Tech Planet (WeChat ID: tech618)
Wen | Wang Lin
Cover source | Visual China
Do you still grab the Spring Festival red envelope?
When Tech Planet threw this question to the interviewee, most of the answers given were no - "no set", "no energy", "I usually have several sets of others, look at my pity and divide my set"...
From 2015 to now, Internet companies have spent 8.1 billion yuan on CCTV Spring Festival evenings, and during the entire Spring Festival, Internet companies have invested more than 30 billion yuan in the red envelope war, and just past the Spring Festival of 2022, the total amount of red envelopes in each Internet department exceeded 8 billion yuan.
Open Vibrato, Kuaishou, only stay for about 40 seconds, the App will automatically pop up the prompt to grab the red packet. Internet giants seem to be afraid that users will miss this annual "red envelope war". But users don't buy it, in their view, "grabbing red envelopes is just to make the boring Spring Festival more boring."
In Chinese New Year's Eve 2015, the total number of WeChat red envelopes sent and received reached 1.01 billion times, and the peak of the interaction was 810 million times per minute, which completely activated WeChat Pay and counterattacked Alipay overnight.
But now, the amount of red envelopes is getting bigger and bigger, more and more users are participating, and the myth has failed.
The routine is full, and the wool is difficult to sheave
After being reminded by Douyin many times to "time-limited red envelope rain, grab 8888 yuan in cash", Qiao Kun decided to participate. He clicked "Participate Now" following the guidance of Douyin, and then began to poke the red envelope pattern sliding down from the top of the screen with his fingers, and after about 30 seconds, the game ended and Qiao Kun received a prompt of "Congratulations on getting 0.1 yuan". Of course, if he invites a friend to help, he can get another 0.1 yuan.
This is the first time he has participated in the Activity of Grabbing Red Envelopes during the Spring Festival of internet factories. Looking at the news that JD.com sent 1.5 billion, Douyin sent 2 billion, and Kuaishou sent 2.2 billion, he muttered in his heart: Several hundred million, or even a billion people robbed together, may not even be able to grab breakfast money.
But on second thought, what if the hand is good?
Douyin did not work, he turned to Kuaishou, but he was once again defeated by the platform routine. In the "Jump a Jump Set 66 Yuan Red Packet" link, although it is prompted that there is money for each jump step, and the more you jump, the more you jump. But Qiao Kun found that the amount of jumping at the beginning was relatively normal, but the closer to the end of the activity, the less the amount, for example, there was 0.5 yuan at the beginning of the 20 steps, and then gradually became 100 steps 0.5 yuan, 150 steps 0.5 yuan, the closer to the 66 yuan amount, the more steps jumped, the less the amount.
There are also users on the social platform spit on the Kuaishou "set card points 200 million" activity - just before the first 1,000 people gathered to give 666 yuan red envelopes, dozens of relatives and friends around them smoked thousands of times and did not draw lucky cards. After some operation, Qiao Kun gave up.
A user commented on the routine of the Spring Festival red envelope of the Internet factory, a meal operation is as fierce as a tiger, and it is two cents and five cents to see.
Of course, similar activities do not only appear on Douyin and Kuaishou. The premise of Baidu reunion red envelopes of 500 million yuan is that it is necessary to invite friends and relatives to download Baidu APP, Baidu Express Edition, Baidu Big Character Edition, or invite new users to get red envelopes...
Although Pinduoduo did not explicitly state that it wanted to participate in the red envelope war, it launched the "Duoduo Love Elimination Withdrawal 800 Yuan" activity during the Spring Festival, because the amount of a single reward of nearly 1,000 yuan once again attracted people's attention.
But very few people get the money. Many users feedback on the black cat complaint platform: how to dismantle can not be dismantled the last point, almost always only 799.9 yuan. One user said that the difference was 0.1 points at the beginning, and then in gold coins, 50 gold coins could be exchanged for 0.01 cents, and finally only 0.1 gold coins were separated! 100 shards top 0.1 gold coins, 100 shards drawn to the last 99.99, can no longer be drawn, always is the withdrawal cheats.
The Internet, which has been considered an innovative force since its inception, seems to be a bit poor in the Spring Festival red packets, and the 8-year Spring Festival red envelopes have only formed three ways to play: WeChat red envelope covers, Alipay collection of five blessings, and cash red envelopes of various Internet giants.
At first, users will be attracted to the novelty and participate in various mini-games, even if they end up with only a few cents, but when the freshness is exhausted, overly complex activities and smaller and smaller amounts quickly reduce people's expectations. Grabbing red envelopes during the Spring Festival has become a boring game.
The silver-haired people took over the baton of the young man, "My mother grabbed the highest than me."
