In the 2024 Spring Festival Gala, the Internet giants finally returned to the table.
A year ago, in the 2023 Spring Festival Gala, Wuliangye, Yanghe Co., Ltd., Shede Liquor, etc"Liquor Army"., strongly replaced the Internet giants that have been in the C position for 8 consecutive years, and became the "most beautiful boy" among the sponsors of the Spring Festival Gala.
At that time, due to the rare absence of major Internet manufacturers, the industry speculated that the big manufacturers finally began to change their strategy of grabbing the traffic pool of the Spring Festival Gala and were cautious about the cooperation of the Spring Festival Gala.
In the 2024 Spring Festival Gala, the Internet giants still failed to get lively. Although there are the participation of JD.com and Xiaohongshu, in fact, the two have their own agendas. JD.com has been left behind by Pinduoduo and Ali, and needs to catch up and not miss any traffic opportunities; Xiaohongshu needs to accelerate commercialization to get out of the predicament, and the marketing of these two companies in the Spring Festival Gala has a bit of a heavy sense of "fighting against the water".
Other major Internet companies have not moved, as if they have ignored the glamorous traffic pool of the Spring Festival Gala. Compared with the grand occasion of the Internet giants competing for the Spring Festival Gala and even the entire Spring Festival stalls in previous yearsThis year has indeed been very deserted. Why are the Internet giants not active? From snatching the Spring Festival Gala for 8 consecutive years, to now rarely asking, what have you realized?
The Internet giants grabbed the traffic of the Spring Festival Gala and the Spring Festival, which originated from the classic successful case of WeChat red envelopes in 2015. In 2015, WeChat cooperated with the Spring Festival Gala for the first time, setting off a nationwide effort"Shake it".The craze for grabbing red envelopes.
Data shows that the total number of WeChat red envelopes sent and received on Chinese New Year's Eve in 2015 reached 10100 million times, during the Spring Festival Gala, the highest WeChat shake interaction reached 8100 million times per minute, and the actions of WeChat users "shaking red envelopes" during the whole party exceeded 11 billion times. The huge traffic brought by the Spring Festival Gala has made WeChat Pay rise rapidly in the field of mobile paymentIn the market firmly controlled by Alipay, a hole was torn open.
At that time, Ma Yun even posted a post on social platforms to sigh"The plan and execution of the Spring Festival attack on Pearl Harbor was perfect, it was really powerful, and it really taught us a profound lesson."
The huge success of the WeChat red envelopes of the Spring Festival Gala has triggered the coveting of the traffic of the Spring Festival Gala by Alipay, Douyin and other apps. In the next few years, various giants took turns to compete for the exclusive interactive partner of CCTV Spring Festival Gala, and basically carried out in the form of red envelopes for the Spring Festival Gala.
Alipay has invested 800 million and 1 billion respectively, 900 million, Kuaishou 1 billion, Douyin 1.2 billion, and JD.com 1.5 billion for two consecutive yearsThey all hope to reproduce the "miracle" of WeChat payment in the past. The big factories that did not compete for the right to cooperate with the Spring Festival Gala have also invested heavily in trying to move the Spring Festival red envelope distribution activity back to their own apps, in order to bring new traffic growth during the Spring Festival.
Especially in 2021, the red envelope war has entered a white-hot stage, and major Internet platforms have invested a lot of money, and each of them has displayed the slogan "XX billion" on the APP. At that time, there was also a self-deprecating marketing of LeTV's "12.2 billion owed" to gain attention.
After that, thoughThe red envelope war of the Internet giants has gradually died down. The total amount of all-Internet celebrity packages officially announced by mainstream manufacturers has dropped from 12.2 billion yuan in 2021 to 8 billion yuan in 2022, and will only be 4.3 billion yuan in 2023.
Not only has the amount of red envelopes shrunk, but the gameplay has become more and more complicated. From the early WeChat "shake", it has become a form of gameplay for the card upgrade scene; Douyin and other ** platforms have added many rules on top of the collection card, allowing users to invite new users, create**, team up with friends, and set up many interactive games.
The shrinking red envelopes and complex gameplay will inevitably raise the threshold for users' participationReducing the enthusiasm of the public to participate will not be able to bring the scene of national interaction and traffic, let alone the success of replicating the WeChat red envelopes of the past.
