This Qixi Festival, Douyin Life Services created "signals of heartbeats" in the business districts.
If you've been strolling around some of Beijing's trendy commercial areas recently, you'll feel that the strong atmosphere of the Qixi Festival is almost everywhere.
At Solana, a romantic installation combining a Möbius strip and heart - shaped lines has appeared in the Cupid Square. As you walk along the path from the West Square to the Cupid Square, the Wine Street Block, and the Central Square, various interesting games with a festive atmosphere, such as "Heart - touching Puzzle" and "20 - second Card - flipping Memory", are scattered throughout. People inside are busy completing tasks, collecting "heart - touching energy", taking photos, and sharing their happiness on Douyin. Other well - known commercial areas in Beijing, such as Huaxi Business District, Hohai Mall, and DT51, also have similar "heart - touching" activities.
This is the first time that Douyin's Local Services has built a consumption scenario based on offline commercial areas since it released the "Heart - touching List" for 2025 in April this year. Before this, this list named "Heart - touching" had already boosted the popularity of a single meal or a single store with its influence. Now, it is starting to light up an entire street, promoting in - store consumption with greater energy.
During the Qixi Festival, Douyin's Local Services has deeply cooperated with the merchants on the Heart - touching List. On the one hand, it helps restaurants and merchants attract customers with customized materials and packages. More importantly, beyond these individual efforts, some commercial areas where the Heart - touching List restaurants are located have become more integrated "heart - touching carriers". People who come to shop collect "heart - touching energy" at the check - in points and through the games all over the commercial area, exchange it for limited - edition gifts or free - meal vouchers, and consume at the Heart - touching List restaurants. They can even draw for the right to name a star with their consumption receipts and experience "cosmic - level romance".
Behind all this, Douyin's Local Services' "Heart - touching List" has become that "magical" entry point, connecting online and offline consumption scenarios. It is not only empowering restaurants but also getting more involved in the operation of commercial areas and urban life, seemingly creating a new domain for consumers where "heart - touching experiences" are everywhere. We can also see that new "coordinates for urban life" are being lit up, and new "heart - touching experience fields" are being born.
Today's consumption needs more "heart - touching moments"
When we talk about consumption, an important background that must be mentioned is that emotional consumption has become a hot topic that everyone is talking about and chasing.
LABUBU, Laopu Gold, Scottish Premier League tickets, trading cards... Behind these popular consumption keywords in 2025, the same "signal" is flashing - a new era of consumption is coming, and emotional value has become the "primary focus" of current consumption. People hope that the products, experiences, and services they purchase can provide emotional value or personalized labels.
A survey by Douyin's Local Services shows that more than 75% of users said that the frequency of "emotional experience consumption" has been steadily increasing.
This is true for shopping as well as dining. For example, people hope to have the most special memories for their wedding anniversary dinners, choose restaurants where they can take beautiful photos for friend gatherings, and young people are keen on dining experiences such as dressing up and watching performances while eating. If in the past, dining consumption was about "taste", today it is about "atmosphere", "experience", and "culture". Consumers' criteria for choosing restaurants are shifting from "taste good" to "can touch me".
As a "classic item" for Qixi dates, the group - buying sales of couple meals on Douyin have been continuously rising. Before this year's Qixi Festival, the number of group - buying orders for couple meals on the platform increased by 72% compared with the same period last year. In terms of the city ranking, the top ten popular cities for couple - meal group - buying consumption are Beijing, Zhengzhou, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Chengdu, Xi'an, Hangzhou, Chongqing, and Wuhan. First - tier and new first - tier cities are jointly leading the wave of romantic dining consumption.
Behind the change in consumption preferences is the change in people's basic needs. For today's consumers, every purchase is no longer just a simple "shopping" but a desire for different experiences and that "heart - touching moment" behind them.
