How did sports APP medals become the new social currency for young people?

Some time ago, Keep medals sold 500 million, becoming a hot topic in the industry. Everyone was shocked that an app that makes self-discipline software could make a profit by selling medals. How did sports APP medals become the new social currency for young people? This article analyzes this, let's take a look.

Some young people are no longer satisfied with simply collecting virtual badges on sports apps. They have begun to pay real money to buy physical medals issued by the platform, thus creating a new business with annual revenue of over 100 million yuan.

From October last year to January this year, in four months, 23-year-old Zhou Fei has "purchased" 70 medals from the sports app , with a total cost of nearly 3,000 yuan, based on the lowest price of 39 yuan per medal. This does not include the racks she bought to place the medals and the heat-locking film she bought to prevent the medals from oxidizing.

Behind Zhou Fei is a growing group of medal buyers. On social platforms, these young people who show off piles of medals almost have dozens of medals per person.

These medals have not obtained any official authorization such as marathon events. Young people only need to pay to participate in online running activities planned by sports apps. They can get a physical medal after running more than 1 kilometer. The fees range from 39 yuan/69 yuan/139 yuan, and you can choose mileage such as 1 km/3 km/5 km.

Take Keep as an example. At the end of last year, an event attracted 300,000 people. Based on the price of physical medals at 39 yuan, the company made 11.7 million yuan from the event. Recently, there have even been market rumors that Keep has made 500 million yuan just from selling medals.

In response, Keep responded to the Alphabet List that it was not true that Keep earned 500 million yuan from selling medals. According to Keep's prospectus, in the eight months including the fourth quarter of 2021 and the first five months of 2022, the number of paying users participating in Keep's virtual events exceeded 1.1 million, and the total volume of commodity transactions exceeded 50 million yuan.

Although it is less than 500 million yuan, a million paying users is already a huge group. According to the data of the Chinese Athletics Association, in 2019 before the epidemic, the number of participants in the Chinese marathon was 7.13 million. And the medal event is not only run by Keep, but also sports apps such as Gudong and Yuepaoquan have launched paid online running events.

Among them, Gudong's ten popular online events in the past three months have attracted more than 1.6 million participants. Its Valentine's Day online run launched in mid-January attracted more than 210,000 people to sign up. The packages for physical medals ranged from 69 yuan/138 yuan/158 yuan, and the minimum running distance was 1.11 kilometers. Even if calculated at the lowest price of 69 yuan, the revenue of this running event could reach 14.49 million yuan.

Image source: Gudong and Keep

The online platform once stated that the original intention of the medal activity was to encourage sports, and that the online platform also provides event services, and medals are additional rewards.

However, it is difficult for sports apps to monitor the authenticity of data sources, and some users even easily obtain medals by hand-cranking, using a stepper, or riding an electric bike or bicycle. Based on this, a "running agent" business has even emerged around the sale of physical medals.

According to Zizibang, the general charge for running a car for one kilometer is 1 yuan. The higher the mileage, the higher the corresponding cost-effectiveness.

Psychological expert Wang Min believes that medals, which were originally intended to encourage young people to exercise, are used as a kind of social currency to show off. On the one hand, this is because young people are more eager to gain the envy of others than to focus on their inner qualities. "If you are 'good', others will envy you. As for how you got it and whether it has improved your abilities and health, that's secondary." On the other hand, young people are also eager to create a better self-image in the minds of others, hoping to gain the feeling of being seen and even admired.

01

Zhou Fei is not a sports enthusiast. When signing up for events, she usually chooses the minimum mileage. Sometimes, she chooses a higher mileage so that the number on the medal will look good. Recently, she signed up for a Chibi Maruko-chan event on a sports app and chose 1.99 kilometers, just because "1.990 sounds better, and the long number looks good on the medal."

Most of the medals were not even won by Zhou Fei's own running, but by hand-cranking or paying someone to run for her: hand-cranking means shaking the phone continuously, and as long as there is a amplitude, the data will be recorded by the sports app; hiring someone to run for you usually costs five yuan for five kilometers, which is not expensive for Zhou Fei.

