news

text | tang chen

after suffering a series of critical hits, brother yang chose to avoid the main issue, which was very fatal.

this round of turmoil started with simba. because of the problem with the price mechanism of a certain brand of hairy crab cards in the live broadcast room, on august 31, the always "straightforward" kuaishou live-streaming leader aimed his gun at the crazy xiao yangge, the big live-streaming leader on douyin.

he fired at brother xiao yang like he was posting a big-character poster: "your sales and anything else can't beat mine... you don't have any quality inspection, after-sales service, or compensation attitude, all you have left is hype."

it is possible to go from "building collapse" to "landslide"

in this regard, the first person to respond was not xiao yangge, but his entrepreneurial partner and co-founder of three sheep lu wenqing who responded in the live broadcast room. simba keenly grasped this opportunity,"the hairy crab walks backwards", chasing after the three sheep and exposing their dirty laundry,there are several core controversial points:

first, lu wenqing had been sentenced for "brushing orders" on an e-commerce platform in the past; second, there had been many product quality problems in xiao yangge's live broadcast room in the past, including maotai liquor, hair dryers without any quality certification, low-quality kitchen knives, and the braised pork with preserved vegetables that were exposed at cctv's 315 gala, but no compensation was given to consumers; third, a female anchor under the former three sheep "had an affair with a senior executive", but was "sent to jail" by xiao yangge and lu wenqing.

any of these news can trigger a traffic explosion, and the keywords gathered can make the emotions of the onlookers reach several climaxes: consumer rights protection, anti-counterfeiting, food safety, xiao yangge's cheating, the "disappearance" of female internet celebrities, and the collapse of the house, etc. in particular, the gossip about cheating with a female internet celebrity with millions of fans under his command and joining forces to send her to jail is a fatal blow to xiao yangge's "loving couple" personality.

although there is no official information to confirm simba's statement, the female internet celebrity has not appeared in public for more than half a year. as the relevant short videos were widely interpreted, the heat of the whole incident rose higher and higher. simba also took advantage of the situation to stand at the commanding heights of public opinion.

on september 4, lu wenqing issued an apology statement, admitting that he had "taken a detour", but clarified his affair with the female anchor. however, he did not directly respond to the issue of compensation for products sold in the live broadcast room, but instead cited the judgment of the "relevant department" as an excuse, saying, "our company has not received any punishment from any relevant department for this incident."

simba still seized the "loophole" in lu wenqing's response, clearly pointing out that lu wenqing was "quibbling" and "misleading consumers", and used terms such as "real-name reporting", "someone behind the scenes", "how tough the people are", and "local protectionism" to fight back.this emotional provocation to ordinary people is very accurate.

in fact, the relevant departments in hefei did only mention the bad-head meat in their response, stating that three sheep merely acted as the "advertiser" in the bad-head meat sales incident and could not be punished as the "seller" for selling problematic products.

according to this statement, there is no problem with lu wenqing's response in terms of facts and "legality".but he overlooked that when it comes to live streaming sales, the key factor in consumers’ purchasing decisions, besides low price, is trust.

users of the live broadcast room don’t care too much about whether it is legally compliant, they only care whether the anchor is deceiving their “family members”. in this trust-based “reasoning” battle, xiao yangge has already lost, and the local “relevant departments” seem to have done more harm than good.

on the night that lu wenqing responded, simba launched the real "killer move" in this round of fight. he gave brother xiao yang a week. if he "still doesn't treat consumers well", simba would pay 100 million yuan out of his own pocket to compensate consumers on behalf of brother xiao yang.

this move made luo yonghao, a veteran in the industry, say "i admire you". he said, "this move is really amazing. i'll learn it. it seems that no matter how the opponent responds, it will be useless."

on september 7, nearly a week after the incident, xiao yang finally showed up. he did not directly accept simba's "compensation on behalf of others", nor did he directly respond to whether he would compensate consumers, nor did he retort. instead, he played the emotional card and cried in the live broadcast room, "brothers, please rest assured that if there is a problem, we will definitely take responsibility to the end. brothers, if you really want to scold, you can scold me, but please don't scold my colleagues."

but brother yang wiped his tears while shouting "123, link up". judging from the sales in the live broadcast room, this trick worked. data showed that the live broadcast room of crazy brother yang welcomed more than 50 million viewers that night, sold more than 500,000 orders of goods, and the total gmv exceeded 100 million yuan.

