Dongfang Zhenxuan's "Crossing the New Calamity"
Dongfang Zhenxuan's "Crossing the New Calamity"
Original Han Wenjing Hunting Cloud Selection July 1, 2024 21:20 Beijing
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What happened to Dongfang Zhenxuan within six months of Dong Yuhui's departure?
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Article | Hunting Cloud Selection ID: lieyunjingxuan
Author: Han Wenjing
Dongfang Zhenxuan seems to be in a tumultuous autumn.
In the wave of live streaming sales, Dongfang Zhenxuan's live streaming room once became popular with knowledge live streaming, and the host spoke eloquently, making listeners feel like basking in spring breeze.
However, such warmth seems to have begun to disappear.
Recently, during the "618" promotional event, Dongfang Zhenxuan's anchor did not use classic quotes in the past, but instead excitedly shouted out products, which was referred to as a "howling style live broadcast" by netizens. Subsequently, topics such as "The art style of Dongfang Zhenxuan's live broadcast room has changed" made it onto the hot search list on social media platforms.
Regarding this, Dongfang Zhenxuan customer service stated that the current "buy buy" style is only a temporary behavior, and the subsequent style has not yet been determined. Although Dongfang Zhenxuan's "hawking style" sales were just a coincidence, it still failed to stop the hot discussion from the outside world.
Looking back at the entire month of June, Dongfang Zhenxuan repeatedly brought out troubles from the mouth.
Firstly, Yu Minhong, CEO of Dongfang Zhenxuan, responded to the heated discussion from the outside world that Dongfang Zhenxuan was doing things in a mess. Secondly, Dong Yuhui, Senior Partner of Dongfang Zhenxuan, revealed in an interview program that he "resists selling things and does not enjoy live streaming sales." In addition, the popular anchor Dundun publicly expressed dissatisfaction with the company and the public relations department, once again exposing Dongfang Zhenxuan's internal issues.
Corresponding to the secondary market, as of the close on June 28th, the stock price of Dongfang Zhenxuan was at HKD 12.62 per share, a decrease of 37.8% compared to the high point of HKD 20.3 per share on May 31st. Since 2024, the cumulative decline of Dongfang Zhenxuan has exceeded 50%, and its stock price has halved.
Among them, although there is a factor of stock price correction, it is difficult to say that it is not related to the recent controversy caused by Dongfang Zhenxuan. What happened to Dongfang Zhenxuan within six months of Dong Yuhui's departure?
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When "cultural people" try to "sell"
At present, just two years after Dong Yuhui's "Bilingual Sales" debut in June 2022, Dongfang Zhenxuan is becoming less and less like herself.
Recently, Dongfang Zhenxuan has sparked widespread controversy due to a change in the style of live streaming sales during the 618 promotion period. In the live broadcast clips circulating on the internet, Dongfang Zhenxuan's anchors had exaggerated expressions and movements, and were praised by netizens as "exerting too much force".
Later, the anchor Dundun explained in the live broadcast room about "shouting to promote sales", stating that it was due to the platform's rhythm requirements, and the purpose of the style change was to obtain traffic push.
In other words, Dongfang Zhenxuan's selling style is not the norm, it is just a change in the sales language and overall form. As of the time of publication, the art style of Dongfang Zhenxuan's major live broadcast rooms has already returned to their original intention, and they are now "selling products quietly".
You should know that Yu Minhong has previously stated that he looks down on the howling noise of "buy buy buy" in online live streaming. His heart's live streaming should be calmly explaining products and spreading knowledge.
On May 31st, Yu Minhong, who had not appeared for a long time, said in a live broadcast of Zhang Wenzhong, the founder of Wumart, "Dongfang Zhenxuan is currently doing a mess and lacks any ability to provide suggestions."
Yu Minhong also stated that he has reached retirement age and plans to stay away from the business world in the future, leaving more time for himself to explore mountains and rivers. He does not want to struggle tirelessly or get entangled in disputes.
