After stopping for 800 days, the powder will drop by 8 million. Who expects Li Ziqi？

Recently, Tik Tok released the official promotional film "Wonderful Night", saying that it will present a surprise stage together with 30+ stars and 100+ Tik Tok creators. The first thing that appeared in the promo was Li Ziqi, who had stopped for a long time. The appearance of only 3 seconds triggered the attention and speculation of the outside world: After disappearing for more than 800 days, Li Ziqi will return?

According to public information, Liziqi, formerly known as Li Jiajia, became popular in the whole network in 2016 with the short video "Lanzhou Beef Noodles", and gradually became the top stream at home and abroad with its rural and ancient features. However, Li Ziqi, who has nearly 100 million fans, stopped working in 2021 because of conflicts with institutional micro-thoughts. On December 27, 2022, Hangzhou Weinian issued the "Reconciliation Announcement". So far, this top online celebrity andMicro-thinkingPut an end to the interest dispute.

Many analysts said that when the dust of "Liziqi" is settled, it should not be far from the day when Liziqi’s own content is updated. In fact, since this year, Li Ziqi has appeared in the public eye several times. However, for Li Ziqi, although every appearance can attract hot discussion in the market, after the real return, she still faces considerable challenges: on the one hand, how to maintain the high-level content production capacity, on the other hand, how to balance content and commerce.

Li Ziqi. Source: Li Zikai Tik Tok video

Lost two years

On September 15th, Li Ziqi appeared in a public video. In the video, Li Ziqi’s identity was "the promotion ambassador of China Farmers Harvest Festival of China Rural Youth Leaders Association".

She mentioned in the video that she returned to her hometown seven years ago and picked up the camera to record all the ordinary and beautiful things in the countryside through short videos. She wanted to present the ordinary work, simple ingredients and natural sounds in the countryside, as well as the deep memories and faint homesickness about the countryside when you and I were children, in an aesthetic way. "In the future, we will continue to bring more high-quality content in our own way".

Although the information disclosed is not much, Li Ziqi’s willingness to return seems to be revealed. Li Ziqi also described that "the countryside is vast and promising".

Previously, under the interest dispute with Wei Nian for more than 500 days, Li Ziqi’s pastoral content had already stopped updating in July 2021.

This dispute began in 2021 when Li Ziqi himself deleted "It’s terrible! Capital is really a good means! " The reply. All kinds of behaviors of going to the police station to call the police pushed her dispute with Wei Nian to a climax. At that time, public opinion pointed the contradiction to micro-thoughts, saying that "Li Zikai has no substantial control over Li Zikai’s e-commerce brand".

According to the public information at that time, in the equity distribution of Ziqi Culture, Liziqi holds 49% of the shares, and the remaining 51% of the shares belong to Weinian Company. Li Ziqi is mainly responsible for content creation and release, while Wei Nian is responsible for operating and exploring the commercialization model. Li Zikai himself does not hold micro-reading shares. The largest shareholder of Weinian is the founder Liu Tongming, with a shareholding ratio of about 19.45%, and there are more than 20 shareholders.

In October and November of 2021, Li Ziqi sued Wei Nian and Liu Tongming twice in the name of Ziqi culture. Then, in January and March, 2022, Wei Nian sued Ziqi Culture twice on the grounds of "dispute over shareholders’ right to know". After more than a year of struggle, at the end of 2022, Li Ziqi and Wei Nian made adjustments in the distribution of interests and finally reconciled.

According to public information, Sichuan Ziqi Culture Communication Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Ziqi Culture) has undergone industrial and commercial changes. Liu Tongming, the founder of Micro-idea, withdrew from Liziqi Company, and the shareholding ratio of Micro-idea was reduced from 51% to 1%, while that of Liziqi (Li Jiajia) was increased from 49% to 99%. This year, Micro-idea completely withdrew. Most of the trademarks of "Liziqi" belong to this company, which means that Liziqi himself has the absolute right to speak on trademark resources.

"The distribution of benefits has been settled, and both sides have compromised and accepted the new cooperation model." A person from MCN organization once told China Newsweek.

According to media reports, as a result of the settlement between the two parties, Liziqi regained her brand and patent, and Liziqi defined her rights and interests at the equity level of Ziqi culture. Liziqi brand was monopolized and licensed for a long time in a specific category by Weinian. Micro-reading needs to pay the related licensing fee to Ziqi Culture.

As a result, the relationship between the two sides has eased. But how to recover the lost two years?

Is the comeback still the top stream?

Since the beginning of this year, Li Ziqi has frequently appeared in public.

In March, Li Ziqi participated in a public welfare activity named "Spring Breeze Warms beautiful countryside" in dege county, Ganzi Prefecture, and boarded a hot search. In September, Li Ziqi appeared as the "Promotion Ambassador of China Farmers Harvest Festival of China Rural Youth Leaders Association" and also boarded the hot search.

The appearance of "Wonderful Night" in Tik Tok as the cover figure of the publicity video seems to indicate that Li Ziqi’s comeback is close at hand. China News Weekly asked Tik Tok and Wei Nian for verification, but the reply was that they didn’t know. They had to ask Li Ziqi and his team.

Tracing back to the relationship between Li Ziqi and ByteDance, ByteDance was an investor in Weinian. According to public information, in July 2021, Beijing Quantum Music Technology Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of ByteDance, became a new shareholder of Hangzhou Weinian, with a shareholding ratio of about 1.48%. In October 2021, ByteDance, who invested in Micro-education, started the exit process on October 16th.

