Will the wealthy and willful Double Eleven shopping gala become the new normal for e-commerce?

It seems that only seven years have passed since Singles’ Day became Shopping Day, and the nationwide shopping craze seems to have led to the formation of a “new folk custom”. Let’s take a look at these data:

In 1 minute and 12 seconds, the transaction volume exceeded 1 billion.

In 12 minutes and 28 seconds, the transaction volume exceeded 10 billion. In 2014, it took 38 minutes to break the 10 billion transaction volume, and in 2013 it took 5 hours and 49 minutes.

In 17 minutes and 58 seconds, the wireless transaction volume exceeded 10 billion.

In 33 minutes and 53 seconds, the transaction volume exceeded 20 billion yuan.

At 10 a.m., Tmall’s transaction volume on Double Eleven exceeded 50 billion.

At 11:49:09, Tmall’s transaction volume on Double 11 exceeded 57.1 billion yuan, breaking the record for the full-day transaction volume on Double 11 in 2014.

At 16:40, Tmall’s transaction volume on Double Eleven exceeded 70 billion.

At 17:28, Tmall’s Double Eleven transaction volume exceeded 71.9 billion, exceeding last year’s national single-day retail sales of consumer goods.

The total transaction amount of Tmall Double Eleven was 91.217 billion yuan.

Before the Double 11 Shopping Festival, the climax of the national shopping spree only occurred before the Spring Festival: after buying new clothes, new shoes, and other things, the whole family would watch the Spring Festival Gala and stay up all night. This year, Alibaba’s overbearing CEO Jack Ma made a big investment in ordering a Double 11 Gala for Mango TV, which seemed to have turned people’s Spring Festival habits upside down: watching the gala, staying up all night, and shopping.

If this is just an e-commerce event, why is there such a grand party? Is it just to promote the development of e-commerce? Or is there another intention?

Think about the hard advertising fees of the CCTV Spring Festival Gala, think about the soft advertising fees in various film and television dramas, and compare the effects they can achieve with the cost and impact of hosting a gimmicky advertising gala. It is not difficult to conclude that the Double Eleven Gala is Jack Ma's willful move to attract attention and make money.

"Directed by Feng Xiaogang, with various young and old celebrities supporting, it will last for 4 hours just like the Spring Festival Gala and stay with everyone until midnight." This kind of gimmick is probably only surpassed by the Spring Festival Gala. Before the gala started, many people thought it might just be a warm-up party, which would not be much different from ordinary gala parties. However, they were totally wrong. Rather than saying that this was a gala without advertisements, it was better to say that this was a gala with advertisements. The host team would blurt out "Tmall" every 30 seconds, and the logo advertisements of major brands never stopped.

Don’t watch it? But there seems to be nothing else to do before midnight shopping, so watch the gala, browse the circle of friends and complain while filling the shopping cart - isn’t this the perfect "interaction between the Internet and the TV"? The most important significance of the existence of the Double Eleven Gala is to transform "Double Eleven" from a suspended symbol into a daily routine generally accepted by the public, and to further verify and consolidate the value of Double Eleven's existence in the public's underlying cognitive logic.

Official data shows that the party brought 20 times more new users than before. This is the best proof.

Whether it was the magical brainwashing "Five-fold Song", the congratulatory message from the "45th President of the United States", the appearance of the "new Bond girl", or even the host's slip of the tongue, they all sparked heated discussions on social networks. The purpose of this party was to keep people's attention firmly fixed on "Double Eleven".

In short, the "Double Eleven Carnival Night" party is an attempt to seamlessly connect and fully integrate traditional media and new media, advertising and entertainment. It is a historical event that can be included in China's mass communication textbooks: using the star effect, merchants' concentrated online promotions, and the nodes of the shopping spree to connect together to consolidate and expand the influence of Double Eleven. "Double Eleven" may become a tradition in the subtle transformation of the public's thinking, just like all ancient festivals in history.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.