Kauishou’s Music Moves Challenge Douyin’s Dominance
Plus: Global brands named and shamed, a new short video battleground, and JD's AI town.
Music is emerging as the latest front in China’s short video wars, as Kuaishou has been stepping up efforts to challenge Bytedance-owned Douyin’s lead with a host of new initiatives that will help to further upgrade its content offerings at the same time that it is expanding its e-commerce footprint.
Earlier this year, Kuaishou entered into copyright agreements with one of China’s biggest music entertainment companies: Tencent Music Entertainment, which is not surprising given parent Tencent Holdings’ status as a major investor in Kuaishou. Tencent has been particularly successful in leveraging its entertainment businesses to create a strong content-commerce model that involves creating wildly popular idol groups such as Rocket Girls and R1SE through competition shows produced by Tencent Video, and then connecting the new supergroups with brands via sponsorships and other partnerships that can extend into various forms of social media — such as short videos and livestreams — as well as offline.
Kuaishou also cut a deal with Jay Chou’s Jewell Music to bring the Chinese king of pop’s two-decades’-worth of hits to the platform, and included a simultaneous release of his latest hit single, “Mojito,” on Kuaishou and Tencent’s music platforms. The agreement saw Chou establish his first official presence on a mainland Chinese social media app when he opened a Kuaishou account on June 1, which drew 10 million followers within the first 6 days and currently has more than 20 million.
More recently, the platform partnered with Tencent’s QQ Music to launch a singer-songwriter competition. Both companies will combine resources to create a musician support project called “No. 12 Record” (12好唱片) to promote singer-songwriters who produce original music. It includes an RMB100 million ($14 million) incentive plan by Kuaishou to provide cash awards, marketing, and promotion on both platforms for contestants. Twelve finalists will be featured on the “No.12 Record” album which will be released via QQ Music, and will be invited to participate in a live concert and partner with celebrities on the release of their singles. The latest project builds on previous Kuaishou initiatives to support musicians that have seen a steep increase in their numbers and followings on the platform.
Taking another page from the Tencent model, Kuaishou recently hopped onto the idol group trend by forming its own band. KS Girls is made up of seven popular influencers on the platform, including dancers Cai Bing and Chen Chunyu, cover artist He Yating, and gamer-turned-entertainer Huo Xianmei. The most popular member of the group, Chen Doudou, has nearly 26 million followers on the app. A video for the group’s debut single, “Colorful Horizons” (多彩视界) has drawn more than 13 million views on Weibo.
According to Kuaishou, the goal of forming KS Girls was to promote the concept that “every girl on Kuaishou can be the center of attention” by elevating ordinary users of the platform from various backgrounds. So far, it has proven to be a good move for Kuaishou’s efforts to appeal to younger audiences, with KS Girls content drawing consistent praise.
- by Ginger Ooi, CCI Team
What do you think of Kuaishou’s moves to nab market share in the fast-growing and contentious short video industry? Have any thoughts about the short video wars in general or a story tip you’d like us to chase? Drop us a line today!
Mentioned in today’s newsletter: Alibaba, Apple, Burger King, China Mobile, General Motors, JD.com, Jewell Music, Kuaishou, Nike, Pinduoduo, Qutoutiao, Starbucks, Taobao Live, Tencent.
Global Brands Named and Shamed in China’s Postponed Consumer Protection Gala
Every year, China marks the international consumer rights day on March 15 with a big-ticket show on state broadcaster CCTV that combines exposés of wrongdoings by major brands with song-and-dance segments for added entertainment value. And every year, brands both domestic and foreign steel themselves for potential damage to their reputations from an unwelcome appearance on the “315” broadcast — past years have seen branding powerhouses such as Apple, Nike, and Starbucks among those named and shamed.
Some even prepare by creating special PR teams and launching promotions or giveaways to build up goodwill in the run-up to 315.
The coronavirus outbreak led to a four-month postponement of the 2020 gala show, which finally aired on July 15. And while global brands were spared in 2019, this year marked a return to form with segments targeting Burger King and General Motors.
The fast-food chain was criticized for using expired ingredients and selling products that didn’t meet its own standards, such as a burger with two pieces of cheese instead of the required three. The company quickly moved to address the report, posting an apology on Weibo and shutting down the franchisee that operated the outlets in question. Meanwhile, regulators in other parts of the country are reportedly ordering inspections of Burger King restaurants.
