A demonstration of user growth from Pinduoduo and Douyin!

The 2019 New Year’s Eve concert has just ended. The last night of every year has become a battleground for major satellite TV stations. This year, as a "happy homebody", I turned on the TV as usual. But what caught my attention was the new approach adopted by major sponsors this year, which can be said to be a vivid lesson in growth.

Compared with Vivo, Gionee and Jiaduobao in previous years, this year can be said to be the stage for Internet group players. Pinduoduo is the title sponsor of Hunan Satellite TV and also sponsors Dragon TV; Douyin Short Video is the title sponsor of Jiangsu Satellite TV; Kuaishou is the title sponsor of Zhejiang Satellite TV. Compared with traditional sponsors, this year's financial sponsors seem to be more suitable for the genes of the New Year's Eve concert. After all, you may not watch TV and then order a mobile phone, but you can download an APP while watching TV.

Next, I will take Pinduoduo and Douyin as examples to sort out their New Year’s Eve performance and growth strategies.

Hardcore player Pinduoduo: The best at showing off its presence

What did Pinduoduo do?

advertise:

• Title logo revealed
• Oral
• TVC Advertising

interactive:

• 1 yuan iPhone
• Download the APP to get a cash bonus
• lottery

The wealthy Pinduoduo has been particularly dominant on the screen this year. Not only has it become the exclusive sponsor of Mango TV, it has also frequently appeared on Dragon TV. In terms of gameplay, first of all, its brainwashing slogans and commercials are indispensable. It is not enough for Xie Na and He Jiong to say it over and over again, but it also has to be played multiple times during the advertising time periods, making it difficult for people not to know about it.

In addition, what is more important is that Pinduoduo uses the "scenario-based" interactive gameplay of the New Year's Eve concert. Thousands of people watched the same gala through TV or online platforms, which coincided with Pinduoduo's social scene of "buy together, get cheaper". Pinduoduo promoted an event where 1,000 iPhones were sold out at the top of the hour, using its iconic low price to create hype. Let’s not talk about the quality of the product, this interaction is attractive enough to give it a try, and it has a sense of ritual for the New Year’s Eve.

Next, there are cash red envelopes. The female host demonstrated it herself on the stage. She opened the Pinduoduo APP, and a cash red envelope of 58.8 yuan appeared, which could also be withdrawn. Is there such a good thing? I was so scared that I quickly downloaded Pinduoduo. But if you want to really get this money, sorry, it’s not that easy. You have to invite your friends to open red envelopes with you. This continues Pinduoduo's typical group-buying behavior, and thereby drives secondary dissemination and user fission.

In addition, within the APP, there are a variety of raffles and flash sales in various subcategories to suit the New Year's Eve scenes. Low prices, profit margins and seemingly low-probability events make it easy for consumers to develop a lucky mentality that they have gotten a bargain, which leads them to place orders and promote conversions. The whole process, as the party progressed, was achieved in a relatively short period of time.

It may be clearer if we use the conversion funnel to sort it out:

As for the last step of order conversion, I think it is difficult to judge whether Pinduoduo has really made a lot of profits and whether this group of new users can be retained. After all, its previous reputation was not very satisfactory, and many people commented on the Internet that Hunan Satellite TV’s level had been lowered and it actually helped a certain APP sell "fake goods."

This also shows that the product itself must stand the test of time and the market. But in terms of single effects, Pinduoduo attracted attention on major satellite TV stations and successfully created a "local and hi" atmosphere.

Tik Tok is everywhere: more lively than the concert itself

Let’s look at Tik Tok again. What did TikTok do? It seems to be simpler: there are LOGO, oral announcement and TVC; plus a short video collection of New Year's lucky bag stickers, interaction and lucky draw.

In addition to those officially initiated, Douyin also has discussions about the New Year's Eve concert that are spontaneously formed and spread by users, as well as many interesting UGC contents. In the past, Weibo was the only main battlefield for national discussions, but now Tik Tok has become the second major public opinion field and traffic pool.

Considering the timing of the New Year's Eve concert, Douyin's growth path can be said to be much shorter than that of Pinduoduo, which has e-commerce genes. Combining the collection of hot short video content + lucky draw interaction can drive a large number of daily active users, and there is also the effect of celebrity leadership.

The number of views for the New Year's lucky bag event reached 1.6 billion. From the perspective of user operation, in addition to contributing users, the New Year's Eve hot spots also stimulated active users and ordinary users. This enables TikTok to gain the favor and recognition of advertisers under the current main form of traffic monetization.

Therefore, Douyin, which has a strong entertainment gene, chose to sponsor a high-profile New Year's Eve concert, which can be regarded as a good move.

Growth Vision

Looking at other and past sponsors, it’s not that they don’t know how to play, but they are still a bit traditional in the battlefield of the Internet, especially mobile Internet. What impressed me most was still sending text messages to participate in the lucky draw, and later the WeChat shake function for interaction.

Let’s imagine how we can achieve growth based on traditional sponsorship with the empowerment of the Internet?

What I thought of was strengthening the interaction on online video platforms. After all, many young people have long been accustomed to watching TV on video apps. During the live broadcast, there will be interactions such as red envelope rain and small theater advertisements. Next, we need to leverage the celebrity influence to bring products to the market, allowing celebrities participating in the performance to promote the product on online channels and interact in live broadcast rooms.

There are also operations on the brand’s own media platforms, such as Weibo, official accounts, and Douyin, which keep up with the hot topics of the New Year’s Eve and interact closely with fans, either discussing them together or selling their personal image. But in general, it should be in line with the brand’s own genes. We may be able to gain some inspiration by referring to the sponsorship performance of foreign brands during the US Super Bowl.

Here, we can also discuss together what sponsorship methods can enable sponsors to achieve high-quality and quantitative growth?

Finally, perhaps many people will feel that the popularity of New Year’s Eve concerts is not as high as before, there are no major new ideas every year, and the emerging New Year’s Eve ideas have diverted a group of audiences. I think this is a new opportunity for brands to think about what kind of New Year's Eve scenes their target audiences like, so as to shift the battlefield.

At the same time, popular satellite TV stations and joint brands can also carry out reforms and innovations, and not always stay in the popularity PK between the red team and the blue team. From now on, the satellite TV stations’ own evening parties can’t even compare to Jack Ma’s Double Eleven Gala, which is really regrettable.

Source: Tucao Dawei