The author | tons of tons
Yesterday, iQIYI announced that it will update the subscription price of Gold VIP members from December 16. As soon as the news was announced, there were voices of opposition and understanding.
Since 2011, Netflix has experienced six rounds of price increases, and Disney+ has also ushered in its first price increase a year after its launch.
In contrast, whether it is the initial pricing or the price increase, the domestic platform is more user-friendly. Netfilx, for example, after the most recent price adjustment, its standard membership and premium packages in the United States were converted into RMB at 92 yuan and 118 yuan respectively.
So then again, from abroad to a domestic country, why do long video platforms adjust prices? The answer has to do with the content.
In response to this membership price increase, iQIYI responded, "The membership subscription price of the video platform has been low, this phenomenon has affected the healthy development of the industry, in order to establish a more benign industrial ecology, so that excellent content producers have returns, and finally provide members with more and better content, we decided to adjust the price of members." We will continue to strive to do a good job in content, products, and services to users. ”
Obviously, the starting point of the platform is to continue to output high-quality content and let producers get corresponding returns, and ultimately promote the healthy development of the industry. Looking back at the platform's exploration of the payment model, it is not difficult to find that good content is the key to making users stand with the platform. In such a logical closed loop, member price increases are actually in line with the law of industry development.
01 Behind the price increase of members, good content is worth high price
In fact, putting aside the development law of the video website itself and the industry, what can really make users pay is attributed to two words: content.
From the past to the present, there have been many cases that show that high-quality content plays a key role in stimulating users' willingness to pay.
The most typical is Netflix, whose chief operating officer and chief product officer Greg Peters once said of member price increases, "Occasionally [customers] are asked to spend more money to keep the virtuous cycle of investment and value creation going." ”
Since 2011, Netflix has supported six rounds of price increases in support of continuous output of explosive content: from "House of Cards" that initially opened the situation, to "Stranger Things" and "Rear Wing Abandoned Soldiers" that triggered a global drama boom, and the production basis of these contents is inseparable from the high investment in content costs.
Taking the Korean drama "Squid Game" as an example, as a work that swept the world after its launch and drove the platform's stock price to a record high in 20 years of listing, the total production cost reached 118 million yuan, which was a double gap with the level of the Korean domestic market. According to Netflix's disclosed third-quarter earnings report, Asia Pacific became the largest contributor to Netflix's membership growth for the second consecutive quarter, with the number of paying subscribers accounting for half of the total increase in the quarter. On this basis, South Korea's membership subscription fee has also ushered in the first price increase.
It can be seen that there is an inevitable link between good content and high investment, and users will never refuse to pay for good content.
Bystanders can draw similar conclusions about the domestic long-form video industry, such as iQiyi's "Son-in-law", which was launched in February this year, which was played on more than 180 million devices during the hot broadcast period, and as of the end, the number of follow-up member accounts exceeded 64 million, pushing the peak number of members in the quarter to near the level of the epidemic at the end of the first quarter of last year.
On the other hand, in the eyes of some viewers, the platform is the direct beneficiary of the price increase, which is also the reason why the price increase cannot be accepted in the first place. But in essence, member price increases are the key to driving the production of quality content.
First, platforms can support and empower content creators. There have always been some works on the market that can't keep up with the content. The benefits of member price increases will become part of the cost of content and will be invested in the incubation of high-quality content, so that the problem of mismatch between production and content will be further solved.
At the same time, for content creators, the user's willingness to pay is also a stimulus and incentive. The willingness to pay is directly linked to aesthetic taste, and the current person has a clearer understanding of the audience and can more actively and effectively output content.
In addition, it is very important that in the past two years, the increasing maturity of the sub-account model has made the C-end payment market continue to heat up, and the member price increase will promote the benign and healthy development of the C-end payment era, so that the industry can usher in the D2C model of good content directly to users as soon as possible.
02What does iQIYI's content come from?
According to the logic of good content value and high price, is iQiyi worth it? The answer is yes.
