Source: Ginkgo Finance (ID: yinxingcj)

Author: Golden Rain Ginkgo

After the opening year, there is an increasingly obvious pattern in the online red live belt cargo circle.

Brand side, net red, MCN mechanism, flow platform and e-commerce gradually formed a chain of transmission:

Entrepreneurs down-dimensional live with goods to do net red - net red after big want to have their own MCN institutions - MCN spelled the life to want to hold the shaker, fast hand such a traffic jumbo - shaking sound, fast hands just want to use the e-commerce platform to play through the traffic realization channels.

The e-commerce giant is at the end of the day and seems more ambitious, trying to eat all the traffic and feed itself.

Upstream down, downstream up, in this competition process, a single role has been unable to meet the needs of market diversification, will gradually be embezzled and eaten away.

McN play at home and abroad is very different.

Foreign network red before MCN mature, is the core of traffic realization, and a single source, in addition to the pipeline, is Ins, even Facebook has no market. Even if the MCN follows up, there is very little room for operation.

This means that MCN can only do "service output", not involved in content creation, specializing in operating ecology. Turn your head to the domestic, the first to be compiled is net red.

Weibo, know, shake sound, fast hand, B station, Taobao, little red book, WeChat public number... As long as the home network, you can not escape these APPS.

The huge population base of 1.4 billion provides fertile ground for KOL growth and feeds a large number of net reds and institutions. Do net red threshold is low, the upper limit is high, it is difficult to stand alone, China's MCN institutions in which there is some cultivation space.

From screening, nurturing and setting up new people, to fostering a fan base, from event operations to commercial realization and even sub-IP development, China's MCN institutions can do everything.

After Wen Wan burst the red shaker, such as Han according to her personal image, for it to create a different development plan from the ordinary live network red.

MCN is becoming more and more like a star brokerage company, with a steady stream of red seeds, which not only makes its content ecology more full, in the face of the brand side, but also in the position of advertising companies.

After the popularity of live and short video, the traditional advertising ad company "positioning-creative-production-channel-distribution" process, gradually replaced by the two-step strategy of "Amly-Link" in Net-a-Red.

Not only save time and effort to see quick results, a large number of online red recommendations than a hammer sale can form a brand scale effect.

Early last year, Li Li told an automotive MCN industry conference that MCN is grabbing the 4A market, the industry is facing survival difficulties.

Brokerage companies and advertising agencies, a new organization has taken up two traditional industries, which is not common in the country, which talks about segmentation and division of labor everywhere.

There are two sides to everything, and although MCN has a pipeline to produce KOL, the culture cycle and cost are equally high. This makes the MCN agency very dependent on the head mesh that has been cultivated.

That year, YouTube supported MCN, set a three-way rule: YouTube as a platform to get 45% of advertising revenue, MCN draw 22%, the remaining 23% of the net red. In terms of profit-to-profit ratios, MCN was down from the start.

Even though incubation traits have left some profit margins for China's MCNs, mcN's profit margins have been squeezed as Net-a-Cross has grown.

Sign the waist net red, is management; sign the head net red, is the service. For MCN, it's not just the question of who's taking the big profits, it's also the soaring cost of the package.

The service head is red and requires hundreds of staff. "Lipstick one brother" Li Jiaxuan out of the ring, there are more than 500 people behind the operation of the team, Andia behind the culture of humility, as early as two years ago set up a team of investment, selection, operations, brokers and other full-time staff.

Because of this, Theone signed Li Jiaxuan, can only give up Via, net red will be on the one hand, but also the key is that MCN itself can not bear.

All look at the huge market of the net red economy, but no institution can gather eight cents, this is the net red bigger after the direct anti-phage of the institutions behind, this is particularly evident in the body.

As the "net red first stock", such as Han originally had the best chance to grow into an industry giant, but a closer look at the course of recent years, it will find that it did not play their first-in-the-nation advantage.

