In the middle of 2024, the entertainment market will be hotter than in 2023.
Dramas such as "Flower Order" and "New Life" make users chase more enthusiastically, wave after wave; "Infinite Transcendence Class 2", "Cat in the Box", "This is My Island" and other variety shows are popular on social platforms, and continue to deliver meme materials for users. Kik data shows that in 2024Q1, the investment promotion of online dramas increased by 77% year-on-year, of which Youku's investment promotion increased first year-on-year, reaching 131%. According to Yunhe data, as of April 23, the effective broadcast of Youku's variety show feature films increased by 63.2% year-on-year, and Youku's on-air variety shows have topped the TOP1 of Yunhequan's public opinion popularity daily list for a total of 51 times, accounting for 46%, ranking first on the whole platform!
Offline film performances are also very popular, with cinema blockbusters such as "Peacekeeping Anti-riot Team" leveraging 1.528 billion yuan at the box office during the May Day period (data source: Lighthouse Professional Edition), and according to the statistics of the China Performance Industry Association, there were 34,400 commercial performances (excluding performances in entertainment venues) nationwide, with 10.2673 million audiences, a year-on-year increase of 18.63%.
The enthusiasm for good content spreads more than that. On May 15, the 2024 Ali Entertainment Business Spring Cloud Release was launched. The major upgrade of 200 high-quality contents, including dramas, variety shows, pan-cultural entertainment, and film performances, as well as 5 major content marketing resources, once again ignited the enthusiasm of users and brands, and also revitalized more possibilities and imagination space for content marketing.
"Drama"
The five major tracks are fully new
AIGC opens a new posture for drama marketing
From the youth drama "Love for a Long Time" to the costume drama "Flower Order", and then to the suspense drama "New Life" that is about to end, the full flowering of multiple tracks is the industry's first experience of Youku dramas. In 2024, Youku Drama will continue to adhere to the head strategy, strive to "be big and broad", and deeply lay out the five advantageous tracks of ancient costume masterpieces, suspenseful crimes, urban boutiques, bloody legends, and Hong Kong dramas, so as to create a new hit with a head and high-quality products. gathers Zhang Songwen, Bai Baihe, Zhou Yiwei and many other powerful people to interpret the "Qingming Riverside Map Code", which tells the story of Zhao Buyou's family who lived in Bianliang City's Qier Lane during the Xuanhe period of the Northern Song Dynasty, and repeatedly solved strange cases to protect the well-being of the people of Bianliang; "Bead Curtain Jade Curtain", co-starred by Zhao Lusi and Liu Yuning, wrote a business legend; The dystopian love fable drama "Half-Mature Men and Women" starring Tian Xiwei and Xin Yunlai reveals the emotional ukiyo-e of urban men and women; Directed by Yang Yang, starring Yang Yang and Jin Chen, and adapted from the novel of the same name by Forgotten Words, "The Legend of Mortal Cultivation of Immortals" tells the story of a mortal Han Li who has gone through thousands of rocks, fought for his life with the sky, and finally was able to travel the world and the world; Starring Zhao Jinmai and Zhang Linghe, the first "multi-person rebirth" setting "Spending the Year of China" is based on the emotions of the eldest princess Li Rong and the concubine Pei Wenxuan, showing a love-hate entanglement between two enemies in one dream and two worlds turning into "girlfriends" and "girlfriends" becoming lovers.
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With high-quality IP as the core, Youku drama marketing helps brand partners enjoy the dividends of hot dramas through four marketing models: innovative advertising, pet fan drama series, label partners and highlight characters.
Innovative advertising models have always been a powerful tool for brands to seize the focus of the C position. In this upgrade, Youku introduced the popular AIGC technology, and the series of endogenous products helped the plot and brand concept to be deeply integrated through innovative products such as "Serialized Brand Headlines" and "Serialized Small Theater", and conveyed brand information silently. The endogenous products of micro-motion effect make the brand advertising eye-catching and eye-catching through the creative presentation of "micro-motion brand headlines" and "micro-motion brand brand".
