On December 3, CCTV announced that Alibaba would become the exclusive e-commerce interactive platform for the 2025 CCTV Spring Festival Gala.
Source: The official account of the General Manager's Office of China Central Radio and Television
The first cooperation between the two sides dates back to 2016, when Alipay launched a collection of five blessings to make people crazy, and it is common to ask grandpa to sue grandma for a dedicated blessing.
I don't know when the Spring Festival Gala fell into the spell of "not satisfying everyone", and the Spring Festival Gala in people's memories has long become part of the "Chinese Dream Core":
"Audience friends, I miss you to death"
"Palace Jade Liquor, One Hundred and Eighty Glasses"
"As soon as you don't close your eyes, this life is over, howl"
The so-called "Spring Festival Gala is still there today, and I don't see the person I liked back then", people are disgusted that today's Spring Festival Gala not only lacks novelty in the program, but even the interactive link has become a simple marketing war.
In between the shows, I took out my mobile phone and swept it, shaking frantically for the poor red envelope grabbing.
Now that the Spring Festival Gala and Ali have renewed their edge, whether they can come up with innovative marketing activities has become one of the highlights of this year's Spring Festival Gala.
And for Ali, who has regained the marketing road of the Spring Festival Gala, what does he want this time?
The history of the development of the Spring Festival Gala is also a history of social and economic changes, since its debut in 1983, the sponsor group of the Spring Festival Gala has transitioned from wine companies and home appliance companies to Internet manufacturers.
For businesses and brands, this is a great opportunity for brands to build a market and user base in the new year with 1.4 billion people looking forward to moving to the pony.
For Ali, after a few years of devastating subversion, it's time to use the Spring Festival Gala as the entry point to find his original intention.
Looking back at the Spring Festival Gala in the early years, the Internet giants just started to fight a payment war, intending to grab users.
And the first to eat crabs was WeChat.
I still remember 2015, the crazy "shake" era of grabbing red envelopes, both men, women and children were immersed in the joy of grabbing red envelopes, and on Chinese New Year's Eve, WeChat wallet tied card users exceeded 200 million, and then it was even more uncontrollable to embark on the fast lane, with this campaign successfully gained a foothold in thousands of households.
It can be said that this stroke of genius has made Alipay's previous 8 years of accumulation and efforts come to naught.
That Spring Festival was the longest winter that Jack Ma had ever had.
There was a cry on the Internet that Alipay was about to be surpassed by WeChat, and there was also a post that Yue Bao was unsafe, and Ma Yun responded to it in the circle of friends, and praised WeChat's "Pearl Harbor sneak attack plan" flawlessly.
There is a feeling of "you have touched my reverse scales", so in the second year, Alipay spent a lot of money to win the exclusive right to cooperate with the Spring Festival Gala, and successfully found the venue with a collection of five blessings.
Source: Alipay Jiwufu
Later, in 2018, Taobao became the exclusive interactive partner of the Spring Festival Gala, and Ali held hands with the Spring Festival Gala for the second time.
The marketing content is to sprinkle red envelopes, empty 1,000 shopping carts, and the interactive gameplay of the Spring Festival Gala has increased from grabbing red envelopes to shopping while watching.
Many times, the Spring Festival Gala is still in progress, and the topic of actors' costumes has been on the hot search, which has led to a lot of hot sales.
In 2019, Baidu became a partner of the Spring Festival Gala for the purpose of driving the development of its product matrix, and the three giants of BAT just got together, and this stage can be called the highlight period of traditional Internet manufacturers.
The success of the Internet giants has also made the commercial value of the Spring Festival Gala move to a new height, after all, the visible exposure effect and the commanding heights of the topic are really attractive, and with the successful cases of WeChat and Alipay, companies have started to dream of breaking the circle overnight.
As there is a saying circulating in the industry: "A company that has not been to the Spring Festival Gala is not a real Internet giant", and the subsequent evolution of sponsors just reflects this statement.
For Ali, the commercial field has already been in the vicissitudes of life in the years since leaving the Spring Festival Gala, and its business is facing fierce competition from its peers.
In addition to Ali and Tencent's "two-person biography", other emerging players are also eyeing this nugget.
Especially with the rise of live broadcasting, the rise of short videos, and the rapid rise of emerging channels, this is also another stage of the competition for the Spring Festival Gala by major Internet manufacturers: e-commerce competition, traffic competition.
For example, in 2020, Kuaishou threw 1 billion yuan in red envelopes, with the hope of tens of millions of "old irons" to win the exclusive red envelope cooperation platform of the Spring Festival Gala, which is still the old-fashioned red envelope grabbing model, but the difference is that it adopts a new video interactive gameplay.
In 2021, Douyin was unwilling to be lonely and became the exclusive red envelope interactive partner of the Spring Festival Gala, distributing 1.2 billion yuan in red envelopes during the live broadcast of the Spring Festival Gala, which also used special short video gameplay.
