On the evening of December 16, Yu Minhong and Dong Yuhui appeared together in Yu Minhong’s personal live broadcast room on Douyin. New Oriental insiders told TMTpost APP that this was not a pre-existing arrangement. The "Dong Yuhui Essay Incident" that has been causing a stir for nearly a week has finally come to an end.
On December 16, Sun Xudong, CEO of Oriental Selection, dismissed get out of class. Yu Minhong, the old chairman of the group, personally invited the young anchor "Dong Yuhui" into his live broadcast room to "integrate" the live broadcast. A series of intensive operations made netizens cheer again: Oriental Selection failed to "go to Dong Yuhui". The great power of mothers-in-law once again forced capitalists to restrain themselves!
This time, the story of "choosing one of two" between the big anchor and the company's top executive seems to be in line with the imagination of the outside world, and it also satisfies the imaginary narrative logic of the general public——
An average-looking but talented ordinary teacher was supposed to be scolding Fang Qiu in the classroom with a book. After suffering a major setback in the industry, he could only sell vegetables in a live broadcast room in obscurity. No one cared about him for a time, but without any warning, he suddenly became popular overnight. Stock options, house registration, tens of millions of incomes, and extreme wealth followed one after another. Now, can such a highlight moment of an "honest" worker defeating a "sinister" CEO be staged?
It’s hard to say what the final result will be of Oriental Selection’s operation to deal with the impact of the powerful “rice circle culture”. Although it seems to be receiving hot searches from the sky day by day, fans are also voting with their feet. The account of the Oriental Selection live broadcast room has lost more than 2 million followers in the past week. This is obviously something that everyone at New Oriental Group and Oriental Selection does not want to see.
It seems that once again, the influence of New Oriental, Yu Minhong and Dong Yuhui in the field of public opinion has been proved. In fact, for a long time, the industry has ridiculed that because of the influence of Yu Minhong, including New Oriental founders Xu Xiaoping and Wang Qiang, among young students, New Oriental Group has spent a lot less on marketing expenses compared to other competitors.
But what is different today is that after negative public opinion emerges, the capital market will react immediately. In the Hong Kong stock market, Oriental Selection’s stock price continues to fall (it also continues to fall overall this year). The value incentive of nearly HK$900 million awarded to the core team of Oriental Selection in April this year will also be significantly reduced. This may really make New Oriental’s senior management feel very worried.
TMTpost Media APP has observed that after Dong Yuhui’s “essay incident” fermented, the Hong Kong stock market’s stock price has continued to fall since December 11. As of the close on December 15, it fell nearly 22%, setting a new low in the past five months. In the past five days, the total market value of Oriental Selection has evaporated by more than HK$8 billion.
"New" Oriental Selection CEO, Yu Minhong provides 24-hour emergency assistance
“It’s completely out of control.” An executive from a leading education and training company used these words to describe the recent turmoil in Dongfang Selection to TMTpost Media APP.
To put it simply, the incident of Dong Yuhui’s essay was caused by the official account of Oriental Selection replying in the comment area that the essays Dong Yuhui created in various places were actually the credit of the entire copywriting team, and Dong Yuhui only played the role of interpretation.
Fans of Dong Yuhui could not accept this statement, which caused huge dissatisfaction among the groups. The "Mother-in-law" team left the live broadcast room for many days in a row and frantically refreshed the screen in other live broadcast rooms, especially the live broadcast room of the education and training company, to show their protest against the Oriental Selection Team.
Faced with the surging public opinion over the past few days, at 11:31 a.m. on December 16, Oriental Selection’s Douyin official account released a short video titled “Oriental Selection Personnel Appointment and Dismissal Notice,” stating that “The board of directors of Oriental Selection has decided that Chairman Yu Minhong will concurrently serve as the CEO of Oriental Selection, and Sun Dongxu will be relieved of his duties as executive director and CEO of Oriental Selection, effective immediately.”
On December 16, the official Douyin account of Oriental Selection issued a notice to remove Sun Dongxu from the position of CEO.
However, the decision did not satisfy most fans. Under this short video, fans questioned that "the file format is wrong, there is no official seal, and it lacks formality" and was highly praised in the comment area.
Five hours later, at 15:29, the official Douyin account of Oriental Selection released a short video of an apology letter broadcast by Yu Minhong, and at the end attached a picture of Yu Minhong looking serious and apologizing.
On December 16, Oriental Selection’s Douyin official account released a short video of Yu Minhong’s oral apology letter.