Standing at the forefront of traffic, Dongfang Zhenxuan's every move is under the spotlight. On June 3rd, Yu Minhong's remarks sparked a heated discussion on the internet and surged to the top of the trending list. In the following four trading days, Dongfang Zhenxuan's market value evaporated by over HKD 3 billion.
On the early morning of June 7th, Yu Minhong issued an open letter apologizing to Dongfang Zhenxuan's clients, shareholders, and investors. In response to the heated discussion from the outside world that "Dongfang Zhenxuan did it in a mess", it was just a humble expression between friends. In his opinion, it was just a habitual expression, but he did not expect it to cause so much controversy.
Regarding his statement of "staying away from disputes and living the life he wants", Yu Minhong apologizes for such an imprecise expression. In addition, his greatest wish in life is to transcend disputes and explore the world. He said it 20 years ago, but it does not mean that he is no longer responsible for the management of Dongfang Selection and New Oriental.
After this operation, the company's stock price stopped falling, and on the same day, Dongfang Zhenxuan closed up more than 2%.
The impact of negative events on Dongfang Zhenxuan is also reflected in the number of fans and sales data. During the 618 promotion activity, Dongfang Selection did not enter the top ten of the Tiktok live tape list. In terms of fan count, according to data from third-party platform Cicada Mama, the Dongfang Zhenxuan account lost over 300000 followers in June.
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Still in the painful period of "fading"
A series of conflicts in front of the stage are just superficial. Since the controversy over Dong Yuhui's essay at the end of last year, Dongfang Zhenxuan has been experiencing the pains of transformation.
Last December, Dongfang Zhenxuan issued a personnel appointment and removal notice, appointing Yu Minhong as the CEO of Dongfang Zhenxuan and removing Sun Dongxu from his position as Executive Director and CEO of Dongfang Zhenxuan. In addition, we will vigorously develop Dong Yuhui's personal IP and support him in establishing a new live broadcast room to accompany Hui.
Looking at it from a different perspective, Dongfang Zhenxuan's initiative to open a personal account for Dong Yuhui is actually an attempt to eliminate the trend of being a top anchor, separating Dong Yuhui's personal brand from the company's brand.
At the beginning of this year, Dong Yuhui's first live video tape show of his new account "Go with Hui" proved his strength as a top stream anchor of Tiktok, with more than 1.29 billion likes, more than 42 million views, and more than 150 million sales, ranking first in the overall list of Diaoyin tape products.
On the same day, according to data from Cicada Mama, Dongfang Zhenxuan had 15.387 million likes and 20000 views. The performance of this live broadcast was somewhat overshadowed by Hui's peers.
Looking at the extended timeline, since the launch of the live broadcast room with Hui, the cumulative sales in 15 days have exceeded 627 million, which is 2.4 times that of Dongfang Zhenxuan. Live streaming sales exceeded 11.67 million, 2.9 times that of Dongfang Zhenxuan; There are 24 live broadcasts, 7 more than Dongfang Zhenxuan; The average number of viewers per session is 1.6 times that of Dongfang Zhenxuan.
Image source: Shujian Consumption
Since Dong Yuhui established his own business, the question of whether Eastern Selection will decline and whether Dong Yuhui can create another brilliant career has always been a focus of attention both inside and outside the industry. As of press release, Dongfang has selected 30.03 million Tiktok fans and 20.35 million Tiktok fans for the same trade with Yuhui.
Although Dongfang Zhenxuan still maintains a leading position in the overall fan base compared to "Walking with Hui", this lead has not been translated into corresponding sales.
According to the Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily, in the first quarter of this year, the sales of "Walking with Hui" live streaming rooms were 889 million yuan, 450 million yuan, and 626 million yuan, respectively. Meanwhile, the sales revenue of Dongfang Zhenxuan's live broadcast room during the same period were 557 million yuan, 228 million yuan, and 286 million yuan, respectively. The two sides are gradually widening the gap.
According to the data of the live video tape intelligence bureau, in April, "Yohui Tongxing" ranked first in the monthly list of audio tape goods with 580 million yuan, and Orient Selection ranked ninth with 190 million yuan.