After that, in the face of competition from new e-commerce channels, traditional e-commerce platforms began to bow to traffic, and JD.com became the exclusive interactive partner of CCTV Spring Festival Gala in 2022.
The reason is self-evident, Pinduoduo's momentum is fierce and close to Ali, and Jingdong has been left far behind, which is why it chooses to win the exclusive interaction right of the Spring Festival Gala again in 2024 when the overall pressure is more, eager to find new opportunities and relieve labor pains through Spring Festival Gala marketing.
Source: Screenshot of the 2024 Spring Festival Gala
The highlight of the Spring Festival Gala in 2024 is Xiaohongshu, under the policy of other large manufacturers to reduce costs and increase efficiency, Xiaohongshu cooperates with the Spring Festival Gala to break the ceiling of user growth, and it has created an activity of "buying the same style while watching the Spring Festival Gala" to enhance the attractiveness of brands to settle in.
In fact, on the other hand, Internet giants are also struggling at the crossroads of whether to sponsor the Spring Festival Gala.
After all, the ratings of the Spring Festival Gala have declined, and the Internet is full of shouts of "young people don't like to watch the Spring Festival Gala", and it has become an established fact that the attraction is not as good as before.
And the exclusive interactive sponsorship fee of one billion yuan is really expensive, such as WeChat grabbing red envelopes, Alipay Jiwufu and other circle-breaking activities are very rare, and now in exchange for the disgust of users.
Even many users are moving small benches and waiting to grab red envelopes, and after the Spring Festival Gala is over, everyone begins to uninstall the App together.
This is all a reflection of the lack of long-tail effect, behind the doubling of daily activity is the extremely low monthly retention rate, how to make users continue to open the software is a difficult problem that major enterprises can't avoid.
But companies are still happy to sponsor the Spring Festival Gala, because the Spring Festival Gala has already become a symbol, and the value of the symbol is difficult to measure with data.
As one of the most important IPs of CCTV, the Spring Festival Gala can inject confidence into enterprises, not to mention the opportunity to realize future business relocation.
This is also why people complain about the Spring Festival Gala, but they can't do without the Spring Festival Gala, the emotional value and collective identity provided by it are the greatest significance.
Speaking of Ali, the purpose of this return to the Spring Festival Gala is much clearer: injecting confidence is the first step.
As one of the earliest Internet giants in China, Ali has seen the ups and downs of the market and investors over the years, and must come up with spirit to boost the entire enterprise and even the entire industry.
Let people see that the "leading brother" of the Internet is still magnificent, and other followers can rest assured, and the positive attitude conveyed by the last Spring Festival Gala is much more far-reaching.
For example, some time ago, Ma Yun, the founder of Alibaba, appeared at the headquarters of Ali in Hangzhou, smiling and taking a friendly photo with employees, and the shouts about "that man" sounded on the Internet again.
As the soul of Alibaba, every appearance of Jack Ma seems to have a unique significance, and it is certain that the role of the flag he highlights can indeed play a role in stabilizing the company, even if it is a face.
Source: Xiaohongshu @ They call me Liang Shanbo
Therefore, Ma Yun's appearance in Hangzhou and Ali's appearance in the Spring Festival Gala are of great significance for boosting the confidence of enterprises and industries.
Secondly, judging from the competitive landscape faced by Ali, it is becoming more and more difficult to do its own business.
Even if he is still the first brother of e-commerce, it is not easy for the elephant to turn around, and it may be difficult to regain everything that was taken away by Pinduoduo in a short period of time.
I still remember what the founder of RT-Mart said when he left: "I defeated all my opponents, but I lost to the times", and now Ali is also experiencing the pain of being manipulated by the times.
In this year's internal letter to Jack Ma "To Reform and Innovation", he frankly said, "Times have changed, and we must keep up with the times." ”
At the same time, he emphasized that "the core change of Alibaba in the past year is not to catch up with KPIs, but to recognize itself and return to the track of customer value." ”
At last year's Taotian internal communication meeting, Ma Yun set the tone for Ali e-commerce to be himself and users, and the three directions were to return to Taobao, users, and the Internet.
This is also the result of Ali's self-adjustment in the past period of time, from shrinking the offline physical business to abandoning Taote, and then to the launch of "refund only", the channel bar at the top of the Taobao APP homepage is completely handed over to users, and even the supermarket 0 yuan purchase that can only be seen on the legal channel has been transformed into a "use first, pay later" function by Taobao.
The fact that Ali will change and return to users is reflected in every micro detail that users can feel.
For Ali, it is now necessary to regain the heart of an apprentice and find the next opportunity to make a comeback.
The choice to sponsor the Spring Festival Gala again is to relink users and send invitations to young users, and more practical considerations will be seen after the Spring Festival Gala.
Who will win in the end is still undecided.
Maybe the scene of gathering around the TV many years ago and enjoying the new entertainment mode of the Internet giants while watching the Spring Festival Gala will be repeated, and the simple palpitations and restlessness at that time are worth repeating.