Wu Yanzu sold 2 million yuan for English classes, Wang Zuxian opened a moxibustion shop, and celebrities no longer love hot pot restaurants

Blue Whale News, March 9 (Reporter Tang Shiyun)“If your English teacher is Wu Yanzu, can you not learn well?& rdquo; This joke seems to have come true.

Recently, the news that Wu Yanzu taught English and Wang Zuxian opened a moxibustion clinic has repeatedly been on the hot searches, and the topic of celebrities doing sideline work has once again triggered discussions. From building catering and milk tea shops to half of the entertainment industry bringing goods, to doing small businesses related to their interests and specialties, the sideline trend of celebrities has changed several times.

When Wu Yanzu really started teaching English, the cumulative sales of online courses exceeded 2 million yuan

Recently, Gaotu Group teamed up with well-known movie star Wu Yanzu to launch a product of Wu Yanzu taking you to learn oral language course. This product was recorded by real person Wu Yanzu, combined with Chinese education knowledge points, and used SR (Language Recognition AI Technology) to practice spoken English with Azu. The course is priced at 398 yuan and includes 84 topic scene classes.

Third-party data platforms show that the cumulative sales of Wu Yanzu taking you to learn spoken language on Douyin are about 2.3 – 4.75 million. Affected by relevant news reports, sales of this product have increased significantly recently.

Zhen Azu asked me to learn English

At the same time, Wu Yanzu opened Wu Yanzu’s English teaching accounts on various platforms and released multiple videos calling him a new identity as a spoken English teacher. According to the above-mentioned account profile, Wu Yanzu is one of the directors of elegant education. Tianyan information shows that Yashi Education Technology (Hangzhou) Co., Ltd. was established in August 2024, with 30% held by Shanghai Wanmei Zuhe Brand Management Co., Ltd. One of the latter’s ultimate beneficiaries is DANIEL NEH TSU WU (Wu Yanzu).

Blue Whale reporter found that in addition to the cooperation with Gaotu, the Yashi APP also launched Wu Yanzu to take you to learn spoken English courses for 498 yuan. The application also has modules such as AI situational training and AI writing diagnosis, and relevant rights need to be launched urgently. In this way, it seems that Wu Yanzu may add additional English and AI teaching aids.

Coincidentally, the topic of Hong Kong star Wang Zuxian opening a moxibustion clinic in Canada has also attracted much attention recently. According to Jiupai News, Wang Zuxian’s moxibustion and moxibustion health club is located in Richmond in the Greater Vancouver area, and many local Chinese people go to check in. The moxibustion clinic charges 120 Canadian dollars (approximately RMB 600) per hour, and an appointment in advance is required to do moxibustion. Wang Zuxian is basically in the store, and if he is free, he may help customers do moxibustion himself.

According to bloggers interviewed, Wang Zuxian opened the moxibustion center in the hope of spreading traditional Chinese medicine culture. During her experience in the store, customers have been coming to her, and she also hopes that everyone will not disturb her too much.

It is no longer new for celebrities to do sideline business, but compared with the past, when they gathered together to open restaurants and do fashion brand, most of the sideline businesses of artists nowadays are related to their specialties and preferences.

The history of changes in the sideline industry of domestic entertainment stars: Opening restaurants and making fashion brand are traditional arts

There was a period in the history of domestic entertainment when stars and entertainers gathered together to invest in restaurants.

In the article “Sideline is a criterion for testing the quality of stars”, the Yuanchuan Research Institute once divided stars and their chosen sideline into three levels according to difficulty, which can be roughly summarized as follows: primary school student level who relies on collecting franchise fees, middle school student level who relies on brand creation, and college student level who relies on venture capital. Most stars entering the catering industry can be classified into the first category.

Celebrity restaurants are essentially a business that realizes personal influence. This is true for Han Han ‘s pleasure to meet you, Meng Fei’s Meng Fei’s Xiao Noodles, etc.

In the following years, hot pot, milk tea and other categories became the most popular tracks for celebrities to enter the restaurant because of their high degree of standardization and mature supply chains. Franchising quickly replicates this originally highly industrialized store in a short period of time. For stars, as long as they enjoy the franchise fee, it is undoubtedly an excellent cost-effective investment.

Among them, Xianhezhuang, the hot pot brand jointly established by Chen He, Zhu Zhen and Ye Yiqian, once expanded rapidly. According to Lianshang.com, brands such as Xianhezhuang do not open single-store cooperation in prefecture-level cities. If you want to join, you must first become an urban agent in the region. For second-tier provincial capitals such as Changsha and Chongqing, the agency fee is between 2 million and 3 million yuan. The agency fee for a prefecture-level city is about 1.5 million yuan.

However, the popularity of celebrity catering did not last long, and brands such as Xianhezhuang, La Village, and Tiandandai successively fell into the negative effects of improper quality control and franchise disputes. Taking Xianhezhuang as an example, Zhaimen catering data shows that there are currently only 48 stores left, which is far from the peak scale of more than 800 stores. As stores closed down one after another, many celebrity brands resigned from them.

fashion brand clothing is also one of the reserved options for stars ‘sideline businesses. Bai Jingting, Wang Hedi, Ouyang Nana and other artists are all players on this track. Looking at relevant news in recent years, this kind of fashion brand often causes controversy because of its high pricing. Although fans pay the bill, the clothing industry itself faces greater supply chain and design pressure, and is not a profiteering business.

Is the business getting smaller and smaller? Celebrity sideline businesses are interested and differentiated

Live streaming was once one of the ways for artists to save themselves during the cold winter of film and television. Later, half of the entertainment industry was bringing goods. Today, live streaming can no longer be regarded as a sideline for stars. It has become a standard feature of artist contracts like music and film contracts.

2020 is called the first year of stars bringing goods. Hundreds of artists including Liu Tao, Chen He, and Zhang Yuqi walked into the live broadcast room. This period is also a period when various e-commerce platforms are racing around and seizing the minds of consumers. For inbound stars, the platform usually has traffic tilt and strong support. Stars gather together to start the business of bringing goods, which is to some extent one of the footnotes in the fierce battle in the e-commerce industry.

As the live broadcast enters the second half of the game, the audience has been disenchanted by stars bringing goods, and it has become a consensus in the industry to go beyond the top. Stars who once appeared in the live broadcast room went to different places: some people took the initiative to stop the broadcast with poor data, and some made the live broadcast and goods their second business card. For example, Jia Nailiang, the first brother of Douyin, and Dong Jie, the first sister of Xiaohongshu, live streaming and goods are now an important part of their careers.

Compared with setting up a bureau to open a store to do business, the financial and operational risks borne by bringing goods through live broadcasts are relatively lower. The stars who stayed presented more differentiated content.

Since the end of last year, stars such as Yi Nengjing, Yu Zheng, and Xu Yiyang have successively brought crystal products. Many artists admitted in the live broadcast that they brought crystals because they really liked them. It seems that celebrity sideline businesses are gradually becoming more interested.

In May last year, actor Zhu Zhu launched an environmental protection event in Beijing’s 798 Art District. Zhu Zhu and his friends used market to sell idle items. Tickets to the market are only 20 yuan, and many first-line brands are sold at about 10% off the original price. At the same time, Zhao Wenqi, the actor who plays Qin Yumo in “Love Apartment”, opened his own nail salon, and the cheapest set price was only 49 yuan.

This may not be a coincidence. Compared with heavy-capital businesses such as hot pot clothing, the investment volume of stars ‘sideline businesses today is relatively smaller, but it is more differentiated. They often have low consumption thresholds, but they are enough to reflect the celebrity’s own aesthetics, preferences and concepts.