On March 30, Sanya Haitang Bay, known as the most beautiful beach in China, ushered in the new season of Sohu News Marathon.
Sohu Company Chairman and CEO Zhang Chaoyang, with Cecilia Cheung, Tan Jing, Yang Jiulang, Wang Chenyi and other stars, and Sohu signed artists, and began challenges in different groups of 5-21 kilometers in the arms of the blue sky, sunshine and the sea. In the end, Cecilia Cheung, Tan Jing and others completed the five-kilometer challenge; Yang Jiulang, Wang Chenyi and others completed ten kilometers; and Zhang Chaoyang, Zhang Ningjiang and others completed the entire 21-kilometer journey, bringing a successful end to the event.
For Sohu, a veteran Internet company, marathon has become a metaphor that is integrated into the blood of the company's culture. Whether it is a smooth road or a mudflat, the pace will never stop. Zhang Chaoyang's personal marathon will continue to run, and Sohu's "marathon" will also move towards tomorrow with firm steps.
01
Stars shine, conveying the concept of health for the whole nation
Stars shine have always been a major highlight of the "Sohu News Marathon", and this time is no exception. We have seen the names of celebrities such as Cecilia Cheung and Tan Jing. In fact, this list is much longer, and you can see it at a glance from the launch ceremony on the morning of the 30th.
The stars participating in this Sohu Marathon include: Cecilia Cheung, Tan Jing, Yang Jiulang, Wang Chenyi, Lou Yixiao, Li Ai, Guan Ling, Jin Dachuan, Ji Lingchen, Xu Jieer, Zhang Ningjiang, Zhang Haoran, etc., and the lineup is huge. In addition, Sohu signed artists Yuan Ziming, Yan Ruihao, Zhang Yanshu, Zhang Mengru, as well as the 2020 Huyou National School Beauty Lei Minjun, Huo Jingjing and others also appeared at the launch ceremony. He can be said to be handsome men and beautiful women and brilliant stars!
Among them, Cecilia Cheung is the most popular one. She just participated in the broadcast of "Sisters Riding the Wind and Waves 2", wearing ribbons and dreadlocks, which is very beautiful and looks even more graceful. As soon as she appeared, she cheered the audience. The new generation idol Wang Chenyi was extremely excited and danced dynamic dances to the music, bringing the atmosphere to the scene. Speaking of the goal of this running, the confident Wang Chenyi said that he would "fight for ten guarantees five." Actor Lou Yixiao was a national second-level athlete before, and she said she would do her best to run a marathon for the first time. In the end, both of them successfully ran the 10 kilometers, and Cecilia Cheung successfully completed the 5 kilometers project.
Sohu News has a huge influence as a famous domestic Internet media, and many celebrities have different fan appeals. The two are superimposed together, which has a huge communication effect, popularizing the concept of national fitness.
The importance of celebrity blessing lies in spreading Sohu news Marathon's concept of calling for national fitness. Zhang Chaoyang revealed, "We also told the celebrities that on the one hand, you must complete the running and run according to the movements you prescribe... The most important thing is posture and attitude. During live broadcast, you must spread this kind of sports concept through your star effect."
When summarizing the success of the Sohu News Marathon in the 13th season , Zhang Chaoyang said, "On the one hand, it is Sohu media platform, plus celebrities. The characteristic of our event is that it is a communication, so it leads to a lot of attention, and the live broadcast room is also unprecedentedly popular and socially disseminated."
This year runners signed up for the Sohu News Marathon joint event - "Sanya Star Run • Wind and Wind Break Online Racing" was very jumping, with a total of more than 150,000 people. Their professions are different, from all over the country and distributed in different age groups, and fully reflect the purpose of Sohu News Marathon national fitness.
02
New elements of social and live broadcast, creating a large-scale celebrity reality show
Compared with previous years, this year's "Sohu News Marathon" has added a lot of technological and operational innovations, bringing new atmosphere and more joy to the event. The most obvious one of
is the enhancement of social attributes. As an information APP, Sohu News has increased community culture construction in recent years, and user attention flow and information flow have formed a good complement. During the process of participating in this event, celebrity idols posted updates through Sohu News client, sharing every detail of activities, work or life, and interacting with fans online.
