Alibaba urges online shoppers, content creators to start ‘planting grass’, kicking off new marketing campaign ahead of Singles’ Day

Name: Alibaba’s Singles’ Day sales begin
Uploaded: 2021-09-15T09:00:01.000Z
Duration: 1 min 19 s
Description: Alibaba’s Singles’ Day sales begin

Alibaba’s 40-day Zhongcao campaign will start on October 1 across Taobao’s different channels, including live-streaming platform Taobao Live

This initiative shows how China’s e-commerce market is now enhanced with a mix of promotions, social media content and live-streaming sessions

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E-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding is encouraging consumers and content creators to take part in its 40-day Zhongcao campaign ahead of Singles’ Day this November. Photo: AP

Jane Zhang

Published: 5:00pm, 15 Sep 2021Updated: 11:08pm, 15 Sep 2021

Alibaba Group Holding is encouraging consumers and content creators to start “planting grass”, referring to its new Zhongcao marketing campaign that targets online shoppers and vendors on Taobao Marketplace, ahead of the e-commerce giant’s annual Singles’ Day retail festival this November.

The 40-day, content-heavy campaign will be rolled out from October 1 across Taobao’s different channels, including live-streaming platform Taobao Live, to bolster Alibaba’s sales initiatives during the world’s largest shopping festival, as competition heats up with perennial rival JD.com, the group-buying platforms of Meituan and Pinduoduo, and the live-streaming e-commerce businesses of Kuaishou Technology and ByteDance.

Zhongcao, which means “planting grass” in Chinese, also refers to local consumers’ predisposition to covet merchandise that friends or celebrities have, prompting them to make a similar purchase.

“There is an inevitable trend for merchants to participate in Zhongcao,” said Wei Meng, the general manager of Taobao’s content e-commerce business. “During this year’s Singles‘ Day, [consumers] can find the ‘shortest’ way from Zhongcao to purchase in Taobao.”

As a way to increase engagement with both consumers and online merchants, Zhongcao marks a creative strategy that steers Alibaba farther away from the old “pick one from two” practice, which triggered an antitrust investigation in December last year and resulted in regulators slapping the Hangzhou-based company with a record US$2.8 billion fine in April. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.

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Alibaba’s Singles’ Day sales begin

The “pick one from two” tactic, in which online merchants are forced to choose only one platform as their exclusive distribution channel, has become widespread in China, especially during shopping festivals such as Singles’ Day. Under that scheme, if a seller lists on a competitor’s platform, the operator may punish it by blocking traffic to the merchant or yanking products offline.

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