Collections from Vacheron Constantin. Photo credit: Alibaba Group

This week love was in the air. Beauty products flew off the virtual sales in a shower of gifts for Valentine’s Day, data from Alibaba Group’s business-to-consumer marketplace Tmall showed. 

In other news, Alibaba and the Olympic Broadcasting Service (OBS) teamed up to make live content from the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 on the cloud.

Speaking of the cloud, Alizila spoke this week with the man using cloud technology to bring the Winter Games to fans worldwide.

Consumers Sweet on Beauty on Tmall for Valentine’s Day 

Move over candy and flowers, Chinese consumers showed their love this Valentine’s Day with cosmetics, Feb. 14 purchase data from business-to-consumer platform Tmall revealed.

Lip serum orders grew more than five-fold while sales of spray sunscreen quadrupled between Feb. 9 and 14 compared with the year before, according to Tmall. Skincare set, face serum and facial cleaning products all saw their sales grow more than 200%. 

French beauty house Lancôme had its Tmall flagship store’s gross merchandise value over RMB 200 million for Valentine’s Day. LVMH-owned beauty and fragrance house Guerlain’s Aqua Allegoria collection experienced a 1200% increase in sales compared with last Valentine’s Day.

Men’s skincare products are also picking up momentum. A Kiehl’s skincare gift set for men was a top-selling product in Tmall’s beauty category, while similar offerings from L’Oreal also outperformed.

Brands Court Chinese Consumers in the Metaverse with Array of Limited Editions For Valentine’s Day on Alibaba’s Tmall

Love went virtual this year, with many fashion and beauty brands launching a slew of digital limited-editions for Valentine’s Day on Alibaba’s online marketplace Tmall.

British luxury fashion brand Burberry offered romantics 100 digital pieces inspired by its famous deer mascot. Swiss luxury watch brand Piaget sold 35 digital collectibles featuring its tiger-themed wristwatch.

Read all the innovative ways big brands celebrated Valentine’s Day here

Beijing 2022 Taps Cloud for Live Broadcast and Remote Production

The OBS and Alibaba are using the cloud to help broadcasters cover the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022, Alizila learned this week.

Alibaba’s cloud computing arm, Alibaba Cloud, has teamed up with OBS to offer a live content delivery platform on the cloud, lower costs for private media groups while reducing environmental impact.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic and the shift to remote production, nearly 40% fewer Rights-Holding Broadcasters (RHBs) are on-site in Beijing than at the Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018.

“We hope that cloud technologies will […] bolster the coverage of the Winter Olympic Games as more RHBs can access the live footage and choose the feeds they prefer,” said Selina Yuan, general manager of International Business, Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, in a statement.

Read more here

Inside Ilario Corna’s Bid For Digital Gold at The Olympic Winter Games

It’s invite-only at the Winter Games as organizers beat back the coronavirus, but this hasn’t stopped the fans around the world from engaging via the cloud.

The man overseeing the technology behind the world’s biggest sports show is Ilario Corna, Chief Information Technology Officer for the International Olympic Committee (IOC), in concert with partners like Alibaba.

“Beijing 2022 is set to be the most immersive Olympic Winter Games yet,” said Corna, the man responsible for building Discovery Inc.’s streaming service Discovery+ before joining the IOC in 2020.

These Games are just the beginning. He believes that technical excellence at Beijing 2022 is more than just overcoming the logistical challenges of delivering another Olympic Games during a pandemic. It launches a more sustainable IT infrastructure built solely on the cloud.

Learn more Corna’s work here and how the cloud is improving lives everywhere