Can the top stream Dong Yuhui lead the reform of New Oriental cultural tourism?

Text|Milestones

1. The "small composition" turmoil has finally settled in fact, and the cause of the incident was not big. Roughly originated from Dongfang Selection, under the "Trip to Jilin"**, the answer comment of "Who is the promotional copywriting from", saying that most of the classic essays were created by the copywriting team, not all of them were created by the anchor. And this reply immediately aroused the dissatisfaction of some fans of Dong Yuhui. Fans said that Dong Yuhui did not deny the team's contribution, and now he is speaking out like this, he is a "backstab" anchor, denying his contribution to Dongfang Selection.

Subsequently, the turmoil intensified, and a series of "outrageous" operations such as Sun Dongxu, CEO of Dongfang Selection, continued to be "tough", and Dongfang Selection anchor Tianquan swept the comment area in the live broadcast room, making Dong Yuhui fans think that Dongfang Selection did not give Dong Yuhui and consumers enough respect. Therefore, Dongfang Selection's stock price continued to be the best, and the number of Douyin fans of Dongfang Selection also declined all the way, officially falling below 30 million on December 17. At the same time, Dong Yuhui has more than 20 million followers on his Douyin account.

In the face of this "walking traffic", many companies have offered sky-high prices to poach Dong Yuhui. But as a result, everyone has learned that Dong Yuhui did not run away, but served as the cultural assistant to the chairman of the board of directors of New Oriental Education and Technology Group, and concurrently served as the vice president of New Oriental Cultural Tourism Group.

Milestone believes that behind this result is a mutual compromise between the two sides. On the one hand, Oriental Selection announced on the evening of December 17 on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that the board of directors has resolved on December 16, 2023 to remove Sun Dongxu as chief executive officer and remove him as an executive director, effective immediately, and Yu Minhong will continue to serve as the chairman of the board of directors and will be redesignated as an executive director of the company.

On the other hand, it was Dong Yuhui who chose to stay for reasons we don't understand. In the live broadcast on December 16, Dong Yuhui once said: "The current situation is definitely not anyone's intention, many netizens are fighting for me, thank you for your attention, no matter what, even if you don't work in the future and leave Dongfang Selection, I will thank Dongfang Selection, and I hope Dongfang Selection will be good." The meaning behind this sentence - that is, Dong Yuhui is actually mentally ready to leave.

Second, the turmoil has subsided, where will the future go?In fact, as the turmoil of "small composition" gradually subsided, the challenges and difficulties faced by Dongfang Selection have not been reduced. This incident not only exposed the problems of Oriental Selection in management and operation, but also caused the public's trust in Oriental Selection to decline. However, Milestone believes that we should pay more attention to the future direction of New Oriental, Oriental Selection and Dong Yuhui, which may get some inspiration from the latest live broadcast on December 18.

First of all, a new studio was established, and Dong Yuhui helped Dongfang to select Dong Yuhui. In the live broadcast of Oriental Selection on the evening of December 18, Yu Minhong revealed that he would set up a studio with Dong Yuhui, open a separate account and live broadcast room, and the income would be included in Oriental Selection. Yu Minhong said: "The positioning of the Oriental Selection live broadcast room is agricultural products, and the positioning of the new live broadcast room is book recommendation, cultural tourism promotion, etc., in order to give full play to Dong Yuhui's more specialties and carry out cultural tourism and cultural publicity. ”

This kind of play is very smart for Dongfang Selection and Yu Minhong. Although Dong Yuhui will no longer play a core role in the Dongfang Selection live broadcast room, he still belongs to Dongfang Selection. This means that Dong Yuhui's blessing to Dongfang Selection is still there, even if he only occasionally returns to the Dongfang Selection live broadcast room to broadcast a game, this relationship binding will make all Dong Yuhui fans recognize Dongfang Selection, and are willing to continue to place orders and continue to support Dongfang Selection.

For Dong Yuhui, this strategy is also very beneficial. He has more room to play in the new account, and can do more of what he wants to do, such as storytelling, author interviews, cultural tourism promotion, agricultural product sales, etc. At the same time, he can continue to insist on being himself and continue to do it in his favorite cultural style. As he said in the live broadcast on the evening of December 18, "The new account will be launched in about a month, and the process will be difficult, but I can do what I like, and I will accept it if I start from scratch."

Secondly, as vice president and senior partner, New Oriental and Oriental Selection still value the cultural tourism track. In the live broadcast room, Yu Minhong explained Dong Yuhui's three new identities - "Dongfang's selection of senior partners has the right to speak on the company, which is equivalent to a VP (vice president), and even has the color of shareholder identity;The cultural assistant to the chairman of New Oriental Education & Technology Group is not just a secretary, but also a concept of assistant to the chairman. As for serving as the vice president of New Oriental Cultural Tourism Group, Yu Minhong said that Dong Yuhui can give full play to his ability in this position.

So, will letting Dong Yuhui concurrently serve as the vice president of New Oriental Cultural Tourism Group be a "good chess" that allows him to give full play to his greatest value?In fact, in the past live broadcast experience, Dong Yuhui has proven this. Especially in the special promotion for Shanxi in May this year, the copywriting out of the circle and Dong Yuhui's personal IP influence made Shanxi, a large province of civilization on the ground, completely fire once. And what Dong Yuhui will do next is the platform of New Oriental Cultural Tourism Group.

According to New Oriental Cultural Tourism Group***, New Oriental Cultural Tourism Group provides cultural travel, educational travel and parent-child travel services, international study tours during winter and summer vacations, domestic research and camp education and other study tours for all age groups such as teenagers and middle-aged and elderly people. According to the foreign investment information, New Oriental Cultural Tourism wholly owns Beijing New Oriental Wokade International Educational Travel*** and New Oriental (Jiangsu) Cultural Tourism Investment*** and indirectly owns the actual control of more than 30 companies through Beijing New Oriental Wokade International Educational Travel***, which are all cultural and tourism subsidiaries set up by New Oriental throughout the country this year.

