All in on short videos? After being rumored to be facing a "life and death test", Guanguang will be renamed "Taobao Video"

This article analyzes the development of Guanguan over the past two years, allowing us to see the survival pressure of content community platforms in the face of competition, and also gives us a glimpse into the exploration path of e-commerce giant Taobao in the field of short videos and content communities. As a platform that has long occupied a key position in Taobao's traffic, its rise and fall trajectory is also worthy of attention from other content communities. It is recommended for students who want to understand the operation of e-commerce content communities.

Taobao, which has been online for more than two years and has always occupied the C position in the homepage traffic, has faced a life-and-death test.

According to recent media reports, Taobao Guanguang was required to complete its mission goals before the end of the year, otherwise it would face the prospect of giving up its position on the Taobao App homepage and even putting the team’s fate in jeopardy. An insider said that Guanguang is currently “still far away” from its goal and is in a desperate situation.

Xinbochang further learned that Guanguang may be renamed "Taobao Video" to further emphasize product attributes and fully embrace short videos.

At a time when Taobao is fully embracing content, can Guanguang tell a new story and overcome difficulties in the last six months?

01 Guanguan will be renamed "Taobao Video"

The change in Guanguan doesn't seem to be sudden.

As early as June 9, a user on Maimai said, "I heard that the browsing function may be cancelled completely," and a user certified as an "Alibaba employee" said: It's still the same position, but a new group of people will do it; it's just a different form, and it's all integrated into content, with a big focus on video.

Before this, there were many rumors that Taobao would make major adjustments or even disband the Guanguang department. Although they were later denied by insiders, it can be seen that Guanguang, which has been online for two years, has not been peaceful.

Guangguang is Taobao's content community platform. It was integrated and upgraded from multiple content sections such as "Buyer Show" and "Weitao" in early 2021. It is positioned as a grass-planting platform and is also considered by the industry to be a benchmark against Xiaohongshu and Douyin.

Since its launch, the entrance to Guanguang has been at the second position at the bottom of the Taobao mobile homepage, which is said to be the golden C position for Taobao mobile traffic, and therefore it is the target of competition among multiple teams within Taobao. According to media reports, Taobao has now let the "Homepage Guess What You Like" team compete with the Guanguang team. If Guanguang fails to meet the target, this position may be handed over to the first guess.

A person from a relevant agency of a certain organization said: "Guangguang is under great pressure now, and can only spend money crazily."

The person from the agency also revealed that according to internal information, Guanguan will be renamed "Taobao Video" and will fight a do-or-die battle in the last six months.

Xinbochang discovered that now after entering the shopping app, there is a function similar to "earning subsidies by watching videos". Users who enter for the first time will see a prompt "earn XX yuan by watching Taobao videos for 10 days", and there are also texts in the taskbar such as "Add 'Taobao video widget' to the desktop".

When Xinbochang tried to add a widget to the mobile phone desktop, it found that the widget was named "Taobao Video". This seems to confirm what the agency said.

After the name change, users' awareness of GuanGuang has undoubtedly been further improved. But this may also mean that although it has been online for more than two years, there may still be many Taobao users who are unaware of the existence of such a product.

02 Occupying the C position but with a low sense of presence?

In fact, despite occupying a prime position on the Taobao tab page, the presentation of “Browse” is not clear enough and its presence is very low.

When you enter Taobao for the first time, you will find that among the five tabs below the homepage, the first one is the homepage, and the third to fifth ones are messages, shopping cart and My Taobao respectively.

Xinbochang had not previously discovered that this location was "Guangguang". This was mainly because when you first enter Taobao, a small red dot showing unread messages will appear at this location, probably to attract clicks. Only after clicking will the name "Guangguang" appear at this location.

A user on the community platform "Maimai" saw the news about Guanguang and then went to Taobao to look for Guanguang, but found that "the presence of Guanguang was too low and he had no idea where the entrance was."

Taobao user Xiaoqi also said: "I just found out there is this entrance (Guangguang), but I exited immediately after clicking it. I don't really like watching short shopping videos. But I still watch the homepage (Guess you like it), so I can quickly browse and see if I'm interested."

After entering the browsing app, you can see a function similar to "earn subsidies by watching videos", which frequently prompts "swipe up XX times to receive rewards" and "go to withdraw cash" buttons to attract users to continue watching videos. It is understood that this function was only recently launched, and its purpose is to increase user clicks and retention.

In terms of content, it can be said that there is a wide variety of them, mostly plots, information, and entertainment content, but there are very few real grass-planting videos.

Only occasionally can you see trailer videos of certain brands, but these are more like information flow ads.

It is understood that most of the content in Guanguang comes from external sites, and many of them are purchased.

