After fermentation for several days, the seemingly trivial dispute over the author of the "small composition" has risen to the internal contradiction between Dongfang Selection and the anchor Dong Yuhui, and triggered a public relations crisis in Dongfang Selection.
It was originally a small matter within the company, but it became a surging public opinion because of improper handling. On December 14, Yu Minhong, the founder of New Oriental, issued a response to the "small composition" turmoil, he said that Oriental Selection was established less than two years ago, and as a public platform company, everything it does will be put in the spotlight, or be magnified or distorted, which has caused a lot of pressure on the company's operation.
The cause of this dispute was an Oriental Selection, who suddenly "attacked" the anchor Dong Yuhui, and used the official Douyin account to speak at the top of the comment area, saying that Dong Yuhui's beautiful out-of-the-circle essay was created by the team collectively. Since then, Dong Yuhui's fans have debated with him and attracted widespread attention, including Dong Yuhui, Sun Dongxu, CEO of Oriental Selection, and even Yu Minhong, the founder of New Oriental, have spoken out many times. What followed was a large number of fans lost by Dongfang Selection, the company's stock price plummeted, and the popularity of competitors skyrocketed.
It is not uncommon for fans to fight for the interests of "idols" and target the company in the entertainment industry, but Dong Yuhui's personal characteristics have also spread this phenomenon to the live broadcast industry. Obviously, Dongfang Selection does not have much experience in this area. Yu Minhong once mentioned in his autobiography his deep understanding in the early days of entrepreneurship, "Once you do things, there will be a balance of interests between different positions." At present, Yu Minhong, who started his second business, is facing a similar problem: how to maintain the balance between executives, anchors and fans, which tests his ability and wisdom in a sense.
Behind the copywriter controversy
On the evening of December 14th, Sun Dongxu, CEO of Oriental Selection, issued a ** again to express his sincere apology, "It's not that the fans of Oriental Selection are in the fan circle, but I really don't want the irrationality of a few people to bring rhythm and affect the healthy environment of Oriental Selection."
Before Sun's response, the dispute over the author of the "small composition" has been fermenting for a week, initially on December 6, Dongfang Selection put a comment on "who is the propaganda copywriter from" at the top of the "Jilin line"**, and said, "Every time a small composition is produced, the anchor is in front of the camera, and behind it is the copywriting team, the shooting team, and the editing team. ”
It is worth mentioning that Dong Yuhui stood out from many anchors with his talent and knowledge, and this "backstab" made it difficult for fans who were attracted to the live broadcast room because of their admiration for Dong Yuhui's talent. Subsequently, Dong Yuhuihe's respective responses made the incident heat rise again.
On the 12th, Sun Dongxu knocked Dong Yuhui and Dong Yuhui respectively in the live broadcast, saying that the team's completion of work with emotions and Dong Yuhui's behavior of stopping the broadcast were inappropriate. He also said that the company did not treat Dong Yuhui badly in terms of treatment, and his annual salary was more than tens of millions.
And Sun Dongxu attacked the fan circle culture in a serious tone in the live broadcast, which caused consumers to be disgusted, causing Dongfang Selection to lose a large number of fans. "In fact, the loss of fans is not only Dong He's business, but the bigger reason is the CEO's attitude of 'holding a meeting' to fans, seeing his momentum is to criticize consumers as employees, while building a fan base and eating fan dividends, while accusing users of engaging in fan circle culture, this behavior is infuriating. A consumer who often pays attention to the live broadcast room of Oriental Selection told the author.
In fact, the opposition to the "fan circle culture" was also mentioned in Dong Yuhui and Yu Minhong's follow-up responses. At noon on the 14th, Yu Minhong came forward to respond to the dispute. He said that the practice seriously lacks professionalism and also shows that there are big loopholes in the company's management. When Sun Dongxu explained the problem, he mentioned that Dong Yuhui's remuneration was inappropriate, and he had leadership responsibility as the chairman, and he also apologized to Dong Yuhui. At the same time, Yu Minhong denied the existence of fan circle culture in Dongfang Selection, and said that he resolutely resisted fan circle culture.
