April 7, 2023 | Issue 3198
Publicity is the most common and mysterious job in the entertainment industry.
Common, because almost every film and television work today is inseparable from publicity, from hot search topics, marketing direction, word-of-mouth maintenance, public opinion control, to copywriting that arouses the desire to read, exquisite GIFs, and memes out of the circle, all of which are the results of the hard work of publicists.
Mysterious, because it is like a hot search trader, but the work process has not been known to the outside world, and it has been carried with a lot of black labels: humanoid water army, codeword female worker, bottomless hype...
(The pictures in this article are all taken from "Meteor", which tells the story of propaganda practitioners)
But after three years of turmoil in the industry, people have found that the publicity method is becoming more and more "rolled", and it is expected to burn more money in the future. There are also many young people who regard publicity as a fast track to realize their dream of chasing stars in their hearts.
But will it turn out to be what they want?
It is always difficult to chat with publicity practitioners, they are either working overtime to do projects, or writing proposals to Party A, and they rotate every day; You should also take time to go to the hospital to see if your risk of sudden death has increased. Recently, the film and television monologue talked to three publicity practitioners with different lengths of time, listening to them talk about their entry experience, industry drawbacks, and confused in it.
Here's what they said.
"Dry propaganda, to separate work and interests"
I started relatively early. When I first started the industry, "new media" was still a new word for most people, and I didn't understand anything, not even Weibo. But fortunately, at that time, Weibo big accounts, WeChat public accounts, etc. were also in their infancy, and the publicity in the industry was crossing the river.
Unlike the "rolled" now, each platform has a different tonal publicity method, and the big names in different fields also have different words. For example, the copywriting of Weibo should conform to the tonality of the rice circle, the Douyin Kuaishou should be simple and straightforward, and the little red book should go sincerely Amway.
As a publicity to enter the entertainment industry, in fact, there are many ways to go, many small partners who have done drama publicity (drama promotion) together before, some turn to artist promotion, some do variety show promotion, and some run to do movies and brand promotion. I also tried other aspects of promotion, and for two years I did art promotion full-time, and finally returned to the series.
The most tiring thing is that in the first two years of entering the industry, I have to do a lot of basic work, writing copywriting, making materials (line screenshots, GIFs, memes, etc.), retouching, cutting videos, etc. There were almost no days off, and we worked longer than the "996" and "007" that became popular in the big factories. Three or four years ago, I started working as a project manager, taking a few team members to do projects independently, and gradually turned from execution to docking.
In the past six months, I have only reached a relatively comfortable state of life, able to leave work at the point, have weekends, and have time to chase stars abroad. Last year, I picked up Li Junhao, a young 3 player, and often retouched and photographed him, which was handy. But I'm not going to do his propaganda, let him be the spiritual pillar outside of my work.
Of the five dramas on the market last year that can be called "blockbusters", I made two, and my current income can save some small money, but it is difficult to make big money. The income from publicity, at least before the pandemic, was proportional to the time spent working on it. Because the industry had money at that time, there were often projects with a publicity budget of several million, and even key projects had tens of millions of budgets. As Party B's publicity, the project bonus can be more.
But after the epidemic, let alone tens of millions, those with a budget of one million are now large projects, and more are hundreds of thousands. After publicizing the project, the project bonus that can be obtained will shrink.
The basic salary of drama publicity is generally not high. My family doesn't need my support for the time being, nor does it urge marriage, and I don't want to fall in love, so the money I usually earn is spent alone, and there is no time when I don't have enough to spend.
Many of my friends are in a similar state to me. Of course, in Beijing, almost all the friends who can play with me are in the entertainment industry, which is turned upside down day and night. Because it's hard to have the time and energy to meet people outside of the industry.
At present, it seems that the policy does not mean to tilt towards the entertainment industry, and I think that publicity, as the very end of the industry, will continue to exist, but there will be no obvious improvement.
Another disadvantage for the future development of this industry is the uneven quality of personnel due to the low threshold. Many people hold a momentary interest, or want to chase the star mentality, come in without a little understanding, after coming, can only do some more basic work, finally met a little, found that it did not match expectations, patted the butt and left. As a result, such basic positions are very mobile, and the people in the industry are becoming more and more mixed, even if they come from industries that are not related to entertainment, they think they can talk about "publicity".
I would say to people who don't have any relevant experience and no basic skills in editing and editing, separate work from interests. Next time, I really don't want to see a resume that is not related to this industry.
"The third year of codeword female workers, a little meaningless"
I am a science student, and I studied Internet of Things engineering in college, but I have always been interested in art, and I brush two-dimensional videos and tinker with photography at station B every day in college. Looking back, it should have been a bit of entertainment at that time.
After graduation, I took a compromise and went to a game company to do a test. But I still didn't give up changing careers, and noticed that there were many cultural companies at that time hiring for new media operation positions. So I spent thousands of dollars to sign up for a training course on new media operation online. The cost performance is very low, but after learning, I finally have a vague understanding of how new media works.
Although the epidemic has already begun, the efficiency of media companies is still okay, and many companies are still recruiting inexperienced interns, so I applied in confusion. The interview is also relatively simple, watching dramas, chasing stars, and playing social media are the key, which means being familiar with the work, the rice circle and the tonality of each platform, respectively. When asked which clips of domestic dramas are suitable for which platform to spread, I can get a few words.
