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Source: Alibaba Group. The 2016 11.11 Global Shopping Festival was launched on October 20 in Hong Kong.
From left: Jet Jing, VP of Alibaba Group; Maggie Wu, CFO of Alibaba
Group; Daniel Zhang, CEO of Alibaba Group; Joe Tsai, Executive Vice
Chairman of Alibaba Group; and Chris Tung, CMO of Alibaba Group. |
Alibaba Group has revealed more features and highlights of its
2016 11.11 Global Shopping Festival Countdown Gala. Guests
will include basketball player Kobe Bryant and band OneRepublic. There
will also be some surprise guests on the night, to be held in Shenzhen
on November 10, Alibaba said.
Performers already announced include Katy Perry, who is also the gala’s Global Ambassador, American sitcom
2 Broke Girls star Beth Behrs, and 2010
World Cup Golden Boot-winning footballer Thomas Müller.
This
year’s gala reflects Alibaba’s globalisation efforts, as
demonstrated in the range of participating brands and merchants, in
addition to the lineup of international guests. The festival offers
consumers much more than shopping, Alibaba said. In addition to
international celebrities, music idols and football stars, the gala will
also introduce a wide range of multimedia activities to engage
consumers globally.
Chris Tung, CMO, Alibaba Group
said, “The gala will be a global carnival, a world-class performance
that involves the audience throughout the event with many touchpoints
and is like nothing else you would have experienced. Last year was an
incredible show and attracted attention from around the world, and this
year we are going to surpass this and push the boundaries of
entertainment by co-creating programmes with global brands and
production studios. So make sure that you are ready and tuned in to get
the party started on November 10th!”
As the director
of this year’s gala, Los Angeles, US-based TV producer David Hill
commented: “I’m excited to have been brought in to be part of something
that is so unique. Combining Alibaba’s technology with my experience at
other global events we are going to develop a spectacle like no other.
This is going to be entertainment that goes beyond expectations and we
have a chance to continue to build the legacy of this event. November
10th is eagerly awaited both in China and throughout the world - I’m
looking forward to working with the team over the coming days to ensure
that people aren’t disappointed.”
Hill has produced live events as varied as several
NFL Super Bowls, the 88th
Oscars, and
American Idol.
This year the gala will redefine interactive entertainment by engaging
consumers at an unprecedented level. One example is that viewers will be
able to take part in competitions by shaking their smartphones equipped
with Taobao or
Tmall
apps during the event, with big prizes to be won or even the chance to
win the celebrities’ clothes right off their backs. Viewers will also
have the chance to play the role of director in certain gala segments
where they can let the story play out the way they want it to.
In
a new element for this year, there will be four one-minute advertising
time slots available for free in the categories of consumers, brands,
non-profit organisations and
11.11 participants. The winners in
each category will be chosen as the most innovative and most inspiring,
and will be given the opportunity to have their ad videos played in
front of an audience of hundreds of millions.
This year the gala will be held for the first time in the southern
Chinese city of Shenzhen at the Shenzhen Universiade Sports Centre. The
event will be broadcast live by official media partner Zhejiang
Satellite TV. Alibaba’s media assets like Youku Tudou, Tmall TV Box and
UC Web will also be conducting live broadcasts of the gala.
Last
year the four-hour gala was held in Beijing, at the Water Cube and was
watched by around 100 million viewers. TMall generated RMB91.21 billion
(around US$14.34 billion) in gross merchandise volume (GMV) on
11.11
last year, surpassing US online shopping volumes on Black Friday and
Cyber Monday combined. Over 40,000 merchants and 5,000 global brands
from 25 countries participated in the
11.11 Global Shopping Festival last year.
This
gala, plus mobile live streaming, virtual reality shopping, interactive
games and an eight-hour livestreamed fashion show leading up to
November 11 underscore the role that strong entertainment and
interactive content will play in engaging all consumers and helping
merchants explore new and creative ways to market their brand and
products.
The
2016 11.11 Global Shopping Festival was
launched on 20 October and promises weeks of marketing promotions,
entertainment and new product offerings from around the world,
culminating in the world’s busiest and largest shopping day.
At the launch Daniel Zhang, CEO of Alibaba Group said, “
11.11 Shopping Festival has
become the global retail benchmark over the past seven years, and we
have raised the bar again this year to redefine the retail experience
for consumers together with our merchants from around the world.
“
11.11 has
evolved far beyond a 24-hour sales event. From today through November
11, consumers will discover, explore, play, watch, comment, share,
recommend and shop across our entire ecosystem with our merchants both
online and offline. Leveraging our robust infrastructure, global
merchants have been empowered with unprecedented capability to
seamlessly engage and serve customers through new technology and new
environments.”
The
2016 11.11 Global Shopping Festival has four primary focuses which support the global growth strategy of Alibaba and the scale of the event:
Entertainment and interactive engagement
Entertainment
and interactive content will play a significant role in engaging all
consumers this year which will help merchants explore new and creative
ways to market their brand and products.
