Categories are the protagonists, content is the main stage: The new script of Douyin E-commerce for the 618 Shopping Festival
How to make a product category "go viral"?
At 8 p.m., after dinner, Li Wei was lying on the sofa watching Douyin when she was amused by a video titled "On - site of the durian 'delivery guarantee'". In the video, the anchor was using a vernier caliper to measure the thickness of durian pulp and jokingly said that each durian he opened was like a "four - bedroom apartment", and occasionally even a "Thai luxury villa".
The comment section was abuzz: "This durian is more reliable than my home decoration!" "I've placed an order. Just waiting for the 'delivery'!" This video with over a million views not only made Li Wei place an order for a Golden Pillow durian on the spot but also made her remember the interesting "durian festival delivery guarantee" promotion on the Douyin e - commerce platform.
As of 2025, with more and more consumer festivals and a wider range of consumption choices, the mid - year 618 shopping festival is no longer just a battlefield of price wars.
As consumers' attention is fragmented, the competition among e - commerce platforms has gradually shifted from "who can offer lower prices" to "who is more interesting and who understands me better". When consumers pay for "good content" and "good stories", the underlying logic of business has been quietly rewritten: Content is the ultimate lever to leverage consumers' needs.
Reshape the DNA of product categories with content
It must be admitted that products on the market are becoming more and more similar.
When merchants emphasize "certain craftsmanship" or "certain technology", consumers only hear similar slogans and promises. The convergence of functions and information homogenization not only intensify brand competition but also make users suffer from choice fatigue.
The value of content lies in breaking this dilemma. Truly good content is not about piling up information but building an emotional bond between products and users. Through storytelling and real - life scenarios, it turns cold SKUs into warm and interesting "good products".
However, not all content can build connections.
As the 618 promotion period gradually extends, it has evolved from a short - term concentrated explosion point to a long - term battle to continuously attract users' attention and stimulate their consumption interest. However, faced with increasingly dense promotional information and similar marketing methods, consumers' attention is more easily dispersed, and traditional promotion methods are facing greater challenges. How to continuously mobilize users' consumption enthusiasm has become a key issue.
Douyin e - commerce chooses to create "hotspots" with a sense of rhythm and build "selling points" with content. Different from the general approach of "expanding the market and offering discounts", Douyin e - commerce emphasizes the refined expression of content - Target specific product categories and penetrate specific consumer groups with content.
During this year's 618, 36Kr observed that in addition to the seasonal durian season, Douyin e - commerce linked festivals such as the Dragon Boat Festival, Children's Day, and Father's Day, themes like intangible cultural heritage, and regional origin tracing of products such as Lingnan lychees and Foshan furniture through a series of special product category day activities. These activities served as concrete carriers to penetrate specific consumer groups, stimulate interest, and awaken demand, enabling each special product category to find its own expression space and target audience. Through good content, ordinary products were upgraded to popular items, achieving real - sense conversion and growth.
When zongzi gift boxes carry regional identity and sun - protection clothing becomes an "outdoor admission ticket" for the "call of the mountains and fields", products are no longer isolated on the shelves but become media for users to express emotions and attitudes. The platform precisely matches product supply with users' emotional cycles through rich content ecological resources, enabling each product category to achieve a value leap from functional satisfaction to emotional satisfaction in specific scenarios.
How to tell new stories for different product categories
In the event calendar of special product category days officially announced by Douyin e - commerce, festival nodes, seasonal products, hot themes, and origin tracing are the core planning dimensions. In addition to the already launched "North - South Dragon Boat Festival Folk Custom Competition" during the Dragon Boat Festival and the "Durian Delivery Guarantee" during the durian season, there are also upcoming events such as the "First Show - off Your Dad Competition" on Father's Day, "A Happy Children's Day Package" on Children's Day, "A Summer of Adventure" during the outdoor season, the "Cool Buddy Voting" during the cool week, the "Intangible Cultural Heritage Goodies on Douyin" themed event, and the "Go to Lingnan to Pick Lychees" product category day activity.
The product category day activities planned by Douyin e - commerce reflect the platform's trinity approach of "product category + node + content". Through content guidance and scenario - driven strategies, it builds exclusive arenas for product category expression.
Specifically, festival nodes are natural entry points for emotional expression. During the 618 period, it naturally covers festivals such as the Dragon Boat Festival, Children's Day, and Father's Day, providing time anchors for emotional outbursts in content output.
This emotion can be a resonance of folk culture. Before the arrival of the Dragon Boat Festival, Douyin e - commerce proactively drove users to discuss through content, arousing the festival atmosphere and boosting merchants' business. Take the already launched "North - South Dragon Boat Festival Folk Custom Competition" as an example. On the one hand, it linked folk culture experts from different regions, local stores, and food brands through the folk customs of the Dragon Boat Festival in different areas, and carried out cultural PK through live - streaming and short - videos. Folk culture experts and local brands from different regions "competed" in the content. On the other hand, since the Dragon Boat Festival is also a gift - giving occasion, a rich supply of products with regional characteristics and trendy new flavors gave consumers plenty of choices. Coupled with live - streaming content such as tracing the origin of special zongzi, cosplaying the White Snake and Green Snake, and handicraftsmen teaching how to make zongzi online, it not only promoted the popularity of special products from the north and south but also awakened people's common memories of the festival and home.