In the letter of apology, Yu Minhong said, "Due to the problem of online public opinion, the Oriental Selection live broadcast room used inappropriate methods to block and block some netizens who provided opinions and suggestions. This is an extremely inappropriate approach." Yu Minhong has severely criticized the management team for this mistake and will unblock all blocked netizens.
The apology letter was finally signed "Yu Minhong, Chairman and CEO of Oriental Selection", just five hours after Yu Minhong "repeatedly took on the new role of CEO of Oriental Selection".
This letter of apology, broadcast by Yu Minhong himself, also explains to a certain extent the core reason why Sun Dongxu was "dismissed" this time - not because of his "tear" with Dong Yuhui, but because of his inappropriate way of dealing with public opinion.
Obviously, Yu Minhong is extremely dissatisfied with the way the Dongfang Selection senior management team responds to public opinion. The blatant blacklisting and banning of opposing opinions seem to be rare in the history of the intellectual-intensive New Oriental Group. This is also completely inconsistent with the personal value system of Yu Minhong, who was born in Peking University, has always pursued freedom of speech, and prefers the "open market of opinions."
Half an hour after this apology letter was released, the official account of Oriental Selection released a second apology letter on the 16th. This apology statement announced how to deal with the public controversy caused by anchor "Tian Quan" on the evening of the 15th, in order to appease angry fans.
The apology letter stated, "Dongfang Selection anchor Tianquan made inappropriate remarks in the live broadcast room, which triggered criticism from netizens. The company has decided that from now on, anchor Tianquan will stop broadcasting for three months and severely criticize the anchor."
Subsequently, the account also released Tianquan's personal apology video.
Earlier, in the early morning of the 16th, a notice was posted in the Oriental Selection live broadcast room: "The broadcast is temporarily suspended today. I will sit back and reflect on my mistakes. Please criticize! Teacher Yu is leading everyone to review. The broadcast will start on time on December 17. Thank you for your love and tolerance!"
It seems that all responses point to the performance of Dongfang Selection anchor Tianquan during the live broadcast on the evening of the 15th.
TMTpost Media APP observed that a widely circulated video clip from the Oriental Selection live broadcast that night was of Tianquan imitating CEO Sun Dongxu and throwing his phone, which seemed to be teasing and hinting at the recent turmoil that New Oriental has encountered.
And he also tried to promote it in a way that directly provoked his fan base. He said, "It's easy to defeat Dongfang Selection. Before you are blocked or unblocked by me, you buy one order first, buy those eggs with a 10 yuan coupon, guava, jelly orange, etc. Oriental Selection will definitely lose money. This way you will win-win. It is a double kill for Dongfang Selection, and you can buy it with different vests."
In addition, he also said that "Egg yolk cakes are not for the last year, and people who are on the last day of the year probably can't afford egg yolk cakes with today's salary."
On the evening of December 15, Oriental Selection live broadcast host Tian Quan made inappropriate remarks, which once again caused a crisis in the public opinion of Oriental Selection.
Tianquan is the star sales anchor of the Oriental Selection live broadcast room, and is also affectionately called "Tianquan Xingjun" by fans. In fact, this style of "fearing the sky and the earth" and "choking each other" with fans is not uncommon in the live broadcast rooms of selling goods. Head anchor Simba is one of the typical representatives.
In the moment of major public opinion crisis, Oriental Selection chose anchor Tianquan to go to the live broadcast room.
However, at the moment when Dong Yuhui, whose main character is a "gentleman, gentle as jade", suffered a major "grievance", and when everyone's eyes were fixed on the live broadcast room of Oriental Selection, fans of the live broadcast room of Oriental Selection did not buy Tianquan's provocative style of content. Instead, it once again inspired a new wave of anger, and also attracted extremely bad perceptions from many people outside the public opinion field. It can be said that the management of Oriental Selection has made another major decision-making mistake.
The repeated loss of fan groups can only be said to have demonstrated again and again the helplessness and incompetence of the Oriental Selection management team in dealing with public opinion crises.
The official account took the initiative to stop broadcasting for one day, which will inevitably bring about a certain degree of loss in commercial income. However, in making such a decision, it is likely that Oriental Selection found that public opinion has really reached an uncontrollable point, and can only use this method to try to calm all parties down.
The situation is still out of control. In order to further appease public opinion, on the evening of the 16th, Yu Minhong and Dong Yuhui appeared together in Yu Minhong's personal live broadcast room. This scene surprised both New Oriental Group and Oriental Selection.
A member of Yu Minhong’s live broadcast room team told Titanium Media APP that Yu Minhong’s live broadcast room had no plans to start broadcasting tonight. An Oriental Selection insider told Titanium Media APP that they only knew that Dong Yuhui had finally made a public appearance when they saw Yu Minhong starting the live broadcast.
