Spring Festival is approaching and the annual hongbao war is on. Alibaba’s lifestyle app Koubei invested 100 million yuan on the “shout red envelopes” (in Chinese) game.
From 11:00 pm on the 13th to the first day of the New Year, users can login on the Koubei app, and search for “shout red envelopes (喊红包)” to enter the event page to participate. These red envelopes work like Siri, and users need to say certain things or make certain sounds to get a hongbao, like “You are my New Year’s wish (你就是我的新年愿望)” or bark like a dog (since its the Year of the Dog). Users can also say tongue twisters like “Egg mochi cake I also eat mochi cake eggs I Also eat (鸡蛋糍粑我也吃糍粑鸡蛋我也吃).” Koubei invested RMB 100 million ($15.7 million) on the “shout red envelopes” game.
Koubei’s competitor, Meituan Dianping also launched the “grab a red envelope for the Spring Festival” event a few days ago. If the user can gather a team of six, they can get red envelopes, the same is 100 million red envelopes limit. From February 9 to 21, the user can invite five friends to participate in this event, you can get a random amount of red envelope.