Douyin Has Replaced Pinduoduo as Sponsor of This Year’s Spring Festival Gala
On January 16, Douyin officially replaced Pinduoduo to become the exclusive red pocket partner for this year’s Spring Festival Gala. Pinduoduo decided to pull out of the Gala sponsorship at the last minute due to public pressure over a recent scandal. (Read more about the scandal here.)
This is the first time the Gala has changed its headlining sponsor, but the organizers needn’t fret as this is a coveted sponsorship position and they were able to immediately find a replacement.
Why Are Brands Desperate To Sponsor the Spring Festival Gala?
The Gala has an extremely high audience rating. Except 2015, the ratings from 2001 to 2020 are all above 30%. The view in 2020 reached 1.23 billion. According to South China Morning Post, it is fair to say the Spring Festival Gala has the highest audience rating in the world.
The Gala has become many household’s new year background music, just like in the US how the Macy’s Day Parade is to Thanksgiving or the Times Square Ball Drop is to New Year’s Eve – only much bigger. The Spring Festival Gala is a must-have to say goodbye to the past and welcome the new year.
As the Gala is watched all over China, it is also a quick way to introduce your brand to the Xiachen or lower tier cities market. Since it is put on by the state-run CCTV channel, it is seen as an authentic and trustworthy TV show in most people’s eyes. (Which also leads us to think that Pinduoduo was probably asked to pull out of the sponsorship.)
As China’s Economy Has Grown, Sponsorships Have Shifted
The Gala’s first sponsorship was from a domestic watch company called Compas in 1984. At that time, watches, bikes, and sewing machines were called Lao Sanjian (老三件), meaning once a household had these three things, it was a wealthy one.
In the 1990s, the home appliance industry were booming, and the Gala was either sponsored by Haier (海尔) or Midea Group (美的). In the early 2000s, the Gala became the battle field of Baijiu (白酒), a type of Chinese alcohol. Stepping into the 21st century, the Gala has become the stage for Internet giants.
A Coveted Opportunity for Internet Brands
Being a headlining sponsor will guide massive traffic and for the large Chinese Internet companies who face intense competition for traffic, the Gala is an efficient way to stand out and build a bigger user base.
While the Gala has always been a popular sponsorship opportunity, it became extremely coveted after a successful case study that happened with WeChat 6 years ago when WeChat sponsored the Gala and developed the Shake and Get Red Pocket (摇一摇红包) function where users could interact with the TV show and get free random amounts of money in their WeChat Wallet (often just a couple cents or a couple RMB).
This campaign helped WeChat grow its user base from 8M to over 300M. WeChat used two days to achieve what Alipay had been doing for 8 years. The Red Pocket activity also educated users about the WeChat Pay function.
Following this case, we’ve seen Douyin, Alipay, Taobao and Baidu become the Red Pocket sponsors of the Gala.
At the Same Time, The Gala Needs These Red Pocket Sponsors
Though the average audience rate of the Gala is high, as a nationwide TV show, it is hard for the Spring Festival Gala to satisfy 1.4 billion people.
Since 2005, many local TV channel such as Zhejiang Television (浙江卫视), Jiangsu Television (江苏卫视) and Dragon Television (东方卫视) started hosting their own spring festival galas and they invited many popular actors and singers to the event, which lowered the audience numbers and rating of the main Spring Festival Gala on CCTV (China Central Television).
Working with Internet giants to add in interactive digital experiences helps the Gala appeal to younger viewers and sharing red pockets is a great way to get viewers to choose their show over a show that doesn’t offer red pockets.
According to Chinese media outlet 36Kr, those top runners in the Internet industry have invested over 7 billion RMB in the Spring Festival Gala.
Read more: 互联网巨头为何热衷在春晚发红包？
