CCTV’s Spring Festival Gala, or Chunwan, is a Chinese New Year special produced by China Central Television (CCTV) shown on the eve of Chinese New Year on its TV channels. CCTV now requires mobile app advertisers with daily active users of at least 100 million. Otherwise, the server would crash upon broadcasting the advertisement.

We all know now how huge and crazy China’s Double 11 shopping festival could be. Yet, after upgrading the servers’ capacity by 3 times based on Double 11 traffic last year, Taobao’s servers couldn’t avoid downtime being the advertiser of Spring Festival Gala 2018.

This year, Baidu gave away 1.2 billion yuan worth of hongbao on CCTV Spring Festival Gala, which crashed the app stores of Xiaomi and Huawei according to Netease News. In this 4.6 hours’ CCTV live broadcasting, Baidu App saw 20.8 billion user engagements with hongbao from 300 million daily active users. It sent 10 million 20.19-yuan hongbao, 1 million 88-yuan hongbao, 100 thousand Baidu AI speakers, etc.

CCTV has different advertising packages for this show. The 10-second midnight time broadcasting auction ad is one of them, which cost 6.8 million yuan in 2005 and 57.2 billion yuan after 6 years. Advertising on CCTV Spring Festival Gala show costs more year after year, going in the opposite direction of its audience ratings. The estimated total ad revenues in 2019 are 1.5 billion yuan (US$222 million).

The ratings maintained above 30% between 2001 and 2017 according to CSM (CVSC-SOFRES MEDIA). Many have got the feeling more people in China participate in Double 11 shopping festival compared with those watching this gala show. But, the opposite is true.

In the 1980s, the main sponsors of the Gala Show were watches, bicycles, and sewing machines. In the 1990s, it was almost the world of home appliances and Chinese liquor such as Confucian Family Mansion Jiajiu (Kongfu Yanjiu) and Gujing Gong. The former became a national brand after advertising on CCTV. And, Gujing Gong’s net profit grew to 1.26 billion yuan in 2018 from 830 million yuan in 2016 advertising on CCTV Spring Festival Gala for 3 consecutive years.

Before 2010, medical health, home appliances, and FMCG dominated the Spring Festival Gala advertising. Beginning in 2015, Internet companies have entered and taken turns. Tencent’s WeChat collaborated with CCTV in 2015 during Chinese Spring Festival Gala 2015 giving away 500 million yuan cash hongbao and 3 billion coupon hongbao. Its WeChat Pay users grew to over 300 million from less than 8 million.

How China’s short video app Kuaishou grew its DAU by 40M in 5 months

Ad spending in China finally returns to black after two years in decline: the total spending expands by 4.3% from 2016.

The total rate card ad spending in China in 2017 increased by 4.3% from a year ago, ending a two-year decline, according to the latest annual data from Media Intelligence, CTR. Traditional media contributed significantly to the rebound.

Among all traditional media formats, TV reversed its decline in 2016 (-3.7%) to grow 1.7% in 2017 and again was able to contribute to the net growth of total ad spending.

Looking into the details of TV ad spending, we can see that the nationwide air time of TV commercials was still decreasing: after shrinking by 4.4% in 2016 from the previous year, in 2017 it lost a further 4.5%. But the rate card income for TV ad spending reversed to a 1.7% growth, while it was a decrease of 3.7% in 2016.

The performance of channels under China Central TV Station outgrew all other levels of TV channels by a large margin: it grew 31.8%, while those for provincial satellite TV stations and ground stations were almost flat. The total air time of TV commercials on CCTV channels also grew significantly.

Ad spending on radio channels bottomed out after 2015. In 2017, it grew by 6.95% from a year ago. Newspapers and magazines, however, were still in steep downfall: ad spending in newspapers lost 32.5% while magazines lost 18.9%.