From the public information, it can be seen that New Oriental Cultural Tourism has taken great steps. However, Yu Minhong also said frankly that the current domestic cultural tourism products are not mature enough, and the income of cultural tourism products is less. From this point of view, if New Oriental Cultural Tourism wants to leverage and influence the cultural tourism market and become a real "dark horse", there are many problems that need to be faced and solved. And this burden now falls on Dong Yuhui, relying on the love and top-notch aura of "mothers-in-law", as well as his personal love for travel recommendations, I don't know if we will find a new solution to find a correct and less resistance path for New Oriental Cultural Tourism, let us wait and see.

Finally, the contradiction is resolved, and Dongfang Selection may have the opportunity to go to the next level. Although Dong Yuhui chose to stay, Dongfang Selection's problem with him was not solved - if Dongfang Selection wanted to prove that "the company relies on the team, and it can do without Dong Yuhui", then it proves that it is really not possible to leave Dong Yuhui;If Dongfang Selection did not have this intention, then this turmoil also unmistakably raised this issue.

In a sense, this is also the discomfort of New Oriental in the transformation: it was originally forced to transform from education and training to live broadcast. The live broadcast mode is very different from the education and training mode. The success of a super anchor is often mixed with many uncontrollable factors, such as personality traits, luck and timing, etc., and there is no path dependence, and the company's business can only rely on the top stream to a considerable extent. Therefore, if Dongfang Selection wants to break the situation, it needs to change the organizational model and make corresponding flexible adjustments. It can be foreseen that as long as the contradiction is resolved, Dongfang Selection may have the opportunity to go to the next level.

3. The Enlightenment and Value Behind the TurmoilLooking back at this "small essay turmoil" incident, the heated discussion and extensive participation it aroused are rare in recent years. So for the cultural tourism industry, what are the inspirations behind this public opinion?

1. Live broadcast room, a new show for cultural tourism.

On November 21, Oriental Selection announced that the board of directors had approved the first matter, that is, it was recommended to the parent company New Oriental ** education business. This means that Dongfang Selection is no longer engaged in the first-class education business, and has become a specialized self-operated product and live broadcast business operator. According to the announcement, ** is part of the business restructuring of New Oriental Group in the broad sense, which aims to more clearly delineate its business lines and better align its business units with the operating environment.

The background of this "Jilin Tour" activity is that Dongfang Selection is trying to accelerate its entry into the field of cultural tourism through live broadcast channels. It is not difficult to see that the live broadcast room is becoming a new show for cultural tourism. A few days ago, the "Double 11" data of Fliggy, Meituan, Ctrip and other platforms also corroborated this. For example, on the Fliggy platform, more than 1,000 small and medium-sized cultural and tourism enterprises have joined this year's "Double 11", including travel agencies, scenic spots, homestays and other productsAnother example is the live broadcast on the first day of Ctrip's Double 11 warm-up, under the superposition of various discounts, the popularity of the live broadcast room exceeded 10 million. In addition, during this year's Double 11, Tmall also joined hands with Ctrip to launch domestic cruise products for the first time, which were put on the shelves of **live broadcast.

2. If you don't empathize with consumers, the consequences will be quite serious.

Whether it is Li Jiaqi's previous overturn or this incident, it can be seen that if you don't empathize with consumers, oppose them or criticize consumers, the consequences may be quite serious. The reason why Dong Yuhui has won the hearts of so many consumers is also because he has a high emotional intelligence, and he can stand in the position of consumers, have an equal perspective, and strive to empathize. Let's not forget how Dong Yuhui and Dongfang Selection became popular - under the double reduction, Yu Minhong did not owe money to any teacher or student, donated all the tables, chairs and benches, and then started the road of live broadcast. And Dong Yuhui guarded the single-digit live broadcast room for most of the year, although he was bringing goods, he tried to provide more value to everyone in addition to bringing goods, and finally completed a shocking reversal. This empathy with consumers has made many people recognize Dongfang Selection and choose to unconditionally support and trust their goods. Otherwise, there are so many anchors who sell goods, why do you have to place an order with you?

And the center of this **, whether it is Dongfang Selection, Sun Dongxu or the substitute anchor Tianquan, all ignore that the primary goal of their communication is to win back consumers, rather than openly discussing right and wrong, proving that "I can do it too" - such a strong argument will only provoke greater disgust.

3. Cultural marketing may become the key to cultural tourism out of the circle.

In today's business environment, cultural content marketing is gradually becoming the key to the cultural tourism industry. Taking Dongfang Selection as an example, the reason for its success in getting out of the circle is largely due to its unique cultural content marketing strategy. Compared with the live broadcast method of shopping guide and selling of other e-commerce Internet celebrities, Dongfang Selection has chosen a different path. They are not only promoting products in live broadcasts, but also injecting cultural connotations into products. They reinterpret the information of the products they bring with them, digging into the stories, cultures and histories behind each product, giving them a new meaning and meaning.

This kind of live broadcast sales with cultural content as the output gives consumers more room to think, and consumers are enjoying a cultural feast while buying products. This consumption method pays more attention to consumers' rational thinking and emotional resonance, which helps to improve consumers' purchase willingness and satisfaction. The success of Oriental Selection also shows that in the cultural tourism industry, only by digging deep into the cultural connotation of products and establishing emotional connections with consumers through culture can we truly attract the attention and love of consumers.

In the future, what will New Oriental Cultural Tourism and Oriental Selection look like?What about development?Milestone will also continue to pay attention, let's wait and see.