Slow hands! Why is the WeChat red envelope cover that has been online for more than two years now?
"Hands are slow, the red envelope cover is finished."
At 4:5 pm on February 8th, "Mifen" Xiao Chen left a message "New Year Red Packet" on the WeChat Official Account of "Lei Jun". "Lei Jun" sent over the link "Lei Jun New Year Limited Red Packet Cover!", clicked in, but jumped out. These few words.
On the same day, the "Lei Jun" WeChat official account released the message of sending the cover of the Chinese New Year limited red envelope, which will be distributed every two hours from 10 to 20.
Even after a few waves, Xiao Chen still didn't grab it. Sometimes he thought of it a little bit past, and sometimes he pinched it in but it showed that he had already received it.
"Grabbing the red envelope requires fighting speed, now even grabbing the cover of the red envelope has to fight hand speed." Xiao Chen sighed.
In fact, setting the alarm clock and fighting hand speed is only a simple version, and there are more complicated advanced versions of gameplay.
For example, the cover of Li Jiaqi's red envelope needs to do various tasks to collect 6 password cards of "Li", "Jia", "Qi", "Zhi", "Broad" and "Inter" in order to exchange for the limited red envelope cover 1 Zhang.
Brands have come to an end, and friends are happy to use it. Various information points to one result: the WeChat red envelope cover function, which was launched in 2019, finally became popular in the Spring Festival of 2021.
The WeChat Index showed that the WeChat index on the cover of the red envelope on February 8 increased by 2171% from the previous month.
In this Spring Festival, the cover of the WeChat red envelope has become a "social currency" that WeChat users are willing to share, and has become a new marketing position for merchants.
However, The Paper reporters noticed that, unlike the original intention of the WeChat red envelope cover "distributing to users free of charge", on the e-commerce platform, some people are peddling the self-made red envelope cover "serial number" at a price ranging from a few yuan to tens of yuan. Wait, the volume is considerable.
On the black cat complaint platform, netizens have reported that after placing an order to buy the cover of the red envelope, the "serial number" could not be exchanged before realizing that they were cheated.
Cost 1 yuan/piece, with limited attributes
"I think the original red envelope cover is too single, it does not reflect the fun and diversity, and I see that the red envelopes issued by others are very special, so I also want to have a special red envelope cover to satisfy my little vanity." 27 Xiao Yao, a white-collar worker in Shanghai, told The Paper.
For users, there is basically no monetary cost to obtain the cover of WeChat red envelope, grab a special WeChat red envelope cover, and then send red envelopes to friends, just like participating in a casual social game.
Xiao Yao deliberately searched for which brands are issuing red envelope covers and found that many have been robbed, but luckily found an Oreo red envelope cover, which was Oreo's brand ambassador Jay Chou.
Xiao Yao relayed the news to a Jay Chou fan, who immediately grabbed it.
Not only Oreo, WeChat officially released a red envelope cover online calendar, from February 1st to February 14th, the cover can be collected every day, participating brands, existing toC retail merchants (KFC, coco) Ke, Pizza Hut, etc.), online games ("Peace Elite", "Onmyoji Mobile Games", etc.), and even upcoming New Year blockbusters ("Samurai God", "Hello, Li Huanying", "Assassination of Novelists" ").
The Paper Journalists combed and found that lowering the threshold for distribution and superimposing the special timing of the Spring Festival are the reasons for the recent increase in brand cover red envelopes.
According to Tencent’s official website WeChat public account "Retail Wisdom Observation", the WeChat red envelope customization function was officially opened to the public in January 2019. At that time, it was mainly used to meet the visual unification needs of companies when issuing red envelopes to employees. The red envelope cover design authority was not included. Public, only enterprise administrators can customize in the background.
In January 2020, WeChat launched an open platform for red envelope covers.
At that time, the custom price of WeChat red envelope covers was 10 yuan per piece, with a minimum order of 100 pieces.
