How to develop a strong brand constitution

Tencent Video has attracted a large number of viewers and advertisers by creating high-quality dramas, and the marketing value of dramas has been rediscovered. Tencent Video has distinct user groups and a high concentration of high-quality users, providing brands with opportunities for precise targeting and in-depth influence.

The flowers are about to bloom, and the rest of the year will be prosperous.

Although "Joy of Life 2" has come to an end, the discussion and thinking about the series is far from over.

As the first drama in history to enter Tencent Video's hit club on the day of its premiere, "Joy of Life 2" broke the popularity record on the site, garnered more than 8,600 hot searches across the entire network, and became a phenomenal drama king - with over 100 million views on both clouds and the highest in costume drama history.

Not only that, more than 30 advertisers collectively staged a big drama of competing for brand favor, giving Tencent Video a "strong brand physique".

What legacy did "Joy of Life 2" leave in marketing, and how did Tencent Video develop its strong brand physique?

I will talk about it from three perspectives: content value, user value and marketing value.

1. TV series marketing with increasing “Tencent content”

This Teng is not that Teng.

In the past two years, Tencent Video has seen a surge in the number of hit dramas, with increasing frequency. Not only is there the phenomenal drama “Joy of Life” that can penetrate different audience circles, but it has also created a series of “small but beautiful” boutique dramas in vertical market segments.

The highly anticipated 2023 drama "The Three-Body Problem" reflects the high level of Chinese TV drama industrialization in every link, from script adaptation, director control, actor performance, to post-production special effects and music. In particular, the "Guzheng Operation" that has attracted widespread attention from drama fans uses a lot of real-life shooting and CG special effects technology in production, fully demonstrating the first confrontation between humans and alien civilizations, making the drama "The Three-Body Problem" a fruit of science and technology and art.

"The Long Season", which has a Douban score of 9.4, has reformatted the narrative style of domestic suspense dramas. Through the ingenious script structure, the drama unfolds the complex suspense plot layer by layer while maintaining the coherence and logic of the story. As the pioneering work of X Theater, "The Long Season" has won many awards at home and abroad. Some critics believe that it has approached or even reached the level of Class A American dramas in terms of script structure, actor performance, audio-visual presentation, and technical scheduling.

Continuing the creative concept of "one play, one style", the two popular dramas "Huan Yan" and "Under the Prosperous City" under X Theater each have unique themes and styles, bringing different viewing experiences to the audience, further proving X Theater's strength in content innovation and quality control. In addition, Tencent Video has successfully revived sitcoms that have been silent for many years. The Northeastern-style martial arts comedy "Legend of the Magpie Sword Gate" not only injected new vitality into the sitcom genre, but also laid the foundation for Tencent Video to deepen its roots in the comedy field.

The hot drama market has led to a large return of advertising fees from brands: the marketing value of dramas has been rediscovered.

In recent years, due to the large traffic and high advertising efficiency of short videos, brand advertisers' advertising budgets on OTV have been siphoned away by short videos.

Some time ago, I chatted with a new consumer brand marketing manager in Shanghai. Currently, their main budget is spent on Douyin, Kuaishou and Video Account.

However, he also revealed that there are many high-quality dramas recently and the market is very hot. Brands are currently looking at advertising opportunities on video websites.

This signal of reflux can also be verified from Tencent Video’s sponsorship of major dramas.

The TV series "The Three-Body Problem" has cooperated with more than 35 brands, including Chunzhen, Intel, Qianshou APP, TCL, Tongcheng Travel, 999 Cold Relief, and Chery Automobile; the TV series "Flowers" has cooperated with more than 40 brands, including Chunzhen, Vipshop, vivo, Meituan, RIO, Estee Lauder, etc. Since many brands' marketing is committed to cleverly integrating with the plots and characters in the drama, the commercialization has won a lot of praise from the audience.

More and more brands are giving their advertising budgets to Tencent Video.

The “Tencent content” of drama marketing is getting higher and higher.

The reason is that many brand owners who value tonality are paying more and more attention to brand safety.

Since most short video platforms have started to engage in closed-loop e-commerce, more and more small and medium-sized white-label advertisers have joined, creating a widening of advertiser levels, and the commercial content produced is also of varying quality. The pre- and post-content of brand advertisements is uncontrollable, and there may be borderline/vulgar clickbait content, which will cause poor brand associations for the brand. This is unacceptable to advertisers who pursue brand quality.

In the drama marketing of Tencent Video, the cooperating advertisers are all top brands with high requirements for brand materials. Brand marketing in a high-quality content environment can ensure the quality and basic style and will not cause bad brand associations.

Secondly, compared with short video platforms, the value of users varies, and the platform needs accurate population analysis to discover users. Moreover, the usage scenarios are always "swiping", and the user's mind is always in a state of "shallow awakening". Brand content cannot have a deep impact on target users.
Tencent Video remains an open-air gold mine of high-value users.