The reason why iQIYI has been able to gradually rank at the forefront of the industry and be trusted by users is because of the stable output of high-quality content for a long time. Looking back, when most video websites are still mainly based on purchasing copyrights, it has taken the lead in opening a self-made strategy and developed a number of dramas and variety shows that are refreshing to the audience: "Notes from the Tomb Robber", "Old Nine Doors", "Strange Story", and "Summer of the Band".
After the feasibility of the self-made strategy was confirmed, self-made content became the focus of iQIYI. On the one hand, its proportion is getting higher and higher. At this year's World Congress, the platform released a list of more than 200 projects to be broadcast. Among them, the self-made dramas of key dramas account for more than 60%, and the self-made variety shows of head variety shows reach 100%. Correspondingly, more good content is born at this pace.
For example, the variety show "Summer of the Band" and "Trend Partner", which promote niche culture, and the dramas with different theme styles, such as "Yanxi Raiders" and "Icebreaker Action", have become blockbusters. It also includes works such as "The Hidden Corner" and "The Silent Truth" that were launched last year, and they not only lead the creative trend of suspense short dramas in terms of content, but also implement the operation mode of the theater.
Based on this, in the comment area of some recent articles that discuss the situation of iQIYI, readers can always see the recognition of iQIYI's content advantages, "I like the temperament of iQIYI, the first reaction when I want to watch the drama is iQIYI, I hope not to forget the original intention to always have to be" "But iQIYI is indeed the most able to do content." Of course, in addition to the accumulation of the past, this feeling is also due to the confidence given by the current platform content.
Looking back at the end of 2021, iQiyi still accompanies users through this year with good content.
In terms of dramas, the "Son-in-law" broadcast at the beginning of the year became the first blockbuster drama at the beginning of the year, and the subsequent dramas such as "Rebel", "Little Shed", and "Ideal City" also had breakthroughs in themes and topics. In terms of variety shows, whether it is "Drama New Life", which continues to focus on niche culture, or the "Fan Variety Season", "Detective Detective", "Strange Script Shark" and "The Last Winner", which are deeply rooted in the reasoning track, they have brought surprises to the audience.
Even at the end of the year, it is still difficult for users to leave iQiyi. Recently, the popular "Who is the Murderer" has allowed many viewers to regain the state of being on the mist theater last year. There is also a costume suspense drama adapted from Ma Boyong's novel "Wind Rises Luoyang", which was launched in less than a day, and the popularity of the station exceeded 9,000. In addition to the project's own intentions in content and production, this drama can also give the audience a glimpse of iQiyi's greater content ambitions.
At the recent iQIYI Joy Conference, iQIYI officially released the development plan of the "Huaxia Ancient City Universe" series of IP, based on the innovation of the "one fish eat more" model, the platform plans to carry out in-depth development of different IP such as "Wind Rises luoyang", "Guangzhou Thirteen Lines", "Two Beijing Fifteen Days" and so on. As the first IP episodic work, "Wind Rises Luoyang" has made a good start.
Variety shows are also not left behind, and all along, variety show lovers have been "pinched" by iQiyi, largely due to their love for "Strange Story" and "Summer of the Band".
Recently, the new work "Annual Comedy Competition" brought by the same production team Mi Wei scored 7.9 points on Douban, and the audience's recognition once again proved iQIYI's judgment and control of content development. Another new variety show focusing on the creative ecology of young directors, "Let's Shoot", also let the audience see the original intention of the content of the platform.
Overall, monetizing through price increases is not the ultimate goal of video sites. The logic behind it is very clear, good content requires and deserves high investment, and it is also the key to users favoring the platform and generating the willingness to pay. Further, only when users are accustomed to paying for good content can we stimulate the creative end to produce better quality content, and even allow more practitioners to be encouraged to dare to try the risk sharing model with the platform, such as account sharing, and promote the industry to move towards the D2C era.
Although the future is difficult to predict, the member price increase has allowed iQIYI to take another step, so that it can continue to produce good content and be ready to meet the benign industrial ecology as soon as possible.