Single-day GMV of 416 million, who benefited from the World Cup on Douyin

This article deeply analyzes how Douyin, a life service platform , collaborated with brands to create a marketing boom during the World Cup, helping merchants achieve sustained business growth on the platform. This article is recommended for merchants who want to market on the Douyin platform.

In the live broadcast scene with a red background and a green field design, two hosts dressed as football commentators were enthusiastically introducing the dazzling array of fried skewers in front of them, with the theme logo of "Let's watch the Xijie Cup" standing out behind them. The hosts' occasional calls for "eating fried skewers while watching the game" pushed the atmosphere of the live broadcast room to a climax.

This is a clip of the live broadcast of the fried skewers brand "Xijie Fried skewers" on Douyin during the World Cup. With the immersive scene layout, appetite-stimulating sample displays and the host's scenario-based speech, the live broadcast GMV of the Xijie Fried skewers brand account reached 10.03 million in three days, and the cumulative number of orders exceeded 1 million.

Screenshot of the Douyin live broadcast room of "Xijie Fried String String"

Xijie’s fried skewers are obviously not the only beneficiary of this top hot spot.

As a top-level event held every four years, the World Cup has mobilized the enthusiasm of almost all over the world. On Douyin, which has obtained the online broadcasting rights for the World Cup, senior fans, general fans, and even non-fans gathered together to share this joy and passion.

In this hot atmosphere, users' enthusiasm for buying is fully ignited, and eating, drinking and having fun while watching the game has become the choice of many consumers. Therefore, at the arrival of such an important marketing node, in combination with consumer needs, Douyin Life Service has launched the annual super node event "Heart-beating Watching Season" throughout the World Cup.

Throughout the entire event, Douyin Life Service deeply connected with brands, allowing many brands to successfully acquire precise customer groups through exposure of advantageous resources, full-scene & three-dimensional immersive marketing methods, thereby achieving strong conversion and strong promotion.

After the event, Douyin Life Service and ByteDance City Research Institute released the "Douyin Life Service World Cup Marketing White Paper" (hereinafter referred to as the White Paper), which provides detailed data insights and interpretations of the new marketing trends of this node. The White Paper shows that during the Xindongguan season, the platform linked more than 180,000 merchants, more than 990,000 special products attracted attention, 136 brands had transaction volumes exceeding 10 million during the event, and a total of 165 million people placed orders for World Cup-related food, drink, and entertainment products, and the event's single-day GMV exceeded 416 million.

Image source: Douyin Life Service World Cup Marketing White Paper

Focusing on the construction of online and offline scenes, product combinations, the support of experts and boss groups, various activity methods, etc., Douyin Life Service and many brands have not only created a more enthusiastic viewing experience, but also generated new growth in this carnival feast.

1. Start with scene consumption needs and create a multi-dimensional experience of "watching the game + scene X"

There is no doubt that this world-class event has received nationwide attention on Douyin. According to the "Watching the World Cup Live on Douyin - Viewing Report" released by FIFA and Douyin, a total of 10.6 billion people watched the World Cup games on Douyin and interacted 1.3 billion times.

Image source: Douyin Life Service World Cup Marketing White Paper

With such a huge scale of events and a wide range of people covered, users' scene consumption needs are obviously diverse. In order to connect the viewing needs of different consumers, Douyin Life Service focuses on "eating, drinking and having fun" and has launched hundreds of special packages in cooperation with hundreds of major brands, successfully creating a multi-dimensional experience of "viewing + scene X", such as:

In collaboration with barbecue and fried skewers brands such as KFC, Xijie Fried Skewers, Judian BBQ, Yaojiwang, and Zhengxin Chicken Steak, we launched a variety of "classic game-watching companions" to meet the late-night snack needs of those who stay up late to watch the game at home;

Cooperate with beverage brands such as "Nayuki's Tea", "Luckin Coffee", "Guming", "CoCo", "Ningji", "Happy Sweet Potato", and "Tims Coffee" to meet the sweet needs of couples and friends when they gather to watch the game;

Cooperate with hot spring bathing merchants and hot pot merchants such as "Haidilao", "Golden Impression" and "Kangyue Story" to launch special group products of the season to meet people's needs for warm and comfortable watching of the game;

We have teamed up with Zhuhai Chimelong, New Century Senbo and other hotel and travel businesses to launch a "limited-time exclusive package" for the World Cup to meet the leisure needs of those who want to "travel and watch the game".

Diversified brand merchants meet the viewing needs of different consumers. In order to convert traffic into purchasing power or brand power within the limited season window, many brands seize marketing hotspots and create exclusive World Cup products from different dimensions, thereby better binding with the event and penetrating into the minds of consumers by creating a sense of freshness and intimacy.

