B Station Home Marketing Insight Report

As the number of monthly active users of Bilibili has exceeded 223 million, the Bilibili community is getting further and further away from the word "niche". As the number of users grows, new demands have also emerged. For Bilibili and its UP hosts, only by producing more diversified and diverse works can users remain on the platform.

At present, there are 379,000 videos under the "Home" channel of Bilibili, with a total playback volume of 1.81 billion. "Bilibili Home Marketing Insights" was created and analyzed by the FeiGua Data team based on public data, FeiGua Data (Bilibili version)'s own data products and survey data. This report aims to pay more attention to and understand the home furnishing industry at Bilibili, and provide reference for brands and creators through data analysis and research.

1. Home Furnishing Market Analysis

Urbanization development drives the home furnishing market demand of post-95s

Over the past decade, thanks to the rapid development of national infrastructure investment and the real estate industry, the home furnishing industry has also maintained rapid growth.

Relying on the giant "housing" industrial chain, cooperation between upstream and downstream is frequent. The "symbiotic" service model between real estate, home decoration, building materials, and home appliances has also evolved into industry trends such as whole-house decoration and Internet home decoration.

In terms of urbanization, according to the research of the National Development and Reform Commission, China's urbanization rate is expected to enter a relatively stable state at around 75%. The population increase brought about by urbanization will inevitably drive the growth of the real estate industry, and it is also an important driving force for the development of the home furnishing market.

In terms of consumer groups, according to the "2020 China Youth Housing Consumption Trend Report" jointly released by DT Finance and Lianjia, in the past three years, the proportion of those born after 1995 among home buyers and renters has increased significantly, and this group is becoming younger.

As a major gathering place for young users, what opportunities will home furnishing companies have? The following will answer your questions.

2. Analysis of the B Station Ecosystem

1. Platform Overview - The main user group has grown into the main force of home furnishing consumption

As early as 2015, Bilibili already had popular internet memes such as "Are you ok" and "duang", but the platform's influence has never been able to break through its circle. With the listing of Bilibili in 2018, more and more people began to pay attention to this content platform famous for its "two-dimensional culture". Since then, Bilibili has started its journey to break out of the circle.

From the famous B station UP host He Tongxue's "How Fast? The Real Experience of 5G in Daily Use, to the May Fourth Youth Speech "The Next Wave"; from the New Year's Eve party that understands young people the most, "The Most Beautiful Night of 2019", to the confession to classmates who are about to graduate, "Into the Sea". Breaking the circle again and again proves that Bilibili’s influence among young people is constantly expanding.

In 2021, Bilibili released its first financial report since its secondary listing in Hong Kong. Financial report data shows that the user growth of Bilibili exceeded expectations. In the first quarter, Bilibili's monthly active users reached 223 million, a year-on-year increase of 30%. The average monthly paying users reached 20.5 million, a year-on-year increase of 53%. The overall paying rate increased to a record 9.2%. Bilibili's operations have been very effective in attracting new users.

At the same time, Bilibili has also demonstrated extremely high user stickiness. The average daily video playback volume in the first quarter reached 1.6 billion times, a year-on-year increase of 47%; the average monthly community interaction number reached 6.6 billion times, a year-on-year increase of 35%; the average daily usage time increased to 82 minutes, and the proportion of PUGV works viewing reached as high as 91%. Through rich content construction, most users can find content that interests them on Bilibili.

In addition, in order to encourage UP hosts to create higher-quality content, Bilibili has launched a number of platform policies and tools to attract more users to become UP hosts and create high-quality content together. Good content is the foundation for users to stay in the community for a long time.

It is not difficult to see that Bilibili's community building is gradual, which also explains why Bilibili puts content classification first after updating its recommendation algorithm - this is more conducive to gathering users with similar preferences and forming a good community atmosphere.

2. B Station’s home traffic trend - traffic blue ocean to be further developed

On July 13, 2021, Bilibili established a new second-level home and real estate section under the first-level life section.

