Will the Spring Festival marketing war “save” the festive atmosphere?

On the morning of the second day of the Lunar New Year of the Rat, Yang Xiuying and her husband, who worked in Guangzhou, wished New Year's greetings to their father Yang Jianguo and mother through mobile phone video. The outbreak of the epidemic once again prevented them from returning to their hometown to reunite with their parents. Fortunately, my parents had bought smartphones a long time ago. Compared with making phone calls and sending text messages, the couple prefers video calls. Although they cannot greet them in person, video calls are just as good.

Smartphones and mobile Internet are changing the way we celebrate the New Year.

The Internet and “New Year Customs”

In the half month of the Spring Festival of the Year of the Rat, the red envelopes sent by elders in WeChat groups, the collection of five blessings in Alipay, and the ubiquitous Spring Festival red envelopes and card collections in apps such as Kuaishou, Douyin, Baidu, and Taobao are forming a new "New Year flavor" in the digital age.

According to the "2020 Spring Festival Gala Data Report" released by Kuaishou Big Data Research Institute on January 28, the cumulative number of viewers in Kuaishou's Spring Festival Gala live broadcast room reached 780 million, and users sent a total of 4,260,547 "Come on Wuhan" public welfare gifts. The total amount of Spring Festival Gala red envelope interactions reached 63.9 billion, setting a record for the highest video likes in the history of the Spring Festival Gala. The program with the highest level of interaction during the entire evening was "Love is a Bridge", a situational report paying tribute to frontline medical staff. On New Year's Eve, "mask protection" became a popular magic expression on the Kuaishou platform.

The mobile Internet not only provides a carrier for the New Year atmosphere in the virtual world, but also has brought about a qualitative change in the dissemination of social hot information. According to Baidu Index search trends, the search index of "new coronavirus" increased 40 times within 20 days last month, becoming an important helper in assisting the entire nation in fighting the epidemic.

Economic development affects the changes in social structure. "Clinging to the old and not improving" will only cause troubles and will not bring real value.

Recently, the "China New Year Customs Development Trend Report" released by the China New Economy Research Institute showed that collecting five blessings, online New Year greetings, grabbing red envelopes, and family travel were voted as the "new four major New Year customs" in the 21st century. In contrast, lion dancing, setting off firecrackers, slaughtering pigs, and handwriting Spring Festival couplets have gradually faded out of our lives.

Affected by the epidemic, family travel data has seen a sharp decline this year, while the "Spring Festival Games" in the virtual world have reached a peak.

According to statistics from public data, during the Spring Festival of the Year of the Rat, based on the red envelope investment of 100 million on Weibo, 500 million each on Baidu and Alipay, 1 billion each on Kuaishou and Weishi, and 2 billion each on Douyin and Alipay, the total investment in the Spring Festival marketing war by the above-mentioned major Internet platforms was no less than 7 billion.

In order to welcome the 2020 Spring Festival, Internet companies have made sufficient preparations. Alibaba, Tencent, JD.com, Baidu, Kuaishou, Douyin and others have all started the "Spring Festival mode" early on, with various ways of playing emerging one after another, such as collecting blessings, accumulating cards, and liking short videos, and the "10 billion subsidies" are also mobilizing the enthusiasm of consumers.

Lucky Cards

The game of collecting lucky cards was first launched by Alipay in 2016.

At that time, Alipay was still pursuing its social "dream". This kind of gameplay could stimulate Alipay friends' enthusiasm for "adding each other" and asking for gift cards, and activate the "social" enthusiasm of users on the platform. Since then, major platforms have gradually begun to launch their own lucky card collection gameplay.

On January 26, a reporter from the Daily Economic News summarized data from major platforms. As of 18:00 on the same day, when the Kuaishou "Like Chinese New Year" event was launched, a total of approximately 23.7236 million people had collected all the cards; as of 20:20, when the Weibo "Collect Cards for Good Luck" event was launched, 45.0347 million people participated in the event; as of 20:30, when the Baidu "Good Luck Chinese New Year" event was launched, approximately 28.5281 million people received prize money; as of 22:18, when the Alipay "Collect Five Fortunes" event was launched, more than 318 million people opened the red envelopes.

During the Spring Festival of the Year of the Rat, hundreds of millions of people stared at their mobile phone screens...

Due to the large number of participants, the average red envelope everyone received was only a few yuan, a dozen yuan, or at most a few dozen yuan. However, during the Spring Festival, people participate in the card collection activity more to "ask for good luck", and how much red envelope they can get does not affect the good "meaning" brought by these activities.

