Picture source @VisualChina
Text | Pacific Technology
In the 2024 Spring Festival Gala, the major Internet companies finally returned to the poker table.
A year ago at the 2023 Spring Festival Gala, the "Liquor Army" composed of Wuliangye, Yanghe Co., Ltd., Shede Liquor Industry, etc., strongly replaced the major Internet companies that had held the c position for 8 consecutive years and became the "most beautiful" sponsors of the Spring Festival Gala. 's boy".
At that time, due to the rare absence of major Internet companies, the industry speculated that the major companies finally began to change their strategy of grabbing the Spring Festival Gala traffic pool and treat the Spring Festival Gala cooperation with caution.
In the 2024 Spring Festival Gala, the major Internet companies still failed to get excited. Although has the participation of JD.com and Xiaohongshu, in fact, both companies have their own concerns. JD.com has been left behind by Pinduoduo and Alibaba, and needs to catch up hard and not miss any traffic opportunities; while Xiaohongshu needs to accelerate commercialization to get out of the predicament. The two companies' investment in the marketing of the Spring Festival Gala is somewhat of a "fight against the odds." feeling of heaviness.
Other major Internet companies have made no move, as if they have ignored the glamorous traffic pool of the Spring Festival Gala. Compared with previous years when Internet giants competed for traffic to the Spring Festival Gala and even the entire Spring Festival, did seem very deserted this year. Why are the major Internet companies not active in ? From competing for the Spring Festival Gala for 8 consecutive years, to now rarely paying attention to it, what have each company realized?
01 Everyone wants to copy the “WeChat Red Envelope”
Internet giants compete for Spring Festival Gala and Spring Festival traffic, which originated from the classic success story of WeChat Red Envelope in 2015. In 2015, WeChat cooperated with the Spring Festival Gala for the first time, setting off a nationwide "shake" craze to grab red envelopes.
data shows that the total number of WeChat red envelopes sent and received on New Year’s Eve in 2015 reached 1.01 billion. During the Spring Festival Gala, WeChat shake interactions reached a maximum of 810 million times per minute. During the entire party, WeChat users’ “shake red envelope” actions exceeded 11 billion times. The huge traffic brought by the Spring Festival Gala has allowed WeChat Pay to rise rapidly in the field of mobile payment. has torn a hole in the market that Alipay firmly controls.
At that time, Jack Ma even posted a post on social platforms lamenting, "The Spring Festival attack on Pearl Harbor was planned and executed perfectly. It was really powerful and it really taught us a profound lesson."
The huge success of the Spring Festival Gala WeChat red envelopes has triggered the coveting of Alipay, Baidu, Douyin and other apps for Spring Festival Gala traffic. In the next few years, various giants took turns competing for the exclusive interactive partner of CCTV Spring Festival Gala, and they basically revolved around the form of red envelopes issued during the Spring Festival Gala.
Alipay has invested 800 million and 1 billion respectively for two consecutive years, Baidu has invested 900 million, Kuaishou has invested 1 billion, Douyin has invested 1.2 billion, and Jingdong has invested 1.5 billion. all hopes to replicate the "miracle" of WeChat Pay. Major companies that have not won the right to cooperate with the Spring Festival Gala have also spent heavily to try to move the Spring Festival red envelope activity back to their own apps, hoping to bring new traffic growth during the Spring Festival.
Especially in 2021, the red envelope war has entered a fierce stage. All major Internet platforms have invested heavily, and each of them has displayed the slogan "XX billion divided" on their apps. At that time, LeTV’s self-deprecating marketing campaign of “owing 12.2 billion” also attracted attention.
However, after this, the red envelope war between major Internet companies gradually ceased. The total amount of red envelopes issued by mainstream manufacturers across the Internet has dropped from 12.2 billion yuan in 2021 to 8 billion yuan in 2022, and by 2023 it will only be 4.3 billion yuan.
Not only has the amount of red envelopes shrunk, but the gameplay has become more and more complex. From the early "Shake" of WeChat, it has become Baidu's collection of cards to upgrade the scene; video platforms such as Douyin have added many rules on top of the collection of cards to allow users to invite new users, create videos, Team up with friends and set up many interactive games.
’s shrunken red envelopes and complicated gameplay will inevitably continue to raise the threshold for users to participate. reduces the public’s enthusiasm for participation, and will not be able to bring about nationwide interaction and traffic explosion, let alone the success of WeChat red envelopes in the past.
