The live broadcast of the fund that used to be unboiled water began to cool down.TigerdragonchineseYes.
In the past March, the number of live broadcasts and viewers of the fund decreased by more than 20% compared with the same period last year, and the number of viewers almost halved, with a drop of 49%.Tigerdragonchinese.75%. In January this year, the number of viewers of the fund's live broadcast dropped by 68.Tigerdragonchinese.64%. In view of this phenomenon, the explanation given by industry insiders is that "live broadcast ecological saturation and user fatigue", excessive homogenization of content and frequent product promotion are making investors produce aesthetic fatigue and reduce their willingness to watch. In response to this, fund companies began to propose to take the "boutique route".
In addition to "reducing the quantity and improving the quality" of live broadcasts, brokerage Chinese reporters found that fund companies have also explored two other "refined" paths: short videos of power plots (hereinafter referred to as "short dramas") and long audio programs (also known as "podcasts"). One long and one short, the former focuses on "hi cool", pinching users' pain points, while the latter uses 90 minutes of "dry chat" to seize the minds of users in commuter driving, bathing, cleaning and other scenes.
If we combine the carriers such as text, pictures, video and audio, as well as the platforms such as Douyin, Little Red Book, video number and audio APP, we can see a broader picture: fund brand marketing is developing from an initial single form to a rich "multi-dimensional" matrix. The short plays of "short and fast" and the long audio programs of "long and deep" constitute the "two ends" of the matrix.
The number of live broadcasts and the number of viewers both declined.
The latest Financial Industry Live monthly report released by Huanyu data Research Institute in March 2024 shows that there are no factors such as the Spring Festival holiday in March, and the number of financial live broadcasts is warmer than in February, but there is a significant decline in the number of live financial broadcasts compared with February.
A total of 3801 live broadcasts were conducted by more than 120 fund companies and companies with public offering licenses in March, up 57.78 per cent from February but down 25.44 per cent from the same period last year. Meanwhile, a total of 132 million viewers watched the live broadcast in March, up 42.77 percent from the previous month and down 49.75 percent from the same period last year. Looking ahead, the number of live broadcasts and cumulative views of the fund dropped by 38.40% and 62.04% respectively in February this year. In January, the number of viewers of the fund's live broadcast fell by 68.64% compared with the same period last year.
Over time, this sign of decline is a new trend in 2024. According to the Huanyu data Research Institute, more than 54000 live broadcasts were conducted by more than 140 fund companies in 2023, an increase of 21.43% over 2022. In 2023, the live broadcast audience watched a total of about 3.36 billion people, up 12.38%.
The situation learned by Chinese reporters from the brokerage industry also confirms this trend. A head of public offering and a small and medium-sized public offerings have admitted that the number of live broadcast of the fund has indeed declined this year, but the specific situation is different. Some are due to the decrease in the number of new products, and the number of live streaming in marketing has decreased, while in some companies, the proportion of live streaming in overall brand marketing has declined due to the adjustment of internal development priorities. A brand person with a head public offering told Chinese reporters that his company had at least 10 live broadcasts in the previous week, but now it has dropped to about 5. "the decline is about 50%."
"one reason may be 'live ecological saturation and user fatigue'." Wang Wenqing, general manager of Shanghai Orange Financial Information Services Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Orange Financial"), told Chinese brokerage reporters that after rapid growth in previous years, the fund live broadcast market may be close to saturation. Excessive homogenization of live content and frequent product promotion may lead to aesthetic fatigue among investors and reduce their willingness to watch. "from the live broadcast data, a considerable number of viewers of the fund live broadcast are for the purpose of 'clocking in' or 'participating in rebate', and the number of active users is not large, which can be confirmed from the fact that most of the playback data have only single digits."
Power skits looking for new potential energy to spread
The decline of live broadcast reflects the new trend of fund brand marketing: from extensive to intensive cultivation, taking the route of quality.
"reducing the number of live broadcasts is an adjustment we have made according to the situation of users. The overall idea is to shift from extensive to intensive farming and take a high-quality route." The head public offering brand person said that his company will reduce product marketing live broadcasts in the future and will devote more energy to investor companionship, interaction and teaching programs. "this kind of program will still be broadcast live, but we have invested more in a single show. Although the number of live broadcasts has decreased, our workload has not been reduced, and we still often work overtime. "
In addition to the live broadcast "reducing quantity and improving quality", brokerage Chinese reporters also observed the "refined" path of two other brand marketing: power skits and podcasts.
In the monthly report on brand observation of the public offering fund industry released by Orange Finance in early April, it made a title in the form of a rhetorical question: why is "short play" innovating the spread of fund brands?Tigerdragonchinese? The monthly report listed Huaan Fund, Xingsheng Global Fund, BoCom Schroeder Fund, Yinhua Fund and other short video cases. Among them, the Hua'an Fund to invest in education, anti-fraud and other investors to accompany the content of the feature drama "Yangji Daily", the cumulative broadcast volume exceeded 35 million; the Guangfa Fund also launched the microfilm "prey" and so on.
Based on these observations, Orange Finance believes that outside the label, stories with topics are the most mainstream way to spread. In order to form effective communication, it ultimately depends on these popular stories handed down by word of mouth. These stories may be a stage, or even something that is repeated throughout the life cycle of fund companies.
"in the current environment, to improve the communication efficiency, on the one hand, we should simplify the characteristics and reduce the communication cost, on the other hand, we should innovate, make differences, ask for topics, be contradictory, be fresh, and look for communication potential energy." At the same time, Wang Wenqing believes that short plays are relatively more in line with the marketing and content ecology at the present stage than extensive live broadcasts, investors are more willing to search and learn subjectively, and data conversion will be more intuitive for fund companies.