+The
activities included Tmall's eight-hour fashion show in Shanghai, the
largest of its kind in China with 50 international brands and 160 models
participating. The show was streamed live via the Tmall and Taobao
mobile apps, during which viewers can preorder items in real-time as
they appear on the catwalk.
“The
Tmall Global Fashion Show is a key event that kicks off our
11.11 Global Shopping Festival and
one that underscores Tmall’s tremendous growth in the past few years.
For big-name fashion brands across the globe, Tmall has become not only a
distribution channel, but also a branding powerhouse as well as a
global gathering place for lifestyle and fashion trends. We expect the
event today to become a lifestyle trendsetter for Chinese consumers and
virtually a ‘fashion week at their fingertips,’” said Tung.
Launched
in 2008, Tmall is China’s biggest online B2C platform for apparel and
accessories, with 80% of market share according to the
2016 Global Trend and Lifestyle Spending Report by
CBNData. With access to more than 400 million consumers across the
Alibaba platforms and housing more than 50,000 apparel brands, Tmall is
set to grow alongside China’s online apparel and accessories industry,
which is expected to exceed RMB1 trillion in sales in 2017.
At
the Shanghai Oriental Sports Center, style guru Nick
Wooster, the image consultant of this year’s show, led a procession of top models including Sui He and Maye Musk, celebrated
photographer Tommy Ton and top performers such as Chris Lee on-stage in
front of the live and online audience.
Top brands from
Burberry to Trussardi, Paul Smith to La Perla showed their latest
offerings for the season on the runway while global brands such as
Maserati, Guerlain, Rimowa, Vidal Sassoon and New
Balance introduced their newest creations using the Tmall platform. Burberry also released a mist of its Mr Burberry
cologne to promote the scent's debut on Tmall.
Streaming live
on Mobile Taobao, Tmall.com and Youku, the show combined entertainment
with a demonstration of Alibaba’s latest technological capability, to
help brands engage with consumers in a fun, entertaining and intimate
fashion. The live and online audiences could preorder items that were in the show by viewing the products on
the Tmall and Taobao apps and tapping the “buy now” button. Orders
placed during the eight-hour show and successfully executed on November
11 during the
11.11 Global Shopping Festival will enjoy steep discounts.
+Till
November 11, more than 600 international brands will be streaming live
broadcasts on Tmall to educate and excite targeted consumers about their
brand and
11.11 product offerings.
+Alibaba will pilot “Buy+”, the world’s first complete virtual reality (VR) shopping experience, during this year’s
11.11 festival.
Shoppers will be virtually transported to select retail stores
internationally, and experience the entire shopping process from product
selection to payment, all through VR.
+The
11.11 Global Shopping Festival Gala on
November 10 will feature a series of interactive activities between
brands and consumers to drum up excitement towards the countdown of
11.11.
Online to offline (O2O) initiatives
This year’s
11.11 will
showcase Alibaba’s ability to seamlessly integrate data obtained online
with offline activities, including marketplace data, logistics, media,
and entertainment. Alibaba believes that the future of commerce is not
pure e-commerce, but an integrated, holistic online and offline
experience. Below are a few examples of the power of O2O during
11.11:
+Alibaba
will release a location-based augmented reality (AR) mobile game about
two weeks before November 11. Consumers can follow the Tmall Cat mascot
on an adventure across the Alibaba online and offline retail ecosystem
to earn special promotions and prizes. Participating merchants include
Suning, Intime shopping malls, Beijing Joy City shopping mall, Shenzhen
Coastal City shopping mall, as well as global brands such as Shanghai
Disneyland, KFC and Starbucks.
+Alibaba is working with
more than 1 million offline stores across various product categories to
present consumers with an integrated online-to-offline experience
across products, members and services.
Personalisation through big data
Each user will have a unique and highly-personalised shopping experience for
11.11 this
year. Driven by data, everything from product recommendations, search
results, newsfeeds, to user-generated content etc., will be specifically
tailored to the individual consumer.
+Consumers will enjoy highly relevant products and content that meets their interest and lifestyles.
+Brands
and retailers will have the ability to customise their storefronts,
product selection and marketing materials targeted at different
demographics.
Buy globally, sell globally
Globalisation
is a strategic long-term priority for Alibaba Group, with the 10-year
goal of serving 2 billion consumers and supporting 10 million small
businesses, brands and retailers globally. The
2016 11.11 Global Shopping Festival will take Alibaba another step forward in its globalisation strategy with its
Buy Globally, Sell Globally initiative.
+
Buy Globally: Alibaba
is the premium gateway to China for international brands and merchants
to sell quality international products and services to Chinese
consumers.
+
Sell Globally: Alibaba is
introducing a new pilot programme to help global merchants sell beyond
China. The company is in its early phases of expanding its
infrastructure, including logistics and payments, in order to allow
consumers overseas to purchase international products through Tmall.
Hong Kong and Taiwan are the first markets outside mainland China where
this will be available.
The
11.11 shopping
festival began in 2009 with 27 merchants as an event for Tmall.com
merchants and consumers to raise awareness of the value in online
shopping. Seven years later,
11.11 has become a global event with
participating merchants in the tens of thousands, buyers in the
millions, and total sales in the billions.