Xinbochang learned that Guanguang has always had corresponding content incentive policies. The head of an institution said that Guanguang's policies are almost different for each industry, and there is no unified policy, which is more complicated than other platforms.

The content on the site is mostly irrelevant to e-commerce, which has attracted much criticism from users. "I've seen it mainly for browsing, but it doesn't promote products. It's just a bunch of random short videos that have nothing to do with e-commerce. Why don't I watch it on Douyin instead of here?"

Some media interpreted that giving Guanguang an ultimatum may reveal that Guanguang's strategic position is being re-examined.

"Pinwan" mentioned in the article "Taotian's "Return to Taobao", it's time to re-examine content e-commerce" that as a strategic department that was once regarded as the backbone of Alibaba's content ecology and resisted the erosion of content and social e-commerce, Guanguang now needs to seriously answer the most critical question of the Taotian Group - in the homepage traffic entrance where every inch of land is valuable, whether Taobao really needs and what kind of short video content interface should be inserted.

This also has to do with whether Taobao still needs short videos and what kind of short video content it should produce.

03 Is there still a chance to go shopping?

Taobao started to develop short videos not too late.

In 2017, the "Discover" section was added to the "Guess You Like" channel on the Taobao homepage, and the page mainly featured short video content; in 2018, the "Love Shopping" channel on the Taobao homepage was upgraded and renamed "Wow Video". Regarding Wow Video, an industry insider said that Taobao has always wanted to make it the Douyin of Taobao.

However, in 2020, the popularity of Wei Ya and Li Jiaqi put Taobao Live on the map. Soon, "Wow Video" was replaced by "Taobao Live" on the homepage of Taobao Mobile.

At the beginning of 2021, Taobao integrated and upgraded multiple content sections such as "Buyer Show" and "Weitao" into "Guanguang", which opened a new independent entrance for Taobao short videos, and is also considered to be the main battlefield of Taobao's content.

After that, Guanguang has been making frequent moves. When Guanguang was first launched, it officially announced a 1 billion yuan content reward fund, saying it would support more than 10,000 UGCs with an annual income of 100,000 yuan and 10 million PUGCs with an annual income of one million yuan. In August 2021, Taobao even directly changed its slogan to: It’s so fun to shop.

Throughout 2021, a series of actions taken by Guangguang are also obvious to all:

It launched the comprehensive content service platform "Photosynthesis" to attract more MCN agencies and experts to join; launched a content creator support plan to provide bonuses and traffic incentives; and also launched the "Double 11 Grass Planting Machine" on the eve of Double 11. This function only requires users to enter and search for relevant keywords to see the corresponding grass planting guide, helping users complete the closed loop from planting grass to pulling grass.

This is a year of rapid development for GuanGuang. Great efforts can bring miracles. According to data, as of November 2021, GuanGuang's monthly active users reached 250 million, and the peak daily active users reached 50 million.

But after that, there was little splash when I went for a walk.

Previously, there were media reports that Taobao CEO Dai Shan positioned the role of Guanguan based on the interests and hobbies of consumers, making Taobao Tmall not only a consumption platform, but also a rich and diverse content community worthy of users' stay.

But the results of Guanguan are not satisfactory. Especially now, facing increasingly fierce market competition, Taobao has begun to repeatedly emphasize the importance of users.

Dai Shan has mentioned users and traffic more and more frequently in public, while previously valued indicators such as GMV and commercialization have gradually been hidden.

At the Taobao 618 launch conference in May this year, Dai Shan also said that "users come first" and Taobao will "use historic huge investment to help merchants expand their user base. " Dai Shan sees content as a means to increase user base, and she said that Taobao will promote comprehensive content with far greater investment than before.

This year, Taobao's most obvious content-oriented move is Taobao Live: it attracted TVB to settle in, bringing "Hong Kong drama-style" live streaming sales; it also welcomed variety shows such as "The Voice of China" and "This is Song and Dance" to settle in; it also attracted Coconut Tree Live to sell special products such as "30-second disco rights"...

In addition, Taobao Live also offers subsidies to attract entertainment guilds and anchor experts to join. After joining Taobao, anchors and experts are not required to bring goods, but only need to complete the live broadcast time to get subsidies.

This series of measures shows Taobao's determination to develop content.

As another major player in content development, Guanguang still shoulders the responsibility of video development. After the name change, Guanguang’s positioning is clearer and its direction is clearer, which is to fully embrace video. However, what kind of content should be filled in and how to attract and retain users are what Guanguang has to re-examine now.

Author: Chang Mei; Editor: Qiu Yuan

Source public account: Xinbochang (ID: New_bc), focusing on live streaming, live e-commerce, and short videos.