You are memorizing words while the cod in Alaska is leaping out of the water; you are doing math while the seagulls across the Pacific Ocean are winging their way over the city; you are studying at night while the night sky in the polar chart is scattered with colorful splendor. But don't worry, teenager, as you get down to business for your future, the sights you feel you'll never see, the people you think you'll never meet in your life, are coming to you step by step
Is it familiar? Literary? Chicken soup? The number of students who use this quote to encourage themselves is the number of beatniks who use it as a 'boss wins at life because you work hard' self-harrowing.
But that's okay. No matter how literary or deep, over time, we can all meet up with the person who uttered this phrase live - Shake's New East Live.
▲ Dong Yuhui who wrote the above paragraph
The Darkest Hour, New East Live with only a single-digit audience
With a square face, a witty sense of humor, and a confident professionalism, he is called "Jay Chou of Zhongguancun" by his students.
Last year, we started to do live broadcast, and for a long time there were only 5-6 people in the live broadcast room, 4 of them were the parents of the two anchors, this is Dong Yuhui, the anchor of the New Oriental with goods, nicknamed "Steak Brother".
Behind the two different identities lies the pulse of the times and a path to corporate self-help.
▲ New East transforms live to save itself
The day live streaming came along, no one probably thought it would have so many stories and business potential to explore. It has probably become a habit to watch one anchor rise and fall on the phone screen. And this live-streaming economy, which the founder of New Oriental called "the third revolution in business," has ushered in the entire New Oriental team after welcoming former New Oriental lecturer Luo Yonghao as their self-help.
In mid-2021, Yu Minhong used the term "uncertainty" to describe the entire company's business in New Oriental's mid-year. At that time, New Oriental's market capitalization had shrunk by 90%, revenue had dropped by 80%, 60,000 employees had been dismissed, and cash expenses such as tuition refunds, N+1 employee dismissals, and rental refunds for teaching locations amounted to nearly 20 billion yuan.
A lot of money was spent, and a large chunk of the business that made money was still missing, and the uncertainty of the way forward was the biggest problem facing New Oriental at that time.
▲ Yu Minhong
In this situation, Yu Minhong decided to walk on two legs, one leg to continue teaching and checking the gaps, the other leg to build an agricultural platform, himself and hundreds of teachers to help sell agricultural products through live banding and support the cause of rural revitalization.
But no matter how good the talk is, it's still doing live bandwagoning. At the time, Yu Minhong's decision sparked a great deal of controversy, and New Oriental was also commented on as "going from one field of making quick money to another". The controversy was not small, but the founder, Yu Minhong, was ironclad, that is, to bring the goods.
At the end of 2021, the New East bandwagon live began.
▲ The first live broadcast of New Oriental, Yu Minhong has the personal lead, after that it's all vegetarian teachers as anchors
If reality were a cool book, the rest of the story would be about entrepreneurs making the right decisions, a successful debut, an overnight success, and a brand that steadily becomes a big company in both education and live streaming.
But the reality is harsh. Although Yu Minhong's debut broadcast in Jitterbug said it did not fail, but also far from the brilliant record of Luo Yonghao's first day with 300 million goods. And the data is still falling, in the two live broadcasts in January, the new Oriental with goods live room "Oriental selection" sales had plummeted to more than 1,000 pieces, the first two months of the average single sales of only 170,000.
Sales fluctuate from high to low, and when they are high they are not that high, which is worrying in itself, while New Oriental also faces controversy from outsiders about the price of the product. Because Oriental Selection sells so much more expensive stuff, rice from the Oriental Selection live stream will be quite a bit more expensive than other platforms. Although Yu Minhong responded "although not the cheapest, but is the best quality", but in the pursuit of low prices live, the fact that fewer people buy the bill is also indisputable.
▲ Yu is more like a spokesperson for Eastern Selection Live
Of course, Yu Minhong's absence is also a reason for the dismal live streaming figures. In the whole New Oriental live strategy, Yu Minhong is more like a friendly actor, in front of the screen "singing the big show" is a vegetarian teacher.
But it also seems to be some kind of persistence on the part of the new East, and that persistence paid off in May. As we entered May, Eastern Selection live numbers began to improve significantly, with sales.
Anywhere there's gold, anywhere there's a teacher, there's a podium
More people see it as the teachers - or rather the anchors - of the New East getting used to live streaming.
▲ New Oriental
Connect Insight has reported on how the New East anchors are different from other anchors.
