Singles Day brand actions: Ad Nut's 11.11 stash

Around 40,000 international merchants are participating in the Singles Day sale this year, and Ad Nut had a field day traversing all the campaigns designed to get human beings to shell out billions of those pieces of paper they so value (Ad Nut prefers acorns). In 2015, the sale generated more than US$14 billion for Alibaba alone.

Brand: Macy's

Macy’s, with no brick-and-mortar presence in China, is offering a virtual-reality shopping experience in which the entire transaction, from browsing through payment, is completed within a VR environment. Seven other retailers—Target, Costco, P&G, Chemist Warehouse, Freedom Foods, Tokyo Otaku Mode and Matsumoto Kiyoshi—are offering the same, but only if shoppers get their paws on one of the 150,000 VR Cardboards available at RMB1 each on Taobao. Will there be a squirrel-sized one?

BUY+ The First Complete #VR Shopping Experience. Watch how everything, from perusal to purchase, takes place inside a VR environment. pic.twitter.com/JvYfOYokqF

— Alibaba Group (@AlibabaGroup) October 20, 2016

Brand: Intime

Chinese shopping centre operator Intime named its offline version of Singles Day the 'Chop Off Hands Festival', a "tribute" to spenders who self-mockingly say that they need to chop their hands off after buying too much online. The main image is badly Photoshopped, Ad Nut has to say, and chopping paws off also sounds a little too macabre.

Brand: Corona

Corona decided not to join the price war, but to set up a mock seaside-shopping channel called “Go Chill” on its Tmall page, which allows consumers to collect points under a gaming mechanism in order to win five beach travel prizes. Three Chinese celebrities (Tang Yixin, Li Zhiting and Zhang Guowei) hosted shows on the Tmall channel via live-streaming on a beach, of course. If only Ad Nut could photo-bomb the stream.

Brand: Safeguard

Safeguard took to the streets and metro stations with billboards in the shape of the Tmall cat. The brand also happens to be celebrating its 25th year in China. This image shows its classic bar soap engraved with the image of a family washing hands and playing with bubbles. Nice 3D modelling!

Brand: Maserati

Twenty Maserati Quattroporte GranLusso cars, retailing for 1.54 million yuan in China, will be sold online before being released to dealerships. This follows a promotion in March where the company sold 100 SUVs in 18 seconds on Tmall. Maserati is the only brand in the premium automobile category to have a Tmall presence. Ad Nut just needs to exchange 50,000 acorns for yuan in order to place a deposit (according to Ad Nut's own exchange rate).