Author|bean sprouts
After the marketing value of short dramas has been confirmed in the practice of many brands, various Internet platforms are not to be outdone and have embarked on the road of short dramas.
"Compared with other advertising forms, the CPM of short dramas can be less than 10 yuan", more than one MCN person in charge revealed to us.
Chop Pepper dismantled the skit strategies of several internet platforms and found that there are at least three different genres:
The first is the "Merchants School", which is typically Taobao. Last year, Taobao has already started the attempt of "short drama with goods", and head brands such as La Mer, Haier, and Samsung have started cooperation with Taobao short dramas. When brands found that the ROI of Taobao short dramas was higher than that of other advertising forms on Taobao, the product of short dramas naturally gained brand recognition.
"We can get up to a full investment of nearly 1 million production fees for a single film", the investment of real money shows Taobao's determination to make short dramas. The resource slot in the station also once again proves the importance of short dramas internally, and in "Shopping", there is currently a separate "theater" section.
The second is the "operation school", such as Meituan and Pinduoduo, which take the route of reaching the C-end. At present, free short drama content has been launched in batches on these platforms to increase the length of user stay and even achieve the increase of new users. Of course, in this mode, the content texture is different from the brand-oriented platform short drama.
But these platforms are not completely unrelated to bringing goods and marketing. When Pinduoduo short drama users watch free content, every 7~9 episodes will pop up a video with goods. Meituan uses short dramas to link events inside and outside the drama for event marketing.
The third is the "marketing school", such as Xianyu, Qunar Travel, etc., they are more of a brand side, through customized short dramas to spread the advantages and characteristics of the platform. The platform's self-made short drama "Mrs. Fu Opens the Whole Journey" launched by Xianyu tells the story of the heroine by hanging her ex's baby, picking up leaky cards and coupons, etc. The short drama "The Curse of the Eldest Lady" launched by Qunar Travel is cleverly integrated into the "price comparison" to highlight the characteristics of the platform.
Although short drama marketing has become a new outlet, while brand owners are pouring into short drama marketing, the ROI has also been significantly reduced.
So for the Internet platform, what new increments can short dramas bring?
"The Little Thing of Marriage", which focuses on family ethics such as widowed parenting, nanny wife, and mother-style mate selection;
The heroine does not help her brother and strives to escape the original family's "The Temperature of Growth";
"If the Post-00s Become a Mother", which aims at the pain points of the current parent-child relationship;
and "After I won the lottery jackpot, the whole world began to love me", "Let Me Have a Fun......
Since last year, Taobao has successively launched short dramas on the site. Not only is the theme diverse, covering family, workplace, love and other popular themes, but also rich in forms, there are also various dramas that cross the background, such as traveling to the live broadcast of the game, traveling into the novel written by yourself, etc.
Chop Jiao understands that the current short drama forms in Taobao station mainly include the following categories:
One is pure content-oriented short dramas, such as "My Office Lover", "Boxing Dad", and "The Evolution of Appearance". Last year, Taobao further enhanced the strategic position of content, and user time became a more core goal than GMV. As the most popular form of content with the greatest development potential, short dramas are bound to be an opportunity that cannot be missed by any platform that wants to take the content of content.
"We cooperated with Taobao last year, mainly because of the platform's customized dramas, that is, the platform pays the budget, and we are the producer of this cooperation model", Li Hongliang, the head of Kuaiyu MCN, told us, "The platform will evaluate the investment according to the script, account attributes, number of fans and influence, so there will be prices from high to low." ”
The other category is short dramas that cooperate with brands, such as Samsung's customized "Love is Pounding", "Marriage Diary" with Haier, and "My Beauty Diary" with La Mer. The advantages of exposure and conversion have made short dramas a major trend in current brand marketing, and brand customized short dramas have become a new market for major e-commerce platforms.
Although it is still a novice in the short drama track, backed by strong brand resources and mentality, Taobao short drama is currently a brand customer with not only diversified categories, but also attracts a number of high-end brands with high customer unit prices.
