To advertisers: What is skit marketing? What are the pitfalls? How to invest?

Brand-customized short dramas have become a new favorite in marketing due to their high exposure and high cost-effectiveness, and now Tik Tok is the core position. However, there are still many pitfalls to be aware of.

After the halo of wealth creation brought by “over 100 million recharges” in mini-program short dramas gradually faded, brand-customized short dramas have become new traffic elites thanks to their high exposure, short cycle, and high cost-effectiveness.

Especially during the big promotional events in the past, the voice of brand-customized short dramas was even higher than that of the top anchors, becoming the main force of marketing.

According to incomplete statistics, around 618 this year, Douyin, Kuaishou, Taobao, JD.com and other platforms launched 38 customized short dramas, with implanted brands covering 3C digital, e-commerce, daily necessities, beauty and personal care, medical supplies, fashion and other categories. Even former anchors Xiao Yangge, Simba and Wei Ya have started to make customized short dramas, changing their way to get more budget from brands.

In fact, brand-customized short dramas are nothing new. As early as September 2022, Jiang Shiqi, a talent under Silver Land, launched Douyin's first customized short drama "Unfamiliar Lovers". New Douyin data showed that the full episode had 500 million views, and one episode brought about 2,500 to 5,000 sales conversions to the brand's Douyin store, with cumulative sales of between 500,000 and 750,000.

The path for the B-end of short dramas began to work. In the following years, major MCNs, platforms, and brands entered the market on a large scale, and customized short dramas continued to flourish.

While the business is booming, some problems are slowly emerging: the effect of customized skits is "degrading", with industry insiders saying that the current average CPM of a skit is between 20 and 25 (CPM is an important indicator for measuring exposure, the average cost of one thousand people hearing an ad; the lower the CPM, the more effective it is), while in the first two years it was best to be within 10; many brands put in skits with a trial mentality, and when there is no effect once, they mistakenly think that customized skits are ineffective and withdraw; too frequent advertising placements have also aroused audience disgust, with many comments in the relevant comment section complaining about the intensive advertising.

Value and challenges coexist, is customized short drama still a good business? Recently, "Shen Xiang" interviewed a number of customized short drama operators and first-line MCN agencies, and conducted in-depth discussions around three key issues:

Under what circumstances do brands usually launch short dramas? Is the short drama business suitable for all brands?

How can customized short plays strike a balance between content and commerce? What are the key points and potential pitfalls of placement?

How to predict the future trend of short dramas?

1. Why do brands invest? High exposure, cost-effectiveness, and fit

Customized skits are a business involving brands, MCN/production companies, and broadcasting platforms. Each of the three parties has its own advantages: brands have budgets, MCN agencies have talent resources and content production capabilities, and platforms provide traffic and jump links. When the advantages of the three parties can be accurately matched, the value of customized skits will be maximized.

As the party that pays the bill, the brand must first understand its own advertising demands, which is the beginning of everything.

The customized short drama market is very lively, but sometimes the effect is not as expected. A large part of the reason is that brands do not understand "why they invest": some people follow suit after seeing the effect of others; some people want both exposure and conversion, and regard short dramas as a "panacea". Li Ming (pseudonym), the head of a short drama MCN agency, told "Shen Xiang": The greatest value of short dramas is exposure, which creates brand potential. 70 to 80 percent of short drama investments are mainly for product promotion to create long-tail traffic effects, so as to realize more brand value through customized short dramas.

Going further, product promotion can be further divided into three major scenarios: one is that general brands such as daily chemical skin care have new products on the market and need to create awareness, then short dramas take into account the functions of both exposure and seeding; the second is that some brands have the need to reach users from other circles, and use the high exposure of short dramas and the multi-matrix delivery of experts to break the perception; the third is that there were few drama-based delivery before, such as cosmetics and food brands, which use short dramas to achieve "scenario-based" and give the product a usage scenario and emotional value.

It should be noted that short dramas are not a business suitable for all brands. For example, small and medium-sized brands that have no demand for brand promotion and focus more on conversion growth and survival, or brands that have imperfect internal links and cannot take on the traffic brought by short dramas, do not need to invest in short dramas.