Users can not only discuss the origin of sweet and salty zongzi but also watch traditional dragon - boat racing performances. In this process, brand awareness is naturally penetrated through these highly interactive scenarios. Merchants can tell product stories and brand values in the context of cultural inheritance, enabling consumers to deeply perceive the brand while experiencing traditional folk customs.
Emotion can also be a resonance of true feelings. For example, Douyin e - commerce has new ideas for Children's Day. With the theme of "A Happy Children's Day Package", on the one hand, in the parent - child scenario of Children's Day, it launched a national interactive topic of "Sensible adults are starting to prepare gifts", encouraging users to record the happy moments of Children's Day exchanges through short - videos, transforming "buying gifts" into in - depth content interaction of "recording growth". On the other hand, focusing on the happiness needs of "big kids", starting from emotional drive, it innovated the interactive concept of "Upgraded happiness/Flash mob amusement park". In addition, short - video and live - streaming content were co - created around "happiness transmission", extending content creativity through forms such as sharing happiness experiences and exchanging happiness secrets, and broadening the boundaries of user participation.
The content innovation on Children's Day proves that festival nodes are not just "reasons for giving gifts" but also overlapping windows of emotional, content, and brand arenas. With the power of content expression, children's product categories can also break the old promotion routines and build their own product category arenas.
Take Father's Day in mid - June as an example. Douyin e - commerce started from content to tap into the public's attention and emotional potential and planned the "First Show - off Your Dad Competition", making fathers the protagonists and guiding users to show off their dads in various ways, which also inadvertently promoted the popularity of good products such as nephrite jade and massage chairs.
In addition to festival - driven events, Douyin e - commerce has also captured the seasonal nature of consumption trends. The seasonal durian mentioned at the beginning, with the theme of "Durian Delivery Guarantee Battle", grafted durian - related content onto the real - estate delivery topic, not only creating highly recognizable content hotspots but also building a content field for public participation. From eating - challenge live - streams to the "I Endorse Durians" challenge and the scenario - based live - streaming of anchors "delivering" durians, the closed - loop circulation of UGC content and merchant cooperation enabled the durian category to break through the circle with the help of popular memes.
In the hot summer, according to the cool theme, Douyin e - commerce planned special product category day activities for outdoor and home appliance categories respectively. For the former, it created the theme of "A Summer of Adventure", focusing on the peak of outdoor consumption. Around popular lifestyles such as cycling, camping, and sun - protection, it planned content such as live - streaming PKs and outdoor fashion shows, enabling the sports and outdoor product category to achieve "strong product promotion" in the natural topic flow. For the latter, the "Cool Buddy Voting" activity used an interactive mechanism as a starting point. Through sticker games, challenges, and co - created videos by experts' real - life tests, it guided users to discuss "must - have summer gadgets", establishing the brand awareness of home appliances from the perspective of real - life scenarios and achieving a smooth conversion from interest stimulation to purchase decision.
When product selling points become content highlights, consumption changes from "passive selection" to "active participation". This is also a major difference between Douyin e - commerce and other e - commerce platforms during this 618.
For some product categories that do not have natural consumption nodes, Douyin e - commerce creates theme hotspots and ignites participation enthusiasm through interesting content planning. For example, in the upcoming "Intangible Cultural Heritage Goodies on Douyin" activity, Douyin e - commerce will cooperate with inheritors of intangible cultural heritage to appear on camera, not only showing the production process of intangible cultural heritage products such as Miao embroidery, Xiangyun yarn, and paper - cutting but also arousing young people's interest and recognition of traditional culture through short - video and live - streaming storytelling. Although these products are difficult to stand out in the traditional e - commerce logic, they have gained space for "storytelling" in the content.
Finally, there is the common "origin tracing" theme in the content field. Different from others, Douyin e - commerce focuses more on product categories. For example, the series of product category day activities such as "Let's go to Lingnan to pick lychees" and "Let's go to Foshan to buy furniture" launched in June are more targeted at exploring and tracing the origin of different product categories. By transforming regional resources into scenario - based content, product category merchants can effectively reach their target audience, not only amplifying the potential of local IPs but also comprehensively promoting the category awareness of regional brands.
The reason why these activities are effective is that Douyin e - commerce does not regard content as a one - time creative output or a traffic tool but as a long - term project for "managing users' mindsets".
Different from the previous promotion methods of unified platform rhythm and single - point price cuts, Douyin e - commerce chooses to communicate precisely with content as the entry point, consumers as the core, and product categories as the carrier. It arouses emotions through festivals, amplifies attention through hotspots, and strengthens trust through origin tracing. By coordinating the roles of experts, merchants, and users to co - create content, it forms a closed - loop content operation system from "awareness - product promotion - conversion".
Thus, content is no longer just a brand's monologue but a script written based on users' needs and product characteristics.
In the "playground" of product category themes organized by Douyin e - commerce based on insights into product category characteristics, scenarios, and seasonal nodes, through diverse gameplay such as short - video challenges, live - streaming interactions, origin - based live - streaming, and plot - based performances, each product category day is not just a promotion but a content event, a circle - based communication, and even a cultural narrative. Therefore, when countless creators' creative ideas, merchants' various "unique skills", and a rich supply of interesting products full of "discovery" come together, users naturally enjoy themselves and forget to leave.
This is the path for content to truly touch people's hearts and the key for consumption to shift from "sales activation" to "emotional engagement". For brands, what Douyin e - commerce's 618 can bring is not just growth based on low - price promotions but sustainable growth that can achieve immediate conversion and plant brand seeds in users' minds.
