Investigation on the ＂Deep＂ bilibili Stop-watch Event： Can Millions of UP Owners Become the ＂Back Wave＂ of bilibili’s Growth？
Interface journalist |
Interface news editor | Li Fang
66.7The last video of "A Ginger Tea" by Wanfen bilibili UP was uploaded in October 2022. Before that, she uploaded five or six videos with an average duration of 15 minutes a month at the peak of production. Last year, she stopped working for half a year, then returned to send two videos and stopped working completely.
Ginger tea is not an isolated case. Recently, the number of bilibili’s three million fans, UP, has caused a heated discussion. 2.667 million powder of "I am a strange king" and 3.85 million powder of "King Xu who lives by his face" stopped working for "economic reasons", which also involved the contradiction with MCN. 3.118 million powder "-LKs-"Clarified not stop more, just a temporary rest.
Strictly speaking, stopping is not a "tide". An up host told InterfaceEntertainment that there are currently more than 1,300 UP hosts with over one million fans in bilibili, and it is not unusual for a single-digit UP host to stop. In the fourth quarter of 2022, the average monthly active UP owners in bilibili reached 3.8 million, a year-on-year increase of 25%, and the average monthly contribution reached 17.6 million, a year-on-year increase of 62%. Judging from the financial report, bilibili’s content ecology is prosperous.
But the direction of the tide is indeed changing. Ginger tea tea gives the reason why she stopped working-there is traffic, no advertisements, and no business orders.
Her statement was confirmed when the interface entertainment interviewed many UP owners. UP, a 2 million-powder science and technology zone, said bluntly: "Now the car zone is the only one that makes money, and fashion and beauty are not working." Qiu Huai, who has 500,000 powder, operates bilibili and Tik Tok at the same time, and basically raises bilibili with Tik Tok. "If I rely solely on bilibili, then I will definitely stop."
2020After the outbreak of the epidemic in, Jiang Cha Cha, Qiu Huai and Yu Shui successively uploaded their first bilibili videos. Jiang Chacha recalled that at that time, bilibili released two promotional videos, "After the Wave" and "Into the Sea" at the May 4th Youth Day and the graduation season, which attracted many content creators. She frequently heard the news that "He Classmate" made a new explosion, and the list of "Half Buddha Immortal" was very expensive, so she decided to start trying to be a bilibili.
“People from the media are very anxious and afraid of missing the next new media platform. WeChat official account is followed by Tik Tok, and Tik Tok is followed by bilibili. Everyone thinks that long video is the next growth point, and many content creators are rushing to do bilibili, "Jiang Chacha said." At that time, there were also many voices on the Internet criticizing short videos, which were relatively high quality and could learn something. "
She quickly expanded her team-two copywriters and two editors, with salary+social security+office rent. The monthly cost of five people is 70,000 yuan, and the annual cost is almost 840,000 yuan. Every two shifts, each copywriter has 5,000 to 10,000 words.
Brand marketing in bilibili flourished in this period. In the first half of 2020, due to the epidemic situation, offline channels were limited, and brands such as Xiaomi, BMW MINI, McDonald’s and Shiseido chose to broadcast live in bilibili to release new products.
At the same time, the community growth in bilibili reached a record high. In the first quarter, the average monthly active UP owners increased by 146%, the average monthly contribution increased by 138%, and the number of UP owners with more than 10,000 powder increased by 82%. The corresponding monthly users increased by 70% to 172 million, and the daily users increased by 69% to 51 million.
In the second half of the year, commercialization in bilibili was frequent. First, the commercial cooperation platform Huahuo, which connects UP owners and brand owners, was officially opened, then the new brand growth plan of B Brand was released, and the "Z+ Plan" to enhance the brand’s penetration in the Z generation was launched, and the list of "CHINA-Z100" top 100 products was launched around the product evaluation video.
With the prosperity of the community and the success of breaking the circle, UP owners and bilibili have entered the fast lane of development. bilibili, which started late in commercialization, has a sense of making money. The capital market seems to have caught a glimpse of the grand blueprint of bilibili based on the Z generation, and with the high-quality PUGV content, UP owners have also ushered in a period of rapid growth.
At the beginning of 2021, a video with a broadcast volume of nearly 10 million in the first phase drove up the powder and achieved 1 million powder achievements in water. Almost at the same time, the number of ginger tea fans with an average duration of 15 minutes in the fifth month of the month exceeded 500 thousand.