In emerging new media formats, the ad spending on screen in lifts and poster in lifts continued to grow stably. As the once high-flying cinema box revenue growth in China evaporated in 2017, the ad spending in cinema pre-roll ads also slowed down, but still in quite remarkable rate compared with other media formats.

From the advertisers dimension, the top 20 biggest ad buying companies accounted for 20.6% of all ad spending. Among them, P&G continued to rank No.1 even though its spending was down by 18.4%. Hongmao Pharmaceutical Co Ltd, which boosted its spending by 51.3%, ranked second. Coca Cola also increased its ad spending by 27.3% to rank third. Find out more here.

China short-video platform users overview Q3 2017; MAU reached 244M

This article was originally published on Kantar.com

iQiyi ranks on top in China’s mobile video category with 245.61 million active users in Feb 2017, followed by Tencent Video, Youku, Letv, and Mango TV.

Sohu TV, Baofeng, PPTV, Tudou, and Migu Video apps are also in the top 10 video apps by MAUs in Feb 2017. Bilibili Cartoon ranks first in the vertical digital video mobile apps category with 30.52 million active users, followed by Hanju TV (Korean drama), Migu Movie, AcFun, Renren Movie, 1905 Movie, etc.

CCTV mobile app is the top one in TV programs category, followed by Migu, Mobile TV, and Yuntu TV.

In the short videos category, Kuaishou mobile app ranks on top in China in Feb 2017 with over 86 million active users, followed by Meipai, Xiaokaxiu, Miaopai, and Doupai.

Douyu, Huya, Inke, YY Live, and Huajiao are the top 5 digital video broadcasting mobile apps by MAU in Feb 2017.

Case Studies: Native Video Ads on WeChat Moments

Affected by multiple factors, the advertising market in China in H1 2015 was mediocre which did not develop as expected.

The overall advertising market in China in 2013 showed a growing trend, with a significant growth in the first half but slowed growth in the second half. In 2014, the slow growth trend continued. In H1 2015, China advertising market showed a decreasing trend apart from a slight increase in February 2015.

From different media types, magazine and broadcast advertising spends accounted for a relatively stable ratio. Newspaper advertising spends reduced slightly while TV advertising spends rose slightly. Television advertising still held an absolute leading position in the national advertising market.

In H1 2015, the ratio of TV advertising decreased by 4% compared with the same period last year while radio advertising increased by 9% year over year. Influenced by the popularization of online advertising and mobile advertising, spend on print media advertising continued to show negative growth; and newspaper media advertising spends dropped to 26%.

TV advertising market in China in 2013 showed a growing trend, with a significant growth in the first half but slowed growth in the second half. In 2014, the slow growth trend continued. In H1 2015, China TV advertising market showed a decreasing trend apart from a slight increase in February 2015.

In H1 2015, the profit of China regional advertising market continued to grow; but overall revenue of domestic media decreased dramatically, an 10.5% decrease compared to last year.

In the key television media advertising market, Procter & Gamble and Unilever reduced their spend on all levels of television advertising while the Jiangzhong Group, Guangzhou Chenliji Pharmaceutical and Jiangxi Huiren Pharmaceutical kept a substantial increase on TV advertising. The increase of Xi’an Epanggong Pharmaceutical spend on CCTV and local sateliite TV were more than 100%.

In China broadcast media market in H1 2015, the automotive and related products industry maintained rapid growth which led the market. Computers and accessories, media, and business/industrial/ agriculture market grew rapidly compared with the same period last year.

In sub-categories, real estate, fund, investment, wealth management, and funds market grew rapidly; and some third-party and value-added services, entertainment, and retail services advertising grew more than 50% YoY.

Among the top ten advertisers in H1 2015, most of them were in the automotive and related products industry, which still maintained a rapid growth trend. Furthermore, the top advertiser China Mobile lowered the advertising spends. China Telecom also had a certain level of decline in advertising spends, which might be a strategic plan of the companies.

In H1 2015, medicines, F&B, and cosmetics industries continued their growth.

