Tech giants Alibaba and Tencent vie for attention of young Chinese on streaming video platform Bilibili
- Tencent, which has 130,000 followers on the platform, poked fun at itself for not being as popular on Bilibili as other tech companies
Streaming video operator Bilibili has become a new battleground for tech companies in their ongoing efforts to win the hearts and minds of Chinese youth, with the latest skirmish involving a series of viral videos and memes from tech giants Alibaba Group and Tencent Holdings.
It started with a damage control video from DingTalk, the Chinese equivalent of Slack, which is owned by Alibaba, which also owns the South China Morning Post. After being pranked with a slew of one-star reviews from Chinese students who resented taking classes online due to the novel coronavirus outbreak, DingTalk posted a video on Bilibili on February 16 asking for “forgiveness” and better reviews from students.
“Guys, I sincerely beg you to spare my life. You guys are all my papa,” the lyrics of DingTalk’s music video say. “It’s clear to me that you guys do not want to have such a fulfilling holiday, I'm so sorry for troubling you.”
The apology video went viral with more than 20 million views on Bilibili alone and massive buzz across the entire Chinese internet. DingTalk is now a celebrity corporate account on Bilibili with well over 650,000 followers.
While DingTalk was able to increase its social capital among young people, Tencent Holdings reached out to Bilibili users with a video published in late February that appealed for the same kind of attention.
It followed that with a number of similar videos – including one for its own WeChat Work app – aimed at getting attention from young people with equally humorous and self-effacing antics. In a self-deprecating video released early March, Tencent poked fun at itself for the fact that it is not as popular on Bilibili as other tech companies.