On April 30, Gravity Media (603598. SH) disclosure annual report. With the business development concept of relying on content, aggregating data, and empowering consumption, during the reporting period, the company focused on and continued to consolidate its main business, and the linkage development of brand, social and e-commerce marketing businesses, achieving operating income of 4.738 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 9.34%, a net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies of 48.0406 million yuan, and a net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies after deducting non-recurring gains and losses of 34.3218 million yuan, a year-on-year turnaround.
In 2023, the global marketing market showed strong vitality. Statista's latest report shows that the global marketing market reached $898.7 billion last year, a year-on-year increase of 7.6%, of which digital advertising increased by 10.6% to $679.7 billion. At the same time, AI+ applications are gradually landing in the field of marketing, promoting the transformation of the industry to intelligence and efficiency, and opening a new era of marketing.
In the face of the booming market trend, Gravity Media seized the opportunity and achieved a significant improvement in business performance through the in-depth application of digital and intelligent tools. At the same time, the company dug deep into the needs of high-quality customers, the scale, penetration rate and stickiness of customer cooperation were enhanced in an all-round way, and the company's social and e-commerce marketing business grew significantly through continuous adjustment and optimization of the business portfolio, the comprehensive gross profit margin level improved compared with the same period last year, and the overall profitability was effectively improved.
Pursuit of excellence Global marketing deep link brand
During the reporting period, the company's brand business continued to focus on the advantages of global perspective and all-media resources, and deeply used its experience and scientific marketing data in the field of long-form video content to promote the linkage of content assets across the network. Through the "long video +" strategy, the long video IP is combined with the hot spots of social and short video platforms such as Weibo, Xiaohongshu, and Douyin to expand the brand's social voice and help brand customers achieve the scale expansion of crowd assets and business growth. In terms of customer industry strategy, Gravity Media has carried out in-depth cooperation with many leading brands such as Kelaqi, HBN, ulike, Joyoung, Blue River, etc., and signed exclusive strategic agreements with Youku and Weibo in the beauty industry, demonstrating its in-depth cultivation and leadership in specific industries. In addition, the company also further expands the boundaries of brand marketing through emerging content marketing scenarios such as short dramas, concerts, and events, and helps customers build long-term brand equity.
In the field of social marketing, the company innovatively implements the "Talent +" strategy around the two core platforms of Giant Star Map and Xiaohongshu, and realizes cross-platform KOL marketing integration through its "Nuclear Power Star Push" system, forming a closed marketing loop and effectively improving the marketing efficiency of brand customers. During the year, the scale of the social marketing business doubled, and it was trusted by leading customers such as Yili, Midea and Alibaba Group, as well as in-depth cooperation in multiple vertical fields such as food FMCG and beauty, demonstrating its influence and service value in the industry.
In terms of e-commerce marketing, the company's business relies on data technology capabilities, based on the three main lines of product-creativity-strategy, to provide customers with brand customers with innovative and diversified scientific marketing services covering market insight, product analysis, strategy output, creative optimization, etc., to help brand sales growth. During the reporting period, the company won the top three-star certification of Douyin's huge Qianchuan platform in the dual fields of beauty and daily chemical mother and child, won the honor of Alibaba's six-star highest partner for four consecutive years, and continuously maintained the authoritative qualifications of brand super partner and UD effect super partner, demonstrating the company's profound heritage and outstanding achievements in the field of marketing. Based on past marketing capabilities and delivery experience, we have successfully undertaken data consulting services for international brands such as OLAY, Head & Shoulders, Pantene, Sassoon, L'Oreal, and a2, which is expected to further improve profitability and gross profit margin.
It is worth mentioning that Gravity Media also performed well in the Douyin e-commerce agency operation sector. While stabilizing the Douyin e-commerce agency operation business, the company actively expanded the layout of emerging channels such as Xiaohongshu and Channels, and undertook the Xiaohongshu e-commerce agency operation business of the Proya brand to achieve multi-channel coverage. Based on the experience and advantages in the beauty and functional skin care industries, the company actively promotes into diversified fields such as international luxury goods, sportswear, and FMCG food, expands the new territory of content e-commerce, and further consolidates its market position.
Strive for excellence and innovative business to lead diversified growth
Focusing on innovative business layout, Gravity Media has always explored diversified growth paths. In terms of short drama business, with a deep understanding of the short drama ecology, through marketing implantation and brand customization cooperation model, to promote the deep integration of brand products and content, the company has completed short drama marketing cooperation with a number of brands, such as the promotion of AKF brand and Stephen Chow's classic "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf" cross-border hand-in-hand, is a successful example of this strategy, in the future, the company will be local + overseas two-way force, and IP copyright owners, media platforms, brand customers and other parties to jointly explore the integration of short drama production, operation, Marketing and other more mature and diversified commercialization paths.
In addition, in response to the trend of brands going overseas, the company has built a marketing service team to go overseas, with Google, Meta and TikTok as the main positions, to provide customers with refined operation services, focus on Southeast Asia and North American markets, and help brands expand overseas. At the same time, in terms of AI+ applications, the company has launched its own marketing e-commerce industry model and launched three agents - perceptual agents, decision-making agents, and content agents to enhance the accuracy and stability of content output in marketing decision-making, creative materials, video mixing and other links. In addition, based on actual business application scenarios, the company has launched three AIGC product applications, namely "Creative Assistant", "Video Assistant" and "General Assistant", which are used to empower the work execution and content output efficiency of multi-business teams such as content, e-commerce, and strategy, so as to achieve further efficiency improvement and revenue increase.
Up to now, the company has provided AI Native content material creation for brand customers such as Fuerjia, HBN, Zhuben, Yili, Ulike and other brand customers and actually used them in the marketing service process, mainly focusing on 3D TVC video "brand display orientation" and mixed video "e-commerce effect orientation", etc., and has received unanimous recognition from customers. In the future, the company will further improve the execution accuracy of the three agents and the output stability of AIGC applications, and further explore AI-enabled commercial value-added service capabilities while improving its own efficiency and increasing revenue.
Guolian Securities said in the research report that with the acceleration of the implementation of generative AI technology in the field of advertising and marketing, generative AI is expected to become a new growth engine, helping the advertising and marketing industry to accelerate growth, and short video and e-commerce platforms are expected to be the first to benefit as the main advertising and marketing market.
Looking forward to the future, the company will further strengthen the global and full-link marketing services, explore new scenarios of AI + marketing, and drive growth with innovation. At the same time, we will expand the cross-border e-commerce and overseas marketing territory in an orderly manner, aim at new opportunities in the international market, and empower more brands to sail overseas. This series of strategic initiatives not only demonstrates the company's deep insight into marketing trends in the digital era, but also marks a solid step towards becoming the world's leading integrated marketing solutions provider, adding a strong touch to the company's development blueprint.