Alipay Ant Forest, does it have a product operation routine?

This article mainly conducts a detailed analysis of the product routines and operation routines behind Alipay Ant Forest, and draws inspiration for our own product development through analysis.

Why write about Alipay’s Ant Forest?

In fact, this idea has been around for a long time. For me, Ant Forest is the only strong driving force that can open Alipay besides the payment scenario.

Before Ant Forest, Alipay would lie quietly in my phone until I needed to pay, and then it would be opened for a moment. After the payment was made, it would lie quietly back down again.

But after the Ant Forest was launched, I tested it and found that in the past month, I have opened Alipay 3-4 times a day on average, which is probably more than 3 times higher than before.

Of course, there is one thing that all Internet product personnel need to avoid deliberately: do not take your own individual perceptions as the needs of the overall sample.

Unless you have a strong ability to immerse yourself in roles and can “become a newbie in a second” and quickly become the user of your product, you can use your personal understanding to represent the needs of the overall sample.

To this end, before writing this article, I specifically researched the actual data of Ant Forest:

As of June 2018, the number of Ant Forest users has reached 350 million. Ant Forest has planted 55.52 million real trees on the earth, and 39,000 acres of protected areas have been claimed. (Data source: Alipay's official data inventory in mid-2018)

The number is so huge that basically one in every four people in China is using Ant Forest. Products that can achieve such a large number of users and relatively high frequency are worthy of serious analysis.

Regarding the business significance behind Alipay's Ant Forest, such as: extending payment scenarios, increasing user usage frequency, social networking, external pressure from WeChat Pay, etc. These have been discussed too many times by too many people and are nothing new, so I won’t repeat them here.

This article mainly conducts a detailed analysis of the product routines and operation routines behind Alipay Ant Forest, and draws inspiration for our own product development through analysis.

1. Product routine

What are the product strategies behind Ant Forest?

To answer this question, we must first explain the functions of Ant Forest:

1. Functional closed loop

The core function of Ant Forest is to create a closed product loop around the generation and consumption of green energy. (Green energy: is the core resource circulated within Ant Forest.)

(1) Producing green energy

• Internally generated: walking, shared bicycles, public transportation (subway/bus), payment (physical things (such as takeout, clothes, etc.) or virtual things (such as funds, insurance, etc.)), etc.
• Externally generated: “Stealing” green energy that Alipay friends have not collected in time.

(2) Consumption of green energy

• Effective consumption: Green energy can be converted into offline tree planting. You can choose the tree species and planting area. Each tree has a unique number.
• Ineffective consumption: Green energy disappears or is “stolen” due to untimely collection.

Having written this far, it is very clear that the core functions of Ant Forest are very simple, so simple that anyone can play and understand them, and it adheres to the principle of developing products closely around core functions .

As for the strategies, props, rankings, etc. surrounding this functional closed loop, they are all in-depth traversals of this core function and are in line with the MVP principle.

2. Product core usage path

Ant Forest also makes the product usage path to reach a functional closed loop extremely simple.

First of all, it automates the generation of green energy. Based on various reminders or the Alipay homepage entrance, you can collect and consume green energy by clicking on the main page. (The collection here refers to collecting the green energy from oneself and others.)

The core usage path of the entire product is extremely short, so short that users rarely leave, and extremely simple, so simple that users rarely get lost. It can directly, quickly and effectively reach the core functions and complete the functional loop.

3. The logic behind the product

1 and 2 talked about [core functional closed loop] and [product usage path]. So what are the underlying logic and driving force behind the product?

I understand and analyze from the following points:

(1) Free charity

I think everyone is born with a helpful heart, so why is it so difficult to express it in normal times?

From intention to strength, from thought to action, it is a process of decision-making attenuation, and any condition may become an obstacle to our actions.

The same is true for charity. In real life, it is very difficult for an individual to do charity. For example, the means, channels, effectiveness of charity, etc., will all be big obstacles. These have directly led to many people having the desire to do charity but being unable to put a single action into action.

Ant Forest starts from the problems in this type of user scenario and, through its own charity framework, it clears away the obstacles for users to do charity and allows people who are willing to do charity to have a clear goal.

In addition, the most important obstacle, the additional financial investment in charity, does not exist in Ant Forest. You can do charity work without paying any extra fees on top of your normal payments. For most people, doing good things is something they are happy to do.

(2) Unconstrained appropriation of other people’s resources

It is human nature to have a desire to possess resources, but in real life, we are bound by laws, morals, and rules and cannot simply possess the resources we want. But in the Ant Forest, we can occupy other people’s green resources at will, without any constraints, when it comes to the core resource, green energy.

Recalling the “stealing vegetables” and “robbing parking spaces” in ancient times, it is easy for us to understand that the rational use and amplification of human nature can generate huge product driving force.

(3) Competitiveness

We have basically all experienced being canvassed for votes during a voting or evaluation session, and we have all experienced competing with each other in the rankings of WeChat Sports and WeChat Reading.

