Before her comeback, Li Ziqi had stopped working for 108 days.
In these 108 days, Li Zikai’s story has been written repeatedly, and rumors abound: Li Yapeng poached the creative team, Li Zikai called the police, Li Zikai had a conflict with the brokerage company, and brand infringement …
Regarding the stop shift, the assistant denied the rumor that the team was dug, saying that it was only temporarily dealing with the problem with the third-party company.
"Capital is really a good means." Before that, Li Ziqi replied to a comment in Weibo and deleted a sentence every second, which added mystery to his story. What kind of contradiction makes it use the words "terrible", "capital is really a good means" and "disgusting".
On October 25th, a complaint seemed to uncover the corner of the fog: Li Ziqi Company sued Hangzhou Weinian Brand Management Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Weinian"), its MCN organization, and Liu Tongming, the "Bole" she thanked, was also in the defendant column.
Through litigation, everyone saw Li Ziqi’s dissatisfaction with her own brand and IP, and behind it was the intensification of the contradiction between Li Ziqi and Wei Nian’s interest distribution, and the battle for control between the two sides started.
Since "holding hands" in 2016, why did Li Zikai and Wei Nian go to court? Who are the two sides who are recognized as achieving each other, and who are more inseparable? Who has more to lose? How can online celebrity step onto the capital table?
At present, the Beijing News Shell Finance reporter has contacted both parties, but no response has been received. We still don’t know more details of cooperation and the source of disputes.
Some investors told the Shell Finance reporter of the Beijing News that if Li Ziqi and Wei Nian parted ways, it would be a lose-lose outcome. Without Li Ziqi, Wei Nian would be greatly weakened, and the capital optimistic about Wei Nian would be reconsidered. Li Ziqi’s comeback without Wei Nian would also face many uncertainties. The unsolved problems of online celebrity and MCN finally fell on Li Ziqi.
Bole —good judge of talentchange“Enemy "
The last time Li Ziqi’s uproar stopped was in 2017, also because of the team. At that time, the outside world was questioning that Li Ziqi had a team and was packaged by marketing. Under the cyber violence, Li Ziqi sent nine Weibo full of words to clarify the outside world’s doubts, including Liu Tongming, the founder of Wei Nian. At that time, Li Ziqi also called Liu Tongming "Mr. L", and his words were full of thanks.
In September 2016, Liu Tongming, who smelled business opportunities, made a special trip to the city where Li Zikai was located to seek cooperation. After a hot pot, the cooperation was reached: Liu Tongming Company was responsible for traffic promotion and Li Zikai was responsible for production content.
At that time, Wei Nian was still a little-known company, and Li Ziqi had less than 10,000 fans in Weibo.
A year later, Li Ziqi became famous with two videos, "Lanzhou Beef Noodle" and "Sofa Swing Bed", with nearly 3 million fans in Weibo. In July 2017, the two parties changed their cooperation mode from contract mode to joint venture mode. In this year, Li Ziqi and Wei Nian jointly established Sichuan Ziqi Culture Communication Co., Ltd. According to the investigation, the company is jointly held by Li Ziqi and Wei Nian, with Wei Nian holding 51% and Li Ziqi holding 49%.
After experiencing exponential growth in 2017, Li Ziqi’s fans in Weibo exceeded 10 million in 2018, with millions of YouTube videos played, and Li Ziqi became a hot star. Micro-reading has also emerged in MCN institutions through Dongfeng. At present, seven rounds of financing have been completed, six of which are after 2017. The only open and accurate amount is that in 2018, 80 million yuan was invested by Mango Wenchuang Fund and Micro Venture Capital in the B round of financing. Micro Venture Capital is Sina Weibo Fund, and Sina’s participation will undoubtedly play a role in the promotion of Liziqi.
The latest financing of Weinian was in July 2021, and it was financed by Huaying Capital, ByteDance and other capitals. According to Kaipineapple Finance, the micro-reading valuation has exceeded RMB 10 billion in August this year.
