Behind Li Jiaqi’s two apologies： when he was deeply bound to the live broadcast platform ＂going to the head＂ with Hua Xizi,
Cailian News Agency, September 11th (Reporter Li Danyu, researcher Liang Youyun) Li Jiaqi is caught in a new storm.
In the live broadcast room in Li Jiaqi last night, some consumers questioned the high pricing of Hua Xizi’s eyebrow pencil. Li Jiaqi retorted, "It’s 79 yuan for so many years. Where is it expensive?" Later, he added that "sometimes I look for my own reasons. After so many years, my salary has not risen. Have you worked hard?"
For a time, Li Jiaqi’s response to the consumers in the live broadcast room caused public outcry. Although Li Jiaqi apologized on his personal social platform on September 11th, the voice of doubt has not stopped.
That night, Li Jiaqi once again apologized in the evening live broadcast room, saying that he realized that this inappropriate expression was disrespectful to others, and anyone had the right to put forward opinions and ideas on the products in the live broadcast room. "As an anchor, I must also respect everyone’s right to express."
Li Jiaqi said, "I once said that Li Jiaqi’s feathers were given to me by all the girls one by one, and it was the support and trust of all the girls that made me step by step to this day. No matter when, I should never forget where I come from, let alone lose myself. "
Li Jiaqi’s live broadcast room choked and apologized
Behind this storm, there is a deeply bound cooperative relationship between Li Jiaqi and Hua Xizi.
Hua Xizi, a domestic brand, is one of the many brands that have risen in the live broadcast room in Li Jiaqi. In 2020, the contribution rate of GMV in Li Jiaqi live broadcast room was as high as 60% of the total GMV in Huaxi.
But is this model sustainable? Especially on the platform side, platforms such as Taobao Live have long realized the uncertainty of super-anchor, accelerated the construction of matrix anchor camp, and constantly accelerated the pace of introducing new anchors.
Whether the brand or the platform should continue to be deeply bound with a single super anchor has become a new challenge for the live e-commerce track.
Li Jiaqi and Hua Xizi are deeply bound
This time, Hua Xizi’s eyebrow pencil, which was involved in the public opinion storm, was calculated by netizens, and the price of a 79 yuan eyebrow pencil per gram reached about 1 times that of gold. In addition, after calculating the average price per gram, the pricing of brand explosive powder cakes also rivals some international luxury brands.
According to the data of Huaxizi brand, the brand was founded in March 2017. From the very beginning, it positioned itself as "national fashion" and "oriental make-up", and attracted the attention of some consumers with its complex and exquisite cosmetic packaging, modeling and online celebrity marketing.
It was in 2017 that Li Jiaqi himself quickly accumulated the next batch of fans by bringing goods close to the real needs of consumers, and in 2018, he was completely out of the circle with the title of "Brother Lipstick".
Until October 2018, the "unknown" Hua Xizi interacted with the already popular Li Jiaqi in Weibo, and entered the live broadcast room in Li Jiaqi for the first time in March 2019.
Then at the end of September, 2019, Hua Xizi formally invited Li Jiaqi to become the "Chief Brand Recommender" to deeply participate in product research and development. The two sides not only discussed how to present brand new products in the live broadcast room for a long time, but Li Jiaqi himself can also participate in the development of brand products such as packaging design and customization of high-end gift boxes.
With the help of Li Jiaqi, Hua Xizi gradually jumped from a small cosmetics in online celebrity to one of the cutting-edge representatives of "domestic beauty cosmetics". During the "Double Eleven" promotion in 2019, the sales of Huaxizi Tmall flagship store exceeded 250 million yuan, and it successfully entered the top ten of the platform promotion cosmetics category list, and it was also one of the few domestic beauty brands that could enter the list.
From 2020 to 2022, the cooperation between Li Jiaqi and Hua Xizi became closer. Hua Xizi’s beauty products are not only "frequent visitors" in Li Jiaqi’s live broadcast room, but also the brands recommended by Hua Xizi for consumers during various consumption festivals and promotions.
According to the statistics of Guoyuan Securities, in 2020, Huaxizi and Li Jiaqi will cooperate at least four times a month, and the number of live broadcasts of Huaxizi air honey powder will reach 20 times throughout the year. Brand makeup remover wipes and silk rice noodles will appear for more than 15 times, eyebrow pencil will be delivered for 8 times, and other brand beauty products will be delivered for more than 3 times.