Some brands choose to start with the appearance of the product, combining football elements for product innovation to create the most intuitive visual stimulation. For example, the brand "He Shi BBQ" launched the "Football Burger", which made the hamburger bun into a football style, and the unique shape attracted a lot of attention; "Da Long Yi" innovatively combined football elements with the outer packaging given with the base material, directly "moving" the football to the table, which was particularly eye-catching; the Cantonese teahouse "Dian Du De" upgraded the size of its original ace product and launched the "Big Big Golden Wave Pineapple Bun", the diamond pattern echoed the honeycomb pattern of the football, plus the real pineapple filling, successfully captured a large number of diners;

Some brands choose to start with keywords and name their products around the hot words for watching the World Cup to stimulate users' enthusiasm for placing orders. For example, "Cha Baidao" launched the "Drink this cup of milk tea with the theme of the world"; "Li Shanghuang" combined its own ace products chestnuts and hawthorns to launch the "Super Chestnut Set for Watching the Game"; "Helens" launched the "Game Gathering, Drink Wine to Your Heart's Content" wine and beverage set; "Zhengxin Chicken Steak" packaged hot-selling products and launched the "Heart-beating Season Watching Three-piece Set".

The method of linking up with brands to customize exclusive products for events is not the first attempt of Douyin Life Service in node marketing. Previously, in the "Heart-beating Qixi Festival" event launched by the platform, Douyin Life Service had tried "node special products". This time, the "Heart-beating Watching Season" has deepened the linkage between the platform and major brands, giving full play to the ingenuity of merchants in product assembly, and taking customized, exclusive, and atmospheric products as the core of node marketing.

2. Two-way linkage to fully stimulate consumer enthusiasm with immersive venues

In this massive carnival of events, along with the enthusiasm for watching the games, there is also a consumer boom. The white paper shows that during the World Cup, the sales of World Cup-related products on Douyin Life Service have steadily increased, and the purchasing enthusiasm of users has continued to rise, among which the 24-40 age group with strong purchasing power accounts for more than 60%.

Image source: Douyin Life Service World Cup Marketing White Paper

The atmosphere of watching and consuming football games at the same time is inseparable from Douyin life services and the online and offline scene building and atmosphere creation by many brands.

During the event, Douyin Life Service teamed up with hundreds of major merchants to create an exclusive event venue and allocated sufficient search traffic for it. Consumers can start the carnival of watching and eating at any time by searching for activities such as "Heart-beating Watching Season", "Watching Season Live", "Watching Season Hotpot" and related brands, products, and store keywords.

At the same time, brands have also come up with unique strategies to create immersive consumption scenarios that are strongly associated with the World Cup and fully match the immediate interests of users. In addition to the Xijie fried skewers mentioned at the beginning, we also saw Cha Baidao's innovative live broadcast room gameplay, which set up a game console perspective in the live broadcast room and combined the football elements of the event to unify the theme into "Football Adventure". The live broadcast gameplay is strongly tied to the World Cup theme, and an adventure game level-breaking session is set up to help consumers get benefits, which not only makes the event atmosphere more intense, but also promotes consumers' enthusiasm for active consumption.

In line with the rising enthusiasm for watching the games online, Douyin Life Service has also linked up with offline partner stores such as hotels, nightclubs, barbecues, livehouses, and food streets, allowing consumers to further feel the strong season atmosphere from store packaging to consumer atmosphere, from visual experience to consumer experience.

For example, Haidilao took advantage of the World Cup and successfully moved the football field into the hot pot restaurant by creating a regional store atmosphere, expert air-conditioned talk shows, and other activities, providing consumers with a new consumption experience of "eating hot pot while watching the game."

Specifically, Haidilao has revamped the entire exterior wall of the co-branded theme restaurant, installed a 360-degree surround screen inside the store, transformed the hot pot restaurant into a World Cup stadium, and also built a "mini football bar" in conjunction with the names of the World Cup countries, set up an exclusive waiting area, and the manicure area and milk tea area at the door have also been carefully designed as football babe gas stations and football energy supply stations.

The immersive scene design has already given consumers a real sense of being in the stadium. On this basis, Haidilao also invited top commentators to drop by Haidilao to interpret the event. More than 30 top Douyin store explorers also arrived at the scene to chat about the highlights of the World Cup. In addition, with the setting of game links such as "guess and win gifts" and "score and get a free meal", an "all-visual" immersive experience from outside the store to inside the store was successfully implemented, consumers' passion for watching the game was fully ignited, and the exposure of products and brands was also more focused.

3. Experts and bosses join forces to promote the event and maximize the effect

In this top feast, it is clear that not only brands and users are active. The white paper shows that during the World Cup, the average number of views for a single World Cup video released by the media was 860,000. In addition, videos by influencers constitute an important part of the content ecosystem and have the highest number of views. Douyin Life Service also fully utilizes the advantages of influencers in content supply, connecting brand products with more users, thereby creating more business growth.

Image source: Douyin Life Service World Cup Marketing White Paper

According to data disclosed by Douyin Life Service, during the World Cup, Douyin increased the frequency of live broadcasts and GMV contribution of top and mid-level influencers during the event by arranging key live broadcasts and recruiting for the talent ranking competition. It conducted 700,000 live broadcasts by influencers, and the sales contribution of live broadcasts by influencers exceeded 2 billion. Among them, top influencers such as "I am Xiaopang", "Xiaoyun with a Knife", and "Atangge Takes You to Fly" all achieved sales of over 10 million yuan per live broadcast, successfully helping merchants to grow their business during the event.