Image source: Live streaming sales intelligence bureau
In the latest 618 promotion, Cicada Mama's data shows that as of 17:00 on June 18, the top three on the list of Tiktok Talents with Goods (from May 24 to June 18) of 618 promotion were Guangdong Couples, Jia Nailiang and You Hui, and Dongfang Selection ranked 11th.
This also indicates to some extent that in the past six months since Yu Minhong took office as CEO, he has not yet found a way to improve the traffic problem of Dongfang Selection. On one hand, Dongfang Zhenxuan has been unable to incubate the next super IP to support it, and on the other hand, as one of Dongfang Zhenxuan's important IPs, Yu Minhong has not appeared in Dongfang Zhenxuan's live broadcast room for a long time.
During the period of fading out of the Dongfang Zhenxuan live broadcast room, Yu Minhong's focus has been on the cultural and tourism business.
In April this year, Yu Minhong launched a 20 day self driving trip to Xizang in the form of live broadcast of cultural tourism, and created his own channel "Yu You Go Together".
In the live broadcast of his trip to Xizang, Yu Minhong revealed an important signal, "Yuhui has been very busy recently and is trying to start an independent business. Now Yuhui is mainly a self driven and self-development business model."
At the same time, Dong Yuhui made a subtle response to his independent entrepreneurship, admitting in the live broadcast that he now needs to bear all economic responsibilities on his own, including rent and personnel wages, and he has to consider whether these expenses can be covered by income every day when he wakes up. Previously, Dong Yuhui revealed to fans during a live broadcast that his independent studio "Walking with Hui" is about to relocate.
The entanglement between Dongfang Zhenxuan and Dong Yuhui is actually a microcosm of the current e-commerce industry. Getting rid of the dependence on top anchors is a common issue that platforms need to face, not a bottleneck that Dongfang Zhenxuan has encountered alone.
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What other cards can Yu Minhong play?
Dongfang Zhenxuan clearly needs greater confidence.
The new story is that in the past two years, the revenue scale of Dongfang Zhenxuan's self operated products has expanded significantly.
On the afternoon of June 19th, Dongfang Zhenxuan held a self operated new product launch event in Beijing and disclosed the performance growth of self operated products to the outside world for the first time.
According to Dongfang Zhenxuan, in the second half of fiscal year 2024 (December 2023 to May 2024), the GMV of Dongfang Zhenxuan's self operated products exceeded 3.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 108% and a month on month increase of 74%. Up to now, the total number of self operated products selected by Orient has exceeded 400, and the number of products on sale in the same period has reached 260. More than 100 products have ranked among the top three in the Tiktok product list.
After more than two years of development, the number of orders for self operated products of Orient Select has exceeded 100 million in Tiktok, and Orient Select has become the only product brand on the Tiktok platform with sales exceeding 100 million. According to GMV, Orient Selection is the only food brand among the top 20 stores of Tiktok, ranking first in the food industry.
Nowadays, the live streaming e-commerce industry is in a transitional period of bidding farewell to top anchors. In contrast, self operated products are the next imagination of Dongfang Zhenxuan.
Starting from transitioning to live streaming e-commerce, Yu Minhong wanted to become an e-commerce platform with agricultural product screening and sales as the core, rather than an MCN company that relies on the platform for live streaming sales. The focus of Dongfang Zhenxuan's work is to make this brand recognized by consumers and the market.
Whether it is to resist risks or to break through existing development limitations and pursue broader development space, it seems that top e-commerce players have made the same choice - by expanding diversified sales channels and self operated products, reducing dependence on top anchors.
Yu Minhong once stated that the 2024 fiscal year is a year for Dongfang Zhenxuan to embrace change. In fact, whether it is self operated brands or supply chain construction, it is a long and arduous road, but it is a necessary path for Oriental Selection.
After experiencing a series of turbulence last year, Dongfang Zhenxuan is currently in the process of establishing a new order, and the next time is the time to verify the results.
(Source of the first image: Yitu Network)