And compared with new e-commerce companies such as Shake and Kuai, which themselves start with content, Taobao, as a latecomer in short dramas, has invested a lot of money. It is understood that at present, Taobao will cooperate with brands in the form of investment, and will also match the resource slots in the station, traffic support, etc.
"When Love is Pounding" is the model of the platform and us each vote half, and the short drama is also what we want to continue to do, from the perspective of broadcast and conversion, the short drama is indeed much better than other brand content that invests the same money", Wang Dingxin, marketing director of Pengtai Baozun E-commerce Co., Ltd., told us. When the overall users of "Love is Pounding" were compared with the brand stores, it was found that 90% of them were new customers, which had an obvious customer expansion effect.
In addition, as a brand, Taobao has also launched self-made short dramas on the site to amplify the influence of its own marketing IP. "Marvel Story" is a suspense short drama created by Tmall Double 11 and the Mao Liar team, focusing on 7 products, leading to 7 suspenseful stories with continuous reversals and tight plots.
Continuing the tonality of the brand and the content direction of high-quality products, Taobao's short drama ecology is mainly based on high-quality short dramas and positive energy story cores, which are obviously different from short dramas that focus on C-end payment. "In terms of content, it is mainly controlled by the producer and the brand, and at the same time meets Taobao's review requirements from the perspective of the platform," said Wang Pei, director of copyright marketing of capacity short dramas.
Judging from Taobao's current investment and layout in short dramas, short dramas are obviously not only a way to lengthen the length of content, but also an important means to open up the e-commerce business and brand content marketing on the site.
This year, in addition to user time, GMV has also returned to the strategic focus of Taobao and Tmall. It is understood that Taobao's short drama-related budget this year is also more inclined to brand short dramas.
However, at present, the linkage between Taobao short dramas and e-commerce is relatively simple, mainly in the brand customized short drama playback page to hang product links, one-click identification of screen products, short drama actors into the brand live broadcast room, etc.
"In order to better play the marketing value of short dramas, we will also provide live broadcast publicity services for brands. Considering the limited ability of the actors themselves to bring goods in live broadcasts, brands can use their own anchors to invite the leading actors to actively interact in the live broadcast room, and continue to increase the attention of the brand by chatting about plots, products, brand stories, etc.," said Wang Pei.
In fact, from the perspective of the link, Taobao has not yet formed a complete difference from other platforms, and the gameplay is relatively simple, but from the perspective of bringing goods, Taobao short dramas have unique ecological advantages.
On the one hand, it is the advantage of brand resources, and many brand short dramas on the current station are completed by Taobao's leading brands and MCN. And judging from the current cooperation situation, first-line brands that are more cautious about short dramas have a strong foundation of trust in Taobao, and brands such as La Mer, Samsung, and SkinCeuticals have launched short drama content on Taobao.
"Different industries and categories have different perceptions of short dramas, and the choice of platform will also have a focus. For example, some brands will choose Taobao, because Taobao itself is an e-commerce platform, and the follow-up marketing combination will be deeper," Wang Pei said frankly.
"Tmall's backend tracking of content and analysis of content data is still better than other platforms," Wang Dingxin said. "The skit is indeed what we want to do next, and now we are also talking about new cooperation with Taobao. ”
On the other hand, compared with the content platform, Taobao users' strong shopping demands are an important background for the brand short drama to be effective. Wang Pei told us, "In fact, people who go to Taobao have the mind to shop, and if they reach users through the form of content marketing such as short dramas, it will be easier to convert." ”
In addition, it is the advantage of the conversion path, the brand short drama on Taobao can directly hang the product link in the lower left corner, and other platforms need to click on the comment area or keyword jump. "The conversion efficiency of showing it directly to the user is definitely higher than if the user inadvertently finds it, and there is a difference in this. ”
Obviously, Taobao's determination and ambition in short dramas are greater than imagined, and the core reason is that driven by the strategy of "Taobao content e-commerce", multiple content forms, including short dramas, short videos, and live broadcasts, have become new anchors for Taobao's growth.