Once a brand understands its advertising needs, the next step is to choose the right platform for precise penetration.

Currently, Douyin, Kuaishou, Taobao, JD.com, Xiaohongshu, and Bilibili are all increasing their investment in customized short dramas, and how to choose brands has become the key. Observing this year's 618, the brands that put in the ads have reached a certain "tacit understanding" with the platforms: beauty and skin care brands are more inclined to put in Douyin, such as Hansu, Pechoin, and Marubi are old friends of Douyin short dramas, while Kuaishou is mainly based on e-commerce platforms and 3C electronic brands, such as Tmall, JD.com, Vipshop, and vivo mobile phones have all been put in Kuaishou; Taobao is closer to the transaction link, and we found that big brands such as Lancome, Clarins, and L'Oreal mostly put in Taobao.

Li Ming, the person in charge of the short drama MCN, believes that this is related to the platform logic and resource advantages behind it. According to him, brands will combine the crowd packages that are suitable for the brand and its products for advertising. For example, e-commerce and 3C want to enter the sinking market, which is more consistent with the tone of Kuaishou; mass brands such as beauty and skin care will choose Douyin, which started earlier and has a wider audience; Taobao is close to the transaction link, which will relatively attract brands that are launching for the first time and have a greater demand for selling goods than for product promotion.

Although content platforms and e-commerce platforms have entered the market of customized short dramas, Douyin is still the core position for most brands. "Thanks to Douyin's ecosystem, 70% of the short drama business is still on Douyin, and Douyin is also the first choice for brands," Li Ming added.

Douyin, Kuaishou, and Taobao short drama interface

MCN agencies have talents and content capabilities, and some brands will directly skip the platform and contact MCN agencies. They will place their ads on the platform where the talents are. Of course, this is currently exclusive to the top MCNs.

Silver Land is the first MCN agency in the industry to successfully commercialize brands. Its employees Jiang Shiqi, Hao Jie Lai Le, Qiao Qiyue, and Nie Xiaozhou have become the "official talents" of many brand short dramas. Most of Silver Land's business is negotiated directly with brands.

Guo Qingshuai, the person in charge of the commercialization of the Silver Land short drama, told "Shen Xiang": When communicating with brands, we will not blindly recommend top influencers, but will narrow down the selection range round by round based on the brand's demands.

First, understand the brand's needs and the target audience, and screen out influencers who meet the requirements; secondly, judge whether the influencer's data dimensions such as playback volume and price meet the brand's expectations; thirdly, among the qualified influencers, determine whether their content/inner qualities are in line with the brand's tone, and finally lock in one or two influencers to achieve mutual fit.

Based on the cooperation completed by the influencer, the price is mainly based on the influencer's business orders. At present, there is a clear "polarization" in the prices of business orders in the industry. The top influencers bring higher exposure and higher prices, while the mid- and low-end influencers bring relatively weaker exposure and cheaper prices.

According to Shen Xiang, the current price range for customized short dramas ranges from hundreds of thousands to millions. Based on the standard price of talent provided by a certain MCN, for a short drama of 5-8 episodes, a talent with more than 6 million fans on Douyin can expect to bring about 100 million exposures, and the commercial price is as high as 3 million; a talent with less than one million fans is expected to bring 10 million exposures, and the price is about 300,000.

2. Analysis of the whole process of short play customization: How to operate? What are the pitfalls?

Unlike paid short dramas that only satisfy users, customized short dramas involve three parties, which means finding the intersection of brand, MCN, and platform. This is relatively more difficult and requires brands to control every detail and avoid potential pitfalls.

Guo Qingshuai told Shen Xiang: From the preparation to the online broadcast of a customized short play, there are quite "fragmented" processes: communication, contract signing, deposit payment, script submission, confirmation of shooting location, confirmation of shooting team, shooting and production, online broadcast, and final payment. If everything goes smoothly, the whole cycle will take one to one and a half months, and if things don't go smoothly, it may take longer.

In the whole process, three links are particularly important.

The creative stage is also the process of creating the short play script. The products of brand implantation, the way of exposure, and the duration of implantation are all issues that need to be fully addressed at this stage.