It is reported that in the 2020 Tmall "Double Eleven" cosmetics sales ranking list, Hua Xizi won the first place in that year, and the brand’s annual sales (GMV) also reached nearly 3 billion yuan. Among them, more than 30% of the brand exposure traffic comes from the live broadcast rooms in Li Jiaqi, especially during the "Double Eleven" promotion period, the contribution rate of GMV in the live broadcast rooms in Li Jiaqi can even reach more than 60% of the total GMV in Huaxi.
In the continuous marketing, Huaxizi, whose products are positioned in the middle and high end, and the price is generally in the range of 100 to 300 yuan, has become a domestic substitute for many international beauty brands, and the exquisite packaging of the brand has also become one of the options for many people to give gifts. Explosive products such as honey powder, lipstick and eyebrow pencil have also become an important reason why Li Jiaqi strongly recommends Huaxizi.
In 2021, the single brand GMV of Huaxizi exceeded 5.4 billion yuan. In the context of the overall low consumption demand for beauty products, the brand revenue ranked first in the domestic beauty category.
Even if the frequency of interaction between Hua Xizi and Li Jiaqi is reduced because the head anchor overturned one after another, he is still in close contact with Hua Xizi. Li Jiaqi has not only revealed his love for Huaxizi products on many public occasions, but also expressed his recognition of brand research and development and product production, and supported this fast-growing domestic beauty brand.
The brand side increased its self-broadcasting and put it into the live broadcast platform "to go to the head"
In fact, after the turbulence of the anchor circle in 2021, both the platform and the brand realized that the deep binding with a single super anchor is not a long-term solution.
Take Hua Xizi as an example. In recent two years, Hua Xizi and Li Jiaqi have been "drifting away". Since 2022, "brand upgrading" without the labels of online celebrity and Li Jiaqi has become one of Huaxi Zi’s important development goals, and the contribution of Li Jiaqi has rapidly dropped to about 5%.
On the one hand, the live e-commerce traffic gradually reached its peak, which made many brands start to move to Tik Tok, Aauto Quicker or try to bring their own goods; On the other hand, the maximum discount required by the head anchor and the stability of cooperation also affect the brand’s own marketing strategy.
A typical example is that the Taobao live broadcast platform has introduced anchors from many live e-commerce MCN organizations, such as Yuanwang, making friends and Oriental selection. On the eve of the "Double Eleven" in 2022, there has been a wave of Tik Tok anchors concentrated on Taobao live broadcast. Many Tik Tok head anchors and MCN heads, including Luo Yonghao and Liu Genghong, looked forward to the entry of science and technology officials into Taobao.
Just a few days ago, "Tik Tok Head" Oriental Selection opened the first show of Taobao live broadcast. Yu Minhong, founder of New Oriental, and Sun Dongxu, CEO of Oriental Selection, will personally lead the team and lead their anchors to open a full-day live broadcast on Taobao. According to official data, Dongfang has made a lot of preparations for "entering Taobao", with the goal of becoming the live broadcast room with the most complete pallets, the most categories, the best price and full of cultural characteristics on Taobao platform.
After increasing the number of store broadcasts and star anchors, Li Jiaqi’s share in Taobao live broadcast is actually being diluted, and he began to try to run it in Taobao live broadcast through the matrix number.
Mo Daiqing, a senior analyst at the E-commerce Research Center, told reporters that it is reasonable for live e-commerce to try to "go to the big anchor". The sales of the big anchor in the head reflect a huge resource concentration effect, and the space that small and medium-sized anchors and long-tail anchors can get is compressed.
Mo Daiqing believes that it is also unfavorable for businesses. Originally, consumers can find themselves through the venue, but now they have to pass the anchor, which actually adds another hurdle. In order to enter the live broadcast room of the head anchor, merchants are bound to make profits and sacrifices.
During the interview, a number of merchants told reporters that the proportion of the super-anchor’s commission is generally above 20%, which is "worse" for many small and medium-sized businesses.
"Making friends, looking at technology, and selecting the East, although there is no fixed super anchor, the development model is relatively reasonable, and the cooperation choices of merchants are more in line with the development direction of live e-commerce." The above merchants believe that.