Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

"A good-looking skin is the same, and the homogenization model is nothing new. "

After watching e-commerce live broadcast for several years, will everyone have similar feelings? Indeed, the homogenized form of live streaming has bored many users, and the studio has become a coupon self-service machine or another TV shopping channel.

The innovation bottleneck of live broadcast is imminent. With the popularity of meta-universe, some users have found that in the past six months, Taobao, JD.com, Kuaishou and other platforms have launched virtual people (digital anchors), and co-branded to do live streaming and sell goods. Tasters, there is no lack of L'Or é al, Lancome, Magnolia Oil, Saint Laurent and other big brands.

Virtual human has a sense of freshness and technology, which has attracted many users to watch and place orders, which is the envy of many small and medium-sized brands, but deterred. They are afraid that the cost of virtual anchors is too high and the threshold is too high for them to handle.

So will this situation change?

The "01" virtual anchor can't do without a real person? Recently, I know notes and found that on the e-commerce platform, many merchants peddle the solution of virtual human live broadcast. And the lowest offer is even less than 1000 yuan, what is the effect of such a readily available virtual anchor?

Search for "virtual human", "virtual image" and "virtual anchor" on the e-commerce platform, and you can find a lot of relevant content, and the title of the product also appears the words "AI" and "artificial intelligence", which appears to be very high-end.

"it depends on what plan you want. If the plan you realize is different, the cost will naturally be different." In order to find out, to understand notes in the capacity of corporate procurement, to consult several of them, a businessman nicknamed "Siwei" said that at present, there are two ways for the industry to achieve virtual human live streaming.

One is in the form of pure software. The software provided by the merchant has an optional virtual image, the proportion of which is roughly one male and four women. Users only need to provide a series of literal commodity information, input into the software system, and the virtual human will introduce the goods in order.

The second solution doesn't seem to have much to do with AI: the merchant will provide users with a set of wearable hardware devices for detectors to track movements.

"the first is very convenient. In order to reply to the consultation, you only need to enter the keywords corresponding to the content in advance. Once the consumer's on-screen comment sends the consultation and triggers the keyword, the virtual human will reply by himself." Four-dimensional interpretation, this similar automatic reply function, can be understood as the official account keyword reply of the virtual human version.

As for the voice of virtual human, it is also synthesized by AI, and there are more than a dozen sound types to choose from. "as long as you realize the above functions, the price of virtual human will not be very expensive. The basic version is RMB 599 and the advanced version is RMB 999. The latter has one more background broadcast and control system than the former."

If the built-in virtual human image of the software is still not enough to meet the needs of users, users can also customize a special character image on ODM, a system plus a customized character image, the price is less than 1500 yuan.

"but I don't very recommend the first set of solutions. The image homogenization of virtual anchors is serious, and the trigger of consultation is more mechanized and blunt. Although there are AI gimmicks, they are not very intelligent." Siwei then recommended the second scheme to realize the live broadcast of virtual human to understand notes.

"you put on this set of hardware, and as long as your movements are tracked, the virtual human will follow."

In other words, this method uses motion tracking devices to "map" the actions made by real people to virtual anchors. the principle is similar to the "motion capture" technologies used by European and American technology companies, such as animation, action VR games, and so on.

"but virtual anchors will do whatever gestures you make, which is smoother than AI. It will be used to sell goods and recommend products that will be less stiff, and the content can be adjusted at any time with real people." Siwei said that although the above virtual human live streaming scheme is inseparable from real people, the price is also relatively high because the effect and completeness are better.

The price of such a set of "motion capture" hardware equipment is 29000 yuan, in addition to the annual service fee of 800 yuan for the software. After knowing the notes and making inquiries with several other merchants, the prices of similar solutions are mostly between 20,000 and 30,000 yuan.

In a document given by Siwei, it was found that the "developer" of the solution was a start-up company in Kunming. Like other businesses that sell virtual human live streaming solutions, Siwei is only one of the "agents".

"if you think it's too expensive, you can buy a half-body solution, which only collects human facial expressions and then synchronizes them to the virtual human face in real time. You don't need to wear hardware, just a face (expression) trap." Siwei said that the price of this scheme is only 6000 yuan, which can be said to be very affordable.

According to industry insiders, similar half-body virtual human live streaming is currently the choice of many small and medium-sized enterprises, which can take into account many dimensions such as cost, threshold, effect and so on. Judging from the sales volume on the Internet, the merchants with the highest sales show that there have been thousands of favorable reviews.

So, since it is impossible to leave the intervention of real people, what benefits can small and medium-sized enterprises get from using similar "half-hanging" virtual anchors?

"02" virtual people are easier to manage than live anchors? "when you buy (virtual image), you know that it has nothing to do with artificial intelligence, it's just a gimmick."

Zhirong runs a digital accessories company in Huaqiang North, Shenzhen. In the past two years, the company has set up its own live broadcast team, incubated anchors, and sold digital accessories through live broadcast every day. But for a long time, what gave him a big headache was the company's incubated anchor, who would leave in less than three or four months.

Although he has an iron account, the running water anchor still makes him feel that the continuity of user traffic is insufficient, lack of a fixed anchor image and IP, and can maintain a strong relationship between stores and consumers for a long time.

"every time you change an anchor, many users will ask the previous anchor. It's hard to explain." In order to prevent the change of anchors from affecting traffic and the number of fans, Zhirong has been planning to create a virtual image as the only regular candidate in the studio in the future.

As a result, not long ago, he spent nearly 10,000 yuan on a budget to customize a virtual anchor from the Internet, while also purchasing a complete set of live streaming solutions for half-body synchronization. When necessary, let employees wear gloves, wristbands and other equipment, real face, half-body movements can be collected by the device, synchronized to the virtual anchor.

