Picture source @Visual China
Text | Hedgehog Commune
The New Year is approaching, and the spirit of the New Year is in full swing. In addition to grabbing tickets for the Spring Festival, the Spring Festival Gala is still one of the most talked about topics during this period.
As of press time, the program list for the Year of the Dragon Spring Festival Gala has not yet been announced, but just a few Reuters pictures of celebrities during the rehearsal have frequently been on Weibo hot searches.
social media and short video platforms have set off a trend of "predicting topics" for the Spring Festival Gala. Netizens are busy predicting the Spring Festival Gala skits and blindly guessing the Spring Festival Gala programs, and the Spring Festival Gala marketing war has also begun.
Screenshot of Xiaohongshu
Unlike the collective absence of major Internet companies from the Spring Festival Gala in 2023, Xiaohongshu and JD.com have recently officially announced their cooperation with the Spring Festival Gala in 2024. JD.com has become the exclusive interactive cooperation platform for the Spring Festival Gala, while Xiaohongshu has become a note-taking and live broadcasting platform. sharing platform.
What can be expected is that these two major official announcements have only opened up a corner of this year's new "Spring Festival Gala Economics". Will there be a general title sponsor? Who will get the horizontal and vertical screen broadcast rights of the Spring Festival Gala? It’s yet to be revealed.
A month ago, JD.com exclusively named the "Hunan Satellite TV Mango TV New Year's Eve Party". From this point of view, the Cross-Party Gala is more like a "mock test" of the Spring Festival Gala. After practicing the Spring Festival Gala, JD.com has done enough to prepare for the Spring Festival Gala. Prepare.
It is worth noting that since the Internet platform began to cooperate with the Spring Festival Gala, it has entered the game in the form of red envelope interaction. However, this year’s official announcement copy between JD.com and Xiaohongshu did not mention the word “cash red envelope” tacitly.
Jingdong emphasized 100 million physical gifts, while Xiaohongshu pointed out that it was a "companion live broadcast". From this point of view, major Internet companies have returned to the Spring Festival Gala stage after reducing costs and increasing efficiency, and are also beginning to look for more cost-effective ways to play.
Want to "sink", but also "bring goods"
Jingdong Blackboard News said that during the Spring Festival Gala, those who log in to the Jingdong app will have the opportunity to receive 100 million physical gifts. These gifts will be given out in the form of lottery draws and only require users to pay. penny.
It is not difficult to see that the slogan "one cent" in the Spring Festival Gala is JD.com's efforts to establish a low-price mentality in the price-sensitive sinking market.
Compared with the previous Spring Festival Gala sponsors' direct sharing of cash red envelopes, JD.com's gift-giving activities have an additional payment process. Although it only costs one penny, this link can turn these 100 million good gifts into one Billions of transactions are completed within the site.
At present, it is unclear whether there will be additional conditions when paying, such as whether freight needs to be paid, whether JD.com payment needs to be activated, etc. If there is, it will be a big progress for many businesses in JD.com’s payment system.
According to a previous report by "latepost", JD.com's assessment of the revenue of the Spring Festival Gala cooperation project this time is more stringent than in 2022. It needs to examine two indicators: gmv (transaction volume) and the number of transaction users. This also reflects JD.com's return to the Spring Festival Gala stage. , with higher requirements and greater ambitions for project output.
When JD.com collaborated for the Spring Festival Gala for the first time in 2022, four rounds of red envelopes were issued starting from the 22nd of the twelfth lunar month, with a total of 1.5 billion yuan worth of red envelopes and merchandise distributed. The assessment focus that year was user activity.
Of course, JD.com has also achieved considerable results. Questmobile data shows that on New Year’s Eve in 2022, JD.com’s daily active users reached 151 million, a month-on-month increase of 81.4%.
"The cooperation between Xiaohongshu and the Spring Festival Gala is more likely to be aimed at increasing user activity."
Internet worker Xie Qian said that a few months ago, there were rumors on Maimai that Xiaohong Shu will cooperate with the 2024 Spring Festival Gala. Almost everyone believes that this step is undoubtedly the only way for Xiaohongshu users to generalize and sink.
At the beginning of 2023, Xiaohongshu exceeded the 100 million daily active mark, and the monthly active reached 260 million. According to Leifeng.com, Xiaohongshu once set a goal of reaching 140 million daily active users by the end of 2023, but Xiaohongshu’s daily active users did not exceed 120 million by the end of the year. It was speculated that the then community content leader Kappa (Tu’s name) was fired because he did not reach the target. Resign. At the beginning of 2024,
’s cooperation with the Spring Festival Gala may become a reassurance to alleviate Xiaohongshu’s growth anxiety.
Notes and live broadcast sharing platform is Xiaohongshu's first cooperation method. "Everyone's Spring Festival Gala" (Xiaohongshu accompanying live broadcast) can be roughly understood as the official social interaction platform of the Spring Festival Gala.
Specifically, Xiaohongshu set up a live broadcast room next to the Spring Festival Gala studio. Starting at 6 pm on New Year’s Eve, it will broadcast behind-the-scenes stories and interact with celebrities in real time. Most importantly, in the live broadcast room, you can directly purchase the same styles of Spring Festival Gala stars. .
Cooperation method (left) Building a live broadcast room (right)丨Source Xiaohongshu account @everyone’s Spring Festival Gala
In the vast land outside the Fifth Ring Road, the Spring Festival Gala has a large audience, and they have natural trust in the brands and products that appear on the Spring Festival Gala. and goodwill, so the Spring Festival Gala delivery can be called a golden combination of traffic and business.