GM was singled out for an SUV made through a joint venture with SAIC Motor and Liuzhou Wuling Motors. While the manufacturer had already recalled more than 12,000 of the Baojun 560 model vehicles in 2016 to fix gearbox issues, the CCTV segment included more recent interviews with consumers complaining of gearbox problems. The automaker also issued a speedy apology with a vow to investigate the matter and cover all costs involved.
Most of the scrutiny fell on Chinese brands, including news aggregation app Qutoutiao (NASDAQ: QTT), which has been backed by rivals Tencent and Alibaba as part of their efforts to counter Bytedance’s Jinri Toutiao app, the dominant player in mobile news. Qutoutiao was targeted for unlawful ads, including some with false weight-loss claims and others promoting gambling, and fallout has been swift, despite the firm’s announcement of plans to investigate the problems: Its Nasdaq-listed shares fell by more than 20% on the day after the broadcast and the app was removed from Android app stores soon after. Qutoutiao’s case highlights some of the risks involved with catering to China’s so-called “submerged market” of consumers in lower-tier cities and serving them with lower-quality content.
On a positive note, the 315 program also praised the development of China’s digital economy under the coronavirus epidemic, and singled out e-commerce livestreaming and its ability to create new experiences for consumers.
China’s Short Video Battleground Heats Up
Two tangentially-linked areas in which China’s tech juggernauts continue to battle it out are livestreaming and short video, with various firms rushing to add new features and functionality to their platforms and apps while aggressively courting advertisers and poaching talent.
In livestreaming, the trend on platforms such as Taobao Live, Pinduoduo, Kuaishou, and others has recently been a move towards e-commerce entertainment, fusing livestreams by popular hosts and celebrities with heavily branded sales, with an emphasis on content commerce. (Bringing livestreaming back to its entertainment-focused roots in an effort to engage audiences in a way that the usual host-talking-about-products format no longer does.)
In the short video realm — populated by some of the same apps as the livestreaming world — one key trend this year has been a diversification of content types, expanding beyond strictly “short” video (ranging from a few seconds to a few minutes) to add longer-form content, serial programming, and even feature films.
Read the full article on Content Commerce Insider
Brand Film Pick: JD.com Shoots for the Stars With Tech City
Traveling past distant planets and an asteroid belt, viewers arrive at a futuristic space city that is home to a breathtaking display of technology, nature, and urban life. This is not the Death Star, or any other epic space station that might be seen in a Star Wars movie, but rather an embellished vision of the future that e-commerce giant JD.com hopes to create through its industrial park, “Z.Town.”
The artificial intelligence town, which was first announced in 2019, will be built in the southern manufacturing hub of Dongguan in Guangdong Province. JD.com and partners China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecom will use the facilities to research and develop technology for China’s 5G network expansion. Those new technologies will be deployed in turn throughout the “smart park,” and combined with AI to fully connect its people, businesses, facilities, and vehicles, allowing the inhabitants of Z.Town to enjoy 5G-based smart offices, buildings, transportation, and stores.
To communicate the mission of Z.Town to a broader audience, JD.com produced a science fiction brand film, "The Journey of Mankind is the Sea of Stars” (人类的征途是星辰大海). Although the firm’s 5G complex will not be in space, there are strong similarities between the city depicted in the film and the one that JD.com is building in Dongguan. Just as the space city consists of three spheres — technological, ecological and urban — Z.Town will incorporate urban living, technology, and nature into its design. The technology of the space city represents the innovation that will take place in the park. The space city’s ecology, consisting of mountains and waters, speaks to the natural wetlands and forests that will be found within Z.Town, as well as the JD.com’s efforts to integrate with the surrounding industries in Dongguan. The unmanned vehicles and skyscrapers allude to the smart industrial city life that Z.Town will foster.
Though the utopia illustrated by the brand film may seem distant, by shooting for the stars, JD.com demonstrates its commitment to technological advancement. After revealing to its customers what the future holds, surely all eyes will be on the much-anticipated Z.Town.
- by Ben Guggenheim, CCI Team
News in English
What is “private traffic” and why has it become such a big part of brand marketing in China? Business of Fashion
A case study of how C-beauty brand Chando used private traffic channels such as VIP WeChat groups to attract, engage, and retain consumers. Azoya
Tencent’s latest foray into e-commerce allows businesses to set up a virtual shop on WeChat, and could draw some smaller merchants away from bigger platforms such as Taobao. CNBC
And while WeChat’s short video feature is still in beta mode, it has drawn 200 million users since it was launched early this year. KrAsia
The online retail hub of Hangzhou (Alibaba’s hometown) has established an international e-commerce court, which just livestreamed its first case. Sixth Tone
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