How Temu Used the Super Bowl to Take Over America
In 1984, something unexpected came across people's TV screens as they watched the Super Bowl: droves of brainwashed people marched through an apocalyptic world. Some might have recognized it for being reminiscent of George Orwell's popular novel, 1984. Talk about impeccable timing! In this ad, the inspirational spark that would set these people free was something new, something different: Macintosh computers, freeing the brainwashed minds from IBM's ubiquitous personal computers. The ad challenged the world to "think different," Apple's slogan that would define the brand in the coming decades.
Today, Apple is worth close to $3 trillion and stands as the largest tech company in the world. Although we can't put all of their success on this one ad, it certainly set the pace for what the company was trying to achieve in the coming decades. Now, this was a gamble. Super Bowl ads are famously not cheap; it cost $7 million to buy 30 seconds of commercial time on the broadcast. But if you can get one right, the returns can be incredible. For one, more than 200 million people watch the Super Bowl. That sheer volume is the biggest advantage to advertisers.
The other advantage is engagement. The Super Bowl is one of the only television events where people look forward to the ads. It's become part of the cultural experience. That means the bar for these ads is high, and generally, they tend to have a storyline or showcase celebrities. They might be funnier or more high-action than standard ads, as advertisers are spending way more money on them. But the price is worth it; on average, a Super Bowl ad proves to be about 20 times more effective than a regular ad.
The best Super Bowl ads raise brand awareness. They aren't just pushing sales but asking people to become familiar with the brand and therefore become repeat customers. That 1984 Apple ad might have driven new sales, but it also created a culture around the brand that lives on today. Apple used the media to create a spectacle that challenged the status quo and is now one of the most valuable companies in the world.
If you watched the Super Bowl in 2023, you might have come across this ad from a company that seems to be in a position similar to Apple in 1984. The company, just like Apple, is in a position where it's coming up against a giant in the industry. This ad, like Apple's 1984, was designed to get customers to challenge the status quo. The ad featured a tagline "Shop like a billionaire" and showcased high-quality items at a price most people would consider impossible.
This is how Temu's Super Bowl ad is disrupting an entire industry. But what is Temu, exactly? Well, let's take a deep dive into the company that some say is too good to be true. Temu is an app that offers steep discounts on a slew of products and has become known for their staggeringly low prices. The company is the sister app of Chinese e-commerce giant Pinduoduo, which is popular for the same exact reason.
Maybe you haven't heard of it yet, or maybe the app is sitting unused on your phone, but by the end of 2022, before Temu even bought the multi-million dollar Super Bowl spot, it was the most downloaded free app on the App Store and Google Play Store. At the time of writing, it's one of the most downloaded shopping apps in the UK and has over 100 million users in the US. A shopping app being the most downloaded free app on the entire Apple App Store and Google Play Store is honestly mind-blowing.
But when you understand how the app works, it's not as surprising anymore. The Temu app is one of the reasons it's really challenging the other e-commerce giants because, in all honesty, it's one of the best I've experienced, and mostly for one main feature. Have you ever shopped online for hours, completed your order, only to remember 10 minutes later that there was something else you forgot to buy? With most of their apps, all you can do at that point is cancel your current order and start all over again or just create a new order.
With Temu, you can simply add the new item to your current order. While testing out the app, I had to buy $20 worth of stuff to get free shipping, so I bought two items and completed my order. But then, as I was leaving the site, I saw something else I wanted. I just added it to my order with one click. I didn't have to go to my cart to complete the purchase or fill anything out—no selecting my credit card number again; just one click buy, and that was it.
Another feature that keeps people coming back to the app is the prioritized deal items, which show you the items that have the biggest deals, so you can make the most savings. But that brings us to the biggest question everyone has about Temu: Are the prices too good to be true? Well, the answer isn't that straightforward, but I'll try to explain. To understand it, we have to talk about how online shopping typically works.
