The collusion of social media and e-commerce

In today’s blog, I’m going to walk you through this platform collusion and discuss who the winners and losers are in this phenomenon.

There’s this strange phenomenon on the Chinese internet: during China’s biggest shopping festival (the Chinese version of Black Friday), no matter what social media platform you open it will jump straight to Taobao – China’s biggest online shopping platform. Every influencer’s video has a link to a product underneath, and everyone is promoting “you must buy this”. In today’s blog, I’m going to walk you through this platform collusion and discuss who the winners and losers are in this phenomenon.

Censorship, political apathy, and entertainment supremacy

Chinese traditional media and Chinese social media have strict censorship mechanisms, for example, the word “death” is not allowed to be said directly on Chinese TV programs nowadays, tattoos are not allowed, and hair coloring was banned for a short period of time. A week ago, I read a very intriguing quote on Chinese social media: “Chinese people who are ashamed to talk about sex have given birth to 1.4 billion people.” There is no education about life, death, sex, or love in our media …… Why are people ashamed to talk about so many things?

When serious topics are not allowed to be talked about, when life is getting more and more stressful, and when the economic situation is not favorable, China’s social media nowadays shows a strong tendency to be entertainment-oriented：the electronic economy overwhelms the real economy, new media overwhelms traditional media, and short videos overwhelm long videos. When I walk on the street, I can see delivery people watching live streaming, countless people swiping short videos on the underground, and people care less and less about current affairs in society, all of which worries me. As McChesney said:” Behind the lustrous glow of new technologies and electronic jargon, the media system has become increasingly concentrated and conglomerated into a relative handful of corporate hands. This concentration accentuates the core tendencies of a profit-driven, advertising-supported media system: hyper commercialism and denigration of journalism and public service. It is a poison pill for democracy.”

Who’s the loser anyway?

Above is a flowchart I created of an economic cycle where the platforms get the users and data, the merchants make money, and the users give their time, energy, attention, and money, and what do we get in return.？Nothing. Many people are unconsciously in this cycle, including myself.

I don’t think the emergence of any social platform has made China‘s society more democratic, but it has definitely made everyone more consumerist and materialistic. The solution to this problem, I think, is to get out into the offline world more, communicate with people honestly, read books instead of watching short videos, and perceive the richness of the world instead of letting social media take all the time and energy.

The Christmas advert launched by Hobby lobby is the most played Christmas advert so far this year, the most liked comment under this video said: “THIS IS, WITHOUT A DOUBT, THE HOLIDAY COMMERCIAL OF THE YEAR. HOORAY TO ‘HOBBY LOBBY’; THEY DEFINITELY DESERVE AN AWARD.” Many readers may be unfamiliar with the Hobby Lobby, and it was through this advertisement that I first became acquainted with it. Hobby Lobby is an industry leading retailer offering more than 70,000 arts, crafts, hobbies, home décor, Holiday, and seasonal products.

Let’s take a look at what’s so special about this advert that it’s beaten a host of bigger, more recognisable companies such as Amazon and Apple to become the most popular Christmas advert this year.

Unusual Christmas Gifts: The Warmth of Ordinary Life

At the beginning of the advertisement, it’s not quite dawn and Mom is already getting ready to go to work. The house looks a little cluttered – dirty clothes that haven’t been played with, apple cores that haven’t been thrown, dirty dishes piled up in the sink …… After a little tidying up, the mother tucks her son in, gives him a kiss on the forehead and heads out the door for work. As the son got up for breakfast, he saw the still-unwashed clothes and the undressed, crooked Christmas tree, and he then rode his bike out and sold his game console. With the money, he bought Christmas decorations, and gifts for his mother. When the mother returns home from work, she finds a brand-new Christmas wreath hanging on her doorstep and walks into the house to see newly decorated tree and clean clothes. Finally, at the end of the film, mother and son embrace.

What this advertisement is trying to say is ‘Christmas is what you make it’, But is that really the case? The implicit ideology of the film is that you need to buy decorations to make your Christmas happen.

What I like about this advert is that it’s much more relevant to people’s real lives, rather than just presenting a perfect picture of the festive season. Whereas Christmas in adverts is usually full of joy and warmth, this film boldly adopts a cooler tone, with lots of close-ups to show that our lives are not as perfect as those on the set, but that there is happiness and warmth in the ordinary that is unique to each individual.