There are two ways to create scripts for brand-customized short dramas. One is for the MCN agency to discuss needs with the brand to understand the type of content and main products the brand wants, and then create a customized script based on judgment of popular themes in the market.

Another situation is that the production company will set up a "script library" to provide creative sources for the brand, and both parties will make adjustments and modifications to the exposure method based on the existing scripts. Li Ming revealed that their company's internal screenwriter team will reserve 70 to 80 scripts every week to fill the script library.

In terms of product placement, brands can choose to make in-depth exposure in the short drama by way of general sponsorship, including implanting the brand logo in the short drama introduction and short drama poster, and flexibly appearing in the drama in the form of products, oral broadcasts, etc., to subtly influence the audience's mind; or they can choose a scene package, deeply promote a certain scene, cover multiple short dramas in a short period of time, and focus on wide exposure.

"Most brands will still choose to implant the brand in the form of a total crown. When the big promotion period approaches, they will also cooperate with the top influencer matrix to package and launch the total crown." Guo Qingshuai said.

For the duration of implantation, the short drama platform will set a relatively clear standard. For example, in a 12-episode short drama on Douyin, there will be 3 episodes of deep implantation, 6 episodes of soft implantation, and 3 episodes of no implantation. In the actual operation, most MCN agencies will try to give the brand full exposure without affecting the content. According to statistics from "Shen Xiang", for a customized short drama with 3 minutes per episode, the brand exposure duration is about 10-15 seconds per episode.

How to win the brand championship: After reaching an agreement on the script for posters, introductions, and in-play material, it’s time for shooting and execution. This phase mainly tests the ability to implement creative ideas.

At the shooting site of the customized skit, in addition to the influencers and behind-the-scenes production team, the brand will also send business and operations personnel to "watch" to ensure that the implanted products are correctly exposed. If there are any adjustments, they will be modified directly on the spot.

However, during the filming process, it is common for brands and content providers to have disputes over content and commercial scale.

Short play producer Wang Yunxiao had previously made a customized short play. Before filming began, the brand required a storyboard script to be drawn. However, short plays are short-term, high-frequency products. An episode of a short play has more than 150 shots, and the actors will also have some improvisational reactions during filming. For customized short plays, storyboard scripts are not very useful and are time-consuming and laborious.

Guo Qingshuai has also encountered brands that suddenly changed their minds after filming began, thinking that the content was not new enough, the placement time was not long enough, the location was not right, the method was not right, or the brand's people were inserted to play roles. In this case, both parties need to communicate back and forth to find a suitable solution.

Ultimately, customized skits are a marketing technique. When a brand spends its marketing budget, there must be a measurement of the results. Only when the results are good will it lead to repeated investment and form a long-term cooperative relationship.

The greatest value of a short drama lies in exposure and brand promotion. Therefore, when measuring the effect, playback volume and CPM are two key data indicators. At present, the average CPM value of the customized short drama industry is around 20-25. Although the effect has declined compared with the previous two years, compared with the conversion brought by information flow and small games (the average CPM of information flow is about 30), customized short dramas are still a cost-effective means.

In terms of post-link conversion, some customized skits on the market have installed gameplay such as the Yellow Cart/Blue Word. In Guo Qingshuai's view, this is more of a brand "additional benefit" - after achieving enough exposure and reaching a certain number of people, conversion will occur naturally. The addition of the Yellow Cart/Blue Word is more to shorten the time and cost of consumers jumping between platforms. He has calculated that the entire link from clicking on the Yellow Cart in the skit to placing an order and paying for the purchase only takes 10 to 15 seconds, and the final sales volume cannot be fully used as a measurement indicator for brands to launch customized skits.

3. It is difficult for customized short plays to take off, and the future is still under exploration

Although sales volume is not a consideration indicator, the industry has created an example of explosive sales and category counterattack in the past two years - Hansu.

According to Qingyan data, in 2023, Hansu became the No. 1 beauty brand in Douyin with a GMV of 3.34 billion, nearly 1 billion higher than the second place; during the 618 shopping festival this year, Hansu's Douyin GMV was 3.358 billion, ranking first in the Douyin platform's 618 beauty and skin care charts. The reason behind this is Hansu's short drama marketing on Douyin. According to statistics from the Short Drama Study Room, Hansu invested in 22 customized short dramas in 2023.