Cecilia Cheung looked very excited to sign in at the launch ceremony, and then posted beautiful photos on the Sohu News client's follow-up stream and posted new updates: "The sun is just right, on the road." This graphic and text update was quickly praised by Sohu netizens. They left messages "Come on", praising her "beautiful", and said with relief, "The beauty I like is back in the sun!"
This year's social behavior of celebrities has narrowed the distance between them and fans and Sohu netizens, adding a lot of fun and attention to the Sohu News Marathon, making the sense of participation increase and the overall atmosphere stronger.
Another important change is the addition of live broadcast elements. Since deepening the live broadcast of value, Sohu has repeatedly innovated in program production and tasted the sweetness of the live broadcast. Therefore, this season's marathon invited Cecilia Cheung, Tan Jing and other stars to broadcast live, creating a new wave of live variety shows.
Sohu Video provides full live broadcast technical support for this season's marathon event. In addition to the official account of Sohu News, the live broadcast also has the personal accounts of celebrity idols. Through Sohu Video, users can not only see the official live reports, but also watch everything that is happening to their idols, and even interact in real time.
As one of the "100 Stars Live Variety Shows" series of activities that Sohu Video focuses on creating this year, this season's marathon event, Cecilia Cheung, Tan Jing and many other celebrities broadcast the running process on Sohu Video, presenting the lively scene of "100 Stars Live Variety Shows". Together, they built the entire marathon live broadcast into a wonderful and joyful large-scale variety show live show.
marathon + live broadcast reflects the healthy beauty of "live broadcast + exercise" and aims to promote the national fitness trend. In the midst of joy, the concept of national fitness was silently conveyed to netizens, and the actual communication effect was far beyond expectations.
Zhang Chaoyang specifically mentioned the significance of live broadcast to Sohu News Marathon. "Now, we are moving towards image-based live broadcasting. Sohu Video's live broadcast iteration product technology is still good in 2020." Zhang Chaoyang said, "Now any event has become an event, and the audience who watch live broadcasts on the event site and online form a larger-scale interaction. So, this is a feature that makes us a relatively old event brand with a long history regain its glory because of live broadcast."
He also believes that live broadcast has even promoted the development of Sohu products, including Sohu Video and Sohu News Client. Taking this marathon as an example, celebrities not only set up follow-up streams on Sohu News client, but also do live broadcasts on Sohu Video. In the Sohu media platform ecosystem, live broadcast accelerates the connection and flow between celebrities, content and users.
Zhang Chaoyang said, "After the earlier show live broadcast and later e-commerce live broadcast, we regarded live broadcast as a social way, as well as the scene of large-scale events at the same time, so it is a bit of an event-based live broadcast of large-scale events, which is more prominent."
Zhang Chaoyang highly recognizes the positive role of new elements.After successfully challenging the entire 21-kilometer journey, he believed that he had already run the Sohu News Marathon, which had been in the thirteenth season, "now it is regaining its glory because of live broadcast."
03
Integration and innovation on the one hand, Sohu is gradually getting better
I don’t know if you have noticed it. In the promotion of this Sohu News Marathon, not only has Sohu News’ logo, but also Sohu Video’s logo. In the president's memory, this situation has not been the case before.
also mentioned earlier that this Sohu News Marathon introduced live broadcast, and the one that provides in-depth support is its brother business department - Sohu Video. In fact, it is not only Sohu Video that participated in the division of labor in this season of Sohu News Marathon, Huyou, Mobile Sohu.com and PC Sohu.com also provide support of varying degrees. It can be said that the success of this season's Sohu News Marathon is a great achievement achieved by Sohu News through the joint cooperation of brother departments, and it is also the re-implementation of the "value live broadcast" proposed by Zhang Chaoyang since last year.
