The archive · Marketing & Growth · Marketing decision · 2020–2022
Taobao (淘宝) crowns the year's ugliest products — a meme awards show, 10,000+ entries
Taobao turns year-end 'best of' lists on their head: a live-streamed awards show for the internet's ugliest products — 10,000+ submissions in half a month
Taobao (淘宝)
What it had to solve
Every December, platforms recap the year with polished, emotional films — safe, samey, and easily forgotten. Taobao's catalog is full of weird products, and Douban and Jike already had thriving 'ugly things' communities, so the brand bet that naming and protecting the ugly would be more shareable than praising the beautiful.
How it works
In December 2020, Taobao and the Douban group '丑东西保护协会' (Ugly Things Protection Association) opened the first '淘宝丑东西大赛' (Taobao Ugly Things Awards): a half-month call for the year's ugliest products, judged by the crowd and crowned in a live-streamed ceremony. Winners included the green fish-head mask, 'tiger-climbing-mountain' pantyhose, 3D-printed long-legged kites, and the entire buyers' gallery of felt crafts.
The idea inverted the standard year-end recap: instead of praising the year's best, the platform celebrated the products people could not stop talking about — the ones that made them screenshot, send to friends and post. The judging itself was a joke, with categories like 拔得头丑 ('winning the ugly crown') and 丑名远扬 ('famous for being ugly'), and the live broadcast ran thick with danmaku.
The format stuck: 10,000+ people submitted in the first two weeks; the 2021 ceremony's Bilibili video drew 4.68M+ plays and ~30,000 danmaku; the third edition in 2022 pulled nearly 1M live viewers and hit Weibo's hot search. 'Ugly stuff' became a shopping culture — the Douban protection group grew to 240K members, and museums later joined the vibe with 'ugly-cute' souvenirs like the galloping-horse head mask.
Why it lands
- Naming the ugly makes the brand a champion of the eccentric, so every weird-product owner and laughing customer feels claimed by the platform.
- The joke categories and live-streamed ceremony gave participants a stage — the awards are content people want to attend, not ads they skip.
- It converted an existing community behavior (sharing 'ugly' finds) into official recognition, so the campaign's fuel was already being generated by users.
- Repeating the ritual yearly turned a one-off stunt into an owned IP that now trends on hot search without paid media doing the work.
What it did
The first edition drew 10,000+ submissions in two weeks; the 2021 ceremony's Bilibili video passed 4.68M plays with ~30K danmaku; the third edition (2022) pulled nearly 1M live viewers and hit Weibo hot search — while the Douban protection group grew to 240K members and 'ugly-cute' souvenirs became a recognized shopping culture.
What you can take
When an audience already has a community ritual, the cheapest creative move is to host it: put the joke on stage, give it official awards, and let the meme become an owned content franchise.
Since then
The Ugly Things Awards became an annual Taobao IP, with documented editions in 2020, 2021 and 2022 and an escalating viewership each year. The idea leaked into adjacent culture: museums launched 'ugly-cute' souvenirs, and the Douban protection group reached 240K members. For Taobao it reinforced the playful-platform identity, and the format is now a standard Chinese example of letting the community's own meme be the campaign.
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