China Economic Weekly-Economic Net News (Reporter Hou Juan) "Where is it expensive? It has been this price for so many years, don’t talk nonsense with your eyes open. " Later, Li Jiaqi added: "Sometimes I find my own reasons. After so many years, my salary has not risen. Have you worked hard?" On September 10th, Li Jiaqi, the anchor, had an argument with netizens when he brought goods for the brand of Hua Xizi eyebrow pencil in the live broadcast room.
Soon, the topic "Li Jiaqi brings goods to netizens" and "Li Jiaqi Huaxizi" rushed to Weibo for hot search. Some netizens angered: "You earn the money of ordinary people, and in the end you ridicule the poverty of ordinary people." Some netizens said that this is "why not eat minced meat in the modern version".
On September 11th, although Li Jiaqi apologized for his inappropriate comments on the live broadcast in Weibo, saying that he had made inappropriate and uncomfortable remarks in response to product comments during the live broadcast, and sincerely accepted everyone’s criticism, Li Jiaqi may have encountered the biggest crisis in his career. That night, Li Jiaqi cried and apologized again during the live broadcast. In one day, she lost 1 million yuan.
Hua Xizi has a close relationship with Li Jiaqi. There have been rumors that "Li Jiaqi is a shareholder of Hua Xizi", but both Hua Xizi and Li Jiaqi denied it. The reporter inquired about Tianyancha APP and found that Li Jiaqi himself had no direct equity relationship with Huaxizi Company.
Although there seems to be no "blood relationship", Li Jiaqi’s influence on Hua Xizi is undeniable.
Hua Xizi, who was born in 2017, also put in a large number of KOL and KOC in the early days, but it didn’t promote the sales situation and brand volume qualitatively. Until March 2019, Hua Xizi first walked into the live broadcast room in Li Jiaqi, and the gear of fate began to turn.
According to the live broadcast forecast of Li Jiaqi live broadcast room, from August 12, 2023 to September 11, 2023, Huaxizi products appeared five times, with air honey powder twice in August, Shouwumei chalk in 79 yuan twice in September, and silk honey powder cake with a price of 159 yuan once. Three products were brought in five times.
According to ECdataway data, in January and February, 2020, 40% of the sales of Huaxizi flagship store came from the live broadcast room in Li Jiaqi, among which five products with a total sales of over one million, such as air loose powder, makeup remover wipes and carved lipstick, were frequent visitors to the live broadcast room in Li Jiaqi.
Not only Hua Xizi, but also in the beauty and skin care market, domestic brands have long relied on the head anchor. Take Li Jiaqi as an example. According to the battle report of Tmall double 11 Beauty Shop last year, among the sales of domestic brands Polaiya, Winona and Quady in the first seven days of pre-sale, the product revenue contributed by Li Jiaqi Live Room accounted for 39%, 49% and 52% respectively.
In the variety show "All Girls’ offer", Li Jiaqi showed his superb ability to bargain for the brand. When negotiating a bargain with Perfect Diary, Li Jiaqi persuaded, "For this time, all girls can make domestic products rush to the first place." "On the evening of October 20th, Xiaoxi doesn’t charge link fees" and proposed that "you can just give me this price on October 20th". After his strong "attack", the perfect diary brand finally agreed, "only for one night, plus 10 yuan later."
However, since international brands also used Li Jiaqi to bring goods, domestic products have been under great pressure. For example, in the Double Eleven in 2022, beauty brands must participate in the competition between the live broadcast rooms in Li Jiaqi, so as not to be forgotten. On the opening day of the pre-sale, all the top 10 members of Tmall’s pre-sale list participated in the live broadcast in Li Jiaqi. Among them, domestic brands account for three. In the past, dark horses, perfect diaries, etc., lost Li Jiaqi’s blessing and seemed quiet.
However, some people think that the head anchor has a large weight in the domestic beauty consumption, which makes the competition between brands too concentrated on the battlefield of live broadcast, or even on one person, which is extremely unfavorable to the whole domestic beauty industry and brand development. For the brand, the personal effect of the head anchor is greater than the brand effect, which is essentially the weakening of the brand. More dangerously, it may be destroyed by the anchor.
("China Economic Weekly" reporter Hou Wei | photo)
This time, Hua Xizi’s "high-end" filters were broken all over the floor, and many bloggers posted that the price of eyebrow pencils of well-known brands was lower than that of Hua Xizi.
For example, Shu Uemura’s eyebrow pencil with a net content of 3.5g costs 230 yuan, that is, 67.6 yuan per gram. Dior Eyebrow Pencil with a net content of 1.19 grams is sold in 260 yuan, and the price per gram is 218 yuan. The price of the eyebrow pencil with a net content of 0.25g of Yueshi Fengyin is 90 yuan, that is, 360 yuan per gram.
For domestic brands, the eyebrow pencil with a net content of 0.28g in Perfect Diary is sold in 39 yuan, that is, 139.28 yuan per gram. The eyebrow pencil with UNNY net content of 0.1g is priced at 34.9 yuan, that is, 349 yuan per gram.
The eyebrow pencil of Hua Xizi 69 yuan is 0.07g, and the price per gram is 985.71 yuan, equivalent to 1.5g of gold.
At present, the brand with a higher price than Huaxizi Eyebrow Pencil is Chanel. According to the official flagship store, the price of Chanel Eyebrow Pencil with a net content of 0.27 g is 390 yuan, that is, the price per gram is 1,444 yuan.
From the perspective of pricing, domestic brands are getting rid of the label of "low-end", but there is still a long way to go before pricing can be accepted by consumers.
The so-called domestic high-end cosmetics brand thought it had reached the age of weaning, but finally found that it was still a "young seedling" that needed to rely on online celebrity and anchor. If you don’t want to be the second flower, new domestic beauty products may need to "escape" from Li Jiaqi.
At present, savvy foreign brands no longer rely on Jiaqi, and big names in the circle, such as L ‘Oreal, also clearly want to take "offline" as their main strategy. Fei Borui, president of L ‘Oré al North Asia, said at the "Annual Communication Meeting of Development Strategy in 2023" a few months ago that consumers should be constantly exposed to L ‘Oré al products online and offline, "to create new consumption scenarios and to have interactive dialogues with consumers through offline channels, tourism and retail".
Others, such as Winona, a domestic brand, opened its first retail boutique in Shanghai early.
At present, accelerating the escape from "Li Jiaqi" has become a new topic for the beauty industry in 2023. On-line is extensive cultivation and thin harvest, while off-line is intensive cultivation. Who will succeed in solo flight?
Editor: Lynn Yang
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