Behind these experiences is basic human nature, and most people are unwilling to lag behind others. Ant Forest has utilized this humanity through several rankings, with very good results.

(4) Recognition

Freud once said that the two main driving forces of human beings are: sexual impulse and the desire for greatness.

We study, we work, we live, we all desire to be affirmed and do not want to be ignored. We all desire to enhance our sense of existence and build our own personality. These are all based on the driving force of the desire for greatness.

Ant Forest’s low-threshold charity allows everyone to participate, demonstrate their presence, and express their attitude towards charity.

(5) The embodiment and sublimation of individual values

Most individuals have a sense of public welfare, but because an individual's green behavior cannot directly affect the world, in the long term lack of positive feedback, people will feel that there is not much value in me traveling alone or doing public welfare alone, and gradually lose the motivation to do public welfare.

In my opinion, Ant Forest is actually a habit-forming product .

It attempts to use the Internet to influence users' consumption behavior by setting goals, defining rules and boundaries, and encouraging green consumption. It creates a huge momentum and produces a aggregation effect by aggregating individual public welfare behaviors to the entire Ant Forest user set.

Then, the aggregated effect is fed back to individual users as a whole, amplifying the individual effect through collective behavior and further motivating users' public welfare actions.

The cycle continues in sequence, constantly embodying and sublimating individual values.

2. Operational routines

Ant Forest has built a good product framework through the above product routines.

We all know that it is a happy and relatively simple thing to carry out operations under an ideal product framework. Because a relatively ideal product framework can basically be self-circulating, and some can even produce good self-circulating effects without too much operational intervention.

I have also observed the operation of Ant Forest for some time. In summary, I think there are several operating routines:

1. Love/Family/Friendship

Since ancient times, we have had love locks and love trees. Too many lovers travel thousands of miles to make a pilgrimage to a certain love holy place, carefully and sincerely, with beautiful wishes, planting love trees and locking them with love locks.

Families and groups of friends also have the offline habit of praying and planting trees together.

When these offline behaviors are moved online, we still take them for granted and are still as enthusiastic about them as we were offline. We may even become more enthusiastic because the threshold is lowered.

The love tree, family tree, and friendship tree in Ant Forest are all operated based on the above logic, so it is natural that they can achieve good results.

2. New toys/new ways to play

Green energy production and green energy consumption are two mutually exclusive actions, and the two actions attack and defend each other and confront each other.

Based on this action relationship, Ant Forest has built a lot of gameplay and props. For example, if a friend comes to steal energy, you can use a protective shield to prevent him from stealing. For example, you can use points to redeem a green traffic generation accelerator. For example, you can use props to automatically recycle energy with one click, and so on.

These new toys and new ways of playing make this two simple actions as little boring as possible.

3. Poetry and Distance

No one wants to only see the immediate, everyone likes poetry and the distance. But due to the pressure of life, most people have to work diligently in a cubicle, and poetry and distant places are destined to belong to only a few people.

Everyone has a strong yearning for beautiful things, especially for beautiful things that belong only to a few people.

When you see others running to the desert to plant trees or traveling through the jungle, I think you must be extremely envious.

Now Ant Forest allows you to plant trees in the desert, travel through the jungle online, and even pet cats online (the cats are amazing, they are all big cats like leopards and lynxes). How attractive is that? When you encounter something so attractive, the best way to respect it is to do it quickly.

4. Let’s get going

You have planted trees in the Ant Forest, seen aerial videos of trees growing vigorously, viewed high-definition pictures of forests, and sucked in big cats in the clouds. If these poems and distant places are not enough to impress and satisfy you.

Then, get on your way.

Put on your backpack, and hit the road without hesitation.

Go to your own uniquely numbered tree and feel the changes that have taken place in the world, feel the desert turning into an oasis , and be moved by the charity you have done.

Guided by such a grand motivation and goal, why not plant a tree quickly? Yes, right now.

3. Inspiration for us

This article explains Ant Forest, a product used by nearly 400 million users, from the perspective of its product and operation routines, as well as the behavioral logic and driving force behind it.

For us, what we can learn from the product routine is:

• The core functionality is simple enough. (It is best to have a closed loop function)
• The core product path is simple and clear enough. (It is best to open the core function of the product, the path should not exceed 3 steps, and the connection between each step should be natural and reasonable enough)
• The production and consumption of core resources should be both clear and natural and easy to understand. (It is best to have a closed consumption loop that already exists in offline life)

If you want to fully mobilize users, you must grasp human nature, introduce full competition into critical resources, use a big banner to mobilize competition, and after the competition, let users have the satisfaction of realizing their self-worth.

For us, what we can learn from the operation routine is: operations have routines, and routines can come from life experience, from life habits, and from scientific laws.

Life is already miserable enough, so operations must not be compromised. They must arouse people’s yearning for all the beautiful things, tell people that there are poetry and distant places, until people living offline have enough courage and motivation to embark on the road to distant places.

Source: Tian Sier (U-4EverYoung)