When you buy an item online that's not manufactured in your country, you're usually not buying directly from the manufacturer. You're buying from a distributor who may have bought it from a wholesaler that, in turn, bought it in bulk from the manufacturer and imported it to your region or country. The problem is that these middlemen have to make money, so they mark up the price of the products many times so they can make their profit.
The way Temu is able to sell so cheaply is that they've basically removed these intermediaries and ship their products directly from the manufacturers in China to the end users all over the world. That dress, ironing board, or wallet you order is coming straight from the producer to your doorstep. Coupled with the fact that manufacturers in China have amassed huge economies of scale and technical expertise over the years, you can understand how the products are so affordable.
I tried using the Temu app, and just opening it, I was hit with an array of products that seem too good to be true: from $15 keyboards to a pack of five pairs of socks for $6.99. Sure, I was skeptical, but it's difficult to say no to products this cheap, especially when you consider how high inflation has risen and the cost of the living crisis most people are currently experiencing.
Like them or not, there's no denying that their unique marketing tactics made them stand out from other big players in the e-commerce game. They gained traction early by giving free stuff to influencers who would promote the app to their loyal social media following, rather than trying to hire celebrities. This model of hiring influencers was brilliant; nobody wants to see a million talk about buying a dress for $10. It just doesn't make sense. But someone who seems like your average person? That's a lot more relatable.
And the tactics didn't stop there. If you posted about Temu and tried to get your family and friends to use the app, you'd suddenly find free products in your shopping cart. As much as users enjoyed this perk, it was really just a cost-effective way for Temu to bring in new customers and grow exponentially. With this social media strategy, Temu got free advertising and positioned itself as a way for communities to band together and save money with the slogan "Team up, price down."
But like any marketing attempt, once the creativity is gone, the effect can get lost. When users started catching onto the benefits of posting about Temu, platforms became saturated with posts that all sounded like cookie-cutter glowing language about Temu. If you've seen these posts or anything like them from other network marketing companies, you know that after the third or the fifth post saying the same exact thing, you're not so likely to pay attention anymore.
Currently, Temu has a big hill to climb, and like any other new e-commerce platform, it must overcome the twin hurdles of anonymity and misunderstanding. Temu is taking care of the anonymity part by spending $1.4 billion in ads in 2023, with plans to spend $4.3 billion in 2024. That Super Bowl ad alone was $14 million for 30 seconds of airtime, and it was reported that they will advertise again at the Super Bowl this year.
On the other hand, there's also a lot of mistrust about the company, with a lot of people saying that these low prices can have a negative impact on the quality of the products and the wages of the people making them. But the company claims that it can keep its prices low while still preventing that from happening because they make their savings by streamlining the production, transportation, and sales process. They eliminate the middleman, ship directly, even if it might be a little slower, and focus on moving a large number of products for cheap instead of just a few high-ticket items.
So is it going to affect some people? Yes, but it'll be the middlemen who sell products at a markup and not the people who are actually manufacturing the products or the customers who make the final purchase. The reality is that just like every tech company out there, Temu has areas it can work on. The quality of its products, even at rock-bottom prices, can be hit and miss sometimes, though the feedback seems to be getting better with time.
They have a generous 90-day buyer guarantee; delivery times can also be faster, but these seem like teething problems that Temu is working on. They haven't stopped them from grabbing a significant share of the U.S. retail market. The truth is that some people just can't resist the prices on some of these products, especially when we're in a time of penny-pinching, high inflation, and economic instability around the globe.
We're driven by low prices and willing to overlook the caveats that come with them. Does that make us wrong or bad? Well, of course not. We deserve choices and options and the freedom to shop where we want and buy what we like without being made to feel guilty about our decisions. We all can't afford to purchase handmade goods from local merchants, so we turn to companies like Temu that offer an alternative.
They give us an opportunity to look good and feel good about the things we buy without having to spend an arm and a leg for it. Maybe we might not actually shop like a billionaire, but at least we can afford our needs and wants, and that's probably good enough for most of us.