The big factory forgot the original, and behind the traffic of the Spring Festival Gala is business innovation

Image source @ Visual China

Wen 丨 Lu Jiu Finance

How to correctly open the Spring Festival Gala red envelope seems to have become an industry problem, Ali, Baidu, Kuaishou, Douyin, JD... A list of giants, a series of meaningless.

What drives the world? innovation!

Every year, the exclusive cooperation of the spring festival gala red packets is coveted by all giants, but for many years, no one has copied the myth created by weChat red envelopes.

In Chinese New Year's Eve 2015, after the success of WeChat Pay's "sneak attack on Pearl Harbor", the pit of the exclusive partner of the CCTV Spring Festival Gala Red Envelope has become a must for the big factories to show their muscles and pull traffic every year. This year, JD.com won this position, which is regarded as the best enterprise that Chinese Internet companies have ever had in the cold winter, showing JD.com's position in this round of rectification.

There is no "main room name" like JD.com, which does not mean that other large manufacturers have given up. Baidu, Kuaishou, Douyin, Alipay, etc., still insist on throwing money, trying to share the Spring Festival Gala traffic through a higher total amount of red envelopes and more gameplay.

Squeezing the head to rub the Spring Festival Gala is essentially the traffic anxiety of the giants. But the success of WeChat Pay in 2015 was perfectly replicated by no business in the years that followed.

The reason is that most companies ignore the essence that behind traffic and marketing, there should be business innovation - innovation is the cause, traffic, marketing, and the success they bring is the result. Reversing cause and effect, even if such a huge traffic pool as the Spring Festival Gala can no longer create a myth.

The business is the password that drives traffic

Chinese New Year's Eve 2015, WeChat Pay became the exclusive partner of red envelopes for the CCTV Spring Festival Gala. At that time, not everyone understood what this meant, until WeChat Pay Chinese New Year's Eve the total number of "shake a shake" interaction reached 11 billion times that night, the total number of red envelopes issued exceeded 1 billion, and the number of users increased by more than 20 million overnight, and the original user accumulation was quickly completed when Alipay occupied an absolute advantage, and the "cold start" was successful.

In retrospect, people were amazed that when people were singing about the Spring Festival Gala, WeChat first found that the Spring Festival Gala, which had a rating of more than 20%, was still one of the largest traffic pools in China. Therefore, since 2016, the Spring Festival Gala red envelope has become a must for Internet giants.

Unfortunately, although the total amount of red envelopes has been rising and the total number of interactions has increased year by year, almost no company has once again perfectly copied the success of WeChat.

Some people think that there are more and more enterprises that send red envelopes, the competition is too fierce, it is difficult for enterprises to stand out; some people blame this on the fact that after several years of activities, people have become accustomed to the "Spring Festival red packets" link, and it is difficult for enterprises to touch the nerves of users. But most people ignore it: one of the most fundamental reasons for WeChat's success is innovation, which is that it created the era of "Spring Festival Gala Red Packets".

When a product or service that people have never seen before comes out, many people will want to try it. For the first time, WeChat linked red envelopes with a wide range of stranger social networking, linking its weakness "payment" with its strength "social", and greatly improved the user retention rate when there was no benchmark product, because it was fresh, interesting and unique.

Not only WeChat red envelopes, but also Alipay launched "Set Five Blessings" for the first time, and WeChat launched "Red Packet Cover" for the first time, which caused a lot of repercussions, and their successful keywords all contain "first time" and "freshness".

If you want to become famous with the flow of the Spring Festival Gala, it is necessary to make it clear that the exclusive cooperation spring festival red envelope is not the more money the better, but the spring festival gala should be regarded as a huge new product launch venue that crosses age and geographical boundaries.

The "American Spring Festival Gala" Super Bowl is also a super traffic pool in the United States, the championship game can attract hundreds of millions of people to watch every year, and the ratings once exceeded 30%. Apple is well aware of the energy of this "big conference" and has taken the opportunity to promote its new products several times. Among them, in 1984, Apple and the Super Bowl cooperated to advertise "1984" for the new Macintosh computer, which is one of the classics in the history of advertising.

In addition to Apple, international big names in various industries such as Coca-Cola, CK, and Buick often play creative advertising and release new products between competitions.

In prime time, showing off your muscles other than "having money" is the way to success.

Can increased investment compensate for the lack of creativity?

Unfortunately, many latecomers have not found the right path.

Most of the exclusive partners of the later Spring Festival Gala red envelopes are only "giving money", not to mention the innovation of products and services, that is, micro-creativity in the gameplay, and now there are few that can make people think of it. So users are getting more and more "busy", shuttling between various apps, stuck in time to do the same tasks, taking money, but do not remember what the characteristics of each APP.

