"New Year Customs" collect five blessings, and briefly analyze the marketing techniques of Alipay!

• Introduction•

As the saying goes, brands leverage marketing opportunities, and there is always a "battle" during every festive season. During the Chinese New Year, all brands want to get a piece of the pie during China's biggest festival. How to successfully break through the holiday marketing melee has become a question that brands are racking their brains to think about. But in the chaotic New Year marketing war, Alipay's Five Blessings Collection activity has entered its fifth year and has been dubbed the "New Year Custom".

The emergence of the "Five Blessings Campaign" has allowed people suffering from "Spring Festival Anxiety" to find an outlet for their emotions. Articles such as "Lipstick to Wear When Seeing Aunts and Uncles During the Spring Festival", "Guide to Dealing with Naughty Children During the Spring Festival", and "Spring Festival Dining Table Illustrated Book" always become "explosive hits" on the eve of the Spring Festival. Articles that hit the "Spring Festival Anxiety Disorder" can become "explosive hits", and activities that hit the "Spring Festival Anxiety Disorder" can also become "explosive hits".

The "Collecting Five Blessings" activity accurately grasps the users' empathy, inspires their hearts, firmly occupies the entrance to Spring Festival marketing, has a strong traffic appeal, and has achieved "standing on the cusp of the trend and winning the hearts of users."

As the saying goes, brands leverage marketing opportunities, and there is always a "battle" during every festive season. During the Chinese New Year, all brands want to get a piece of the pie during China's biggest festival. How to successfully break through the holiday marketing melee has become a question that brands are racking their brains to think about. But in the chaotic New Year marketing war, Alipay's Five Blessings Collection activity has entered its fifth year and has been dubbed the "New Year Custom".

According to data, the number of people participating in the Five Blessings Collection activity has exceeded 100 million for three consecutive years, and the number of users participating in the Five Blessings Collection in 2019 exceeded 450 million, including 70 million middle-aged and elderly people, which means that one out of every three Chinese people is collecting the Five Blessings on Alipay.

The status of collecting the five blessings as a "New Year custom" has been basically established, and most Chinese users have gradually become accustomed to opening Alipay to scan and collect the five blessings during the Chinese New Year. Netizens joked: "If we don't gather blessings during the Chinese New Year now, how can we have the festive atmosphere!"

l Why is the Alipay Five Blessings Collection activity regarded as a "new custom" by the majority of users?

I don’t know since when, the feeling of the New Year has become less and less. The “Five Blessings” combined with Chinese New Year customs have given a new flavor to the New Year atmosphere that has become increasingly weak in recent years.

1. “Five Blessings Marketing” captures people’s longing for a better future

In traditional Chinese culture, the word "Fu" represents good luck, auspiciousness, and joy. Wufuli’s “patriotism, prosperity, harmony, friendliness and dedication” are not so much marketing insights as they are users’ beautiful expectations for the new year.

Gathering all five kinds of blessings means that the five fortunes will come to you. The ritualistic prayers can remove all the unhappiness of the past, and the coming year will be smooth and harmonious. The beautiful meaning satisfies people’s expectations for the New Year and is the fundamental reason why Alipay’s Five Blessings Collection activity can impress users.

"Five Blessings Marketing" actually captures people's longing for a better future and conveys the users' truest inner vision. Just like "koi marketing", everyone wants to be the lucky "Chinese koi", but it doesn't matter if you can't become a koi, it's also okay to worship the koi.

In fact, for users who participate in collecting the five blessings, winning red envelopes is not the most important thing. What is more important is that they hope to be "blessed" by the act of collecting the five blessings and bring more "blessings" to themselves in the new year.

The emergence of the "Five Blessings Campaign" has allowed people suffering from "Spring Festival Anxiety" to find an outlet for their emotions. Articles such as "Lipstick to Wear When Seeing Aunts and Uncles During the Spring Festival", "Guide to Dealing with Naughty Children During the Spring Festival", and "Spring Festival Dining Table Illustrated Book" always become "explosive hits" on the eve of the Spring Festival. Articles that hit the "Spring Festival Anxiety Disorder" can become "explosive hits", and activities that hit the "Spring Festival Anxiety Disorder" can also become "explosive hits".

The "Collecting Five Blessings" activity accurately grasps the users' empathy, inspires their hearts, firmly occupies the entrance to Spring Festival marketing, has a strong traffic appeal, and has achieved "standing on the cusp of the trend and winning the hearts of users."

2. Low threshold for participation

Compared to the Double Eleven event of young people's "shopping spree", the Five Blessings Collection event is an activity with a very low threshold for participation and sharing. Just pick up your phone and scan the word "Fu". The simple operation steps can basically penetrate into every family member.

The convenience of simple operation has enabled the Five Blessings Collection activity to successfully "go viral" and penetrate into every family and every family member.

3. Play the family card and break through the user circle

When promoting the Five Blessings campaign, Alipay often uses slogans to enhance family emotions, such as adding interactive elements such as "universal blessing" and "stealing".

In order to warm up for the 2020 New Year's event, Alipay specially launched an advertising film "Where Are You?", starting from the worried question "Where are you?" from relatives on the way home, it shows the hardships and warmth of going home for the New Year, triggering users' thinking about family affection and the lingering feelings of family reunion, reflecting the hardships and warmth of going home for the New Year.

