Xi reporter Hu Lingling Reporter Yue Zhicheng.
On December 16, Dongfang Selection issued a document saying that Sun Dongxu was removed from his position as executive director and CEO, and Chairman Yu Minhong was also appointed as CEO. After the news was released, the number of fans of Dongfang Selection did not rise but fell, resulting in a "tragedy" of losing more than 2.6 million fans in less than a week.
At 7 o'clock in the evening, Yu Minhong and Dong Yuhui appeared in the live broadcast room together, Yu Minhong explained that the removal of Sun Dongxu as CEO has nothing to do with Dong Yuhui, Sun Dongxu will still contribute to the selection of the East, Dong Yuhui said that he had communicated with Yu Minhong about the treatment in the afternoon, and the salary will be greatly improved.
At this point, a series of disputes seem to usher in a family carnival finale, but the controversy around "rice circle" and "de-heading" has not subsided, and whether Dongfang Selection can stage a "happy life" like a fairy tale remains to be verified by time.
The much-mentioned fan circle culture.
In the past few days, the live broadcast room of Gaotu Jiapin has been full of the "shadows" of competing products selected by Dongfang, and many fans have swiped the screen to "support Yuhui" and "mother-in-law (Dong Yuhui's fan name) to enter", and responded to the dissatisfaction with the "small composition turmoil" by going to the competitor's house to "control the comment" and "place an order".
The cause of this incident stems from the dispute over who is responsible for the copywriting of "Jilin Xing" in the Oriental Selection. Below**, the comment "Most of the small essays are created by the copywriting team, not all of them are from the anchor". Later, he said that there are always fans who are cyberbullying in the name of caring for the anchor, and they will point the finger at the fan circle culture.
One stone stirred up a thousand waves, and since then, many responses have been thought by fans to be Dongfang Selection's "backstabbing" core anchor Dong Yuhui, and they have poured into the live broadcast room of competitors with the "selection group" light sign.
The live broadcast room of Dongfang's selection of competitors Gaotu Jiapin used to have only 8 people**, but now** the number of people easily exceeds 100,000
On December 14, Yu Minhong, the founder of New Oriental, said in a statement that he denied the existence of a fan circle culture in Oriental Selection, but did not rule out a small number of people with ulterior motives who deliberately went to the platform to destroy the atmosphere. Sun Dongxu, who served as the CEO of Dongfang Selection at that time, apologized for his "aggressive" demeanor in his previous response, mentioning Dong Yuhui's salary and other remarks, and said that "netizens and fans are our food and clothing parents".
And Chen Xiangdong, the founder of Gaotu who "ushered in the wealth of the sky", expressed a completely different view on the fan circle culture mentioned many times by Dongfang Selection. He believes that there is no good or bad culture in itself, including the fan circle culture, and no culture can be unilaterally denied, the important thing is how to use this culture.
Some experts believe that it is unknown whether the current live broadcast circle has formed a real fan circle culture, and it remains to be seen whether the live broadcast anchor can firmly establish personal brand power and appeal, and how strong the ability to drive fans is. Zhang Yi, CEO and chief analyst of iiMedia Consulting, said in a previous interview that the consumers and fans who poured into the live broadcast rooms of competing competitors are not highly loyal, and their trust and dependence on anchors are still lacking.
Cui Lili, a professor at the Department of Digital Economy of Shanghai University of Finance and Economics and executive director of the Institute of E-commerce, told reporters that in the early days of the incident, some fans showed their dissatisfaction with the company through social networking, and even formed a "battle" situation, which is indeed similar to the characteristics of the fan circle culture, and after the incident fermented, it further triggered people's discussion of "workplace fairness".
A significant feature of the fan circle culture is exclusivity, and behaviors such as trampling and scolding have indeed appeared in the live broadcast room of Dongfang Selection, and the development of things has long been no longer just a debate around the fan circle.
It cannot be simply and rudely "de-headed".
Time goes back to June last year, the explosion of Oriental selection, occurred after Wei Ya and Li Jiaqi stopped broadcasting, when Luo Yonghao withdrew, Dong Yuhui relied on the concept of "bilingual + knowledge + delivery", in addition to explaining product details, he could also show a few sentences of English from time to time, and chat with the audience about "poetry and distance", which is in stark contrast to the live broadcast of selling.
However, in terms of the form of employment, the "de-heading" of anchors has become a trend. iResearch data shows that in 2023, the proportion of corporate self-broadcast turnover has climbed to 498%, and the live broadcast of the talent accounts for half of the country.
In the eyes of many fans, Dongfang Selection is also accelerating the trend of "de-Dong Yuhui". Around the Spring Festival this year, Dong Yuhui did not appear in the Dongfang Selection live broadcast room for 17 days. Some netizens found that the comic image of Dong Yuhui, which was originally printed on Dongfang Selection's self-operated packaging, was removed from the new packaging.
In September this year, Dongfang Selection popped up about 2,000 accounts on Douyin - with Dong Yuhui's avatar and name, using Dong Yuhui's ** slice to sell goods, and said that it was authorized. Later, Dong Yuhui responded that he did not know about it, and Yu Minhong later issued a public statement to apologize to Dong Yuhui, saying that there were loopholes in the company's management.
And the "small composition turmoil" at the end of the year ushered in the peak of the "de-heading" controversy. In Cui Lili's view, the core competitiveness of some enterprises comes from their big anchors, and traditional enterprises should transition in a smooth way in the process of transforming to a new business format, reflecting a certain degree of fairness, and taking into account maintaining the sustainable development of the company's anchor IP and even the entire brand. Enterprises should pay attention to how to better build the traffic matrix, establish a reasonable benefit distribution mechanism and corresponding coordination mechanism, rather than simply and rudely "de-heading".
Judging from the current situation, Dongfang Selection is indeed unable to leave Dong Yuhui to a certain extent. According to the research report released by Haitong**, in May this year, Dong Yuhui's average number of live broadcast days was 10.13 million, and the average GMV was 20.46 million, while the second-echelon anchor Dunton, the average number of live broadcast days was 2.89 million, and the average GMV was 6.73 million.
An anchor's face and mouth may be better than thousands of troops. Dong Yanling, dean of the Regional Economic Research Institute of Shandong University of Finance and Economics, analyzed that among many anchors, Dong Yuhui can stand out because he has a certain quality that can be recognized by the times, but it is not easy to artificially "make stars", which is extremely accidental. In contrast, in order to avoid over-reliance, companies do not take the risk of focusing their human capital construction on a few anchors.
Dong Yanling believes that as far as e-commerce live broadcast is concerned, it belongs to a relatively diverse field, and the competition of enterprises will still return to whether the core products have differentiated competitiveness. Businesses should strive to cater to their customers and embrace change, rather than making them adapt. When the market gradually becomes standardized, customers will still tend to consume rationally and pay attention to the cost-effectiveness of products.
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