◼ BUSINESS Bloomberg Businessweek March 2, 2020
13electronic dance music. During a five-hour set a few
weekends ago, viewers like Li left the club 2 million
yuan ($285,000) in tips on the short video platform
Douyin, ByteDance’s Chinese version of TikTok.
“The virus has cut off some essential face-to-face
interaction with my friends, even strangers,” says Li,
- “That’s something I’ve really been missing.” To
make the streaming experience feel more real, he
ordered club-style lights from Alibaba’s Taobao e-tail
site and stocked up on whiskey. With little to do after
work, he says, “online clubbing helps kill time.”
The outbreak of Covid-19 has cut a deadly swath
across China, home to most of the 80,000 recorded
cases. Beyond the health concerns and increas-
ingly dire economic repercussions, tens of mil-
lions of people are struggling with a different type
of fallout: isolation, the result of containment mea-
sures that have forced much of China into indefi-
nite quarantine.
The most internet-friendly parts of daily life
have moved online quickly. White-collar profes-
sionals are working from home, teachers are lead-
ing lessons remotely, and shoppers are doing even
more buying online. But for nightclubs, gyms, and
other consumer businesses that depend on phys-
ical interaction and discretionary spending, live-
streaming has emerged as an awkward but effective
stopgap measure to maintain contact with custom-
ers. “People are joining some virtual communities
to seek social connection and a sense of love and
belonging,” says Xing Cai, associate professor of
psychology at People’s University of China.
Livestreaming, mostly the domain of avid gamers
in the U.S. and Europe, is popular as general enter-
tainment in China. Research firmiiMedia estimates
501 million people tuned in this year to watch a wide
range of amateur performers share their lives: some-
times just sitting in their bedroom chatting into a
camera, often for hours at a time. Increasingly, view-
ers are comfortable paying to watch or buying things
midstream. More than half of China’s livestream
audience watched a shopping broadcast in the first
half of 2019, and 40% made a purchase.
The quarantine only makes streams more
attractive. The audience for Douyin, Kuaishou,
and other apps surged to 574 million during the
Lunar New Year holiday, up 35% from 2019, accord-
ing to the consultant Questmobile. Users aver-
aged 105 minutes a day watching online videos,
vs. 78 minutes last year.
Eventually, the outbreak will subside, work
will resume, and clubs will reopen, but some ana-
lysts say this could be the moment when people
get truly comfortable working out, cooking dinner,
and partying alongside a livestream. “The recent
“People are
bored, they’re
looking for
ways to
entertain
themselves
while they’re
confined at
home”THE BOTTOM LINE With many Chinese unable to go out in public
due to coronavirus fears over the extended Lunar New Year break,
the audience for livestreaming apps jumped 35%.changes in user interest for online entertainment
and behavioral shifts could sustain for a longer
period,” says Citi internet analyst Alicia Yap.
Super Monkey, a Chinese gym with 115 locations,
said the number of active users online had recently
topped 280,000 during livestreamed classes and
boot camps. Rival chain Shape Fitness started live-
streaming workouts just days after the epidemic
began. “It helps us maintain loyalty of users who
have nowhere to go for exercise, and it’s a good
attempt for us to attract new users during this spe-
cial period,” says founder Zeng Xiang.
Cabin fever has even driven interest in virtual
tours of more than 1,000 Chinese museums offered
by 4Dage, a startup in Zhuhai that uses 3D cameras
to reconstruct spaces. In recent weeks, the tours
attracted roughly 100 million views, up from a few
thousand prior to the outbreak. The traffic spikecaught the company by surprise; it had to call its
engineers back from the New Year vacation to han-
dle the demand. “People are bored, they’re look-
ing for ways to entertain themselves while they’re
confined at home,” says 4Dage chief adviser
Matteo Pallotta. “Youngsters may be hooked on
video games, but this provides something for the
older generation.”
Maggie Liu, the owner of One Third, says the
success of the nightclub’s livestreams should build
its customer base and could create an alternative
revenue stream once it reopens. The venue is
drawing in new listeners, she says, “and turning
them into followers who could potentially fly over
to feel the vibe.” �Claire Che and Shelly Banjo