The Big Double Eleven

Ma Yun, Jack Ma, the founder and executive chairman of  of Alibaba Group has been known as the richest man in China as of November 2014. The time of the news is interesting, and I believe he is likely to rank the first again in November of this year.

The biggest company under the group is call T.Mall. Similar to Amazon, it's a website for online shopping.

Today, I wanna to discuss the phenomena about a newly Holiday in China, and the back push of it.

The holiday ,we called "Double Eleven" or"Single Day" has a very interesting original. In my memory,  it's about 2009' winter, when the date November 11st coming, people found the date can be written as "11.11", and every ''1'' has been called as a person who don't have a boyfriend or girlfriend. We have Valentine’s Day, but there's no holiday for single person. So people spontaneously named this date to be the "Single Day" for fun. Although it's not a official holiday, the influence of it is still huge.

After the "foundation" of it, there's a movie that pushed the date to a even more popular place. On November 11st 2011( also can be written as "11.11.11" has been call "God single day",means God would also be single on that day.), the movie call"Love is not blind" has been shown. The movie described how a girl being dumped and getting recover in 33 days. Under the effect of "God Single Day", the movie achieved a huge success in box office, and also the holiday has been more impressive in public's mind.

I wondered it must be the online sales store that created the saying "when a girl being hurt in love ,the most effective to recover is shopping". Anyway, out of no reason, almost all the online stores aimed on this day, and giving out the strongest discount. It has became a Black Friday in China.

Among all the store, T.Mall is undoubtedly the No.1 in the industry. Here is a brief conclusion of the performance on that day in T.Mall. Actually I was shocked by those numbers every time. Here is the bar chart described sales value on November 11th from 2009, the unit of it is 100million yuan.(The number of this year is a estimate one).

Last year, the sale value has almost be 60 billion yuan, and this year, the record has been broken in 11 hours and 50 minutes.

Several sales record has been updated, such as "reaching 10million yuan in 18 seconds", "12min'29" for 10billion yuan" and ended up with "92.1 billion yuan" for the day.

The crazy numbers showed the purchase power of Chinese, and the magic of marketing. Mayun even held a Gala for it this year, and attempt to invite American president Barack Obama(being rejected though). And "James Bond" Daniel Craig has shown on that stage.

Effects of viral videos

Most of the viral videos are aiming at building up the some certain features for the behind brands. These kinds of features can be funny, meaningful, touching, or motivational. they all positive. However, if a brand being connected with some super ugly or negative feelings through a viral video,  should the outcome be negative to the brand? I think the answer is doubtful.

UNIQLO

Uniqlo, a Japanese Casual wear designer, manufacturer, and retailer. It has recently launched a new retail store in Chicago, but I am gonna tell a story around the one in Sanlitun,Beijing.

UNIQIO IN SANLITUN

In a midnight on July 14th of this summer,  a video has been spread as virus on all the social media. The key words of the video:"Sanlitun", "UNIQIO","Fitting Room" have occupied the top places of all the search engines. The content of the video is a couple are having sex in the UNIQIO fitting room. The girl has filmed all the process by Front-facing camera of her phone. 

People shocked about the video, and more people are interested in the details of it. This mini video(1'30" in total) has been viewed million times within several hours(Unfortunately, the relevant video and the view amount has been deleted by government, I cannot fins specific numbers). Most people noticed that in the end of the video there's a voice speaking:" Welcome to Sanlitun' UNIQLO. Wish you have a nice shopping experience here."

The public transferred the focus from the video itself to UNIQLO, and no matter what kind of impacts it create for UNIQLO. The publicity and sales are both rising up during that time.

Although UNIQLO has announced the video has nothing to do with the brand, there're some voices believe it's a marketing trick.

Through this video and the follow-up effects from public, I started to believe that in a relatively mature or complex market, Rising the publicity is the most effective and vital thing to make profits.
Similar to some entertainers, many little stars tried so hard to let people recognize them no matter how. Sometimes a sandal can be a trigger for people to get know a brand, but it's also a risky one.

Implantable Advertising in multiple videos

The advertisements can be  being blocked in most online streaming  video website. Most of the videos transfer their battlefield to the insert advertisements, Implantable advertisements.

Besides that, actually present movies are building an examples for the inserted Ads (no matter what channel it belongs).

From the  article Transformers 4 and implantable Ads, we can tell the revenue of this movie has already been gained besides the later box office.

Actually, in every videos that made for mass media, the implantable advertisements are commonplace. usually, The profs are mutual and linear.

The more viewers of certain video, the more effect and influence the Ads has made. And also, the more investments from Ads, the more support the producer have, then they have a greater ability to make good videos.

Here's a list that presented the list about the revenue that certain popular Chinese variety shows charged from Ads.(The Nubs showed in the last column is the price, and the unit is 100million yuan. )

I do believe the trend will continued in the near future,, cause it' s almost a perfect way to convey the information through a interesting story rather than an avoidable boring direct Ad.

Chinese Video Streaming Websites

This week, teacher's videos talked about the Ads on the websites and the Ads blockers. Those reminded me of the video streaming websites.