Spring Festival Gala stars often have the same popular items. In the 2022 Spring Festival Gala, Zhang Xiaofei's same style coat ran out of stock in 10 minutes. In the 2023 Spring Festival Gala, Qin Lan took over from Zhang Xiaofei and became the queen of sales, and Qin Lan's same style sweater ran out of stock in 12 minutes.
After a live broadcast, the search popularity of Zhao Liying's same red dress and Yang Zi's same style of women's shoes on Taobao remained high. Many clothing brands took advantage of this unprecedented wave of wealth and achieved "win-win" in the beginning of the year.
After Xiaohongshu has made rapid progress in the e-commerce field for a year, it is naturally unwilling to miss this opportunity. On the evening of January 28, Xiaohongshu's hot search began to warm up the goods. Many bloggers spontaneously picked out the same styles of celebrities who came to the rehearsal. Many users have already asked for links in the comment area.
Screenshot of Xiaohongshu’s hot search list
It seems that Xiaohongshu wants to take advantage of the Spring Festival Gala. The key goal of is not only to increase users, but also to transform program content into goods and leverage e-commerce transactions on the site. , convert users into consumers.
It is not that the Spring Festival Gala cannot be afforded, but that it is more cost-effective behind the scenes.
The IP marketing of the Spring Festival Gala is mainly divided into two categories: advertising marketing and copyright distribution. CCTV advertising agent Xing Yiming revealed that so far, partners have been identified for major projects such as exclusive interactions for the Year of the Dragon Spring Festival Gala, special arrangements for the Spring Festival Gala, notes and live broadcast sharing platform, and vertical screen viewing of the Spring Festival Gala. Without the broadcast authorization from CCTV, no platform can broadcast the Spring Festival Gala, otherwise it will face huge fines.
Xing Yiming told Hedgehog Commune: “In recent years, the cost of sponsoring the Spring Festival Gala has increased year by year. A few years ago, there were tens of millions of players. Now it costs at least hundreds of millions of yuan to sponsor the Spring Festival Gala. It is not only getting more and more expensive, but also getting more expensive. The more mysterious it is, there will be public bidding before, but in recent years, it has been purchased separately."
How to spend this money in a worthwhile way has become the top priority for many platforms during the Spring Festival.
For this reason, some Spring Festival Gala sponsors will find sponsors for themselves again to spread the costs in a "matryoshka" method, while some platforms will adopt a cooperative approach to seek a win-win situation.
For example, in 2023, the video account obtained the vertical screen broadcast rights of the Spring Festival Gala and jointly promoted goods with Yili. At the same time as the live broadcast, Anmuxi and Jindian launched product links so that viewers could place orders while watching the live broadcast.
As we all know, in the past few years, the dividends brought by the Spring Festival Gala have been more reflected in new users and daily active users. Short-term traffic peaks cannot solve long-term retention problems.
Therefore, the Internet platform has added a bit of rationality and calmness after experiencing the red envelope war where money was spent lavishly.
What is particularly obvious is that there has been no exclusive sponsor since last year. has divided the rights and interests of the Spring Festival Gala into multiple parts, each choosing the optimal solution that fits the platform, and sharing the rights and interests of the Spring Festival Gala in a way that reduces costs and increases efficiency. dividend.
Take Xiaohongshu as an example. Judging from the existing public information, the way it chooses to participate is more "behind the scenes", avoiding direct competition with giants, and also highlighting its expertise in clothing, beauty and other fields. Advantages of carrying goods.
More importantly, you can directly invite celebrities participating in the Spring Festival Gala to interact with you based on your geographical location, and direct the "starlight" of the Spring Festival Gala to your own live broadcast room. In addition to the cooperation fee,
also has no red envelope expenses. I have to admit that this is a very cost-effective "conspicuous package" method.
Comparing the user base of Weibo and Xiaohongshu and the degree of attention to the Spring Festival Gala, Weibo’s official account for the Spring Festival Gala has accumulated more than 13 million fans over the years, while Xiaohongshu’s official account for the Spring Festival Gala was launched in January It was only launched on the 19th and currently has only 103,000 fans. There are only over 200,000 reservations for "Everyone's Spring Festival Gala".
Picture source Xiaohongshu (left) Weibo (right)
In terms of time difference, this comparison may be slightly unfair to Xiaohongshu, but following the Spring Festival Gala and complaining about the Spring Festival Gala on Weibo is obviously more in line with user content Consumption habits.
Therefore, Xiaohongshu’s choices are more cautious and rational. It does not intend to use its “money power” to compete for the top position on New Year’s Eve, nor does it intend to broaden the age group of users or deepen the market. Place your hopes on the Spring Festival Gala.
When the Spring Festival Gala officially announced the cooperation with Xiaohongshu, Xie Qian asked her grandfather who was watching TV if he knew about Xiaohongshu. She said: "At that time, grandpa immediately took out a book of quotations from leaders from under the table."
This Perhaps it also reflects from the side that Xiaohongshu's road to breaking out of the circle and sinking is long and difficult, let alone rushing.
Spring Festival Gala, the “mysterious power” of the East
Although various Internet platforms are looking for smarter and more profitable ways to sponsor the Spring Festival Gala, as an audience, what they don’t want to see is that the New Year’s Eve carnival also brings e-commerce. Shopping festival colors.
