This article is reproduced from All Weather Technology, author Zhang Chao
During the CCTV Spring Festival Gala in 2021, the total number of Douyin red envelope interactions reached 70.3 billion, and the total number of viewers in the Douyin Spring Festival Gala live broadcast was 1.221 billion, far exceeding last year. In addition to gaining traffic, the promotion of new "mobile payment" services is seen as a deeper and more important purpose of Douyin.
The 2021 CCTV Spring Festival Gala ended in a lively and peaceful atmosphere, and the 1.2 billion red envelopes dropped by Douyin caused a lot of splash.
According to official data, during the Spring Festival Gala, the total number of interactions of Douyin Red Packets reached 70.3 billion; the total number of viewers in the live broadcast of the Douyin Spring Festival Gala was 1.221 billion, with 4.984 million at the most. Although the highest number of real-time online users in the live broadcast room was less than last year (25.24 million), the total number of red envelope interactions and the cumulative number of viewers in the live broadcast room far exceeded last year.
Since CCTV held the Spring Festival Gala for the first time in 1983, 39 years have passed since 2021. As an important entertainment program for Chinese New Year's Eve around the world, the ratings of the Spring Festival Gala have been high for a long time.
For more than 30 years, the Spring Festival Gala has been regarded as a "barometer of China's economy"-the economic strength threshold of the partners of the Spring Festival Gala reflects to a considerable extent the development level of the leading companies in various industries. This annual event has now become a show ground for the power of China's new economy companies to compete.
On this stage where more than a billion eyes are gathered, the giant companies do their best to attract the attention of the audience. From titled advertisements to oral placement, to today's interactive rewards, all are important ways for companies to market products and promote brands.
Especially since 2015, with the help of Internet giants, "grab a red envelope" has become another standard feature of the Spring Festival Gala, which continues to this day.
In 2021, the short video platform Douyin will temporarily fill the stage and become the exclusive interactive partner of CCTV Spring Festival Gala. It will spend 1.2 billion yuan to have fun with the people. This is also the second time Douyin has reached a cooperation with CCTV Spring Festival Gala after 2019.
Affected by the epidemic, "Chinese New Year in situ" has become a new trend. More and more people watch the Spring Festival Gala, video interaction, and "New Year's greetings on the cloud" through the Internet. According to Douyin data, from February 4th Xiaonian to February 11th New Year’s Eve, the cumulative number of New Year's greeting videos released through Douyin exceeded 50.6 billion times, with 6.2 billion praises, and the total exposure of new media actions reached 81.3 billion. Created another great achievement.
For enterprises, cooperation with the Spring Festival Gala may not be profitable, but based on past experience, it can boost the development of new businesses to a large extent.
Therefore, holding the CCTV Spring Festival Gala is also regarded as one of the ways for companies to overtake new business corners. Among them, the most famous case is the WeChat Pay "Sneak Attack on Pearl Harbor" incident in 2015, which successfully reversed the mobile payment battle.
And what kind of calculations did the Douyin of "World War II Spring Festival Gala" make?
1 byte beating "World War II Spring Festival Gala"
Less than a month after the CCTV Spring Festival Gala live broadcast, Douyin urgently made up seats, dispatched equipment, and hurriedly recruited people to start the journey of World War II Spring Festival Gala.
The official announcement of Douyin is simple and straightforward. In addition to announcing the identity of the "Exclusive Red Packet Interactive Partner of the Central Station Spring Festival Gala," it only revealed two pieces of information: the total amount of red packets is 1.2 billion yuan; the platform for grabbing red packets is Douyin, but the live viewing platforms include " Douyin, "Today's Headlines" and "Watermelon Video".
In comparison, when Douyin officially announced that it became the exclusive social media communication platform for CCTV Spring Festival Gala in 2019, the news content it released, from the theme of the event to the interactive gameplay, to the participating platform, was very detailed. The external evaluation of the official Douyin announcement in 2021 is "the fewer words, the bigger the matter".
