Pinduoduo’s “Reading Month” Plan

Argentine writer Borges once said: "If there really is a paradise in this world, paradise should look like a library." In fact, the richer the society, the greater the demand for reading. The increasing proportion of spiritual consumption in household consumption in recent years also illustrates this point from the side.

As the reading atmosphere in society becomes increasingly strong, "national reading" has become a social trend, gaining increasing attention from all parties, and has been included in the government work report for eight consecutive years. However, from the current perspective, there are obviously still many bottlenecks if we want to truly promote the implementation of the "National Reading" campaign.

The pain points of national reading

In recent years, with the vigorous development of graphic information and long and short videos, the threshold for people to obtain information has been greatly reduced. At the same time, the "reading gap" that already existed between urban and rural areas has become further highlighted, and the popular "fast food" reading has also begun to impact the offline book industry.

On the one hand, due to the limitations of natural conditions, the problems faced by rural areas for a long time, such as imperfect reading infrastructure and book shortages, have not been effectively solved, and the reading gap between urban and rural areas still exists.

For example, in addition to various museums, libraries, and art galleries in cities, there are also various large and small bookstores, book stalls and other cultural infrastructure; but in remote rural areas, apart from schools, there are almost no decent libraries in many places, and most libraries are located in county towns and usually do not have many books; the few bookstores not only have expensive books, but also have a scarce variety of products and difficult to guarantee quality, making it difficult to fully meet the needs of users. All these factors have widened the "knowledge gap" between urban and rural areas, and have greatly affected people's right to equal access to knowledge and opportunities.

On the other hand, the popularity of short videos and graphic information has made people's attention increasingly "fragmented", and paper reading has been impacted. Many high-quality publishers and writers are facing the real dilemma of "good books are difficult to sell". As short videos, graphic and text information and other "industrialized" production methods become increasingly popular, e-book reading is constantly interrupted by information content such as WeChat and Weibo. Reading "distractions" have become inevitable. In comparison, paper reading seems to be more suitable for deep thinking.

According to public industry survey data, in the first half of 2020, the overall national book retail market declined by 9.29% year-on-year, and the physical store channel decreased by 47.36% year-on-year, which shows the difficulties faced by offline bookstores.

The "Puzzle" Plan for "Read More Month"

In order to promote the effective solution of this problem, Pinduoduo held "Duoduo Reading Month" twice in April and August this year, using official subsidies to help affordable, genuine, high-quality books enter a broader market. From December 22nd to December 28th, "Read More Month" launched the "Year-End Reading Week" event, which inherited the good practices of previous activities and added more innovative gameplay.

First of all, taking the official cooperation with the Shanghai Book Fair as an opportunity, Pinduoduo continues to attract various high-quality publishers to participate in platform activities to increase book supply, greatly enhancing the public welfare and inclusiveness of this "Reading Week" event. During the "Read More Month and Year-end Reading Week" event, the Good Books Zone has launched more than 300 good books of the year recommended by the Shanghai Book Fair Office and authoritative publishing houses such as People's Literature Publishing House, CITIC Press, Shanghai Social Sciences Publishing House, and Sanlian Bookstore.

In addition to the recommended books mentioned above, new books covering various categories such as literature, philosophy, and social sciences from various publishing houses (90% of the books were published that year) are also listed. These include not only high-quality books such as "Museum of Imaginary Art", "The Great History of Influenza: An Apocalypse of Plague", "Complete Collection of Dunhuang Silk Art", and "Macroeconomic Data Analysis Manual", but also special books such as "Outline of Opera Aesthetics" and "Entering Shudeli". At the same time, during the Reading Week event, authoritative publishing houses such as Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press and China Cartographic Society completed their brand upgrades on the platform, bringing more categories of good books to platform users.

Secondly, continue to expand the platform influence of the "Voice of the People Creator Program" to provide more exposure opportunities for high-quality books. It is reported that during this year-end reading week event, the previously well-received "Multi-Voice Creator Book List" will continue to be launched, such as "The Vast Sea of ​​People" by Mao Dun Literature Prize winner Mai Jia, "Arrival Before Midnight" by travel writer Liu Zichao, and dozens of other annual good books.

