Youku Tudou, Alibaba marketing collaboration
October 30, 2014
Youku Tudou, China’s leading Internet television company, and e-commerce specialist Alibaba Group are to work together to drive the adoption of big data in marketing in China. Alibaba Group’s online marketing technology platform, Alimama, will use its data and technology to support innovative online video marketing techniques, i.e. View and Buy developed by Youku, and Merchants’ Video Channel developed by Tudou; and help small companies to improve their operations with data and make online video marketing services more accessible to them.
Alimama announced earlier in 2014 that it would launch online video marketing services in collaboration with major video websites in China to help widen the relevance and reach of online video marketing by Taobao Marketplace and Tmall.com merchants to a broader base of customers. The latest initiative represents a deepening of the existing collaboration by working together with Youku Tudou on data and technology.
“This collaboration is benefiting from the combination of advantages from both sides. The Youku Tudou Cloud and Alibaba’s data and technology will collaboratively bring consumer behaviour in media and entertainment and consumer behaviour in products and services closer together. Both parties will work in stride to realise the ‘Screen is Channel’ and the ‘Content is Storefront’ vision, creating strong synergies between the domains of media and entertainment, and commerce and payment. By working together, we will work to usher in the new online plus offline era,” said Victor Koo, Chairman and CEO of Youku Tudou.
“We will build the marketing infrastructure with Youku Tudou in the big data era with the aim of creating value for small companies with data, improving user experience, and building a simple yet highly effective ecosystem that can benefit all participants,” added Jonathan Lu, chief executive officer of Alibaba Group.
Alimama has also formally launched its open Data Management Platform (Alimama DMP). Through this platform, Alibaba Group works with brands and merchants to enhance understanding of their customer data and to direct targeted marketing to a broader base of consumers with similar attributes. For buyers, Alibaba Group uses its data to create a better shopping experience by personalising search results and shopping recommendations.
Youku Tudou and Alimama will also jointly establish a Marketing Innovation Lab in addition to the Big Data cooperation. This lab will aim to drive development of innovative online video marketing techniques and products such as View and Buy and Merchants’ Video Channel. As indicated by the name ‘View and Buy’, a consumer can click on merchandise that appears in the video they’re viewing and make a purchase without interrupting the playback. The Merchants’ Video Channel gives merchants an opportunity to market their products and services by themselves where they can create fun videos to promote their products, get consumers’ attention and trigger purchasing actions.
The two marketing techniques/products are a result of the seamless collaboration between Youku Tudou and Alibaba Group. Youku Tudou leverages video viewing behaviour data to help merchants identify and advertise during the right timing and context in videos and to find and recommend relevant products to specific consumers.