According to bilibili’s 2020 financial report, advertising revenue increased by 126% year-on-year to 1.842 billion, much faster than the growth rate of 76% in 2019. At the same time, bilibili’s "de-gamification" has achieved remarkable results. In the fourth quarter of 2020, the income of value-added services (live broadcast and big members) surpassed the income of games for the first time and became the largest source of income, accounting for 33% of the total income.
BStation has become a company with diversified revenues. Although the net loss still exceeds 3 billion yuan, the capital has confidence in the growth of bilibili. The day after the earnings report was released, bilibili reached the peak of its share price on Nasdaq-157.66 US dollars, and its market value approached 50 billion US dollars.
Subsequently, in the first half of 2021, the advertising business in bilibili soared with a growth rate of 200%. However, this growth slowed down in the third quarter, and the pressure of the epidemic on enterprises was gradually released and transmitted to the advertising business. From Q2 of 2021 to Q3 of 2022, the growth rate of advertising revenue in bilibili was 201%, 110%, 120%, 46%, 10% and 16% respectively. In the fourth quarter of 2022, advertising revenue began to grow negatively, down 6% year-on-year.
With the decline in advertising revenue growth in the station, the update frequency of ginger tea began to slow down. At the end of 2021, she broke the watch for five months. After returning to release a video, she broke the watch again. In October 2022, she completely stopped watching after releasing two issues.
"No matter in WeChat official account or Tik Tok, there are advertisements with traffic, but this is not the case in bilibili." Jiang Cha Cha summed up his predicament in bilibili. She updated it in bilibili.appointment120Video, only received six business orders.
She calculated the account before stopping the shift. The cost of one and a half years was about 1.23 million, and she earned less than 200,000 incentive income in bilibili. The average of six business orders was 60,000 each, resulting in a total loss of about 700,000.
Another UP owner, Li Le, who has more than 3 million fans, also told Interface Entertainment that the team was cut from 12 to 8 last year. Last year, the cost was more than 3 million, the income was only more than 1 million, and the net loss was more than 1 million. "I can’t go on." Li Le bluntly said that the UP owners who are operated by teams are now living in a difficult situation and the cost is too high.
Ming Xu, the owner of Million Powder UP, explained that the epidemic situation had a great impact on commercial advertisements in the first half of last year. "The result of last year’s deterioration was released in the first half of this year," Ming Xu said. The main attitude of enterprises this year is to wait and see, "so they are willing to turn to goods with quality and efficiency."
It is a fact that the advertiser’s budget leans towards Tik Tok. A home appliance brand told Interface Entertainment that in the past, when the budget was sufficient, it would be put into bilibili. However, advertising in bilibili was time-consuming and time-consuming. From planning to creation to online, brand review and modification were needed, and the effect was not good. "The traffic of business orders would be worse, and the barrage and comment area were not friendly. The boss was unhappy."
Commercial list is the main source of income for UP owners, but the fireworks platform experience connecting UP owners and brands is not friendly. Ginger Tea said that half of them came from her previous resources in the advertising and marketing industry, and only three came from the fireworks platform and media recommendation. "I’m not Party A. I don’t know if fireworks are good for customers, but on my side, not many customers place orders." At the same time, she can only contact the fireworks business middleman, not the advertiser.
Qiuhuai operates Tik Tok and bilibili at the same time, with nearly 2 million fans in Tik Tok. He admits that he has few business orders in bilibili Huahuo and Tik Tok Star Map. "But Tik Tok’s goods are sold directly, and the sales of Xiaohuang cars are good. I can sell a lot of books every day, while bilibili" Qiu Huai roughly calculated, "On selling books with goods, bilibili’s income from window promotion is 20% of Tik Tok’s Xiaohuang cars. On the total income, bilibili is only 10% of Tik Tok’s."
As far as incentive income is concerned, many UP owners told the media that their income plummeted after the revision of incentive income in bilibili last year. Yu Shui revealed that his incentive income last year was 50,000 to 100,000 yuan per month, and now it is only 1,800 to 3,000 yuan per month, which has been cut.Eight, nineOk.
However, almost all UP owners interviewed by Interface Entertainment said that UP owners can’t rely on incentive income, especially those at the head and waist, and the business list is the most important, "incentive income can be ignored".
Although the advertising industry is depressed, there are still UP owners who have made money. Yu Shui has explored a set of mature commercial returns for his vertical content, which can not only obtain income from B-side, but also realize it through knowledge payment from C-side. In addition, he also received orders for corporate services by virtue of his technological advantages, and his income derived from bilibili is in the tens of millions every year.
