3 case studies: World Cup hot spots self-propagation operation activities

The World Cup is in full swing, and operators will naturally not miss such a hot spot. This article analyzes the World Cup self-propagation operation activities of three products, hoping to be helpful to everyone.

1. Overview of Products and Activities

In addition to Tongcheng-Elong ( WeChat train tickets and air tickets ), the products selected this time also include national applications Alipay and Meituan . Among them, the World Cup-themed operating activities of this product are "Support your home team - win a jersey", Alipay's is "Guess the World Cup - Win Ant Points", and Meituan's is "Burn to Watch the Game - Guess and Win a Million-Dollar Prize".

1. Tongcheng-Elong: "Support your team - win a jersey"

2. Alipay: "Guess the World Cup - Win Ant Points"

3. Meituan: "Burning Watching Football - Guess and Win Million-Dollar Prizes"

2. Activity Analysis

We can divide an operational activity into two parts: activity creative planning and vision + interaction + copywriting . The former can be divided into five parts: activity theme, activity gameplay, activity scene, activity rewards, and activity rules. Let's analyze them one by one below.

1. Creative activity planning

(1) Activity theme

Competing products all combine the hot topics of the World Cup to carry out activities, that is, to take advantage of the momentum, and at the same time the content itself and the theme are well matched.

However, the theme of "World Cup" itself actually has a threshold. Unlike themes such as Dragon Boat Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival, it will screen out audiences who do not understand or like football and the World Cup . This means that this type of activity is doomed to not become a nationwide screen-sweeping activity like Watermelon Footprints (refer to the previous article "Why is the circle of friends so popular ? A case study of the viral spread of Watermelon Footprints").

(2) How to play the activity

The specific gameplay (format) of the World Cup activities include prize guessing, canvassing for votes, shooting games , test games, dribbling games, etc. Among them, guessing the results is the most mainstream and common, and the least innovative.

The way to play the Tongcheng-Elong event is to choose a main team to support (equivalent to voting), and at the end of the event, you can draw a jersey from the three most popular (highest votes) main teams. The way to play the competitive activity is to guess the winner, and Alipay provides more diverse guessing modes, including "Guess the Champion" and "Guess the Golden Boot".

From the perspective of participation threshold, the activities of the three companies more or less require users to have a certain knowledge reserve and understanding of the competing teams. Tongcheng-Elong's activities are relatively simpler and more direct, with a lower threshold . Users only need to choose their own main team to support. The guessing activities of competitors have a relatively higher participation threshold .

But from another perspective, the guessing game itself provides the fun of the game, and users are more motivated to participate and share .

(3) Activity scenes

Activities that are combined with user usage scenarios are usually better able to spread themselves. On the contrary, product advertising spaces , personal centers and other non-core product function locations belong to idle scenarios.

Tongcheng-Elong’s activities appear on the banner of the WeChat train ticket homepage; Meituan’s activities appear on the banner of the APP product homepage; Alipay’s activities appear in the advertising activity column in the middle of the homepage and on the Ant Member Channel page.

It can be found that the scenes of these activities are basically leisure scenes, which determines that the exposure and traffic of the activities will not be very good . (Alipay subsequently added a fixed function position of "World Cup - Limited Time Promotion " at the top of the homepage, which will increase the exposure and traffic of the event to a certain extent)

(4) Activity Rewards

The rewards for the Tongcheng-Elong event are 1,200 authentic jerseys and 500 Tongcheng-Elong World Cup dolls. In addition, participants can also receive benefits, including no-threshold train ticket vouchers (8 yuan) and 4 Didi Express taxi vouchers totaling 30 yuan.

The jerseys are more attractive to World Cup / football enthusiasts , the dolls will be attractive to female users who don’t know much about football, and the welfare rewards are more to give back to old users, and users say they are relatively affordable. Although physical prizes such as jerseys and dolls involve procurement and delivery, which is not cheap, they will have a secondary dissemination effect after reaching the user's hands. In particular, the self-propagation effect of the jersey after the user wears it will be very considerable.

The reward for the Alipay activity is Ant Points, which can be exchanged for goods or benefits in the member channel. For heavy users of Alipay, this reward is still very attractive . From the perspective of rewards, this activity not only aims to attract new customers , but also to increase retention and repeat purchases .

The rewards for Meituan’s activities are guessing coins, which can be exchanged for 5,000 yuan or 500 yuan in cash; vouchers with no threshold; and high-value vouchers for services (takeout, Maoyan Movies , KTV, etc.). Users have reported that Meituan’s rewards offer a wide range of options and are closely related to users’ lives, making them more affordable and attractive.