With successful cases in the past, customized short dramas have been hailed as gods. Various brands and MCNs have joined in, hoping to replicate another growth miracle. However, there has not been a second "Hansu" in the market so far. Instead, many brands have fallen into many traps after blindly entering the market.

Wang Yunxiao revealed that a home furnishing brand wanted to make the brand younger and was preparing to invest in a short drama. The person in charge of the short drama team was a former investment director and didn’t know much about customized short dramas. He made a situation comedy, but the investment resulted in tens of millions of views. The cost of several million was spent, but the effect was not as expected. This actually had an impact on the customized short drama industry. Brands spent money but the effect was average, so they mistakenly believed that customized short dramas were ineffective and then withdrew from the market.

The traffic value of short dramas is huge, but blindly entering the market also has many risks. We need to look at customized short dramas rationally. Li Ming described that the position of short dramas is like the traditional advertising era in the past, when elevator ads and TV ads had to be placed. The promotional actions to be done are not good or bad in concept, but a path that brands must take when they reach a certain stage. Guo Qingshuai also mentioned that "it is not something that can make a brand soar instantly."

What's more, the customized short drama track is currently a red ocean, and most people are still focusing on stories and production based on their existing cognition. If you want customized short dramas to develop in the long run and everyone can share the cake, it has become a must to jump out of the existing track and innovate. "Customized short dramas have performed well in content and implantation gameplay, and can compete with horizontal screen dramas. It will have a comprehensive performance based on traffic, star creation, and artistry, and there is still a lot of room for growth." Wang Yunxiao said.

According to Shen Xiang's observation, some leading creators in the industry are trying to integrate with different content forms and business models to expand the boundaries of customized short dramas.

We all know that there are two categories in the short drama industry - paid short dramas and customized short dramas. In terms of business model, one is To C and the other is To B. At present, Dianzhong is trying to combine the B-end and C-end monetization methods, adding embedded advertisements to paid short dramas, taking a path similar to long dramas, with both advertising revenue and user recharge fees.

Another method that is being tried more is the combination of "short drama + brand + culture and tourism", that is, local governments spend money to promote local culture and tourism, brands take advantage of the opportunity to implant brands to increase the depth of the product, and the producers undertake the production and jointly produce a branded cultural and tourism short drama.

For example, Mango TV’s horizontal screen customized short drama "Your Island Has Arrived" is a combination of culture, tourism and brand. Not only was it filmed entirely in Changde Taohuayuan Scenic Area, but because the short drama was adapted from the Tomato Novel IP, it also won the title of Tomato Novel.

In addition, Wang Yunxiao is currently preparing a short play for a 5A-level scenic spot in Zhejiang. In addition to receiving some funds from the local cultural tourism industry, he is also considering contacting brands for product placement, and the three parties will jointly create a branded cultural tourism short play. "Brands have a lot of room for product placement in such scenic spot cultural tourism short plays. Brands such as pristine forests, pure plant extracts, and natural mineral water are natural fits."

However, judging from the current exploration, short drama + brand + cultural tourism is still in its infancy, and there are still many problems to be solved in actual operation. For example, whether local governments and propaganda departments accept brand placement, the products to be placed, and the time of placement require communication and coordination among multiple parties. In addition, brand investment short dramas focus on high exposure, while cultural tourism short dramas want to show the historical features and local culture, so the demands of each other must be well combined.

Brand + Culture and Tourism + Short Drama

Therefore, whether now or in the future, customized short dramas have their unique traffic value and content implantation scenarios, but there are also some "uncertainties" to be verified.

There are countless judgments about customized short dramas. For brands that really want to enter the market or have already entered the market, it is important to understand that customized short dramas are not a track that will definitely pay off if you invest. It tests the foresight and production capabilities of the entrants. For MCNs and platforms, at a time when brands are looking for a certain delivery path, customized short dramas do show their potential. MCNs and platforms should innovate and explore to tap into the growth space of customized short dramas. The three parties will work together to raise the ceiling of the industry.

Author: Zu Yang;

Source: WeChat public account: "Deep Echo (ID: deep-echo)"