Crazy little Yang brother, the next Simba?

"Crazy Xiao Yang Ge", who has excellent traffic data on Douyin, attracts fans with his crazy live broadcasting style, which has many similarities with the previous "Simba". The author of this article attempts to compare "Xiao Yang Ge" and "Simba" in many aspects and analyze their development history and future. Let's take a look.

"Crazy Xiao Yang Ge" (hereinafter referred to as "Xiao Yang Ge") is the first amateur anchor on Douyin with over 100 million fans, but since he became famous, there have been many people cheering for him and questioning him.

In a recent live broadcast, Xiao Yang invited Zhang Baizhi. On June 10, in the live broadcast room, Xiao Yang showed her his "skill" of getting over 100 million likes in one minute and increasing Zhang Baizhi's Douyin account by 150,000 followers in ten minutes. In addition to selling high-priced products such as Moutai and beauty devices, Xiao Yang also sold a number of products under his own brand "Xiao Yang's Selection". According to the new Douyin data, the estimated GMV of this live broadcast reached 75 million to 110 million.

These seemingly crazy data are like "commonplace" to him.

Who is Brother Xiao Yang?

He first became well-known because of a series of spoof videos. The common content of his videos was that he was "addicted to the Internet", and then his brother reported him, and then his father chased him around the village with props such as a super-large rice spoon. This made some netizens feel very involved, "Big Brother Yang is like my elder brother, and Little Brother Yang is like my younger brother."

This form was later used by him to promote products - violent reviews or "pranks" brands. For example, he bit a pair of slippers with his teeth to prove the quality, and called the brand of a sweeping robot, saying that if the product did not pass the test in the live broadcast room, he would sell it to the audience for 1 cent.

Such a "crazy" live broadcast style reminds people of Simba, the anchor on Kuaishou. In fact, Xiao Yangge and Simba have many similarities. They both use cost-effective products and welfare products to "bind" fans. They are both targeted by professional counterfeiter Wang Hai. They both have incubated apprentice matrix live broadcast rooms and tell stories of going overseas and owning their own brands.

From grassroots to top anchors on the platform, and then to breaking away from the single anchor identity and operating in a corporate manner, Xiao Yangge seems to be repeating Simba's script. This article attempts to compare the achievements of the two from three aspects: anchor matrix (people), supply chain (goods), and sales position (field), and analyze the growth path and business map of anchors with very personal styles represented by Xiao Yangge and Simba, and whether they can transcend their own development limitations.

1. Brother Yang relies on his disciples and his "clones"

On the night when Cecilia Cheung came to visit, there were 7 people crowded in Xiao Yangge's live broadcast room. In addition to Cecilia Cheung and Xiao Yangge himself, there were Da Yangge, Xiao Yangsao, his apprentices "Zui Ge", "Qiao Mei" and "Honglu Dengde Huang".

Some fans lamented that before they knew it, Xiao Yangge had already nurtured a matrix of apprentices with over one million fans each. These "apprentices" are all signed to Hefei Three Sheep Network Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Three Sheep"), which he founded.

In addition to the live broadcast on the main account "Crazy Little Brother Yang" at 7 pm every Saturday, the rest of the time, the brothers Little Brother Yang and Big Brother Yang usually visit the live broadcast rooms of their apprentices and employees.

Data source: Xindou

Statistical period: June 6, 2023 - June 13, 2023

Within Xiao Yangge's team, everyone calls each other brothers and sisters, and the anchors often "visit each other's stations", which reminds people of Simba's team, which also carries the family banner.

Qiao Mei introduced her "fellow student" in her introduction

Among them, the ones who have the same style of "reverse sales" as Xiao Yangge are "Red Light Yellow" and Yu Tianqi. Employee Yu Tianqi originally debuted as a three-person anchor group "Three Wolves", and "Red Light Yellow" was originally a comedy anchor. At present, the two often join together to make funny live broadcasts, and their famous live broadcast scenes include using facial cleanser to wash the face covered with ink, etc., which amuses fans while completing sales.

Zui Ge and Qiao Mei have also recently started to sell products together. Zui Ge originally accumulated a lot of traffic through short videos as a national physical fitness champion, and Qiao Mei is a beauty anchor. The two are now selling products with their "contrasting looks and flirting with each other" personalities to attract viewers to stay and "watch the show and listen to the songs", but the overall style is still that of an entertainment anchor.

Boss Qi is one of the few "serious" anchors under Sanzhiyang. She is a sophisticated mother and specializes in beauty and skin care products. This category has a high customer unit price, so although Boss Qi has the least fans, his GMV in the past 7 days is in the first tier among Xiao Yangge's apprentices.

Chen Wu, head of live streaming e-commerce for a consumer brand, observed that compared with Simba, who has already brought out many apprentices with tens of millions of fans, the anchors under Three Sheep have not yet formed a distinct IP and differentiated advantageous categories. Most people still need the guidance of Brother Yang , and the brands that carry goods are mainly small and medium-sized brands that focus on cost-effectiveness.

