Pinduoduo, which earns 300 million yuan a day, is eyeing the "fat meat" of short dramas

Pinduoduo is entering the short drama industry and has added a short drama section to its short video app "Duoduo Video" alongside other features such as live broadcast, follow, and recommendation. The move is seen as an adjustment by Pinduoduo to its content strategy, and also reflects the rapid growth and appeal of the short drama industry.

"Mr. Ruan, according to your requirements, I have found a male model who is 188cm tall, handsome, and in great shape. He meets all your requirements except that he is not an Ivy League graduate!"

"Take him to Nanping Villa. I'm going to go out and do something small. You can't help me with this matter. I'm going to get a divorce first."

One weekday evening, Xiaobai, a girl born after 1995, opened Pinduoduo to check the order logistics and accidentally clicked on a short video. She was first caught by the looks of the hero and heroine, and then attracted by the compact plot of a rich woman paying a huge sum of money to have a child, tearing up a scumbag, and finding a new love. Before she knew it, an hour had passed.

The "culprit" that allowed her to kill time in an immersive and continuous manner was a newly launched short drama.

Here, for those who are not familiar with Pinduoduo, Duoduo Video is located at the first-level entrance at the bottom of the Pinduoduo App homepage, alongside the homepage, promotional coupon package, chat, and personal center. According to 36Kr, at the beginning of 2023, the number of daily active users of Duoduo Video exceeded 150 million, and the peak user time exceeded 40 minutes.

In April this year, the secondary channel under "Duoduo Video" launched a new "Short Drama" entrance, alongside "Live Broadcast", "Follow" and "Recommendation". It is worth mentioning that Pinduoduo has incorporated product promotion videos into the short dramas. Every 3-5 episodes of the short dramas you watch may lead to a short video with a shopping cart.

In 2023, the total output value of the short drama industry will exceed 30 billion, which has attracted the attention of giants. Not only Pinduoduo, but also many Internet giants and mobile phone manufacturers are eyeing short dramas and trying to get a piece of the pie. For example, Taobao announced that it would invest tens of millions of funds and 1 billion traffic to subsidize short dramas, Huawei launched an independent APP for paid short dramas, and Meituan App launched a "short drama" unit...

In this article, Kas will discuss two questions: What are the differences between Duoduo Short Drama and other platforms such as Kuaishou, Douyin, and Taobao? When e-commerce platforms bet on short dramas, how much of the pie can production companies get?

1. Duoduo skit, who is on top?

In 2024, Douyin and Kuaishou, which started out as content companies, are still working hard to build a pan-shelf space. For example, Douyin launched an independent APP called "Douyin Mall Edition", which contains a large number of goods priced under 10 yuan, covering multiple categories such as food, department stores, and clothing, attracting a large number of Pinduoduo merchants to settle in; Kuaishou also opened the first-level entrance on the homepage for the mall, and announced that it would invest 10 billion yuan in commodity subsidies and provide a number of support plans for traditional offline merchants and shelf e-commerce players.

In contrast, Pinduoduo, which started out as a shelf model, gives entertainment content a more important recommendation position.

In April this year, the secondary channel under "Duoduo Video" launched a new "Short Drama" entrance, which is listed alongside "Live Broadcast", "Follow" and "Recommendation". In other words, in Pinduoduo's short video business, short dramas have a similar volume to "Live Broadcast".

When users enter Pinduoduo's short drama channel, the system will automatically push popular short dramas that you may be interested in. The account avatar is displayed on the right side of the video page, and you can participate in liking, commenting, and sharing. Unlike the Douyin short drama page, there is no comment box at the bottom of Duoduo Short Drama, but the title and episode number are displayed, and you can choose to watch a specific episode.

Compared with live streaming, the commercial attributes of Duoduo short dramas are lighter. At present, Pinduoduo has not been found to add product links below the short dramas or embed products in the short dramas, which is something that platforms such as Taobao and Douyin have already done.

However, when you scroll through 3-5 episodes of short dramas in a row, you may see a short video with a product link. The recommended products are strongly correlated with purchase records and can effectively stimulate consumer desire.