The card collecting method has also been "tempered" by the market and has become more mature. In the first year of collecting the five blessings on Alipay, only 800,000 people received red envelopes, and the user base was criticized. In the second year, the model of average score + "super prize" was officially established, and more and more users accepted the card collection gameplay. Taking Baidu's "Good Luck Chinese New Year" as an example, according to the activity rules, users can share 200 million red envelopes as long as they collect 10 good luck cards. In addition, the first 8,888 users who collect all the cards can also receive a solid gold rat.

In the interactive gameplay during the Spring Festival, major Internet companies are also intentionally directing traffic to new products through interactive games.

For example, in Weibo's "Collect Cards for Good Luck", users can increase the number of card draws by downloading Weibo's new social product "Oasis"; in Kuaishou's "Like Chinese New Year" event, Kuaishou is also promoting its newly incubated video clip product "Kuaishou"; and in Toutiao's interactive games, the activity entrances for Toutiao, Douyin, Xigua Video, Toutiao Speed ​​Edition, and Douyin Volcano Edition have all been connected.

Cloud New Year Greetings

Due to the impact of the epidemic, more and more people are sending New Year greetings through the Internet. Even during the normal Spring Festival, online New Year greetings are becoming the way of choice for many people who are unable to "return home" to wish each other a happy new year.

On January 20, Baidu released the "Good Luck Chinese New Year: Baidu App's Big Data Report on the Year of the Rat Spring Festival". The data showed that from 2016 to the Spring Festival of 2020, the search and discussion popularity of New Year's greetings videos grew the fastest, and keywords such as New Year's greetings pictures and blessings were relegated to the "second line".

The development of live video and short videos has brought various innovations to the way of cloud New Year greetings. Many short video influencers maintain their relationships with fans through New Year greetings videos; some celebrities, especially those who appear on the Spring Festival Gala, have also started the "cloud New Year greetings" mode on short video platforms. Some entrepreneurs, including some are also using cloud New Year greetings to connect with users. Jack Ma, Zhou Hongyi, and Dong Mingzhu have all filmed Spring Festival greetings videos.

During the Spring Festival, in addition to the card collection game, Tencent Weishi also added a new "video red envelope" game in WeChat red envelopes, allowing users to send video red envelopes to their relatives and friends directly in WeChat. In terms of specific operations, when users send red envelopes to friends, they only need to click "Red Envelope" - "Send Video Red Envelope with Weishi" in WeChat to send a video red envelope to relatives and friends.

Every Spring Festival, major platforms have gradually used "cloud New Year greetings" from celebrities and famous people as a means of maintaining "customer relationships". Driven by celebrities, more and more users are sending New Year greetings through short videos and live broadcasts. In the Year of the Rat when people stay at home due to the impact of the epidemic, the existence of cloud New Year greetings becomes even more important.

Grab red envelopes

The popularity of WeChat red envelopes is actually somewhat accidental. WeChat red envelopes were originally an internal product of Tencent.

Tencent's opening ceremony

Tencent has a habit of sending New Year red envelopes. However, due to the large number of people in Tencent, the efficiency of sending red envelopes through "manpower" is very slow. According to relevant reports, some Tencent employees started queuing up at 3 a.m. in order to get red envelopes (and meet Ma Huateng at the same time). This habit has become a considerable burden for an Internet company with tens of thousands of employees. Influenced by this, in 2014, a product that could send red envelopes online through WeChat was developed, which unexpectedly became a huge hit.

In the Internet age, the number of people's social relationships has grown exponentially, and it is not uncommon for friends to be thousands of miles apart. The traditional model of sending red envelopes face-to-face can no longer meet the needs of the people. This kind of digital red envelope has become the center of attention as soon as it appeared.

On February 10, 2019, WeChat officially released the 2019 Spring Festival Data Report, which interpreted the Chinese Spring Festival from the perspective of essential Spring Festival activities such as greeting new years, sending red envelopes, and visiting relatives. Data shows that from New Year's Eve to the fifth day of the New Year, a total of 823 million people sent and received WeChat red envelopes. Guangdong, Shandong, Jiangsu, Sichuan and Hebei were the top five provinces in terms of the total number of red envelopes sent and received, and Beijing, Guangzhou, Chongqing, Shenzhen and Chengdu were the top five cities in terms of the total number of red envelopes sent and received.

For several consecutive years, the power of WeChat red envelopes during the Spring Festival has changed Internet companies' perception of Spring Festival marketing. Over the past six years, Internet companies' investment in Spring Festival marketing has increased year by year.