But since last year, the company's profitability has plummeted, and only people with relevant work experience are hired, as have other small and medium-sized companies. I was on the last train before this downturn.
The salary is really not high, 500 yuan less than when I was a junior in game testing. But thinking about the employment environment at that time, I still gritted my teeth and went in. I shared a room outside the fifth ring road with my friend, and the money I received paid the rent and barely had enough to eat.
After joining the company, I did some dramas and variety show promotion, and cultivated a lot of skills, such as quickly writing copywriting, making materials, collecting data and so on. At the beginning, I still felt fresh, occasionally I could contact some people who could only be seen through the screen before, and then watch the copywriting I wrote hanging on the hot search square, there would be a sense of accomplishment.
Later, this sense of freshness and accomplishment was gradually consumed. Party A's customer's requirements do not know when they will suddenly come, and they must be implemented immediately, such as a clause in one moment, and a diagram in the next. The amount of work required alone may not be large, but it cannot withstand the accumulation of fragments, and it is easy to get irritable.
After work, I often leave the station on the front foot, and the new needs of customers on the back foot come, and I often squeeze into the evening rush hour of the subway to write copy. Over time, the brain is numb and irritable. If you are scolded by the leader for not doing well, it is easy to doubt life.
There was also a recording of a show, and I got close to an artist who had a good impression before. But he wore sunglasses the whole time outside the venue that day, ignored the surrounding staff, and showed kindness and affinity when the camera opened. My filter was broken.
I also became more and more skeptical about the significance of publicizing the job. It is luck to encounter popular projects, and it is normal to do unpopular projects. In order to rush the hot search, we often have to prepare a large number of copywriting and materials to release the heat during the broadcast. But many times, the drama or show is not really discussed at all, and the copywriting in the square is laid out by ourselves.
Doing assembly line work, and then making such a false hot search popularity into a so-called "war report", I can't help but think:
Is propaganda for the public, or for the leadership?
"Liver for half a year, I plan to fight World War II"
I studied advertising as an undergraduate. Media students basically have a dream of entering graduate school, and I am no exception, applying for a new postgraduate examination in a prestigious university. Because if the undergraduate is not a well-known university, it is difficult to enter a better platform after graduation. Although in my opinion, a considerable number of students just don't know what they want to do and avoid looking for a job.
I lost World War I, and I couldn't be idle at home, so I submitted a few resumes related to film and television promotion, but I didn't expect that even if the employment situation was not good, there would be a response. Maybe the planning, designing, and shooting skills I learned in college are exactly what I need to advertise this position. Soon I was at work.
But when I came in, I was embarrassed to find that the job was "not done by people."
On the one hand, my work can be easily replaced by machines. During the project implementation period, my basic work content is to write copy according to the instructions of the project manager, such as pushing a high-level hot search, according to the project budget and the tonality of different types of accounts need to produce a lot of copy.
The copywriting of Weibo entertainment KOLs is the most painstaking, and the most emphasis is placed on network sense; The gold V can be shorter, and the blue V should be more serious; Amateur real-time is the feeling of ordinary people posting Weibo. It's okay to write one, but it's torturous to write several similar pieces of copy for each type that can't be repeated.
Isn't this kind of work with quantity and no quality replaced by machines sooner or later?
Now that ChatGPT is out, can write and draw and communicate, I doubt how long the propaganda work will exist.
On the other hand, and the most incomprehensible to me, is staying up late.
When I joined the team, I stayed up until the second half of the night on my first day at work. After the drama was broadcast at night, everyone's work was almost finished, but no one moved the pit, sitting and brushing their mobile phones. I panicked, why did everyone naturally stay up late?
Later, I learned that this was a hot search on a topic waiting to be put in advance, and by the way, monitoring public opinion. 8 ~ 12 pm is the active period of netizens, and the high hot search may be fleeting, so it is necessary to monitor the real-time changes of the hot search, retain screenshots, and use them in the war report afterwards. When the hot search activity in the middle of the night is over, we will also organize today's results and public opinion into a daily report in a specific format, report to Party A's customers, and then report to their leaders.
During the intensive implementation period of the project, it is common to rush the hot search every day, stay up endlessly every day, and arrive home at three or four o'clock. Although there is a flexible clock-in system for going to work, basically there will be a lot of work the next day, so you can't get too late.
The work is spinning, and there is simply no time for itself. The rented house is far from the company, and when I get home, I am tired and may not want to cook, so I order takeout. During the day, when the company can't stay up, come to some coffee; When you're in a bad mood, have another cup of milk tea. In this way, just order takeaway, and go out for seventy or eighty yuan a day. For me, the salary at that time was simply not enough for my daily expenses in Beijing.
If you want to do publicity just interested in the entertainment industry, or just want to chase stars, then I only have two words: don't come. Be sure to consider whether you can withstand the intensity of propaganda work.
Moreover, this industry, at present, can only find work in big cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, and even only in Beijing can talk about "development", and cultural media companies are still clustered in Beijing. If you are not thinking about living in Beijing for a long time, you should carefully consider this job, because the work experience it brings you may not be able to bring back to your hometown.
I stayed up all night every day, and my body couldn't stand it. After half a year, I resigned decisively and am now at home with a new biography of World War II. If I succeed in graduate school, I plan to become a life or social journalist after reading it, and I may have a more sense of accomplishment.
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