According to official data, the Spring Festival Gala, a set of central Chinese New Year's Eve, will send out 1 billion yuan of red envelopes in 2020, with a total of 63.9 billion interactions; in 2021, Douyin will send 1.2 billion yuan of red envelopes, with a total of 70.3 billion interactions; in 2022, JD.com will issue 1.5 billion yuan of red envelopes, with a total of 69.1 billion interactions.

Corresponding to the decline in the number of interactions this year, as of 24:00 on January 31, the average rating of the 2022 Spring Festival Gala live broadcast on the TV side was 21.93%, and due to the first vertical screen to watch the Spring Festival Gala this year, the new media direct on-demand users had 4.932 billion times, an increase compared with last year.

Jingdong, the exclusive partner of this year's Spring Festival Gala, the 1.5 billion red envelopes is basically "shake a shake", the brand "drumming to welcome the spring" and inviting friends to help, relatively traditional; prepared 2.2 billion yuan of "gifts" of Kuaishou and Baidu, as well as 2 billion red envelopes of Douyin, but also most of the gameplay has changed, and finally inseparable from the essence of collecting Fu cards, sending videos, inviting friends and so on.

Of course, there are micro-innovations, such as Baidu has ice and snow games, ask a question, etc., Kuaishou has a game of "passing the level will get 36 yuan cash gift", jump a jump and other sticky play, but the micro-innovation in these details has a limited role in arousing more people's interest in interaction, not to mention allowing users to stay.

The total amount increased by hundreds of millions or even billions, and each participant may only be able to share an extra dollar or two on average. The increase in the total amount of red envelopes does not seem to be able to make up for the fatigue caused by the lack of creativity.

Behind the failure of the Spring Festival Gala traffic, the responsibility lies in the lack of innovation in the business of the big factory itself.

After Douyin as the last phenomenon-level traffic APP, Dachang has not had any innovation in recent years, whether it is the innovation of the underlying technology, or the innovation of the model, there is no new business-driven red envelope game, how to produce a hit?

There are always people who say that the innovation of the mobile Internet has come to an end, is this true?

Innovation is endless, and anything is possible before the next generation of the Internet comes. If the giants can't use their own killer business to link with the Spring Festival Gala, then consumers can only hope that the giants can play some new tricks at the Spring Festival Gala.

Perhaps, the water drop chip played a national insurance at the Spring Festival Gala, which is more interesting than today's uncreative red envelope game.

Spring Festival Gala, don't just "rub"

There is no innovation, but it does not prevent everyone's traffic hunger, and players from all walks of life are off track and trying to rub it.

When the Spring Festival red envelope, like the Spring Festival Gala, has become a traditional project of the Chinese New Year, the big factories can only become more and more rolled in order to have a more sense of existence. But in the end, what exactly is left behind in the red envelope feast of the big factories?

In a word summary, the most appropriate may be "rubbing".

Rub the traffic of the Spring Festival Gala, rub the traffic of the Winter Olympics, and rub the traffic of various hot spots.

Red envelopes were issued, publicity was made, tens of billions of interactions were counted, and how many substantive achievements were finally brought to the big factories? After the Spring Festival Gala red envelope, the internal review of the big factory should not only stay on the surface numbers such as the number of interactions and clicks, but should think about the things behind it, what exactly has been precipitated?

Big factories should not sponsor for the sake of rolling up and rubbing traffic, but should think clearly about what they really need.

This year, the traffic of JD.com and Kuaishou may be more successful. Jingdong's basic disk in first- and second-tier cities, "people within the five rings", Kuaishou's basic disk in the sinking market, is the "old iron", for the different purposes of expanding influence or consolidating the basic disk, Jingdong and Kuaishou need to strengthen their influence in the sinking market, and the loyal audience group of the Spring Festival Gala just covers this part of the population.

Spending a few days or even weeks in exchange for a few dollars is almost meaningless for office workers in first- and second-tier cities, and even a waste of energy, for the old irons in the sinking market, it may still be fun, both to pass the time and to get benefits. Coupled with the fact that people in the sinking market have more time to prepare for the Spring Festival, the sense of ceremony is stronger, the middle-aged and elderly people in rural townships have fewer entertainment activities during the Spring Festival, and the combination of spring festival gala, red envelopes, interaction and entertainment is almost like tailor-made for them.

What about other companies that want to touch first- and second-tier people? For companies that are not sure of what group they want to touch, but feel that they "should" keep up with the money?

The traffic of the Spring Festival Gala is not a panacea, and enterprises must think about it before taking action before competing for the exclusive sponsorship quota for next year's Spring Festival Gala.

Today's Chinese Internet companies seem to be able to see only the sun of tomorrow, and no longer think about the rainy day of the day after tomorrow.

Traffic, is it justice? Wrong, the traffic that can be converted into business is the real traffic.