From rugby to football, the Chinese e-commerce "Four Little Dragons" seem unwilling to give up any opportunity to "appear" in major global sports events
Alibaba's international e-commerce platform AliExpress announced on Monday that it has signed football superstar David Beckham as its global spokesperson. This is also another heavyweight move by AliExpress after becoming the official partner of the 2024 European Championship in March.
The e-commerce platform stated in a statement on Monday that it will simultaneously launch a marketing campaign featuring Beckham during the European Championship and encourage consumers to "get more through AliExpress.".
The company added that the planned promotional activities include the opportunity for Alibaba APP users to win competition tickets.
The press release also cited Beckham's statement, stating, "This summer, AliExpress will help fans get closer to the 2024 European Championship, providing them with generous prizes while playing on the field."
This is the largest global brand ambassador collaboration project on AliExpress to date.
Earlier this year, AliExpress signed as a sponsor for the 2024 European Championship starting in June and will invest millions of dollars in discounts, discounts, and participation to attract online consumers.
It is worth mentioning that Alibaba has long been a relatively low-key cross-border e-commerce platform, but now it is actively investing to boost global sales. The latest financial report data shows that Alibaba's overseas e-commerce business, represented by AliExpress, saw a year-on-year increase of 45% in revenue, making it the company's fastest-growing business area.
As of April this year, Choice orders, mainly fully managed and semi managed, have accounted for over 70% of the overall orders on AliExpress. The "Global Five Day Delivery" service, which collaborates with Cainiao, has expanded to ten countries. Alibaba International stated that it will invest more resources in cross-border e-commerce.
Jiang Fan, Co Chairman of Alibaba International Digital Business Group, stated in a earnings conference call earlier this month that the company has "actively invested" in the Middle East and other emerging markets in the first three months of this year.
You go to the Super Bowl, I compete in the European Championship!
As the European Championship approaches, AliExpress's strong marketing layout in the football field is clearly reminiscent of Pinduoduo's overseas version of Temu, which is also one of the "Four Dragons of Chinese e-commerce going global", and its story on the "Super Bowl" in the United States over the past two years.
Prior to this, Temu has successfully aired multiple "brainwashing" advertisements on the Super Bowl for two consecutive years, encouraging American consumers to "shop like billionaires" and achieving excellent marketing and communication effects.
According to data from mobile analytics firm Apptopia, The download volume of the Temu application on the day of the Super Bowl this year increased by 34% compared to the previous day, which is the highest daily growth since November last year. The total download volume is approximately 87% of the same period last year in the Super Bowl, partly because many American phones have already installed Temu.
According to Google Trends, Temu's search popularity reached a new high in the week following this year's Super Bowl, nearly twice the level during last year's Super Bowl, and for the first time surpassed that of another "Four Little Dragons Going Abroad", Shein.
Temu's successful experience may also be a key driving force behind AliExpress's efforts to compete in the European Championship and sign David Beckham with great effort.
The 2024 European Championship will be held from June 14th to July 14th in 10 host cities in Germany, with 24 national teams participating. According to official data from UEFA, the cumulative global audience for the 2020 European Championship reached 5.23 billion, with 328 million spectators in the final, and an average of over 100 million spectators per match.
As a top-level sports event, the global influence of this year's European Championship is clearly no less than that of the US Super Bowl. The European Championship and Beckham undoubtedly could bring a wave of traffic support to AliExpress, especially in the European region. Many analysts point out that with the continuous expansion of the international market by "Four Little Dragons" such as AliExpress, sponsoring important sports events or signing top spokespersons has become one of the important means for Chinese cross-border e-commerce platforms to increase overseas investment.
Humphrey Ho, managing partner of digital advertising agency Hylink Digital in the United States, said, "Football fans in Europe and Latin America are a similar group to rugby fans in North America, and they generally include many price sensitive and inflationary consumers.". "Temu and today's AliExpress are clearly deciding to focus on fans."
It is worth mentioning that in addition to AliExpress, the Chinese sponsors of the 2024 European Cup also include Alibaba's Alipay, electric car giant BYD, home appliance brand Hisense and smartphone manufacturer Vivo.