Youku variety show "Cat in the Box" ended warmly, and there were cat troupes competing with each other’s acting skills and tears on the scene

"Game of life, open the box and have fun", the all-star hilarious variety show "Cat in the Box" produced by Youku and broadcast by Du Xiaoman has ended successfully. Since the show went LIVE, it has received continuous attention from the industry and the majority of users. With its hilarious characteristics and drama theme, it has sublimated into the hearts of the audience step by step, and the heat and word-of-mouth have been harvested, triggering extensive discussion on the whole network. Recently, the last episode of the first season of Youku variety show "Cat in the Box" was launched, with flying players Gem, Wang Yang and character players Chen He, Lin Xinxin, Wu Bi, Wang Xun, Yin Zheng, and Zheng Kai (sorted by initials) unveiling the "tricks" in the company’s group chat. Character players will collectively take the stage to bring the drama "The Story of the Chicken Farm", laughing and crying, which fills people with expectations.

A new round of big "melons" arrived, and the players laughed and ate melons

Following the previous issue, Chen Xiaohe and Zheng Xiaokai "bullied" new employees, and the truth about Wang Xiaoyang and Yin Xiaozheng "bribing" leaders was revealed one after another, and the players were involved in a new round of public opinion turmoil about "W colleague is a murderer" "L colleague has a wife from eight countries". After a whole season of hilarious challenges, the players who have experienced hundreds of battles have gradually adapted to growth during the course of the game, and their cooperation with each other has become more and more tacit. Chen He has long understood the "mechanism routine" of the show after going through ten episodes of adventure, and successfully avoided the fate of being sprayed with black smoke; Lin Xinxin also gradually coped with it easily, dismantling the balloon earlier to obtain clues, accelerating the process of passing the level; Yin Zheng gradually promoted from the first time as a flying player "cowering" to the mind of the box cat, and became the "hope of the whole company" in the last issue, helping the team crack multiple passwords; Wu Bi, Wang Xun, and Zheng Kai "pointed to the box as ice" to break down props, dreaming of the moment when Zhang Yixing "scratched the wall clues" in the first issue; the flying player Gem was questioned as "still too young" and fell into the trap. He liked to mention "smoky makeup", which was quite "silly and sweet" compared with his good brother Chen Heyi Wang Yang was still calm when he was locked on the bed, and he used his feet to draw clues. During the "all members are united" challenge, the players who separated the two rooms also relied on tacit understanding to deal with the challenge perfectly, which was enough to see that the players became more comfortable in the box world, and then contributed more hilarious scenes.

After ten episodes of the program, the unknown and mystery of "Cat in the Box" has been renewed for a long time. On the one hand, the key-breaking part of the program has been constantly innovating, integrating various forms such as group confrontation and personal warfare in the early stage, integrating intelligence, physical strength and humor, constantly bringing the audience a new experience, and making "Cat in the Box" always in "Schr?dinger state" in a multi-dimensional and innovative way, full of freshness. For example, the last program set up a "pass the melon" link, which brought everyone back to the technology warehouse of the "perfect community" to pass information. In a completely soundproof state, it became a large empty ear scene in seconds, and the information was mistranslated into various versions, which was full of laughs; the "partial guessing" guessing part only showed the fingers of the portrait and other parts to increase the difficulty of the game. And players will also trigger unexpected hilarious effects under such rules. Chen He and his uncle chose "Screw Up" in the face of unsolvable questions, and their strength interpreted "There is nothing difficult in the world, as long as they are willing to give up"; Wang Yang confidently passed on the wrong answer, and stretched out his thumb to express "affirmation", and the humor index was full; Zheng Kai recognized Miao Miao at the speed of light and released "smoke bombs" to disrupt the rest of the players’ answering ideas; Lin Gengxin’s technology warehouse transformed into "equal hand figure", suggesting that the actress surnamed L did not recognize Liu Yifei either; and the phenomenon of "Zhao Liying and Zhang Yuqi" becoming universal answers appeared, and the laughter continued.

Role players play with each other’s acting skills, and the final show makes people laugh and cry

The Youku variety show "Cat in the Box" is produced by Huang Lei as the chief producer, and it is condensed into the core theme of the unit around the current social hot topic. Every time a player opens a "box world", they will start a hilarious journey in it, and gradually move towards the core of the issue during the process, and interpret the meaning and value through the player’s actions.

After going through a series of hilarious challenges, "the true face of the earth-shattering big melon" also surfaced. It turned out that Wu Xiaobi and Wang Xiaoxun just wanted to play a role-play tabletop game with their colleagues, while the so-called "eight girlfriends and eight children" of the old uncle and Lin Xiaoxin were just "cats and dogs" furry children. A series of normal events were distorted in the coding and decoding transmission of colleagues again and again, and turned into sensational rumors.