In December 2020, the customized price of red envelope covers was greatly reduced to 1 yuan per piece, with a minimum order quantity of 1, and more and more retail, FMCG brands and individual creators entered the market.
A related person from a luxury brand merchant who tried early on the WeChat red envelope cover lowered the threshold, told The Paper News reporter: “I saw some people today saying that the response of electronic red envelopes last year was not so good, but we don’t think it is exactly because last year. We were very popular when we did it, and we finished receiving it in an instant.” In his view, it is because we have done more companies this year that the promotion of WeChat red envelope cover has become a phenomenal marketing event.
Because the cost of 1 yuan/piece still exists, the WeChat red envelope cover cannot be supplied indefinitely. Instead, it comes with "limited" attributes like luxury goods, which adds to the fun of "grab".
Brand Marketing "New Way"
Why are businesses willing to participate?
The Spring Festival is the peak time for red envelopes to be sent and received, and it has always been an important node for brands to carry out holiday marketing. If 10,000 red envelope covers are distributed, the cost is 10,000 yuan, which can be used as a marketing cost for the company.
In return, the drop-down position of the red envelope cover details page can open the brand applet, official account and video account.
This means that when users send and receive red envelopes, they unknowingly drain traffic for the brand's official account.
A person from the COACH brand introduced to the surging news reporters that Coach made red envelopes at the beginning of 520 last year and received high praise from users. This time it was the Spring Festival, we specially produced the WeChat red envelopes for the Year of the Ox. The design took advantage of the COACH New Year products. The pattern of the calf is matched with the Spring Festival couplets of the calligrapher Zhu Jingyi.
"With the help of WeChat red envelopes to better interact with our customers, and to bring new users to the official account." The person said, "We sent out tens of thousands of red envelopes, and we received them all in just 7 minutes. The degree is far beyond our expectations. A large number of guests left messages in the backstage saying that they like our traditional design very much."
Secondly, some brands will also set various conditions for receiving the red envelope cover, such as paying attention to the brand's official account and leaving a message, registering a member and then drawing a lottery, which is equivalent to getting a new wave at a lower cost.
According to an article published by the official WeChat account "Smart Retail Observation", Gucci's special red envelope cover for the Year of the Ox needs to fill in personal information and register as a member in order to receive the red envelope cover with probability in a lucky draw.
LOUIS VUITTON is very skilled. Not only must you register as a member and fill in your personal information to draw the lottery, you also have to invite 3 new members to bind before you can add another chance to draw.
"Raffle receiving was originally an upgraded version of limited time and limited receiving. This kind of fierce operation also completed the new pull based on the same user circle, which greatly reduced the cost of customer acquisition and accurately reached the target users." The article said.
For users, in the rain of red envelopes in WeChat groups, among many ordinary red envelopes, the cover of a Gucci red envelope flashed, attracting the attention of group friends. The scene may be quite interesting.
In order to increase participation, some brands have adopted the image of brand spokespersons in the red envelope design.
"I heard that many fans are now very keen on the cover of red envelopes. If they don't, they will be inferior to the fans." An Internet advertising practitioner told The Paper.
These brands are well versed in digital marketing, and some companies make WeChat red envelope covers, which are really "good pictures" for their employees.
Be wary of paid WeChat red envelope covers
However, The Paper reporters noticed that under the craze for WeChat red envelope covers, some people have already begun to make money from this, and even have opportunities to find gray and black products.
Generally speaking, WeChat red envelope covers are distributed to consumers for free by brand merchants. However, some custom parties make red envelope covers not to please fans, or even without fans at all, but to sell them as merchandise.
Searching for the red envelope cover on Xianyu, you can see that many sellers are selling the serial numbers of the WeChat red envelope cover, and the price ranges from a few yuan to tens of yuan.
The serial number is one of the ways to issue WeChat red envelope cover.