soon, the "one-week agreement" was up, and xiao yangge still did not give a positive response to the compensation. but on the evening of september 11, simba's kuaishou live broadcast room was banned, and the official did not give a time limit or explanation for the ban. however, simba is still fulfilling his promise to the outside world. many netizens posted screenshots in the comment area, saying that they had received money from xinxuan group.

in tang chen's opinion,if simba sparked a war among the top anchors of douyin and kuaishou due to the price mechanism of hairy crabs, which was not expected by both platforms, then simba's ban again this time may be a tacit understanding reached by all parties, and kuaishou also intends to use this to "protect" simba.

after all, this incident has caused a lot of uproar, and even affected other anchors. for example, luo yonghao also started a "copy". he called out yu minhong, saying that he had sold a series of malicious problematic foods such as 3.15 trough meat, tiq tianqi prune juice, and fake wild ecuadorian white shrimp. he suggested that he actively refund three times the amount of malicious problematic products in the history of oriental selection, otherwise "sooner or later, you will pay for what you have done."

if the situation is allowed to continue, the entire live streaming e-commerce industry will really be like northwest shanxi: a mess.this is not a good thing for douyin and kuaishou, two major content e-commerce platforms. this can also be understood as xiao yangge's problem needs to be solved, but all parties are no longer able to accept simba's handling method.

of the two parties involved, the person who raised the question was "taken down" first, but brother yang's problem is obviously still continuing to magnify.for example, the meicheng mooncakes and the controversial moutai incident, which are currently causing new waves, both became hot searches. the former entry is #eric tsang refuses to respond to the meicheng mooncake incident#, and the latter hot topic is #72 bottles of moutai sold by three sheep do not meet the characteristics of genuine products#.

before the gourd was pressed, a bigger bomb had already ignited its fuse. brother yang's side was "unexpectedly" powerless to resist and fell into a state of exhaustion. what's even more bizarre is that brother yang and the three sheep still did not respond to these questions directly, allowing various news to spread.in just half a month, the foundation that xiao yangge had laid in the past few years has been shaken. according to media statistics, xiao yangge has lost more than 660,000 fans in 7 days, and more than 1.3 million fans in the past 30 days.

but losing fans or problems that can be solved with public relations are not the most fatal. what is more fatal is that xiao yangge has selectively "kept silent", which has pushed his fate from "collapse" to "landscape". more people are beginning to worry whether xiao yangge will fall because of this? at present, even if he will not fall completely, xiao yangge may really choose to quit the internet.

if he really quit the internet last year, would he be another wei ya?

in fact, xiao yangge publicly expressed his consideration of quitting the internet many times last year, that is, in 2023. for example, in august last year, crazy xiao yangge was overwhelmed during a live broadcast, saying that he was under tremendous pressure and even had the idea of ​​quitting live broadcast;

at the end of october of the same year, on the eve of the "double 11" battle, crazy brother yang asked his apprentice "yellow of the traffic light" during the live broadcast: "if i announce my retirement from the internet, will you support me?" at the same time, he said in the live broadcast room that he would reduce live streaming sales in the future and leave opportunities for others.

however, afterwards, crazy brother yang refuted the rumor that he was going to quit the internet. he said, "our dream is to develop e-commerce in hefei and serve our talents, anchors, brands and fans well."if we don't speculate that his response was a hype to gain traffic, his deeper consideration is that he wants to get rid of the label of internet celebrity and work towards the direction of a young entrepreneur.

many actions taken by three sheep later also confirmed this point: on the one hand, brother yang reduced the frequency of live streaming and signed more top talents. for example, in 2023 alone, three sheep signed 28 well-known talents such as zui ge, qiao mei, zhuo shilin, chen yili, and sanqian shuobiao. as of now, three sheep has as many as 2,477 accounts, covering 388 million fans, of which there are 14 talent accounts with more than 5 million fans.

on the other hand, three sheep started to make short plays, hold concerts, organize electronic music festivals, and develop overseas business. these do not seem to be what an e-commerce live broadcast mcn would do. brother xiao yang claimed that he would devote more energy to the operation and management of the company, and also had business support.

in may this year, three sheep ceo du gang said in an interview with the media that xiao yangge is now mainly responsible for the company's live broadcast, influencers and content affairs. at the same time, reducing dependence on the "crazy xiao yangge" ip has been reflected in the execution results.in the future, three sheep will control the share of revenue directly brought by brother yang to less than 20%.

