The archive · PR & Stunts · Marketing decision · 2023
Xianyu sends users' idle chairs to add seats at Guizhou's Village BA
Alibaba's secondhand marketplace Xianyu collected unused chairs from users and shipped them to packed Village BA courts — idle goods finally got to exercise.
Xianyu (闲鱼) · Shanghai TianyuKong Advertising (上海天与空广告)
What it had to solve
Xianyu, Alibaba's secondhand platform and China's largest idle-goods marketplace, wanted a role in the sports-marketing year around the Hangzhou Asian Games and its 'green, zero-waste' theme. The hottest rural event of 2023 was Village BA, the villager-organized basketball tournament in Guizhou, whose venues were packed while rural seating stayed scarce. Working with agency TianyuKong, Xianyu turned its own inventory — the chairs users list because they sit unused at home — into the answer.
How it works
Xianyu, Alibaba's secondhand platform and China's largest idle-goods marketplace, wanted a role in the sports-marketing year around the Hangzhou Asian Games and its 'green, zero-waste' theme. The hottest rural event of 2023 was Village BA, the villager-organized basketball tournament in Guizhou, whose venues were packed while rural seating stayed scarce. Working with agency TianyuKong, Xianyu turned its own inventory — the chairs users list because they sit unused at home — into the answer.
Xianyu ran a public call for users' idle chairs, then moved the collected seats to the Village BA site in Luobie, Guizhou, where donated chairs carrying donor IDs added seating across 16 games for 8 teams. The chairs traveled by local tricycles from all over the province, and once courtside they doubled as free outdoor ads for Xianyu, alongside branding on jerseys and around the venue. The event sat inside the broader 'Idle Sports Meet' umbrella tied to the Asian Games, with Weibo topics, 60-plus KOLs and more than 3,000 KOCs amplifying the story.
The hashtag #上闲鱼让闲置运动起来 drew over 480 million reads and more than 730,000 interactions, with 100-plus media outlets covering the stunt unprompted. Xianyu framed it as a small-budget outdoor event that turned the platform's core idea — idle things can move again — into a conversation during the world's biggest sporting fortnight, and it went on to win a 2024 gold at the Jin Tong (金瞳) awards for PR event marketing, a silver at the 2024 ROI Festival, and an ECI innovation award entry.
Why it lands
- The insight joined two real facts: Village BA courts had no seats for their own fans, and Xianyu's platform was full of chairs people no longer used.
- The execution was the business model in miniature — idle goods moved to where they had value — so the stunt proved the product instead of merely announcing it.
- Donor IDs on the chairs made every participant a visible co-creator, which is why thousands of users shared their own screenshots and stories.
- Tying to the Green Asian Games gave a secondhand-commerce idea a civic halo without any paid Olympic sponsorship.
What it did
The hashtag #上闲鱼让闲置运动起来 drew over 480 million reads and more than 730,000 interactions, with 100-plus media outlets covering the stunt unprompted. Xianyu framed it as a small-budget outdoor event that turned the platform's core idea — idle things can move again — into a conversation during the world's biggest sporting fortnight, and it went on to win a 2024 gold at the Jin Tong (金瞳) awards for PR event marketing, a silver at the 2024 ROI Festival, and an ECI innovation award entry.
What you can take
A brand's own inventory can be its best medium: Xianyu sent users' unused chairs where seats were genuinely missing — a small, true-to-business gesture that beat sponsorship spend.
Since then
The 'add seats for Village BA' event became Xianyu's signature sports-marketing case: a 2024 gold at the Jin Tong awards for PR event marketing, a silver at the 2024 ROI Festival and an ECI case feature, with over 100 media outlets covering it unprompted. Xianyu continued the 'idle items exercise' line in later seasons, using the same physical-gesture formula — real objects moving to real needs — in campaigns such as turning secondhand exercise gear into a shared 'sports meet'.
Sources
- Xianyu adds seats for Village BA — Jin Tong 2024 gold case
- ECI case study: Xianyu adds seats for Village BA
- Xianyu adds seats for Village BA — ROI Festival 2024 silver
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