Stand-up comedy is back and in a big way, it seems. The two stand-up-centric reality TV shows, Stand-up Comedy (脱口秀和TA的朋友们) and King of Comedy (喜剧之王单口季) are both near their season finale. As the year’s biggest shopping festival, Double 11 (also called 11.11 on JD.com), returns, both Tmall and JD.com have chosen stand-up comedy as the medium for their Double 11 campaigns.
Both events were announced on 12 October, and the beginning of each platform’s kick-off to the Double 11 Festival was set for 14 October, ten days earlier than last year. JD.com recruited ten stand-up comedians to record 90-second clips to discuss JD.com’s various channels from car maintenance to supermarket. Meanwhile, Tmall released a studio-shot video, similar to a variety TV show and invited comedians to its “open mic” night to share their experiences with Tmall.
On Weibo, China’s Twitter-like platform, hashtags from both JD and Tmall garnered a huge number of views. JD.com’s “Stand-up comedians are all on JD 11.11” (#脱口秀演员都在京东11.11#) amassed a whopping 350 million views while Tmall’s “Double 11 open mic” (#双11开放麦#) gained 290 million views but makes it to the Hot Search list on Weibo, landing at number 7.
Interestingly, Xiaohongshu (RED) also incorporated a comedy section in its Double 11 launch and collaborated with popular comedians, including Yang Li and the platform’s latest super streamer Li Dan. Collaboration clashes are more common this year, especially when everyone is trying to get on the latest viral trends. However, it is still surprising to see three of the top platforms launch their biggest sales campaigns with the same concept. How effective the campaigns are, however, will only be revealed after the festival.
