In recent years, despite the global economic downturn, the luxury car brand Rolls-Royce has presented impressive figures:
In 2023, Rolls-Royce’s global sales reached 6,032 vehicles, which is 11 more than the same period last year and nearly double the number from 2020, which was 3,756!
The price of a Rolls-Royce typically ranges from 5 to 10 million yuan.
Who’s buying?
The primary buyers are from the United States, followed by China, and the fastest-growing market is indeed China.
According to some media reports, the main force behind this achievement comes from Chinese internet celebrities.
Individuals like “Crazy Xiao Yang,” “Simba,” “Second Donkey,” “Wang Hongquanxing,” and “Pi You” are not only internet celebrities with millions of fans but also emerging Rolls-Royce owners.
For instance, Simba, despite the “fake bird’s nest” incident, which didn’t dent his reputation much, according to “Fast Technology,” once purchased six Rolls-Royce Phantoms worth millions in one go, with almost every executive in his company owning one.
Data from the Guangdong E-commerce Summit Forum shows that in 2023, Crazy Xiao Yang, Simba, and Li Jiaqi each earned over 3.2 billion yuan, 3 billion yuan, and 2.2 billion yuan in net income, respectively.
What does this mean?
In 2021, Li Jiaqi’s income was 1.8 billion yuan, which exceeded the combined net profits of 93% of listed companies, according to media reports.
By 2023, the disparity had widened even further.
This list has a few interesting points:
1. The top three have a small gap, but there’s a significant difference between them and the following anchors, which aligns well with the “Pareto Principle” of wealth distribution.
2. Dong Yuhui jumped to fourth place in just a year, indicating how rapidly the wealth in the internet celebrity industry is aggregating.
3. Not only Li Jiaqi, but the income of the top 50 internet celebrities can individually surpass that of several listed companies, no wonder the A-share market has been underperforming for a long time; it turns out even internet celebrities can outdo them…
The culmination of internet celebrities is sales, and the culmination of sales is Rolls-Royce.
“It used to be the rich rewarding the poor, but now it’s the poor rewarding the rich.”
“Watching those internet celebrities driving Rolls-Royces and Ferraris every day, but still screaming their lungs out selling 9.9 yuan toilet paper in the middle of the night, I feel it’s normal not to make money.”
Undoubtedly, the current livestreaming economy has become one of the hottest and fastest-growing industries.
However, this increment doesn’t just manifest in the disruption of sales models but also poses a challenge to the celebrity endorsement model.
Contrary to the booming livestreaming industry, celebrity endorsements seem bleak.
According to QuestMobile data, the proportions of influencer marketing, new product marketing, offline marketing, co-branding/cross-border marketing, and celebrity marketing in the brand marketing market in 2023 were 31.1%, 27.6%, 20.9%, 20.3%, and 18.7%, respectively.
Celebrity marketing ranked the lowest among them.
This indicates that in 2023, brands were no longer focusing heavily on celebrity endorsements.
After all, with the changing market environment, having internet celebrities livestreaming products yields more stable and better results than using celebrities.
Recently, a well-known celebrity couple, Yang Zi and Huang Shengyi, hosted a livestreaming session on Douyin to promote products.
The head of a certain bacon brand, Ms. Wang, immediately reported to the police during the livestreaming session and complained:
She came for celebrity endorsements, even wrote Yang Zi and Huang Shengyi’s livestreaming into the contract during negotiations, and even prepared bacon products worth 1.7 million yuan for this purpose. However, only one order was made, and they couldn’t get Yang Zi and Huang Shengyi to appear together.
Ms. Wang said they paid a fee of 100,000 yuan and the other party promised to do two major anchor livestreams plus some minor ones, with a guaranteed sales of 1.4 million yuan; otherwise, a refund would be made in proportion.
After one livestream, they only sold a little over 100 yuan worth of bacon, and the merchant got emotional on the spot and reported it to the police…
In reality, there have been many instances where spending a fortune on celebrity endorsements resulted in dismal outcomes.
This underscores the market logic of livestreaming sales, which is different from celebrity endorsements.
In the era of livestreaming, the traditional model of film and television stars has fallen behind livestream performances to the extent that many once prestigious stars have to rely on internet celebrities to monetize.
For example, Stephen Chow appeared in Crazy Xiao Yang’s livestream.
For instance, Andy Lau is about to visit Dong Yuhui’s livestream.
This is the tide of history.
To some extent, this is also a reshuffle of the film and television industry. You’ll see that TV dramas like “Blooming Flowers” no longer solely cast entertainment stars but also feature internet celebrities making cameo appearances, such as Fan Zhiyi and Papi Jiang, both of whom surprisingly received positive reviews for their performances and acting skills.
I believe after experiencing this sweet spot, more and more film and television companies will also tilt their resources towards internet celebrities.
Video economy is essentially an attention economy, and everyone’s attention is limited.
With this generation of viewers preferring livestreaming short videos, the time spent on movies and TV shows naturally decreases.
While internet celebrities thrive, they also have their own flaws.
Compared to traditional celebrities, who represent Old Money, internet celebrities often lack a polished image and a successful persona.
And their choice of Rolls-Royce is also about hoping to use money to support their image and display the social status and economic power of the “new aristocracy.”
As the “top luxury brand,” Rolls-Royce has always been a symbol of taste and status.
Crazy Xiao Yang once admitted that he purchased a Rolls-Royce mainly for business receptions; sometimes, a car can change others’ perception of you.
“Some brands, when the chairman arrives at the airport, you have to use this car for reception.”
Internet celebrities buying Rolls-Royce not only fulfill their wealth satisfaction but also expand their sources of income, making it a win-win situation.
For Rolls-Royce, having internet celebrities promote their brand is also a cost-effective marketing method—just by inviting them to “VIP events that money can’t buy,” the overall expense of one event may even be less than the profit generated from selling one Rolls-Royce.
In 2010, the average age of Rolls-Royce customers was 56, but by 2021, it had dropped to 43.
Among them, the average age of customers in the Chinese market is around 39.
For the latest all-electric model, the Spectre, the average age of the first batch of owners in China is estimated to be around 37, making it the youngest average age among global orders.
This shows that livestreaming sales have given rise to a large number of New Money in China in just three years.
This era is not without opportunities. Often, the emergence of a new business format can reshuffle wealth.
Rolls-Royce’s soaring sales should be most grateful to China’s “big brother of the charts.”
Mr. Dong Yuhui once said:
“A group of people living in the gutter, criticizing the sunlight every day. They demand from you because you have morals, but you can’t demand morals from them because they have no principles.”
Mr. Yu Minhong added, “These people living in the gutter are very likely to pull down those living in the sunlight, or those who bring sunlight to others.”
In fact, before Mr. Dong Yuhui and Mr. Yu Minhong transitioned to livestreaming sales, they were once among those who fell into the gutter— their entire education industry collapsed.
They also crawled out of the gutter by livestreaming sales and are now enjoying the sunshine.
While the era has bestowed upon them, I hope they also understand that their wealth explosion in the short term is also built on many physical businesses and Old Money that have fallen into the gutter.
While making money, don’t forget to lend them a hand instead of criticizing them for finding the sunlight too dazzling.
Because livestreaming sales are just boarding the ship, not yet reaching the shore.
What if one day they are rapidly overturned too?