Different from the logic of e-commerce platforms, which obviously point to bringing goods, Internet platforms such as Meituan and Pinduoduo have laid out short dramas more to improve user activity and alleviate traffic and user growth anxiety.
Recently, Meituan, Pinduoduo and other platforms have launched a large number of short drama content in batches, and Pinduoduo has launched a single episode of 1~2 minutes and a total of 80~100 episodes of short dramas, that is, mainly mini program short dramas, such as "One Child and Two Treasures: My Mommy Can't Be Messed With", "Please Let Go of Mr. Aifu";
Meituan's online content is within 3 minutes of a single episode, with a total of 20~30 episodes, which coincides with the characteristics of short dramas on short video platforms, such as "Destined to Fall in Love with You", "This Heroine Is Not Easy to Mess with", and "I am a group pet in the entertainment industry".
In fact, the current short dramas are either C-end payment models or brand cooperation and customization, and they all have a clear profit path. However, the short dramas launched on Pinduoduo and Meituan are mainly free to watch, which further shows that the core appeal of the platform's layout of short dramas is user time and traffic.
The reason behind it is not difficult to understand, in terms of improving user activity, short dramas are one of the most popular content at present, and a large number of free short dramas can indeed attract users, especially Pinduoduo users themselves are highly overlapping with short drama users. Although it is a platform with strong tool attributes, after experiencing the rise of e-commerce and local service businesses of content platforms, these platforms have to start to deploy content to grab users' attention.
From the perspective of user increment, one of the major features of short dramas is that they have revitalized the user traffic in third- and fourth-tier cities and below, so with the help of free short drama content, the platform can reach sinking users and achieve new user increments.
In line with the above demands, Meituan short dramas are also synchronously configured with the gameplay of "swiping content to get gold coins", and in the process of watching the drama, the system will constantly remind "gold coins have arrived" to attract users to continue watching in the way of "watching dramas-earning coins-withdrawing cash".
Different from the path of customizing high-quality short dramas on the platform, the platform for launching free short dramas in batches is mainly a way to attract authorization from short drama institutions. "A lot of Pinduoduo is a second-round drama," one skit supplier told us. Another person in charge of an MCN agency also said that they are already cooperating with the Pinduoduo platform for short drama authorization.
Pinduoduo has also previously released a corresponding short drama support strategy, giving cash rewards to short drama institutions according to the average effective broadcast volume and 1,000 views of the episode. Relevant information shows that the short drama "Miss Qianjin's Counterattack" has exceeded 90 million views on Pinduoduo, with an income of more than 100,000.
Of course, these platform layout short dramas are not completely separated from the original business.
Although Pinduoduo does not directly use short dramas to bring goods, when users watch dramas for free, every time they watch 7~9 episodes of content, the system will automatically pop up a video with goods, and the pop-up video is also accurately pushed based on the user's recent consumption, and users can also directly row away to continue watching dramas if they don't want to watch it.
Meituan uses the form of "Bazong" short dramas to attract traffic and topic discussions before and after the marketing node, and completes an event marketing in the form of a live broadcast room of the Bazong. On the eve of the Divine Coupon Festival, Meituan released a trailer, which collected three short drama stories of "Mr. Su's 18th Lover", "Mr. Xiaomei Zhao Invites You Home", and "Mr. Dai's Love Pursuit Plan".
However, at present, the content of the short dramas broadcast for free on Meituan has no links to related products and stores.
Short dramas similar to Pinduoduo and Meituan are more simple and crude, and the content cost is lower. However, there is also a problem, the connection between these free short drama content and the original business is weak, and it is difficult to fight big in conversion.
However, for most Internet platforms, it is not a cost-effective thing to choose to open up a short drama section separately and invest a lot of cash and resources to make short dramas, so many platforms currently use short dramas as a marketing tool mainly from the perspective of brand building.
In this context, the core appeal of Internet platforms to make short dramas is to strengthen brand awareness, platform characteristics, and customer acquisition.