First, the target population is easy to tap. According to QuestMobile data, Tencent Video's user base is relatively young, with more female users and "free time", accounting for 55% of female users. The overall user base is relatively young, with the 18-40 age group accounting for more than 70%; in addition, there are many first- and second-tier users, accounting for about 40%. These data show that Tencent Video's audience has more distinct characteristics, and the concentration of high-quality users is higher. This means that it is easier for brands to target the target population.

Secondly, the crowd's mind is easy to influence. When users watch TV series on Tencent Video, they are usually in a relaxed environment. Full-screen playback can achieve an immersive audio-visual experience, which is conducive to brands using IP content to influence users' minds. Moreover, patches that are as short as 5 seconds and as long as 60 seconds can ensure sufficient marketing space for brands.

2. From chasing stars to chasing dramas, drama fans have become the biggest lever for brand marketing

In the past, the structure of the drama audience was: star fans > IP fans > drama fans > character fans (CP fans) > platform fans (members).

Under this structure, how is the enthusiasm for watching dramas transmitted?

• Star fans create early enthusiasm: they are the most important dissemination group and the initial driving force for the popularity of the drama. These fans actively promote the drama through social media, fan forums and other channels, bringing initial attention and discussion to the drama.
• IP fans pay attention to the evaluation of the series: If the series is adapted from a well-known IP, IP fans will become the second wave of audiences. They have deep feelings and loyalty to the original work, and will pay attention to the series because of their love for the IP. They may also discuss it within the fan circle, which will have a preliminary impact on the evaluation of the series.
• Drama fans and character fans increase the stickiness of watching dramas: As the dramas are broadcast, the quality of the dramas themselves begins to attract viewers. These viewers may not have a particular preference for stars or IPs, but are interested in the subject matter, plot or production quality of the dramas. As the plots deepen, certain characters or character combinations (CPs) may be loved by the audience, forming character fans or CP fans. They will create, discuss and share around the characters or CPs, and add more heat and stickiness to the dramas through fan works, discussion posts, etc.
• Platform fans (members): Platform fans or members are a stable foundation for viewing enthusiasm. They may choose to watch the series because of the platform's recommendation, membership privileges, or trust in the platform's content. The viewing behavior of this part of the audience helps to increase the broadcast volume of the series and the activeness of the platform's members.

Nowadays, drama fans have surpassed star fans and have gained greater voice. Their deep participation and word-of-mouth communication can bring a continuous audience base and positive reviews to the drama, becoming the core of the drama's influence.

This can be clearly seen from the changes in hot search content.

In previous TV series, the format of hot search topics was generally: XX star kissing, XX's hand (refer to Eternal Love, Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms, which aired in 2017). The most exaggerated one was Fighter of the Destiny, where the hottest topic was #XX star Fighter of the Destiny#, with an astonishing 5.6 billion Weibo readings.

On the other hand, I made a rough statistics of the hot searches of "Joy of Life 2" from the final battle report. More than 80% of them are plot-related topics, such as #Why does Versace wear a collar, #Fan Xian's background exposed, #Is Fei Jie dead, #Wu Zhu Wan'er, #Emperor Qing finally showed his martial arts skills. There are also some topics about Joy of Life itself, such as #Joy of Life 3 script#, #Suggestion to shoot and broadcast Joy of Life at the same time#, etc.

Users pay much more attention to the plot than to the stars. As a result, a large number of drama fans have accumulated on Tencent Video. They are fundamentally different from star-chasing fans:

• Drama fans are immersed in the plot and have a strong sense of role substitution. The community is composed of content, people, and culture. The interaction between people and content will produce secondary content (barrage, comments), and the interaction between people will also form subculture. This good interaction and sense of substitution can produce a good empathy effect, transferring the fans' good impression of the content to the brand.
• Drama fans are more tolerant of collaboration between brands and dramas. Brand marketing will not be kidnapped by traffic, and they can also "appropriate" the plots, characters and stories in the IP to create more interesting and popular gameplay.
• The group of drama fans is wider in terms of the number of people covered, age, and city distribution. This can accommodate more differentiated marketing needs of different brands, greatly expand the brand's reach to the target population, and form a wider coverage.

For example, in "Joy of Life 2", OPPO cooperated with Liu Duanduan, who played the second prince in the play, to post creative advertisements in the play on Weibo for continuous dissemination, and fans praised the brand for its "good eye for talent selection". More importantly, this cooperation has broadened OPPO's coverage of the population and accumulated a large number of potential high-end models. Tencent Advertising Ruyi data analysis shows that the penetration rate of people interested in changing their phones who prefer mid-to-high-end and high-end models is 200% higher than the penetration rate of entry-level models priced at RMB 1,000.

3. Three new values ​​of drama marketing

The increasing Tencent content and mature drama-chasing atmosphere have brought three new values ​​to drama marketing:

1. Friendly commercial atmosphere: reducing the friction between business and content, and naturally integrating brands to please the audience becomes a new direction.

