Picture source @Visual China
Text | Photon Planet, author | Wu Kunyan, Wu Xianzhi, editor | Wang Pan
Unexpectedly, the Internet Spring Festival Gala that disappeared in 2023 is back, but this time there is no protagonist.
On January 24, JD.com officially announced that it will become an interactive platform for the 2024 CCTV Spring Festival Gala. During the gala, 100 million physical products priced at one cent will be given away through a lottery, as well as large items including cars.
However, as early as January 19, Xiaohongshu announced on its official WeChat public account that it had officially become the China Central Radio and Television Station’s “2024 Spring Festival Gala” notes and live broadcast sharing platform. Its core gameplay is in addition to the exposure in front and behind the scenes of the Spring Festival Gala within the content ecosystem and the interactive gameplay "Everyone's Spring Festival" before and after the gala. More importantly, it is the real-time interactive "Watch and Buy" of the Spring Festival Gala that attempts to mature the e-commerce ecosystem.
It should be noted that JD.com has become a Spring Festival Gala cooperation platform for the second time after 2022. Although these two platforms are currently the only confirmed partners of the Spring Festival Gala, we do not rule out that more Spring Festival Gala cooperation platforms and forms will emerge in the future. possible.
In addition, since Taobao launched in 2018, Spring Festival sponsorships have often been tied to Spring Festival Gala red envelopes, and red envelopes + e-commerce promotions have been running for many years, so people are inevitably a little fatigued. Although the path to diverting traffic to e-commerce remains the same, the red envelope factor has begun to fade away. JD.com and Xiaohongshu have not mentioned red envelopes, the most critical word in previous Internet Spring Festival Galas, in their cooperation forms and app icons.
From this point of view, the format of the Internet Spring Festival Gala that everyone has loved in the past nine years has changed, and the exclusive cooperation model that started with WeChat in 2015 has been broken. Although the Internet Spring Festival Gala promotion process is still going on, it has begun to decouple from the tiring red envelopes.
Nowadays, the Spring Festival Gala on the Internet has evolved. From the past, one giant "all-inclusive" to a new stage where multiple companies are "sharing the rain and dew". Behind this is the Spring Festival Gala's attraction to the Internet is still huge, promoting the "cooperation" of different platforms to achieve traffic peaks At the same time, everyone takes what they need, guides the flow of the Spring Festival Gala in a more cost-effective way, and uses the amount of the Spring Festival Gala.
Internet Spring Festival, nine years of joys and sorrows
The argument that "the Internet Spring Festival Gala is getting old" that has gradually emerged after nine years of promotion seems a bit too arbitrary. In fact, the Spring Festival Gala is not old, but the way of playing the Internet is getting old. To this day, the Spring Festival Gala is still a traffic peak in the Chinese world and a "vanity fair" for Internet giants.
The Spring Festival Gala has not changed color, but not many people have made good use of the Spring Festival Gala.
WeChat and Alipay are first-class players. They have not only revitalized new businesses, but also established the "new folk customs" of the Internet Spring Festival Gala. Second-rate players such as Taobao, Douyin, and Kuaishou have achieved sustained growth using real money, although they have not established a "new folk custom." Third-rate players such as JD.com and Baidu have not fully tapped into the traffic value of the Spring Festival Gala, and their help for business is limited to the Spring Festival period.
When mentioning the Internet Spring Festival Gala, we must mention WeChat and Alipay. For many years, WeChat red envelopes and Alipay’s “Five Blessings” have remained the two basic traffic highlands on the Internet during the Spring Festival. The success of
WeChat is not accidental. During the Spring Festival of 2014, the team had initially completed the "wind tunnel test" of social fission. The following year, after WeChat red envelopes were introduced to the Spring Festival Gala, on the one hand, people were curious about the two methods of "scan" and "shake"; on the other hand, they relied on social relationship links to complete the counterattack against Alipay. If Jiugongge is not opened later, such as giving Pinduoduo the opportunity for social fission, it will be difficult for WeChat to survive alone.