Zhang Shule, an industry commentator, told China Newsweek that if Li Ziqi appeared in the "Wonderful Night" in Tik Tok, it was a commercial operation between Li Ziqi and Tik Tok, and both of them got what they needed. This may become a tipping point of Li Ziqi’s IP, and Li Ziqi will come back at this opportunity.

In fact, it’s not just Tik Tok. It was reported that Aauto Quicker signed a contract with Li Ziqi, and Taobao Live also expressed its welcome to Li Ziqi, but in the end they were all denied to reach a cooperation. It is not difficult to see the influence of Li Ziqi from the competition for Li Ziqi on various platforms.

Previously, Li Zikai was regarded as the representative of Chinese rural pastoral style IP. After stopping for more than two years, Li Ziqi’s track became more and more crowded. In the days when Li Ziqi disappeared, the whole network was looking for the next "Li Ziqi". From time to time, the content of "local flavor" blows a gust of wind on the short video platform, and a group of bloggers with millions of fans, such as "Zhang Classmate", "Nian Xiangren Zhou Zhou" and "Kangzai Farmer", emerge.

"The Internet has become a new agricultural tool in the new era, and a large number of new farmers have actively joined the rural revitalization and achieved fruitful results". Li Zikai himself also mentioned it in a recent video.

In the containment of many latecomers, there are also many fake accounts appearing frequently, and the loss of Li Ziqi’s IP value is incalculable. Judging from the number of fans of Liziqi, the influence of stopping is obvious.

Two years ago, as the top online celebrity in China, Li Ziqi had 27.56 million fans in Weibo, 54.94 million in Tik Tok, 10.29 million in Aauto Quicker and 7.29 million in bilibili. Today, Li Ziqi has 25.927 million fans in Weibo, 48.971 million fans in Tik Tok, 9.545 million fans in Aauto Quicker and 7.608 million fans in bilibili. This means that in two years, plums have lost more than 8 million powder.

Li Hao, the founder of Mars culture, told China Newsweek that Li Ziqi is still the top stream, and his attention still exists. However, the dispute between Li Ziqi and Wei Nian has a great influence on her value as a commercial IP. In fact, there may be many fans whose mentality has changed. Through the entanglement between Li Ziqi and Wei Nian in commercial interests, they have deviated from the image of Li Ziqi who is not secular.

However, Zhang Yi, CEO of Ai Media Consulting, holds a different view. He said that Li Ziqi can get on the hot search every time he appears, which shows that the market popularity of Li Ziqi still exists, especially the rural theme represented by Li Ziqi, which can trigger very deep memories and emotional connections in a big agricultural country like China. Therefore, this is the most valuable commercial value of Li Ziqi, that is, it can resonate with the audience emotionally.

How long is the cycle of Super online celebrity?

Even if Li Ziqi comes back, it is still only the first step. For Li Ziqi, the future will face multiple tests, and the first is the sustainability of content production capacity.

In 2016, Li Zikai went to Lanzhou to learn from the teacher for a month, and the short video "Lanzhou Beef Noodles" released was popular, with more than 50 million broadcasts on the whole network, which was the beginning of Li Zikai’s influence. Later, Li Zikai was labeled as a cultural export with video content such as Guofeng cuisine, and gained word of mouth and traffic. She was called "mysterious power from the East" by overseas netizens and was affirmed and praised by mainstream media.

In an interview with CCTV, Li Zikai also said that he did not want to over-commercialize the IP of "Li Zikai", saying that he had been "doing things with awe" and that his awe was "traditional culture and traditional craftsmanship".

Judging from Li Zikai’s experience and voice in the media, she has a consistent attitude towards the meticulous creation of her own IP, which is one of the reasons why she can maintain her influence.

"The content of any series will come to an end one day, so will Friends and the Big Bang Theory," said a senior IP operator. He thinks that when Li Ziqi comes back after stopping for two years, if the content continues to attract people, then everyone will continue to pay attention. Otherwise, everyone will become uninterested, and the value resources of this IP will also decline.

From the content level, good content is always scarce. But the greater difficulty for Li Zikai is that the user’s aesthetics have risen. "How can we catch the initial attention and traffic?"

For Li Ziqi, there is also a balance between content and business. Zhang Shule said that many online celebrity didn’t realize commercialization because they couldn’t find a balance between business and content.

Li Hao mentioned that in the past, Li Ziqi did not accept commercial advertisements and live broadcasts, but he was able to concentrate on the content because the strategy of using Li Ziqi IP for commodity development was relatively successful. Micro-thinking always respected Li Ziqi’s own business requirements.

At present, a number of MCN organizations are laying out the industrial side in depth, such as making friends, selecting from the East and other hot live broadcast organizations in the past year or two to mass produce anchors, go deep into the supply chains of various industries, and develop institutional brands to expand their scale. "This is to protect the brand in the long run, and also to transform it into commercial value when the brand is still influential." Zhang Shule emphasized that after years of development, MCN organizations found that Super online celebrity is difficult to replicate, and it still depends on industry to achieve large-scale operation.

In fact, Li Zikai used to make short videos, which is a slow-moving thing, which is different from the "short, flat and fast" feature of live broadcast. "online celebrity is the export of content, and personal success is contingent, while commercialization is a complex process that requires long-term cultivation", which means that even if Li Ziqi comes back, it is difficult to achieve "quick resurrection", and it is necessary to constantly instill content into the audience in order to increase its commercial value and achieve long-term success.

Reporter: Meng Qian