According to the official announcement of Bilibili Creation Center, this section will include manuscripts related to buying a house, decoration, and home life, including but not limited to interpretation of the housing market, home buying experience, home decoration design, decoration records, furniture and appliances, smart home, gardening and green plants, rental renovation, room tour, household storage, home goodies, etc., records, evaluations, and popular science.

Setting up an independent secondary partition for home and real estate content means that home content will not only have a large user audience on Bilibili, but will also receive further attention from the platform, which contains huge growth opportunities.

Development Trend of Home Channel

FeiGua Data (Bilibili version) collected tagged videos related to home furnishing from October 2020 to June 2021. Among them, the number of home furnishing content submissions in June 2021 reached 55,940, a month-on-month increase of 5.13%, an increase of 239% compared with October 2020, and a monthly increase of 21.1%.

In terms of video playback, the total playback volume of Bilibili's Home Channel reached 1.81 billion, of which the total playback volume of home-related videos in June 2021 reached 157 million, generating 89.2 million interactions, of which the total number of comments and barrages was 7.5 million, and the total number of "one-click three-link" interactions was 77.3 million.

From February 28 to March 31, 2021, Bilibili launched the official theme event "A New Look at Home", with 28,000 videos participating in the event, 13,000 participating UP hosts, and a total of 96.665 million views.

Compared with the "My Ideal Home" theme event launched from 2020-11-30 to 2020-12-30 (2,629 participants and 38.299 million views), "New Atmosphere of Home" has achieved significant growth in submitted works, participating UP hosts, and total views.

Recently, Bilibili launched a home-related theme event "My Rental Diary". So far, 1,596 UP hosts have participated, 2,947 videos have been submitted, and the cumulative number of video views is 1,323.6w.

In summary, Bilibili users' attention to home-related content is constantly increasing, and as Bilibili's main user groups enter the workplace and start families, Bilibili's home channel has a promising future.

2. B Station home furnishing brand trends - less competition and high demand

As a relatively new content channel, there are not many home furnishing brands on Bilibili at present, and there is still a broad blue ocean market.

FeiGua Data (Bilibili version) aggregates the related videos of the top 100 brands in terms of playback volume, as well as the number of videos of the top 100 brands in terms of number of submissions.

In terms of playback volume, the top three categories of TOP100 are mobile phones and digital products at 26%; automobiles at 21%; and food and beverages at 21%; in terms of video association numbers, the top three categories of TOP100 are mobile phones and digital products at 34%; automobiles at 30%; and cosmetics at 14%. The related playback volume of home furnishing brands accounted for only 3%, and the number of related videos was only 4%.

Currently, only some home furnishing brands are conducting content marketing on Bilibili. For brands that have not yet entered the market, there is still huge room for growth and broad development prospects.

3. Analysis of home furnishing enterprise accounts

(1) Home Appliances Enterprise Account

The home traffic of Bilibili is mainly concentrated in household appliance brands, among which the more representative ones are Midea's new media matrix and Mi Home under Xiaomi's new media matrix. In addition, there are also home appliance brands such as Haier, TCL, and Bear Appliances.

Currently, the "Midea" corporate account, which ranks first in the number of fans in the household appliances category, has 515,000 fans on Bilibili. Midea's user growth on Bilibili is due to Bilibili's 2020 New Year's Eve Gala - The Most Beautiful Night (see the case sharing: Midea × Bilibili New Year's Eve Gala for details). The original content in the channel is mainly animation dubbing and fusion videos. It is no longer limited to brand promotional videos, and communicates with young users in more diverse forms.

"MIJIA", also a corporate account for home appliances, is also worth learning and referring to in terms of content dissemination.

The MIJIA account currently has 73,000 followers and has released 191 videos on Bilibili, with a total of 4.264 million views, and an average of 22,300 views per video.

Using life videos such as unboxing and evaluation as traffic content and some product promotional videos as stock content, they attract fans' attention while conveying the concept of the brand and products. For example, one of the videos testing Xiaomi's super writing function received 335,000 views, and the Mijia mosquito repellent received 100,000 views.