"Because in addition to exposure and CPM, brands can also search back to see if the users reached by this short drama are consistent with brand consumers, such as the proportion of user gender, user age group, etc.," Wang Pei told us. "Now many brands are willing to try this, this year's brand categories are obviously much richer than last year's, and the projects we are talking about this year include platforms, kitchenware, home furnishings and other brands. ”
Li Hongliang also said that last year, more beauty and skin care customers, and this year, many 3C digital and platform platforms have also begun to do short drama marketing.
Not long ago, Xianyu APP launched a self-made short drama "Mrs. Fu Hangs All the Way" on the station, and where to travel combined with the May Day holiday node, launched the short drama "The Curse of the Desperate Counterattack: The Curse of the Eldest Lady".
When the platform invests in short dramas as a brand, the key is whether the selling point implantation is ingenious and whether the plot can attract users. "Mrs. Fu's Whole Journey" tells the story of the heroine who was scum to restart her life, through a series of operations such as hanging her ex-baby, finding a part-time job for college students, and getting married to the rich second-generation "child brother" through trading, and using the "Xianyu Turning Over System" to open all the way to achieve the life goal of earning 2 billion and become the story of the big heroine.
In the absurd and irresistible plot, users gradually solve more uses of idle fish, such as finding part-time jobs, finding errands, and so on.
"The Curse of the Eldest Lady" is to set "price comparison" as a unique science, in the face of the family curse of "buy expensive and die", the heroine practiced the "price comparison technique", and finally succeeded in taking revenge on the bully butler who framed her grandfather.
In fact, price comparison is also a major consumer trend insight, and the show cleverly uses this psychological motivation to set up the plot, and finally falls smoothly into the brand concept of Qunar Travel APP to provide consumers with low-cost services.
Of course, the advantage of short drama marketing on the platform compared with other brands is that it can accurately reach platform users with placement on the site, and at the same time, it can also do theme planning on the site to attract users to participate.
Xianyu APP made a separate playback page for the short drama, and also launched the activity of "playing a good card with the main creator of the cool drama", combined with the protagonist's personality, and opened up four sections: "It is important to make money in the world", "The rich second generation sent in to pick up leaks", "School has started!
However, the mode of only online on the station also restricts the outing of the circle and the expansion of customers to a certain extent, although Qunar Travel has launched a self-made short drama, it only publishes content with an official account, and there is no more interactive gameplay.
In fact, the marketing gameplay of short dramas has also been derived from the short drama itself to multiple methods such as overlord marketing, anti-routine structure and cool dramas.
In the past, there was a classic episode of "Wang Ma" @七颗猩猩 "Challenge" boss cool drama, playing with stalks, and becoming the audience's mouth substitute from the perspective of supporting NPCs, bringing fun to netizens, but also becoming a popular content favored by brand owners, Huawei, Han Shu, Wei Ting and other brands have joined in and become a part of deconstructing the boss cool drama. Qunar Travel APP also cooperated with @七子 orangutan to create the content of "Reborn I am a nanny in the boss short drama",
Later, Tencent Video's "Easy Drama Festival" started to play "Ba Zong Stalk", and Li Chuan and Zhang Weiwei's sketch "President Please Seek Medical Treatment" perfectly presented the "Ba Zong Crazy" mode, and the stalk exploded as soon as he opened his mouth, "Why did you betray me, bronchi", "Without my permission, you dared to get inflamed, you crossed the line"...... When the classic boss quotes overlap with reality, the drama tension is full.
However, from the perspective of the brand, short drama marketing cannot only rely on front-end content, but also needs to combine marketing methods and conversion links to do back-end undertaking. "Skits themselves don't have a conversion function, but they can bring potential consumers to brands, and brands need to combine marketing actions, e-commerce live broadcasts, etc., to form a closed loop," Li Hongliang told us.
When short dramas evolve from the favor of brand owners to the strategic choice of Internet manufacturers, this does prove that short dramas have strong commercial value, but like any marketing means, short dramas are not a panacea, and it is still unknown who can really successfully stage their own "cool dramas" and become real "bosses" in the track of short dramas.