During the live broadcast, Dong Yuhui stated that he would not leave Oriental Selection and also admitted that there were communication problems with Sun Dongxu. Yu Minhong expressed his review and apology to the outside world, and explained why Sun Dongxu was dismissed from get out of class. It was not because of Dong Yuhui, but because of problems in the company's management. He also revealed that Sun Dongxu will continue to stay in Dongfang Selection and contribute in his own way.
Interestingly, in this live broadcast, Yu Minhong and Dong Yuhui personally appeared to appease Dong Yuhui's fans. "Support Tianquan!" "Bring Tianquan back!" "Pardon Tianquan!" "Tianquan is really innocent" barrages once again filled the live broadcast room screen.
Now is the best time for Sun Dongxu to "get out of class", he is going to a new battlefield
One detail that deserves attention is that Dong Yuhui is not mentioned at all in all the official content currently released by Oriental Selection, even though the outside world knows that the current turmoil was caused by Dong Yuhui's essay incident.
No matter whether Dong Yuhui will return to the live broadcast room when Oriental Screening resumes and stage a "Return of the King" plot, it may be the best time for Sun Dongxu, the first CEO of Oriental Screening, to "dismissal".
The original accumulation of most of the traffic in the Oriental Selection live broadcast room was achieved last year. Since the beginning of this year, the traffic bottleneck in the Oriental Selection live broadcast room has been obvious. On Douyin, it has always been difficult for the viewing of goods to exceed 10 million. In the Hong Kong stock market, Oriental Selection’s share price has also continued to fall this year.
This year, Oriental Selection also encountered its first major crisis with the platform after becoming popular.
In July, Oriental Screening was suspended for well over three days because it triggered Douyin's rules. Triggering Douyin platform rules and using QR codes to divert traffic outside the site is one thing, but what really aroused Douyin's anger may be Dongfang Selection's high-profile announcement of building its own APP for live broadcasts in an attempt to "get rid of Douyin" and "stand on its own."
Later, during the summer, the peak season for the education and training industry, Douyin Internet celebrity "Tietou punishes evil and promotes good" posted videos for many days to report Hangzhou New Oriental's illegal make-up classes, which touched New Oriental Group's core business-education and training. Tietou also repeatedly reported New Oriental to the police station, the Market Supervision Administration, and the Education Bureau.
These short videos posted by "Tietou" on Douyin aroused widespread market attention, which also led to the suspension of New Oriental's education and training business in Hangzhou, and also caused other companies in the entire education and training industry to fluctuate. Later, "Iron Head" also said that he would make Oriental Selection pay a price, but in the end, "Iron Head" settled the matter with a public apology.
After encountering such major disturbances on Douyin one after another, Oriental Selection’s “Operation De-Douyin” is not a choice but a necessity.
On August 29, Oriental Selection finally officially announced that it had entered Taobao. Oriental Selection’s stock price also rose by more than 10% that day. Oriental Selection’s first Taobao show delivered 175 million yuan in goods, more than 10 million viewers, and nearly 2 million fans. But then, Oriental Selection stopped publishing the subsequent GMV transcripts on Taobao Live.
In fact, just one week after joining Taobao, the number of viewers of Oriental Selection on Taobao Live was nearly halved, far less than the 10 million or so viewers of Li Jiaqi, who has repeatedly encountered major public opinion turmoil, and the 8 million or so of second-tier players such as Bee Surprise Club. The number of viewers has plummeted in the short term, which means that the actual transaction volume of Taobao Live will also be greatly reduced.
The high-profile official announcement of "entering Taobao" seems to have failed to solve the problem of finding new growth for Dongfang Selection. To a certain extent, the traffic of Douyin's live broadcast room base camp once experienced a cliff-like decline.
Screenshot of the homepage of Oriental Selection Taobao Live Room. TMTpost Media APP observed that Dong Yuhui was not included in this poster, which also caused extreme dissatisfaction among Dong Yuhui’s fans.
Despite various measures, Dongfang Selection is still unable to leave Douyin’s huge traffic pool and the content-led live streaming platform’s support for its sales.
On September 20 this year, the 2023 annual report released by Oriental Selection showed that in fiscal year 2023, Oriental Selection’s GMV reached RMB 10 billion, and GMV from Douyin accounted for the vast majority of Oriental Selection.
This situation is not what Yu Minhong wants to see. In fact, Yu Minhong has already not limited his vision to Oriental Selection. He also publicly wrote on his official account: "Business models established based on external platforms are highly vulnerable."
The cultural tourism business is another important battlefield that New Oriental Group is trying to open up in addition to live broadcast e-commerce.
