Spring Festival red envelope vs. dumb fire?
As the biggest festival of the year, the Spring Festival is often the golden node for Internet giants to attract new and revitalized activities, and simple and crude red envelope distribution activities have also become a must-have game for each platform to attract traffic.
At this time last year, the red envelope war of the Internet has begun in full swing, and major apps have changed the amount of red envelopes to the App icon in a high-profile manner, Kuaishou and Baidu 2.2 billion, Douyin 2 billion, Jingdong 1.5 billion... LeEco's "can't tell" icon that does the opposite has also been ridiculed by netizens to the hot search.
But now that the Spring Festival of the Year of the Rabbit is approaching, compared with the bustle of previous years, this year's Internet red envelope war can be called quiet.
On January 4, Kuaishou took the lead in starting the 2023 Spring Festival Red Envelope War, and the words "2 billion" were added to the icons of the main site and Kuaishou Extreme Edition, and a new promotional image with Jackie Chan, Jay Chou, Di Li Gerba and other big coffees as the core of the picture was launched.
Soon after, Kuaishou announced the Spring Festival activity strategy, this year Kuaishou launched a variety of games such as rabbit synthesis, offering the God of Wealth, pushing gold coins, etc., from January 10 to January 31, Kuaishou can be divided into 2 billion yuan.
It is worth noting that compared with the previous two years, the amount of red envelopes for the Spring Festival of Kuaishou this year has decreased, and the amount of red envelopes in 2021 was 2.1 billion, while the amount increased to 2.2 billion last year.
But Kuaishou is already the most active and "generous" player in this year's red envelope war.
In contrast, Baidu, which tied for first place with Kuaishou last year, prepared only 800 million yuan in red envelopes this year, nearly three times smaller than last year.
Douyin, another short video platform, did not put the amount of red envelopes on the icon this year, but put out the slogan of "Warm China Year".
This Spring Festival, in addition to regular red envelope benefits and card activities, Douyin also cooperated with four major brands of Bubble Mart, China Post, Seahorse and Lego to create a Douyin New Year playground, which integrates various interesting games such as the main red envelope venue of Douyin Station, lantern riddle activities, and special effect props.
This year, Douyin explicitly involves activities to divide red envelopes, including collecting 24 solar terms to share 200 million, searching for "warm Chinese year" to find red envelopes to share 400 million yuan, and fireworks activities to divide 100 million yuan. The total amount of cash red envelopes distributed by Douyin Spring Festival event was 700 million yuan.
In addition, Taobao, JD.com, Pinduoduo and other e-commerce platforms have also kept a low profile this year.
In the app store, the publicity focus of Taobao and Jingdong still revolves around the New Year Festival, while Pinduoduo plays the slogan of "Spring Festival does not close" and continues to promote the "10 billion subsidy" activity.
JD.com has launched a red envelope activity of "Blowing up the New Year Beast for All People, Divide 1 Billion Money" in the station, and the total amount of red envelopes has decreased by 500 million yuan compared with last year.
In addition, in previous years, the exclusive interactive partner of the Spring Festival Gala, which was rushed by the Internet giants and cooperated with the Spring Festival Gala to distribute red envelopes, has not yet been officially announced.
From the previous high-profile competition to the current weakened publicity, the enthusiasm of Internet giants for the Spring Festival red envelope war has gradually faded.
When "cost reduction and efficiency increase" meets "low cost performance"
As a national IP that everyone participates in, CCTV Spring Festival Gala has a wide and loyal audience in all cities and more remote towns and villages, which is an excellent way for Internet giants with growth bottlenecks to reach new users.
In 2015, CCTV Spring Festival Gala enabled new media full interaction for the first time, and WeChat became the red envelope interaction partner of the Spring Festival Gala.
During the CCTV Spring Festival Gala, the total number of WeChat shake interactions reached 11 billion, the total number of WeChat red envelopes sent and received reached 1.01 billion, and WeChat Pay card users also rose rapidly, adding 20 million new payment users overnight. Relying on the battle of the Spring Festival Gala red envelope, WeChat completely activated WeChat Pay and narrowed the gap with Alipay.
The traffic myth created by WeChat Pay has made the interactive partner of the Spring Festival Gala red envelope coveted by Internet companies, and also kicked off the prelude to the Internet platform to distribute red envelopes in groups during the Spring Festival.
