Written by Emma
The super drama series "White Night Theater" and the super variety show matrix "Zhen Huan's 12th Year Fan Carnival" have created a new business!
"Faint Fire" scored 8.9 points on Weibo and 7.6 points on Douban, and "New Life" ranked TOP1 in Maoyan's real-time popularity for 3 days after its launch, and surpassed "Queen of Tears" on May 11 to top the global streaming platform Netflix Daily List.
Looking back on the recent outstanding performance of Youku's suspense dramas, it can be regarded as a wonderful pilot film of Ali Entertainment's "Spring Festival Pearl Project". On May 15, the 2024 Ali Entertainment Business Spring Cloud Release was launched, releasing 200 high-quality content such as dramas, variety shows, pan-cultural entertainment, and film performances, and upgrading the panorama of Ali's entertainment marketing resources. Among them, the "Spring Festival Pearl Project" is a new and first blockbuster integrated marketing product of Alibaba Entertainment, including marketing resources such as the super drama series "White Night Theater" and the super variety show matrix "Zhen Huan's 12-Year Fan Carnival".
Fat Whale observed that the core of the "Spring Collection Pearl Plan" is high-quality IP, which carries the important function of providing value traction and traffic aggregation in the vast content pool, and it is also a new attempt by Ali Dawen Entertainment to help brands improve marketing efficiency.
Suspense escalates
"White Nights Theater" stimulates the adrenaline of high-value people
As one of the first products of the "Spring Collection Pearl Project", "White Night Theater" integrates the platform's high-quality suspense IP and innovative product resources, and brings the theater cooperation model and the full-link marketing model of a single drama to the three dimensions of "suspense quality upgrade", "long-term content layout" and "immersive experience upgrade", bringing more imagination to brand marketing.
The first is the long-term high exposure at a steady flow rate. Compared with other genres, suspense themes have always had a high audience base. Vlinkage data shows that among the top 10 dramas in 2023, suspense is second only to ancient sayings and urban themes. In addition, according to the data of Detaven TV series, the average prosperity value of suspense dramas in 2023 will rank second only to science fiction, and ahead of ancient costumes, urban and other genres.
Youku's "White Night Theater" is upgraded from a suspense theater. As early as 2017, Youku became the vane of suspense dramas in the minds of users with a series of high-quality suspense dramas such as "Chasing the Murderer in the White Night". In April this year, the suspense theater was upgraded to "White Night Theater", and the first 8 high-quality dramas with different themes, covering a series of deterministic social hot topics such as domestic violence, border drug enforcement, and telecom fraud. Following the "two consecutive explosions" of "Faint Fire" and "New Life", "White Night Theater" also reserves a number of high-quality content such as "New Life", "Slightly Dark Fire", "Once Upon a Time on the Water", "Snow Labyrinth", "Sandstorm", "Black and White Jue", "Wilderness Realm", "Breaking the Cocoon 2" and other high-quality content, ensuring the long-term exposure of the brand with stable content supply and continuous IP value.
The second is the high level of attention and immersive mental penetration brought by immersive scenes. Suspense themes often unfold from cases, and the process of solving mysteries is full of uncertainties, which can fully mobilize users' curiosity and desire for knowledge. Therefore, in the process of watching suspense dramas, the audience's energy and sensory experience will be significantly higher than other genres. From the perspective of marketing, the difference of suspense dramas is also manifested in the ability to do in-depth communication during the period when the user's attention is highly concentrated.
Finally, there is the high value of radiating people. Certain types of movies tend to appeal to specific audiences. In addition to being stable, the traffic of "White Night Theater" also has the attribute of "elite", that is, covering high-value groups including member users. It can be seen from the user portraits of Youku Suspense Theater that the proportion of male and female users is balanced, with young people accounting for 76%, and high-consumption groups, highly educated people, and people in first, second, and third-tier cities all accounting for more than 65%. This means that the people behind the "White Nights Theater" have stronger purchasing power and are more likely to convert.
At present, the theatrical cooperation model of "White Nights Theater" has opened up the combination of "theater naming" and in-depth exposure resources covering the whole link of user viewing. Brands can participate in the warm-up, start-up and long-tail period of dramas on a monthly/quarterly/yearly basis based on actual marketing needs, and continue to reap the dividends of popular dramas. As a part of the theater cooperation model, the full-link marketing model of a single drama can also cooperate separately to provide a combination of in-depth exposure resources covering the whole link of user viewing, such as "brand headlines", "brand version", and "full video pause", from the beginning, during the film to the end of the film, through the deep binding of the brand and the content of the series. In addition, "White Nights Theater" further unleashes the ability of AIGC technology to extend materials in batches, presents brand information in a variety of creative forms, and promotes the TA transformation of a variety of eye-catching materials.