However, UP owners like Shui are still a minority, the domestic advertising industry continues to decline, and the competition is becoming more and more fierce. Tik Tok and Aauto Quicker are still strong, and the female users of Xiaohongshu are "valuable". After the incentive income is cut, the income and growth space of UP owners at the waist and tail are further compressed, and the Matthew effect is concentrated.
During this period, bilibili Operation did not provide solutions for UP owners, but was close to the "Buddha system" of inaction. From the end of 2021 to the beginning of 2022, Jiangcha Tea stopped working for five months. In March 2022, bilibili Operation WeChat asked her how to stop working. Jiangcha Tea was very moved, and she was prepared to talk with the operation about the problem of not receiving advertisements, but the operation suddenly stopped replying to her. "I feel that he seems to be trying to complete KPI and ensure a certain number of active UP master updates, but he doesn’t care about our income," Jiang Chacha described his feelings.
UPThe main "A passer-by" had a similar experience. A passer-by said that he had changed at least 10 brokers during his time as a UP manager in bilibili. The working hours ranged from one to two years to several months, and most of them were newly graduated students. Every time, I have to introduce my work style, specialties and masterpieces to the new agent. Moreover, the agent doesn’t know the UP owner he brought and hasn’t seen the UP owner’s works. When something happens, he is called "looking for a leader", so the response is always slow.
These common "complaints" point to the internal management of bilibili. In recent years, the management of bilibili has changed frequently. In July last year, bilibili started a round of organizational restructuring. As far as commercialization is concerned, Liu Binxin, the head of the commercial center of the commercial middle station and the main station, resigned. Herry Liu, the former head of operation, will be responsible for this part of the business, while Wang Xu, the general manager, will be responsible for the marketing center, and the two will report to Li Wei, vice chairman and COO of bilibili.
A person close to bilibili told Interface Entertainment that the communication between departments in bilibili is not smooth and the coordination is poor. "After the next task, it is very difficult to really land on the grassroots business, and the landing effect is not good. It is in stark contrast to the efficiency of Tik Tok. "
The product logic of bilibili is different from that of Aauto Quicker, Tik Tok. According to the water analysis, the home page of bilibili mobile terminal is "one for four"-a banner map and six video buttons, which users need to click to watch by default, so the click-through rate from page view to video view is less than 5%, which means that when a video is on the home page, the click-through rate of users is still less than 5%, unlike that of Tik Tok, which is video view.
In addition, bilibili’s full-time UP master and PUGC’s team mainly focus on the creation of Chinese videos, which are "content-oriented" and have a high cost. For example, Jiang Cha Cha and Li Le, who have teams, mentioned that the annual content cost exceeds 800,000 and 3,000,000 respectively. According to Yu Shui, a video special effect with a head up will cost 70,000 to 100,000.
Content-oriented is suitable for many young users and strong knowledge attributes in bilibili, so bilibili has gained strong user stickiness, but it also limits the commercialization space in bilibili.
First of all, emphasizing the content means that the quotation of the commercial list is on the high side, which puts forward higher requirements for the brand budget. "For example, if you put an advertisement in Tik Tok that shows 5 million broadcasts, Party A feels happy. If Tik Tok invests in a blogger with 1 million powders, you can only spend 20,000 to 30,000 yuan, but in bilibili, 1 million powders need 100,000 to 150,000 yuan, and the broadcast volume may be tens of thousands." Weigh in water.
Secondly, bilibili users are more sensitive to inserted advertisements because the foundation of building trust with UP owners and communities is the quality of content, and the community atmosphere is not friendly to brands. A number of UP owners said that bilibili audiences not only have high requirements for content, "any small mistake will be on the line", but also resist commercialization. "If you take it clear that you are selling goods, you can still provide some intellectual content in the middle, and the audience is willing to accept it. If you do knowledge-based content and sell goods in the middle, then you will change. " Ming Xu said.
An Internet industry analyst told Interface Entertainment that it is difficult for bilibili’s medium and long videos to match brand products. "The content is light, and the consumption scene can be connected efficiently." Now short videos have become the main position of brand launch, and long-term product launches will be made in bilibili when the brand budget is sufficient. However, after the income of all walks of life declined due to the epidemic, the first knife to reduce costs and increase efficiency was cut to the product launch, and the limited budget was allocated to the market side. Compared with slowly cultivating users’ minds in bilibili, Tik Tok.
