Advertising and Marketing

Taobao drink party: strange anniversary date

AXL090526taobaoued2.jpg
Not just sharing a beverage

Chinese web auction company Taobao.com (owned by Ali Baba) has a User Experiment Design department called Taobao UED, which helps develop Taobao's products, web pages and generate an online community based on the company and its technology development.

On May 22 a blog post about a party was posted on the Taobao UED website by user Yong Sha (咏沙). On the guest list are A-Listers from the tech sphere: experts from Paypal US, the head of technology from HFI Asia, and senior researchers from IBM and eBay.

Their parties have been going on for a year, and the one year anniversary date was announced. The party uses the product in its name, hence the “Taobao UED carbonic acid soft drink gathering" (Taobao UED 碳酸饮料会).

The internal advert that they have posted, however, is slightly unusual:

AXL090526taobaoued.jpg

The whole text reads:

Taobao UED carbonic acid drink party. Sharing not only a beverage!

Our anniversary, our date!

Only one commenter expressed surprise at the choice of date; the majority showed support for the Taobao brand, the need to use a straw whilst drinking out of the 1-shaped hole, as well as encouraging the product to go on official release to the public.

There are currently 5 Comments for Taobao drink party: strange anniversary date.

Comments on Taobao drink party: strange anniversary date

Now there's more than one comment about the auspicious choice of date. 多多愤享,不仅是隐料!

ummm.. Inconceivable!

Anyway, I suppose most event organizers would shun June Fourth, especially that of this year, it would be fascinating to see what everyone will do on that day, perhaps all day long at home??

Probably just coincident or it is connected.

I thought it is ad for Chinese market Fanta.

Hu Jian: I think it was a coincidence. None of the comments hints that it was meant in any other way than just the random picking of a date for the party.

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