Since the launch of WeChat Pay before the Spring Festival in 2014, the rise of the new folk custom of electronic red envelopes during the Spring Festival is the tenth anniversary this year, and the Spring Festival red envelope war of Internet giants "respecting people with hundreds of millions" has entered its ninth year.
However, compared with previous years, this year's Internet Spring Festival red envelopes are really too cold.
On the one hand, up to now, in addition to Kuaishou, the amount of Spring Festival red envelope investment of several large manufacturers has shrunk significantly compared with previous years, and more apps, such as B station, Meituan, Zhihu, Douban, Douyu, etc., have not launched any Spring Festival customized activities, nor have they seen the spread related to red envelopes. In 2021, the total amount of online red envelopes distributed by major mainstream Internet giants was 18.1 billion yuan, while this year, according to incomplete statistics, the total amount of red envelopes for the Spring Festival announced was only 3.7 billion yuan.
On the other hand, the biggest focus of the Spring Festival red envelope war - CCTV's red envelope interactive partners for the Spring Festival Gala has not yet been revealed.
This is the Internet giants who are trying to reduce costs and increase efficiency, so the response is cold? Or is there doubt about the marketing communication effect of the Spring Festival red envelope, or, both?
■ Written by: New Express News reporter Zheng Zhihui Draft: Liao Muxing
The rise of the Spring Festival red envelope war has witnessed the development of the Internet industry
Traceable Internet company red envelope marketing, the earliest can be traced back to the Spring Festival in 2011, Sina Weibo launched the "invite friends to knit necks, take red envelopes" activity, by inviting friends to register Weibo to get cash red envelopes, #let the red envelopes fly# became a hot topic in that year's Spring Festival.
The red envelope craze really exploded during the Spring Festival in 2014. Before the Spring Festival in 2014, WeChat Pay was updated, and functions such as fighting red envelopes and following accounts to send or receive red envelopes were launched, successfully mobilizing users' enthusiasm for participation and preparing for future wars.
According to the official data released by WeChat, from the Chinese New Year's Eve to the eighth day of the Lunar New Year that year, a total of 8 million users participated in the red envelope grabbing activity, which peaked Chinese New Year's Eve night.
In the Spring Festival of the following year, WeChat successfully snatched the opportunity for CCTV Spring Festival Gala cooperation from Midea, which had obtained sponsorship rights for two consecutive years. During the 2015 CCTV Spring Festival Gala, the number of interactions with WeChat Shake and Grab Red Envelopes exceeded 11 billion, and WeChat took out 500 million yuan in cash and distributed more than 1 billion red envelopes.
The effect of throwing money was immediate: in Chinese New Year's Eve night of 2015, WeChat Pay added more than 20 million new users, greatly narrowing the gap with Alipay. This also kicked off the prelude to the Spring Festival red envelope marketing war among Internet giants that has continued to this day.
Alipay won the exclusive sponsorship of the 2016 Spring Festival Gala at any cost, and since then, the Spring Festival Gala sponsorship has been competed for by Internet companies, and the highest event amount has climbed to 4 billion yuan. Since 2016, Internet giants that have not obtained exclusive cooperation with the Spring Festival Gala have also begun to send red envelopes on their own super apps, setting off a Spring Festival red envelope war.
Especially in 2021, first Kuaishou bid 2 billion yuan in total red envelopes, then Baidu bid 2.1 billion yuan, and Douyin added another 100 million yuan to reach 2.2 billion yuan. In 2022, JD.com smashed red envelopes and good things worth 1.5 billion yuan, topping the Spring Festival Gala with the largest amount of red envelopes.
Through the Spring Festival red envelope war over the years, we have witnessed the strong rise of new Internet forces represented by Kuaishou and Douyin; Baidu, which once sank, ushered in a wave of strong growth with the help of Spring Festival red envelopes; Jingdong Hao smashed the record-setting Spring Festival Gala red envelope, wanting to pry the entire sinking market...
The role of red envelopes in pulling new is limited, and users of large factories show aesthetic fatigue
However, with the passage of time, the drawbacks of the Spring Festival red envelope war have gradually emerged - new users who have borrowed red envelopes have come quickly and left in a hurry.
Kuaishou, who sent red envelopes at the CCTV Spring Festival Gala in 2020, reached a peak of 228 million daily active on Chinese New Year's Eve night, and Douyin's DAU (daily active users) also set an all-time record of 339 million. However, according to QuestMobile's tracking report, the user retention rate of these two major platforms after the Spring Festival did not exceed 30%.
Among them, the most embarrassing is the 2019 Spring Festival Gala gold lord Baidu. According to QuestMobile, on the night of Chinese New Year's Eve night in 2019, the daily activity of Baidu APP soared 67% year-on-year to 240 million. But just seven days later, its new user retention rate was only a measly 2%. Moreover, because the amount spent on the Spring Festival red envelope campaign that year exceeded the budget, Baidu's quarterly results lost money for the first time since its listing.
Similarly, in 2020, although Kuaishou's daily activity peaked during the Spring Festival Gala, it also fell rapidly after that, and three years later, Kuaishou's daily activity still did not exceed 400 million.
Perhaps because of these lessons from the past, the total investment amount of Internet manufacturers in the Spring Festival red envelope war peaked at more than 18.1 billion yuan in 2021, and then fell significantly in 2022, with JD.com, Kuaishou, Alipay, Douyin, Baidu, Alipay, and Meituan investing a total of about 9.2 billion yuan, while other platforms did not move, a decrease of almost 50% from the previous year.
This year, it can only be described as deserted. According to the reporter, in addition to Kuaishou still maintaining a scale of about 2 billion yuan investment in the previous two years, Alipay is the same as last year (500 million yuan), Douyin plummeted from 2 billion yuan to 400 million yuan, and other families are not even willing to announce the amount, or simply give up participation.
As for the largest IP Spring Festival Gala in the Spring Festival schedule, as of press time, the red envelope interactive partners of CCTV's Spring Festival Gala have not yet been announced. Many people speculate that the Spring Festival Gala red envelope interactive event is likely to be discontinued from this year.
Liu Xingliang, a digital economist, told reporters, "The Spring Festival red envelope war has been calculated from 2014 to 2023, and for ten years, all the tricks that should be played have been played, and the market pattern of red envelopes has also formed." Whether it is a business or a user, I think it has reached a stage of aesthetic fatigue, so it is reasonable to say that it is no longer hot. ”