Chen Wu analyzed that the reason for this situation might be that Brother Xiao Yang's reverse sales promotion was paved with short videos in the early stage, so the audience could easily accept it. Other apprentices might not necessarily receive the promotion in this way. Apprentices with different styles from Brother Xiao Yang needed to find their own characteristics as soon as possible in order to take over the traffic directed by Brother Xiao Yang.

In addition to the disciple matrix account, since 2022, Three Sheep has also incubated at least 8 vertical live broadcast rooms, among which Three Sheep Network is the main account, with 10.74 million Douyin fans currently, and the number of fans of other accounts ranges from 100,000 to 500,000.

According to data from Xin Dou, in the past week, the vertical matrix live broadcast rooms of Three Sheep contributed a total GMV of about 25 million yuan. Together with Xiao Yangge’s apprentices, the total GMV in the past week was about 120 million yuan, which is similar to the cumulative GMV on the day of Xiao Yangge’s live broadcast on Saturday.

Compared with the big anchors who focus on selling goods, Xiao Yangge has another way to monetize traffic. Three Sheep has opened up the authorization of Xiao Yangge's live broadcast and recording content. The creators can edit it by themselves for selling goods and share the profits with Three Sheep. According to Xiao Yangge, this form brought the company 187 million yuan in revenue last year.

In April this year, Three Sheep launched the "Zhong Xiaoer" App, which focuses on the live streaming business. In addition to Brother Yang, the App also integrates the live streaming authorization of anchors and institutions such as Xin Jifei, Hao Shaowen, and Jiao Ge Pengyou. This method is called the commission-based matrix account.

Opening up live streaming slicing is a double-edged sword. Mai Zi, a senior practitioner of live streaming e-commerce, said that in the early stage, Xiao Yangge could rely on slicing to increase his exposure, increase commission income, and improve his bargaining power on the brand side. However, if too many authorizations are opened in a short period of time, there is a potential risk of "fake" accounts taking advantage of the situation and content being edited and abused.

In contrast, Xiao Yangge's strategy is to spread traffic outward, creating apprentice accounts, vertical accounts and countless "slice clones"; Simba's strategy is to tighten inward, let the apprentices closely surround him and fight together. "It seems that the strategies are different, but the core is similar, that is, to disperse the risks as soon as possible during the peak period of traffic and maximize the value of traffic." Maizi said.

2. “Going overseas”: Are we all in the storytelling stage?

For the top anchors on each platform, after having the advantage of traffic, in order to improve quality control and expand profits, they will put supply chain construction on the agenda. This is a necessary path for the growth of many big anchors, and Xiao Yangge and Simba are no exception.

As Xiao Yangge's number of fans surpassed Kuaishou's Simba's 99.745 million and Taobao Live's Li Jiaqi's 74.89 million, his way of selling goods and the quality of goods have also attracted much attention, and topics about Xiao Yangge's "crash" have frequently appeared on hot searches.

From November 2022 to May this year, Wang Hai "exposed" at least 12 products that appeared in Xiao Yangge's live broadcast room, including small household appliances, children's face creams and Martin boots, kitchen utensils, household items, etc. The main problems were false advertising. From public information, Xiao Yangge removed these products from the shelves and returned and refunded some of them.

A similar phenomenon also occurred to Simba. In November 2020, Wang Hai "exposed" Simba's live broadcast room and sold "sugar water bird's nest". Later, Simba responded that Xinxuan would propose an advance compensation plan, requiring a total refund of 61.98 million yuan, and Simba's Kuaishou account was banned by the platform for 60 days.

In order to reduce the quality problems of such products, in addition to strengthening the standards in the product selection process, improving supply chain capabilities is also a way out.

Brother Xiao Yang founded Hefei Xiao Yang Zhen Dao Supply Chain Management Company and launched its own e-commerce "Xiao Yang Zhen Xuan". Currently, "Xiao Yang Zhen Xuan" has launched a mini program of the same name, opened a Douyin account and a Tmall flagship store, and the products sold include "Xiao Yang Zhen Xuan" products and some small and medium-sized brand products.

"Xiao Yang Selection" applet interface

An MCN agency practitioner commented that Brother Xiao Yang currently uses high subsidies to sell high-priced goods to improve the tone of the live broadcast room, and then supplements it with Xiao Yang's selection of high-gross-profit goods and small and medium-sized brand products. The logic of product selection and sales is also highly consistent with Simba.

"The supply chain has a direct impact on big anchors." Maizi said that in terms of goods, it can stabilize the supply and control the quality, reduce the risk of failure and increase the trust of fans, and the profit margin of the own supply chain is usually higher . However, whether the entire chain from design and production to logistics and after-sales can continue to operate efficiently and circulate is a test for the team behind the anchor to a large extent.

"Ximba had experience in purchasing and micro-business before becoming a live streamer, which was helpful for the subsequent supply chain." Chen Wu said. On the other hand, according to Du Gang, CEO of Three Sheep Network, Three Sheep is negotiating cooperation with more high-quality domestic OEM factories and has plans to control or invest in factories.