He believes that the employees in charge of the "output" action do not need a good-looking and photogenic female anchor, and even young men in the company can use hardware devices to control the words and deeds of virtual beauty anchors. "No matter how the staff changes, the image of the virtual human at the front desk remains the same, which is much easier to manage than a live anchor."

Zhirong frankly said that the only flaw in the half-body virtual human solution is the voice of the characters, which can only be used by the operator (that is, the real person behind). In order not to bind the voice to the real person behind him, he also bought a set of professional voice-changing hardware to make the virtual human voice have some sci-fi flavor.

"even if the operator leaves, I can do it myself with a silencer." Since we have this set of virtual anchors, the company no longer needs professional and photogenic anchors. "We also did a full staff training before, requiring everyone to operate virtual anchors."

Coincidentally, there is also a MCN organization in Guangzhou that has also bought the virtual human live broadcast scheme. The head of the organization, Miya, told me that the company, which specializes in knowledge popular science live streaming, just spent 30,000 yuan on a virtual human live broadcast equipment in April this year.

The reason for adopting the virtual human live broadcast is that the content of the knowledge popular science live broadcast is relatively simple, and the explanation of the virtual human plus the animation demonstration is completely competent, and there is no need to hire a professional anchor. "your own popular science creators can fight, wear virtual human devices, and do the commentary as much as you can."

Miya said that in the past, after creators wrote content, the company had to hire professional anchors to do live broadcasts and interpret the popular science content online. Now that virtual human is online, the company can save all the cost of anchors. "an anchor costs more than 10, 000 or even 20, 000 a month. Now he adds a little more to the creator and controls the live broadcast of virtual human by a few hundred yuan. The monthly cost is much lower than that of hiring an anchor. anyway, live broadcasts of popular knowledge don't look at the face, and the content is OK."

It is obvious that although mechanical, stiff and lack of humanization, compared with real-life anchors, virtual anchors will not leave and play big names, which is convenient for the management of enterprises. In addition, the expenditure of virtual human is usually composed of an one-time purchase of hardware and a lower annual fee, which is lower than that of incubating and signing up anchors.

For these objective reasons, even though the principle of virtual human live streaming sounds very simple and has little to do with real artificial intelligence, there are still some small and medium-sized enterprises, start-ups and content teams that choose to sell goods and output content through virtual human live streaming. It not only arouses users' curiosity, but also saves a lot of investment.

Does the "03" virtual human have any shortcomings in making a live broadcast? In fact, the audience of virtual anchors is not wide at present, and only post-950s are more willing to accept it.

According to the 2021 Virtual Digital Human Deep Industry report, the proportion of Generation Z who pay attention to the topic of virtual human has reached 89.4%, of which nearly 10% follow it more than three times a week, and 8.2% follow it every day.

In addition, more than half of Gen Z said they were willing to pay for virtual human-related functions. Therefore, many enterprises are involved in the field of virtual human content output and virtual anchors in order to catch the post-95 and post-00 Z generation.

"Young people are very concerned about a series of science and technology and emerging topics such as meta-universe and virtual human." Li Jing (a pseudonym), who is in charge of a MCN in Hangzhou, told Jie Zhi that the concept of meta-universe rose in November last year, and the concept of virtual human became popular again.

As a result, the company decided to incubate virtual anchors and virtual characters to replace live anchors and video talent. However, at the beginning, the shareholders of the company still had a lot of concerns, worried that using virtual people instead of real people to do live e-commerce would lead to resistance from users, resulting in difficulties in encircling fans and the loss of users.

"but when we went online, we found that many users followed our virtual anchor out of curiosity." Ulrich pointed out that after analyzing the user tags of some live broadcast platforms, it was found that more than 50% of those who followed the virtual anchor account were Generation Z users.

Both male and female virtual anchors account for more than half of the followers. Thus it can be seen that men always have curiosity, and any element related to the sense of technology and science fiction can attract men's attention. "to tell you the truth, virtual anchors are easier than real-life anchors, and they use curiosity to drain them."

However, as the company gradually opens up the cooperation between virtual anchors and Party An enterprises, the drawbacks are gradually emerging. Ulrich told her to understand notes that although virtual anchors have "drainage physique", they are not as good as real-life anchors in terms of product promotion and interaction with people.

"Live anchors can hold products and show users selling points and functions more intuitively, but virtual anchors can't. If the product is modeled, the cost will be very high. The result is that virtual anchors sell goods and can only use their words, and the goods can only be left on the sidelines."

Ulrich explained that in this way, virtual human live streaming will attract a lot of "lively spectators", but it is not excellent in terms of transaction transformation. After all, consumers do not dare to place orders easily after the lack of relatively intuitive communication and product display between people.

"partner brands are also aware of this problem. At present, the live broadcast with virtual human is just a lively picture, so it will not be too stuck to the sales of KPI. But the performance in bringing goods is mediocre, so it is difficult to get more customers' favor." Ulrich believes that today's virtual human craze still has some shadows of the early years of live streaming craze.

With the rise of the topic of meta-universe, the concept of virtual human has become popular, and many science and technology start-ups and capital have bet on virtual human one after another. For a while, virtual anchors do live broadcasts and virtual images shoot short videos, and a large number of virtual human applications appear.

In the e-commerce circle, different virtual human live and short video solutions, also driven by agents, have become readily available. Plans worth hundreds or thousands of yuan have also been put on the aura of science and technology such as AI and VR.

However, under the novel "skin", many programs are either "artificial mental retardation" with high scores and low abilities, and nothing can be done, or the "souls" of real people are dressed in the cloak of technology. The virtual "coat" that enterprises spend thousands of yuan or tens of thousands of yuan to buy may still be a gimmick.

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: understand Notes (ID:dongdong_note), written by: Shenle Editor: Qin Yan

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