Since its popularity in June last year, the Oriental Selection live broadcast room has begun to open local special sessions across the country, including the "Shanxi Copywriter" and "Jilin Trip" top comments that triggered the essay incident, also occurred in the outfield live broadcast room led by Dong Yuhui.
To a certain extent, Oriental Selection’s selection of these special live broadcasts with goods from various places can be seen as paving the way for New Oriental’s overall cultural tourism business layout.
On April 16 this year, at New Oriental's first official press conference after the epidemic, in addition to putting forward suggestions and opinions on the adult education and training business with college students as the main body, Yu Minhong officially announced that New Oriental will officially lay out the cultural tourism industry and will cultivate a group of tour guides who can "give lectures."
At that time, New Oriental CEO Zhou Chenggang also said during the live broadcast that New Oriental was about to develop the cultural tourism industry and planned to form two groups in the future, one led by Yu Minhong, which will focus on rural areas in China, and the other, which he will lead, will focus on the world's metropolitan areas.
On April 19, at New Oriental’s third quarter financial report for fiscal year 2023, Yang Zhihui, executive president and chief financial officer of New Oriental Education Technology Group, said that the cultural tourism business can also use Oriental Selection, New Oriental’s internal live broadcast rooms, schools and learning centers as a distribution channel. However, the business is still in the early stages of planning and evaluation.
According to the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System, Beijing New Oriental Cultural Tourism Co., Ltd. was established on July 19 with a registered capital of 1 billion yuan and the legal representative and chairman of the board is Yu Minhong.
Following this, on July 21, New Oriental’s official WeChat public account published a post titled “Start a Business Again!” New Oriental Culture and Tourism! "The article stated that after the Oriental Selection, New Oriental started a business again and officially developed the cultural tourism industry. From then on, New Oriental will provide corresponding services to the audience in the three major fields of education, life, and cultural tourism.
On October 16, Oriental Selection (Zhuhai) Tourism Culture Co., Ltd., the legal representative is Sun Dongxu.
In October this year, Oriental Selection established a company related to cultural tourism business, with Sun Dongxu as the legal representative.
On December 12, information about the establishment of three new companies by New Oriental Cultural Tourism was disclosed. Shareholder information shows that all three companies are wholly owned by Beijing New Oriental Wokaid International Education Travel Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of New Oriental Culture and Tourism.
All signs indicate that New Oriental and Oriental Selection are looking for new markets and moving towards the cultural tourism track with increasing intensity and urgency. This may also be the focus of Sun Dongxu's next work, which Yu Minhong said has stronger execution ability than him.
Dong Yuhui is very good, but he cannot leave "New Oriental"
With all kinds of noise flying all over the sky, many people have ignored one signal, that is, even though there are various ridicules from top to bottom, Dong Yuhui's IP address has changed, and his personal signature on his official account has been changed, but from beginning to end, Dong Yuhui has never stated that he really wants to leave New Oriental.
Moreover, in response to the recent rumors that Luo Yonghao and others publicly encouraged him to start a business, and that the vice president of JD.com's HR personally went to Shaanxi to recruit employees, Dong Yuhui responded to the outside world: "False news, I have not contacted any companies yet."
During the live broadcast on the evening of the 16th, Dong Yuhui also repeatedly explained to fans that he had not come forward to respond to the controversy in recent days because he was on vacation. There were fewer live broadcasts this year because he was personally tired after a long period of high-intensity work and deliberately slowed down his work pace.
Even though he has encountered various "grievances" in the live broadcast room, he still affectionately calls Yu Minhong "old man" on various occasions. As a graduate of Xi'an International Studies University, he must have always had a deep sense of identity and belonging to the English teaching position.
Therefore, although other companies seem to have extended an olive branch to Dong Yuhui, and various rumors are flying all over the sky, Dong Yuhui may be the only one who knows that in addition to economic benefits such as stock options, from his cognitive perspective, the culture and soil of New Oriental can accommodate him, an anchor who has made a name for himself with his "talent", and invest various resources for him and establish various cultural anchor personalities.
Perhaps Dong Yuhui also understands that top anchors may seem very glamorous, but in fact they are very fragile. Even if they are at the top, they will become famous instantly and stand at the top of the crowd like the rising traffic stars in the entertainment industry. Or they may be scattered in one strange trend after another in the blink of an eye. Just as he has always said frankly that he can't understand why he suddenly became famous despite his humble background and ordinary resume.
And after the anchor runs away alone and breaks up with MCN, the outcome is often a lose-lose situation. Li Ziqi, who has so far been competed by major platforms but has never been publicly re-broadcast, and Wei Nian, who has transformed into a physical commercial supply chain and no longer involved in the MCN business, are a classic case in the industry.