Revenues for the 2017-2019 fiscal year were RMB578 million, RMB948 million and RMB1.1 billion, respectively, while gross profit was RMB212 million, RMB304 million and RMB342 million, respectively.

High operating costs resulted in negative net profit and widening losses, more than doubling from $40.137 million in fiscal 2017 to $86.2 million in fiscal 2019.

As early as that year, when the listing broke, Wang Si-chung pointed out that it had lost money for years and relied on top-level KOL.

As of the 2020Q1 financial results, the end of the period, such as the signing of a total of 168 KOLs, of which the head KOL only Zhang Daxuan, Dajin, Libelin three. Of these three, Zhang Daxuan contributed far more GMV than the other two, accounting for more than half of the total GMV.

That's not good news for mcN institutions.

Net-a-Go's personal traffic is always capped, last year's double eleven pre-sale day, Zhang Daxuan about 30 million heat is less than a little li Jiaxuan and Veya (Via 555.76 million, Li Jiaxuan 336.58 million). From the data, Zhang Daxuan's personal traffic has been out of the head ranks.

And MCN's over-reliance on a particular network will increase the company's potential crisis. You know, "Net Red Gate" those days, such as Han's share price has plummeted.

Top-heavy is a problem for all MCN institutions, and this is largely why overseas investors have been holding a wait-and-see attitude towards Mr. Han.

Originally a group of investors, such as Alibaba, Junlian Capital, Kunlun Wanwei, Qiming Ventures, Zhongding Capital, etc. also exited around May last year, ahead of the lightning.

According to Crowley' report, MCNs with revenues of more than $50 million will account for about 30 percent of MCNs in 2018, but only 2 percent will have revenues of more than $300 million.

The scale of revenue is so divided that it makes sense for others to want to eat MCN.

It's not just MCN that relies on head mesh, it's brands.

The commercial cooperation between the brand and Net-a-Go has been dominated by short video/text advertising and live-streaming.

That year PAPI sauce a video patch ads were sold to 22 million caused public opinion boiling, "since the media first god" Mimi Meng's advertising quotation is also backed by a huge fan scale rising, each close to 700,000 yuan.

Brand advertising mostly choose a combination of forms, such as "3 head network red introduction - 10 waist network red grass -30 small anchors and even vegetarian people talk about the sense of use", so that users from beginning to end to form a sensory closed loop, efficient conversion of consumption.

In most cases, however, one MCN agency doesn't have so many different types of online reds for brands to choose from, so some of the places are outsourced to other MCNs.

Under the rotation, the brand lacks the qualification audit of the downstream MCN institution, which makes the sales link uncontrollable factors increase.

As Dong Mingzhu said in the "Dialogue" column a few days ago, inviting head net red to do live broadcast, not only can not reach the sales staff due professionalism, but also cost money.

The threshold between Li Jiaxuan and Via Live has been well known for hundreds of thousands of people, and now even Li Jiaxuan's dog never has become a big hot IP, 10 seconds for the perfect diary with 160,000 copies, when really "people are not as good as dogs."

Net-a-Go brand accumulation fans, the value also rose. In the final analysis, the brand side is the net red price rise behind the pusher, but the henry only net red and the MCN institutions behind it, the brand side in the cycle, and constantly for their own raised high price to pay.

Therefore, most of the products resident in the live broadcast room are fast consumer goods, beauty products and other high gross margin industries, other brands will be online red live as offline physical stores, online self-employed platform as a supplement, with new products released, anniversaries and other special festivals a wave of heat.

The unexpected outbreak of the new crown outbreak, so that the original supplementary means into the main force, and live shipping problems have been bothering the brand side.

Under the dual pressure of cost and brand image, business tycoons have been bypassing net red and MCN institutions directly in the first year, and the platform to connect with cross-border goods.

"The Big Man" plays a variety of roles, not only escaped mcN's draw, but also more professional and safe.

