Cloud booking, adding seats, charging for concerts, a new "leek-cutting" show is coming?

Why are there still consumers willing to pay for "leek-cutting" despite the frequent occurrence? This article helps you analyze the reasons why long video platforms cause these problems, and provides cases for those who want to provide customer platform services to analyze consumers' consumption psychology and consumption behavior.

Long video platforms are seeing better and better days. Those that should make profits will make profits, and those that should have hits will have hits. 2024 is expected to be a year in which all major long video platforms will be hot and full. But as someone who wants to share the cake, you will never complain about the size of the cake plate; people who can eat the cake will never complain about the many flavors of the cake. While the thirst for traffic is alleviated, the development of traffic has never stopped.

In an era when users' habit of paying for content is gradually being cultivated, content is the basis for long video platforms to be "confident". And this "content" can be high-quality content or traffic content. As the marketing methods of movies, dramas and variety shows on the platform become more diverse, the platform's confidence becomes stronger, which leads to many secondary problems.

Here, the online booking of the venue is increasing the number of seats, and there, the concert is free offline but charged online. Although it is a cliché, it is also a little different. Is this the new "cutting leeks" show?

1. "Cloud Private Screening" is responsible for the revenue of drama and variety show publicity and distribution

Let's first look at the "cloud booking" that has been very popular in recent drama marketing. "Booking｜Everyone is familiar with it, that is, someone pays a fee to allow others to watch specific content for free or at a discount. This concept is already very mature in the film market. With the substantial migration of people's entertainment life to the online, "cloud booking" has been widely used in film promotion. Maoyan has launched the "cloud booking" gameplay since the Spring Festival in 2021, positioning it as smart promotion, and famous film and television big Vs have joined in. This product is not only beneficial to the main creators, but also opens up a new front for brand marketing. Related by-products include red envelopes for the main creators, movie viewing groups, and so on.

The drama market has never referred to this approach. Firstly, the broadcast of TV dramas lacks the concept of "field". Secondly, it is not easy to define the rules for this operation method and it is greatly restricted by the drama itself.

If it is not a foreseeable "hot item" or has a traffic base, this marketing method targeting random audiences is likely to result in neither the platform nor the content provider getting any benefits. Therefore, it was rare to see dramas and variety shows widely adopting this method as a means of attracting new users.

However, the in-depth development of the membership value of long video platforms and the various changes in users' stickiness to platform content have gradually made this optional path a must-have. In June last year, Mango TV launched its first cloud private screening product. At that time, "Happy Adults" was broadcast, and Shen Yue posted a Weibo about booking 500 seats on Mango TV. Not only were they sold out, but the official also stated that many non-members immediately became members after watching the first episode of the private screening.

At the end of last year, the hit of "Fang Hua" set off a trend of cloud booking within Tencent Video. In April this year, when "Cheng Huan Ji" was broadcast, Tencent Video launched the "add seats" method based on cloud booking. The top 3 users of the booking (including additional seats) will be given autographed photos of the leading actors.

Nowadays, iQiyi, Youku, Tencent Video and Mango TV have all entered the cloud booking market. Judging from the settings of the four platforms, cloud booking can be roughly divided into two forms.

For example, Shen Yue's Weibo posts are directly targeted at the set SKUs. Users who have reserved seats can watch specific dramas and variety shows for free. The model of iQiyi, Youku and Tencent Video mainly involves giving away membership cards. The price of a single reserved seat is around 30 yuan. Specific dramas are used as entry points, but users are not restricted from watching content after obtaining membership. Judging from the attempts of existing dramas, the main creators usually open the entrance to the reserved theater first. The leading actors basically cannot escape, and the seats are basically above 100.

Some other characters will also join the cloud booking. For example, in the cloud booking of "Fox Spirit Matchmaker", the producer Star Gravity made a big investment, and Peng Yuchang and Guo Qilin both contributed to Yang Mi's call. Previously, Yang Mi also appeared in the cloud booking of "Harbin 1944", the endorsement brand FILA.

On the C-end, fans are also willing to reserve additional seats for the show. Three or six seats are not too few, 100 or 500 seats would be even better. What is raised through crowdfunding is the appearance of the show and the face of the idol. Ideally, this is a comprehensive win-win situation that benefits the creators, the platform, the fans, and even the passers-by. However, in practice, things do not seem to be that simple.

2. Focus on both ends

From the perspective of effect, the "cloud booking" operation will not fall into a silent situation. The publicity method with a bit of "薅羊毛" characteristics must have feedback, and many users other than actors and drama fans will be attracted by it. But it is different from the movie booking method, which only allows you to watch this one show, and the income is all counted on the account of this movie.

Giving away membership cards obviously allows the platform to get a share of the profits, driving the attractiveness of the entire platform content ecosystem with a single point, and leveraging the possibility of users paying for membership in the future. In other words, when the rights to book a venue are snapped up, the continued income will definitely fall on the platform, but can the specific content that is mainly supported enjoy such rights 100%? This is not certain.

Take TV series as an example. After users meet the conditions for receiving the rights to book the entire show, it is not certain whether they will continue to promote the show. The role of the booker can set a threshold to reduce the risk in this regard. For example, for the upcoming "The Story of Rose", Liu Yifei's Feiba has planned a cloud booking plan. The official setting is "watching for 5 minutes" to receive the rights, while the Feiba setting the condition is "watching for 30 minutes" to receive the rights.

For the role of the packager, it is necessary to hope that the users who receive the rights will invest all the value in the content of the packager. If the fans receive this right, this is naturally the best arrangement; if not, it is necessary to rely on the content itself to retain it again, but in any case, a funnel effect will be generated.