In addition to their own broadcasts, brands also actively linked up with influencers to strengthen the promotion effect during the event through the dual efforts of "live broadcast + short video". Many brands have achieved unexpected results:

Ziyan Baiwei Chicken cooperated with more than 2,000 Lv3 and above experts to launch the "Hot-Blooded Lungs" set meal. Through the promotion of the experts' short videos, sales rose rapidly. From October 26 to November 21, the experts' short videos leveraged GMV of 1.5 million, and 70,700 orders of the joint set meal were sold.

During the Douyin Heart-beating Watching Season, KFC launched new products such as beef and mutton skewers, Duoduo buckets, chicken racks, and cost-effective whole chicken meals, and continued to build the #KFCSoulMidnightSnacks mindset. In addition to inviting brand spokesperson Lu Han to drop by the KFCSoulMidnightSnacks Douyin official live broadcast room to eat skewers and chat about football, it also mobilized thousands of group buying influencers to release high-quality short videos to promote the brand, and mobilized top live broadcast influencers to conduct live broadcasts to promote the brand, thus forming effective promotion and mental penetration.

Haidilao, which has fully met consumers' needs for immersive viewing through scene creation, also invited top Douyin commentators to talk about the highlights of the World Cup. Through the large number of short videos of experts visiting stores, the popularity of "Haidilao" brand-related content has skyrocketed, establishing a consumer impression in the minds of a large number of target customers that "if you want to watch a game all night, go to Haidilao."

Li Shang Huang, which mainly sells snacks such as chestnuts, dried goods, and preserved fruits, launched exclusive packages for the World Cup, and also cooperated with many influencers to produce videos about the main products. In early November, the cooperating influencers released more than a thousand videos. The continued increase in exposure has not only brought the brand tens of millions of sales online, but also brought more customers to its stores.

In addition to the enthusiastic participation of influencers who are the platform's ecological partners, the bosses of major brands have also participated in the shooting and production of short videos as "recommendation officers", helping to promote their brands as "official faces":

Shan Dayu, general manager of operations at Coucou Hotpot & Tea House, invited users to form late-night Coucou parties to eat hotpot, drink milk tea and watch football games at the same time; Wang Wenjun, co-founder of Dalongyi Hotpot, launched a customized hotpot base product "Golden Ball Hotpot Base" for consumers, so that hotpot can also be full of the ritual sense of "kick-off"; Fantawild Theme Park even invited the brand mascots "Xiong Da and Xiong Er" to appear, inviting users to "go to Fantawild and watch the game with Xiong Da and Xiong Er passionately."

In addition, the bosses of many high-quality brands, such as Momo Dim Sum Bureau, IKEA Flavor House, Nayuki's Tea, Oyster Hero, Fuqiao Health Chain, Xingyi Cinema, Jinan Kempinski Hotel, etc., have brought different new ways of watching games to consumers and fans. On the one hand, this new interactive gameplay can create a three-dimensional brand image and increase brand voice; on the other hand, it can immerse users in the consumption scenarios they recommend, thereby promoting conversion and increasing brand sales.

After two years of development, Douyin Life Service has connected more and more life-related products, services and characters through POI, short videos, live broadcasts, searches and other means, which can not only meet users' consumption and experience needs, but also match brands with potential consumer groups. Operation methods such as position management, content management, and traffic management help merchants achieve continuous business growth on the platform.

According to the "2022 Douyin Life Service Data Report", in 2022, the number of Douyin life service cooperative stores exceeded 1 million, and more than 280,000 small and medium-sized businesses achieved revenue growth. More and more users are accustomed to satisfying their "food, drink, and fun" needs through Douyin's life service business.

Douyin, which has obtained the official broadcasting rights for this World Cup, is undoubtedly a traffic center during the World Cup. The marketing methods and product creation based on consumers' real viewing needs and diversified scene needs are the platform's focus on the word "life" to bring the World Cup closer to users' lives. With immersive marketing methods in all scenarios, diversified consumer choices and services, the platform has also taken on the traffic dividends of large nodes.

For brands, hot marketing is undoubtedly a compulsory course. In the hot content scenes that the target audience is interested in, through fast, accurate and innovative communication, it is possible to efficiently penetrate the user's mind and detonate the brand's voice. With the dual blessing of the World Cup node + Douyin life service platform resources, brand merchants already have a unique marketing position. Driven by the atmosphere of the event and the popularity of the node, small and medium-sized merchants have also spontaneously increased their business actions to achieve brand power and transaction growth, allowing World Cup marketing to upgrade from an arena for top merchants to a diversified marketing ecosystem.

The World Cup has come to an end, but the passionate collision between Douyin life services, merchants and users continues. As the next marketing node approaches, we continue to look forward to the "good show" under the linkage of multiple parties.

Author: Kas Data

Source: WeChat public account "CaasData (ID: caasdata6)"