs that by creating a dramatic conflict in the price game, Dong Yuhui has transitioned and strengthened his personality from a “cultural person” to “fighting for the interests of consumers”, although this method has long been out of fashion.
The head anchor, can’t help yourself?
One thing to note is that Dong Yuhui has not completely given up on intellectual personality.
During the 618 pre-sale period, the game drama with Hui and merchants stimulated the desire to consume. Since May 25, Dong Yuhui has started a live broadcast of his cultural journey in Sichuan, and synchronized the account “Walking with Hui”, and the “mother-in-law” is still enthusiastic, and the data shows that the live broadcast in Sichuan has been watched by 12.179 million netizens.
It is reported that the current live broadcast room of the team with Hui is divided into three major sections, reading mountains and rivers, breaking thousands of volumes, and loving life. With the moon on one side and sixpence on the other, Dong Yuhui, who needs to get out of his comfort zone, doesn’t seem to want to make a choice, but wants both.
Interestingly, Dong Yuhui is no longer the only one who is no longer only doing inherent circle business, but also Li Jiaqi, who has begun to set his sights on the silver-haired group. In the past, Li Jiaqi’s main audience was young women aged 18-30, but now the newly established “Happy Home for All Parents” undoubtedly wants to develop further.
Coincidentally, Simba and Xiao Yang Ge tried to go up from the sinking market.
In fact, this is already a common phenomenon in the live streaming industry. In 2025, specific user groups and even fans can no longer support the future of a head anchor, and if they want to continue to tap greater value monetization space, they need to move closer to more or even the entire consumer circle.
On the one hand, the decline of the live broadcast e-commerce industry is an indisputable fact. According to iResearch, the growth rate of live broadcast e-commerce from 2019 to 2023 has gradually fallen from triple digits of 245.9% to double digits, and the growth rate is expected to be around 18% from 2024 to 2026.
On the other hand, the brand’s dependence on anchors has decreased significantly, and among the small and medium-sized businesses with a GMV of more than one million in 2024, there are more than 90,000 stores that rely on store broadcasts to achieve their goals, far exceeding the live broadcast of talents. According to the “2024 Douyin E-commerce Talent Growth Report”, Douyin e-commerce added 5.28 million new talents in the past year, a year-on-year increase of 74%, but the total sales of goods experts increased by only 43% year-on-year.
In other words, the growth rate of total sales of talents has lagged far behind the incremental speed of the number of talents.
In addition, the supervision of the head anchors on the platform and even the entire e-commerce industry has become more and more tense, and even began to explore digital human live broadcasts, directing traffic to small and medium-sized talents, under layers of pressure, since last year, a number of head anchors with goods have actively or passively chosen to stop broadcasting, even if some are still active, the traffic is also far from the past.
A typical example is Liu Genghong, the data shows that in the past 30 days, Liu Genghong has lost 407,000 fans, the total number of fans has dropped to 61.49 million, and a total of 8.545 million fans have been lost. In contrast, Liu Genghong had a maximum of 44.76 million views on a single live broadcast at the peak of traffic, and the average number of viewers of the recent live broadcast was about 1 million to 2 million.
Although Dong Yuhui is in the limelight, in fact, in the “2024 Top 100 Chinese Anchors with Goods” released by iiMedia Consulting, he has not yet broken into the top ten. The top ten are Li Jiaqi, Dandan, Crazy Brother Yang, Taiyuan Lao Ge, Simba, Make a Friend Live Room, Dongfang Selection (July 2024, Dong Yuhui became independent), Mr. Dong, Guangdong couple, and Jia Nailiang.
In 2025, whether Dong Yuhui can go further is a question worth pondering. Up to now, Dong Yuhui’s audience is finally no longer limited to the former exquisite middle class, and the data shows that in January this year, the proportion of users in Dong Yuhui’s live broadcast room from fourth-tier cities reached 40%.
Although they couldn’t help themselves, Dong Yuhui and the others could only move forward against the wind.
618 this year: The big anchor doesn’t want to work hard?
At this time last year, 618 poured cold water on the entire e-commerce market.
According to Star Map data, although 618 has extended the promotion time in 2024, the total sales of the whole network during the 618 period will be 742.8 billion yuan, a decrease of 7% compared with 618 in 2023, and the first decline in the 16 years since the birth of the 618 promotion. Although the conclusion is not yet reached this year, the data in the live broadcast room of some leading anchors is considerable.
During the pre-sale period of 618 in 2025, the live broadcast room of “Walking with Hui” performed well overall.
According to Feigua data, the sales of Huawei mobile phones, Gree air conditioners, Haier air conditioners, Hualing air conditioners, range hoods and other products in the live broadcast room have exceeded 10 million yuan. In addition to home appliances and digital products, the sales of beauty series should not be underestimated, and in May, the GMV of the beauty category of “Walking with Hui” has exceeded the 150 million yuan mark.
On May 16, it set a single-day record for the highest GMV of “Walking with Hui” beauty delivery, with a single-day GMV of 75 million to 100 million yuan; On May 19, it achieved a GMV of 50 million – 75 million yuan. Among the 122 cooperative brands, more than 58% of the local brands supported the basic plate of the live broadcast room, and in the list of GMV TOP20 brands with goods, 8 local brands such as Natural Hall, Mao Geping, and Gao Zi were successfully on the list.
Interestingly, in the special live broadcast of 5 days and 5 sessions: Dong Yuhui personally sat in the first three sessions of home appliances, home furnishings, and digital 3C, but did not continue to host the beauty special. He even said bluntly in the live broadcast room: “I listened to it for a while, I couldn’t understand it, and I had a headache.” Instead, he left the live broadcast room to other anchors in the team.
For a long time, it has been Dong Yuhui’s consistent choice to take the initiative to avoid the scope of what he is not “good at”, such as the previous underwear turmoil. But today, “letting the virtuous” may have nothing to do with being good at it, but more like a strategy of depersonalization with Hui. Similarly, Li Jiaqi’s team has long begun to make similar plans.
In the newly opened silver hair track of this year’s beautiful wrist, Li Jiaqi’s figure is not common. Since its first broadcast on May 5, the anchors in the live broadcast room of “All Parents’ Happy Home” are Li Jiaqi’s assistant broadcasters Ah Qiu and Xinyi, as well as Li Jiaqi’s mother Li Wenli. It is undeniable that in 2025, the head anchors will become more and more low-key, even the key promotion node of 618 is no exception.
The reason for this is that in addition to avoiding the limelight, the future development of the MCN team is crucial.
According to research data from Crowley, a third-party market institution, less than 10% of MCN institutions have achieved both revenue and profit growth in the past year. In 2024, 61.4% of institutions said that it is difficult to find new growth businesses; 60.3% of institutions believe that competitors in the same field continue to increase.
In 2024, in the Douyin e-commerce GMV market, the total proportion of shelf scenes and store broadcasts will exceed 70%, the contribution of head talents has dropped to 9% of the market, and the proportion of small and medium-sized talents has risen to 21%.
Self-building, going overseas, and enriching the talent matrix…… These are the areas to be focused on in the next step.
However, when Dong Yuhui gradually changed his style, the anchor team that walked with Hui was still continuing knowledge-based sales. For example, when introducing Helena’s black bandage, the principle of ingredients will be dismantled, the experimental data will be compared, and the live broadcast room will instantly become a beauty class. Similarly, the beautiful wrist still has to use Li Jiaqi to drain the flow.
The topic of de-anchor is still fermenting until 2025, and for the overcrowded e-commerce industry, do you really need so many anchors with goods? This beats everyone’s heart.