Such an advantage would have been in the traffic realization interest chain has a struggle, but for ordinary people, can do live broadcast of the big man would have been a difficult threshold to cross.

Take Li Yanhong as an example of reading and sharing, with goods is not his "knowledge live" direct purpose, but after the live broadcast li Yanhong's book list blind box was snapped up, you can see that its own traffic halo has a powerful role.

With this aura, the live strip simply radiates it to the product behind the big man.

How many entrepreneurs are there in China, and how many are there in traffic? The benefits that "big guys bring" are bound to be the advantages of only a small number of brands, not to allow the entire brand side in the MCN dividend model to stand higher.

When net red, MCN institutions and brand side are troubled by various problems, to shake the sound, fast hand as the representative of the traffic platform began to rise, gradually there is a tendency to integrate other parties, head net red became the first target.

As early as the 2018 Spring Festival after the sound burst, it was reported that today's headlines with powder to threaten all the shaking more than 200,000 fans of the talent, they are tied to the platform with a "base salary plus subsidy", the signing of the talent can not and other companies can not enter into new contracts.

As a result of this incident, the MCN company behind the Shaker people lashed out at today's headlines, and public opinion boiled over. Shake the sound of rapid disinformation, denied the matter.

Traffic platform MCNization is the latest trend, byte beat in this road "the wildest road", grinding out the "bottom of the kettle draw" play.

Cutting is the first step. MCN has two manifestations on the jitter platform, one is called "MCN" for short video and the other is more important for live streaming called "Guild". The official eye of the shaker is the flowing water behind the live broadcast.

In 2019, jitters will be broadcast live, with profits divided into grades of S, A, B and D, and guild profits of up to 30%.

Immediately after, according to the association's bonus classification, the guild profit fell to 5-15%, but also added flexible tasks and pull new rewards, "grab big and small" purposes revealed.

In April of this year, today's headline spent millions to set up Shanghai StarGaze Culture Media Co., Ltd., to get business performances, performance brokerage project license, there is a direct march into mcN trend.

This dig, profiteering, another stove operation is eye-watering, so that the head of the union angrily said: " (shake) this is to discourage us?" "

Complaints come down to complaints, shaking the 400 million-day-old flow-rich mine, everyone is reluctant to give up. But even if the shaker is so strong in MCN, it can't solve the problem of cashing out, and so does the fast hand.

Prior to that, shaking sound, fast hands have tried water self-employed e-commerce platform. Shake tone has shake small shop, fast hand has fast hand small shop, but the content platform e-commerce road is not good to go, it is difficult for people to accept from the entertainment content platform to the consumer e-commerce platform, which requires a lot of financial support and time cultivation.

Fast-handed magic chopsticks star choose thunder and rain point small, Luo Yonghao for the small shop with "a penny orange", the result is equally unsatisfactory, this can be seen "small program and small shop" model in a short period of time can not achieve significant results,

For the consideration of efficiency and maximization of interests, after the opening year, JD.com and the fast hand for 618 clumps of heating, and then shake the tone binding Taobao, each other into the table.

In the interest chain, this is not only a new attempt to cooperate between the traffic platform and the e-commerce platform, but also, in a sense, the MCN as an intermediary is excluded.

MCN originally in the flow and cash in the middle of the walk, the assembly of network red integration flow, the platform with goods a fish to eat more. Take the brand's money, but also take the traffic platform and e-commerce share.

But now the situation is not the same, not only the brand behind the big guy to take goods around MCN, net red self-built studio out of MCN, even e-commerce has also opened to MCN: Ali signed a ticket to sit in town Taobao live, fast hands directly to the leaders around the live call into the live room with farm goods.

Everyone is "going to MCN", at present, only the traffic platform does not mean this, they would like to use their own pot fried their own dishes, to do their own. This model of being both a referee and a player is even less friendly to MCN.

It can be said that MCN is in a very awkward position.