In recent years, Sohu has carried out strategic transformation under the leadership of Zhang Chaoyang. Sohu re-polished the golden signboard of the media as its positioning, and used PC Sohu.com, mobile Sohu.com, Sohu News Client, Sohu Video, and Huyou as the basic business base. They are the core strategic businesses that Sohu has high expectations. Zhang Chaoyang has repeatedly emphasized that as long as these five major businesses are made bigger and stronger, Sohu's revival strategy can be basically realized.
Judging from the 13th Sohu News Marathon, Sohu Videos, Fox Friends and others helped to carry the sedan chair, and they cooperated tacitly and were very efficient. It reflects the organic relationship between Sohu's internal business section collaboration, and also means Zhang Chaoyang's success in the transformation and upgrading of Sohu's organizational structure. The collaboration of the five major businesses of
is not only reflected in efficiency improvement, but also in cost control. Sohu's 2020 financial report shows that its business gross profit margin has increased significantly year-on-year. Under the US General Accounting Standards and non-US General Accounting Standards, Sohu's gross profit margin in 2020 was 79%, and in the same period of 2019, a significant increase. This shows that Sohu's operating costs have dropped significantly, thereby increasing gross profit margin, which is based on Zhang Chaoyang's successful internal integration.
While internally integrating, Sohu adheres to the strategy of business innovation to improve content quality and core competitiveness. In addition to making efforts in live variety shows and short videos, Sohu's persistence and innovation in the field of long videos has also gained a lot. In early 2021, many Sohu self-made dramas such as "Intimate Player" and "My Pet General" have been launched. Zhang Chaoyang said that Sohu Video has taken another path, and the self-produced drama strategy of "small but beautiful" and "small and refined" that Sohu has always adhered to has begun to show results.
As the five major business collaboration and business innovation gradually improve, Sohu's performance is getting better and better. According to the financial report, Sohu not only made a profit of US$51 million in 2020, but also achieved double growth in revenue and profit in Q4, exceeding market expectations. This means that this old Internet company has completely emerged from the fatigue of previous years and has entered a track of healthy and healthy development.
04
adheres to the concept of health. Sohu is in the long-distance running
At the launch ceremony, Zhang Chaoyang was asked why he loved running so much. He said: "Running makes people grow in the opposite direction." This answer can be seen as a reason why Sohu can turn the "Sohu News Marathon" into a long-standing content brand.
Since the first season in May 2015, the Sohu News Marathon has been successfully held for 13 seasons.
For six years, the "Sohu News Marathon" has insisted on finding the most beautiful route in the world with the vision of "running all over China and running all over the world".Starting from Beijing Olympic Forest Park and Chaoyang Park, we went to Changbai Mountain, Lijiang, Sanya Yalong Bay, Qinghai Lake, Sun Moon Lake, Hokkaido, Macau, Seoul, Chongli, Shanghai, Wuhan, Xi'an and other places, leaving behind beautiful memories. "Sohu News Marathon" has thus become a content brand with a long history and industry influence.
In fact, for enterprises, market competition is not a marathon without an end? Sohu has been born in 1998 for 23 years. Among them, there have been youthful years, moments of highlights and glory, and loneliness and confusion. Now it has returned to the stage of passionate entrepreneurship.
Regarding the reasons why Sohu is revitalized, Zhang Chaoyang explained that, "In the past two years, the cost of the portal media platform has been greatly reduced. At the same time, the profitability of our games and Changyou has continued to maintain or even improved, which has led to the entire group being profitable. After the epidemic, in the overall macroeconomic situation, we have grown against the trend, and we will continue to advance the trend, while seeking continued innovation and explosion in products."
Sohu realizes that only by effectively reducing costs can we achieve profitability, and only by continuous innovation can we achieve sustainable development. It is this healthy mentality that has made Sohu turn losses into profits in 2020 and keep moving forward with the times.
Looking forward to the future, Zhang Chaoyang said, "Control your cash flow well, walk the road under your feet, and then no matter what changes happen, it is like running. No matter how tired you are, you will lift your foot forward and walk forward every step and every moment."
