![]() ![]() ![]() Links to products on Alibaba's Taobao or Tmall can't be shared easily over WeChat - users have to copy a WeChat-specific link on the product page, send it over WeChat, and then the recipient has to copy this text and open the Taobao app manually. Tencent knows that, and will do anything to stop its arch-nemesis Alibaba (and vice versa). WeChat users (pretty much everyone in China with a mobile phone) spent a third of their online time on WeChat. The point here is that messaging is everything - it's how most online users connect with each other. It's too early to call it a failure, but historically, efforts to challenge Tencent on messaging applications have failed to take hold. And just last year, Alibaba launched Real in another bid to enter the social media space. Alibaba rolled out Laiwang in 2013 to compete with WeChat on messaging, but the service never took off. Social is an area that e-commerce giant Alibaba has been agonizing over for a while. Since the game lived on WeChat, it was also very easy to share with friends. Users were able to access the game through Burberry's mini program, via a Burberry article, or straight through Burberry’s official account. The game was an expansion of a game that Burberry launched in October 2019, and is a prime example of entertainment-first luxury. This year, Burberry launched a WeChat game with a trench-coat wearing character called Ratberry (not making this up, it is the “Year of the Rat,” after all). Gaming sessions are easy for friends to organize over WeChat : after signing in via WeChat, a user’s friends are automatically pulled in, making it easy to find partners for quick 10-minute games that easily fit into busy schedules. Honor of Kings works because playing is a brief and social experience. Blurring the line between marketing and entertainment, these games excel at content-commerce, and they also happen to be one of the two things Tencent is best at.Ĭase in point: Honor of Kings is Tencent's prime mobile gaming product, boasting more than 100 million daily active users. The games known as MOBAs (Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas), such as China's massively popular Honor of Kings, are pre-populated virtual spaces. Games should be considered less as creative content and more as virtual spaces for branded content. None of these three things are binary - it's more like a spectrum of engagement, ranging from one-way content like short video to interactive content such as games. What's been the magical trifecta of Covid-commerce? ![]()
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