The live broadcast of quizzes has become popular. Is it a "new outlet" or a "black hole"?

There are still doubts about the sustainability and profit model of the marketing method of creating a new corporate brand, and experts are calling for supervision from relevant departments.

At the beginning of 2018, the first outlet was crazy Various live broadcast platforms that were burning money started to promote it. On January 11, in the "Million Winner" special event on the Huajiao platform, sponsored by JD.com, a senior girl from Guangzhou University defeated nearly one million netizens and successfully won a prize of 1.03 million, creating a The highest prize money record for a single player in the history of live quizzes.

Public information shows that the operation mode of live answering questions is similar to HQ Trivia in the United States. The iOS version of this product was officially launched in August 2017. In December 2017, HQ Trivia increased the bonus to US$10,000. The number of people online at the same time reached about 400,000.

The temptation of high bonuses, almost zero participation threshold, and the social fission model of inviting friends to get resurrected have made live answering software popular all over the country, triggering a national answering craze and becoming a hot item in the domestic Internet industry in 2018.

As major platforms have arranged live broadcasts to answer questions, what are the reasons for their popularity and their profit models? Is live answering questions really a "new trend", or will it be a flash in the pan and disappear? The live broadcast of quizzes has raised questions about whether the nationwide quizzes are a "new trend" or a "black hole".

Expert analysis from the China E-Commerce Research Center said that the domestic live broadcast industry entered its heyday in 2016 and leveled off in 2017. When the live broadcast industry faces the embarrassment of user loss, "social" is undoubtedly the life-saving straw that major live broadcast platforms want to seize. Live broadcast answers are spread through invitations, successfully calling on the "acquaintance relationship" network, and can even use this to break up with strangers. Social dilemmas allow more people to find common ground.

Expert comments

The reason for the craze:

Platforms help attract people with cash red envelopes

Cao Lei, director of the China E-Commerce Research Center, said, The product logic of live answering questions is that the real host will pose the questions, and the users will answer the questions online within the specified time. Users who answer all the questions correctly can share the prize pool bonus, and the bonus can be withdrawn in full. In addition, Cao Lei pointed out that the reasons for this wave of live answering Internet craze are as follows:

The first is the communication effect of the Internet. Live answering questions are currently less affected by supervision. An emerging model has emerged. Through the Internet's viral spread, it can involve a large number of Internet users in a short period of time, making live answering questions quickly become popular.

The second is the promotion of merchant platforms. Merchants use multiple channels of publicity to increase the visibility of their own products and gradually attract users to participate.

Once again, the platform seized on the weaknesses of human nature and attracted a large number of users to participate through large amounts of cash red envelopes, thus forming this craze.

Finally, there is a large base for online live streaming. Live quizzes can be regarded as a derivative version of online live broadcasts, and it is foreseeable that they will become popular quickly given the existing user base.

Money-attracting model:

New generation Internet advertising model

Cao Lei said that the platform brand marketing model has been upgraded and has become more and more efficient.

Cao Lei believes that live question answering has created a new marketing method for corporate brands and is a new generation of Internet advertising model. There has never been any advertising marketing method that can keep users highly focused on a certain brand for about half an hour, and this effect is very popular with merchants. From a platform perspective, the cost of acquiring customer traffic for online live broadcast platforms is getting higher and higher, so it is necessary to find channels for developing new customers with lower information and higher cost performance. Online live Q&A is undoubtedly the best method at the moment.

Low conversion rate:

The profit model is questionable or difficult to sustain

Cao Lei pointed out that this low-cost method of acquiring customers is indeed worth recommending, but it is not effective in converting traffic. It is the key to the success or failure of live answering questions.

High bonuses are a common way to open up the market in the early days of the Internet, but they are not a long-term solution. After attracting traffic, in addition to answering questions, users also need to stay on the product for some time. In addition, users will withdraw cash by binding bank cards and other methods. The platform can gradually cultivate users' payment habits and motivations, explore feasible monetization models, and achieve effective conversion of traffic.

In addition, Cao Lei said that as Internet giants continue to invest real money in the live broadcast platform, there are still questions about the sustainability and profit model behind it. Operating through a money-burning model, once it stops, if competitors are still investing, current users will soon flow to competitors.

Except for advertising placement, the platform currently does not have a clear profit model. Achieving sustainable development and differentiated model transformation will become a direction worthy of serious exploration in the future development of live quizzes.

Chen Liteng, assistant analyst of life services e-commerce at the China E-Commerce Research Center, said that the advantage of live answering questions is that it can acquire users at a very low cost, but one of the problems it faces is the homogeneity of products. User stickiness is not high, and you can only rely on high bonuses and celebrity effects to obtain traffic. This is not a sustainable development path.