In the following years, Alipay, Taobao, Baidu, Kuaishou, Douyin, and Jingdong became interactive partners of the Spring Festival Gala red envelope in turn, and the scale of red packet distribution also increased.
(Source: Huachuang Securities)
Under the power of the Spring Festival Gala + huge red envelopes, although the traffic myth of WeChat Pay in the year has not been reproduced, it has still created many highlight moments.
For example, Alipay, which wants to expand its social scene, gained 1.1 billion pairs of friends in 2016 with the Spring Festival Gala; The peak traffic brought to Taobao by the 2018 Spring Festival Gala exceeded 15 times that of 2017's Double 11, far higher than the original expected three-fold expansion. JD.com, which was originally ranked outside the top 10, also topped the overall iOS download list on the day of last year's Spring Festival Gala.
In addition to the Spring Festival Gala red envelopes, the red envelope competition on major Internet platforms has not stopped.
For example, when Kuaishou sponsored the Spring Festival Gala in 2020, Douyin took out 2 billion red envelopes to subsidize users and robbed users, and DAU once exceeded 339 million on the night of Chinese New Year's Eve; and in 2021, the total amount of Spring Festival red envelopes distributed by major mainstream Internet platforms reached 18.1 billion.
However, the essence of the Spring Festival red envelope war is to burn money for traffic, and when the tide recedes, it faces the problem of user loss.
According to QuestMobile data, on the night of the Chinese New Year's Eve in 2019, Baidu sprinkled 1 billion red envelopes for the Spring Festival Gala, bringing the DAU of Baidu APP to 240 million in one fell swoop, a year-on-year increase of 67.3%; However, according to the statistics of Guojin Securities, after Chinese New Year's Eve, the retention rate of new users in Baidu APP within 7 days was only 2%.
(Source: QuestMobile)
Coincidentally, Kuaishou and Douyin, which took over the sponsorship of the Spring Festival Gala in the next two years, although the daily activity reached a new high on the day of the Spring Festival Gala, the user retention rate after the Spring Festival did not reach 30%.
More and more companies are realizing that the traffic myth of WeChat Pay is difficult to replicate, and the red envelope war that costs billions of dollars, in exchange for only short-term traffic increases, cannot solve the long-term growth dilemma, and even increases the burden on the company.
In 2019, in addition to the low user retention rate attracted by the Spring Festival Gala red envelope, Baidu suffered its first loss since its listing in the first quarter of that year due to the impact of the Spring Festival Gala marketing campaign.
Under the cold economic winter, cost reduction and efficiency increase have become the keywords of major Internet companies, and it is obvious that under a series of lessons from the past, the red envelope war is really not a cost-effective marketing method.
When cost reduction and efficiency increase meet low cost performance, it is no wonder that this year's Spring Festival red envelope war is quiet.
Red envelope gameplay requires sincerity and novelty
As the golden node with the largest traffic throughout the year, the Spring Festival will always be a competitive marketing highland for Internet platforms caught in traffic anxiety, so although the red envelope war has cooled down, it will not stop.
Looking back at the Spring Festival red envelope war in the past few years, those who have set a higher growth myth have achieved innovation in gameplay, such as WeChat's shake red envelope, Alipay's Jiwufu, Taobao's family number, etc.
But now that the red envelope war is in its 9th year, the gameplay of major platforms is new bottles of old wine, combining the gameplay of the past few years, which is quite a "master".
Under the complex gameplay, there is often a situation where the platform invests 100 million yuan in subsidies, and the user only gains "2 Mao 5" after the operation, and in the end only the user's freshness and patience are consumed.
Therefore, for Internet companies, under the huge subsidies, how to maximize the effect of the Spring Festival red envelope is a problem to think about now.
In terms of gameplay, the platform needs to launch more creative and sincere gameplay like the early shake red envelope and set five blessings, if there are too many routines or complex designs in the interactive process, it will eventually only cause the user's rebellious psychology.
In addition, just as Kuaishou uses red envelopes to channel traffic to platform live streaming and e-commerce business, and WeChat red packets use red envelopes to transmit traffic and popularity to video accounts, platforms need to think about how to better integrate the application scenarios of red envelopes with the platform ecosystem.
In short, the Spring Festival red envelope war will continue, and only more innovative and sincere interactive gameplay can impress "picky" users.
Author | Zhao Yunhe