Be aware，Media and marketing communications are merging

Nowadays, the choice of whether to watch an advert or not is more in the hands of the audience. Unlike a traditional TV screening or reading a newspaper, the initiative is more in the hands of the producer. As Scott Donaton discussed the shift of power: ‘this is the age of the empowered consumer, and that means that entertainment providers and advertisers have to move from a model based on intrusion to one that is dependent on invitation. The consumer is now in control of how and when messages reach him or her, and if the consumer doesn’t want your message it’s gone.

With the Christmas season approaching, almost every company is posting holiday-related branded contents on YouTube. branded contents are not just about promoting products, but more about promoting brands and shaping their culture and image in the minds of the public through online marketing, like Carah and Louw said: “Brands are ‘continuously created and circulated within culture’ through ‘interactions between cultural producers and consumers’.”

Take this most popular Christmas advert of the year for example, it may be very real and moving, but if we think about it, do we really need that many Christmas decorations to get the festive cheer? Or what we need more is actually just the company of our family. In the advert’s implied logic, it seems as if buying decorations is the same as buying joy, but anyone who lives in real life knows that this logic doesn’t hold true. There is a limit to the amount of joy that buying an item can bring. Thinking back, what was your happiest moment last Christmas? Was it the moment you got your home decorated or the moment you spent the festive season with your family.

How many people did McDonald’s milkshakes ‘kill’

In this article we will look at an unexpected UGC trend.

Has anyone around you been kidnapped by Grimace?

Grimace is one of the mascots designed by McDonald’s in 1971 and a childhood memory for many 80s and 90s Americans. McDonald’s kicked off a nostalgic marketing campaign in June this year to celebrate Grimace’s 52nd birthday with the Grimace Meal, which included a purple berry-flavored milkshake. The combination of the milkshake itself, which is not a normal food color, and the fact that Grimace was originally set up as a monster that steals milkshakes from humans, has led to a user-created storyline of “accidents happening after drinking weird Grimace milkshakes”, which has gone viral on TikTok; to date, the hashtag #grimaceshake has been trending on TikTok. To date, #grimaceshake has received more than 3 billion views on TikTok, and even the actress who plays Monica in Friends has joined in the creation of the video, which has received more than 2 million views and an official response from McDonald’s.

If you can’t beat it, join it：McDonald’s response to this trend

McDonald’s, faced with this not entirely positive public opinion festering, instead of seriously proving themselves, went along with the internet’s shenanigans. First, they sent a free birthday package to the creator who started the trend in the first place, bringing the word of mouth back to the positive; then, McDonald’s own CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) posted a video of him being “murdered” after drinking Grimace Shake; Then the official social media posted ” meee pretending i don’t see the grimace shake trendd” in Grimace’s voice, with a photo of Grimace’s naive and slightly creepy blindness; and finally, a post saying goodbye to Grimace’s downlisting had more than 200,000 likes, which is 10 times more than the interaction rate of the post about its launch. Judging by the trend of brand interactions on Instagram and TikTok, McDonald’s has increased the discussion of its brand a lot more without spending a cent more.

Who’s the winner? McDonald’s, tiktok or users

For me, I find this trend a little creepy, but imaginative at the same time. But from this case, we can see that although this UGC was initiated by users and full of uncontrollability, it is also extremely important for the officials to be able to monitor the trend at an early stage and participate in it. In short, if a brand wants to do UGC, they should try to explore the characteristics of the product or advert that can stimulate the audience’s desire to create, discuss and share. Just like Purcell said: “Given the falling price of camcorders, editing software, broadband subscriptions and mobile phone rates, content creation is also increasingly in the hands of the ‘crowd’.”

The content created by users could eventually become part of the brand. According to Leadbeater, the web’ s ‘underlying culture of sharing, decentralization and democracy’ has led to a situation he describes as ‘We-Think’, a revolution in ‘how we think, play, work and create, together, en masse’. This is an opportunity to use technology to harvest the ideas and creativity of millions of ordinary people. In this trend, users reap the joy in creating the video, McDonald’s reaps the buzz and sales, the platform reaps the traffic, and the only one who gets hurt is probably Grimace.

