Who split the flow of the Spring Festival Gala red envelopes?

To eat the “flow seats” of the Spring Festival Gala, you can’t just rely on red envelopes.

Text | Alphabet List, Authors | Bi Andi, Yan Fei, Editors | Wang Jing

During the Spring Festival Gala of the Year of the Tiger, people’s enthusiasm for grabbing red envelopes seems to have declined.

This year, JD.com won the red envelope cooperation of the Spring Festival Gala with 1.5 billion yuan. Official data shows that during the Spring Festival Gala, the cumulative number of Chinese people around the world participating in the red envelopes of the JD APP reached 69.1 billion times. Although this number is high, it has dropped significantly compared to previous years.

Official data shows that in the 2020 Spring Festival Gala, Kuaishou issued 1 billion yuan of red envelopes, and the number of red envelope interactions reached 63.9 billion; in 2021, when Douyin took over, 1.2 billion yuan of red envelopes were issued on the evening of the Spring Festival Gala, and the total number of interactions was 70.3 billion.

This year’s data is not as good as in previous years, not only because of the obvious difference in platform volume – the daily activity of the short video platform is obviously higher than that of JD.com, and the different companies have different ways of grabbing red envelopes, which lead to the deviation of the user’s action frequency, let alone the uneven quality of the Spring Festival Gala itself. However, the freshness of the red envelopes of the Spring Festival Gala gradually dissipated, which is also a noteworthy change.

Linking with the live broadcast of the Spring Festival Gala on the main station, and guiding users to grab red envelopes through the host’s oral broadcast, has always been the standard mode of cooperation between the Internet platform and the Spring Festival Gala. This model was pioneered by WeChat and Alipay, and evolved to perfection in the following seven or eight years.

This year’s Spring Festival Gala, JD.com took out 1.5 billion red envelopes and commodities. Jingdong’s red envelopes and brand red envelopes were distributed together, and real prizes were set. There were seven rounds of interaction with the Spring Festival Gala. Sincerity is not lacking.

However, it is difficult to reproduce the grand occasion of “people grabbing red envelopes” after the cooperation between WeChat and Alipay in 2015 and the Spring Festival Gala in 2016. In fact, starting from Baidu, sponsoring the Spring Festival Gala is hardly a cost-effective business for Internet giants. The total interaction volume has dropped back below 70 billion times, which is an intuitive reflection of the continued fading of the popularity.

In addition, on social platforms such as Weibo and WeChat, whether it is the activities such as Alipay’s five blessings set a year ago, or the discussion of Jingdong’s red envelopes on New Year’s Eve, it is not very enthusiastic.

Especially the young people born in the 95s and 00s, compared to watching the Spring Festival Gala and grabbing red envelopes, there are still many “lively” waiting for them. Young people, who are the main force of netizens, turned their attention to other forms of entertainment on New Year’s Eve.

Alphabet chatted with 6 young people born in the 90s, 4 of them watched the Spring Festival Gala, but “didn’t watch it carefully”, and only 1 participated in the interactive activities between the Spring Festival Gala and JD.com. The other two did not watch the Spring Festival Gala, but were playing games: one played VRChat, the representative game of the Metaverse, and the other played “Honor of Kings”.

In addition, participating in the Spring Festival activities of the mobile game, sending blessings on WeChat to grab the lucky bag, and receiving the exclusive red envelope cover… There are too many entertainment methods full of New Year flavors, which divert the attention and traffic of the Spring Festival Gala red envelopes.

The red envelopes of the Spring Festival Gala once attracted a large number of young people. Now, after eight years of this method, it has shown fatigue. However, the traffic of the Spring Festival Gala is still strong, and Internet companies need to find new ways to mine traffic other than the red envelopes of the Spring Festival Gala.

Playing mobile games is one of the main pastimes of many young people on New Year’s Eve. In addition, the Spring Festival is an important event node for game companies every year. Players’ enthusiasm for consumption is high, which can pull a wave of water. During the Spring Festival this year, the competition among game makers was extremely fierce, which objectively formed a diversion of the Spring Festival Gala red envelope gameplay.