According to the "2018 Douyin Big Data Report", in 2018, the daily active users of Douyin in 2018 exceeded 250 million, and the monthly active users exceeded 500 million.
For an app that was only 2 years online at the time, such achievements are definitely worth showing off, but in the entire Internet industry, compared with the head app, Douyin still has a very big gap: WeChat monthly activity in 2018 The number of users has reached 1.082 billion, which is more than twice that of Douyin; as of the end of September of that year, the number of annual active users of Alipay has exceeded 700 million.
Attracting traffic and opening up the market have naturally become the main purpose of Douyin's first partner CCTV Spring Festival Gala. The official calibre at the time also stated that Douyin and CCTV Spring Festival Gala will carry out all-round and in-depth cooperation in the field of short video announcements and social interaction.
It is not difficult to see that the business scope of Douyin will remain unchanged in the short video field, mainly to attract users through social interaction.
It is worth noting that in 2019, TikTok (the overseas version of Douyin), which is also a platform under the Bytedance platform, will jointly open the Spring Festival Gala interaction with Douyin. At that time, TikTok had already emerged in some countries in Southeast Asia. In the US and European markets, it also opened up the market through the acquisition of Musical.ly, a music short video platform; however, it is still a long way from becoming a world-class app. The CCTV Spring Festival Gala became such an opportunity.
Therefore, when Douyin first became the exclusive social media communication platform for CCTV Spring Festival Gala, TikTok seemed to be a propaganda assistant, playing a role in overseas users that Douyin could not reach.
Over the past two years, the Bytedance strategy has also undergone a significant change.
In the second CCTV Spring Festival Gala, the lineup offered by ByteDance is no longer Douyin and TikTok, but the three major products of Douyin, Toutiao and Watermelon Video. Among them, Douyin, as the main platform, undertakes tasks such as live broadcast, interaction with users, and red envelopes, while the latter two cooperate with the presentation of live broadcast content.
Since 2020, the three major applications of Douyin, Toutiao and Watermelon Video have appeared more and more frequently.
Although Douyin and Watermelon Video are on the same video track, the former has always focused on short videos, while the latter has been stuck in medium and long videos, and consciously differs in positioning. Last year, Bytedance completed the connection of several major platforms under its umbrella to realize the interoperability of video content.
The advantage of getting through is that, on the one hand, the content posted by users on any platform under ByteDance can be synchronized to other platforms with one click without repeated operations; on the other hand, if you search for content from Watermelon Video on the Douyin platform, You can jump directly, and each platform can attract traffic to each other, so as to accelerate the rise of new apps.
Today's headlines carry the important tasks of byte-beating graphic information flow and search advertising business.
In November 2020, an employee of Bytedance revealed to the media that by integrating the product lines of Toutiao, Douyin, and Watermelon, all Bytedance search ads were launched. This also makes byte-beating search, compared with traditional search, to increase the results in the form of video, and the content is more abundant.
With the strengthening of product synergy, the relationship between the three will become closer. It was even reported not long ago that ByteDance will package and list the three major businesses of Douyin, Toutiao, and Watermelon Video. Although the official did not comment publicly on this, judging from the content distribution lineup of this CCTV Spring Festival Gala, this statement may be possible.
2 CCTV Spring Festival Evening, traffic Heights
Public data shows that among the 20 CCTV Spring Festival Gala from 2001 to 2020, the ratings of all other years exceeded 30% except for 2015 (28.37%).
It is worth mentioning that the total number of viewers at home and abroad in the Spring Festival Gala 2020 will reach 1.232 billion, among which the number of live broadcast users of the new media terminal will be 606 million, reaching 1.116 billion.
For enterprises, the CCTV Spring Festival Gala is no longer a simple singing and dancing event, but an opportunity for direct and efficient dialogue with hundreds of millions of Chinese. In this scenario, any sentence, picture, or logo may be infinitely magnified, ultimately bringing huge economic benefits to the enterprise.
