Short video ushered in BAT after experiencing the rough period. At first, Tencent’s short video platform Weishi appeared again, and then Baidu invested iQiyi also announced the launch of short video information stream product Natto. Recently, Ali also can not bear to continue to increase, will launch a second short video product “Duke”, is rumored to be the main vertical screen information stream form, drunk Weng’s meaning is very obvious.
After Tudou launched “unique guest”, is not necessarily to improve the layout of short video, but more likely a surge of remedial measures. Although tudou and Kuaishou are both orange, their fates are quite different. According to Cheetah data, Tudou did not appear in the 2018 Q1 short video list. Although potatoes have also been placed high hopes, but the short video expert such as cloud, has now been submerged in the crowd, gently come, gently “go”, failed to cause too much attention.
The ill-fated Tudou, which was the shadow of Youku before the transition, still failed to get out of trouble after the transition and failed to realize the dream of scoring twice.
Tudou previous life: weak synergistic effect, reduced to youku shadow
In the era of long video grass and yingfei, Youku and Tudou were the two platforms with the largest market share. After their merger in 2012, they occupied 80% market share and reached a monopoly position. However, the merger was just the beginning of Tudou’s misfortune.
According to the 7:2:1 rule in the Internet industry, when a company’s market share exceeds 70%, it gains monopoly advantage and pricing power. However, the running in after the merger of youku potato is not smooth, but consumed a lot of energy on both sides. Although Youku founder Koo Yongqiang wanted to make “Youku better youku, Tudou better Tudou”, the difference between Youku and Tudou was not very big, the content homogenization was the industry problem at that time, and the single income model also led to the decline of profitability after the merger… Due to various problems, the synergistic effect between Youku and Tudou is weak, so that after the merger, the market value of youku and Tudou falls instead of rising. After two years of loss, youku briefly achieves profit, and then falls into the abyss of loss again.
The reason is not complex, potato and actor cool merge is actually helpless. Although Tudou applied for an IPO earlier than Youku, its CEO Wang Wei missed the best time to go public for personal reasons. Time waits for no man. Tudou, which is later than Youku, has fallen behind in all aspects of resources and has a big gap with Youku, so it has no choice but to be acquired. At the same time, Wang Wei left the company and founded the light chasing animation. Tudou’s core technical staff was later hired by other video platforms. It is said that the turnover rate of the whole staff and post transfer rate at that time exceeded 50%.
Tudou became the shadow of Youku when it merged with Youku into Heyi Group. This awkward situation was not resolved after Heyi Group was acquired by Ali in 2016. On the one hand, although Youku and Tudou were Kings in the PC era, their advantages became irrelevant in the era of mobile Internet as traffic shifted to mobile terminals. On the other hand, in the context of the content homogeneity of Youku and Tudou, supporting the two brands at the same time will be a huge resource consumption for Ali, and it is inevitable to choose one and abandon the other. For this reason, resources such as self-made dramas and Internet comprehensive are inclined to Youku. Tudou has almost become the bundled product of Youku, and become Youku No. 2.
Potato life: Quick hand old iron and Douyin ER closed under the active user slump
The turning point came in March 2017, when Ali announced that Tudou would transform and differentiate itself from Youku. Youku focuses on long videos, while Tudou focuses on short videos. Potatoes seem to welcome the opportunity to turn over, but more than a year has passed, tudou and youku after ali under towards different directions, youku and iQIYI, tencent said love teng, potato is increasingly weak, according to analysys data, potato active users from the slump in January this year, as of April about 18 million active users, 10 million users evaporated in four months.
Now, Tencent short video and Toutiao short video are engaged in a war, and Ali is also going to launch its second short video product. Tudou, once entrusted with the important task, is in decline, and it is likely to fall into the situation before the transition again. Where is the difference between Tudou and Toutiao?
Numerous strong rivals: According to A QM report, douyin and Kuaishou saw a significant increase in active users and user frequency around the Spring Festival due to continuous efforts in advertising. Under the encircle of Kuaishou Laotie and Douyin ER, short video users such as Tudou began to be divided up. The external reason for tudou’s defeat is that its competitors are too strong. However, in the final analysis, its inferior skills have more to do with its own defects in products and operations.
Fuzzy product positioning: The achievements of Tudou in the era of long video have left a deep-rooted impression on users. When it comes to tudou, people who know something about it first think of long video rather than short video. Under this stereotype, how long it takes users to accept the new brand image depends on how the brand propagates. However, tudou’s Slogan “Always interesting” after the transformation did not convey a clear image of short video, tudou has retained the content of long video, always like a youku accessory. Tudou, which lacks a clear brand image, cannot avoid homogenization with other platforms in terms of content, and is naturally less attractive to short video user groups mainly born in 1990 and 1995.