A year later, Alipay acted as a defender, sponsoring red envelopes for the Spring Festival Gala and maintaining user habits, but it was difficult to prevent WeChat from intervening in payments. However, as WeChat stopped issuing red envelopes and switched to using red envelopes, Alipay, through years of persistence and simple collection, established the new folk custom of "collecting five blessings" in the hearts of the people.
"Every beautiful woman has a statue of Prince Charming in her heart, and what the suitor has to do is to smash it and erect his own statue." Applying Nietzsche's logic, everyone has a Spring Festival Gala and a red envelope in their heart, and latecomers What needs to be done is to break the rules and establish a new order.
Unfortunately, after 2016, all latecomers did not focus on creating red envelope gameplay that is closely related to the Spring Festival mentality, but focused too much on diverting traffic for their own business.
In 2018, Luo Zhenyu’s acquisition was blocked from the threshold of the Spring Festival Gala - a monthly living of more than 100 million. This rule destined that the Internet Spring Festival was only a battlefield for giants. Looking back, Taobao, which won the Spring Festival Gala back then, single-handedly took the Internet Spring Festival Gala red envelopes completely astray - using e-commerce to recover the coins that were thrown away. The Spring Festival Gala cooperation began to be strongly tied to red envelopes, setting the precedent for red envelopes + e-commerce promotions.
Therefore, with the exception of Baidu, which lost out in 2019, Douyin and Kuaishou, including JD.com and the "upstart" Xiaohongshu, which became partners of the Spring Festival Gala for the second time, have not been able to completely get rid of the rut of diverting traffic into e-commerce and promoted the big Facilitation goes one step further. So much so that regardless of whether they are sponsoring the Spring Festival Gala or not, every company will stick to the old rules and tag their application icons with huge red envelopes in an attempt to gain a chance.
For a time, red envelopes were everywhere, and the complicated gameplay gradually made users tired.
The reason why new folk customs have not been formed since WeChat and Alipay is actually very simple. The Spring Festival Gala cannot be handled by a national-level app, but it lacks a gameplay that can be highly bound to the minds of Chinese people during the Spring Festival. Regardless of the old giants such as Taobao, Baidu, JD.com, or the later Doukuai, they all lack an emotional catharsis that is closely related to the Spring Festival. For WeChat, it is social expression, and for Alipay, it is the blessing of eating the "first crab". And the sense of reward from opening the red envelope.
JD.com in 2022 is a typical case of not fully exploring the Spring Festival Gala.
The failure of JD.com two years ago was due to the complete copying of e-commerce logic and the thorough promotion of red envelopes. The much-criticized e-commerce promotions, long cycles and complex gameplay have already made users tired. Red envelopes will either be converted into Jingdong consumer coupons or payment will be enabled, following Baidu's footsteps. Moreover, this failure proves that the service ecology of e-commerce + logistics + payment can only be transformed temporarily, but cannot put a mental imprint on the Internet Spring Festival.
Until this year, platforms had quite innovative ideas in eliminating red envelopes in gameplay. Sponsorships from multiple manufacturers could also fully tap the commercial value of the Spring Festival Gala. Xiaohongshu may hope to break through the ceiling between communities and e-commerce. It has new variables in communities, but where are the variables of JD.com that flow into the same river?
JD.com once again talks about "big supplement pills"
If we can extract the biggest difference between JD.com and itself two years ago, low price should be the core label. The will to "never lie flat" conveyed on the intranet late last year may start from the Spring Festival Gala of the Year of the Dragon.
According to "latepost", in this Spring Festival Gala sponsorship, JD.com will use the JD.com app as the main website, linking almost all of JD.com's businesses to launch interactive draws. Moreover, the scope of the interactive lottery will cover overseas, and JD.com is internally discussing how to send the prizes "overseas" with free shipping.