From this point of view, relying on money-burning live broadcasts to answer questions may be just a short-lived craze and will not last long.

The way forward:

There are many problems that require supervision by relevant departments

Cao Lei said that the biggest feature of the Internet is that it has no rules and no boundaries, which also creates The wild growth of the Internet. The brutal growth of the industry has caused bonuses to soar from 100,000 yuan in a single game to 5 million yuan. Live Q&A has refreshed users’ expectations for bonuses, and of course is accelerating the advent of policy supervision.

During the rapid rise in popularity of live answering questions, many problems have arisen, such as bonus settings, whether there is fraud, whether the number of online users is true, the use of auxiliary software or even plug-ins, etc. These not only require The standardized management of the platform requires the supervision of relevant departments and the timely introduction of relevant systems and regulations to better regulate the operation of Internet platforms.

Chaos abounds

Chaos 1: Treat Hong Kong and Taiwan as countries

The "Million Winner" game launched by the Huajiao Live Broadcasting Platform on January 13-12 Question 6 on the spot listed Hong Kong and Taiwan as countries in the answer options.

At 14:52 on the same day, the official Weibo posts of "Million Winner" and Huajiao Live stated that "the problem lies with the careless question maker, and stated that they will strengthen the review process and process for subsequent question questions." , Strictly prevent this from happening again." Regarding this issue, on January 14, the Beijing Cyberspace Administration of China interviewed the person in charge of Huajiao Live Broadcast in accordance with the law and ordered comprehensive rectification.

Chaos 2 game plug-ins are "flying all over the sky"

While bonuses are exciting and netizens' enthusiasm for participation is soaring, "question-answering aids" such as question banks, resurrection cards, voice searches, and script plug-ins have become popular. The "must-have items for gamers" that are publicly sold on the Internet.

Among them, resurrection coins can be used to "resurrect the dead" in answering questions. It is understood that depending on the answering platform, the price ranges from 0.5 yuan to 2 yuan/piece. The "Resurrection Coin" with the largest transaction volume in one e-commerce store has exceeded 1 million in monthly sales.

In addition, there are some stores selling "question-answering aids". I spent 0.88 yuan to buy a question bank and found that the question bank contains about 4,100 questions, most of which have been asked by various platforms before.

The lawyer said that these plug-ins, plug-ins, and auxiliary APPs for the purpose of cheating are illegal to seek profits without the permission or authorization of the owner of the answering software.

Chaos 3 There is a "deficit" in the number of people online and answering questions

A screenshot posted on Weibo showed that on January 10, he had an "overturn" while answering questions on a live answering platform. "When he answered the fifth question, there were only more than 30,000 people online, but 120,000 people answered the question correctly. Then the host announced that the answering would be paused and would restart after 10 minutes. After the host came back, basically "no one was online", and the host directly announced that the answer was over.

Many people posted on Weibo, publicly questioning the "deficit" between the number of people online on the question-answering platform and the number of people answering questions, and this will directly affect the interests of netizens who actually answered the questions and passed the customs. If the data is falsified, there is a risk of being "invisible" The "hidden rules" of netizens diluting bonuses.

In this regard, lawyers said that if the platform dilutes the actual number of prizes by "watering" the number of winners, it is suspected of fraud. According to the "General Principles of Civil Law", such behavior is invalid, and netizens can ask the platform to compensate for losses.

Review of Live Question Answering

On January 3, Wang Sicong posted on Weibo "I throw coins, I am happy" and "I give out bonuses every day, and tonight at 9 o'clock Send 100,000" and other stimulating words to promote the "Topping Conference" APP that he invested in.

On the afternoon of January 9, Inke founder Feng Yousheng announced that his Cheese Superman had received a 100 million advertising order from Qudian Group’s “Dabai Motors”. In addition, Huajiao Millionaire Winner also received an advertising order from Meituan-Dianping and launched a million-dollar special event, in which four Meituan questions were embedded.

On the evening of January 6, "Million Heroes", "Cheese Superman", and "Million Winner" simultaneously released million-level single-game bonuses of 1 million, 1.01 million, and 1.02 million. Within 20 minutes, three companies and one bank burned 3.03 million.

On January 7th and 8th, "Cheese Man" once again spent 2.02 million yuan in the evening, with a single game investment of 1.01 million yuan at 20:30 and 21:30; and "Million Heroes" 》Not to be outdone, it spent 3 million yuan to create a bonus of 2 million yuan in a single game of blackjack and a bonus of 1 million yuan in a single game of 22 points; "Million Winner" started 4 games in a row from 20:20, with a bonus of 1 million yuan in each game. . According to rough statistics from the China E-Commerce Research Center, the amount invested in live Q&A has reached the level of 100 million yuan.

Live quizzes should be better supervised.