(5) Activity Rules

The top three teams that receive Tongcheng Elong's event jerseys will be drawn in a lottery; the dolls are participation prizes and will be randomly selected. By sharing the event and asking friends to help, you can increase your chances of winning the lottery, but it is not clear how the probability is increased. The benefits can be claimed by both new and old users and have nothing to do with sharing.

Alipay's activity is based on the user's existing Ant Points for guessing. For each friend shared, the friend will receive 20 points for the first time entering through the activity link. A maximum of 500 points can be obtained by inviting 25 friends. Compared with the points reward from winning a guessing game, the 20 points obtained from sharing invitations are too few, which may cause users to lack motivation to share.

There are various ways to obtain Meituan’s event betting coins, including invitation (fill out the invitation code after successfully inviting a friend, and you and your friend will each receive 500 betting coins, with a daily limit of 10 friends), sharing (for each friend shared, the friend will receive 50 betting coins when entering through the event link for the first time, with a daily limit of 40 friends invited), search (search for “drinking and watching football” today to receive an additional 100 betting coins), cumulative sign-ins (cumulative sign-ins for 3 days to receive an additional 200 betting coins), and ordering (any order placed on Meituan will receive an additional 300 betting coins).

In addition to invitations and sharing aimed at self-propagation and attracting new users, searching and ordering are intended to convert consumption, and sign-in is intended to be active.

2. Visual + Interaction + Copywriting

(1) WeChat Tongcheng Elong - "Support your home team - win a jersey"

The biggest problem reported by users is that the activity page has too many colors, a large amount of information, and a complex visual appearance. Users are a little confused when they first come in and don't know what to do. In addition, the rules of the event were not clearly written, and the doll rewards were not displayed on the event page.

(2) Alipay - "Guess the World Cup - Win Ant Points"

This activity has too many "missions", including self-propagation to attract new customers, consumer conversion, user retention and repurchase, etc. Therefore, the activity page is not the activity page when you enter the activity entrance. The activity page is three levels, which affects the effect of the activity's self-propagation.

The activity page itself is relatively clear and concise, but the use of Ant Points and how to obtain Ant Points are displayed through the banner and rules on the activity page, requiring users to click to enter the level 4 page, which affects the effect of the activity.

(3) Meituan - "Burning Watching Football - Guess and Win a Million-Dollar Prize"

Meituan’s event page has a blue background and red as a secondary color, which is distinctive yet not cluttered. The page modules are clearly laid out, and the core information (how to participate in the event, how to obtain betting coins, and what the betting coins can be exchanged for) are all clearly displayed on the page. In particular, the redemption area displays all redeemable resources to attract more user participation and sharing.

3. Summary of the activity

• The self-propagation activities with the theme of "World Cup" will exclude audiences who do not understand or like football and the World Cup because the theme itself has poor universality. This means that such theme activities cannot be widely disseminated.
• Whether it is the home team support gameplay of WeChat Tongcheng Elong or the prize guessing gameplay of Alipay and Meituan, there is actually a certain participation threshold. It requires more or less understanding and attention to the World Cup and a certain understanding of the team. The relatively high participation threshold means that such activities can only be spread in a small range.
• The activity scenarios of the three products are all leisure scenarios. The exposure and traffic of the activities themselves are limited, which also limits the spread of the activities.
• Meituan's activity rewards are closer to the lives of ordinary users and there are more choices, so they are more popular with users; Alipay's activity rewards need to be redeemed through Ant Points to obtain the goods and rights of the membership channel, and the user's existing Ant Points are used as the basis for the bet, so it will be motivating for Alipay's medium and heavy users; WeChat Tongcheng Elong focuses on jerseys, which is attractive to football enthusiasts but not to football novice users.
• In terms of activity rules, it is unclear how users of WeChat Tongcheng Elong's activities can increase their chances of winning by sharing. The redemption of prizes such as jerseys must wait until the end of the activity, and the redemption cycle is long. At the same time, the jerseys must be ranked in the top three in popularity of the home team and require a lottery, which has a high threshold. The activity rules of Alipay and Meituan are simple and easy to understand, can be redeemed instantly, and the threshold for obtaining rewards is relatively low. Compared with Alipay, Meituan's rule design for self-propagation is more prominent. In addition to sharing, it also adds an invitation code mechanism, which is more conducive to the self-propagation of activities.
• In terms of visual interactive copywriting, Meituan undoubtedly does the best, clearly displaying all the core information that users care about on one page, while taking into account goals such as activity, retention, and repeat purchases, which is better than Alipay.

The author of this article @刘佩龙 is compiled and published by (Qinggua Media). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!

Product promotion services: APP promotion services, advertising platform, Longyou Games