A total of 420 million people participated in the 2016 Spring Festival WeChat red envelope activity, with each person sending and receiving 20 red envelopes on average. The number of participants in the 2017 Spring Festival WeChat red envelopes was not made public, but the total number of WeChat red envelopes sent and received from New Year’s Eve to the fifth day of the New Year reached 46 billion. During the 2018 Spring Festival, a total of 768 million people sent and received red envelopes on WeChat, and the total number of people sending and receiving red envelopes increased by about 10% year-on-year compared to 2017. During the 2019 Spring Festival, a total of 823 million people sent and received red envelopes through WeChat, and the number of participants further increased. The relevant data for 2020 has not yet been made public. Under normal circumstances, the number of participants will be refreshed again.

Since 2015, the list of Internet companies participating in Spring Festival marketing has gradually exceeded Double 11. In the festive mood of the whole nation, hundreds of millions of dollars are also invested in marketing. With the blessing of the "New Year flavor" buff, the effect of Spring Festival marketing will exceed that of other periods. This is actually users voting with their feet. As one of the most important "festivals" in the hearts of Chinese people for thousands of years, the Spring Festival effect has gradually swept China's mobile Internet and radiated across the oceans to the world.

On February 7, 2016, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted a message on his personal Facebook page to extend Lunar New Year greetings to users. At 4 p.m. on January 22 this year, the Nasdaq Stock Exchange in the United States held a special closing bell ceremony to celebrate the Chinese New Year.

Through the Internet, the influence of the Chinese Spring Festival radiates across the world.

From the perspective of Internet companies, participating in Spring Festival marketing means attracting new users and stimulating user activity. As long as the "Spring Festival effect" exists, the grand occasion of hundreds of billions of red envelopes will continue to appear in the future. The invisible hand of the market uses the Spring Festival marketing war to "save" our New Year atmosphere.

Urbanization and the “New Year’s Flavor”

The Spring Festival was not originally called the Spring Festival. It originated from the rituals of praying for a good harvest at the beginning of the year. In ancient times, people would hold sacrifices at the end of one year's farming and the beginning of the new year to worship the gods of heaven and earth, express gratitude to their ancestors, and pray for a good harvest in the coming year. With the decline of sacrificial culture, "New Year" has become more and more secularized. People gradually no longer regard sacrificial ceremonies as the most important thing during the Spring Festival, but the cultural gene of welcoming the new year and praying for blessings has been retained.

Throughout history, every change in social structure has brought about changes in the form of Spring Festival customs.

From ancient times to modern times, contemporary times and the present, the social structure has undergone several changes, and many new contents have gradually been added to the Spring Festival customs, such as buying New Year's goods, sweeping the house, pasting New Year's red ribbons, giving New Year's money, paying New Year's greetings, dragon and lion dances, worshiping gods and ancestors, visiting temple fairs, and appreciating lanterns. These festival rituals and related customs are important elements of the Spring Festival and together constitute the emotional flavor of the New Year.

The disappearance of the traditional "New Year flavor" is closely related to the rapid advancement of urbanization. The old "New Year flavor" has lost its soil for survival, and the new "New Year flavor" has not yet developed and grown.

According to statistics, China's urbanization rate only increased from 11.8% to 17.9% in the nearly 30 years from 1950 to 1978.

In 1979, China began its reform and opening up, and China's urbanization process began a high-growth trend. As of 2018, my country's urbanization level reached 59.58%, and by the end of 2019, my country's urbanization rate was 60.60%. Based on a rough calculation of China's population of 1.4 billion, more than 800 million people will live in cities in 2019. China is transforming from a rural China to an urban China.

Urbanization has caused the gradual disintegration of interpersonal relationships maintained by clans and blood ties. Whether in big cities or small cities, the gathering of people has completely broken the structure of rural society.

Traditional Chinese homes are mainly courtyard-style houses. Regardless of whether the family is rich or poor, there will be one or two rooms in the house. During the Spring Festival, this room will be used to place an altar, display offerings, or for family members to burn incense and kowtow. Moreover, in traditional China, population mobility was not large, with most clan members gathered in one village or surrounding villages, making it convenient for them to visit each other during the Spring Festival. At the same time, because the courtyards in the countryside are relatively scattered, the habit of setting off firecrackers has been maintained.

In contrast, the layout of buildings in cities is relatively dense, and most of the people who buy houses are those who have purchased them in the past two or three decades. Not to mention the affection between neighbors, many households in the community visit each other less than once a year. Therefore, the "projects" surrounding "visiting relatives and friends" in traditional customs lack room for growth. At the same time, due to the frequent incidents of firecrackers igniting the insulation partitions of apartment buildings in the past two years, more and more cities have banned the use of firecrackers.

Due to urbanization, many people coming out of rural areas feel that the festive atmosphere of the New Year is becoming less and less.