At the same time, Wang Wei once said that the original intention of tudou was to make UGC, but after tudou transformed into short video, it was mainly PUGC content, and mainly PGC content. After tudou transformed into short video, its positioning deviated from the original advantage from the beginning, and actually followed the footsteps of the old Micro vision. The low stickiness of users in PGC mode, coupled with the operation mode of “manual + data” distribution, fails to achieve accurate recommendation according to interest, is another reason for the loss of users. Short video users are actually more inclined to watch the shining points of ordinary people’s lives. Kuaishou, Douyin and other short videos featuring UGC content have high user cohesion because of this.
Weak entertainment linkage: it is always difficult to start from scratch, but When Tudou went to the short video industry, it was with long video period experience and a large number of materials. As ali’s short video strategy center last year, in order to make tudou can debut in short video C, Ali Entertainment is to push the power of the whole family in tudou, one ali entertainment mobile business group president He Xiaopeng is in charge; Second, the “Big Fish Program” with a $2 billion grant fund provides creator protection; Third, Ali entertainment ecological resources, including Youku, Taobao, Lai Crazy, etc.
The fact that so many backing companies fail to become the advantage of Tudou to open the gap with other platforms shows that the linkage effect between Tudou and Ali Entertainment is relatively weak. Appears to be ali entertainment to potatoes, potatoes actually became the ali entertainment, or if a link in the distribution of UC, passive together, rather than as a dominant reasonable utilization, behind even ali entertainment the first rotating President Yang said “potato short video has not been fully applied to entertainment the whole system”.
Frequent staff changes: The weak linkage between Tudou and ali Entertainment’s other products is also affected by frequent staff changes. First, Koo Yongqiang, founder of Youku, resigned, and then He Xiaopeng, president of Ali Entertainment Mobile Business Group, resigned to make cars. The loss of the leader led to tudou’s strategy failing to advance as planned. Yang Weidong, who served as president of Tudou during the period of Youku Tudou and is now the rotating president of Ali Entertainment Group and president of Big Youku Business Group, also focuses on Youku.
Potatoes have experience and materials, but still can not enter the first echelon, the active user weight of potatoes and 200 million active users compared to the fast hand, is very small, if continue to fall, potatoes can only hit GG in the opponent’s advance. Now with Tencent, Baidu and other giants in indirect or direct way to enter the competition will be more intense, tudou want to stop the decline, need to find a breakthrough.
A downwind potato must answer two questions before it can be upturned
The arrival of the lone guest may be a life-saving straw for the declining trend of Tudou, but also may make tudou become a redundant role again. If tudou wants to turn over the tide, it should first make clear brand positioning and content direction, and answer the two questions “who AM I” and “where am I going”.
Who am I?
For tudou, the first problem to be solved is clear brand positioning. Despite the development of short video for one or two years, it does not mean that the competition is nearing the end. The increasing number of visitors shows that short video still has opportunities. The fact that Fast hands still ranks first in the industry indicates that short video is not only portrait screen, but whether it can be remembered by users.
OV next door is a typical example. After deciding to transform into a young mobile phone brand, both the marketing and product design are constantly catering to the changing preferences of young consumers. In terms of more and more exquisite appearance and better photography function, they are constantly strengthening their new brand positioning. OV is now the most popular mobile phone brand among young consumers.
Since the transformation of Tudou to short video, due to mixed content, ambiguous positioning and other reasons, tudou has not strengthened the new brand image, leading to the majority of users outside the cognition of Tudou still stays in the animation platform of the long video era. Therefore, tudou wants to leave a clear impression on the market and be remembered by users. First of all, it needs to let users forget their achievements in the long video era. By means of advertising implantation and content operation, it caters to the preferences of young users and strengthens the promotion of short video positioning.
“Where am I going?”
Tudou’s content positioning is PUGC. Although many high-quality videos have been deposited in the twelve years of development, the information age is changing at the speed of hours. The content deposited at that time actually does not meet the preferences of contemporary mainstream consumers, and Tudou needs new high-quality PGC content and UGC content supplement.
High-quality PGC content attracts users, but broadly targeted PGC content does not attract users. In terms of PGC content, Tudou must start from a more vertical field, make subdivision content into a brand of the platform, and then radiate outwards. In terms of UGC, Tudou, on the basis of clear positioning, can encourage “sleeping” users to come back and create more UGC content in line with the temperament of the platform through feelings and encouragement, so as to promote user interaction and enhance the emotion between users and the platform. Interest distribution can only play a role if good content is rich enough.
To sum up, tudou became an accessory of Youku in the long video era because of its lack of differentiation advantages. Moreover, tudou became a victim in the competition of other short videos due to its lack of clear brand positioning after transforming to short videos, resulting in a large loss of users. Tudou want to stop the decline, or further against the wind to overturn, must be clear brand positioning, content operation direction and strengthen, let users remember, it is possible to call back those lost users.
Article/Liu Kuang public account, ID: Liukuang110