Content marketing is inseparable from the preferences of users, and it is precisely this point that the pet fan drama comprehensive model grasps, through the wall-breaking linkage of content, to help brands narrow the distance between them and users. For example, when the drama "Youth Song Xing" was on the air, Youku customized the starring life "Youth Special Project" for users. The content of life and the content of the drama echo each other, and are staggered and updated, so that the audience's pleasure of chasing the drama continues from the play to the outside of the play. The dramas to be broadcast, "Spend the Year of China" and "Shhhhh
The label partner model focuses on the five major tracks of the series, bringing continuous exposure and the ability to penetrate core users for the brand. The highlight role mode makes a fuss about the potential starring roles, and digs deep into the full-chain marketing value of stars in and out of the play, so that the brand and the characters can go out of the circle together. "Variety Show" connects the topics of the times, dialogues with young users, and opens up the overall situation of "exposure-interaction-growth" and product efficiency and sales
In 2023, the number of Youku variety shows online will increase by 230% year-on-year, of which 70% will be variety shows with a Douban score of more than 8 points, achieving a bumper harvest of "quality" and "quantity". In 2024, Youku's variety show will lock in the emotional power point of young users, and focus on the five major tracks of game reasoning, youth pioneer, emotional life, happy comedy, and drama variety film linkage, and reserve the blind box travel social reality show "Blind Box Travel Bureau" created by Xie Dikui's ace team, Youku's first egg competition reality show "Egg Breaking Master", a new label management reality show rap variety show "Rap Dream Factory", and the platform's super head variety N generation deterministic hit variety show "This! It's Hip-hop 7", the benchmark basketball variety show "This! is Slam Dunk 6 Village BA Season", all-star new energy racing reality show "Wind Galloping Electronic Music", the head youth variety show "Heartbeat 20 Years Old 4" popular among young people, the first variety show competitive variety show "I Love Variety Show", comedy variety N-generation ace IP "Mars Intelligence Agency 7", "The Legend of Zhen Huan" 12-year group variety "Zhen Huan loves non-stop", China's first creative return visit film variety linkage reality show "Why Fengshen - Towards the Movie", and the new incision of the OST of the film and drama variety linkage track "Drama Good Song 2" and the annual topic variety show "Infinite Transcendence Class 3" and other boutique variety shows.
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While the content is new, Youku's variety show marketing has also been upgraded in multiple dimensions, launching four major marketing products: Kuku Variety Best Friend, Track Partner, Fan Group Head, and Endogenous Package, tailor-made for the brand to explore the emotions of young users. As the most interactive way to play, the fan group leader builds a bridge for the brand to communicate with users. Taking the IP of "This is My Island" as an example, after users write letters to guests in drifting bottles, they can call on friends to help them get the opportunity to get the feature film of the program on the letter, which also brings social fission value to the content and brand; The brand-customized lottery and the incentive gameplay of the community second creation also further mobilize the enthusiasm of users to participate and stimulate brand love.
Kuku Variety Best Friends will integrate Youku's popular variety shows, and the hard and wide reach allows the brand to gain stable exposure, and the creative interaction and lottery interaction of the whole path of user viewing create more opportunities for the brand to communicate with users in depth. Track partners have launched highly adapted marketing products from the four tracks of game travel, competition, comedy and love comprehensive to help brands and users deeply link. For the first time, the endogenous package opens up endogenous cooperation resources for seasonal IP to help brands radiate high-value users, including members.
Judging from this cloud release, Youku's upcoming variety show list will be intensively scheduled until March next year, and the parallel development of diversified content will also bring a full range of marketing opportunities to the brand. "Pan Entertainment"
Insight into emotional resource integration
Theme IP in five major areas fuels brand marketing
Nowadays, users are more willing to improve themselves, and they are more concerned about spiritual comfort and want to have novel experiences. In 2024, Youku Pan-Cultural Entertainment will closely follow the emotional needs of users and carry out a comprehensive upgrade, bringing the seventh season of "Round Table Pie" in the field of humanities and documentary, "Shine! The Grand Canal", "Next Stop on the Moon", "Earth Restorer", "Jianghu Restaurant" season 5, as well as sports events "2024-2026BWF World Badminton World Tournament", "ATP World Tour", games "Reasoning Classroom", "Cloud Archive" season 2, anime "Cangyuan Tu" season 2, "Senior Brother, Senior Brother" Nianfan, "Young White Horse Drunk Spring Breeze" season 2, children's "Fanni Sees the World: The Wonderful Adventure", "Fanni Fanni Zhijia has good friends" and other content.