(2) Home improvement agency account

Unlike other home furnishing business accounts, most home improvement agencies on Bilibili operate as personal accounts. FeiGua Data observed that there are more than 1,100 accounts on Bilibili that are directly marked as "decoration." Among them, the top accounts such as Eclife, Zhufaner, and Woooyan have 768,000, 425,000, and 259,000 followers respectively, and their operating results on Bilibili are remarkable.

In terms of content creation, the main core content of such accounts includes new home decoration, old house renovation, home decoration knowledge, household items, etc. With renovation and transformation content as the core, users can be attracted to the content, and popular science education on home improvement can be used to increase users' recognition of the brand's professionalism. Sharing of good things and life videos can bring users closer, making them look more like a UP host.

(3) Independent UP host

In addition to corporate organizations, there are also many independent UP hosts on Bilibili who focus on home furnishings. Just by searching the keyword "home furnishings" on Feigua data, there are more than 1,000 results.

The content of independent UP hosts is closer to the rental group. Compared with corporate accounts, the range of topics is much smaller, mostly focusing on decoration design, home appliance reviews, household products, etc., and they monetize by negotiating business orders.

For example, the UP host "Chen Baoyi" currently has 694,000 fans on Bilibili, has released 107 videos, and has a total of 45.401 million views, with an average of about 440,000 views for a single video.

Its main content is home unboxing. In the video released on September 29, 2020, "【Unboxing】DEMI Vacuum Cleaner V12! A vacuum cleaner that can mop the floor! 》, cooperated with the home appliance brand Zhuimi to share the unboxing and usage experience of vacuum cleaners. As of now, it has 924,000 views, 30,000 comprehensive interactions, and 4,544 barrages and comments.

By working with UP hosts to create high-quality content, the brand has laid a solid foundation for this marketing and gained good brand reputation and user conversion.

(4) Viewpoint

Through observation of several major home furnishing accounts on Bilibili, it is found that the performance of home furnishing-related brands on Bilibili is not stable at present, and the fan groups are mainly concentrated in home improvement agencies and amateur bloggers. The main factor is that the content of enterprise accounts does not meet the aesthetic needs of users and lacks altruism, while non-enterprise accounts produce video content around users to allow videos to achieve better dissemination and revenue.

Among them, home improvement companies represented by Yizhi Life, Wuyan, and Zhufaner have more advantages in content selection than other independent bloggers. The decoration cases handled by the institutions are natural material libraries. In addition, they also share some life-related content to downplay the organization’s corporate label, making the channel look more like a UP host rather than a company.

3. Home furnishing content and audience analysis - high fit and strong stickiness

1. User Preferences

In terms of user interests and preferences, they are mainly concentrated in three areas: funny daily life, music and dance, and knowledge popularization. This is also in line with the user attributes of Bilibili as a pan-entertainment platform and the curious and studious characteristics of young people.

FeiGua Data (Bilibili version) aggregates the active time of Bilibili's home audience, which is not much different from the overall active time of Bilibili's users.

It starts to be active at 8 am, the first peak of the day is around 12:00 noon, the highest peak of the day is around 22:00, and 18:00-22:00 is the most active period of the day. It is truly a "video to watch while eating" and a "video before going to bed".

During lunch and before bedtime, users’ main purpose is to relax and unwind, so when creating content, they should prefer relaxing and lively content. At the same time, by combining the user's active time periods and presetting the delivery time, better communication effects can be achieved.

2. User Tags

By aggregating the bullet comments and comment word clouds of household food, we classified them according to the demand points and parts of speech involved:

Attitude: like > feel > good looking >…

Function: Decoration > Design > Renovation >…

Lease: Landlord > Renter > Tenant >…

It can be seen that young users will express their preferences for content with more intuitive feelings, and have stronger demands for decoration, design and transformation in terms of functions. On the other hand, some of Bilibili's current users mainly rent houses. Even so, they are quite particular about their own lives. Adhering to the concept that although the house is rented, the life is their own, they constantly upgrade and renovate their living environment.