Chen Min, who is also keen on collecting medals, has bought 60 medals in the past year, investing more than 2,000 yuan. She also did not get her medals by running, but sometimes asked her boyfriend, a sports student, to run for her.

In the middle of last year, Chen Min posted the medals she had won while running on a social media platform. In the photo, Chen Min stood in front of a white background wall, with medals hanging all over her neck and hands. She also added the caption "When you have a boyfriend", which received more than 14,000 likes. Previously, her posts had received no more than 30 likes, and she even had less than 200 followers. In Chen Min's comment area, many netizens expressed "envy".

It was the praise from netizens that motivated Chen Min to participate in more running events to win more medals. Half a year later, she posted all her medals on the social platform again, and attached the copy "When you have a boyfriend" like the first time. Although the number of likes was not as high as the first time, the comment area was still flooded with envy "Beautiful sister, you are so happy".

From May last year to now, Li Xiaochun has invested more than 1,000 yuan and bought 26 medals. Although she did not "cheat" like Zhou Fei and Chen Min, and won the medals by running, for her, "buying medals" still means more than exercise. In the past year, every time she signs up for an event, she chooses about 3 kilometers, which is a kilometer that her body can easily accept.

Li Xiaochun doesn’t run much, she usually practices yoga with a sports app, and she has never bought any sports-related courses. She bought a medal for the first time in May last year, because the medal with a portrait on the front and an Aries on the back looked good, so she signed up for a 3.21-kilometer running event.

For Li Xiaochun, only if she signs up for medal events will she have the motivation to run, and whether she signs up for medal events depends on how good the medals look. In February this year, she bought a transparent medal display frame for her 26 medals, which cost nearly 300 yuan and contained 36 grids.

There are many young people who have similar ideas to Li Xiaochun. "If it weren't for the medals, I wouldn't have taken many steps this year" is widely shared on social media. Some young people even choose to buy some physical medals from others.

02

The demand for physical medals has given rise to the "running agent" industry.

A college student who works part-time as a runner told Zizibang that he could only earn a few dollars a day, and spending 30 yuan on afternoon tea meant he not only made no money but also lost money every day. Now he no longer works as a runner, but has turned to a more cost-effective part-time job - playing games with others. Some of his classmates have achieved the freedom to eat by providing playing games with others services.

Another sports student said that he only wanted to earn money for milk tea, and he charged a few yuan for running a few kilometers. Because he was a sports student, he had to exercise on a regular basis, so he provided long-term running services. Another young man who provided running services told Zizibang that he only wanted to exercise himself, so he did part-time running services, and he didn't even make 20 yuan for running four or five orders. "Now running services are very expensive, and they only charge a few yuan for a few kilometers."

In fact, running on behalf of others is not a new thing. On the Internet trading platform, the phenomenon of "running on behalf of others" has existed for several years. Take Taobao as an example. If you search for "running on behalf of others", you can find a large number of stores related to running on behalf of others. The service range provided includes Keep, Gudong, Yuepaoquan and other popular sports apps.

Some stores are named "XX Running", some stores are named directly "Yuepaoquan Gudong Running", and some stores also have the words "Kjia Medal Running" in their names. Some stores even have labels such as "over a thousand repeat customers" and "over 10,000 people have recommended us" in their slogans.

These stores that provide running services on behalf of others can not only run the "medal activities" on behalf of others, but also run other activities on behalf of others, such as the daily running check-in required by the school. They can provide customized and personalized services for the location, time, route, pace, daily check-in, mileage, screenshots, etc.

Zi Zi Bang learned from a running shop that different requirements have different prices. For example, for a 21-kilometer medal event, the price is 21 yuan if no positioning is required, and the price is 30 yuan if positioning is required.

In addition, the higher the mileage, the higher the cost-effectiveness. One store displayed that it charges 3 yuan per kilometer, 10 kilometers only 16 yuan, and 42 kilometers 42 yuan.

