Keep Medal's "Love Business"

Run for a Keep medal to prove your love to her. Some time ago, the hot medal business has brought enough traffic and not a low income to Keep, but is it beneficial to the long-term development of the platform? This article provides an answer to this question and is recommended for those who are interested in brand marketing and Keep medals.

"How can a man who doesn't even want to run for a Keep medal say he loves me?"

On the first day of March, college student Wang Lin was lying in his dorm room casually scrolling through his Moments when he suddenly received a @ reminder from his girlfriend:

"Thanks to my baby for running for me, the Devil's Sword badge that I've been dreaming of is finally mine." The accompanying picture is a "Sword of Angels and Demons" medal awarded by the Keep online running event.

Under this circle of friends, many friends of Wang Lin and his girlfriend came to like the post, and some of them commented on the girlfriend: "It's so beautiful", "I'm so envious", "I have to ask my boyfriend to run with me too."

Looking at his friends’ envious comments and his girlfriend’s happy words, Wang Lin suddenly felt that even if running was very painful for him, as long as he could make his girlfriend happy, it could be considered a “sweet burden”.

Wang Lin told AI Blue Media that in order to get this medal, he ran 14 laps on the playground one afternoon and also spent 69 yuan on the registration fee on Keep, thus fulfilling his girlfriend's wish.

And all this stems from what my girlfriend said: "If you love me, go and win a Keep medal for me."

Who would have thought that with the repeated inventions and innovations of the Internet, a small medal has become a vehicle for couples to express their love and their latest social currency.

On Xiaohongshu, there are more than 50,000 notes related to "Keep medals". These notes include user-made Keep medal walls, recommendations for different medal styles, unboxing sharing, strategies for obtaining medals, and complaints about avoiding spoilers. Among them, the note with the highest number of likes, 118,000, reads "Showing a little bit of the medal my boyfriend gave me for running, accumulating a full sense of happiness." In the comment area, many female users @ their boyfriends and asked their boyfriends to run medals for them, and some users said a little sourly that they should run for themselves.

Meanwhile, on TikTok, #Keep奖牌# received 2.38 billion views, and #Keep奖牌开箱# also received 10.949 million views. In these videos, users hold Keep medals issued by different activities, either "running for their future girlfriends" or "immersive unboxing" to gain higher traffic.

As the popularity continues to rise, the Keep medal has also begun to attract attention from the capital market.

On the 4th of last month, Weibo user @韩叙HanXu posted a message saying, "I talked to my friends at Keep, and I never expected that after trying so many monetization models and none of them were successful, I ended up making 500 million just by selling medals."

In response to this, AI Blue Media asked Keep for confirmation, and the other party replied that "it is not that high."

Of course, regardless of the actual revenue figures, it is a foregone conclusion that Keep has reaped a wave of traffic and dividends thanks to the medals.

Perhaps, for this company that submitted its listing application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange twice last year, the medal business can add fuel to its dream of setting foot on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

1. Keep medal to witness love

In today's world, a simple "I love you" is far less important than 99 roses or a ring. For the post-00s who have just entered the society, even a medal is far more real than a light word "love".

This is the original intention of Yang Wei, a junior student this year, to ask her boyfriend to run the Keep Medal for her.

Yang Wei said that she first learned about this kind of medal on Xiaohongshu, and the most popular "Sanrio" co-branded cinnamon dog medal immediately touched her aesthetic taste. In order to get this medal, she specially downloaded Keep and found the event page of this medal according to the tutorial. The event rules stated that to get the medal, the shortest run must be 2.023 kilometers, and it must be "completed in one go."

This was a painful task for Yang Wei, who had failed the 800-meter physical test for many years.

However, she also learned from Xiaohongshu that many girls chose to let their boyfriends run for them, to test their sincerity. So Yang Wei talked to her boyfriend and asked him to pay a registration fee of 39 yuan, and then let him run the corresponding number of kilometers on the playground one afternoon, and finally got the "witness love" medal as she wished.