On New Year’s Eve, people who usually love to play two mobile games have long been fully arranged. For example, “Honor of Kings” officially launched five limited skins on New Year’s Eve, plus the returning skins, a total of 9 skins were launched at 0:00 on New Year’s Eve; another example is the Spring Festival event of “Yuan Shen” called “Flying Colors and Fleeting Years”, from From January 25th to February 12th, the global synchronization.

In addition, game companies attach great importance to the secondary creation during the Spring Festival, and have launched their own “Spring Festival Gala”.

On January 21, “Yuan Shen” and “New Year’s Eve 2022” topped the hot search list at Station B and received 510,000 likes. Tencent Games held the “Game Spring Festival Gala” on the video account from January 27 to 30. A total of 10 games participated. In addition to its own “Glory of the King”, “Peace Elite”, “League of Legends Mobile Games”, etc., “Yuan Shen” also participated. in.

In addition to playing games, many young people are still watching the Spring Festival Gala, but they are watching the “Second Dimension Spring Festival Gala”.

Station B broadcasts “New Year’s Eve” on New Year’s Eve, which is equivalent to the platform’s own official Spring Festival Gala, including three hours of original programs. Originally, the event was called “New Year’s Eve”, and it was dominated by two-dimensional elements from the outside to the inside. With the platform breaking the circle, Station B changed the name of the event last year, made compromises on the content, and began to add more products that meet the public’s taste. content. As of 10 a.m. today, there are 18.62 million broadcasts and 157,000 barrages for the New Year’s Eve in 2022.

In addition, station B mobilized UP masters to live broadcast on New Year’s Eve. Among them, the game division performed the strongest. The first and third places in the total live broadcast ranking of station B that night were occupied by the game live broadcast. With the lottery, red envelopes and other benefits, it was like a small circle of Spring Festival Gala.

In contrast, young people’s enthusiasm for activities such as grabbing red envelopes and collecting five blessings is waning.

Among the 6 young people contacted by the alphabet list, 5 still participated in the Alipay “collection of five blessings” activities early, but did not share them on social media. Respondents said that this year’s collection of five blessings is easier than in previous years, and the amount of red envelopes received from the New Year’s Eve lottery draw is also less than last year.

“It’s boring.” More than one interviewee said so when talking about the Spring Festival red envelopes.

A 24-year-old interviewee who participated in the interaction of JD.com’s Spring Festival Gala also said that, except for brand coupons, the “no threshold coupons” he received were all below 2 yuan, which could only be used to purchase goods on the platform, and could not be withdrawn.

A user told Alphabet that he tried to participate in the JD.com Spring Festival Gala interaction during the Spring Festival Gala. However, after going to the designated product page, I found that several products themselves are in the Spring Festival event, and a total of 150 yuan coupons can be received. The coupons of this event are more powerful than those offered on New Year’s Eve, and the two coupons cannot be superimposed.

However, although they do not like to grab red envelopes, the red envelope cover that WeChat has vigorously promoted before is still sought after by many people. Especially the limited editions of some big brands, because there are too many people grabbing the cover at the same time, there is even a server downtime.

This also reflects from the side that what users are interested in is not the three or five dollars in the red envelope, but the freshness and social satisfaction surrounding the red envelope. The cover of the red envelope, which is essentially worthless, was snapped up, but it continued the sensation when the red envelope was just unveiled many years ago.

The attention of young people is diverted by the content of mobile games, two-dimensional Spring Festival Gala, red envelope covers, etc., so that the magic power of the red envelopes of the Spring Festival Gala has been further subsided.

In 2014, the first year of the Spring Festival Gala’s red envelopes, WeChat used this method to guide viewers on large TV screens to small screens on mobile phones, converting them into new users of WeChat Pay. In the second year, WeChat red envelopes won a big victory, and the total number of first launches on New Year’s Eve exceeded 1 billion.

After Jack Ma’s sigh of “attack on Pearl Harbor”, Alipay spent a lot of money to win the right to cooperate with the Spring Festival Gala from 2016 to 2018, and performed the magic of “collecting five blessings”, which was also a great success.

