The first day of China’s biggest annual holiday is just 10 days away. To help the Spring Festival holiday go smoothly, China’s food delivery giant Meituan is offering consumers an escape route from a last-minute shopping frenzy.
From January 27 until February 17, consumers can search “New Year’s takeout” (年货外卖) directly on the Meituan app to quickly find everything they need to feed and entertain relatives, including household essentials, festive sweet treats and beverages, and even gifts. As well as getting essentials delivered to their own homes, users can also have purchases delivered to friends or relatives, resolving any last-minute gifting emergencies.
During the promotional period, customers who order goods through the New Year’s Takeout portal will receive a 70 RMB coupon. In addition, users who place orders with selected Olé or BLT supermarkets can also snag a set of limited-edition Spring Festival couplet decorations and red envelopes emblazoned with Liu Yifei’s face.
To drive home the message of Meituan coming to the rescue, the brand shared a humorous advertisement featuring brand ambassador Liu Yifei (of live-action Mulan fame). Addressing a crowd of anthropomorphised holiday purchases like crabs, cooking oil, and baijiu, Liu Yifei announces “No need to stock up! On Meituan, you can get holiday essentials on demand in as little as 30 minutes”. Aghast, the audience asks “We don’t need to stock up!? We don’t need to queue up or wait?”. The short advert drew an impressive crowd on China’s Twitter-like platform Weibo, where it garnered 21,000 likes and 1,118 shares as of January 30. The campaign is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the annual ritual of “stocking up on New Year’s purchases” (备年货).
Meituan treats this ritual as a genuine pain point for consumers, aiming to address this through its super convenient service and wide product selection