Household size over the years since the reform and opening up

According to relevant data, after the reform and opening up, the size of my country's family population has also shown a rapid downward trend. In terms of family types, the proportion of one-person households increased from 7.98% to 13.67% from 1982 to 2010. From 1982 to 2015, the proportion of one-generation families continued to increase, while the proportion of two-generation families continued to decrease. In modern cities, it has become the norm for children and parents to be separated, and the traditional phenomenon of the whole family sitting together is becoming less and less common.

Traditional Spring Festival customs originated from agricultural civilization. Various traditional customs are deeply imprinted with local cultural elements and are scattered under the impact of the new world.

The development of the Internet has enabled China, which is divided into urban and rural areas, to achieve a kind of unification in the virtual world. Driven by the penetration of mobile Internet, people in third- and fourth-tier cities, towns, and rural areas have also begun to access the Internet. As a national festival, the Spring Festival has room to grow on the Internet.

In the physical world, you can only choose one between the modern social relations in cities and the traditional social relations in rural areas. In the Internet world, they are divided into different WeChat groups and different apps. There is no more "regret" during the Spring Festival, and it becomes possible to celebrate the Spring Festival with all friends.

At the same time, people are "living" on the Internet for longer and longer periods of time. Quest Mobile data shows that as of November 2019, the average daily usage time of Chinese mobile Internet users reached 6.2 hours, a new high. If there is no sign of the "New Year" in this space, the "New Year flavor" will probably have nowhere to go.

It is the embrace of the Spring Festival by countless billion-level apps such as BAT, ByteDance, Meituan, JD.com, Pinduoduo, etc., and the ubiquitous festive elements on the Internet that decorate the world's "New Year flavor."

The traditional Chinese New Year culture continues in new forms that modern people like. When you open the mobile app, the ubiquitous Spring Festival elements make it impossible for people to leave the "Spring Festival mood". What changes is the form, what remains unchanged is the sentiment. Frequent online and offline interactions allow the New Year atmosphere to take root in the digital world.

"Internet + Spring Festival" reflects the evolution of traditional folk customs with the times.

Marketing War and the Spring Festival

Internet companies’ embrace of the Spring Festival is inseparable from a decision made by CCTV’s Spring Festival Gala.

The Spring Festival Gala is the product of the combination of modern media and traditional folk customs, and its creation is by no means accidental. In 1979, CCTV recorded and broadcast a "tea-style" evening party called "New Year's Eve Gala", which was directed by Deng Zaijun and Yang Jie, the director of "Journey to the West". However, at that time, there were only 4.85 million television sets in the country, and the number of people they could reach was limited, so it did not have a wider social impact.

In 1983, the penetration rate of television in Chinese households increased significantly, providing a foundation for the explosion of the Spring Festival Gala. Moreover, it was the early stage of reform and opening up, and the material life of the people was gradually improving, but their cultural life had not been satisfied, and the public entertainment methods were still relatively simple. With the help of this channel, CCTV began to create the Spring Festival Gala, which soon became a must-see cultural feast for people across the country during the Spring Festival.

The mobile Internet developed rapidly in 2015. According to a report released by TalkingData, as of December 2015, the number of mobile smart terminal users in China reached 1.28 billion, and everyone has a mobile phone. The attention of the Spring Festival Gala is diverted to various mobile Internet applications. The Spring Festival Gala program team began to think about how to use mobile phones to interact with people across the country.

In 2015, Tencent, which was focusing on mobile payments at the time, successfully bid 53 million yuan and became the exclusive new media partner of the CCTV Spring Festival Gala.

At that time, WeChat combined the popular "shake" function with the red envelope gameplay, and the CCTV Spring Festival Gala host launched a wave of "shake" red envelopes every other period. Thanks to this cooperation, the Spring Festival Gala successfully opened up the channel between Spring Festival Gala-mobile phone-user, which became a "new project" of the Spring Festival Gala in the following six years, and instantly opened up a new marketing model of "Internet + Spring Festival Gala".

From one piece of data, people can intuitively feel the magic of "Internet + Spring Festival Gala".

The cooperation between WeChat and the Spring Festival Gala in 2015 directly challenged the position of Alipay. In order to counter the offensive of WeChat, Alipay also put out 600 million red envelopes to fight back on its own platform, but due to the lack of the buff of the Spring Festival Gala, the effect was not as expected. According to statistics, on New Year's Eve in 2015, compared with the total number of WeChat red envelopes sent and received, which was 1.01 billion times, the total number of Alipay red envelopes sent and received was only 240 million times, which was one-fourth of the former.