BThe content form of the station is also moving closer to the short video. In 2021, the vertical screen mode Story-Mode was officially launched in bilibili. According to the financial report of the fourth quarter of 2022, the average daily broadcast volume of vertical screen video of Story-Mode in bilibili increased by 175% year-on-year. Li Xi said that the new traffic brought by Story, combined with the existing ecology in bilibili, will greatly improve the advertising efficiency and provide more new business opportunities for live broadcast and advertising.
The short video was added to bilibili’s content ecology, and the response did not exceed expectations. Advertising revenue dropped by 6% in the fourth quarter. On the main side of UP, Yu Shui said that "short video runs on widescreen data", and short video doesn’t fit bilibili’s content temperament. "It’s silly. Can you do short video better than Aauto Quicker, Tik Tok? Bilibili is both a stand-up and a stand-up. He wants to earn both widescreen money and vertical screen money. "
In addition, this year, bilibili plans to change the broadcast volume to the duration of users. With the change of this data index, the advertising logic of advertisers, the stickiness of UP, and the long and short video patterns in the station may change accordingly.
However, in the short term, it is impossible for UP owners to change their demands for commercialization. Qiu Huai believes that the commercialization of bilibili must be reformed and patch advertisements should be added directly. Traditional commercial list implantation not only consumes UP’s main energy, but also has a bad user experience. "The video content of commercial list should be carefully related to the product. In fact, the mixing of advertising and content will make the audience have a poor experience of both, so it is better to directly and stiffly add a patch advertisement."
"Content creators should do content, and it takes a lot of energy to polish the content with Party A. Now, a content creator has to be half an advertiser, and a quarter of an account, a customer department, and a creative department, which is even more troublesome," Qiu Huai said. "There are many strange phenomena in the marketing industry, and the task of the marketing department to advertising companies is often to plan our marketing campaign into a social hotspot. Are social hotspots that easy? In the end, you lied to me and I lied to you. I always wrote a marketing case saying that the company had created another screen-screening case. The result was that the marketers themselves praised it, and outsiders had never heard of it. "
Yu Shui agrees with this view. He estimates that the opening of patch advertisements is expected to bring 15 billion yuan of direct income to bilibili.
BThe original advertising idea of the station is content-traffic-advertising, but the crux at present is that there is traffic without advertising. Yu Shui and Qiu Huai believe that it is more reasonable to let the audience pay for the content. Vertical knowledge content can be paid for knowledge, and high-flow content can be divided into advertisements, so that the community content ecology can form a virtuous circle.
After the advertising growth rate plummeted, bilibili wants to regain the powerful grip of the commercialization of games. At the beginning of November last year, bilibili’s internal mail showed that bilibili adjusted the reporting line of the game business, and Rui Chen would personally listen to the reporting of the game business. He said in the third quarter earnings conference call that bilibili’s game business has been sluggish in the past two years, precisely because the company has taken too big steps in self-research, the team is too scattered, and the exploration direction is not deep. He took over because he wanted to emphasize the positioning of the game business in bilibili, and to implement the game business strategy of "self-research and global distribution".
Games and video are bilibili’s main businesses, and the video business also has the same out-of-focus problem. There are too many branch lines of OGV, PUGV and UGV. Among them, OGV’s self-made cost is high, and the purchase price of copyright dramas is high. Moreover, in recent two years, Sanyue has a new job, Justice Algorithm and so on have all been praised and failed, and the OGV content and derived value-added services (big members) are facing the competition of Aiyouteng.
Today, bilibili’s share price has fallen to more than 20 dollars, less than a fraction of the peak period, and its market value has dropped from 50 billion dollars to 8.6 billion dollars. Compared with the single revenue model in which the game business was over 80% at the beginning of listing, the current business model in bilibili includes advertising, live broadcast, membership, e-commerce, games, etc., covering almost all ways of realizing the Internet industry. However, the loss-making bilibili has not yet made a choice, which has also led to an increase in its operating costs since its listing. In 2022, the operating costs will still increase by 18% year-on-year.
Bilibili needs the determination of "breaking the wrist of a strong man" like Iqiyi to balance its business, converge its business lines and focus on the characteristic content with industry barriers. Bilibili has a group of high-quality content creators, and the trust and restrained commercialization rooted in community culture ensure the user experience and provide content with social value.
As far as UP main content ecology and advertising revenue are concerned, let content return to content, advertising return to advertising, go through the closed loop of commercialization, and clarify business lines and operational priorities. In the capital market which is not optimistic and the economic environment whose recovery is less than expected, bilibili will accelerate to prove itself.
(Note: Qiu Huai, Yu Shui, Li Le and Ming Xu are pseudonyms, and intern reporter Luo Hongyan also contributed to this article)