China’s Kuaishou, Taobao tap ‘Messi mania’ to give livestream e-commerce a leg up
WHERE football superstar Lionel Messi goes, brands hungry to leverage his fame follow, and Chinese companies are no exception.
Last week, the World Cup champion captained the Argentinian national team to a 2-0 victory in a friendly match against Australia at Beijing’s newly renovated 68,000-seat Workers’ Stadium.
In the days leading up to the game, the 35-year-old had a packed pre-game schedule following his arrival in the Chinese capital on June 10, with media appearances on Chinese livestreaming e-commerce platforms Kuaishou and Taobao Live among the lineup.
Both platforms’ efforts to tap the “Messi mania” comes as they sought to draw much-needed traffic and viewership amid competition with established rivals like TikTok sibling Douyin and budget e-commerce platform Pinduoduo, as well as newcomers like food delivery giant Meituan.
On the evening of Jun 12, Kuaishou’s official livestream account showed a 50-second preview of an interview with Messi during his China tour. The platform also used the opportunity to air a livestream shopping ad. As of Jun 19, the livestream and playback garnered around 190 million views.
The next evening, the full 31-minute interview, conducted in collaboration with Chinese sports newspaper Titan Sports, was played during another livestream session, attracting close to 410 million views as of Jun 19.
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Alibaba Group Holding’s livestreaming arm Taobao Live followed suit, organising a live appearance of Messi in a livestreaming session hosted by local influencer Li Xuanzhuo.
Li shot to fame by selling more than 600,000 bottles of liquor in the three months of him being a livestreamer in 2019 and raked in over 50 million yuan (S$9.35 million) in sales, according to his multi-channel network firm Foshan Yowant Technology.
During his 15-minute appearance at the Taobao Live show, Messi shared stories with Li about his football career and his past six visits to China, including his team’s Olympic Games victory in Beijing in 2008. Messi also wished Chinese fans a “happy Dragon Boat Festival,” which falls on Jun 22.
The Taobao Live show was a rare opportunity for Chinese fans to see Messi live after a meet-up with fans in Beijing’s Sanlitun area was canceled due to security issues.
Viewers of the show surpassed 2.9 million at its peak, despite it being broadcast during mid-afternoon when many were at work. During the interview, ads of brands including Avatr, a Chinese electric-vehicle brand backed by Huawei and Hengyuanxiang, a Chinese supplier of clothing and textile-maker, were displayed while Messi was talking.
After Messi left, Li continued the livestream session by immediately pitching products to viewers, which included Messi and Argentinian team merchandise, as well as food, liquor and personal care products, though viewership dropped to just around 320,000.
Messi’s appearance also helped boost Li’s social media presence, with the number of followers on his Taobao Live account growing to 75,000 after the livestreaming show ended. Li is more active on Kuaishou, where he has more than 12 million followers.
In 2022, Taobao Live rolled out a series of incentive policies to lure famous influencers who had originally mainly hosted e-commerce livestreams on Douyin, including serial entrepreneur Luo Yonghao and comedian Li Dan, after losing two celebrity livestreamers Huang Wei and Zhu Chenhui, also known as Viya and Xueli Cherie, respectively, over tax evasion.
Meanwhile, Kuaishou Technology said revenue from its livestreaming business increased by 14.2 per cent to 35.4 billion yuan in 2022, driven by a rise in average number of monthly paying users due to more content, better collaboration with talent agencies and continuous optimisation of algorithms, the company said in an earnings report. CAIXIN GLOBAL
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