Data shows that in 2024, Douyin users' demand for characteristic restaurants increased sharply. The number of times they actively searched for "characteristic restaurants" throughout the year increased by nearly 50% compared with the previous year, forming a two - way drive with the selection of Douyin's Local Services' "Heart - touching List". More and more users are shifting from passively accepting recommendations to actively searching, and the peak of the daily average search volume increased by 62% compared with the previous year.
On Douyin, topics such as "Check - in at Ambiance Restaurants", "Date Restaurants", "Garden Restaurants", and "Music Restaurants" have all exceeded 1 billion views. Another conclusion behind this is that content has become the main medium to stimulate demand and promote consumption decisions. More and more people are used to looking for "heart - touching experiences" on Douyin and then going to offline real - world scenarios to consume with that feeling of excitement.
Naturally, the "heart - touching experience" has also brought new growth to the merchants who are the first to act in the industry. Many leading catering merchants use platforms like Douyin to attract users' interest with content and create characteristic experiences in the offline store consumption scenarios, leading to business growth.
Take "Russian Kitchen" as an example. The decoration style of the Russian street, the exotic - style staff uniforms, and the rich matryoshka elements are all ways to let a wider audience experience Russian cuisine culture and lower the cognitive threshold of Russian cuisine as "high - priced and niche". From March to June this year, the "awareness group" of Russian Kitchen on the Douyin platform increased by 200% year - on - year. The "Xuyan" restaurant in Shanghai, themed on Tang and Song Dynasty culture, allows customers entering the store to feel like they are in a bustling banquet thousands of years ago through various forms of etiquette performances, makeup, and settings. The "Mijing" restaurant in Guangdong is themed on a magic - world IP. Young people rush to choose their favorite school robes in the store, take photos in front of the classic spiral staircase and the "Platform 9 3/4", and upload them to Douyin. At "Crab&Painting" in Beijing's Guomao area, the chef uses ingredients as brushes to recreate famous masterpieces, attracting a group of consumers who love ancient art to visit the store and share their experiences on Douyin.
When more people use Douyin to look for heart - touching moments and more merchants create them on Douyin and in their stores, what can the platform do?
The answer given by Douyin's Local Services is to follow the trend and let users know and understand the restaurants that can bring the most heart - touching experiences. On April 25, 2025, Douyin's Local Services released the "Heart - touching List", which included a total of 2,117 restaurants covering 40 cities across the country.
This is the second phase of the "Heart - touching List", and its value has been fully verified by the actual growth. In an environment where the catering business generally faces greater challenges, after the release of the first - phase "Heart - touching List" in 2024, the transaction volume of the listed merchants increased by more than 30%, and the traffic increased by more than 20%.
After a single meal is boosted by the Heart - touching List, what's next?
Platforms are gathering places for merchants' supplies, and it's not new to release lists based on first - hand data. However, Douyin's Local Services' "Heart - touching List" is different.
This can be seen from its most fundamental selection criteria. In addition to the regular store operation scores, the "Heart - touching List" also quantifies the hard - to - describe heart - touching experiences. The "Heart - touching Index Model" it established comprehensively considers users' emotional feedback in content interaction, payment experience during consumption, and actual feelings after consumption. In other words, its selection indicators cover all the key links in the user's decision - making chain from "interest matching - demand triggering - on - site experience".
The result of this unique starting point is that Douyin's Local Services' "Heart - touching List" is not just a functional and mechanical selection of "good restaurants", but more like a consumption entrance full of various possibilities. It breaks the boundary between online and offline, attracts users' interest through the "Heart - touching List", stimulates offline business with content, and in turn drives more diverse content creation and sharing. In this process, more "heart - touching experiences" beyond the list are created, and "emotional value" also emerges.
How does the "Heart - touching List" drive offline consumption?