according to his logic, three sheep will not be separated from the ip of "crazy little brother yang". because mcns with well-known ips should increase their investment in top ips. only in this way can the company achieve exponential growth. he also emphasized that at three sheep,the relationship between "brother xiao yang" and the organization is a "community of shared destiny" - all of three sheep's businesses depend on brother xiao yang's influence; but at the same time, brother xiao yang is the founder of the company, so there is no problem of "de-iping".

from the perspective of the three sheep company, xiao yangge cannot quit the internet if he wants to. no anchor has the ability or signs to fill the "traffic vacuum" left by the two brothers. but from the moment they tentatively said they would quit the internet, xiao yangge and his brother may really be tired.

they also lamented in the live broadcast room: "don't think about becoming an internet celebrity, don't make it your goal. being an internet celebrity is not a very glorious profession, it's very tiring and humble." many netizens complained that this was "versailles".tang chen suggested that what xiao yang needs to do is to accelerate his withdrawal from the internet with more concrete actions.

let's take a step back and make an assumption. if xiao yangge really quit the internet at the peak of his career last year,if he concentrates on running his company, he will most likely avoid the difficult problems he is currently facing and may even become the next viya.

simba also accused xiao yang of imitating his business model, but their paths are very similar, and can even be said to be the same model. in the more than three years since she quit the internet, wei ya has truly explored a new path for them based on live streaming.

in december 2021, due to tax issues, wei ya was legally required to pay back taxes, add late payment fees and fines totaling 1.341 billion yuan. immediately, wei ya was banned from the entire internet, and her personal sales career came to an abrupt end. she began to withdraw from the internet and work behind the scenes to manage a larger business territory, and her background as a "young entrepreneur" became more pure.

currently, wei ya has shown signs of being unblocked and is gradually appearing in official events. but she no longer needs to consider whether she should return to the live broadcast room.

on the one hand, although wei ya is not at the forefront of live streaming sales, she is still one of the most important poles of live streaming e-commerce. qianxun culture, which she and her husband dong haifeng actually control, is still a leading company in live streaming sales.

for example, her assistant qi er switched to douyin alone, and now has more than 7 million fans on douyin. according to feigua data, during this year's 6.18 promotion, qi er's first live broadcast achieved sales of 12.923 million yuan.

in addition, the three matrix accounts of "bee surprise club", "bee happy club" and "bee wish club" have also grown into the top live broadcast rooms of taobao live.

today, qianxun culture’s business covers all aspects of live streaming e-commerce, including live streaming services, digital supply chain, omni-channel marketing, brand incubation, ip commercialization, talent training, ai digital humans, and live streaming overseas.

on the other hand, in addition to live e-commerce, qianxun culture has also made gains in the investment circle. for example, in january 2022, qianxun invested 168 million yuan in juzi biotechnology. in november of that year, juzi biotechnology was officially listed on the main board of the hong kong stock exchange, becoming the "first recombinant collagen stock."

for another example, in may 2023, guangdong deerma technology co., ltd. officially landed on the shenzhen stock exchange growth enterprise market, with a total market value of 6.762 billion yuan on the first day of listing. as early as 2020, dong haifeng had invested 150 million yuan to become a shareholder of deerma. these two listed companies were once qianxun's cooperative customers, and wei ya connected a larger business map through the live broadcast business.

this year, qianxun, like the three sheep, has set its sights on the hot short drama track. wei ya has set up a special production company and will launch three short dramas, "substitute boyfriend", "my home has a male nanny", and "don't fall in love with your brother". dong haifeng appears on the list of producers.

for wei ya, in an environment where top anchors are having a hard time, she has a sense of "losing in one place, gaining in another".

brother yang is in a difficult situation now. when he is crying "wrongly", he may be envious of wei ya in his heart: the knife of his peers is very painful; the halo of an internet celebrity is very tiring to support; and the title of an entrepreneur seems to be able to go further, and he has been working hard for it.

but at the same time, xiao yangge's silence, or if xiao yangge quits the internet because of the "landslide", he also leaves the outside world with another question to be answered:how can an internet celebrity become a true entrepreneur?

references:

• poison eyes, "little brother yang vs simba, on the downhill road, brother wuwen"

• helix labs,

• dear tang chen,

• interface news,