Visual China.
Blue Whale Financial Reporter Zhang Yandi Zhang Han.
Two years after the establishment of Oriental Selection, it is once again at a fork in the road.
On December 14th, the Dongfang Selection "Small Composition" incident continued to ferment, and the conflict between the star anchor Dong Yuhui and the CEO of Dongfang Selection Sun Dongxu continued to ferment on the Internet, and the internal chat records of Dongfang Selection showed that CEO Sun Dongxu and Dong Yuhui fell into a situation of choosing one of the two, Yu Minhong responded urgently, "It's okay, it's not that serious." Subsequently, Sun Dongxu also issued an apology** to apologize to the majority of netizens. On the same day, Dong Yuhui was not among the live broadcast posters released by Oriental Selection on the 15th to 17th of the selection brand day.
Behind the public opinion turmoil, Dongfang Selection's market value has evaporated by more than 4 billion Hong Kong dollars in 4 trading days, and what it still needs to face is how to balance the value of traffic and the value of the ** chain.
Ambiguous strategic positioning?MCN institutions collided with the live broadcast platform.
The fire of the big anchor's exodus seems to have burned to Dongfang Selection.
On December 6th, Dongfang Selection left a message under a promotional **: "Every time a small composition is made, the anchor is in front of the camera, and behind it are the friends of the copywriting creation team, shooting team, and editing team. Dong Yuhui said "Hu replied" in the live broadcast. Dong Yuhui's fans immediately expressed their dissatisfaction, and the two sides set off a ** war on the Internet.
On the evening of the 12th, Sun Dongxu, CEO of Dongfang Selection, responded that there were some problems within the company, criticized the company, and also said that Dong Yuhui's practices were inappropriate. Sun Dongxu also revealed Dong Yuhui's income in the live broadcast, saying that his tens of millions of income in the company's financial report are only a part.
In the early morning of December 13, Dong Yuhui posted a long article in response to the "small composition" incident. He said that these "small essays" copywriters selected by Dongfang to hold provincial special sessions are written directly by themselves, some of them provide ideas and suggestions by themselves, and some are written according to their own ideas, and if they are satisfied, they will not change or change less.
However, some fans believe that Sun Dongxu's response was to "backstab" Dong Yuhui, and the public opinion turmoil did not subside because of Dong Yuhui's explanation.
On the 14th, Yu Minhong spoke out, believing that as an employee, he posted his views on the official account of Dongfang Selection, and repeated them, which seriously lacked professionalism and also showed that there were big loopholes in the company's management. Later, when Xiao Sun (CEO of Dongfang Selection, Sun Dongxu) explained the problem, he mentioned Yuhui's salary, which was also inappropriate. Yu Minhong said that he has leadership responsibility as the chairman, "I apologized to Yuhui, Xiao Sun is young and energetic in doing things, but not mellow enough, so I believe everyone can understand." ”
But on the afternoon of the 14th, the contradiction seemed to escalate again, and screenshots of the alleged internal chat records of Dongfang Selection were leaked on the Internet, saying that Yu Minhong was facing the problem of choosing between Dong Yuhui and Sun Dongxu. Yu Minhong urgently "mediated" and said to **, it's okay, it's not so serious.
On the evening of the 14th, CEO Sun Dongxu issued an apology**, apologizing to netizens for his recent "aggressive" demeanor in the live broadcast, the action of smashing the mobile phone on the table, and mentioning Dong Yuhui's salary, claiming to be an "unprofessional" performance.
The small essay "The turmoil is not over, Dong Yuhui was not among the live broadcast posters of the selection brand day from the 15th to the 17th.
What kind of company is Dongfang Selection behind the public opinion turmoil?As early as June last year, Sun Dongxu gave the answer, Sun Dongxu said, "We are not a live broadcast company, nor a star-making MCN organization, but an agricultural product technology company and a cultural communication company." ”
On August 25, Oriental Selection announced its annual results for the 2023 fiscal year from June 1 last year to May 31 this year. According to the financial report, the GMV (total merchandise transaction) of Dongfang Selection reached 10 billion yuan for the whole year, and the net profit was 97.1 billion yuan, the total number of orders reached 13.6 billion orders, the number of self-operated products exceeded 120, and as of the end of the reporting period, the balance of monetary funds selected by Dongfang reached 3 billion yuan. On November 23, Oriental Selection announced that it planned to pay 1.5 billion yuan to the parent company's New Oriental ** education business in cash.
After the results were announced, Yu Minhong said: "After the 2023 fiscal year, it marks the first year that we have become a new private label product company and live streaming e-commerce company under the name of 'Oriental Selection'. At present, Dongfang Selection has become a well-known platform for selling high-quality and cost-effective agricultural and other products. ”
As the core management of the company, whether it is Yu Minhong, the actual controller, or Sun Dongxu, the CEO, their positioning of the company is locked in "agricultural products" and "technology companies", but Dongfang Selection, who does not want to be an MCN institution, really enjoys the traffic dividend of big anchors.