Up to now, Yang Wei has already got Keep medals from different IPs including Cinnamon Dog, Cardcaptor Sakura, The Three-Body Problem, The Little Prince, etc., all of which were earned by her boyfriend with his own legs.

"My boyfriend and I agreed that he would run for me once a month. It not only provides a sense of ritual but also deepens our relationship," said Yang Wei.

For young people like Yang Wei, the significance of the Keep medal goes far beyond the scope of the medal: on the one hand, it brings them a sense of satisfaction and allows them to gain attention on social platforms; on the other hand, it has also become a love lie detector for some couples.

In the "Sports Shopping" column at the bottom of the Keep APP, the "Medal" Challenge has been moved from the "Activity Center" section to the homepage. Clicking in, you can see that there are currently a large number of medal activities with different IPs and styles waiting for users to choose. Among them, there are IP medals such as Hello Kitty, Buzz Lightyear, Three Eyes, and Chip and Dale, as well as original medals such as Sakura Sweet Dream, Mirror Future, Angel and Demon Sword, and Pilgrimage Road.

In order to obtain these beautiful limited edition medals, users have to pay more than just sweat.

Take the "Promise of Bloom | Cardcaptor Sakura Online Run Second Round" event, which has 21,573 participants, for example. The APP shows that the registration period for this medal event is from March 9 to April 29. Users can choose to run 1KM, 4.01KM, 10KM, and 20KM in one go. The medals are divided into a "physical medal package" with a registration fee of 39 yuan and a "virtual medal package" with a registration fee of 19.9 yuan. In addition to different medals, each package will also receive route skins and two dynamic stickers.

At the same time, users also need to complete the challenge as required before they can receive medals.

In other words, only by completing the corresponding number of kilometers can you be eligible to purchase a medal.

2. Keep medals and support the second-hand market

It is this "sense of superiority after exercise" and "sense of accomplishment after gaining attention" that makes these medals popular on social platforms such as Xiaohongshu and Douyin.

On Xiaohongshu, there are many users who own more than 20 medals. Some users even bought display frames for these medals, and some users made tutorials to make these medals into key chains, pendants and other accessories, which received a lot of comments and likes.

On TikTok, after searching for "Keep medals", in addition to videos posted by users, you will also find various middlemen selling second-hand medals. Among them, there are a large number of out-of-print medals, and the prices are much higher than those purchased in the Keep mall.

For example, the "Cupid's Arrow Brooch" with an original price of 29 yuan was sold for 65.55 yuan in a Douyin store, and the "Sword of Angel and Demon" with an original price of 69 yuan was sold for 88 yuan in a Douyin store.

Thanks to keywords such as "no need to run to get" and "out of print", these medals are doing well in the second-hand market. Although the sales volume is not very high, it also proves that the traffic of Keep medals has given second-hand dealers a business opportunity.

Of course, it’s not just second-hand dealers who see business opportunities.

On Xianyu, Keep running services have become a popular business among college students. AI Blue Media randomly selected a runner, who said that he would charge according to different kilometers. The price for 1km is 1 yuan, 5km or less is 2 yuan, and 10km is 4 yuan. To purchase, you only need to pay and provide the account and password of the Keep APP, which guarantees that the running is done manually and completed on the same day.

He also said that he is a marathon enthusiast and runs every day. Taking over the running business is just a matter of convenience. He has sold more than 140 orders so far and earned about 800 yuan.

There are at least hundreds of similar running errands on Xianyu alone.

It can be said that the Keep medal, which has gradually become the social currency of young people, has not only allowed Keep company to see full dividends, but also won business opportunities for the secondary market.

It is just like the scene when blind boxes and other trendy toys were all the rage in the market.

3. Can the medal business solve the urgent problem?

For this company, which has submitted its prospectus for the second time and is eager to have a place on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, the medal business may become a life-saving straw after the benefits of sports and fitness gradually decline.

This can be seen from the increase in the weight of the "Medals" page.