Of course, we can include these unavoidable phenomena in the scope of impairment. The more prominent problem is that when the power to book a theater and add seats can be passed to the hands of users, the nature of this matter will change uncontrollably. It is not difficult to see from the spontaneous group booking and adding seats on the C-end that fans are rushing to increase the influence of the series and the popularity of the actors.

When the cloud booking and the user viewing data attracted are included in the calculation logic of popularity, the contribution of traffic will be amplified. This is a bit like the logic of "talent show", which is not mandatory but important, and very important. The final result of the "cloud booking" related data is not a debut, but it will definitely become part of the evidence of the commercial value of the main creative team.

At present, the number of advertising investment for various dramas and variety shows has become an indispensable statistical indicator for measuring returns. If cloud booking becomes a daily means of publicity and promotion, the number of bookings and additional seats will gradually become a normalized dimension of attention. The initiative to determine this data is largely in the hands of fans. This is the highest level of control over the psychology of the creators and fans. The creators hope that by taking the lead, the fans will respond and add bricks and tiles to the popularity of the content; fans hope that the creative team will add more fuel to the fire, and rely on this channel to expand the passerby plate and raise the lower limit of content dissemination.

The creators and fans must completely follow the platform's narrative logic. Although this is not a mandatory rule for long video platforms, isn't it a tacit call? Moreover, the platform has its own way of urging people to do this, and the various battle reports are tempting medals of honor. The matter of spending money to increase popularity is rationalized through cloud booking, and the pressure is dispersed. The platform has very appropriately nurtured a battleground for publicity and promotion.

But this also triggered discussions about content exclusion and content quality floating under false popularity. The answer to this question came quickly. Fox Spirit Matchmaker: Yuehong is definitely a leader in the number of cloud bookings. The number of seats and additional seats on the first day both broke iQiyi's historical records.

However, the word-of-mouth spread after the broadcast of the series did not show a good trend along with the enthusiasm for cloud booking, resulting in a phenomenon of separation between content evaluation and series popularity.

Therefore, this model actually affects the standards of the content evaluation system on the long video platform. It is not difficult for users to distinguish whether the popularity is due to the quality of the series itself or the money spent on the cloud booking. In the broader market, the popularity brought by the cloud booking will not really bring about a fundamental change in the evaluation of the quality of the series.

However, it is important to know that utilitarian orientation is the most difficult to control. When a drama performs poorly, it is always difficult to clearly attribute the right and wrong to one party. For long video platforms, it is also difficult to completely hide from such contradictions and "get away with it" with a clean conscience. The name of "cutting leeks" is a sword that always hangs over long video platforms.

3. "Cutting leeks" is the only way for platform user service exploration

Is the design of "cloud booking" on long video platforms a way to make money? If all parties can be satisfied with this, there will naturally be no such suspicion.

The problem is that there are too many ambiguous interests involved. It is hard to say who gets the medal of honor, but a long list of responsible parties can be drawn up. For example, after Fox Spirit Matchmaker: Yuehong received many private screenings and extra seats from fans of the leading actors, the publicity of the series itself was questioned by fans.

The firepower is basically concentrated on one point: fans can bear part of the pressure of publicity and promotion, but the drama and platform parties cannot completely transfer this and fail to make more efforts.

Another example is the popularity of Fox Spirit Matchmaker: Yuehong, which broke 9,000 on the site, becoming the fastest TV series to break 9,000 this year on iQiyi. The popularity of the two leading actors also put the platform in an absolutely dominant position, and it was suspected that it was using such means to attract fans to participate in the online private viewing krypton gold game. Apart from this series, iQiyi also faced the controversy caused by the wheat field concert held by Let's Farm 2.

"Let's Farm", which once moved countless "Hehuo people" with the song "Summer in Houdoumen", suffered a Waterloo at this year's Wheatfield Concert. Ten diligent days are still ten diligent days that know how to be grateful, but the Wheatfield Concert is no longer a thank-you gift without a threshold.

While there is no ticket fee for offline performances and audiences can purchase limited peripherals, the online live broadcast of the Maitian Concert requires an additional 12 yuan. The content viewing is also set with an expiration date, which will be offline on June 14.

This move has caused a lot of dissatisfaction among fans of "Let's Farm" and "Ten Hardworking Days". There is actually a threshold for viewers to watch the show for free offline, and not everyone can participate. Instead, you have to go through iQiyi's official recruitment, and only members with a V3+ level are eligible to register, and there are only 200 places available.

All of the above are nothing more than fans spending money but not getting the expected results, or feeling unfairly treated. The most fundamental thing is that fans are in a helpless state, feeling that the rules set by the platform are not completely reasonable, but have to obey.

From the platform's perspective, this is an indispensable part of working with users and members. If long video platforms want to turn losses into profits or make more money, they must develop more ways to serve platform users. Whether it is cloud booking or live broadcast tickets, they are all attempts for this purpose.

When users can feel that the platform wants to gain more benefits from them, they will naturally be wary of being "ripped off". All criticisms of the platform are actually normal reactions. Long video platforms need to constantly adjust their strategies based on these reactions to achieve a balance that is comfortable for both users and themselves.

The pressure exerted on long video platforms in the name of "cutting leeks" points to the "insufficient" user rights. It is both an inevitable phenomenon in the process of platform user service exploration and an incision to urge the platform to provide better and better user services. Which part of the money can really make users willing to pay out, and which part should be given to users for long-term development, all need to be more clearly defined. This especially requires emphasizing the user's "sense of gain", at least to make users feel "worth it".

Even if we take a step back, out of love for the people they love, users can of course take the initiative to contribute to the platform or even the investors. But this should be something that is respected, rather than just a bargaining chip for commercial transactions. Only by respecting the contributions of users can we talk about making more money.

Author: Senyu

Source public account: Media No. 1 (ID: 1093893)