From the above information, it can be seen that JD.com’s Spring Festival Gala sponsorship includes the following key points: purchasing goods for one penny, participating in the Spring Festival Gala interaction with almost all business lines, and trying to cover overseas markets. These three points are closely related to the group's three major strategies proposed by Xu Ran at JD.com's 20th anniversary event: sinking the market, technical services and international business.
Generally speaking, in order to make full use of the traffic peak of the Spring Festival Gala, platforms usually choose to focus on a small number of businesses with potential and room for growth. JD.com’s “go big and fast” this time just proves that it has begun to seize all possible growth opportunities. , fully tap the commercial value of the Spring Festival Gala.
Indeed, compared to the complex coupons in 2022, the crude and simple one-cent purchase can better convey the low-price mentality. JD.com, which has comprehensively promoted its low-price strategy, launched tens of billions of subsidies last year, opened up pop investment, and its organization has already begun to speed up, just waiting for the business to reach users.
Therefore, even though the Spring Festival period is already recognized as a low point in consumption in the industry, JD.com once again climbed onto the Spring Festival Gala.
Another interesting data is that JD.com’s financial report shows that its net inventory value in 2023q3 was 64.6 billion yuan, a slight increase of 1.5% month-on-month. Even though its Q3 inventory turnover days reached 30.8 days, its self-built warehouses are still under pressure as the turnover rate continues to accelerate.Canceling the form of red envelope consumption coupons and replacing them with physical items is also driven by the demand for destocking.
As for the special mention of the free shipping service for prizes provided to overseas Spring Festival Gala audiences, it implies JD.com’s intention to expand its overseas contract fulfillment capabilities and expand the scope of its system.
As China’s business overseas becomes more mature, the development of cross-border e-commerce drives the logistics industry to internationalize, and JD.com is also making frequent moves in building overseas logistics systems. The results of its self-built overseas warehouses and international routes in the United States, Germany, France, the United Kingdom and other places are reflected in the "International Express Delivery" service launched by JD Logistics at the end of last year.
Nowadays, early players such as SF Express, Cainiao, and Jitu have begun to open their books, and JD.com’s logistics system, which mainly builds self-built warehouses, may not be able to generate positive blood supply capabilities in a short period of time. It is reported that Cainiao has deployed six smart logistics hubs around the world, and has joined forces with AliExpress to launch "Global 5-Day Delivery"; the 54 international routes opened by SF Express in Ezhou also need to be caught up by JD.com.
Jingdong Logistics proposed that in the next three years, it will build a supply chain logistics network covering major countries around the world. Xu Ran also said that in the next twenty years, Jingdong's supply chain services will basically achieve global coverage. Different logistics system construction goals require huge order volume to drive growth. The overseas Chinese reached by the Spring Festival Gala is a shortcut that JD.com thought of.
Looking back, although JD.com’s gameplay this time is different from that in 2022, the new ideas are also limited - JD.com has not escaped from the e-commerce platform’s three ways of active platform transactions, activating the logistics system and destocking in response to traffic peaks. . After all, if you pay for something for a penny, you still buy it, not give it away.
If you just look at the lottery itself, it can be said that JD.com is completely losing money and making money - the replacement of inventory assets may reach consumers' low-price mentality. But this is actually a "small calculation" made by JD.com within its own system.
An industry insider told Photon Planet that different merchants entering JD’s supply chain system need to pay usage fees ranging from 15% to 25% of the total value of goods. Although the rates are similar to other platforms’ costs including marketing expenses, they are JD.com also requires merchants to pay an additional fee called gross profit guarantee (gross profit guarantee) based on a certain percentage of the supply price, which can be regarded as an advance payment of the gross profit income of goods sold on JD.com’s platform.
"Gross guarantee is dead, but price is alive. The provisions on gross margin in JD.com's distribution agreement are very restrictive for merchants."
It can be seen that merchants not only need to bear most of the losses caused by JD.com's promotion of low-price strategy, Moreover, merchants’ products sold on other platforms or channels will also encounter their own “smashes”.