The change in the red envelope war strategy of large manufacturers is actually related to the change in the stage of market development. In recent years, the Internet traffic dividend has been declining, and the market has changed from incremental competition to stock competition. User growth is no longer the core purpose of marketing activities such as Chinese New Year red envelopes created by mainstream manufacturers.
According to data released by Questmobile, a third-party business intelligence data service provider, since 2018, domestic mobile Internet users have been on the order of 1.1 billion for four years. In December 2023, the latest data from QuestMobile shows that the current number of mobile Internet users is 122.4 billion.
Since 2020, the scale of monthly active users of China's mobile Internet has stabilized, with a monthly growth rate of only more than 10 million, and a monthly growth rate of only about 2%. The dividends that large manufacturers have received from the rapid growth of mobile Internet users have weakened. The main APP of large factories has basically become a must-have for installation, and the Internet has moved from the incremental era of savage growth to the stock era.
In the Spring Festival marketing, the big factories set up complex gameplay tooIt is hoped that by increasing the duration and frequency of app use, we can cultivate users' usage habits, bring traffic to brand advertising, and boost the revenue of the most core advertising pillars.
Under the influence of many practical factors, large manufacturers of "reducing costs and increasing efficiency" have become more pursuing marketing efficiency, focusing on user retention, conversion and drainage of key businesses, focusing on improving user usage time and increasing the consumption amount of individual usersTherefore, the marketing of the Spring Festival Gala has also become more refined, and it is no longer as blindly investing money as in the early days of the mobile Internet.
The most successful typical example is still WeChat, its success in the 2015 Spring Festival Gala after the promotion of WeChat payment, it is no longer nostalgic for the Spring Festival Gala red envelope "throwing money" marketing, but in 2019, the Spring Festival red envelope cover was launched, from the very beginning to the brand, devolved to the creator of the first number, intended to lead more users to the first number through the red envelope cover activity, so as to complete the purpose of retention and conversion.
WeChat's custom red envelope cover is turning to the mode of charging brands, institutions, and bloggersIn one fell swoop, traffic monetization has been realized. Platforms such as Douyin, Kuaishou, and WeChat are more inclined to compete for the broadcast rights of the Spring Festival Gala, increasing user duration and user stickiness through live broadcast of large-scale entertainment activities, rather than spending huge sums of money to win exclusive interactive circles and carry out so-called red envelope interactive marketing.
Internet manufacturers are no longer obsessed with the Spring Festival red envelopes, and another core reason is that the effect is not good. Reality has proven that the new users brought to the app by sprinkling red envelopes during the Spring Festival cannot be effectively retained.
In 2019, after Tencent, Ali and other large manufacturers were involved in the Spring Festival red envelope dispute, they invested heavily to build a comprehensive Spring Festival red envelope marketing system, with APP as the main position, including the coordination of short**, sticker bar and other products, and attracted users through rich gameplay such as collecting cards, shaking it, and teaming up to grab red envelopes.
In addition to distributing 900 million red envelopes during the Spring Festival Gala, the total amount of red envelopes that continued to be distributed during the Spring Festival Gala totaled 1.9 billion, becoming the most high-profile manufacturer during the Spring Festival that year.
According to official data, during the live broadcast of the CCTV Spring Festival Gala, global audiences participated in 20.8 billion interactive red envelopesThe peak daily activity of the app also exceeded 300 million during the Spring Festival GalaIts good-looking** and national small** have also achieved tens of millions of DAU growth. Apple, Huawei and other mobile phone application markets were also paralyzed during the Spring Festival of that year because of the huge amount of apps.
However, the boom did not last long. According to the monitoring of the National Financial Research and Innovation Center, by February 9, 2019,The retention rate of new mobile phone users is only a dismal 2%.
In terms of attracting users, the distribution of large Spring Festival red envelopes has not brought a sustainable development effectIt even caused a loss in the first quarter after going public. At that time, the financial report showed that in the first quarter, including the Spring Festival, sales and marketing expenses increased by 93% year-on-year to 6.1 billion yuan, which greatly affected the company's profit performance. Yu Zhengjun, who was the chief financial officer at the time, also said after the release of the financial report that the loss in the first quarter was related to the company's red envelopes during the CCTV Spring Festival Gala event.