It is worth noting that these investments and brands all belong to Micro-idea, and the financing has also been collected in Micro-idea, but the joint venture company Ziqi Culture of the two companies has no financing news. There is no Li Ziqi’s name among the 22 shareholders in Micro-reading, and Liu Tongming holds the most shares, with a shareholding ratio of 19.45%.
The only "chip" in Li Ziqi’s hand is the trademark. Enterprise investigation shows that Ziqi culture currently holds trademarks including "LIZIQI", "Ziqi" and "Liziqi" covering almost all categories such as food, entertainment and home. In October, 2021, all the trademarks applied by Hangzhou Weinian Technology Co., Ltd. were rejected, and the trademark process status was changed to invalid, waiting for rejection and review.
From this perspective, the relationship between Li Ziqi and Wei Nian is still like that between online celebrity and a brokerage company, which means that the personal brand income that Li Ziqi can get is limited, which is also the core of the contradiction between them.
Recalling the past, the two can also be regarded as mutual achievements, but now why do they go to court?
It is not uncommon for online celebrity, the head of the company, to have contract differences with the brokerage company. An investor in the entertainment field told the Beijing News reporter, "For online celebrity, it is up to him to feel popular, but the brokerage company will feel that online celebrity’s personal business and other aspects of quality and vision are relatively low. The popularity depends on the cultivation of the company, and online celebrity is just a channel or tool for making money. This is naturally irreconcilable and contradictory."
Observing several IP’s in the market at present, Viya’s Qianxun Holding Co., Ltd. is controlled by her husband Dong Haifeng, while Li Jiaqi is deeply tied as a partner with the brokerage company Meiwan, but there is no Li Jiaqi’s name in the list of shareholders of Meiwan. Thus, it is not easy for online celebrity to step onto the capital table.
“LiziqiCommercial realization of ".
"Almost all online celebrity and brokerage firms finally split up because of the uneven distribution of benefits," said the above-mentioned investor. Li Ziqi’s incident is no different from other events in which online celebrity left the brokerage firm.
There are usually several ways to realize cash in online celebrity, such as bringing goods, advertising, traffic and brand. It is understood that when Li Zikai was a little famous, many customers wanted to put advertisements, but Liu Tongming refused. "I will cherish the brand Li Zikai, and I don’t want her to be consumed by commercialization, nor do I want to put advertisements on her, and I don’t want her to bring goods to other brands." On the other hand, he thinks that the commercial ceiling is very low just by converting e-commerce by traffic or simply receiving advertisements. Therefore, until now, there is no advertisement inserted in Li Ziqi’s video, and she has not participated in bringing goods.
Now it seems that Liu Tongming has made a very wise decision, and Liziqi IP has indeed appreciated continuously in a few years, laying the foundation for the establishment of Liziqi brand and the creation of IP.
At present, there are only two channels for Li Zikai’s commercial realization. One is that the advertising of video playback is divided into income, and the other is self-owned brand e-commerce and offline retail.
On August 22, 2017, Li Zikai registered his personal account on YouTube, and released the first video in March 2018. Li Zikai said in an interview that he originally registered his YouTube account only to prevent infringement, and later found that his attention increased before he contacted overseas companies to help operate.
At present, the number of fans on Li Ziqi’s YouTube account is 16.3 million, with a total of 128 videos, with a total viewing time of 2.57 billion, and the highest single video playback volume exceeds 100 million. According to the tool of influencer marketing hub, a foreign market research website, the total revenue is roughly estimated to be 6 million US dollars. The data of noxinfluencer, an overseas marketing service platform in online celebrity, shows that the reference fee for single video cooperation is 1.8 million yuan, and the monthly income of advertising alliance is 708,400 yuan to 862,200 yuan.
In addition to account income, the commercial realization of "Liziqi" also comes from brand income.
In 2018, Li Ziqi set up a personal brand, opened a Tmall flagship store, and sold lotus root starch, rice cakes, snail powder and other foods. The registered company was also a micro-reader, and its sales exceeded 10 million in six days. The dolphin think tank "The Most Growing New Consumer Brand in China in 2021" showed that the sales of Li Ziqi brand reached 1.6 billion yuan in 2020, a year-on-year increase of 300%.