Many advertisers among top ten were from the FMCG industry. After P & G continuing to lower its advertising spend, other FMCG advertisers such as Unilever and L’Oreal also reduced the ad spend. Pharmaceutical industry advertisers increased spends on advertising compared with advertisers in other industries.

Beverage market advertisers continued to increase ad spend; especially in February Chinese New Year with 32% increase.

China’s cosmetics industry advertising market in 2014 overall showed a decreasing trend, and the advertising spends in the first half of 2015 continued to drop.

In pharmaceutical and healthcare products industry, health and fitness equipment, healthy food and beverage advertising market developed rapidly, which continued the growth in H1 2015 from 2014.

In H1 2015, the television media were still an important channel for advertising spend.

In H1 2015, advertising spend of the pharmaceutical industry ranked first in each sub-categories and maintained a relatively rapid growth; and healthy food/beverage and health / fitness facility also had a significant growth YoY. Medicine manufacturer and first-aid medicine with relatively small investment in advertising declined dramatically YoY.

Also read: China Top 10 Online Advertising Media in 2014

According to ZenithOptimedia’s new report Top Thirty Global Media Owners 2015, Baidu is now the fourteenth-largest media owner in the world growing 43% YoY. In the Top 30 list, Google ranked on top, followed by Walt Disney and Comcast.

Baidu and Sohu ranked the second and fourth respectively in the world’s top 5 biggest search engines by revenue in 2014.

Related: China Top 10 Online Advertising Media in 2014

CCTV, China’s national state television company, accounts for about a quarter of China’s television ad market ranking the 20th largest media owner.

Mobile: Almost 1/3 of Online Video Ad Revenue in China in Q1 2015

Total hongbao volume on Chinese New Year eve exceeded one billion on WeChat compared with 240 million on Alipay. The volume during the same period on Weiob was 101 million who started Hongbao campaign on 2 Feb 2015.

Hongbao, or red envelope, is the Chinese people’s traditions and customs. Every Chinese New Year’s (“CNY”) Eve, a junior will be given some money, packed in a red envelope. In ancient times, the money is used to scare a monster. Gradually, envelopes also became the best carrier between relatives and friends for blessings and good luck in special occasions such as wedding, birthdays, and new-born’s 100th day.

In 2014, WeChat hongbao attracted 8 million users from CNY eve and the eighth day giving away 40 million virtual red envelopes. QQ also gave away virtual hongbao roth 3 billion yuan. 154 million users participated in 637 million hongbao competition on CNY eve.

WeChat collaborated with CCTV this year during Chinese New Year 2015 giving away 500 million yuan cash hongbao and 3 billion coupon hongbao. CCTV programs, especially Spring Festival Gala invited viewers to use “Shake” feature on WeChat to get hongbao including cash and coupons.

Also read: 80% Willing to Travel During Chinese New Year Holidays 2015

Following iQIYI announced an exclusive worldwide broadcast in 2015 CCTV Spring Festival Gala for Year of the Goat, Gong Yu, iQIYI founder and CEO, and Wang Gaofei, Weibo CEO, announced deep collaboration on this event on Weibo. Weibo users can comment and win Hongbao while watching Spring Festival Gala.

This year, China internet users can watch the live broadcasting of Spring Festival Gala and comment and interact with other Weibo users without switching the screens. Weibo will also give away 400 red envelopes to active users, each of which contains 4,999 yuan cash.

Their collaboration covers mobile. iQiyi has 500 million active users according to Gong Yu. Its accumulated users on mobile client has reached 860 million, contributing 63% of its total traffic. In contrast, the percentage of users who login Weibo on mobile exceeded 78%.

While during the first 7 months in 2014, iQiyi/PPS remained the leader by total number of reached users on mobile, followed by Youku Tudou, and Tencent video.

Read more: Weibo and Alipay’s Hongbao Campaign Gone Viral