Interpretation of how to play Tmall Double 11 building activity!

There is no change in the underlying model between Tmall's Double Eleven Cat Building Competition and the 618 Cat Stacking Activity, except that the interaction form has been changed on the front-end application. In essence, it is still the same old wine in a new bottle.

Today, "Double Eleven" is about to celebrate its 11th birthday. There are more and more participants in this large-scale e-commerce game, the battle line is getting longer and longer, and the gameplay "seems" to be becoming more and more complicated.

[Figure 1: Comparison with the 618 main interface]

One fact that we have to admit is that those born in the 80s and 90s, who have already been cheated, will they still be fooled by so many tricks on various platforms?

The answer is yes.

The underlying logic here is: the rich spend money to buy time, the poor spend time to save money, and most people don’t want to work hard to make money, they just want to take advantage.

The rules of the Double Eleven events every year receive mixed reviews. Although the operation was as fierce as a tiger and only received a red envelope of 25 cents, everyone still participated in the carnival happily while complaining.

There are three things that have excited human beings and made them cry and cheer since ancient times: celebration, competition and conquest .

Next, we will interpret the gameplay of Taobao Double Eleven Partners’ opening of Meow Shop from these three aspects.

[Figure 2: Main gameplay of Double 11 partners]

1. Celebration: Get Meow Coins & Open a Meow Shop

Ordinary celebration, you can get a small red envelope by simply clicking.

「Get Meow Coins」

Through various tasks, you can continuously obtain Meow Coins. The main types of tasks are:

a. Check-in: 3 days of continuous check-in can lower the threshold for check-in and increase the activity opening rate;

b. Fission: Share with friends to help get Meow Coins, and spread the activity;

c. Shopping: This is the main source of Meow Coins, allowing you to visit various venues, shops, etc.; the purpose is to get you to pay a deposit;

d. Search: Based on your behavior, we will give you specific search tasks, the purpose of which is to get you to buy something.

e. Join the group: Join the Double 11 partner group;

f. Download: a specific task, download the specified APP to get Meow Coins;

[Figure 3: Task List]

In the above picture, you will only be given 1,000 Meow Coins if you share it with 8 friends, which is obviously insincere.

The task weights are very obvious. Visiting the main venue and branch venues of Double 11 has simple tasks and rewards the most Meow Coins. Other tasks are incidental. There are actually many types of tasks here, more than the 6 I mentioned above.

When we were designing our own activities, we sometimes thought that the fewer tasks the better, for fear of causing trouble for users.

However, the diversity of Taobao tasks and the simplicity and clarity of interaction are worth learning from.

Therefore, the task rules and weight distribution of an activity are key factors.

Open a cat shop

This is simple repetitive behavior.

a. Keep collecting Meow Coins and upgrading Meow Shop. You will get a red envelope for each upgrade of Meow Shop.

b. The level of the Miaopu is also the level you help others build the building;

c. Occasionally there will be visitors in front of the store, who will ask a question and ask you to choose one of the answers. If you answer correctly, you will get Meow Coins. The purpose of this design is to help you understand the rules through fun questions and answers.

[Figure 4: Miaopu Visitors Q&A]

The red envelopes given for upgrading Miaopu are very small, only a few cents, and the purpose is to get you to play the building PK competition. The intention is very obvious.

Miaopu is a connector that connects the three major sections: tasks, building, and wish awards. In our daily design activities, the clever design of connectors is the key to revitalizing an activity.

2. Competition: Building PK Competition

This is also the core of this gameplay, the engine of fission propagation, and the source of everyone's love and hate.

「Main gameplay」

a. Invite 4 friends to form a team of 5;

b. Randomly match an opponent every day to compete in building competition;

c. PK time is from 9 am to 10 pm every day, and the winning team will receive a red envelope reward;

d. Like Happy Landlord, there are 12 levels of venues from the entertainment venue to the wish venue. Each venue will charge different tickets and the rewards obtained are also different;

"Annoying rules"

1. Once a teammate joins the team, the captain cannot kick them out, and can only quit on his own initiative. It is really annoying to see that the team members who were randomly formed at the beginning rarely come online later.
2. If the team has less than 3 people, they cannot withdraw;
3. After you quit the team, you are left with nothing, and other members of the team cannot enjoy the achievements of the team members.
4. You have to participate in the competition every day, and you need a ticket for each competition. Tickets will be deducted whether you win or lose. Tickets are up to 40% of the rewards;

The key point of the gameplay here is: How to make your team build higher and higher buildings? (This is also the designer's intention)

Only by using the building command and getting others' help can you get higher and higher. If you want to win, you must drive team members to share, spread, help each other, etc., so that continuous fission will bring in a steady stream of traffic.