Since December 11, the total market value of Oriental Selection has evaporated by more than 4 billion Hong Kong dollars. As for the ups and downs of the secondary market, Sun Dongxu also said that the secondary market itself is unstable, and there are hot influences and hype factors.
The value of traffic is opposed to the value of the ** chain.
As a consumer of Dongfang Selection, I spend thousands of dollars in the live broadcast room of Dongfang Selection every year, and it is not the anchor that attracts me, Dongfang Selection has its own unique operation system, and all product development and control are done by themselves, and the quality of the goods is relatively good. Some consumers selected by Dongfang said to Blue Whale Finance.
Dongfang Selection, who enjoys the dividends of big anchors, Yu Minhong may not need to face Dong Yuhui and Sun Dongxu, but the confrontation between traffic value and ** chain value has been placed on the table.
The star anchor represented by Dong Yuhui plays an extremely important role in the transformation process of New Oriental. On June 9, 2022, Dong Yuhui, who has only one audience in the live broadcast room every day, ushered in a turning point in his life, Dong Yuhui's live broadcast room poured into a large number of audiences, and Dong Yuhui, who was reading Shakespeare's sonnets in English, opened the highlight moment. Since then, Dong Yuhui has started a blowout growth with fans of Dongfang Selection.
According to the statistics of Haitong International**, from August to December 2022, Dong Yuhui has played a significant role in the improvement of the number of ** selections and GMV of Dongfang. By March this year, Dong Yuhui's average number of live broadcasts was 9.5 million, an increase of 316%, the average GMV is 17.45 million, and the growth rate is 358%, which is significantly higher than Dong Yuhui's GMV on the day of the live broadcast.
Dong Yuhui's identity has changed, from an English teacher who has been in the industry for eight years to a head anchor, on January 5 this year, New Oriental changed its name to Oriental Selection, and Oriental Selection has also changed from incubation business to main business.
After the small composition turmoil, Dong Yuhui himself not only missed the scheduled live broadcast on December 10, but also his IP address is currently displayed in Shaanxi, and whether Dong Yuhui will leave the East has become the focus of attention. In the live broadcast industry, how to deeply bind big anchors and MCN institutions has been a problem that has plagued the industry for a long time.
Wang Zhihua, co-founder of Liaocheng Chinese Media MCN, told Blue Whale Finance that it is difficult to control big anchors, nothing more than to control them from two directions, the first direction is to "draw cakes", how much commercial value can MCN institutions achieve for him in the future, or make some plans in the long run;The second direction is to talk about money and use money to bind. But at this time, the more troublesome thing is that the company and the anchor want to take more money, the anchor must (hope for money) as much as possible, and the company also wants (money) as much as possible, at this time, it depends on how much performance the anchor can bring to the company, which can reflect how much money the company can give the anchor. It is better to turn the anchor into a shareholder of the company, that is, a community of interests, but in practice, many anchors are reluctant to be linked to the company, because it is risky to become a shareholder of the company.
A number of interviewees told Blue Whale Finance that at present, the binding between MCN institutions and head anchors can only be resolved through legal relationships, that is, the contract is "signed to death", and stricter conditions are used to restrict anchors from leaving. However, "the live broadcast industry anchor and operating company are business partnerships, and everyone is a win-win cooperation." A lawyer who has been engaged in artist brokerage for many years told Blue Whale Finance.
In the corporate governance of MCN institutions, when there are contradictions and conflicts between the top anchor and the company's management, the company will be more inclined to the anchor, the anchor is the company's cash cow, once the anchor is lost, it takes time and money to cultivate a big IP, which will increase the company's overall operating costs. In terms of coordination and processing, it is generally 50 boards for each side. The actual controller of the company criticizes the management and also criticizes the anchor, and it may be better to deal with it in this way. Wang Zhihua told Blue Whale Finance.
However, Dongfang Selection, which is positioned as a "well-known platform for agriculture and other products", should not only consider the value of traffic.
Sun Dongxu once said in an interview that we will develop products by ourselves, define and innovate, and then produce, process, manufacture, and then repackage and promote, and put forward our own quality inspection requirements, which is to participate in the whole process. I personally grasp the product manager team, which first defines what to do, and then goes to each link of the ** chain to find the corresponding good resources. Like JD.com and SF, they are very good service providers, and he can provide you with a complete solution, as long as you cooperate with him.
It is not difficult to see that Sun Dongxu's business focus is on the construction of the first chain, that is, the product control system "behind" by anchors such as Dong Yuhui has been opened, and unlike Li Ziqi, the products selected by Dongfang do not have anchor labels.
In this regard, a practitioner who is deeply involved in the live broadcast industry told Blue Whale Finance, "What Dongfang Selection actually needs to think about is the entire follow-up operation system, whether the product development and R&D system is more valuable, or the value of traffic is higher." ”