"Search after watching" and group - buying conversion are the most direct and easiest - to - understand first steps, and it's also the simple logic behind how this list boosts a single meal or a single store. From the data, in 2024, Douyin's grass - planting videos drove a 113% increase in restaurant sales, and the proportion of users who "searched after watching" increased by 73%. After users try new things, they are also more loyal to heart - touching experiences. The repurchase rates of sub - categories such as Western cuisine, local cuisine, and hot pot all exceed 50%.
However, its power goes far beyond this. After connecting consumers with good restaurants, Douyin's Local Services, based on its insights into the needs of consumers, commercial areas, and merchants, has started new exploration: using the "Heart - touching List" as an entry point, it brings more novel and interesting experiences to the commercial areas where the listed merchants are located, attracting more users to these "experience - based commercial areas" and making the real offline life scenes more vibrant.
Specifically, during this year's Qixi Festival, Douyin's Local Services' "Heart - touching List" collaborated with four major commercial areas in Beijing, namely Solana, Huaxi, DT51, and Hohai Mall. With the theme of "Go to a Heart - touching List restaurant for a Qixi date and pick a star for your loved one", it cooperated with the listed merchants on the Heart - touching List to customize offline Qixi activities in the commercial areas.
What makes this event different is that, on the one hand, it is not just an event of a single merchant or a single commercial area. Instead, it uses Douyin's Local Services' "Heart - touching List" as a bridge to connect individual merchants in the commercial area. For example, after consuming at a "Heart - touching List" restaurant, you can draw for the right to name a star with the receipt. If launching a Qixi - exclusive package is something a single merchant can do, then this event provides a more integrated additional - benefit outlet for the merchants in the commercial area. It is more attractive and also makes the entire commercial area form a "unified front", providing consumers with a more complete and diverse experience.
On the other hand, thanks to Douyin's platform role and the larger space of the commercial area, more interesting game - playing methods can be included, making the event more diverse and more spreadable. For example, "Heart - touching Energy" has become a kind of "universal exchange right" in the entire commercial area. You can get "Heart - touching Energy" by checking in at the "Heart - touching List" restaurants in the commercial area, posting relevant photos or videos to Douyin with the specified topic "#DouyinHeart - touchingList", or finding hidden stalls and completing games like "Love Trap", etc., and use it to exchange for rewards. The photos and videos posted on Douyin, in turn, attract more people to the commercial area. In addition, forms such as the Heart - touching Food Map, Heart - touching Food Challenge, Starlight Concert, and Rubber Duck Market further enhance the bustling atmosphere, festival atmosphere, and experience of the entire commercial area.
It's worth mentioning that users' offline travel methods to and from the commercial area have also been carefully considered. During the event, the "Heart - touching List" cooperated with Didi Chuxing's chauffeur service to launch an activity called "A Starry Journey Home for Couples". It targeted users in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou during the Qixi Festival, offering coupons. Couples can get coupons on Didi to go home after dining. In addition, users who participate in relevant interactive activities can also draw for the right to name a star. Thus, the sense of ceremony of the Qixi Festival is presented and felt in the complete process of "check - in - play - consume - go home".
Just as industries have economies of scale and stores on a "food street" can attract customers to each other, events based on commercial areas also have a natural "amplification effect". Because the content and experiences within them are more diverse, consumers' interest in the "destination" is more easily stimulated.
As the commercial areas become more vibrant and the traffic volume increases, individual merchants in the commercial area naturally have more chances to be "favored". Take Solana as an example. In August, the verified sales of merchants on Douyin in the commercial area increased by 73.5% month - on - month, and the daily average number of verified users increased by 53.1% month - on - month.
In the past, the significance of Douyin for catering merchants was mainly about attracting attention and interest through online content and naturally leading to offline group - buying conversion through "search after watching". Now, in addition to merchants' "active presence on Douyin", Douyin's Local Services also uses the "Heart - touching List" as a bridge to get more involved in the overall offline consumption ecosystem, creating scenarios and making proactive proposals for users' offline consumption, and at the same time, enabling commercial areas and the merchants in them to burst out with more vitality.