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At the marketing level, Youku Pan-Cultural Entertainment takes the five key words of "Vision", "Energetic Gentleman", "Puzzle and Brain-burning", "High-burning Fantasy", and "Interesting Exploration" as the theme, and deeply lays out marketing in the five major fields of humanities documentary, sports, games, animation, and children.
For example, the humanities documentary focuses on the two key words of the heart and the vision, and the "celebrity universe" has been expanded again, with old friends and new guests; The marketing IP "All Things Night Market" seizes the night scene, uses celebrities to deeply explore emotional resonance points, and brings users a novel immersive cultural experience and late-night nourishment. Among them, the Heart Suit product takes celebrities as the core, excavates the depth of IP, and creates a combination of "program + night show + advertising" to help brands achieve multiple goals such as high-net-worth user penetration, target group reach and precise breakdown; The Vision Package strengthens the development of scenarios, and launches three major resources: "Head Brand Empowerment Package", "Restaurant Jianghu Efficiency Improvement Package", and "Extreme Life Expansion Package", and works with brands to create online and offline theme activities.
Relying on popular events, Sports launched an online "PGA TOUR/LIV+ Exclusive Moment" and offline "BWF+Dating Full Day" marketing IP portfolio; The game creates a marketing product that integrates head reasoning IP + "Friday Werewolf Night"; Animation strengthens the new national style and Guoman universe, and creates a "burning scene" theme IP that integrates IP cooperation, authorized marketing and check-in events, so that brands and young people can carnival together; On the one hand, the children's field integrates the "Fanny" series of ace programs; On the other hand, we will create a "fun special" that integrates content customization, on-site, live broadcast, endorsement, interaction, etc., to bring more possibilities for marketing.
"Film Performance" undertakes traffic, deepens the scene, and releases brand love online and offline
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Keen to capture users' demand for offline performances and cinema blockbusters, Ali Entertainment has released two major products, "Weekend Files" and "Entertainment Pass", with live entertainment "Weekend Files" and brand promotion marketing in popular schedules as the starting point. Based on the offline entertainment needs of users such as watching performances, visiting exhibitions, and watching dramas, the "Weekend Series" combines popular nodes such as summer files, National Day files, Chinese New Year files, and Spring Festival files to create four offline marketing products: "Filmmaker Series", "Summer Music Ladder Series", "Small Theater Series", and "Yiqi Exhibition Series". "Entertainment Pass" opens up the three-end resources of Youku, Taopiaopiao, and Damai to realize cross-terminal joint investment on the three platforms.
"Trendy" product upgrade track innovation, trendy gameplay, and marketing model innovation
Trend marketing is also a key area of Alibaba's entertainment business, including live broadcast, IP licensing, virtual idols and boutique short dramas.
The live broadcast section has created three major themes: celebrity solo performance IP, live broadcast party IP and pet fan IP, bringing users wonderful content such as Wang Yuan's 2024 concert tour, Macau's 25th anniversary return party, and a series of meet-and-greets/small solo performances, and also building a three-dimensional resource matrix for brands including content cooperation, offline rights, and live broadcast room + product interaction.
The IP licensing sector upgrades the "Zhenghong" and "Super Classic" cooperation models, expands IP licensing, upgrades IP product customization, rejuvenates creative customization and IP+AIGC integrated marketing model, helping brands quickly seize the minds of users.
The virtual idol section is centered on Ali Dawen Entertainment's virtual idol Lili, and based on AIGC technology, it brings innovative marketing methods such as brand endorsement cooperation, IP derivative marketing, and offline AI real-time interaction.
In the field of short dramas that have become popular in the past two years, Ali Entertainment has laid out modern cities, Republic of China emotions, costume romances, digital human short dramas and other tracks, providing short drama specials, in-depth implantation, single drama customization, Taobao joint investment, travel short drama special and other cooperation models, among which "My Car Butler" is the first S+ sci-fi micro-short drama starring digital people.
Epilogue:
Under the fierce competition in the market, the problem faced by long video platforms is how to achieve the common growth of content and marketing. Rejecting content homogenization and constantly innovating marketing solutions is the best solution for platforms and brands.
The revitalization of 200 high-quality content and 5 major content marketing tracks is the new spark for content marketing given by Alida Entertainment Business. The spark of new business has been ignited, let's look forward to a broader sea of stars in content marketing.