The problem of poor user retention is not limited to this. Kuaishou, JD.com and other large factories that once invested huge sums of money to "send red envelopes" during the Spring Festival are also difficult to solve the situation of rapid loss of users after huge traffic growth.
In 2020, Kuaishou took over and reached a cooperation with the Spring Festival Gala to distribute 1 billion cash red envelopes. According to the data curve of Questmobile, Kuaishou reached 300 million DUA with the help of red envelope rain during the Spring Festival Gala. However, after the Spring Festival Gala, Kuaishou's daily active users returned to the level before the Spring Festival, and the user retention rate did not exceed 30%.
In 2022, JD.com also spent a huge amount of money to win the exclusive interactive cooperation right of the Spring Festival Gala, giving away red envelopes and gifts worth 1.5 billion yuan in the Spring Festival Gala, with a total of 69.1 billion interactions, and JD.com's turnover during the Spring Festival in 2022 increased by more than 50% year-on-year.
However, such results did not benefit JD.com's subsequent user growth. At the end of 2021, JD.com's MAU was 5700 million, while JD.com's MAU only rose slightly to 5 in the first quarter of 202280.5 billion, it can be seen that Jingdong still has not been able to do a good job in the user retention of the Spring Festival Gala traffic.
In this regard, the report of IFC** has pointed out that after the Spring Festival red envelope, most apps have lost user stickiness, and DAUs, user usage time and times have declined rapidlyThe 7-day retention rate for new users is extremely dismal.
The low user conversion rate that the Spring Festival red envelopes can bring has also made large manufacturers re-examine the "cost performance" of issuing Spring Festival red envelopes, so the once lively red envelope war has gradually died down.
The Spring Festival stalls, which are extremely popular among the people, are an important node for brands to compete for the incremental market and enhance brand influence. Although the red envelope war of the previous Internet manufacturers was the most eye-catching, in addition, such as the liquor industry, new energy vehicles, mobile phone manufacturers, etcis also competing for the Spring Festival marketing node in different ways.
In 2023, after the Internet giants no longer compete for the exclusive interactive rights of the Spring Festival Gala, the Spring Festival Gala announced that the exclusive interactive partner of the Spring Festival Gala is Wuliangye only three days before Chinese New Year's Eve.
Liquor companies have taken over the interactive rights of the Spring Festival Gala, which has been occupied by Internet giants for 8 years, which also reveals the increased competition between liquor companies such as Kweichow Moutai and Wuliangye, and the phenomenon that head brands need to form a competitive advantage with the help of the traffic of the Spring Festival Gala.
Since 2015,Every year, Apple releases a short New Year's video shot on an Apple phoneIt is used to communicate brand value and image. Mobile phone manufacturers will also attract customers by cutting prices**, launching holiday restrictions and other marketing methods, and this year even Apple's official website has joined this "Spring Festival mobile phone ** war" for the first time, in the name of welcoming the New Year from January 18 to 21 to launch the official website direct drop activity.
New energy vehicle companies have also increased brand attention during the Spring Festival by reducing prices. According to incomplete statistics, just entering January of the new year, there have been a number of auto brands including Tesla, FAW Toyota, Ideal, Nezha Automobile, Geely, Lynk & Co, etc., to start the Spring Festival marketing competition, basically around finance, replacement subsidies or direct cash concessions, etc., and the Internet manufacturers spend a lot of money to attract users.
The iron-clad Spring Festival Gala, a large factory of flowing water. In fact, the traffic value of the Spring Festival Gala and even the Spring Festival has not decreased, but the simple and crude Spring Festival marketing method of red envelope distribution by large factories is no longer novel and can no longer adapt to the times. With the red envelope offensive for many years, the user's freshness of grabbing red envelopes has declined, and grabbing red envelopes is not enough to attract users to stay in the app.
But the heat of the Spring Festival will not dissipateThe Spring Festival will not be abandoned, but will only be abandoned by traditional marketing methods that no longer adapt to the changes of the times. After the popularity of "grabbing Spring Festival red envelopes" dissipates, Internet giants will inevitably have new marketing methods.