02 The logic of major Internet companies has changed
The change in the red envelope war strategy of major Internet companies is actually related to changes in the market development stage.In recent years, Internet traffic dividends have continued to decline, and the market has shifted from incremental competition to stock competition. user growth is no longer the core purpose of mainstream major manufacturers’ marketing activities such as Spring Festival red envelopes.
According to data released by questmobile, a third-party business intelligence data service provider, domestic mobile Internet users have been on the order of 1.1 billion for four years since 2018. In December 2023, the latest data from questmobile showed that the current number of mobile Internet users was 1.224 billion.
Starting from 2020, the number of monthly active users of China Mobile Internet has stabilized, with a monthly growth of only more than 10 million, and a monthly growth rate of only about 2%. The dividends gained by major manufacturers from the rapid growth of mobile Internet users have weakened. Apps run by major manufacturers have basically become essential for installation, and the Internet has moved from the incremental era of brutal growth to the stock era.
In the Spring Festival marketing, major manufacturers set up complex gameplay, which is also . They hope to cultivate users' usage habits by increasing the usage time and opening frequency of the app, and bring traffic to brand advertising, boosting the core advertising pillar revenue. .
Under the influence of many practical factors, major manufacturers that "reduce costs and increase efficiency" have become more pursuing marketing efficiency, focusing on user retention, conversion and the drainage of key businesses, focusing on increasing user usage time and increasing individual user consumption. Um, , so Spring Festival Gala marketing has become more sophisticated, no longer blindly investing money like in the early days of the mobile Internet.
The most successful example is still WeChat. After its success in promoting WeChat payment in the 2015 Spring Festival Gala, it no longer missed the "money-throwing" marketing of Spring Festival Gala red envelopes. Instead, it launched the Spring Festival red envelope cover in 2019, focusing on the brand from the very beginning. Open and decentralized to video account creators, it is intended to lead more users to video accounts through red envelope cover activities, thereby achieving the goals of retention and conversion.
WeChat’s customized red envelope cover has turned to a charging model for brands, institutions, and bloggers. has realized traffic monetization in one fell swoop. Video platforms such as Douyin, Kuaishou, and WeChat video accounts are more inclined to compete for the broadcast rights of the Spring Festival Gala and increase user time and user stickiness through live broadcast of large-scale entertainment events, rather than spending huge sums of money to win exclusive interactive circles. Carry out so-called red envelope interactive marketing.
03 Lessons from the past: Real money can’t retain users
Internet giants are no longer obsessed with Spring Festival red envelopes. Another core reason is that the results are not good. reality has proven that the new users brought to the app through the marketing method of spreading Spring Festival red envelopes cannot achieve effective retention.
In 2019, after major companies such as Tencent and Alibaba were involved in the Spring Festival red envelope dispute, Baidu invested heavily in building a comprehensive Spring Festival red envelope marketing system, with Baidu app as the main position, including the collaboration of short videos, Tieba and other products. Attract users through rich gameplay methods such as collecting cards, shaking, and teaming up to grab red envelopes.
Baidu also reached an exclusive cooperation with the Spring Festival Gala and became the exclusive online interactive platform for the Spring Festival Gala that year. In addition to issuing 900 million red envelopes during the Spring Festival Gala, Baidu continued to issue a total of 1.9 billion red envelopes during the Spring Festival, making it the most watched event during the Spring Festival that year. factory.
According to Baidu official data, during the CCTV Spring Festival Gala live broadcast, global audiences participated in Baidu interactive red envelopes 20.8 billion times. The peak daily activity of app also exceeded 300 million during the Spring Festival Gala. Baidu's Haokan Video and Quanmin Short Video also achieved dau. Growth in the tens of millions. The mobile application markets of Apple and Huawei were also paralyzed by the huge number of downloads of Baidu app during the Spring Festival of that year.
However, the prosperity that came with a lot of money did not last long. According to monitoring by the China National Finance Research and Innovation Center, as of February 9, 2019, the retention rate of new users of mobile Baidu was only a dismal 2%.
In terms of attracting users, issuing large Spring Festival red envelopes did not bring a sustainable development effect to Baidu. even caused Baidu's first quarterly loss after listing. Baidu’s financial report at that time showed that in the first quarter including the Spring Festival, Baidu’s sales and marketing expenses increased by 93% year-on-year to 6.1 billion yuan, which greatly affected the company’s profit performance. Yu Zhengjun, Baidu’s chief financial officer at the time, also said after the financial report was released that the loss in the first quarter was partly related to the company’s red envelopes issued during the CCTV Spring Festival Gala event.