It is worth noting that in the last episode of the show, the character players Chen He, Lin Gengxin, Wu Bi, Wang Xun, Yin Zheng and Zheng Kai were transformed from the audience to the drama people on the stage, and performed "The Story of the Chicken Farm" together with Liu Xiaoyi and Zhao Xiaosu. From the perspective of a chicken, it vividly shows the process of generating rumors and the power of their mouths to destroy their bones, which aroused strong resonance among the audience. Many netizens said: "Many people are trapped in place by rumors, and they shed tears for this chick who is not afraid of rumors and dares to take a step forward."

Looking back at this season’s "Cat in the Box", it opens a deep exploration of the core issues of society with six "parallel box time and space", explores digital life and the relationship between two generations in "Summit School", focuses on the "nightmare" of trapped young people’s internal friction in "Midnight Visitors", shows the beauty hidden in imperfection in "Perfect Community", "Hot Town" bursts the bubble of traffic, restores the true self of colorful personality, "There is a cat troupe" allows emotions to take root and sprout, blooming brilliant flowers, and the last unit "The company has a cat" cuts the veil of rumors with the blade of reason. " In the virtual "box world", "Cat in the Box" mirrors reality, through the player’s twisting and stripping of cocoons during the pass, and highlights the theme in the form of drama, supplemented by the output of experts’ opinions at the end, to achieve in-depth interpretation of the entire topic, to create an atmosphere of endless meaning, and to convey the power of warming people’s hearts.

"Cat in the Box" is broadcast exclusively by Du Xiaoman, and co-sponsored by Xilinmen, Summer Refreshing Partner Nestle Tea Extract, and Health Guardian Bodybuilders. Life is about constantly going from one unknown box to the next unknown box, moving forward with a sense of yearning and mystery, looking forward to a cat troupe meeting again in the second season of "Cat in the Box", see you next year!

Sales have plummeted by nearly 40%, and NIO’s hope of turning around is already slim?

On May 1, NIO announced its sales for April. The domestic leading new force only delivered 6,658 new cars in April, a decrease of nearly 40% compared to March. In contrast, 25,681 new cars were sold at the same average price above 330,000, and 8,101 new cars were sold at JK. That is to say, NIO is not only no longer the top seller of new forces, but even failed miserably in the battle at the same price.

In early April, Li Bin said in an interview that if this year’s work is not good, 24 years will become another 19 years, that is, NIO may have to "return" to the ICU again. Judging from the current situation, this time may be further advanced.

What was the problem with NIO? Why did the new power, which was still in full swing in the past two years, suddenly fall into crisis? Let Kung Fu Car take everyone to take a look.

(1) The more models are sold, the fewer cars are sold

NIO has never been a brand that takes volume. As early as 2014, when the NIO brand was established, the slogan shouted was to represent domestic high-end electric vehicles to participate in global competition. But if there is no volume at all, the brand will be difficult to survive.

In December 2017, ES8 was launched, ES6 was launched in December 2018, and EC6 was launched in July 2020. NIO has completed the preliminary product layout. The three cars together can contribute about 10,000 units of sales per month, which was very moist at that time.

What’s more impressive is that NIO has "almost" achieved its goal. As an independent brand, its average transaction price exceeds 400,000 yuan, which is comparable to Mercedes-Benz and BMW, and far exceeds Audi. This result is also very scary. You know, this is a brand that has only been born for a few years, and it can be said that the sky is its limit.

But NIO’s subsequent performance was a big surprise. Since 2021, NIO’s new speed has accelerated significantly. ET7, ES7, ET5, EC7 have been listed successively, and old models such as ES6 and ES8 have also been rejuvenated. As a new force, NIO has seven models on sale simultaneously, but the monthly sales are only poor more than 6,000, which is very disappointing. As a comparison, the ideal three cars sell more than 20,000 per month, and the Tengshi (Parameter Shu Picture) sells more than 10,000 a car, and the polar krypton single model sells more than 8,000.

In the case of such a fragile brand, the "car sea tactics" are enough to show that NIO is casual in product definition. I talked to a former NIO engineer before, and he said that NIO’s approach is that the supervisor swings his arm and has no brains to start.

There is no clear definition before the project starts, and then there are more and more problems, and finally it is a work in progress or marginalized product when it is delivered to the market.

This approach will work in the "early days of entrepreneurship" in the future. For example, when ES8 first came out, although many functions were not opened. But because there are not many decent competitors at the same price, it sells well. But at this moment, in today’s highly invaded market, it is undoubtedly a great waste of resources to push new ones at will.

