Starting from JD.com, Tmall, and Suning’s 618, let’s talk about how e-commerce promotions will develop in the future?

The annual 618 e-commerce promotion is coming. This article observes the e-commerce promotion from the perspective of marketing strategy, mainly to solve two doubts:

1. What are the significant changes in this year’s 618 promotion compared to previous years?

2. What is the future development direction of e-commerce promotions?

Analysis of the 618 Marketing Strategies of JD.com , Tmall and Suning

1. Theme and slogan of the 618 promotion

(1) JD.com: 618 Global Mid-Year Shopping Festival

From last year's National Mid-Year Shopping Festival to the Global Mid-Year Shopping Festival, it can be seen that JD.com intends to sell global products and create a global carnival. This year's 618 theme is "Ignite Your Passion", combining passionate street dance troupes and mascots to attract today's young consumers and express the concept of "Everything you want is here".

(2) Tmall: Ideal Lifestyle Carnival Season

Tmall has confirmed its first spokesperson Yi Yang Qianxi this year, and through the 21-day ideal lifestyle development day, it aims to attract the continued attention of young consumers. From the 21-day vitality development day to the 618 ideal life carnival season, it can be seen that Tmall has been leading the consumption trends of young consumers and strengthening the brand concept of "Ideal Life on Tmall".

Tmall officially launched the four major themes of 618 in collaboration with multiple brands: enjoy beauty while hot, pursue while hot, play while hot and work while hot, which are deeply loved by young consumers.

(3) Suning: Mid-year promotion, great satisfaction

As the second-tier e-commerce company, Suning’s 618 promotion has a clear purpose, which is to use its price advantage to win over a certain number of consumers in the market. Suning 615 entered the explosive period of 618 promotion, which was also to gain consumers' attention in advance. And based on the special situation of the World Cup IP, Suning’s mid-year promotion this year will be extended to July.

Comment: The theme reflects the strategy and direction of the promotion. The marketing rhythm of the entire promotion revolves around the theme. The promotion theme can reflect the marketing focus of different platforms.

2. The tight marketing rhythm of the 618 promotion

By comparing the marketing rhythm of the entire 618, we can find several common points:

(1) The marketing rhythm of the entire 618 shopping festival has become very long, lasting about 30 days from the beginning to the end, and the final boom period lasts at least 5 days;

(2) Invite brands to participate in the 618 event, leverage the influence of brand spokespersons, and integrate resources to increase exposure;

(3) Marketing is not limited to the platform. It can be promoted on different channels such as Weibo and variety shows to reach the target consumers to the greatest extent possible.

Comment: The emphasis of promotional strategies on different platforms can be seen from the marketing rhythm. Tmall and JD.com focus on interacting with consumers on social platforms (mainly Weibo) to attract consumers' attention, while Suning.com is less so. The common point is to use red envelope activities to attract consumers within the platform and reach vertical users through segmented categories.

3. Cross-border brand marketing to demonstrate the strength of the platform

Throughout the event, different brand activities can be seen every day. For example, brand spokespersons “cheer” for e-commerce platforms and there are daily brand live broadcasts .

For merchants, on the one hand, they can reduce their operating and promotion costs, and on the other hand, they can leverage the power of the platform to seize an excellent opportunity to enhance brand awareness. For the platform, the brands are responsible for sales. The more brands the platform cooperates with, the more it can use the brand's influence to gain the favor of consumers.

This year, Tmall and JD.com launched live broadcast events featuring brand spokespersons, which also leveraged the star brands’ ability to bring in goods and attract consumers.

Tmall’s “Ideal Cat Paradise” and “Help Yi Yang Qianxi raise a cat” plan, through “feeding cats” (purchasing branded products) combined with marketing by many major brands, satisfy consumers’ desire to raise cats and increase purchasing stickiness.

The National Trend Action innovates traditional cross-border brand marketing and drives the hot sales of multiple domestic brands based on the analysis of young consumers' purchasing needs based on the big data of its own platform. Such as Liushen x RIO's Liushen flavored cocktail, Zhou Heiya x Yunifang's spicy kiss lip balm, etc.

"Tmall Advertising Gift" chooses to use the imaginative and funny Thai advertising style to present the four short stories of "Be lazy while the heat is hot", "Be thin while the heat is hot", "Be happy while the heat is hot" and "Be beautiful while the heat is hot". It implants some brands and products from the 618 event, and also includes the more important meaning that the brand wants to express, "Buy while the heat is hot".

