After Lazada lost the winning position in Southeast Asia after the intense competition with Shopee, it uploaded an advertising song on Youtube for 3.3 big sales day, which was surprisingly quite an earworm. 

The song’s repeated rhythms is similar to the Shopee song that became a bomb in Southeast Asia, as well as in Brazil. We previously wrote about it here.

This is interesting. Previous promo videos from Lazada usually starred famous South Korean actors such as Lee Minho, a decision that likely has something to do with the increasingly trendy Korean wave in Southeast Asia over the years.

Meanwhile, Shopee invited popular celebrities such as Cristinano Ronaldo, Jokowi lookalike, or Phua Chu Kang (Singapore’s favourite son played by Gurmit Singh) to be its brand ambassadors in the past. 

Different from Lazada, Shopee consistently had all their celebrity ambassadors sing its adapted Baby Shark-Shopee song, be it Cristiano Ronaldo, Gurmit Singh, or whichever big-names. Such strategy then successfully filtered Shopee’s brand image into people’s minds.

Comparing Lazada and Shopee’s previous promo videos, it’s actually not hard to capture the eye-catching elements in Lazada’s videos, such as Lee Minho’s huge popularity and all other good-looking female stars. However, there seems to be nothing impressive enough for the audience to remember Lazada’s brand per se, rather than Lee Minho’s face. Also, by the end of day, not all Lazada customers are a fan of Lee Minho.

Shopee seems more down-to-earth with its adapted Baby Shark song. As a result, it has always outpaced Lazada in their promo videos every year, in terms of both VV (video views) and influence. 

However, positive changes also emerged after Lazada’s recent leadership shuffling, including the latest new style promo video this time, hoping to regain its traction in its SEA base camp. 

Shopee, on the other hand, has already scaled up and entered the LATAM market. 

(This article is originally published in Chinese on our Wechat account.)

Read more articles : Shopee’s Ronaldo brainwashing commercial more effective than wrong.

Thanks for reading The Low Down (TLD), the blog by the team at Momentum Works. Got a different perspective or have a burning opinion to share? Let us know at [email protected].