Shulou(Shulou.com)06/02 Report--

At 19:30 on the evening of May 10, Dong Mingzhu appeared in the live studio "make the World fall in Love in China" co-sponsored by Chinese Entrepreneur magazine, Gree and Kuaishou, opening her first live show of Kuaishou.

In order to promote Dong Mingzhu and Gree Electric Appliances to sell goods on Kuaishou platform for the first time, Kuaishou also specially configured two donkeys, donkey sister-in-law Pingrong, Li Xin and other influential anchors on Kuaishou platform to carry out live broadcast to sell goods on the same platform.

At the beginning of the live broadcast, Dong Mingzhu directly displayed the goods for sale. The second donkey first set a small goal: "Tonight's sales target is 100 million." Dong Mingzhu immediately replied, "I think this goal can be achieved." The result is far more optimistic than Dong Mingzhu expected. After 30 minutes of live broadcast, the sales of the three products exceeded 100 million yuan. After three hours, the sales reached 310 million yuan.

It is worth noting that Dong Mingzhu appeared in the live broadcast that night for only half an hour, and then left the live broadcast because of other interview arrangements. When the news of sales of more than 100 million yuan came, a reporter asked, "will Mr. Tung be under pressure because the goal of the next live broadcast will be higher?" Dong Mingzhu smiled and replied, "I won't have any pressure, because I want to share it with you. The purpose of my live broadcast is not to bring goods."

What is the real purpose of Dong Mingzhu's live broadcast?

Live broadcast does not sell goods to bring goods, and Dong Mingzhu is not engaged in performance art, so is Dong Mingzhu broadcasting live in Kuaishou just to follow the trend of entrepreneurs and experience Luo Yonghao's feeling? Of course not.

Strictly speaking, this is Dong Mingzhu's debut in Kuaishou's live broadcast, but it is not the first time. She started her live streaming career on Douyin on April 24, but was turned over because of "network problems". The live broadcast had a peak audience of 216300 people, sold 258 items and sold 233500 yuan. Miss Dong suffered what can be called the worst sales Waterloo since her debut.

This comeback is different from the high-price and high-end route that Douyin took with it last time. Under the high subsidy of Kuaishou, the prices of products on the shelves are very close to the people, and the "old buddies" can't resist the temptation to cruelly chop their hands and contribute 310 million yuan in three hours. There seems to be nothing wrong with it.

After the live broadcast sales exceeded 200 million yuan, Dong Mingzhu returned to the studio and said that she would continue in the future, not just through low prices, but that fans and consumer groups would learn more about made in China through live streaming.

In Dong Mingzhu's discourse system, when it comes to made in China, the implication is that Gree has always been the pearl of China's manufacturing industry.

So Miss Dong's purpose of this live broadcast is very clear, which is to promote the brand for Gree Electric Appliances online. This is another classic brand marketing attempt of Dong Mingzhu as a sales master.

After tasting the sweetness, she wants to continue, and plans to open a "Dong Mingzhu live studio" to normalize the live broadcast: "Dong Mingzhu's live studio is not just to bring goods. I want to share some of my views with you, including the development of Gree. Through these things to let everyone know, this is Gree, you are the best."

The Iron Lady loses her footing.

Dong Mingzhu and Kuaishou jointly produced this "live news with goods". It can be seen from the side that it has attached great importance to online channels.

Regarding this Kuaishou live broadcast, Dong Mingzhu said that she fully felt the importance of interacting with consumers through the live broadcast. "everyone was involved, from close to zero, to be able to fully understand everyone's demands." I want to "normalize the live broadcast."

This is completely different from her previous statement on the live broadcast of goods. Dong Mingzhu said on the CCTV financial program on April 14 that this is a new mode, and when everyone is going in this direction, I still insist on my offline. As the epidemic gets better, we still have to do it offline.

In other words, in less than a month, Dong Mingzhu's attitude towards live broadcast with goods has been reversed by 180 degrees.

After the Kuaishou live broadcast, Dong Mingzhu explained her original intention of doing the live broadcast: "there are more than 30,000 dealers under the Gree line, and I hope to combine them online and offline. I kind of made a start, exploring the way for them, and gradually experiencing the feeling online." It can barely explain the change in her attitude.

