On 7 August, the first Xiaohongshu (RED) Seed Awards was held, focusing on brands that have successfully achieved crowd-sourcing through ‘plant seed’, an online meme whose origin means ‘sowing grass seeds’ or ‘planting grass seedlings’, and is a highly sincere recommendation. At the Seed Awards, a total of nine contests, 54 winning cases and three grand prizes were announced, namely Synear Foods, automobile manufacturer NIO and household product Atour Planet. On Xiaohongshu, 44K people watched the livestream.
According to Xiaohongshu, every product is a seed, and the Xiaohongshu Seed Awards are designed to encourage brands that are “people-centred” while achieving quality growth through the scientific and efficient ‘plant seed’ method. These brands are able to achieve business returns that far exceed market expectations and have the key ingredients for sustainable growth, such as word-of-mouth. In Xiaohongshu, ‘plant seed’ has become a science, with the hashtag #Xiaohongshu Plant Seed Science# boasting over 40K notes.
Take Synear Foods, who won the Grand Prize, for example. At the end of 2023, Synear Foods opened its Douyin (China’s TikTok) Shop Super Brand Day activity, mainly promoting the new “Persimmon and Lucky” (柿柿如意) Tangyuan. Tangyuan are a traditional Chinese dessert made of glutinous rice shaped into balls that are served in a hot broth or syrup. The “Persimmon and Lucky” product is synonymous with “Good luck in everything”, implanting the blessings of the traditional festive season into the product. At the same time, these Tangyuan are in the shape of three-dimensional persimmons, and the yellow/orange colour from carrot juice brings a realistic hue, which is not only visually appealing but also delicious.
During the campaign, Synear Foods continued to hold livestreams on Douyin and offered benefits such as customised insulated bags to the first batch of users to place orders. In addition, the brand also launched a winter solstice mission on Douyin and invited young celebrities to participate in the campaign to increase exposure. Three months after the launch of the new “Persimmon and Lucky” Tangyuan, the number of products sold on Douyin has already reached 100 million.
The Synear Foods marketing case epitomises the Xiaohongshu Seed Awards. If ‘plant seed’ is a science, then this science comes from life. The platform’s COO, Ke Nan, said that Xiaohongshu’s e-commerce is “lifestyle e-commerce”, so what users buy from Xiaohongshu is not only a good product, but also an aspiration of life. Xiaohongshu lifestyle e-commerce is through the understanding of merchants to create, select and match products to meet the personalised needs of users. Understanding people’s needs is also the key to the success of more and more brands seeding on platforms such as Xiaohongshu.