The red envelopes of the Spring Festival Gala allowed WeChat Pay to complete new KPIs, and the number of users jumped from one million to hundreds of millions. It also allowed Alipay to improve the shortcomings of the social relationship chain and blocked the menacing WeChat Pay. Today, the two major payment tools occupy half of the domestic mobile payment market respectively, and the red envelopes of the Spring Festival Gala are very useful.

Copycats flocked. Since 2019, Baidu, Kuaishou, Douyin and JD.com have successively sat on the “Iron Throne”. However, after WeChat and Alipay, no one has been able to successfully reproduce the magic of the year. The Spring Festival Gala Red Packet Battle Reports released by major companies are particularly gorgeous, but most of them have failed to achieve their strategic goals.

Baidu became a partner of the Spring Festival Gala red envelopes in 2019, with a total amount of up to 1 billion yuan. Data released by Baidu shows that on New Year’s Eve, the DAU (daily active users) of Baidu APP increased from 160 million to 300 million, and the effect was immediate.

However, most of the users did not stay on Baidu after “picking the wool”. After the red envelope activity, the DAU of Baidu APP turned down and finally returned to the level before the Spring Festival.

By 2020, Kuaishou will take over Baidu and become a new partner of the Spring Festival Gala red envelopes. According to 36 Krypton and other media reports, in order to avoid repeating the same mistakes, Kuaishou particularly emphasized the quality of the content of this cooperation, the goal is to ensure retention, and the “average DAU three months after the festival will reach 300 million” as an important goal.

But it backfired. Kuaishou financial report data shows that in the third quarter of 2020, the average DAU of Kuaishou was 270 million, which is still a long way from 300 million. In contrast, Douyin’s DAU exceeded 600 million in August of the same year, further widening the gap with Kuaishou.

Even Douyin failed to really play the Spring Festival Gala red envelopes.

At the beginning of 2021, Pinduoduo withdrew, and Douyin hurriedly took over the Spring Festival Gala red envelope cooperation. During the Spring Festival, the amount of red envelopes rose to 2 billion yuan, including the 1.2 billion yuan distributed during the Spring Festival Gala. Afterwards, Douyin released data saying that the total number of interactions of the Spring Festival Gala red envelopes exceeded 70 billion, and the cumulative number of viewers in the live broadcast room exceeded 1.2 billion.

However, Douyin did not take the opportunity to achieve breakthroughs in emerging business sectors such as payment and e-commerce. In particular, Douyin Payment, which has just been launched for a month, despite the strong blessing of the Spring Festival Gala red envelopes, it has not stood out, and failed to pose a substantial challenge to the status of WeChat Pay and Alipay.

On the other hand, driven by the high degree of introversion of Internet companies, the sponsorship amount of the Spring Festival Gala red envelopes has risen from hundreds of millions of yuan to more than 2 billion yuan, but the effect is difficult to reproduce the sensation of the year, and the cost performance is declining.

It is becoming more and more difficult for enterprises to achieve ideal results, and users are becoming more and more tired.

Seven or eight years ago, users only needed to shake their mobile phones or keep an eye on WeChat groups to grab a lot of red envelopes. But after many iterations, today’s Spring Festival Gala red envelope gameplay has become very complicated.

Taking this year’s Spring Festival as an example, when grabbing red envelopes, users not only have to wait on time, but also increase their chances by collecting virtual cards, playing games, etc. In the withdrawal link, major platforms have set various thresholds, including accumulating a certain amount of money before withdrawing, and withdrawing only the next day. The user only got three or five yuan after one operation, and the attractiveness dropped significantly.

The effect of conversion and retention is unpredictable, the enthusiasm of users to participate has subsided, and the red envelopes of the Spring Festival Gala seem to have reached an inflection point. Participants are already making conscious changes.

The first is that the total amount of red envelopes has shrunk significantly.

In the Spring Festival of 2021, the red envelope battle of Internet companies is highly introverted and compared with each other. According to incomplete statistics, major platforms have sent a total of 18.1 billion red envelopes, a record high. But this year’s Spring Festival, this figure has dropped sharply to about 8 billion yuan.