Interestingly, and also pity-fully, in China, we can only enjoyed the domestic Video Streaming websites. That is the YouTube is not available to us. The other interesting thing is, in China, we have so many choices for the watching videos online. Many companies shared the market. The picture below shows how the video streaming websites market being shared in May,2014(resource:iUserTracker).

Similar to Youtube, the Ads are setting in front of the videos we choose to play, and the more the clicks/views, the longer the time of Ads. The slight difference is all the Ads are usually being played at the beginning, and will not being played again in the middle of the video. In addition, almost all the video streaming websites have a policy that once you pay a annual fee or so to gain membership, then all the Ads could be erased. Here attached the revenue of the online video website. 

I, as well as all the people who are accustomed to watch videos online, always have several video apps in our PC or mobile devices. They are all familiar to us, and have different unique "strengths" though. 

 I am not sure it's an International routine or just a typical Chinese style: almost all the online videos the websites provided are purchased by the websites. So the  main websites are competing in the resources of videos fiercely. The choices of website are various, and the sources of videos are similar. Then, what can make the differences when earning market share? Most of the sites choose to buy some certain popular videos outright. 

For example, Sohu has the most resources of foreign serials, Iqiyi has most movies, Youku has most domestic serials and  variety shows, and so on.

However, these competitions can easily be copied and catched. Then, it became a simply competition of capitals. So the next step for these website is creating their own series or verities.

The main video websites like YouKu(/Tudou), Iqiyi, Sohu, and Tencent all have their own self-making videos. Moreover, they set up subsidiary companies for movies, serials, and verity shows making. Hiring actors, actresses, directors to step into this industry. 

It's a pretty troublesome situation that consumers need to go to different websites to watch different videos, but as to the websites, it seems to the only way for them to win the market.

Wearable devices

As mentioned in the article, Google glass Lead, the main advantage for wearable devices is reducing users' time of action and intention. They simply the processes for people to get information, and make it even more faster for users.

It's a Information Age, and those who get more latest information have more chances. So the marketers can find the market of the technology that can help users getting what hey want in a most simple and fast way.

I think the functions users care the most will be the internet marketers' orientation. So in the article The future of wearable tech,  the writer mentioned that in the recent 2 or 3 years, the body record, control and communication area will still be the main function that people use. It will also be requested  of the Right Now infro. but in a short future, the tech will be widely used in the treatment and education or so. And I think it will also be the most promising area in future.The next step for the marketers to  step in.

Airbnb in a trip

Airbnb, as a worldwide accommodation website, it provide visitors a new way to rent rooms, Apts, or houses while traveling.

These two weeks, I together with my friend, also chose it as an economical accommodation.

It is the very first time for both of us using it.  Fortunately, the procedures of it is quite simple. During the finding and booking period, the only thing bored me a lot is New messages do not update when I scan the website. Although me and the the landlord can communicate through email and text, it still can be better if we have a chat window while using website.

According to Statistics, the users of Airbnb increased from 2,652 in 2010 to 16,483 in the first half of 2014 in NYC.

The prosperity of this company can largely owe to the mutual trust from the landlords and the renters. So, unlike the normal hotels, the identification of the both sides is needed.

Effect of Wechat

As I mentioned last week, WeChat is now the most popular social media in China.

Since the number of monthly active WeChat users in 2nd quarter 2015 reached 600 million (data from statista ). It already much more than a common social app when in use.

First, not as FB or Twitter, WeChat focus on features in mobile devices. That is, the website version of WeChat only reserve very basic communicate function. But in its app, there's a whole new world. I think it's a wise choice for WeChat, cause nowadays people are tending to draw information and news from cellphones. It's the most convenient way for us to reach audience. You can close your PC for a week, but you cannot live without your phone for an hour.

Second, in the WeChat app Business and its Promotion channel are getting prosperous. This summer vacation, when I back to China, I found almost every decent restaurant has a QR code， and if you scan the code via WeChat, you can receive the coupons, discount ,and any other information from the shop.

WeChat helps people easily get access to the information they need to know. On the contrary, companies can easily promote their products through it. (Ps: not just restaurant. Travel attractions provide QR code, and people who scan it can enjoy the voice guide. TV stations also provide QR code in a limited time when broadcasting, and people could get free tickets or so after scan.)

Third, in a small circle, many people start to launch their business in WeChat by posting their products in “Moments”, but the shortcoming is the content cannot be repost in WeChat. So, only the people who followed him/her can see the post, and most of us dislike this kind of post.

However, in a bigger business scope, WeChat has contained almost all the business areas. With it, People can transfer money, pay the bills, buy movie tickets, book travel tickets, call taxies, shopping, investing，and even doing Charity. In a short way, it's like a combo of Uber, Yelp, Amazon, and Instagram.

WeChat Wallet

WeChat itself cannot do all the service, so it's a huge opportunity for other connecting industries. People may not download the Movie Tickets app, but through WeChat we can still buy tickets through it within a Jump page.