Which represents you better – the online you or the real you?

I’m so tired of this situation——One day I was hanging out with some friends – karaoke, walking, eating …… But there are always people busy taking photos, retouching pictures, and posting on social media. Sometimes I feel like I’m just hanging out with a couple of mobile phones. Everything that happens needs to be documented by photos and videos and then uploaded to social networks as if the day had existed. I want to laugh face to face, discuss gossip or social issues with my friends, rather than just posting some seemingly beautiful pictures.

I can’t help but think: what exactly are the psychological mechanisms and reasons behind this phenomenon? Why on earth are people so addicted to social networking, or to moulding an online persona, a 2D version of themselves. Do we ever realise that these time-consuming activities don’t bring us any real economic benefits, and that we are instead labouring for others without pay?

Of course, recording life is a very happy thing. Looking back at the photos many years later, you can still think of the happiness at that moment, but is what we record our real life? Or is it that what exists on the Internet is just our ideal version of ourselves, with no acne or wrinkles, no burying our heads in pillows crying, and always clean and tidy hair?

I have always believed that people should not live in the online world, to feel the real connection with the nature, the world, and the people. But it is undeniable that various platforms have made our lives more interesting and convenient than ever before, but are we really happier and more satisfied? Or are we becoming less and less satisfied because there are always new trends, new advertisements, and new products waiting for us, which make us no longer grateful for the things we already have in life, but always want More. Like Emily West said, although people participate voluntarily and enjoy participating, this productive activity is transformed into profit for privately owned companies.

Have we all become digital serfs?

There is a sentence in the book The Little Prince that I have always liked: “Only adults like numbers.” Obviously in this era, it is not just adults who like numbers, but also various platforms and companies. The data of these users Like blood, it revitalizes the digital economy and continuously creates economic value for these companies. I have always believed that people cannot be reduced to numbers and hashtags, but the current reality seems to be exactly the opposite of what I thought. Our lives are built on data. Without the support of data, we cannot move forward. Height, weight, post code, bank card number, number of fans, number of likes……you name it. As Taylor argued, “prosumer”—a somewhat benign term to describe the offloading of paid work onto consumers who perform it for free—has evolved into the digital serf.

I always have mixed feelings when it comes to social media. On the one hand, humans are social animals, and socializing on the Internet has become a part of people’s lives. Our likes, comments, and postings not only provide content and data for the platform, but the platform also provides us with a modern form of social interaction. In this way, we can get to know more people in different fields, see more possibilities in life, and even learn a lot of knowledge online.

But on the other hand, people may pay too much attention to the online world and ignore the offline world. But if we think about it carefully, the happiest moments in our lives often have nothing to do with the Internet and social platforms. So should we reflect on the time invested in the online world and whether there is a corresponding return?

Be careful! Platform capitalism, consumerism, and the information cocoon

As we spend time online, we generate information that is instantly collected, analyzed, sold, and then presented back to us in the form of targeted advertisements that reflect our online behavior and consumption patterns.

Take the Chinese version of Ins, Xiaohongshu, for example. Xiaohongshu has a powerful algorithm, a software that probably understands what you want better than you do, and every move a user makes on the platform is transformed into data that builds a cocoon of information for the user, as if the only thing you care about is beauty and dressing. Users, in turn, are influenced by the information they ingest every day, and lose sight of the wider world and more real life. By the way, the pushing of this data is tightly linked to consumerism, and the little information cocoon can constrain one’s eyes, and advertising campaigns are usually part of that.Users provide content and data to platforms and act as both producers and consumers in the digital economy. But no matter what role users play, the biggest beneficiaries will always be the platforms and companies.

Let’s rediscover balance in our life, put down our mobile phone and breathe freely in the real world instead of being trapped in a tiny mobile phone screen. Happiness will become easier!

Can women really BE AS THEY WISH?

Today I’d like to discuss a women’s sportswear brand from China: MAIA ACTIVE, which released an article titled “On Women’s Day, Shut Your Mouth.”on International Women’s Day.