The director of the CCTV Variety Channel, the director of the large-scale program production center of CCTV, and the director of multiple CCTV Spring Festival Gala, once described the importance of the content of the CCTV Spring Festival Gala: “Don’t underestimate a song, a dance, An acrobatic magic or even a line. Although it is for the common people, it is a transmission of national cultural consciousness."
As a billion-level traffic highland, CCTV's Spring Festival Gala has naturally become a "sweet pastry" for all kinds of enterprises to compete for.
Before 1994, China's social materials were still relatively scarce. At that time, the brands that were able to win the CCTV Spring Festival Gala were watch and bicycle brands; but from 1995 to 2002, the wine and pharmaceutical industries broke the monopoly and became the CCTV Spring Festival Gala. New favorite: From 2003 to 2014, the home appliance industry represented by Midea Group has been the leader for more than ten years.
However, in the past 30 years of development, most of the cooperation methods between enterprises and CCTV Spring Festival Gala are blunt methods such as zero-point timekeeping, title sponsorship, and advertising placement, and there are many complaints from the audience.
The real change occurred in 2015, when CCTV Spring Festival Gala introduced new media interactive channels for the first time. The reign of Midea Group was finally broken, and Internet giants became the new "standard king" of CCTV Spring Festival Gala.
CCTV Spring Festival Gala Brand Sponsorship History (Image Source: Party A Finance)
This is a veritable "rich confrontation", the competition is corporate financial resources.
It is reported that in 2005, Midea Group won the CCTV Spring Festival Evening Countdown advertisement at a price of 6.8 million yuan. By 2011, the price had increased by more than 7 times, reaching 57.2 million yuan. Although CCTV later simplified some charging models, it did not mean that companies spent less money.
Taking 2018 as an example, the CCTV Spring Festival Gala "Biao Wang" Taobao that year not only spent 300 million yuan to win the advertising space, but also invested 600 million yuan into the CCTV Spring Festival Gala red envelopes and prizes, which cost far more money than it used to be.
In recent years, after Internet companies have become partners of CCTV Spring Festival Gala, their investment has increased significantly. From 500 million yuan in cash red envelopes in 2015 to 1 billion yuan in 2020, the total amount of red envelopes has reached 1.2 billion this year.
Behind the crazy money-spending is the extreme desire of Internet companies for traffic.
In 2015, WeChat cooperated with CCTV Spring Festival Gala and launched the "Shake and Shake" red envelope interactive project which became a phenomenon-level entertainment on New Year's Eve. According to official data, the total number of WeChat red envelopes sent and received throughout the day on New Year's Eve reached 1.01 billion times, and the total number of CCTV Spring Festival Gala WeChat "shaking" interactions reached 11 billion times, with a peak of 810 million times per minute.
The increase in interactive traffic has brought immediate results to enterprises. According to data released by Analysys, in the third quarter of 2014, Alipay became the absolute hegemon in the third-party mobile payment market in China with a market share of 79.26%; Tenpay, which launched WeChat payment, had a market share of only 7.37%, ranking third. By the first quarter of 2015, Tenpay jumped to the second place with 11.32% share, while the market share of the top Alipay declined to 74.92%.
This is just the beginning. WeChat Pay has since broken Alipay's dominance of the world, and the momentum of catching up is obvious. In the second quarter of 2020, although Alipay's market share remained the first in the industry, it has dropped to 55.39%; Tencent Finance, which uses WeChat payment as its core business, ranked second with 38.47%.
2015Q1 vs 2020Q2 China's third-party mobile payment market share (Image source: Analysys)
Perhaps this battle of WeChat red envelopes gave companies the courage to make a desperate move, but this game is not without thresholds. The founder Luo Zhenyu once revealed that in 2018, the company also tried to go to the CCTV Spring Festival Gala, but was rejected by CCTV on the grounds that the server would crash.
Therefore, in addition to being rich, companies must also have strong technical strength. "Daily activities must exceed 100 million" is an unwritten rule for Internet companies to log on to the CCTV Spring Festival Gala. Otherwise, when advertisements come out and users come in, the technology may not be able to support the huge flow.
