Zheng Jianpeng and Yan Zhen, a couple from Guangdong, work on both live broadcast e-commerce and funny short videos to support what they call a "reciprocal growth". [Photo provided to CHINA DAILY]
Years of experience in home cooking have made Grandma Qinba a swift and capable chef. In a short video on Douyin, the 72-year-old from Ankang, Shaanxi province, cuts, slices, pulls and even uses a chopstick to create her husband's favorite noodles. Not long after, the semi-translucent noodles are cooked and ready in the bowl, covered with all the fixings－bean sprouts and celery on the bottom, garlic and spicy seeds for garnish. With vinegar and fiery chili sauce, grandpa is happy to gorge on them all, and the wrinkles on his forehead unfold, while teasing the taste buds of million of viewers.
Since her grandson Zhang Wanlu opened the account on the short video platform, 2.8 million fans have followed her. The cravings for, and memories of, the rustic taste of their hometowns have turned into purchase orders for oily chili sauce, sweet potato vermicelli or dried konjac, which flood into the comment section of her videos from across the country. In 2020, her family sold 4 million yuan ($25.9 million) of agricultural products by filming Grandma Qinba's kitchen hours, and helped lift 522 poor households in the neighborhood out of poverty.
Once a frustrated migrant worker constantly on the move, the grandson has decided to return to his roots and bring the gifts from the mountains and wilds of southern Shaanxi to more people. As he wrote in the account profile: "After tasting all the gourmet foods, we revisit the rustic flavor, and that's why we call it home."
E-commerce speeds up key commercial processes, especially marketing, and one of the most spurring and evident developments in this area is short-video content providers. They have become creative platforms for more people to "record the good life".
In China in particular, short videos and live broadcasts are now helping to turn many rural users into mainstream influencers. Guo Xin, a marketing professor at Beijing Technology and Business University, says: "The promotion of rural revitalization requires the emergence of a greater number of such rural influencers, and their development also needs help from all social forces."
Short-video platforms have also spawned a large number of emerging business formats, providing more individuals and enterprises with huge opportunities for entrepreneurship, employment, income growth and even bigger dreams. According to the Flexible employment: Douyin's Employment Research Report released by the National Institute of Development and Strategy, Renmin University of China, from August 2019 to August 2020, a total of 20.97 million people were engaged in creative work through the platform to earn direct income from work such as live broadcasts and e-commerce. If the direct and indirect employment are combined, the platform creates and drives a total of 36.17 million jobs.
Actor Jia Nailiang has sold more than 100 million yuan worth of products in two consecutive live broadcasts. [Photo provided to CHINA DAILY]
In 2020, amid a pandemic, staying at home became the norm, and recreational entertainment through short video platforms set the trend. This also directly led to an explosive growth in sales by live broadcast.
A more prominent group lured into this new business landscape are celebrities like Qi Wei, Huang Shengyi and Jia Nailiang, all of whom have achieved outstanding results through endorsements on the short-video platform. Actor Jia Nailiang, who joined Douyin last year, has sold more than 100 million yuan worth of products in two consecutive live broadcasts.
"If celebrities want to stand out, they need to gradually move toward a professional development path, ensure a stable and continuous live broadcast frequency, and have a strong supply chain level. At this point, we are here to support them," says Mu Qing, vice president of Douyin E-commerce.
However, there is another key reason why celebrities choose to stay on Mu's platform. "The unique short-video content ecology created by us allows celebrities to not only become e-commerce presenters, but also to present themselves to their fans through diversified content forms. By removing the celebrity filter, they can show their real personality here, which is very appealing to celebrities who want to attract more fans," Mu says.
The visible change is that with the improvement of the platform, the presenters have begun to obtain stable income. As such many have even moved into the top rank by shifting their focus to platforms like Douyin.
Interest is instrumental in helping discover potential needs. Short-video platforms are positioning their product content with personality attributes to stimulate consumption needs.
A former host at Hubei Satellite TV, Dali started from scratch in livestreaming last May, and the 30-year-old had a clear goal: "I will get to the top of the industry."
It took three months working in a bonded warehouse where, on at least one occasion, the outdoor temperature exceeded 40 C and there was only a small broken electric fan. According to the data recorded by her team, one live broadcast lasted for 14 hours with 10 million viewers.
Never underestimate the potential of a girl who is serious about her career. When Dali left her stable job at a TV station to become an online presenter, her parents disapproved so much that, even now that she has found some success, her mother feels distressed that her daughter is so busy. She still tries to persuade her to give up and shift her focus to family, based on the idea that "a girl should do what is proper at her age and get married".
But Dali is willing to fight the stereotype. "There are so many people who want to be presenters and so many teams who want to do live broadcasts, but I made it. So I won't give up," she says. She wants to do a lot more, and a woman can do a lot more after her 30s. Dali says she has always felt that girls can do very well in many industries. According to Cicada's Mom, a digital marketing service provider, in January this year, 17 presenters on Douyin had sales of over 100 million yuan, and the proportion of female talent is eye-catching.
"As long as you find a direction and realize your self-worth, it is never too late to start at any age," she says.
Grandma Qinba is a swift and capable chef. [Photo provided to CHINA DAILY]
It is the average people that turn into influencers who are the most important forces, the most typical being Zheng Jianpeng and Yan Zhen. The couple got married in 2011 and have two lovely daughters. Since making their debut on Douyin in 2018, they have garnered 50 million fans. In October 2018, their video "Bored with housework, a former dancer dances while cooking, but gets beaten by his wife" was trending on Douyin. At the end of the same year, they signed a contract with Wuyou Media, a multichannel network to create more tailored and professional content to video platforms and, since then, their career path to becoming influencers has been smoother.
Along the way, this pair from Guangdong province, who claim to be just ordinary folks, have been creating extraordinary on-screen comedy personas that have brought unlimited joy to fans. They work on both live broadcast e-commerce and funny short videos to support what they call a "reciprocal growth".
"We recommend a lot of high-quality and low-cost goods for our fans, and often give gifts to them. The steady income helps us sustain our creation, but we firmly believe that we must be worthy of everyone's trust when doing promotions," Zheng says.
The couple have won praise from fans for their heartwarming behavior. After the heavy rain and flooding hit Henan province in July, they actively donated 300,000 yuan and 10 million yuan worth of sterilization materials to the disaster-stricken areas.
According to the 2021 Douyin E-commerce Ecological Development Report released by Douyin E-commerce in conjunction with Trend-in-Sight, a data analysis provider, in May this year, in the second half of 2020, gross merchandise volume increased by 588 percent year-on-year compared with the first half of 2020; as of January 2021, the number of presenters who have earned steady e-commerce revenue has exceeded 1 million.
Based on the mechanism design recommended by big data, content providers have been supporting more amateur creations, and cultivating talent to "realize their new and real self".
"We are supporting influencers behind the scenes. Helping them become e-commerce professionals to achieve self-worth and career success is one of our most important responsibilities. We will continue to walk side by side with them for greater success," says Gao Yaxuan, who is in charge of content operation for top-tier creators at Douyin E-commerce. They just had their 2021 e-commerce influencer summit on Friday in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, in a bid to provide better service and capability support for future influencers.