From this perspective, the influence of Liziqi brand is increasing day by day. With the decline of industries in online celebrity, consumer goods brands will become a more sustainable new growth point in the future.
Now open the official website of Weinian, and define yourself as a growing new consumer brand company focusing on food and beverage in the company profile. The vision is to become a respected and global new consumption benchmark of oriental culture.
The transformation from MCN organization to consumer brand also illustrates the future development direction of Micro-concept. In these two channels, Li Ziqi can only enjoy the share ratio agreed at the beginning and does not have any control over her own IP and brand.
Who can’t live without who?
When it comes to going to court, Li Ziqi and Wei Nian may not be able to turn back. If we really go our separate ways, who will lose more? Who can make a comeback?
From the perspective of micro-thinking, it operates more than a dozen online celebrity such as Hana Lin and delicious roast chicken, but Li Ziqi is to micro-thinking what Li Jiaqi is to beautiful wrist, and has always followed the 28 ~ (th) Law in the field of online celebrity. online celebrity, the head of the company, has almost undertaken most of the revenue of MCN.
Even Ruhan, the first share of e-commerce in online celebrity, China, tried to "go to Zhang Dayi" many times, but it failed. For example, according to the prospectus of Ruhan, the turnover reached on various e-commerce platforms in FY 2017, FY 2018 and the first three quarters of FY 2019 was 1.2 billion yuan, RMB2 billion and RMB2.2 billion respectively, and Zhang Dayi contributed 50.8%, 52.4% and 53.5% to Ruhan respectively.
In 2020, negative news appeared in Zhang Dayi, and its influence gradually weakened. At the same time, Ruhan was also affected. In the financial report of the second quarter of 2020, Ruhan mentioned that the assets of an exclusive cooperation right were impaired by 53.2 million yuan, and this loss originated from "a head KOL who exposed negative news since April 2020".
Li Ziqi is as important to micro-reading as Zhang Dayi is to Ruhan. If Li Ziqi really leaves, it is hard to say how likely it is to copy another Li Ziqi.
From the perspective of capital, the investment in the content entertainment industry has been getting colder in recent years. Some investors said that this is mainly because the investment uncertainty in online celebrity industry is too large. "It involves people and content, and these two factors are uncontrollable."
This may also be the reason why micro-thoughts turned to brands. Brands are always more stable than people. In the stories told by micro-thoughts, Li Zikai’s brand value is higher, and the valuation is based on brand value, but ByteDance’s withdrawal may explain the attitude of capital. "ByteDance originally invested in micro-thoughts, mainly because he was optimistic about Li Zikai."
The above-mentioned investors said, "The brand of micro-reading is based on Li Ziqi itself. If Li Ziqi does not continue to produce content and is not bound to micro-reading, Li Ziqi’s brand will be useless and will be a devastating blow to micro-reading."
From this point of view, even if micro-reading finally obtains the right to use the brand and IP, the subsequent value of the brand will be greatly damaged. At the same time, replacing the protagonist’s Li Zikai account may not be accepted by fans.
In the months when Li Ziqi stopped working, many fans expressed their support in the comment area. "In any case, we only recognize Lao Qi, not a name or an account. It doesn’t matter what her name is as long as she is."
And what is the possibility of making a comeback without Li Ziqi? Not long ago, Li Zikai said in an interview with CCTV that even now, her content production team still has only four people. She and two photographers, an assistant, and the team of hundreds of people on the Internet are mostly in terms of brands. This also shows that the core strength of content production still lies in Li Ziqi himself.
The investor said that it is possible for Li Ziqi to re-commercialize after solo flight, both theoretically and practically. However, whether it can reach this level depends on Li Ziqi’s personal qualities. What kind of team Li Ziqi will choose, how to divide the benefits and how to commercialize are uncontrollable factors.
Beijing News Shell Finance Reporter Song Meilu Editor Chen Li Proofread Lin Zhao