Moreover, the branded products given away have almost no opportunities for brand exposure and marketing during the Spring Festival Gala. It is not difficult to see that the one-cent products given out by JD.com in the Year of the Dragon Spring Festival Gala are more of "generousness to others". This may be one of the reasons why JD.com’s net profit attributable to its parent company in Q3 last year increased by 31.7% year-on-year despite accelerating low-price.
The Spring Festival Gala brings you in, and cultivation depends on the individual. JD.com, which failed to catch the "flooding wealth" in 2022, chose to eliminate red envelopes from giving away money this year. This may be a correction of its past route, and it also eliminates the old shortcomings of the Internet Spring Festival Gala.
JD.com’s “Stress Test”
Film critic David Bordwell once described the impression that Hong Kong movies leave on audiences as “all crazy, all excessive”. However, this rhetoric is no longer able to please the mainland and even the global market. The audience, just like throwing coins, also faces the situation of aesthetic fatigue. Players of
are betting on 10 or even 20 small goals. After being flattened out by users, the average per capita is only a few cents, and the mode does not include "shake" and "collect five blessings". The cry of "Don't play if you can't afford it" is in conflict with the main line of cost reduction and efficiency improvement. Neither users nor major manufacturers are satisfied with their respective gains.
We do not deny that the existence of red envelopes grafted by the Internet is necessary - only real benefits can encourage users to give up watching the Spring Festival Gala, playing King of Kings and other entertainment activities to download and use the app when the family is reunited, but the form is indeed Change and iteration are required.
Even so, how much increment can JD.com obtain through a new round of currency disbursement? It is an industry consensus that
e-commerce has entered the existing market. JD.com and Alibaba have hidden user scale data in their 2022q4 financial report disclosures nearly a year ago. Behind the low prices is that the platforms are stealing food from others. As we all know, the key point in this round of war is whether the platform’s low prices can penetrate into the minds of users. The difference in JD’s strategies is the biggest difference between its sponsorship of the Year of the Dragon Spring Festival Gala and the Year of the Tiger Spring Festival Gala.
An obvious fact is that JD.com, which has been offering hundreds of supplements for more than half a year, is still suffering from the low price of the platform and its inability to reach users. Various disturbances related to JD in the second half of the year, such as the "JD Procurement and Sales Live Room", "Pinduoduo", and Xu Ran's expression of hope that more users will compare prices across platforms, are all footnotes.
From this point of view, the Spring Festival Gala is indeed a "megaphone" that reaches the whole people. For JD.com itself, participating in the Spring Festival Gala for the second time is more like an internal "stress test." The first thing
bears the brunt of is the contract fulfillment capabilities behind the delivery of prizes, covering domestic and overseas regions. Most merchants, factories and couriers in the industry still need to ensure delivery time when they return to their hometowns. Moreover, during the Spring Festival, there is also Valentine's Day, when fresh food delivery is urgently needed, which shows that the logistics system is about to face pressure.
The other aspect is the degree of cooperation of merchants under the gross guarantee. Take the Hai's oven amid the JD.com purchasing and sales controversy as an example. It stated to the outside world that "JD.com forced merchants to reduce prices, and without the consent of the brand, it changed the price of the brand's products on the JD.com platform." The message is undoubtedly gross guarantee + price reduction. A kind of backlash. Even on the consumer side, many users have begun to complain on social media that JD.com's reduced-price products have "no price guarantee" and "tough customer service." There are bound to be pains during the transformation of
's low-price strategy. The participation of Hongfeng in the Spring Festival Gala seems to be "complete in one battle." Only through adjustments such as low-price mentality and open ecological strategy throughout 2023 will it be possible to begin to release positive value.
It is undeniable that sponsoring the Spring Festival Gala is the only way for a giant. From Tencent to JD.com, except for Pinduoduo, which missed out, all other sponsors can at least become one. The gap of one year is just an accident, and the changes and changes in the format are just the business drivers of the sponsors. The Internet Spring Festival Gala is not dead yet, and the Spring Festival Gala still has great appeal to major companies.