Whether it is operation or promotion, Tencent Video is working hard to create a soft and comfortable drama-chasing experience. It has launched activities such as "Qingjia's Drama-Chasing Medal", "Role Pairing PK Competition", "Grandmaster Fan Certification Examination", and "Confession Challenge to Support Your Favorite Character", which further contributed to a good drama-chasing atmosphere.

This gentle atmosphere of chasing dramas has increased users' tolerance for brand advertising and reduced the friction between business and content. Brand owners are not thinking about how loud they can shout out through hawking-style advertising to make users remember them, but how they can use creative ideas to please the audience and make users like them.

This atmosphere creates an advertising effect similar to the "Super Bowl".

Why are Super Bowl ads so interesting every year? Mainly because of the carnival atmosphere of the event.

In order to stand out in this event, brands will carefully create interesting, humorous or touching advertisements to please the audience as much as possible. The audience will not be disgusted by the insertion of advertisements, but will look forward to the Super Bowl advertisements every year, and this sense of anticipation is also part of the Super Bowl culture.

For example, in Joy of Life 2, Dong'e Ejiao used the creative mid-insert advertisements with two spokespersons, Fan Ruoruo (Song Yi) and Princess Li (Li Xiaoran), to reach different segments of the population. It also used scene-based advertising to capture the minds of gift-giving, opened up transaction links inside and outside the drama, and further consolidated Dong'e Ejiao's brand recognition as a preferred gift-giving brand.

Drive a significant increase in R3 inflow rate.

2. Changes in viewing behavior: From watching dramas to playing with memes, boosting brand popularity

In the past, people watched TV mainly on their mobile phones or TVs, but now this behavior has changed significantly. Users have shifted from a single viewing mode to an interactive experience, that is, participating in social discussions, real-time feedback and gamification elements while watching the series, forming a new entertainment consumption method of "watching and playing".

Tencent Video's "Drama Room" feature allows users to invite friends to watch video content together and enjoy the fun of watching dramas together. Users can create an online room and then invite friends to join by sharing a link or invitation code to achieve synchronous viewing and real-time interaction. This feature is particularly suitable for remote gatherings between friends to watch dramas or movies together, enhancing the social and interactive nature of watching dramas.

A typical example is the cooperation between Chunzhen Yogurt and the TV series "Fang Hua". In conjunction with the Chinese New Year plot in the TV series, Chunzhen not only invited the spokesperson but also the leading actress Xin Zhilei to shoot the opening advertisement of the TV series.

On New Year's Eve in the series, Tencent Video launched an interactive gameplay of vertical screen fireworks barrage. Audiences attracted by the new format spontaneously posted wishes and barrages on the screen. Within 20 seconds, the number of user barrage interactions exceeded 10,000. In addition to posting their own wishes, some netizens also spontaneously used homophonic puns to promote the brand, "Everything will become Zhen" and "Whatever you wish for will become Zhen". Data shows that during the popular broadcast of "Fang Hua", the search rate of Chunzhen milk on e-commerce platforms increased by 74%.

3. Expansion of marketing scenarios: Good marketing is also available outside the show, boosting the marketing space

Different from the single-point explosion of short videos, the drama marketing on Tencent Video is a combination of point-line-surface. Take Joy of Life 2 as an example. From the start of broadcast on May 16 to the end of the on-demand broadcast on the 30th, the broadcast cycle was two weeks, and including the preheating and "aftereffect", it was a full month.

Relying on the advancement of the plot, IP has formed a phenomenal public opinion field within this month, opened up a larger marketing space in this public opinion square, and became a fermentation field for brand events and an amplifier of marketing volume.

Taking content IP as a starting point, Tencent Video has further expanded its marketing space in the upstream and downstream of the industry, including helping advertisers create their own brand marketing events from the shooting stage to the broadcast stage. In addition, combined with Tencent's full-platform operating capabilities, IP dramas can also bring brands added value far beyond the purchase of standard advertising products, such as enabling IP licensing, brand collaboration and derivative development.

In the cooperation between Cha Baidao and the TV series "Longing", 5 customized co-branded drinks were created based on the lines and characters. From the co-branded theme of a cup of "good tea to express longing" to the exquisite elements on the customized packaging of each product, the oriental aesthetics of Longing are deeply explained.

The marketing of TV series has been changing from the initial patch advertising to content implantation marketing, and then to the global marketing at the IP level. However, the underlying logic of TV series marketing has not changed: good content comes first, then good marketing. Only truly valuable content can make a brand stand out from the competition and achieve the dual growth of content value and commercial value.

Whether it is "Fang Hua" or "Qing Yu Nian 2", Tencent Video has further stimulated the imagination of marketing and once again proved the marketing value of the series, which is a good thing.

There is still a long way to go in the marketing of TV series, and more new ideas will emerge and more new brands will flourish.

As the saying goes, the flowers are about to bloom, and the rest of the year will be prosperous.

Author: Liu Nan

Source: WeChat public account: "Hedgehog Commune (ID: ciweigongshe)"