Since then, Jack Ma has compared the cooperation between WeChat and CCTV Spring Festival Gala in 2015 to the "attack on Pearl Harbor" and the "Battle of Midway" in 2016. In order to win the Spring Festival Gala, Alipay defeated WeChat with a price of 268.8 million yuan and finally won the cooperation rights for the 2016 Spring Festival Gala red envelopes.

"CCTV had a bid and we lost. The other party fought very hard." Afterwards, Ma Huateng admitted WeChat's carelessness and also revealed the fierceness of the competition between the two sides for the Spring Festival Gala.

According to media reports at the time, the rules designed by CCTV were "one-time deal, the one with the highest bid and the best proposal wins." It was rumored that Alipay won the cooperation rights with only a slight advantage of a few million. Tencent then simply distributed red envelopes on its own platform, but the actual effect was obviously not as good as Alipay, which took over the Spring Festival Gala.

In 2015, WeChat sent out 500 million red envelopes during the Spring Festival Gala. In 2016, Alipay won the cooperation rights for the Spring Festival Gala and sent out 800 million red envelopes. In 2018, Taobao cooperated with the Spring Festival Gala and sent out 600 million yuan in red envelopes and prizes. In 2019, Baidu, as a partner of the Spring Festival Gala, sent out 900 million yuan in red envelopes. In 2020, Kuaishou became the first platform outside of BAT to cooperate with the Spring Festival Gala, and sent out 1 billion cash red envelopes that night.

Although Kuaishou won the exclusive cooperation rights for the 2020 Spring Festival Gala, BAT did not give up participating in the red envelope activities.

On Alibaba's side, Alipay's "Collect Five Blessings" campaign is still being held, and Taobao has also won the qualification as the exclusive e-commerce partner of the Spring Festival Gala. This is the second time that Taobao has cooperated with the Spring Festival Gala. On New Year’s Eve, Taobao will empty the shopping carts for 50,000 consumers. This number is 50 times the number of shopping carts emptied in 2018, and the intensity is getting stronger and stronger. In addition, Juhuasuan also announced a subsidy of 2 billion yuan, which is the largest e-commerce subsidy for the Spring Festival in recent years.

As the initiator of the red envelope war, Tencent has not given up this position. Its short video platform Weishi started the Spring Festival red envelope activity on January 17, and continued the concept of video red envelopes in 2019, launching gameplay including personal video red envelopes, celebrity red envelope rain, and collecting hometown cards, with a total of 1 billion yuan in red envelopes distributed. The amount invested this time is also twice that of 2019.

Baidu, which was the exclusive partner of CCTV Spring Festival Gala last year, also launched a red envelope activity during the Spring Festival. During the Year of the Rat Spring Festival, Baidu users can participate in the red envelope activities through "Collect Good Luck" and "Family Reunion Red Envelopes", with a total amount of 500 million yuan.

In addition to BAT, Kuaishou's old rival Douyin also launched a "sniper war". While Douyin reached cooperation with the Spring Festival Gala of several local stations such as Zhejiang Satellite TV and Hunan Satellite TV, it also launched a "Prosperous Chinese New Year" Spring Festival red envelope event worth 2 billion yuan. As long as Douyin users complete activities such as collecting cards, receiving red envelope rain, and playing games, they can participate in sharing 2 billion yuan in red envelopes and have the chance to draw a 10,000 yuan koi red envelope.

The above are all apps with hundreds of millions of users. Their participation in the Spring Festival Gala makes the joy of the New Year everywhere. As more and more Internet companies realize the value of Spring Festival marketing, during the Spring Festival, almost all of the several or dozens of apps opened by users are sending out red envelopes, and Spring Festival Gala elements are everywhere on the application pages. All these things are forming new New Year customs and a new New Year flavor.

The battle for the Spring Festival movie schedule is also an important phenomenon. Due to the COVID-19 epidemic, all Spring Festival movies in the Year of the Rat were withdrawn from theaters. However, it cannot be denied that the Spring Festival movie marketing battle, which started a dozen days or even a month before the Spring Festival, also contributes to the New Year flavor every year.

ByteDance spent 630 million yuan to buy "Lost in Russia" this year. It was because of users' love for Spring Festival movies that it bought its copyright regardless of cost.

However, in urbanized China, the relationships between people are no longer very close. However, the ubiquitous Spring Festival marketing on the Internet and urban commercial entities is creating a new flavor for the New Year. The passing of traditional New Year customs is the result of the development of the times. In fact, the New Year atmosphere is an atmosphere of beautiful aspirations of the whole nation. The increasingly intense marketing war during the Spring Festival is bringing back this atmosphere.

Author: Tianhao Observation

Source: Tianhao Observation