3 Douyin emulates WeChat?
Temporarily taking over the CCTV Spring Festival Gala may be a bit hasty in time, but for ByteDance and Douyin, this is undoubtedly a rare opportunity to boost confidence in the capital market and develop emerging businesses.
In the field of short video, Douyin's current biggest competitor, Kuaishou, was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on February 5, raising 41.2 billion Hong Kong dollars, with a market value of more than 1.6 trillion Hong Kong dollars, becoming the "first short video stock."
Although Douyin is a super unicorn with a leading domestic valuation, it has frequently been exposed to listing news, but the official has not yet announced a clear listing plan. From this point alone, it has lost its first opportunity.
In terms of user growth, which is valued by capital, the number of Douyin monthly active users also fluctuates, and it is difficult to have a definite number. Analysys Qianfan data shows that from June to November 2020, the monthly increase of Douyin monthly active users is 4.65%, -0.08%, 1.25%, -0.99%, 4.24%, -2.85%, and the number is basically around 620 million. float.
Obviously, if Douyin wants to tell a good story in the capital market, it needs more eye-catching user data and automatic hematopoietic capabilities. The CCTV Spring Festival Gala seems to be the best place to achieve its goals.
In addition, many people in the industry believe that the promotion of new "mobile payment" services in the spring evening, copying the WeChat payment method, and facilitating the closed loop of platform e-commerce transactions are the deeper and more important purposes of Douyin.
In recent years, Douyin has continued to increase its e-commerce business, transforming from a content platform to a "content + e-commerce" platform. Its e-commerce model has changed from the initial redirection of third-party platforms to the establishment of a small Douyin store, to the organization of live broadcasts, and blocking external links. The e-commerce business has become another big revenue for Douyin in addition to advertising and education. source.
Due to the late entry, Douyin's e-commerce speed is slightly inferior to other similar platforms, and the formation of the closed-loop e-commerce transaction is still a key step away-self-built payment business.
As early as 2018, ByteDance obtained insurance brokerage licenses, securities investment advisory licenses and online small loan licenses through acquisitions and other means. Last year, ByteDance obtained a payment license through acquisition. This also means that Douyin has obtained the "certificate" for the development of payment business.
According to industry and commerce information, in November last year, Douyin also applied for the "Doupay" trademark and added the "douyinpay.com" domain name under the domain name storage registrar "ename"; a month later, it added the "douyinpay.com" domain name.音Pay" trademark.
As the CCTV Spring Festival Gala approaches, the process of Douyin's e-commerce is accelerating. In addition to the original payment methods such as WeChat Pay and Alipay, in the transaction link of the platform, Douyin Payment has been officially launched, which also marks the transaction of Douyin's e-commerce. The closed loop is further improved.
Not only that, in addition to throwing 2 billion red envelopes to the Douyin App, Douyin Volcano App, and Douyin Speedy App, in order to cooperate with the Spring Festival Gala and promote the Douyin payment business, Douyin will launch the red envelope function among friends in 2019. Later, they rushed to launch the group red envelope function on the eve of the CCTV Spring Festival Gala live broadcast in 2021.
Similar to the rules of WeChat red envelopes, Douyin Group red envelopes are also divided into ordinary red envelopes and lucky red envelopes. The maximum amount of a single red envelope is 200 yuan. The user can set the blessing in the dialog box.
Of course, Douyin is not completely "copying" WeChat assignments. In order to enrich the application scenarios of red envelopes, it also creatively launched the VR red envelope function.
In the beginning of 2021, Beijing ByteDance CEO Zhang Nan said in a public occasion that in the past four years, Douyin has changed from an entertainment method to a social method, and it may become a way of life in the future.
With the help of the "East Wind" of the CCTV Spring Festival Gala, Douyin has successfully won the first mountain. The next step is how to ensure that users retain and revitalize users and become a way of life for users. Perhaps it is a question that needs to be considered more.