Observatorio (OBS*) Journal, (2020, vol14, no2), 137-157 1646-5954/ERC123483/2020 137 Copyright © 2020 (Shenglan Qing, Emili Prado). Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial Generic (cc by-nc). Available at http://obs.obercom.pt. Advertisements and Engagement Strategies on a Cross-media Television Event: A Case Study of Tmall Gala Shenglan Qing*, Emili Prado* *Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona Abstract Tmall Gala is a television event co-produced by Chinese internet company Alibaba and traditional television broadcasters to count-down for an emerging shopping festival: Double Eleven Shopping Festival. Mobile applications developed by Alibaba are applied as the second-screen for this television programme. This paper aims to study advertising strategies and audience engagement strategies on this cross-media television event, after the integration of internet technologies and companies into the cultural industries in China. Based on content analysis, we study general advertising tactics and the second-screen engagement strategies, as well as Alibaba's specific self-advertising contents in Tmall Gala 2018. This study shows that specific tactics are applied to avoid audience missing advertising information during the multitasking process. Alibaba’ s brand values blend with artistic performances and participative activities in the gala. These values legitimise the lifestyle relaying on e-commerce services and encourage users to subject themselves within the business of Alibaba. Finally, we argue that the ritual function of the television event does not disappear with the integration of the internet because producers can manage audience attention within the cross-media matrix. This case study can illustrate, on a global level, how a dominant internet company integrating with cultural industries, can embed its brand values in the consumerist culture in the society, which can, in turn, consolidate its infrastructural role in the internet macro-ecosystem. Keywords: television events; media convergence; second-screen; television advertisements; Alibaba Introduction The global Internet world mainly consists of two macro-ecosystems: the United States-based ecosystem and the Chinese one. Despite the controversy between the ideologies, similar commercial logics can be noticed: dominant internet companies, which provide infrastructural internet platforms, expand to different economic niches and complete their own ecosystem, in which vast quantities of data are captured, analysed and commodified (Van Dijck, Poell, & de Waal, 2018). One of the strategies is to agree to partnerships with other platforms or “traditional” media organizations (Van Dijck, 2013; Van Dijck et al., 2018). This is seen as media convergence for media industries: The non-media companies enrol in the media industry and the acquisition of new technologies and new business models in traditional media entities (Karmasin, Diehl, & Isabell, 2016; Meikle & Young, 2012). Alibaba is a typical case in the Chinese ecosystem. This Chinese internet company started by managing e-commerce businesses and became a provider of infrastructural platforms, through which other online platforms can be built, and data flows are managed and processed (Van Dijck et al., 2018). Similar to other influential internet companies, Alibaba is currently expanding to cultural industries. The second-screen has been introduced to television viewing with the rise of the Internet and computer- mediated technologies. It was initially considered distracting audience attention from television contents (Van Cauwenberge, Schaap, & Van Roy, 2014), but it also provides new meanings for television viewing. The second-screen becomes a forum for discussion about television, which engages audiences to participate in politics and raise the affective economy (Gil de Zuniga, Garcia-Perdomo, & McGregor, 2015; Kroon, 2017; Van Es, 2015; Wilson, 2015). Data generated on the second-screen also provide resources for audience