This has triggered the outside world to think about whether Dongfang Selection has been countered by the "Fan Circle Culture", but what cannot be ignored is that "Fan Circle" is also an important factor that helped Dong Yuhui and even Dongfang Selection to stand out from the encirclement. In June last year, Dong Yuhui became popular on Douyin because of his "small composition" that was exported into chapters, and many people paid attention to Dongfang Selection because they appreciated Dong Yuhui's talent. In this context, the number of followers of Dongfang Selection's Douyin account exceeded 20 million within a month, and the sales exceeded 600 million.
And behind this controversy, it also exposed the contradictions that existed before the parties around the live broadcast of Dongfang Selection. The imbalance in the mentality of the internal employees of Dongfang Selection, the subtle relationship between the CEO and the anchor, and the game between fans and the company: on the one hand, fans have contributed real revenue and traffic to Dongfang Selection, but they have become the object of criticism by the company's senior management when there is a conflict;More importantly, fans think that Dong Yuhui is not valued internally and always wants to fight for Dong Yuhui's rights and interests.
But industry insiders believe that things have not reached the point where Yu Minhong wants to "choose one of the two" between Dong Yuhui and Sun Dongxu as the outside world says. Han Yanming, the founder of the gamification business model, said that the development of the incident is more related to the external reaction, but this is a small episode in the company's daily work process.
The puzzle is to be solved
Dong Yuhui's importance to Dongfang Selection is obvious, and the impact of the "small composition" turmoil is directly reflected in the changes in Dongfang Selection's stock price and fans.
On December 13, Dongfang Selection's share price fell by nearly 13%, and its market value evaporated by more than HK $4 billionSince December 9, the number of fans of Dongfang Selection's Douyin account has been declining, and as of 12 noon on December 15, the number of fans in Dongfang Selection's Douyin live broadcast room is 304510,000, with more than 700,000 fans compared to December 9;Dong Yuhui's personal Douyin account increased by more than 1.2 million to 1424 during this period70 thousand.
In fact, since Dong Yuhui "came out of the circle" last year, rumors about Dong Yuhui's resignation and Dongfang's selection of "de-Dong Yuhui" have continued one after another. It is not difficult to understand that as a listed company, the risk of over-reliance on individuals should not be underestimated, and reducing the dependence on top anchors and finding a more diversified growth path is the inevitable path to take in the future.
Previously, Dongfang Selection has been actively expanding the live broadcast team. According to the financial report, as of the end of May this year, the number of Dongfang's selected overall self-operated products and live broadcast team reached 1,103 people, including more than 30 anchors including anchors Dunton, Shi Ming, Yoyo, Qiqi, etc. It is worth mentioning that although the above-mentioned anchors also have a certain fan base, there is still a huge gap between the scale of one or two million fans and Dong Yuhui.
At the same time, Dongfang Selection is also strengthening the construction of the brand matrix. It said in its financial report that Dongfang Selection has opened six live broadcast accounts on Douyin, forming a live broadcast matrix including multiple vertical accounts such as beautiful life, self-operated products, books, and watching the world, and gradually expanding product categories and SKUs. Since the beginning of this year, Dongfang Selection has continued to make efforts in commercialization, including entering Tao live broadcast, building its own ** chain, launching self-operated products, and recently entering the cultural tourism industry and launching paid membership services on its own APP.
But on the other hand, for Dongfang Selection, Dong Yuhui is an important person who promotes the success of its transformation. If "de-Dong Yuhui" is too resolute and violent, it will also have a direct impact on its short-term performance, and it will inevitably lead to fans' remarks of "crossing the river and tearing down the bridge", which will affect the brand image.
From the perspective of the head anchor, some industry insiders said that if the head anchor leaves the company, it will also need to rebuild the team and take time to run in, and it will be very difficult to re-emerge in the era of rapid iteration of Internet celebrities. Moreover, in addition to the anchor, the success of Dongfang Selection cannot be ignored by the strength of the entire team behind it.
Industry insiders believe that Dong Yuhui and Dongfang Selection are mutually accomplished relationship, for the time being, if the two "** may lose both." Han Yanming told the author that because Dongfang Selection has characteristics in terms of ** chain and anchors, it is easy to be remembered by everyone. However, Dongfang Selection is far from relying only on the first chain and anchors, it is composed of a set of company operating logic and market management strategies. If the important IP of Dong Yuhui is lost, it will have a great impact on Dongfang Selection, but the company will not go bankrupt because of the loss of a certain person, and in the long run, a rookie may also be born due to the departure of the star anchor.