Last year was the first year for supporting actors in domestic dramas.
From "Hurricane" at the beginning of the year to "Yinian Guan Mountain" at the end of the year, from ancient puppets to current puppets, from male to female partners.
Although it is not new for supporting characters to be on the table, it is still relatively rare to see a trend like this.
The changes in market supply and demand behind this phenomenon and the direction of drama marketing deserve our attention.
Why the supporting characters have become unstoppable
On the supporting roles, I have to mention 2014's "Ancient Sword Strange Tan".
William Chan relied on the role of Ling Yue, the senior brother who was four times away, and opened the prelude to the supporting role of domestic dramas turning over to the top.
not only received as much attention as the male and female protagonists, but also continued to participate in the later publicity of the series.
This incident made many young actors suddenly realize that they got an excellent character design, and they got more dividends than playing the leading role.
It's just that at that time, excellent supporting characters were relatively rare.
Last year's "Long Moon Embers" starring Bai Lu and Luo Yunxi unexpectedly made Chen Duling, who played Ye Bingsheng, gain a lot of attention.
and then to the sick petite dog Gong Yuanzheng in "Cloud Feather", and the tense "Night is still shallow" CP are more attractive than the decent main line CP.
Cheng Lei's ten years of micro-short dramas have been unknown to anyone, and he has known it for one day and two days in the palace, and now he is already an existence that can play the male protagonist in the big IP.
and "Yi Nian Guan Mountain", Li Tongguang played by Chang Huasen, was jokingly called "The dog set up by the person has to suck a fan before leaving".
The new fans he has attracted within a week have surpassed the heroine played by Liu Shishi, and he has frequently appeared in live broadcasts and interviews with major media, and it seems that he has been successfully put on the table.
From the beginning of the year to the end of the year, such excitement is endless.
The reason why the supporting roles are out of the circle, from the perspective of character design, must break the audience's perception of the characters.
For various reasons, the protagonists often need more positive growth, and character traits such as "crazy criticism" and "sick Jiao" are all given supporting roles.
Viewers who have watched too much of the protagonist of Our Lady can't get the plot tension in the series, and are more interested in some out-of-the-ordinary characters.
Moreover, the high-quality CP combination also brought more heat and topics to the series.
"Cloud Feather", which was broadcast during the summer vacation, has always given people the illusion of exploding, but in fact, looking at the data, I found that until the end of this drama, the popularity on the platform did not exceed 10,000.
The discussion around "Cloud Feather" focuses more on the two pairs of CPs, Jiaozheng and the light night.
One is orthopedic literature and the other is the emotional entanglement of top-level sexual tension, which makes the audience intoxicated.
The same phenomenon also appeared in "Yi Nian Guan Mountain".
From the beginning of the promotional video to the broadcast, the official has worked tirelessly to dance the cp of the male and female protagonists.
It's a pity that the audience is not interested in the main CP that is normalized enough to imagine the follow-up development, but the CP of the heroine Liu Shishi and Chang Huasen broke out of the encirclement.
Crazy criticized the puppy for thinking about the master every day, and the master slapped him over, and he was excited: "It's the familiar taste of the master." ”
Who understands my family, the literature of costume training really let me see it?
The above two points have changed the audience's previous viewing habits, eating so well from the supporting roles, who still wants to watch the protagonist?
This also reflects the great change in the audience's demand for the current supply of domestic dramas.
If domestic dramas still have no breakthrough in the character design of the protagonist, they cannot create a more three-dimensional character image, and they cannot extend the emotional line of the career line with chewing value, and the phenomenon of supporting roles on the table will continue.
It's time for a change of tactics in drama marketing
Netizens said that "Yi Nian Guan Mountain" went from high to violent to word-of-mouth collapse, in addition to the collapse of follow-up editing, the plot cannot withstand scrutiny, and the big problem lies in the marketing outside the play.
As a fan of embryonic dramas, you must have found that the marketing focus of this drama has always been on the CP of the male and female protagonists.
For the other supporting characters in the play who have their own bright spots, very little attention is given.
And "Yi Nian Guan Mountain" is a group drama, and the focus of the entire story structure is not love.
The actor fans and passers-by who have not been paid attention to have developed some rebellion against the show.
Outside the play, they will spontaneously pay attention to supporting roles, especially supporting roles with good acting skills.
At this time, if the supporting actors show a better performance in the process of cooperating with the promotion of the work, it is easy to get the support of tap water.
Chang Huasen has recently been interviewed by many media, and he sincerely responded to the praise and bad comments on the Internet, and even the questions that many actors deliberately avoided.
Such a performance is undoubtedly the icing on the cake, and it will also have a positive effect on his subsequent works.
During the broadcast of "Long Moon Embers", Chen Turin was attacked by the male and female protagonists, and passers-by not only did not eat this set, but they loved Ye Bingsheng even more.
Since then, Chen Turin has come up with more character works, and her correct attitude towards interpreting characters has allowed her to truly break the circle.
More and more phenomena like this tell us that avoiding the propaganda of supporting characters is not the right way to prevent supporting characters from being on the table, and explosion-proof defense will only hurt both sides in the end.
In the case that the work has shown a good momentum in the early stage of the broadcast, it is a win-win situation to find the right marketing ideas and let the protagonist and supporting characters serve together.
Among the high-scoring and high-popularity works broadcast last year, only "Lotus Building" really realized that the main and supporting roles were on the table.
The Iron Triangle has maintained a good relationship both inside and outside the play, and the major gala activities will also bring the crazy supporting actress Li Haggard who is liked by many netizens.
The Douban score has been going all the way up, and there will be positive hot searches after a long time, and the long-tail effect is beginning to take shape.
In fact, the overall quality of domestic dramas in 2023 is good, and it also brings a lot of discussion space to the audience.
However, there are always such and such arguments outside the play, which makes people lack interest.
The supporting characters on the table are also regarded as a derogatory term, and many fans of the protagonist spread bad remarks everywhere.
I just want to say that if the protagonists continue to show performances that do not meet expectations, and the show continues to completely ignore the supporting roles in order to protect the protagonists, the supporting roles will only be liked by more and more audiences.
After all, this is an audience-oriented, content-driven era.