In "Faint Fire", which tells the story of the "murder case" of the acquaintance society in the town, Nanfu Battery took the lead in joining hands with the "White Night Theater" to launch the "Title Exclusive Evidence Collection Activity", and through the dual-scene immersive marketing of "high-end brand activities + endogenous dramas", it attracts users who follow the drama and the brand to solve the case together, realize the resonance of users and brands at the same frequency, and seize the minds of users.
Diversified content integration
"Zhen Huan's 12th Year Fan Carnival" revitalizes the commercial value of classic IP
If "White Night Theater" is to dig deep into the theme dividends and crowd dividends of suspense dramas, then "Zhen Huan's Twelve Years Fan Carnival" is a deep revitalization of classic IP.
Douban has a score of 9.4 points, firmly sits in the top ten of the Chinese drama list, the cumulative number of feature films exceeds 20 billion, and the number of topics on the whole network exceeds 40 billion...... "The Legend of Zhen Huan", which is resident in the "hot search", can still play after 12 years. On the occasion of the 12th anniversary of the launch of "The Legend of Zhen Huan", Ali Entertainment has carried out in-depth development of this "hot search" IP, among which the "Twelve Years of Zhen Huan Fan Carnival" revolves around the classic IP "The Legend of Zhen Huan", and launches the 12-year group variety "Zhen Huan's Love Non-stop" and the grand ceremony party "Zhen Ai Twelve Years", revitalizing the commercial value of classic IP with "four major business models of variety shows, grand ceremonies, dramas, and IP licensing".
The whole people "remember killing", and the super variety show "Zhen Huan Loves Non-stop" opens up a new pattern of variety show marketing. "Zhen Huan's Love Doesn't Stop" takes the reunion of the main creators of "The Legend of Zhen Huan" as an opportunity, and through 12 different episodes of "The Legend of Zhen Huan" plots and character themes, it brings "memory killing" to fans in a variety show way, and creates new "famous scenes". At the same time, the program will deeply interpret traditional culture and interpret "The Legend of Zhen Huan" from different angles to spread traditional Chinese culture. From the form of the program to the core of the program, "Zhen Huan Love Non-stop" will bring different marketing sparks to brand products and value output.
The "big carnival" of the whole people, the annual gala "Twelve Years of Love" allows brands and users to go in both directions. Compared with the limited content of youth, "The Legend of Zhen Huan" can be said to be a zero-generation "divine drama", which also means that the 12-year annual gala "12 Years of Zhen Love" is a national carnival feast that the brand cannot miss. With the main line of "creative show, surprise ceremony, and strong interaction", the party combines the classic elements of "The Legend of Zhen Huan" with modern creativity, and through various forms of performance and interaction, it not only shows the charm and value of "The Legend of Zhen Huan", but also allows the audience to participate in it and feel the charm of traditional culture and the innovation of modern art. In addition, the ceremony will be held simultaneously with offline parties and online live broadcasts, so that brands can not only carry hot topics out of the circle in the high-energy atmosphere of the national carnival, but also achieve in-depth interaction with the target user group.
In addition to the content exposure of variety shows and galas, the "Zhen Huan Biography 12th Year Fan Carnival" will also integrate marketing scenarios such as live broadcasts, trendy toys, photo galleries, and flash mobs, develop drama cooperation and IP authorization, and realize full-scene and cross-dimensional ecological linkage. Previously, when Nescafe and Youku "The Legend of Zhen Huan" carried out IP co-branding, they quickly detonated the volume of new products of Nestle's special milk tea coffee series through IP co-branded gift boxes, "The Legend of Zhen Huan" highlight plots, small theaters, theme live broadcasts, etc., among which, the "Nescafe × Zhen Huan" theme live broadcast achieved a three-fold increase in the brand's online sales.
Pearl New Investment
Ali Entertainment innovates business expansion
Content is the foundation of media development, and innovation is the development path from passive to active in the rapidly changing media environment. In recent years, Alibaba Entertainment has continued to explore the diversified business model of high-quality IP, launched the "Outdoor Alliance Program" jointly created with Focus, and developed its own marketing IP "Super Check-in" to bring innovative business solutions to advertisers.
The "Spring Collection Pearl Plan" released this time is a new product under the business logic of content as the core and innovation as the drive. Whether it is the suspense benchmark "White Night Theater" or the "Zhen Huan Biography 12 Years Fan Carnival" without other branches, the core is to provide new marketing touchpoints for brands with the innovative development of high-quality IP. In the future, Alibaba Entertainment will continue to strengthen its IP business development capabilities, bring brand owners a new and sharp business model through content innovation, resource integration, and product innovation, and realize the value cycle of "good content makes good business".