The problem of bleak user retention rate does not only occur on Baidu. Big companies such as Kuaishou and JD.com, which once invested huge sums of money in “distributing red envelopes” during the Spring Festival, were unable to solve the problem of rapid user loss after huge traffic growth.
In 2020, Kuaishou took over from Baidu and reached a cooperation with the Spring Festival Gala to issue 1 billion cash red envelopes. According to the data curve of questmobile, Kuaishou achieved 300 million dua during the Spring Festival Gala with the help of red envelope rain. But after the Spring Festival Gala, Kuaishou’s daily active users returned to the level before the Spring Festival, and the user retention rate did not exceed 30%.
JD.com also spent huge sums of money to win the exclusive interactive cooperation rights for the Spring Festival Gala in 2022. It sent out red envelopes and gifts worth 1.5 billion yuan during the Spring Festival Gala. In the end, the total number of interactions was 69.1 billion. JD.com’s transaction volume during the Spring Festival in 2022 increased year-on-year. Over 50%.
However, such results did not benefit JD.com’s subsequent user growth. At the end of 2021, JD.com’s MAU was 570 million, while in the first quarter of 2022, JD.com’s MAU only rose slightly to 580.5 million. It can be seen that JD.com still failed to retain users of the Spring Festival Gala traffic.
’s report on this report from China International Finance Securities pointed out that after the Spring Festival red envelopes, most apps lost user stickiness, DAU, user usage time and frequency declined rapidly, and the 7-day retention rate of new users was extremely dismal.
The user conversion rate that Spring Festival red envelopes can bring is low, which also makes major manufacturers re-examine the "cost-effectiveness" of issuing Spring Festival red envelopes. As a result, the once lively red envelope war has gradually stalled.
04 Spring Festival traffic, not only "Spring Festival Gala red envelopes"
The Spring Festival stall, which is extremely popular among the people, is an important node for brands to compete for incremental markets and enhance brand influence. Although the red envelope war between major Internet companies was the most eye-catching in the past, in addition to the liquor industry, new energy vehicles, mobile phone manufacturers, etc., is also using different methods to compete for Spring Festival marketing nodes.
In 2023, after major Internet companies stopped competing for the exclusive interactive rights of the Spring Festival Gala, the Spring Festival Gala only announced three days before New Year’s Eve that the exclusive interactive partner of the Spring Festival Gala would be Wuliangye.
Liquor company took over the Spring Festival Gala interactive rights that had been occupied by major Internet companies for 8 years. This also revealed that competition among liquor companies such as Kweichow Moutai and Wuliangye has increased, and leading brands need to use the traffic of the Spring Festival Gala to form a competitive advantage.
Starting in 2015, Apple will release a New Year short film shot by Apple mobile phones every year to spread brand value and image. Mobile phone manufacturers will also attract customers through price reduction promotions, holiday limited editions and other marketing methods. This year, even Apple’s official website has joined the “Spring Festival mobile phone price war” for the first time, and in the name of welcoming the New Year, from January 18 to 21 Launched a direct discount event on the official website.
New energy vehicle companies have also reduced prices to increase brand attention during the Spring Festival. According to incomplete statistics, in January of the new year, many car brands including Tesla, FAW Toyota, Ideal, Nezha Automobile, Geely, Lynk & Co, etc. have launched Spring Festival marketing competition, basically focusing on The methods of financing, replacement subsidies or direct cash transfers are similar to the way that major Internet companies spend huge sums of money to attract users.
The Spring Festival Gala is iron-clad and a big factory with running water. The traffic value of the Spring Festival Gala and even the Spring Festival has not actually decreased, but the simple and crude Spring Festival marketing method of issuing red envelopes from major manufacturers is no longer novel and cannot adapt to the times. With the red envelope offensive in successive years, the novelty of grabbing red envelopes for users has declined, and grabbing red envelopes is not enough to attract users to stay in the app. Therefore, it is foreseeable that the red envelope gameplay of major manufacturers will start high and then go down.
However, the popularity of the Spring Festival will not dissipate, and the marketing point of the Spring Festival will not be abandoned. What will be abandoned will only be traditional marketing methods that no longer adapt to the changes of the times. After the popularity of for "grabbing Spring Festival red envelopes" dissipates, new marketing methods will inevitably emerge among major Internet companies.
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