To prevent scams, each person only has 6 opportunities to assist per day.

The level of the building is determined by the level of the helper’s cat shop (connected to the cat shop upgrade). High-end players will report their levels when helping each other.

So recently, no matter whether it is a big group or a small group, there are slogans asking for building buildings flying everywhere. This is also Taobao's way of grabbing traffic from WeChat.

[Figure 5: These are large groups of more than 400 people]

It has even become a way for some people to make money, and they have started buying and selling services to help build buildings.

[Figure 6: Selling houses is indeed a good business]

We once designed a team PK gameplay, which is mostly similar, but the team management is more relaxed, for example:

1. The captain can kick out weak players, and the players can take their own gains;
2. Team members can quit the team at any time, and their personal income will belong to the whole team.
3. There is one PK every day, and no tickets are set;

Looking back now, why did Taobao dare to make such strict rules while we were so loose? Maybe they were afraid that no one would play the game or they were afraid of being scolded by users.

Many people did complain about the rules of Taobao's PK this time, but despite the complaints, it did not affect the fun at all. Because PK victory is a sense of accomplishment, not just a matter of a few cents.

3. Conquest: Wish Award after Level 50

2,700 prizes, with the largest prize being 9,999 yuan for clearing your shopping cart.

You can make a wish when your personal cat shop reaches level 50 or you win 6 stars in the building challenge.

In addition to the big hat of sharing 2 billion, there is also a secondary hat, the Wish Grand Prize, which looks more attractive and more in line with user psychology.

For ordinary users, sharing hundreds of millions of red envelopes from Alipay every year does not amount to much money after receiving the money. The idea of ​​everyone sharing the money has long formed a mentality in the minds of users that they will definitely not get much.

Through the cases of welfare lottery and Alipay Koi, users may be more willing to try whether they can become the lucky one.

In general, I think the gameplay of Double Eleven this year is quite simple. Maybe we design too many "routines" in our daily life.

Attach some personal thoughts

“Since ancient times, deep affection cannot be retained, but routines can always win people’s hearts.” My understanding of routines is that they are an operational means for enterprises to reduce costs and risks. Of course, the core of routines cannot be to deceive users.

For example: This year, Pinduoduo launched the following slogan for Double 11: "No tricks, no fear of comparison; no deposit, no waiting", which was a direct message to Taobao.

I have personally experienced Pinduoduo’s subsidies. I bought an iPhone 11 with a 500 yuan coupon on Pinduoduo, which was the lowest price on the entire network at that time. I have also heard from merchants that they have also felt the real subsidies.

By the way, Pinduoduo’s stock price has risen by 30% recently, so this subsidy is very cost-effective.

For small and medium-sized platforms, if you pass on profits to users by directly reducing prices, users will doubt whether your products are genuine. This mentality of users can be eliminated through some "tricks", such as coupons, which make users feel that the platform is organizing an event and they are getting a good deal.

In summary, when designing an activity, if you grasp these underlying logics, the activity will not be too bad:

1. Classical Communication Theory: Celebration, Conquest, Competition
2. Consumer psychology: cheap, get a bargain, and monopolize the bargain.

The Value of China Platform from the Perspective of Building a Building for All

Let’s look back at the 618 stacking cats. A product manager who has worked on the middle platform can see that the underlying model has not changed much, only the interaction and gameplay have changed on the front-end application.

[Figure 7: Stacking cats VS building a building]

For the vertical line : the value of the middle platform does not require reinventing the wheel. Existing businesses can be reskinned to become new activities. At the same time, new businesses can also be quickly connected, shortening the development cycle, ensuring stability, and reducing vulnerabilities.

This event is combined with 10 other apps to create a big Double 11 carnival, which is a horizontal cross-platform integration.

[Figure 8: Cross-platform access]

For horizontal lines: Standardized external capabilities allow businesses to have more allies, while other platforms only need to focus on a small amount of development to achieve it, with low development costs and fast access speed.

A skyscraper is not built in a day. This is the accumulation of a company’s digital assets and the ultimate destination of the value of the middle platform.

[Figure 9: Hypothetical diagram of the middle platform architecture of Quanminkaimiaopu]

Product managers working in the middle platform must be able to endure loneliness, because compared with product managers on the C-end, we get very little short-term stimulation and need to persevere. The products we design take a long time to show their value and reap results.

Author: Master Jie

Source: Product Manager’s Vision (ID: pmsee2018)