ET7, as a flagship sedan, is a front-drive platform, and ET5, as an entry-level model, is a rear-drive platform. The non-flagship ES7 entered the second-generation platform and lidar early, killing the "aging" ES8 in one fell swoop, but there is no market at all because of pricing issues. Such a slapstick operation is not uncommon here at NIO.

There is a saying that Li Bin and Qin Lihong are both liberal arts students, which makes them often do not make careful inferences and reviews when it comes to market layout, and are more willing to make emotional choices. On the one hand, this has created NIO’s unique humanistic temperament, but on the other hand, it has also caused the current chaos.

(2) The LeTV model is unsustainable. Is power exchange really the future?

Last year, NIO’s financial situation was already very bad. In 2022, NIO’s net loss for the whole year was 14.4371 billion yuan, of which 5.786 billion yuan was lost in the fourth quarter alone.

What is NIO’s response? At the same time as announcing the 2022 annual report, NIO said that 1,000 replacement stations will be built in 2023, and 500kW ultra-fast charging will be deployed "incidentally".

Why does NIO do this? In fact, it is to exchange services for the market. Compared to doing battery research and development, or building a battery production line. The return on investment ratio of power exchange services is immediate, at least the power station is actually increased. Tesla’s 4680 battery has cost a lot of money, and it has not been mass-produced for three years. If such investment is replaced by a power station, at least there is a real physical site. This is considered a major highlight of NIO. After all, for many users, power exchange is indeed very practical.

At the same time, NIO is "immune" to all price wars. No matter how Tesla and BYD are involved, NIO always insists on not reducing prices, which safeguards the interests of regular customers to the greatest extent.

But the crux of the problem is that today’s tram technology is becoming more and more mature, and the battery life is also constantly improving. When the actual battery life of high-end trams exceeds 500km, the added value brought by power replacement has become lower and lower.

At this time, consumers may pay more attention to the benefits. After all, the B-class ET5 sells more than 300,000, and the C-class Feifan F7 only sells 210,000, and the service seems to be less important.

In order to promote power exchange, NIO adopts the typical "LeTV model". The power exchange business is independent and placed outside the listed company, and then the power exchange business is continuously subsidized through the listed money. This seems "seamless", but as the NIO customer base continues to expand, the resources occupied by power exchange are also increasing, which will eventually feed back to the car price, that is, the price of NIO cannot be lowered.

That is to say, regardless of whether the battery is replaced or not, NIO’s users will eventually have to pay for this business. This is not a problem when sales increase, because doubled users can share these costs equally. But when NIO’s sales do not rise but fall, how can new car owners support the existing huge car owner base?

(3) To have faith, we must also look at the product

In the past few years, NIO could be said to be buying cars and giving away "Moments". There were NIO owners around Kung Fu Cars, and they were truly proud of their cars. They were very proud of NIO’s various activities and praised NIO’s various services.

But NIO should also realize that while this segment of consumers is important, they are far from the whole market. Most ordinary users still want high-quality and affordable models.

Not long ago, NIO launched the power station swap wish list function on the NIO App, where consumers participate in recommending the location of the power station. This may seem like a very "democratic" approach, but it may not be a good choice for the market. The location of the power station should be like opening a store, and "professional" choices should be made according to the local flow of people and the layout of the supplementary facilities, so as to ensure the interests of more car owners, not just the car owners to "vote".

The layout of products and technologies must be based on "professionalism", not emotion. Just like talking to the ideal engineer before about why the ideal doesn’t make cars, he replied that because the ideal customers at this stage are mainly family users, and the space of cars is difficult to meet, so he does not consider highlighting car products for the time being; when talking to the JK technicians about product definition, they said that it is not easy to break the game as a latecomer, and finally chose a relatively niche and the demand is not small.

To put it bluntly, if the market is already very crowded, as a latecomer to enter, there is a high probability that it will be cannon fodder. If there are still some gaps in the market, companies have a chance, provided that the price and positioning are appropriate in all aspects.

In a situation where all opponents are highly nervous, NIO’s careless market play, although it does seem to be a light weight, is inevitably gradually thrown away.

(4) Kung Fu shooting

In 2019, NIO was on the verge of bankruptcy because it could not raise money, and later Hefei City’s investment of 7 billion yuan saved it. I never thought that in this short two or three years, NIO would have to put himself in the "ICU" again, which has to be sighed.

Not long ago, Li Bin came out to reassure investors, saying that NIO was currently urgently saving itself, focusing on the four major fields of chips, mobile phones, sub-brands, and batteries. I don’t know if investors heard it or not. At least in Li Bin’s opinion, NIO’s product and technology layout is fine, so what kind of changes can be expected to be made.

Combined with the dilemma of Weimar, perhaps the entrepreneurial path of the first generation of new forces is about to be turned over.