Today I want to share the most infuriating advert I’ve seen this year. On this year’s Women’s Day, sports brand MAIA ACTIVE released an article titled “On Women’s Day, Shut Your Mouth.” with comments such as “Being overly feminist is not a good idea,” generating a lot of buzz. I was very angry when I read this article because I am also a consumer of this brand and I felt the strong disrespect of the brand towards women, especially still on International Women’s Day. I couldn’t help wondering: How could a female brand that is supposed to fully support its target consumer group, a company that is on the upswing and at the forefront of the industry, upset so many consumers and move a stone to hit its own feet?

MAIA ACTIVE: Chinese version Lululemon

Speaking of this brand many readers may feel very strange, let me make an analogy, MAIA ACTIVE is equivalent to the Chinese version of Lululemon. MAIA ACTIVE is a sportswear brand designed for Asian women, founded in Shanghai in 2016 with the design concept of “letting Asian women enjoy the beauty of sports”.

On the brand’s website, this is how MAIA ACTIVE describes their corporate vision We specialize in bringing comfortable sportswear to Asian women, not only for their bodies to enjoy the beauty of sports, but also for their spirit and life. They don’t have to dress, live, or act like anything because they can be any verb, noun, or adjective they want to be. MAIA ACTIVE encourages every athletic girl to be what she wants to be, find it, make it happen, and BE AS YOU WISH! But apparently based on this article, MAIA ACTIVE doesn’t think women can really be as they wish, or at least not freely express their views on gender issues.

A major setback for MAIA ACTIVE

MAIA ACTIVE was clearly caught off guard, deleting the article and issuing an urgent apology after the controversy arose. The letter states that the brand’s intention was “to call for less instruction and preaching to women and more space for women to express themselves freely on the Women’s Day. But in the production of article, there is a lack of more comprehensive thinking, in the expression and the tone of the line there is a loss of consideration.” It also ends with an email from the founder’s team to receive consumer comments and feedback.

The intent of this article attempted to call on readers to be less radical. It was supposed to be a call for peace. However, the perception that women are “too radical” has always come from men. It’s ironic that women are told to “shut up” in the context of Women’s Day campaigns. You can’t say something they don’t approve of when you’ve attracted many female users who are ahead of their time and brave enough to defy social norms. The founders once said in an interview that they often chat with their users about their daily lives and their confusion. I believe that if they had shown this kind of copy to real users before promoting it, they would have got completely different feedback.

I’m so unique, and you care if I’m pretty?

Before this article came out that angered so many female consumers, MAIA ACTIVE also had several successful adverts that created a buzz on the internet. Personally， I was most impressed by the advert they released in 2020 called I’m so unique, but you care if I’m pretty?

Youthful, beautiful, young, pretty… The external recognition and praise of women always focuses too much on ‘pretty’. MAIA ACTIVE says in the advert, “When mainstream aesthetics stagnate on the surface, seeing only whether the appearance is beautiful or not, the more MAIA ACTIVE wants to speak out, asking you to see the power deep inside.”

In the “I’m not pretty” brand video, the film was shot from real users of different ages and body types of women, to talk about their living out their own “pretty”, to oppose the conventional standards of judgement and aesthetic patterns. I really like this advert idea and also this advert has sparked a lot of discussion online with many users joining in the discussion.

A brand that contradicts itself

As Sarah Banet-Weiser argued in her book Empowered: ‘There are the spaces where feminism becomes popular, viewed by millions of users, so that there is an opening of space to hear, think, and feel feminism. There are also the spaces that enable visibility of the body, that ask users to evaluate and judge the body, that function as spaces for public shaming.’ In this case, MAIA ACTIVE is a very ambivalent brand. They release adverts promoting the idea that women can be unencumbered by beauty but need to be encumbered by speech. MAIA ACTIVE promotes both the idea that every woman should be powerful and individual and never just pretty, and that women are too radical on gender issues. Without going into how the brand came to the view that Chinese women are now too aggressive on gender issues, the headline alone is extremely disrespectful to the brand’s main consumers by telling them to ‘shut up’.

In my opinion, consumption is also a way to communicate with the world. Your consumption is a vote, and to some extent part of your personal identity. At a time when brand culture is becoming more and more prevalent, brands should pay more attention to the voice of the user and respect them, rather than preaching to them. At least for me, I won’t be buying MAIA ACTIVE anymore. In this consumerist world, there are too many alternatives that respect women.

Welcome to myblog.arts. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!