According to the open platform of WeChat red envelope cover, the distribution methods include receiving QR code, receiving serial number, and receiving link. Customization can choose the appropriate distribution method according to the event scene, user group, and receiving rules.
The Paper Journalist bought a red envelope cover for 8 yuan. The seller sent a serial number and introduced the exchange method: enter the WeChat red envelope interface, add the red envelope cover, enter the serial number, and receive the red envelope cover.
After the paper exchanged and received, the seller found that the seller had made a red envelope customization under the name of an official account operated by a company in Guangzhou. The company's WeChat official account had not posted any news, and the registration date was January this year.
The seller has a total of more than 40 items on the shelves, most of which are red envelope covers. It is calculated at 8 yuan, and 1 yuan is the custom cost. For every sale, there is 7 yuan in receipt.
On Taobao, some sellers will write "Gucci red envelope cover Gucci Xiao Zhan" and other popular red envelope cover information in the product name to increase search exposure.
However, when communicating with the customer service, the customer service stated that “the red envelope covers of big celebrity brands such as Gucci, Wang Yibo, LV are not in stock” and asked users to “select pictures based on existing styles”.
Using the red envelope cover as the key word and sorting by sales volume, the top sellers have transactions in tens of thousands. Based on this calculation, the transaction volume is more than 100,000 or even hundreds of thousands.
However, the form of payment is contrary to the original free concept of WeChat red envelope cover.
According to the information released by the WeChat red envelope cover team:
Since the launch date, WeChat has clearly stipulated that custom parties shall not charge users any fees in any form because of the WeChat red envelope cover.
The aforementioned seller provided the real serial number. On the Black Cat complaint platform, a user reported his experience of being deceived in a complaint posted last year.
He claimed that he bought the "red envelope cover" for 10 yuan on an e-commerce platform and found the seller to make a transaction.
"The seller said that because of the virtual product, it required me to confirm the receipt immediately before sending it. With the integrity of the transaction, I confirmed the receipt. The seller sent a fake serial number." The user said.
WeChat has noticed the profit-making situation of gray and black industries.
As early as January 2020, the WeChat red envelope cover team issued the "Announcement on Reminding Customs to Use WeChat Red Envelope Covers Reasonably and Eliminate the Violations of Compensated Selling of WeChat Red Envelope Covers".
According to the announcement, WeChat learned through active monitoring and user complaints that a very small number of custom parties sold WeChat red envelope covers to users through microblogs, social media, e-commerce platforms and other channels. Such behaviors seriously deviated from the original intention of WeChat and harmed them. In order to improve the user experience, it also directly violates the "Terms of Use of "WeChat Red Packet Cover" Customized Function".
Indeed, this act of selling homemade red envelope covers through serial numbers is equivalent to a transaction of virtual goods. There is a mixture of fish and dragons, and black and gray products are mixed in with real customizers, making it difficult to distinguish.
On February 9th, WeChat replied to The Paper News reporters that in response to such behaviors of paid sales of WeChat red envelope covers to users, WeChat will do the following:
For customizing party accounts that involve such violations, the WeChat red envelope cover that has passed the review will be removed from the shelves, the red envelope cover that has been received will no longer be used, and the WeChat red envelope cover that has not been issued will not continue to be distributed; and these customized parties It will not be possible to customize any red envelope cover through the WeChat red envelope cover open platform within one month.
In the future, WeChat will continue to crack down on any form of selling WeChat red envelope covers that damage user experience, and provide custom parties with an open, healthy and just ecological environment.
However, from the foregoing, the sellers of paid red envelope covers can be roughly divided into two categories, one is the seller who does design customization, and the other is the scammer.
Some users suggested that since someone took the initiative to buy the red envelope cover, it proved the existence of demand, it is better to launch a red envelope cover store similar to the emoji store on WeChat, and let the original designed red envelope cover be put on the shelves for free or paid for users. Download or purchase, benefit both ends of supply and demand.
The Paper, News Reporter Chen Yuxi and Wang Qifan