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Source/spiral lab (ID: spiral_lab)
When the former first-tier Internet companies gradually declined, how to regain the market’s attention, LeTV and Dangdang are two models worth studying.
These two companies, one of which was the world’s first IPO listed company in the industry, was also the first video company listed in China’s A-share market. The other is China’s first B2C online mall based entirely on online business and listed in the United States.
But later, due to different reasons, the two companies faded out of the first echelon of the Internet. Although the rivers and lakes are still there, the situation has long been different.
Based on the consideration of the brand’s voice, it has become one of the few market means to try hard to gain some popularity. For example, recently, the two companies have been on the hot list successively. Not only did they pay no fees, but they also gained more attention from the outside world.
free traffic harvester
Recently, Feng Dahui, a well-known self-media person, broke the news on the Internet: “There are still more than 400 people left in LeTV, and many of them are old employees of more than five years. These old employees said that ‘happiness is the reason why many old LeTV people stay. ‘, no invoicing and 996, no salary arrears to the remaining employees, and no social security suspension.”
This topic immediately sparked heated discussions on the Internet, and related entries such as “more than 400 employees of LeTV live a fairy life without a ‘boss'” quickly rushed to the hot search.
The LeTV official also responded in person: there is really no 996, but there is a boss. By the way, he also made waves of advertisements for his new and old products in the statement.
Judging from the overall fermentation route of the incident, this should be an accidental online incident. The spontaneous discussions of netizens made LeEco the focus of attention again. Coupled with the enduring topic of “The Legend of Zhen Huan”, LeEco has repeatedly It was a hot search for nothing.
As of noon on July 13, the announcement released by LeTV Video has received more than 200,000 likes and 22,000 retweets. When the popularity continued to soar, LeTV officials even started a live broadcast to recruit new employees for the company.
Dangdang also received traffic for free in July. On July 6, a statement from Huawei and Professor Chen Chunhua detonated the Internet. Huawei claimed that there were more than 10,000 articles on the Internet that exaggerated and interpreted Professor Chen Chunhua’s interpretation and comments on Huawei. Basically false information.
Later, after peeling off the cocoon layer by layer, the media discovered another truth behind the incident: pirated booksellers produced a large number of articles and short videos exaggerating marketing authors in order to sell pirated books, which eventually made relevant personnel and companies Damaged reputation.
Perhaps it was aware of the impending traffic flow. On the evening of July 6, Dangdang quickly released a statement on Weibo, calling ByteDance and Zhang Yiming in the air, saying that Dangdang has been focusing on promoting reading and selling books for more than 20 years. The pirated booksellers on Toutiao and Douyin are inundated.
Subsequently, Dangdang also mobilized many authors and publishers to forward the blog post, which has a great potential to clear the atmosphere of the industry.
Judging from the follow-up development of the incident, although Dangdang’s shouting failed to trigger a large-scale response, it has also gained some attention due to the high popularity of the “Huawei and Chen Chunhua” incident. , all quoted Dangdang’s response to the phenomenon of pirated books.
From “self-black” to “touching porcelain”
Both LeEco and Dangdang were once leaders in their respective industries, and could even be said to be well-deserved leaders, but in recent years, they have both experienced the dilemma of internal and external difficulties. Internally, the founders of the two companies are no longer in their positions. Externally, the former market share has almost been carved up by the big factories.
Due to the continuous weakening of the blood supply capacity of the main business, the expenditure on marketing and promotion of the two companies will inevitably decrease. Event marketing, which can leverage large traffic at a small cost, has become a helpless choice for the two companies, but how to choose Marketing opportunities, this pair of brothers and sisters have taken different paths.
LeEco, which started out in the video business, has gone further and further on the road of “self-destruction”. Last Spring Festival, when the major APPs launched activities to divide up cash, LeEco, who was shy of money, typed “Oow” on the software icon. 12.2 billion” slogan unexpectedly went viral.
After tasting the sweetness, LeTV completely released itself. On the icon, the words “The boss builds the car in America” and “Can’t afford it” are displayed.
This year, several major platforms in the online video industry have raised their membership prices, which has also given LeTV a sense of presence. LeTV Video took the initiative to post a statement on the Internet, announcing that members of LeTV Video will not increase the price, and said that it ” Self-awareness” and “not eligible for price increases”.
It is worth mentioning that LeEco’s various self-defeating acts can really bring an increase to the product. For example, after the logo slogan “owes 12.2 billion” last year became popular, the downloads of LeEco’s video app increased by nearly 20%. .
Compared with LeTV, Dangdang, who wants to continue to make a difference in the field of books, is also actively relying on “touching porcelain marketing” to attract popularity. Sometimes, even its own founders are not spared.
As early as 2018, Dangdang founder Li Guoqing caused a huge controversy when he commented on Liu Qiang’s Dongmingzhou incident. Dangdang immediately condemned it on the official WeChat account, but at the end of the statement of condemnation, Dangdang spared no effort to promote its own “double-dan marketing”. Played a wave of advertising.
By 2020. The two founders of Dangdang made a hot search for the official seal. The special page of “From Cup Smashing to Grabbing Chapters” recommends books on marriage, gender relations, company management, etc. to users.
However, with Li Guoqing’s complete departure, Dangdang seems to have lost a large number of traffic pillars. It was not until recently that it caught the heat of the Huawei Chen Chunhua incident that it regained a little sense of presence in the market.
The heat will eventually pass
In many dimensions, LeEco and Dangdang share the same sympathy. They have the same high and low levels, and the same predicament to survive. So far, there is no big tree to rely on, let alone the founder.
However, judging from the performance of the two companies in recent years, the firmness and resilience shown by LeEco is still much stronger than that of Dangdang.
First of all, in terms of operation, after Jia Yueting left the United States, LeEco continued to try new business opportunities despite the collapse of its brand reputation. They are all changing and innovating.
Such perseverance has also been rewarded accordingly. At the end of last year, LeEco disclosed in an internal letter to employees that it has achieved a double balance of annual operating profit and cash flow without considering historical debt.
On the other hand, Dangdang may be the influence of the two husband and wife founders’ breaking up. In the past two years, they have not been able to perform well in the market, especially when short videos and live broadcast e-commerce are coming. Sadly missed.
Public information shows that before 2020, Dangdang has achieved profitability for five consecutive years. Although the market share continues to decline, it is not easy for today’s Internet platforms to maintain positive cash flow.
However, with the rise of short video platforms, the online sales logic of traditional book categories is also changing. On Douyin, Kuaishou, and even video accounts, book products are the categories with better sales.
A very intuitive data shows that during the 2021 Book Fair, on-site retail sales will be more than 26 million yuan, but online live book sales have reached 150 million yuan.
In fact, as an old player who has been deeply involved in the book industry for many years, Dangdang has the opportunity to cooperate with these short video platforms to explore more business opportunities, but the embarrassing hard-hitting popularity has suddenly made the relationship between Dangdang and the platform subtle.
At this point, LeTV seems to be a lot more open. On June 30 this year, LeTV Video and Kuaishou officially announced the second creation of cooperation. Under this cooperation framework, Kuaishou creators can edit and recreate LeTV’s exclusive copyrighted works. Created and published on the Kuaishou platform, while LeTV videos are connected to the Kuaishou applet platform and use the functions of the applet to achieve membership promotion and content monetization.
When their own business has reached the bottleneck period, simply relying on the popularity cannot help the company get out of the sky. After all, any event marketing is only a means, not an end.
The heat will eventually pass, and not lying flat is the real answer. At this point, Dangdang has to learn more from LeEco.
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