Another interesting phenomenon during this crisis is that Chen Xiangdong, founder and CEO of Gaotu Company, who also focuses on the famous teacher strategy and has been highly active in the live broadcast room after the double reduction, the former CEO of New Oriental Group, also seems to have a different perception from outside public opinion.
Gaotu seems to be the biggest indirect beneficiary of this crisis. On December 14, Gaotujiapin released a battle report. The cumulative sales of live broadcasts in a single day exceeded 11.8 million, the number of fans exceeded 1 million, and the number of viewers in the live broadcast room in a single day exceeded 13.55 million.
The place where "Dong fans" leave the most is Gaotu's live broadcast room, but Gaotu's live broadcast rooms may not necessarily carry the most comprehensive goods for anchors. The behavior of "Dong fans" makes their intention to express protest more obvious.
Gaotu was naturally happy to accept this wave of traffic, but amidst the raging public opinion criticizing Dongfang Selection, Chen Xiangdong was also very cautious.
On the one hand, he publicly stated in his circle of friends that he would not take the initiative to poach Dong Yuhui; on the other hand, he also said in an interview with the public media, "Dong Yuhui will not start a business alone. I think he has a deep relationship with New Oriental and a deep relationship with Teacher Yu. I think it is best for him to be at New Oriental at the moment."
Chen Xiangdong may know that Gaotu may not be able to poach Dong Yuhui at this stage. The advantage of Oriental Selection in bringing goods is due to New Oriental Group’s ability to withstand the sudden surge of traffic on Douyin in the short term. This accumulated ability is the result of New Oriental Group’s long-term development. Moreover, you must know that this advantage has not yet been broken by any education company's team that has transformed into a live broadcast delivery company.
From another perspective, this also means that Gaotu’s sudden traffic flow was caused by Dong Yuhui, and is likely to be further lost due to Dong Yuhui’s return.
This also shows that Dongfang Selection has built an insurmountable moat in the field of live broadcast e-commerce that other companies are also undergoing transformation. Among them, the hard work of the senior management team represented by Sun Dongxu is indispensable. Therefore, Yu Minhong also continued to speak well of Sun Dongxu, another party involved in the public opinion incident, who had not come forward in the live broadcast room on the evening of the 16th, and also stated that he would also listen to Sun Dongxu's opinions in subsequent management.
What Dong Yuhui cannot do without is not Oriental Selection, but the "New Oriental" hatched and forged by Yu Minhong. In fact, Oriental Selection can quickly take the lead in the field of live streaming within two years, which is inseparable from the 30 years of accumulation of New Oriental Group.
In fact, for a company that has experienced the ups and downs of China's macro environment and capital market cycles, and can withstand the impact of the wave of online education driven by the influx of hot money, as well as the "black swan" incident of major changes in industry policies, New Oriental Group, this giant ship, can still carry goods in the already "rolled-up" live broadcast industry. In the market, it has won a place and built a certain moat. However, when the current traffic bottleneck of live broadcasting is difficult to break through, it can also arouse waves of market attention. The wisdom and decision-making of the management behind New Oriental Group may not be as simple and crude as the melon-eaters read cool articles.
Dong Yuhui's popularity is naturally inseparable from the historic opportunities that were encountered during the "618" period last year. However, what needs to be noted is that there are people like Dundun, Mingming, Yoyo and Xiaoqi in the Oriental Selection live broadcast room, but they have never shaken Dong Yuhui's influence, which shows that Dong Yuhui is indeed outstanding and has a unique personality charm.
It may be necessary to change a perspective to understand the impact of the current "fan abuse" incident on the future of Oriental Selection. In the fan economy and fan culture, "fan abuse" seems to be the usual method of the operators behind the scenes. This time, perhaps Oriental Selection did not do it intentionally, but it continued to arouse the crazy protective desire of "Mother-in-Law" fans, and Dong Yuhui's image seemed to be more stable.
But Dong Yuhui is always a human being, not a god. Human beings will always change and are uncontrollable. The more perfect and flawless the anchor is, the closer the day he will collapse seems to be. Dongfang Selection's "de-evolution of Dong Yuhui" is inevitable in the long run, and it will also be an inevitable result of rational business thinking.
This time, the phenomenon that obviously has the meaning of "rice circle culture" has once again appeared in the public opinion field, which will only make the company more vigilant and awake, and it must get rid of its high-intensity dependence on the live streaming business more quickly.
(Author｜Li Chengcheng, editor｜Ma Jinnan)