As mentioned above, in the new version of Keep APP, the "medal activity" has been upgraded from the second-level page to the first-level page, and "showing off medals" has become an important part of the community. Many users will show off their running medals and the "online marathon certificates" that come with them, and call them "the kingdom they have built."

The activity center page has also been taken over by various medal challenges.

The APP shows that popular events such as "Hello Kitty Freeze Heart | Sweet Limited Online Run" and "Angel and Demon Sword | Supergirl Series Online Run" have attracted 130,000 and 70,000 participants respectively. Based on the registration fees ranging from 39 to 69 yuan, the revenue from these two events alone is around 10 million yuan.

According to the "Event Calendar", the "Love Magic | Love is Close Series Online Run" event, which will begin in March, has received 3,862 subscriptions.

At the same time, Keep's prospectus shows that from October 2021 to May 2022, Keep launched three online themed running events, with more than 1.1 million paying users participating in the events, and the total volume of merchandise transactions generated by event registration fees exceeding 50 million yuan.

Obviously, the booming medal business has brought Keep enough attention and considerable income.

However, for Keep, which aspires to become the world's largest smart fitness platform, the medal bonus can only temporarily alleviate the urgent need.

The prospectus shows that Keep's operating income from 2019 to 2021 was 663 million yuan, 1.107 billion yuan and 1.619 billion yuan respectively, while its losses were 735 million yuan, 2.2 billion yuan and 2.9 billion yuan.

It is obvious that revenues and losses are not in harmonious proportion.

In this regard, Keep also explained in its prospectus that "due to the strengthening of confidence in long-term profitability, as of September 30, 2021, it strategically increased spending on traffic acquisition and brand promotion to further acquire, activate and retain users."

This means that Keep has increased its marketing expenses to retain users. This has continued this year. Keep told AI Blue Media that this year Keep will cooperate with more top IPs in the medal business and increase the proportion of self-operated investment including design resources, operation resources, and some internal incentive mechanisms.

However, despite increased spending on operations and marketing, its conversion rate on the user side is not optimistic.

According to the prospectus updated by Keep in September last year, Keep's average monthly member retention rate was 70.8%, 73.3%, 71.7% and 69.4% in 2019, 2020, 2021, and the six months ending June 30, 2022, respectively.

Obviously, after experiencing a peak in demand for home exercise during the 2020 epidemic, member retention rate has shown a downward trend.

During the interview, many users also said that they were not very interested in Keep's membership content. Similar content has "free alternatives" on Xiaohongshu and Bilibili platforms, and the only thing that can attract them is the medal business.

In fact, Keep has indeed spent a lot of effort to attract users to pay.

At the beginning of last year, Keep vigorously promoted its "Keepland" gym business, saying that it had achieved the goal of cooperating with 100 gyms in Beijing in 2022 and would expand to 150 in 2023. However, the prospectus shows that in 2019, 2020, 2021, and the first quarter of 2022, Keepland's revenue accounted for 4.5%, 1.9%, 1.9%, and 1.7% of Keep's total revenue in the same period, respectively.

This proves that the returns brought by gyms to Keep are not satisfactory, and this business was rarely mentioned in the prospectus updated in September last year.

In other aspects, the launch of fitness classes, light meals, fitness equipment and other products are all attempts by Keep to stimulate user consumption. However, the competition for these fitness products in the market has never stopped. Fitness platforms such as Mint Health and Gudong have also launched their own products, and platforms such as Taobao and JD.com are also at the forefront in seizing the minds of users.

Facing internal and external pressures, the popularity of the medal business can certainly bring new users and new opportunities to Keep, but in terms of the long-term development of the platform, perhaps, only by effectively solving many problems such as how to retain users attracted by medals, differentiate itself from the many fitness products on the market, and improve the effectiveness of marketing expenses, can the door of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange be opened for Keep.

Author: Yan Ye; Editor: Wei Xiao

WeChat public account: AI Lanmeihui (ID: lanmeih001)