It is worth noting that some stores are no longer satisfied with simply providing running services, but have directly extended their hands to the medal trading, using the slogan "XX medal sent directly" on the platform, and claiming that the medals are authentic, brand new and unopened, with monthly sales of more than 300.

A customer service representative of a sports medal seller said that the medals are all genuine packaging from the XX platform, with anti-counterfeiting labels. However, Zizibang learned that the prices of these medals are more expensive than those on sports apps. In this regard, the customer service representative said that the main reason is that many medals are out of print, and she still has some in stock. For example, a 5.2-kilometer cinnamon dog medal was sold for 89 yuan. According to its page, a 5.2-kilometer "Surrounded by Love" medal from Kulomi Melody is priced at 199 yuan and is out of stock.

03

Young people's pursuit of physical medals has also helped sports apps open up a new channel for revenue growth.

Keep mentioned in its prospectus that the revenue generated by virtual sports events is included in online paid content. In 2021, Keep's online paid content revenue was 69.7 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 112%. In the first quarter of 2022 alone, online paid content revenue reached 40.49 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 728%.

However, whether this business can grow and whether it will become a stable and continuous source of income for sports apps remains a big question mark.

In fact, in 2015, sports apps such as Yuepaoquan and Gudong launched an online marathon mode, where medals were awarded through paid running. Keep also launched a medal running event in 2016, but according to Keep's prospectus, the medal event has always been a small part of its revenue, accounting for less than 10%.

Moreover, young people's pursuit of "social currency" is changing all the time. Before the craze for physical medals, young people also experienced the trend changes from Pop Mart to Lingna Belle, from Bing Dwen Dwen to Frisbee.

At the end of 2021, a video of a male college student organizing a relay race with his roommates to win a sports medal for his girlfriend went viral on TikTok, receiving hundreds of thousands of likes. By the way, terms such as "athlete's romance" and "boyfriend's medal" also became popular. The girl in the picture showed off her piles of sports medals. Once posted, there were thousands of likes, and netizens in the comment section also cast envious eyes. Medals have become a kind of social currency at the moment, and "showing off medals" has become a traffic code for young people.

In the middle of last year, Chen Min also posted her medals on social media, with the caption "The romance of having a boyfriend who is a sports student", which received 14,000 likes; however, in January this year, the same copy and more medals did not attract more likes, and there were only less than ten comments, which was far from the 500 comments a year ago. She told Zizibang that she has restrained herself from buying medals now, and will only buy medals if she likes them very much.

Young people are even starting to quit buying medals. A user who started buying medals more than a year ago told Zizibang that in September last year, the price of a medal she liked not only increased, but she also needed to upgrade to membership rights to participate. "I will not buy it no matter how much I love it." So far, she has not spent money on medals anymore.

The data also shows that this craze is gradually fading. Compared with the eight popular events in the past three months, which attracted only more than 550,000 participants, Keep's single event from March to May last year attracted more than 700,000 paying users.

When young people's fashion preferences shift to the next event, the already small income from medal trading is bound to shrink further. For sports apps, this business comes quickly and may go away even faster.

(Chen Min, Li Xiaochun, and Zhou Fei are all pseudonyms)

References:

• "A Study on the Factors Influencing the Willingness of Sports APP Users to Participate in Online Marathon Events" Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Yi Zhengquan
• Technology, Space and Body: Media Practice Based on Location Media Technology - Taking the Keep Online Marathon as an Example, Fujian Normal University, Yang Juan,
• "What do young people think of taking Keep medals as 520 gifts?" Entertainment Hard Candy
• "Fake running is prevalent, running for others makes you rich, has Keep changed the meaning of exercise?" Acorn Business
• "A medal sparks sports enthusiasm: Keep collaborates with Liu Shiwen to launch online running" Xianning News Network

Author: Xue Yaping; Editor: Zhao Jinjie

Source public account: Alphabet List (ID: wujicaijing), let the future be more than just big.