No advertising, but more sponsorship? A case study of e-red envelope at China’s Spring Festival Gala
Abstract
Purpose
This paper is dedicated to answer two questions: What is the business model of interactive television (iTV) ad at China’s Spring Festival Gala; and Why the business model of iTV ad creates different commercial values for different firms.
Design/methodology/approach
The two questions can be summarized as what and why problems; so, this paper adopts the method of the qualitative case study. For the first question, this paper uses the method of system activity diagram to design the business model. For the second question, this paper proposes a new analytical method – voice, incentive and convenience (VIC) model, which is used to analyze the commercial value of iTV ad. The proposal of VIC model is based on Wang et al.’s Iceberg theory.
Findings
The effect of interactive advertising is significantly better than that of traditional advertising, and interactive advertising is becoming the first choice for marketers. The business model innovation of iTV ad brings new business opportunities. In addition, the larger the area of the triangle surrounded by the three elements of VIC, the higher the commercial value of iTV ad.
Originality/value
Current business model studies focus on business model definitions and innovations, whereas the studies on business model evaluation and its influential factors are rare. A new analytical model named VIC is proposed. It explores the effect of VIC on the commercial value of iTV ad and provides a reference for the quantitative empirical analysis. The combination of activity system theory and VIC model contributes to the understanding of the explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge of iTV ad business model. This framework can be used to guide TV stations and stakeholders for business model innovations and optimizations.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant Nos. 71373262, 71390330 and 71390331. The authors would like to thank Professor Raphael Amit of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Professor Benfu Lv and Dr Yi Hu of the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences for their discussions and comments on the draft of this paper. The authors are very grateful to Mr Haiming He – the former director of CCTV Advertising Management Center and Mr Xianjun She – the deputy director of CCTV Market Department for providing very useful information and data in supporting this case study. The authors are also grateful to Academician Professor Ren-huai Liu and Associate Professor Tachia Chin – the consulting editors of this special issue for their very helpful comments and suggestions to this paper.
Citation
Zhang, Q., Wu, C., Qiao, H. and Wang, S. (2017), "No advertising, but more sponsorship? A case study of e-red envelope at China’s Spring Festival Gala", Chinese Management Studies, Vol. 11 No. 1, pp. 90-106. https://doi.org/10.1108/CMS-01-2017-0001
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2017, Emerald Publishing Limited