WeChat Pay Announces "Spring Festival Shake" to Win Hongbao War

Spring Festival (春节 chūnjié ) is just a day away and in celebration, WeChat has announced the launch of its “Spring Festival Shake (新春摇摇乐 xīnchūn yáo yáo lè)” promotion.

The forthcoming “Spring Festival Shake (新春摇摇乐)” is an attempt for Tencent to keep its first place in hongbao war, and is the upgrade version of “Weekend Shake (周末摇摇乐 zhōumò yáo yáo lè)” which WeChat rolled out in January. Its activities will extend from previously a two-day event to seven days, during the Spring Festival holidays.

From Feb 14 to 20, WeChat users can use WeChat to pay over RMB 2 (USD 0.3) at the offline sites where WeChat Pay is aligned with. Users have three chances a day to participate in lucky draws to win two kinds of red envelopes: free purchase (免单 miǎn dān) or up to RMB 200 (USD 31.6) in red envelopes (到店红包 dào diàn hóngbāo) that user can use in offline stores using WeChat pay.

During the “Spring Festival Shake” event launching today, Feb 14, WeChat will also hand out different daily digital blessing eggs (祝福彩蛋 zhùfú cǎidàn) to users. In Chinese tradition, eggs have a meaning of blessing. In China, it is common to hold at the baby’s first-year birthday a red egg and ginger party. When Chinese couple get married, they hide colored eggs around their bedding and let children hunt for eggs.

There has been much speculation as to what Alipay would roll out on Chinese New Year’s day, including talk of a gold hongbao feature and a version of last year’s augmented reality hongbao campaign, in which red envelopes and gifts to viewers during the CCTV Spring Festival Gala. However, Alipay’s operator Ant Financial told TechNode that they are not commenting on potential features at the moment. Last year’s hongbao war win went to WeChat, who sent out 14.2 billion red envelopes on New Year’s Eve, up 75.7 percent in comparison to the same period in 2016.

Image: eluniversal.com