Comment: The cooperation between brands and platforms is a mutually beneficial process. Platforms increase their influence and attract consumers through star brands; brands use the platform's traffic to sell goods and achieve greater sales.

4. Event Marketing

It can be found that compared with last year’s logistics promotion, this year’s 618 promotion’s event marketing route is more about cross-border marketing with entertainment variety shows .

For example, Tmall’s “Papi Jiang’s Cat-Hugging Broadcast” and Yi Yang Qianxi’s “Ideal Cat Paradise”; JD.com’s “Hot-Blooded Street Dance Crew’s Battle Night” are all co-marketing with currently popular variety shows, showing the “interesting” side of the platform. Tmall and JD.com have also established the "Super Pick Alliance" and the "No. 1 Buyer Alliance" respectively, and collaborated with variety show stars to broadcast live broadcasts to attract shopping traffic to the platforms.

With the younger age of consumers and the diversified development of entertainment variety shows, it is becoming increasingly important to compete for consumers' time. In addition to emphasizing the product strength and logistics capabilities of the e-commerce platform, combining it with other event marketing such as inserting variety shows can attract new consumers and drive existing consumers.

Comment: E-commerce platforms continue to create new activities to enhance brand influence and demonstrate the platform’s strength beyond the platform. Although event marketing cannot directly lead to product sales, it can influence product sales.

5. Online and offline integration to upgrade marketing experience

With the introduction of concepts such as new retail and borderless retail, e-commerce platforms' promotional marketing is no longer limited to online. Attracting consumers online and improving consumer experience offline has become a trend.

Stores are important places for interaction between brands and consumers. For example, Tmall’s National Trend Action has jointly created 70 new retail offline pop-up stores to provide a complex consumer service experience. By creating a new retail store model, the online promotion craze can be diverted offline.

JD.com proposed an unlimited carnival in thousands of stores. Consumers can use the "JD.com Member Code" applet or the JD.com Mall APP to learn about the information of nearby stores participating in the event, and after receiving the coupons, they can go to offline stores to make purchases. Brands and retailers can achieve digital transformation and realize profits by cooperating with JD.com in big data sharing, precision marketing and other areas.

Comment: Online traffic is becoming more and more expensive, and consumers’ requirements for shopping experience are constantly increasing, which has prompted e-commerce platforms to seize offline entrances. In the future, the importance of offline platforms will continue to increase.

By comparing the marketing strategies of the three companies during the 618 shopping festival, we can answer the original question:

1. What are the significant changes in this year’s 618 promotion compared to previous years?

In just 4-5 years since the rise of the 618 promotion, it has become the second largest e-commerce promotion event after Double Eleven .

The saturation of online e-commerce platforms and consumers’ fatigue with online promotions have prompted e-commerce platforms to seize the opportunity of offline physical stores to enhance consumer experience and increase sales.

Alibaba 's Hema Fresh and pop-up stores provide entrances to offline promotions. JD.com held an offline promotion of "Quality Chongqing Products on JD.com" in Chongqing Plaza. Suning made full use of multiple business models such as Suning Plaza, Suning Plaza, Suning Store, Suning Direct Store, and Suning Cloud Store to break the boundaries between online and offline, and rapidly deploy Internet stores across the country.

It can be seen that offline entities have also joined the battlefield of the 618 promotion this year.

2. What is the future development direction of e-commerce promotions?

Judging from the promotions added to offline stores during the 618 shopping festival this year, offline platforms will become an indispensable and important battlefield for e-commerce promotions in the future.

The "China "Internet +" Index Report 2018" released by Tencent Research Institute shows that the general direction of Internet e-commerce platforms to walk on two legs online and offline will not change in the future.

On the one hand, the online traffic dividend of Internet companies has not ended yet, and the online market in fourth- and fifth-tier cities still has growth potential and space; on the other hand, against the background of consumption upgrading, the trend of online and offline integration in first- and second-tier cities will continue to deepen. Therefore, we can predict that we will see more and more e-commerce offline physical stores appearing in the future.

In terms of the dimension of offline value reassessment, on the one hand, physical retail, as the entrance to offline traffic, has important value for customer acquisition and customer value conversion ; on the other hand, physical retail provides space for business format upgrading and transformation.

Physical retail stores improve the conversion and retention of offline consumer traffic by integrating online and offline, restructuring business formats and reshaping category matrices, and fully tap the potential value of offline customer traffic.

The integration of online and offline has become a recognized trend in the retail industry. Online and offline businesses have joined forces to satisfy consumers through diversified operating models , becoming a common choice for e-commerce platforms and brand merchants to tap into user value.

The author of this article @Bread and Butter 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