Chinese e-commerce site Alibaba hit the UK with a fanfare back in the autumn of 2009. A campaign announcing the arrival of the online trading giant included livered taxis, TV, outdoor and online advertising all utilising its distinctive orange branding.
A year on and Alibaba has embarked on its second UK campaign, this time with the aim of giving the trading platform a more human dimension. It also hopes to assert its mission statement of making business across the world as easy as possible for SMEs.
A pre-campaign kicked-off with a June appeal to Alibaba’s UK users to nominate themselves to star in national TV and radio adverts, bagging their own business some nation-wide exposure in the process. Users were asked to submit “X-factor for business”-style audition videos explaining why their story of forging a buyer-supplier relationship on Alibaba.com deserved recognition and a chance to be in the spotlight.
“We wanted to bring people together,” says Jacqueline Chou, Alibaba’s marketing manager EMEA. “We tried very hard to be genuine, as well as give something back to our customers, especially SMEs who don’t always have the chance to appear on TV.”
TV reaches out to target audience
Despite having 750,000 registered users in the UK (the third largest overseas market after the US and India), Chou admits that Alibaba “could have received more entries”, but she says the quality of responses were impressive. “We had about 15 entries that really evangelised Alibaba as a product and went to great effort to produce their entries, we were touched,” she explains, adding the process of watching the entries, “really allowed us to understand our customers better.”
TV was chosen as a channel to establish the brand as a major player in e-commerce. “We wanted to raise awareness of the brand and convert casual traffic into active buyers, we chose TV because we wanted to be associated with trusted media,” explains Chou.
Both satellite and terrestrial channels were chosen for ad frequency and reach respectively, and included Channel 4, Dave, Sky 1,2 and 3, Discovery, Sky News and Sky Sports.
Adverts have aired between both consumer and business-orientated programmes including Channel 4’s ‘Undercover Boss’ and ’10 Years Younger’ and Dave’s ‘Dragon’s Den’, ‘Top Gear’ and ‘Have I Got News For You?’
Radio has also played a part in the campaign, with LBC, TalkSport and Absolute airing adverts for three months from August. Taxi panels emblazoned with the campaign hit London’s streets the same month to add outside impact to the TV and radio adverts.
Social media supports campaign
Social media has played a supporting role in the campaign. The recruiting stage of the campaign included pushes on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. After entries had been submitted, a dedicated YouTube channel was created that featured a behind-the-scenes video on the making of the TV ad to generate momentum and a sense of community and personality around the audition process.
Chou insists the “time is very ripe” for Alibaba’s latest UK campaign. She says SMEs are faring better then big businesses and it is a good time to start new business ventures with the technology to do it readily available. The happy coincidence of David Cameron’s recent trade trips to India and Turkey to increase UK exports have also placed the spotlight firmly on global trade. In fact, Chou says Alibaba’s UK users are unique in that they are split roughly 20 per cent suppliers and 80 per cent buyers, compared to only 5 per cent of its American users who are suppliers. “Our raison d’être reflects what is going on in the current climate” says Chou.
Last month, Alibaba credited its recent increase in net profit, up 46 per cent year-on-year, on its concerted marketing push to increase its membership base. The trading site is in the middle of a three-year marketing plan to boost customer numbers revenue and margins.