3. Content Keywords

(1) Key words for young people’s home furnishing: personality

After observing the 1,235 videos officially selected by Home Channel B, we found their common features and selected several representative videos as user keyword tags.

E-sports, animation, technology... Which young person doesn’t want to have a dream home of his or her own?

Making more personalized home decoration according to one's own preferences not only reflects the life attitude of young people. For contemporary young people, home is not just a place to live, but also a place to value self-expression and meet spiritual needs.

(2) Key words for young people’s home life: independence

There are many decoration-themed articles in the home channel, and they all have good playback volume and interaction data. It also reflects that contemporary young people are more inclined to an independent lifestyle, and they feel more fulfilled when decorating their homes by themselves.

(3) Key words for young people’s home furnishing: sense of ritual

In the Room tour video of Bilibili, whether you buy or rent a house, whether it is a mansion or a small apartment, you can create a warm and sweet living environment for yourself.

This uncompromising attitude towards life makes pale life shine and reflects the beautiful aspirations in the hearts of young people. This is the ritual of young people.

(4) Key words for young people’s home furnishing: trying new things

Technological progress has brought about a wide variety of smart devices, from daily life to production, and fewer and fewer areas require manpower.

Instead of wasting time and energy on routine housework, it is better to let smart home devices free your hands. Young people who are good at being "lazy" are better at enjoying life.

4. Marketing plan of Station B

1. Introduction to the Huahuo Platform

The Fireworks Platform is Bilibili's official commercial cooperation platform serving UP hosts and brand owners. It is open to the entire industry and helps brands reach, screen, and match potential UP hosts in batches. Safe and efficient full-link online transactions provide protection for UP hosts and brand owners.

Since its launch in July 2020, the number of UP hosts on the Huohuo platform has increased by 770% year-on-year, the number of brands has increased by 2050% year-on-year, and the reinvestment rate has continued to remain at 75%.

2. Case Study: Bosch Christmas Surprise Theater

"Bosch Christmas Surprise Drama" is a brand communication activity planned by Bilibili for Bosch. In order to embody "Bosch's German craftsmanship", the planners combined the Christmas atmosphere with the appeal of the UP host's real story to influence users, arouse the audience's emotional resonance, and show the "happiness brought by craftsmanship" in the communication.

The topic eventually received 7.743 million views and 9,420 discussions.

3. Case Study: Midea × Bilibili New Year’s Eve Party

This is an emotional resonance created by the collaboration between the platform and the brand. The peak popularity of the live broadcast of the gala reached 252 million, the number of on-demand video of the gala exceeded 150 million, the total number of barrages exceeded 1.12 million, and there were 126 hot searches on the entire network. The video playback volume of the brand’s collaboration with the UP host was 4.126 million, and the number of barrages was 12,000.

In this project, dual-line parallel immersive emotional marketing was used to reach young users through the New Year's Eve party. With the help of the penetration of UP masters, it ultimately achieved the goal of helping users understand the brand and further achieved user conversion.

IV. Conclusion

In the post-epidemic era, the home furnishing market has rebounded, which contains both opportunities and challenges, especially accelerating the digital transformation of the industry and consumer habits.

Through content analysis of Bilibili's Home Channel, a gathering place for Generation Z users, we found that the consumption behaviors and attitudes of the new generation of consumers are changing. As the new generation of consumers become the main force of consumption, these changes will generate more demands and higher requirements for products and services in the home furnishing industry chain.

Faced with the growing trend of home furnishing content and demand on Bilibili, how home furnishing companies can better tap into Bilibili's blue ocean of home furnishing traffic through cooperation with the platform, digital marketing, and content marketing may become an important issue that home furnishing companies need to consider.

Author: Feigua Data B Station Version

Source: Feigua Light Number