Many of the people tuning in to China’s commercial livestreams are women. Live gaming platform Douyu is looking to appeal to a different demographic.
A screenshot of two commercial livestreamers promoting shoes. Courtesy of Douyu
Commercial livestreaming has taken China by storm, with channel hosts attracting hordes of mostly-female viewers tuning in to buy fashion items or beauty products. Now the country’s Twitch-like streaming platform Douyu is getting in on the game, again, but with a different target audience in mind.
Over the weekend, two of Douyu’s best-known livestreamers — including a gamer who is fond of using a voice-altering device to sound like a girl before slaughtering his opponents — collaborated to sell home projectors, power banks, gaming mice, Apple AirPods, Adidas Yeezys, and assorted menswear for a grand total of nearly 5 million yuan ($705,000).
A week earlier, a livestreamer who specializes in outdoor activities hosted broadcasts for Nike and Adidas that generated around 6 million yuan in combined sales for the two brands, whose offlines stores have been hard-hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Luo Yonghao, the founder of cellphone maker Smartisan, tests out a razor during his first-ever commercial livestream. From Douyin
“Their success has absolutely illustrated that there is great consumption potential among Douyu users, and that it’s feasible to adapt the e-commerce business model for our platform,” Li Kun, the head of Douyu’s commercial livestreaming initiative, told Sixth Tone.
“Given that our main audience is gamers aged 18 to 35, we’d like to choose products such as sportswear, streetwear, and the latest gadgets,” Li said. “Compared with other commercial livestreaming platforms that focus on lipstick and cosmetics for female consumers, we will make full use of our advantage.” Continue to read the full article here.
– This article originally appeared on Sixth Tone.