In an exaggerated detail, it took almost two weeks to design the script for the anchors' words and the PPT script for the live screen casting during the 20+ days of preparation.
According to a former employee of New East, "With a week to go before the premiere event, the content scripts are still being adjusted and updated. Besides the reason of product adjustment, more importantly, the anchors are limited and too dependent on the script, lacking the space and status of free play, and will key in many detailed words on the script."
▲ In the New Oriental classroom, a small blackboard is standard
Compared to the average days of preparation spent in the live-streaming industry, the preparation time for New Oriental's live-streaming booths is significantly longer. I don't know if it's out of professional habit as a teacher or a crossover discomfort, but the hosts of the Eastern Selection live stream are preparing their booths with the same habits they use to prepare for their classes.
The end result presented is that the live room really does feel like a classroom, and it's the kind of classroom that's lively and fun.
The peach seller will start with a long English introduction, and then it's time to give you some knowledge. "The English word for peach is Peach, and its taste is Juicy and Sweet". But the anchor of the live broadcast also put aside the original distance of being a teacher and will let you place your own order after the lecture, joking with gags: "Is it good to hear it and not buy it?
▲ The anchors of the live broadcast were all former ace English teachers at New Oriental
But don't underestimate the sense of atmosphere of this bilingual live broadcast, the entire live swish sold 34,000 orders of peaches, a world of difference from the previous day when it sold a few thousand orders erratically.
In this live room, you can not only buy goods, but also learn words and knowledge. How do pans and pots differ in their expressions in English words; how do you say blueberry in English and what are its derivatives; what are the differences in the expressions for beef, lamb, steak and poultry, you can learn them all here. There are also all kinds of allusions to where the word comes from, not only in English, but in other subjects such as history.
By virtue of teaching English while carrying goods, New Oriental's Oriental Selection Live Stream has managed to become the best in English in the live stream circle and the best in English in the English circle.
▲ Mr. Dong Yuhui, who is now a gold anchor
Other live streams will just call your family, old iron, and thank you for your gifts while expecting you to send more gifts. But in this live broadcast room is different, you will have to be a good student, you can ask the teacher some product questions, and the teacher will have more knowledge to throw to you. With this differentiated route, New Oriental has managed to become a breath of fresh air in the live streaming session, and is known as the 'most cultured live streaming room'.
In fact, once you get used to the rhythm of live-streaming with goods, and get used to going to the screen and communicating with students and users, the success of the New Oriental live-streaming room is also predictable. After all, New Oriental teachers are notoriously articulate and have a rich knowledge base, so talking for hours without stopping is not a big problem for them at all. As long as they can bring the humor from the classroom to the live stream, it's likely to be a drop in the bucket.
Eastern Selection's live studio is more like a live knowledge X live banding co-branding, and the two have worked together to create this out-of-the-loop.
▲ The two-in-one of live streaming and English knowledge is a rebirth for New Oriental
When it comes to how hot co-branding is, everyone knows it. If not, how can all the brands are pushing co-branded models? Every day there are several brands co-branding the situation can already make people understand that co-branding is the traffic code of the day, can achieve the best effect of 1+1>2. And New Oriental's live broadcast is like a co-branding of the two, the goods are successfully sold, the commission is successfully credited, and the impression that New Oriental is good at teaching English is further deepened.
Speaking of English education alone, more and more educational platforms have shaken the New Oriental's throne long before the epidemic. Just in its latest foray into live streaming, the big anchors are even more numerous and competitive. But using its own strengths in a two-pronged approach, New Oriental's English education bandwagon live is like a carefully crafted co-branded product that lends itself to the attention of both fields and succeeds in catching fire.
When it was just announced that he was going into live-streaming with the goods, the outside world was full of doubts about the future of New Oriental. Yu Minhong also didn't quite convince people when he said that providing more transformation opportunities for teachers was the original reason he decided to enter the live-streaming industry.
▲ Yu Minhong
But it turns out that teachers who lecture well can adapt just as well in the live room after a period of time. It's just that the lectures in the live room are still a little less serious and solemn and a little more interesting than one of the lessons that were imparted to you in the classroom back in the day.
In an increasingly entertaining world, not all knowledge broadcasts need to carry the goods. But a single live knowledge broadcast is also no longer enough; it has to be more interesting and fun to do so.
It's a magical world that can change extremely quickly when you can speak English with goods and lecture with goods.