In addition, this year, most companies no longer emphasize the total amount of red envelopes. Only JD.com and Kuaishou announced the total scale of 1.5 billion yuan and 2.2 billion yuan respectively. Last year, major companies scrambled to put the total amount of red envelopes on the logo of their own APPs, striving to overwhelm their opponents.

Secondly, in addition to the Spring Festival Gala at the main station, Internet companies have invested more resources in the Spring Festival Gala at local stations to avoid putting all their eggs in one basket.

Douyin was the red envelope partner of the Spring Festival Gala last year, and also sponsored the Spring Festival Gala in Liaoning, Beijing, Hunan and other local stations. This year, Douyin failed to win the Spring Festival Gala on the main station, but it still maintained its investment in local stations. Kuaishou also regards local satellite TV as an important position. At the end of January, it announced that it has reached a cooperation with 11 provincial and municipal satellite TV Spring Festival Gala.

However, when fighting for cooperation with local stations, Doukuai’s strategy is obviously different.

Douyin’s cooperation focuses on first-line local stations. According to the statistics of the media data service provider “Whale Platform”, Liaoning and Beijing Satellite TV, which Douyin has joined hands with in the past two years, have occupied the top two ratings of the local Taiwan Spring Festival Gala for five consecutive years, about 1.5%~2%; Dragon TV, Hunan Satellite TV, etc. around 1% ratings.

Kuaishou wins by the number of cooperation. In the Spring Festival of 2021, Kuaishou has reached cooperation with 10 second-tier TV stations for the Spring Festival Gala, and this year the number has risen to 11, including local stations in Anhui, Shandong, Fujian, Guangdong and other places, and even Zhengzhou TV station. This may be the case that Kuaishou has to take the next step when the funds are difficult to match Douyin.

Among other Internet companies, Tmall named the Henan Spring Festival Gala and made its exclusive online premiere through Youku, which is also affiliated with Alibaba; Pinduoduo named the Spring Festival Gala of the main station; Station B took a different approach and broadcasted it on New Year’s Eve for up to 3 hours. ‘s self-made show “Saying the Years”.

Finally, when major companies cooperate with the Spring Festival Gala, they pursue more straightforward results, which is very different from the product announcement logic of “spending money to earn shoutouts” in previous years.

Taking Douyin and Kuaishou as examples, the two short video platforms have arranged for outstanding creators to appear on the Spring Festival Gala to help the top Vs to further expand their influence. For example, the Douyin blogger “Classmate Zhang”, who suddenly became popular last year, performed a sketch with the well-known actor Guo Donglin on the Liaoning Spring Festival Gala; Kuaishou also sent more than ten talents to the stage of the Spring Festival Gala in various places.

E-commerce platforms are more direct, trying to turn sponsorship into a big promotion. After JD.com won the right to cooperate with the headquarters of the Spring Festival Gala, it planned a new New Year’s Day before the Spring Festival, and shouted the slogan “No closing for the New Year”. Tmall put the cultural and creative product “Reunion Spring Bowl” in the Year of the Tiger on Henan Satellite TV to create momentum for the time-honored business of Tmall Supermarket.

WeChat is trying to add fire to the live video account through the Spring Festival Gala. It won the “exclusive cooperation platform for watching the Spring Festival Gala on a vertical screen”, and also launched the exclusive red envelope cover of the Spring Festival Gala, with a total of 120 million views in the live broadcast room that night.

Behind the various “concave postures” is the new exploration of Internet companies on how to make good use of the bonus of the Spring Festival Gala.

As one of the highest-rated TV programs in China, the Spring Festival Gala will remain a battleground for Internet companies. However, after investing a lot of money, how to undertake, convert and retain traffic has always been a must-answer question for major companies.

In the process, the Spring Festival Gala red envelopes used to be a surprise soldier, and overnight, people all over the country learned mobile payment; but after “returning” again and again, this set of gameplay seems a bit outdated, and the effect is not as good as it was in the past. Although there are a lot of new ways to play, no one has stood out yet, and the Internet company’s journey of exploration will continue.