In 2015, the CCTV Spring Festival Gala for the first time enabled the full interaction of new media. As the general director, Harvin said bluntly: "I look forward to making everyone a part of the Spring Festival Gala, not only enjoying the audiovisual feast, but also getting happiness in the interaction." ”
This is also the original intention of most people to participate in grabbing red envelopes: it does not matter how much money there is, the most important thing is to have fun. In those two years, users kept opening Alipay in order to collect five blessings, and for a dedicated blessing, they had to redeem it everywhere. It is no exaggeration to say that WeChat and Alipay are the most profitable players in the Spring Festival red envelope war.
However, this is a different situation now.
QuestMobile data shows that as of September 2021, China's mobile Internet monthly active users reached 1.167 billion, which means that it is difficult for any Internet company to attract enough young users through the Spring Festival Gala red envelope activity.
At this time, the silver-haired family and users in the sinking market are unfamiliar with new things such as smart phones and online payments, which has become an increase in the Spring Festival red envelope war, and the Internet manufacturers are competing for it.
For these people, grabbing red envelopes is still a new thing. On Weibo, last year, some users launched a topic: godparents grab red envelopes during the Spring Festival. They made a comic strip that intuitively and graphically told their parents how to grab the red packet. For example, tell your parents how to turn on TikTok, and they write: With one finger, click this little black square like a musical note.
More than one user who participated in the Spring Festival red envelope told Tech Planet that he is now grabbing red envelopes more to help parents grab, such as collecting five blessings to send to parents, teaching parents to download vibrato, Kuaishou and so on. "My mother had heard others say that playing games on Kuaishou could earn a month's call bill, and after returning home during the Spring Festival, she asked me to teach her how to use Kuaishou." A user admitted, "When an Internet giant first started to send red envelopes, my mother asked me to help her grab them remotely." ”
A user whose hometown is in the county said that he heard that there were red envelopes to grab, and relatives in his hometown downloaded many apps at once.
In order to pull new, the Internet manufacturers have their own strange tricks. For example, Kuaishou leveraged 20,000 employees to participate in pulling new ones, as long as users download and register and join the relatives and friends of Kuaishou employees, they can get a larger amount of red envelopes. A Kuaishou employee told Tech Planet that many relatives and friends downloaded Kuaishou because of this, and the lowest amount of red envelopes in their relatives and friends group was 10 yuan. "It's good to have one of the 10 left," says the Kuaishou employee.
After burning money, the user cannot be retained
Compared with Taobao, Meituan, Pinduoduo and other consumer-oriented platforms, JD.com's active users are not the largest, and there is still a possibility of large-scale rise. According to the data officially disclosed by JD.com, the cumulative interaction of JD red envelopes during the Spring Festival was 69.1 billion times.
According to Qimai statistics, on February 1, the download volume of JD.com's main App reached a peak, about 400,000 times, and then gradually declined, and by February 5, there were only 90,000 times left. From January 30 to February 5, in seven days, jd.com App was downloaded nearly 1.2 million times.
Not just JD.com. According to Qimai data, in the half a month from January 22 to February 6, the daily download volume of Kuaishou exceeded 400,000 for four consecutive days. The Douyin Express Edition exceeded 400,000 downloads on February 1. Baidu, which also sent 2.2 billion red envelopes during this year's Spring Festival, did not achieve large-scale downloads.
Compared with last year, the daily download increase of more than 400,000 is a good figure. It should be known that in 2021, the major platforms participating in the Spring Festival red envelope activities rarely have a record of more than 150,000 daily downloads.
Kuaishou, Douyin Express Edition, and JD.com have all achieved good downloads during the Spring Festival, but with the end of the Spring Festival holiday, the decline in downloads is an inevitable trend. At this time, the Internet manufacturers have to face a more difficult proposition: after the incentive, how to retain more and more picky users.
In 2019, Baidu used the Chinese New Year's Eve red envelope to rush the daily life of the platform from 160 million to 300 million in one fell swoop, but the traffic that cost a lot of money was gradually lost because there was no suitable undertaking scenario in the platform, and the end-user retention was only 2%.
In 2020, Kuaishou achieved a KPI of 300 million DAU with the help of red envelope rain, and through the red envelope strategy of "watching video + liking", it set the largest video like record in the history of the Spring Festival Gala. But now, Kuaishou's daily life has just exceeded 320 million.
The efforts of tens of thousands of people and billions of cash have not been able to achieve more effective retention, which is the regret of Baidu and Kuaishou.
In fact, with the sluggish growth of mobile Internet users, retention is a more important proposition for Internet manufacturers than laxin.
In order to allow users to stay in their own applications, Internet manufacturers hope that they are omnipotent - it is best to allow users to achieve one-stop services such as shopping consumption, games, short videos, loans, and travel in an application or their own App family barrel. But no one has been able to build such a large business empire.
In the survival environment dominated by stock competition, the Spring Festival is still the most unmissable marketing node throughout the year. However, The Internet giants need to think about how to impress new users with sincerity in addition to the old subsidies, collection cards, and small games, instead of spending money, complaining is coming, and people are gone.
(Note: In the text, Qiao Kun is a pseudonym.) ）
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