But obviously, for whether to do live broadcast with goods, whether to stick to the offline channel and so on. Dong Mingzhu, who is known as the "iron lady" of the business world, has made a rare performance of losing ground for advance and retreat.

Anxiety of online traffic

Selling Gree's products at a low price in Kuaishou studio, even if Kuaishou gives a subsidy, is not an ideal choice for Dong Mingzhu, after all, this is not in line with Gree's high-end brand tonality.

That's why Dong Mingzhu chose Douyin for the first live broadcast, insisting on the high-end route. And even if you choose to broadcast live in Kuaishou, it has always stressed that "the purpose of live broadcast is not to bring goods" and "do not want to sell only through low prices."

Do not want to do live broadcast with goods at a low price, but have to do so. Gree Electric Appliance is in such an awkward position because for it, the development of online sales channels has become an urgent need.

For channel competitors, Dong Mingzhu is full of fire. At the first interim shareholders' meeting in 2019, Dong Mingzhu said that Ox was worse than Meimei: "Mei used to dig people from me, but now he doesn't dig anymore. Ox is now digging people here every day, even the workers are digging, and even my people have to change their names when they go to him. This is how I feel now, stealing our technology and practicing fraud."

Miss Dong gritted her teeth against Ox. The reason for this may be that apart from what ox has done in some places, it is mainly because ox has performed too well in online channels. Gree Electric Appliances has been unable to open up the situation in the online retail market for a long time because of its high-end positioning and relatively high pricing.

Trapped by the shortcomings of online channels, Gree's air-conditioning dominance has been impacted.

In fact, the online growth of the home appliance industry in recent years, the trend of offline shrinkage has been continuing. According to the data of the National Household Appliance Industry Information Center, in 2019, the online retail sales of China's home appliance industry increased by 4.2 percent year on year, with a market share of 38.7 percent, while offline retail sales fell 5.8 percent year-on-year, with a market share of 61.3 percent.

For Gree, which is highly dependent on offline channels, such a market environment is very unfriendly, and Oaks, which relies on the rise of online channels, is particularly abominable.

And affected by the epidemic at the beginning of the year, Gree Electric Appliances, which is highly dependent on offline channels, lost more than 30 billion yuan in revenue in the first quarter. Dong Mingzhu said bluntly in an interview after her live debut on Douyin: "Gree basically had no sales for a month in February this year. In previous years, the sales figures are basically 10 billion to 20 billion, but this year it is almost zero."

The painful lessons brought about by the epidemic have made Gree more clearly aware of the importance and urgency of online channel development.

Dong Mingzhu's helpless compromise

Over-reliance on offline channels and carelessness in the expansion of online channels made Gree suffer particularly heavy losses during the epidemic. As a result, Gree bluntly reversed its attitude towards live streaming and online channels.

In essence, after recognizing the realistic predicament, Gree favors sales volume between profit and sales volume, and chooses to compromise to survive in the choice of survival and development.

Miss Dong insists on high-end brand positioning promotion, Gree stubbornly focuses on offline channels, but because high-end brands have a higher brand premium, offline channels have more profit margins than online channels.

According to the annual report, Gree Electric Appliances ranked 414 on the Fortune 500 list in 2019. Among the 129 Chinese companies on the list, Gree Electric Appliance has the highest return on equity (ROE).

Higher profits, whether it is investing in research and development or paying dividends to shareholders, can give the company more initiative. From the perspective of development, technology companies attach importance to brand building and offline channel laying, which is undoubtedly a benign route, and Apple is the best example of this route.

Unfortunately, times have changed. In the environment that China's economy has entered a new normal and the trade war has lasted for a long time, the consumer electronics market will inevitably be greatly affected. From 2019, even Apple has to reduce the price to sell iPhone to cope with market changes.

Under the severe impact of the epidemic on the global economy in 2020, the low-priced Chromebook suddenly exploded in the education market in Europe and the United States, and Apple launched a very cost-effective iPhone SE2.

In the final analysis, Gree's persistence in brand promotion and hesitation in online channels is simply due to its inadaptability to drastic changes in the market environment.

So this time in Kuaishou live broadcast, the sales of 310 million yuan may not be important. If Gree really recognizes the development trend of the market and clarifies its own development ideas through live broadcast, then 310 million yuan will be a good start.

(official account of Liu Kuang / tr. by Phil Newell) ID:liukuang110

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