Alipay, Douyin, Kuaishou, Baidu, Jingdong, etc. "spend billions of money"

Chinese New Year social magnetic giants start red envelope war

　　Our reporter Sun Qiru

　　Collecting Alipay "Five Fortunes", Ji Douyin "Lanterns", Baidu "Niu Cards", and "New Year Money" from JD... the Spring Festival is approaching, and the various Spring Festival red envelope activities on Internet platforms have brought a festive atmosphere in advance.

This year, in addition to traditional payment giants such as Alipay and WeChat, Baidu, Douyin, and Kuaishou, which have launched red envelopes for the Spring Festival in the past two years, have also spent a lot of money.

Why do Internet giants get together every year to participate in the red envelope war?

The mystery is hidden in it.

"Quickly shake a hundred" throw 7 billion

　　"Baidu collection card, wealth and peach life for Alipay, patriotism and dedication" "Saweya's profile picture turned out a professional blessing, so pleasantly surprised" "This year's five blessings are too easy, I have already collected all of them"... these days In the coming days, netizens announced the progress of their "Jifu" and "Jika", and invited mutual help. They were very busy.

　　On February 4, Douyin launched the Spring Festival red envelope event "Reunion Hometown Year" and announced that the event will allocate a total of 2 billion yuan.

Prior to this, Alipay set Wufu was officially opened on February 1.

On the same day, the Jingdong New Year Festival also opened a wave of "New Year Money" fun games.

Baidu also announced the launch of the "2021 Good Luck China Year" campaign, where users can share 2.2 billion yuan in welfare through six activities.

　　It is not just traditional giants that have joined the battle.

A week ago, Douyin and CCTV Spring Festival Gala jointly announced that Douyin has become the exclusive red envelope interactive partner for the Spring Festival Gala of the Year of the Ox. Douyin also stated that it will issue 2 billion red envelopes and 1.2 billion during the Spring Festival Gala live broadcast.

After the news was sent, Kuaishou also announced that it had reached cooperation with 10 provincial satellite TV Spring Festival Gala. The Kuaishou APP icon was also quickly updated, and the words "2.1 billion" were added, which meant that it was secretive. Some netizens joked, Kuaishou wants "only 100 million more than Douyin."

　　Last year, the 10 Internet platforms that launched red envelope activities issued a total of about 6 billion yuan in red envelopes. According to incomplete statistics this year, only Alipay, Kuaishou, Douyin, and Baidu have already spent nearly 7 billion yuan.

Chinese New Year socialization becomes a hot spot for war

　　New and old giants are vying to enter the market. Why does the Spring Festival red envelope have such a strong magnetic force?

　　The industry believes that as an annual national event, the Spring Festival Gala and the Spring Festival have long become "super IPs", and the resulting attention, interactivity and traffic have made the Spring Festival red envelopes a battleground for soldiers.

　　The reporter found in an interview that taking Alipay's Wufu as an example, Alipay friends can give cards to each other, and they can also "dip" cards already owned by friends through "dipping cards".

In JD’s "New Year's Money" campaign, users can get more cards by inviting people to fission, friend card gifting, etc. The more the same number of cards, the more New Year's money red envelopes they will get.

Therefore, in order to get the desired card, some users choose to exchange cards with acquaintances, while others exchange contact information with strangers to exchange cards or even spend money to purchase the required cards.

“Friends who haven’t been in contact for a long time have been reconnected because of the exchange of cards.” “In order to exchange cards, I added Alipay friends of various relatives at home.” Increasing user stickiness and recruiting new users have undoubtedly become the red envelope wars. The direct benefits of the giants.

　　The timeline goes back to 6 years ago. On New Year’s Eve in 2015, WeChat and the Spring Festival Gala collaborated on red envelope activities. The peak data reached 810 million times per minute on the night of the Spring Festival Gala. There were a total of 185 countries around the world shaking their phones 11 billion times. Reached 1.01 billion, 4 times the number of Alipay red envelopes in the same period.

After this battle, WeChat Pay realized the "Pearl Harbor" attack on Alipay, which received a lot of social attention and achieved a leap.

　　With the "learning from the past" of the battle of Alipay and WeChat that year, after Douyin announced that it will become the exclusive red envelope interactive partner of the Spring Festival Gala this year, many outsiders have come up with associations. Does Douyin want to fully develop its payment business?

　　For this speculation, Bytedance did not respond directly.

However, its CEO Zhang Nan previously released an open letter revealing that the focus of Douyin's cooperation with the Spring Festival Gala this time is to promote the social functions of Douyin videos, with the intention of building a "video circle of friends."

During the Spring Festival, Douyin will launch the Spring Festival Gala red envelope rain, video New Year greetings, "Lantern Collection", taking parents to take family portraits and other rounds of activities are mostly related to social attributes.

"I believe that short video New Year greetings will become a New Year custom for this special Spring Festival." Zhang Nan said.

"Have to fight" the red envelope war

　　Internet industry commentator Zhang Shule believes that the Spring Festival red envelopes on Internet platforms are really "have to be issued"-when the Spring Festival red envelopes become a new "custom" cultivated by Internet companies, they will not do it by themselves. Cracks appeared in the word of mouth.

　　However, the sword refers to the only motivation for social or non-vibrato.

Less than a month before the Spring Festival, Douyin Pay went online quietly.

When users place an order in the Douyin live broadcast room, the option of Douyin payment is added, which can support bank card binding.

In recent days, the Douyin APP has added a red envelope function to the friend chat interface, and also added a group red envelope function to the group chat interface.

Reporters have found that regardless of one-to-one red envelopes or group red envelopes, bank cards must be bound to Douyin when red envelopes are issued, and other third-party payment methods such as WeChat and Alipay cannot be used.

　　In addition, the Internet platform that promises "2 billion yuan" and "2.1 billion yuan" red envelopes at every turn is by no means "people stupid and rich."

Behind the billions of red envelope pools on various platforms, there are also many brand merchants.

Take Alipay as an example. If users want to obtain a lucky card, they can not only write the lucky card by themselves, but also search for the names of brands such as Didi and Mengniu in Alipay, and they will get a chance to draw a lucky card. Brand merchants also got an opportunity for users to actively search and brand exposure.

　　"Using red envelopes to publicize their products or activities can easily form penetration and participation." Zhang Shule said.