In the film, a family encountered a traffic jam on the way home. When they were in a dilemma, they decided to take a detour, but they were stuck in the snow and their cell phone had no signal. They wanted to walk home but the snow was too thick. Just as the family was frowning and didn't know what to do, they decided to go back to a small hotel at the foot of the mountain. At this time, a faint light came from the front. It turned out that the old parents were shoveling snow in the dark so that their son and his family could get home smoothly. When they saw their parents, the husband and wife burst into tears.

Going home for the New Year and reuniting with family is the most profound memory of the Spring Festival for Chinese people, and this is the meaning of the Spring Festival. When transportation is already convenient enough, the annual social spectacle - Spring Festival travel rush - is still worth recording. Alipay uses the theme of "Where Are You?" to extend the meaning of "reunion" and express parents' concern for their children who are away from home.

China Mobile's "What's Peppa Pig?" has become a hit, telling the story of a series of events between the simple emotions of Chinese rural people and the "alien species" Peppa Pig. The social pain point of going home for the New Year stung everyone in the city, and the relationship between the aging parents and the thriving children is very moving.

"Afraid to Go Home" tells the psychological changes of every person working hard in the city when they go home for the New Year. They dare not go home because they feel they are not successful; they have not had a satisfactory year and it is too embarrassing to go home; they do not have enough money to go home and are afraid to face the eyes of relatives and friends, so they decide not to celebrate the New Year. This seemingly sad story actually happens every Spring Festival.

4. Breaking through geographical restrictions

On the other hand, there is no difference between the north and the south when it comes to collecting the five blessings. Due to China's vast territory, customs and habits vary greatly across the country, but the only thing that remains the same is "sticking the word 'Fu'". Therefore, the cultural basis of collecting the five blessings has no geographical restrictions and has the basic conditions to cover a wider range of people.

Chinese people will choose to go back to their hometown to celebrate the New Year at every different stage of life. For Chinese people, Chinese New Year is not only an important festival symbol, but also represents a reunion. After a busy year, families finally have time to get together. During the Chinese New Year, people should not only bring joy and love home, but also convey their thoughts to their relatives far away.

Since 2018, Alipay has changed its marketing strategy of collecting the five blessings. While weakening the monetary attribute, it has also paid more attention to local traditional customs and designed different blessing characters for each province and city. "Sichuan Fu" incorporates giant panda elements, "Tibet Fu" incorporates Potala Palace elements, and so on.

5. The activity of collecting five blessings has certain social attributes.

In today's era, social attributes mostly refer to comparisons on social media. The blessing-collecting activity itself can serve as social currency and has certain social attributes.

"How many blessings do you have" can successfully open up the conversation between old friends, and they can compare who has more blessings, who has collected all five blessings, and who has drawn the "Treasure of Diligence and Dedication". At this time, the blessing-collecting activity becomes a warm-up activity that can liven up the atmosphere.

The function of "ask a friend to give a card" can help to familiarize previously unfamiliar relationships, and friends can have more interactions in the process of transferring and giving gifts to each other. The activity of collecting five blessings can evolve into a new way of building social relationships, allowing users to feel the "flavor of the New Year" through progressive social relationships.

Whether it is the hunger marketing of "Diligence and Dedication", the high-tech gameplay of AR scanning for blessings, or the Alipay Five Blessings activity that is determined to become a New Year memory for the post-00s, it has been working hard to build the social attributes of Alipay, and the humanized interactive experience has triggered interaction among the whole people.

The Five Blessings Collection activity, which returns to the gameplay of acquaintance relationships, is no longer just an activity that stimulates users with gameplay and benefits, but allows users to perceive the meaning of "New Year's blessings" through progressive social relationships.

6. Launch the Five Blessings cultural and creative products and create the Five Blessings "New Year Customs" cultural IP

If the activity of collecting five blessings wants to truly become a "new custom", Alipay should not only focus on the "marketing" level, but also think about how to make the activity of collecting five blessings full of vitality, popular among young users, and become a New Year memory of the post-00s.

The Chinese Five Blessings Chopstick Gift Box jointly created by Alipay and Taobao Xinxuan can be randomly won by users during the Five Blessings collection period; hundreds of New Year custom cards are selected by users to be the most representative of the local area, and the winning traditional New Year custom easter eggs of the 34 provinces and cities will be added to the Five Blessings online easter egg cards to be displayed to people across the country; the Five Blessings movie "Qilidi" is launched, directed by Ann Hui, with the theme song sung by Chen Li and the poster designed by Huang Hai.

If we want to build the Five Blessings into a new IP force, conventional cultural propaganda methods are no longer enough. If Alipay wants to keep up with the pace of young people, it must combine traditional New Year culture with modern trendy culture to rekindle young people’s love and enthusiasm for the Spring Festival.

Alipay keeps up with the national fashion trend and cooperates with LEDIN, a subsidiary of Peacebird, to incorporate the word "Fu" into daily clothing design; it launches Five Blessings cultural and creative peripherals, which are originally designed by Alipay designers and designed as creative gifts for the Five Blessings activities; it closely follows the market craze among young people and holds a code merchant market in Xi'an, and cooperates with major internet celebrity code merchants with hundreds of millions of traffic on Douyin to recreate the lively feeling of the New Year's market in childhood.

• Conclusion•

The Alipay Five Blessings campaign expressed the deep emotions contained in the word "Fu" through the word "Fu", aroused the emotional resonance of users, and triggered self-propagation among netizens.

The activity of collecting five blessings has entered its fifth year, but it is too early to conclude that it is a "new custom". Whether Alipay’s collection of the five blessings can become a true “New Year custom” remains to be seen. 

Author: Clockwork Brown

Source: PR Home