In the summer of 2021, the Chinese government launched a sweeping ban on private tutoring services including shutting down online English language learning.
The policy, known as ‘Shuang Jian’, tipped thousands of tutoring companies into bankruptcy overnight, resulting in tens of thousands of layoffs and millions of dollars wiped off many of China’s biggest private education companies.
Dong Yuhui was an online tutor at Koolearn, a subsidiary of New Oriental, the giant Chinese education company that offers online exam preparation courses and overseas counselling products.
Like many teachers he faced an uncertain future and attempted to reinvent himself by selling products during livestreams on China’s version of TikTok, called Douyin.
While he wasn’t much of a salesman, his eight years of teaching experience shone through. He found himself explaining products to his online audience as he might explain English vocab to his pupils.
One clip of Dong introducing steaks in both Chinese and English went viral on social media. While talking about the quality of the steak, Dong also taught the viewers how to order steak in English at a restaurant.
The pent-up demand for online English language tuition was huge and word spread through social media about this new source of information.
Dong’s early delivery included taking the time to write the different variations of English words for produce on a whiteboard, or to explain the cultural meaning or uses of Western products, even referencing literary greats like Shakespeare in the process.
His employer New Oriental was also watching intently and seized the opportunity. They launched the livestream channel Dongfang Zhenxuan, or ‘Oriental Select’, on Douyin and Dong became the star presenter.
The channel was an immediate success. According to the Economic View, the new channel’s Douyin account gained 1.57 million new followers in the three days and sold $2.64 million worth of products in the same period.
New Oriental Education & Technology Group’s pivoted the digital resources of Koolearn into new subsidiary East Buy and stock spiked 25% on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
Dong told the South China Morning Post, “I was pretty sad knowing that I can no longer teach. It took a while for me to adjust to the new role [as shopping channel host].”
But adjust he did and in many ways his teaching continued. A further twist to the story catapulted him into mainstream stardom.
In December 2023, senior executives at East Buy claimed credit for the script writing and the popular educational content that had become Oriental Select’s signature style of reverse-sales marketing.
Dong’s legions of fans were infuriated that others were taking credit for his work and internet forums went into meltdown in his defence. CEO Sun Dongxu publicly criticised the culture of fandom around his presenters, resulting in a 13% drop in share value.
Again, New Oriental were closely monitoring the situation and saw the opportunity in the adversity. It sacked East Buy’s CEO and installed Dong Yuhui in his place.
The Chinese mainstream media were fascinated as to how an experienced businessman could be replaced by a social media influencer as the leader of a company. TV interviews and long-reads in the newspapers followed and Dong’s celebrity was complete.
The PIE’s China correspondent Rongrong Walker put it simply, saying “everyone knows him [Dong] in China.”
While he wasn’t much of a salesman, his eight years of teaching experience shone through
2024 has been marked by the launch of Dong’s own channel ‘Walking with Hui’ with a total of 54.31 million people tuning into the first four hour livestream and taking over 100 million RMB in product sales.
Necessity is the mother of invention – ironic given Dong’s fans call themselves the ‘mother-in-laws’.
The collapse of the digital English teaching market in China spawned a whole new category of ELT sales TV – converting demand for English language learning into physical product sales on an enormous scale.
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