In addition, this year-end reading week event also launched the "Multi-Voice Creator Salon" to discuss "new literature" and contemporary creation in a casual conversation format. Sun Ganlu, vice chairman of the Shanghai Federation of Literary and Art Circles, full-time vice chairman of the Shanghai Writers Association and a famous writer, Wang Xiaoying, a professional writer of the Shanghai Writers Association and winner of the 3rd People's Literature Award, Lu Nei, a leading writer born in the 1970s, Zhao Song, a writer, poet and book reviewer, and Writer Zouzou attended the event to recommend good books of 2021 and share their writing experiences.

Finally, the online and offline integration will accelerate the distribution of good books through means such as charitable donations. As an important part of the year-end Reading Week activities, on December 21, Pinduoduo's "Reading for You" public donation campaign entered the Qiandongnan Miao Autonomous Prefecture of Guizhou Province, donating more than 6,000 literature and history books and teaching supplementary books, as well as various stationery and sports equipment to Jianhe County No. 2 Middle School, continuing to promote good books into remote mountainous areas. On December 30, as a continuation of Reading Week, the charity campaign once again joined hands with Southern Weekend to go to a remote primary school in Yichun, Jiangxi, and donated more than 4,000 high-quality reading books.

The multilateral effect behind the knowledge accessibility strategy

Since establishing universal knowledge as a long-term strategy in April this year, Pinduoduo has been continuously implementing it.

First, give full play to the "group buying" advantage of new e-commerce, create popular books through "aggregated traffic + high subsidies + ultra-short chain sales", and help publishers and content creators open up online sales channels.

For example, Liu Zichao, one of the first writers to join the "Voice of the People Creator Program", sold thousands of copies of his representative work "The Lost Satellite: A Journey into Central Asia" during the five-hour live broadcast of the first season of "Reading Month", ranking it among the top three on the bestseller list; Tiandi Publishing House, which is a member of the platform, also sold 40,000 copies of its key recommended work "Six Records of a Floating Life" within a month during the first season of "Reading Month".

Second, we actively fulfill our social responsibilities and make full use of the advantages of being the first platform of "agricultural products upstream" to promote the public donation of high-quality books to rural areas and help spread knowledge to the countryside. According to public data, since April 2021, Pinduoduo has launched the "Reading for You" charity campaign, and has donated more than 120,000 books to primary and secondary school students in Liangshan, Sichuan, Hubei, Tacheng, Xinjiang, Delingha, Qinghai, Shaanxi, Guizhou and other regions.

The third is to give full play to the platform's full-category advantages and drive long-tail book sales by exploring users' long-tail needs. As a large-scale comprehensive e-commerce platform, Pinduoduo can effectively exert the linkage effect by penetrating books into other categories, allowing long-tail books to be exposed to more readers.

From the "Reading Month" to the "Voice of the Creator Plan" and then to the "Reading for You" public donation event, it is not difficult to see Pinduoduo's firm determination and strong influence in promoting the universal access to knowledge.

From the perspective of the participants, Pinduoduo used the "Duoduo Reading Month" event as a starting point to achieve a "win-win-win" situation among the book industry, content creators, and consumers.

Judging from the results of the entire event, the series of activities carried out in the early stage of "Read More Month" have formed a good "flywheel effect" and are accelerating the process of popularizing knowledge on the platform. After the accumulation in the first two quarters, the number of official flagship stores of authoritative publishing houses has increased, development has accelerated, consumer participation has increased, and many factors are driving the platform's "knowledge accessibility" to be accelerated.

From the platform perspective, after early exploration, Pinduoduo has formed a new model of knowledge accessibility of "public welfare + business". As a cost-effective e-commerce platform known for its "universal access", Pinduoduo has made full use of the platform's existing mechanisms. In the process of implementing "universal knowledge access", it has not only achieved the success of the platform and the industry, but also promoted the sinking of public welfare and access, bringing about multi-faceted social and economic benefits.

It is not difficult to foresee that with the further increase in the platform's efforts to popularize knowledge and the continued release of the effect of knowledge going to the countryside, more people will benefit from the popularization of knowledge in the future.

Author: Liu Kuang

Source ID: liukuang110