Internally, they need to strengthen supply chain capabilities; externally, Simba and Xiao Yangge began to tell "going overseas stories".

On April 17, Xiao Yangge said in the live broadcast room that Three Sheep was preparing to develop TikTok e-commerce. Du Gang told the media that Xiao Yangge had many fans in Indonesia, but he didn't know how to go overseas yet. Shouting out the slogan first and letting foreign influencers sell domestic products might be a solution.

Regarding the path chosen by Xiao Yangge, Chen Wu believes that overseas e-commerce live streaming platforms represented by TikTok are still in the initial stages of commercialization, and the path to going overseas for domestic anchors who rely on the platform remains to be verified.

Simba's overseas expansion is similar to the overseas tracing methods of previous big anchors. On May 7, Simba started broadcasting in Thailand and sold goods on the Kuaishou platform. The total GMV that night exceeded 830 million. The Xinxuan Group founded by Simba said that Thailand is the first stop of the "Xinxuan International Expansion Plan" and will enter other countries in the next year.

"In summary, whether it is supply chain or going overseas, Xiao Yangge and Simba are both in the early stages of exploration. They develop supply chains for the same purpose and face similar difficulties on the road to development. Both need to enhance the resources of brand supply chains," Chen Wu analyzed.

3. Brother Xiao Yang and Simba, how long can they remain the “number one”?

"Brother Xiao Yang, like Simba, is one of the protagonists of the wealth-making stories in the era of short videos." A fan of Brother Xiao Yang concluded.

Brother Yang, born in 1995, was a "small town test-taker" from Lu'an, Anhui. He came into contact with short videos when he was studying at a university in Hefei. In 2015, he registered a Kuaishou account named "Crazy Brother Yang" and successfully accumulated millions of fans with a video of "firecrackers exploding ink". In 2018, he switched to Douyin and registered an account with the same name. In less than two months, he gained 10 million fans.

Afterwards, Brother Yang, who found his creative inspiration, established a character for each family member: he is the younger brother who is addicted to the internet, his older brother likes to tease him, his father is "henpecked", and his mother has the highest "force value". Later, Sister Yang and Sister Yang also gradually joined the team, and even the "official announcement" of major events such as marriage and childbirth were achieved through shooting jokes. The "Desperate Weekend" series of short videos has become a famous meme, and many fans are still doing "archaeology" on it.

Simba witnessed the heyday of Kuaishou's six major families. Because of his timely transformation into a live-streaming anchor, he became the new leader of the platform and trained many apprentices. He attracted a lot of attention and GMV by constantly performing scenes of "quit the Internet and return".

It took Simba and Xiao Yang only a few years to go from grassroots to top anchors, and then to become the boss of a live e-commerce company. But this was due to the support of the platform and the bonus of live broadcast at that time. Although this road to fame through spoofs, eye-catching and temperament has grown rapidly, it also hides risks.

The biggest risk is that the big anchors first became famous because the platform needed "benchmark" anchors and users. As the platform enters a mature stage, are the big anchors full of uncertainty and controversy still what the platform needs most? Without the support of the platform, how much advantage will the big anchors have?

In the past three years, the live broadcast e-commerce industry, which has been booming, has expanded rapidly in 2021 and ushered in a major reshuffle. Many top live broadcasters have been investigated. At the same time, the monthly active user growth of the top short video platforms has reached a bottleneck period, and the platform's traffic is "getting more and more expensive". The era of big broadcasters has passed, and Simba and Xiao Yangge are not the only ones who are anxious.

Xiao Yangge and Simba also have their own problems: high exposure, but polarized reputation; they often receive complaints from users due to quality control issues; Xiao Yangge focuses on entertainment and comedy, and violent tests, while Simba focuses on shouting at platforms and opponents. Although both methods can increase the user's stay time, they are also prone to reputation risks. Although it is easy to go viral, it is difficult to build trust through this.

"Their biggest risk is their respective limitations." Maizi said that Simba has been popular for many years, and most of his energy has been focused on maintaining his voice, and Xiao Yangge is facing the same problem. As the platform's traffic growth approaches its ceiling, it must be more difficult to continue growing from 100 million fans.

More importantly, as a top anchor, the "love-hate relationship" between the platform and the anchor will always exist. Chen Wu said that the platform needs the anchor's GMV to drive the development of e-commerce business. In this regard, they need each other and have the same goal, but the platform does not want to see an anchor dominate the market, and it is difficult for the anchor to maintain long-term success without the support of the platform.

However, many merchants feel that Simba and Xiao Yangge are slowly changing their roles from anchors to real bosses. In order to break away from the constraints of a single platform and increase user trust and merchant dependence, they began to build an anchor matrix and go deep into the supply chain, and seeking new traffic explosion points has become their new problem.

Author: Su Qi

Source: WeChat public account "Kaiboluo Finance (ID: kaiboluocaijing)"