"the focus of investors is not on the form, but on whether they are provided with the information they really want." The above-mentioned head public offering brand personage said that under this trend, fund brand marketing should not only know what they want, but also think about how to maximize the effect of information transmission. "for example, teaching content is less timely and is more suitable for dissemination in the form of short plays. However, compared with the general live broadcast, the production cycle and input cost of the short play is much higher, which is several times higher than that of the live broadcast, because it involves costumes, props, scripts, and later editing and processing, and one episode may cost more than one million yuan. Therefore, the input-output of short plays is not easy to evaluate at present, and it is only limited to some companies. "
80 minutes of long audio was listened to by 40,000 people.
Different from the visual communication of short plays, long audio programs that are often as long as 60 minutes or even 90 minutes can better reflect the new changes of fund brand marketing in seizing the minds of investors. This kind of long audio program, which originally originated from online interviews between well-known fund managers and third-party institutions, has gradually become a major direction of fund companies' own deep cultivation after being recognized.
In November 2021, Cao Mingchang, a well-known fund manager of China Europe Fund, and a blogger conducted an 80-minute interview program on an audio platform, showing Cao Mingchang's investment background from many dimensions. Chinese reporters from brokerages found that a considerable part of the program maintained serious investment professionalism, involving aspects such as "how to judge good assets and good prices" and "how to view DCF valuation methods", but also added "will you read Jimin's comments?" "what do you say to those friends who get off on the way?" And other topics that have more resonance. As a result, the show eventually garnered more than 40,000 listeners.
"this kind of long audio in-depth interview is in sharp contrast to short and fast content such as Douyin and Xiao Hongshu." A medium-sized public offering brand told Chinese reporters that so far, this kind of long audio content has gradually attracted the attention of fund brand marketing, and has a special platform. "the audio interview with fund managers is actually a kind of niche program, which belongs to the heavy vertical field. The reason for the good listening rate is that the main scenes and group portraits of these platforms are very clear. For example, on the platform where Cao Mingchang interviewed, more than 80% of the audience had a bachelor's degree or above, mainly aged from 25 to 35. The scenes they listen to basically focus on commuter driving, bathing, cleaning and so on. "
Following the person's guidance, brokerage Chinese reporters found that up to now, there have been public offerings such as Tianhong Fund, Quanguo Fund, Huaxia Fund, Xingzheng Global Fund and other third-party fund related institutions such as Morningstar China. Among them, Tianhong Foundation's blog program "the words of money in the World" has been continuously updated, interacting with investors through the themes of "providing for the aged", "marriage and childbearing", "betrothal gift" and "overseas investment". Quanguo Fund's "limited chat" launched an audio program related to Ren Li, chairman of the board, in January this year, but has not been updated since then. In addition, a number of fund companies told brokerage Chinese reporters that they were already planning a long audio program, one of which said it might launch in the middle of this year.
"Hi Shuang" and "dry chat" are just tools.
In Wang Wenqing's view, from the initial picture and text to the live broadcast, and then to the rise of short dramas and long audio now, the diversification of fund brand marketing forms reflects a trend: in the market environment with stock users as the main competitive objects, fund companies are paying more and more attention to "losing their mind".
Wang Wenqing observed that although blogs are "radio programs" that have only sprung up in recent years, some fund companies already have relevant layouts. According to him, Sun Meng, the fund manager of Huaxia Fund, will do some podcasts to talk with investors about the market, investment and other topics. More than an hour of "dry chat" can have tens of thousands of broadcasts and hundreds of comments. Some people don't want to spend time in short videos and want time to be meaningful. Podcasts are a relatively low-barrier option in this context. "unlike short videos, users will be more serious about 'long audio'. Many people will devote their entire leisure time (mostly in the morning, commute or before going to bed) to listen to podcasts, which will be more acceptable and easily lead to thinking. it can meet the audience's goal of pursuing high-quality content and 'learning new things'."
"We started the long audio program last year, which is an important starting point for our multi-platform brand marketing." The head public offering brand personage told the Chinese reporter of the brokerage that the main theme of the short video is "hi Shuang", but it is difficult to make a thing clear in a short time. So they fill this demand with long videos. "as investors improve their education, their requirements for content are also changing. Here, people with cars have no time to watch videos, and they are more willing to listen, so they have long audio programs. "
If we combine the carriers such as text, pictures, video and audio, as well as Douyin, Little Red Book, video number, audio APP and other platforms, we can see a broader picture: fund brand marketing is developing from an initial single form to a rich "multi-dimensional" matrix. The above medium-sized public offering brand personage bluntly said that the two attributes of "short and fast" and "long and deep expertise" constitute the "two ends" of the fund brand marketing matrix, and derived a variety of brand marketing tools. "in the early days, fund companies did basic knowledge science popularization and market review, product marketing and so on, more often on platforms such as Douyin and Little Red Book. With the improvement of investors' investment awareness and knowledge, if fund companies want to continue to seize the minds of investors, the division of groups will be more and more detailed, which is bound to be a vertical and heavy platform. "
"up to now, the brand marketing of fund companies has covered various carriers such as words, pictures, videos and so on. For users with targeted dimensions, there is no obvious difference between the advantages and disadvantages in terms of communication effect, only whether it is appropriate or not. For example, text and picture dissemination pay more attention to touch efficiency, through the "focus" way to briefly explain something clearly. But there are also many users who pay attention to fragmentation time, they prefer to watch short videos. " The head of the public offering brand said.
This article was first posted on the official account of Wechat: brokerage China. The content of the article belongs to the author's personal point of view and does not represent the position of Hexun. Investors operate accordingly, at their own risk.
