Campaign Insights | 3 Digital Marketing Insights from Shopee 9.9 Marketing Strategy 2020

Shopee’s 9.9 Super Shopping Day marketing campaign is catching the attention of shoppers!

Happening in early September, the 9.9 campaign is first in line in the series of year-end shopping festivals. It was pioneered by Shopee to cater to the rapid growth of the ecommerce industry in Southeast Asia. Today, e-commerce players Shopee, Lazada, Qoo10, and Zalora have also jumped on the bandwagon to battle for the share of consumers’ minds and wallets during 9.9.

Shopee's landing page all jazzed up for 9.9 | Credits: Shopee

Shopee’s 9.9 marketing campaigns have been especially successful, with each year outperforming records from the previous years. In 2019, 9.9 Super Shopping Day brought in three times the number of orders compared to 2018. Shopee also achieved a peak sales volume of 187,606 items within one minute, and more than 113 million deals offered.

For 2020, the campaign features beloved mascot Phua Chu Kang, who sings, banters with viewers, and strikes poses on the campaign’s online and offline channels.

What makes Shopee’s campaign especially memorable (or annoying)? How does Shopee drum up and sustain hype for Shopee 9.9? Why are they investing so much in this festival?

In this e-commerce marketing case study, we'll dive into what Shopee did this 9.9 season, and extract 3 key lessons digital marketers can learn!

1. Catchy and Distinctive Shopee Branding across Offline and Online Touchpoints

Shopee boldly uses music and famous brand ambassadors to stand out from other e-commerce players. In 2019, Cristiano Ronaldo dancing to a remix of 'Baby Shark' went viral, helping to triple Shopee’s sales.

Online Marketing Strategy

Come 2020, local favorite Phua Chu Kang (PCK) is Shopee’s brand ambassador! It's hard to miss his familiar, quirky, Singlish accent playing over speakers as he banters with consumers, urging them not to miss the good deals at Shopee’s 9.9 sales.

Shopee released a new jingle that is just as attention-grabbing as last year’s ‘Baby Shark’. PCK sings the Super Shopping Day song, pairing it with special 9.9 dance moves.

Using prominent brand ambassadors and catchy jingles makes Shopee stand out amongst its competitors. These are tactics that make the marketing stimulus especially eye-catching to consumers. Coupled with the basics of clear and consistent visual style, Shopee captures a prominent position in the minds of consumers.

Offline Marketing Strategy

Shopee used offline advertising as a marketing channel too! You might have seen them on digital screens, as print media, or as large immersive ad experiences:

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This created a seamless experience over online and offline touchpoints for their consumers, giving Shopee more opportunities to strengthen their engagement with consumers. Across the different touchpoints, their campaign messages were consistent in their visual style. This boosts the image of the brand and its message in their consumers' minds, possibly even more than what offline or online advertising can do alone!

2. Sustaining Interest in Shopee's 9.9 Sale through Mini Milestones

Shopee’s marketers face the challenge of drumming up and sustaining consumer interest in their Shopee 9.9 campaign. Someone might view an advertisement days, or even weeks before the actual Super Shopping Day. How do they keep the excitement going? How do they ensure consumers complete their purchase with Shopee instead of a competitor?

The marketing team needed to lead consumers on a journey up to 9.9, so they split the journey into mini milestones. Each mini milestone first involves triggering a need, followed by pushing consumers towards a call-to-action. These milestones are designed to quickly activate and satisfy consumer needs, which draws them into closer engagement with the brand each time.

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Shopee also uses activities such as giveaways (image above) and deal announcements (below) to engage consumers and sustain the hype ahead of 9.9.

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These mini-games and reward activities are also used by e-commerce marketplace Taobao and Lazada to drive excitement in the short-term, building the 9.9 hype bit by bit.

3. Shopee's Collaboration Downstream

The marketing and product teams in Shopee collaborate to execute this strategy across the whole customer journey. We can catch a glimpse of this through the synergy between advertisement messages and in-app features.

A social media advertisement (such as the one below) triggers a desire in the consumer to get a new product or see new deals. It nudges the customer to add to cart before Super Shopping Day lands as well.

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The advertisements then lead the consumers to a specially created in-app feature that allows them to add-to-cart now and set notification reminders for them to complete their purchase on 9.9.

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These steps in the consumer journey might ‘belong’ to different departments in a company, but they have to be knitted together to deliver a pleasant shopping experience for consumers.

Shopee’s 9.9 Marketing Strategy to Win Long-term Customers

Seeing how extensive and well-designed Shopee’s 9.9 marketing campaign is, you might wonder: why is this so important to them? What role does 9.9 play in Shopee’s strategy aside from a short-term gain in sales?

This could be a move to ‘own’ the 9.9 shopping festival as Shopee’s flagship season. Each year Shopee does their winning campaign, they boost their brand awareness and erode users’ loyalty to other competitors.

Everyone now knows that Super Shopping Day is by Shopee. When the next 9.9 rolls around, where would they think is the best place to shop? Shopee!

9.9 is also their chance to re-engage old consumers or attract new customers to shop with them. Each customer gained or reclaimed through their 9.9 marketing strategy could stay around for weeks or months after, which creates greater customer lifetime value beyond that one day.

These are the 3 takeaways from Shopee’s 9.9 campaign in 2020! As digital marketers, we hope you have a better understanding of the marketing strategy Shopee has adopted, and can find a way to apply it yourselves!

Hatch is an impact-driven business with the mission to make digital and design opportunities accessible for all.  That's why we are committed to sharing valuable resources like these freely and openly for the community.

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