Of course, you can also choose to skip the product promotion video and continue watching the short drama. This is a clear difference from Kuaishou. Many Kuaishou short dramas require watching a 20-second advertisement before watching the subsequent 80% of the content, while the mid-insert advertisements in Duoduo short dramas do not affect the viewing experience much, but this experience cannot be maintained for too long. The platform has gradually increased the frequency of mid-insert advertisements, and deep users will be pushed an advertisement after watching 1-2 episodes of short dramas.

In terms of plot and concept, fast pace, high density and exaggeration are common characteristics of short dramas, and Duoduo Short Drama is no exception. Users mainly get a sense of being detached from real life, thereby achieving the effect of emotional catharsis.

In the platform's public hot list, female-oriented short dramas account for a higher proportion, such as "Perfect Marriage in Progress", "This Rich Daughter is a Little Wild", "Beauty in the 80s", "Quick Transmigration: The Yandere Male Lead is Jealous Again", "Mr. Mu's Expensive Ex-wife", "Revenge, Queen", and "The Wife in Troubled Times Wants to Escape from Marriage".

Kas found that among the short dramas oriented towards women, three types of themes are more popular: one is the sweet pet drama of "the domineering president falls in love with me", such as "Mr. Li, You've Got the Wrong Wife", which tells the story of an office romance that happened by accident, with 32.68 million views; one type is centered on the revenge of the heroine and her life counterattack, such as "The Night Will Dawn", which has been popular on other platforms recently and starred by Jiang Shiqi. It mainly tells the story of a blind heroine and her friends joining forces to kill her cheating husband, and it has also received 35 million views on Pinduoduo; "Dress Up for the Night", which focuses on women's revenge and polyamorous love, has a view volume of 66.597 million.

The third category is short dramas with cute kids as the protagonists, which seem to attract the most attention of Pinduoduo users. For example, "Cute Baby Agents" has a main plot about a child with special abilities helping his mother to subdue the villain. At the end, the pregnant heroine lives a happy life with the hero and her four children. The total number of views of this drama reached 69.13 million, and the number of views of a single episode exceeded 1 million. Some short dramas targeting men also took the lead and were far ahead in popularity. For example, "Ninety Thousand Years of Immortality", "Mad Doctor", "My Song of God-making, My Scumbag Ex-wife Kneeling to Beg for Reconciliation" and other dramas, the main plot did not deviate from the cool narrative of how the hero opened his golden fingers and raised his eyebrows to make the villain surrender.

The accounts that publish the short plays are basically named "XX Theater" or "XX Short Play". The content of their homepages are all complete short plays, but it is not clear whether these free short plays have obtained distribution authorization from the copyright holder.

2. Betting on "10 billion subsidies", e-commerce platforms compete for the top of short dramas

As online penetration has peaked, the dividend of Internet users has disappeared, but short dramas can accommodate a broad business space and rising user demand. According to a report released by iiMedia Research, the scale of China's online micro-short drama market will be 37.39 billion yuan in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 267.65%. By 2027, the scale of the short drama market is expected to exceed 100 billion yuan.

In 2024, the competition for the top short drama has become one of the focuses of the war among major manufacturers.

Technology companies such as Huawei, Xiaomi, and 360 Group are targeting short dramas, but are not involved in the production of short dramas. Instead, they are testing the waters with small costs and monetizing traffic, hoping to find new growth points.

E-commerce platforms basically do not produce content, but rely more on external purchases and introductions, with the aim of using short dramas to develop content e-commerce, such as Meituan, Taobao, JD.com, and Pinduoduo.

In March this year, the Meituan App interface was upgraded. In the bottom tab bar "Video", a separate "Theater" unit was set up. Similar to Pinduoduo, users can get red envelope rewards for watching videos, and usually 0.01 yuan can be accumulated by watching 1-2 videos. On March 28, at the Taobao Content E-commerce Festival, Taobao Guangguang and Taobao Short Drama jointly launched a "10 Billion Taobao Drama Plan", providing support such as cash support, traffic escort, short and direct linkage, and publicity and promotion. This is the first major move after the merger of Taobao Live and Guangguang teams to form the Taobao Content E-commerce Division in December last year. Kas noticed that Taobao also set up a special theater channel on the live broadcast page, coexisting with podcasts, live broadcasts, online articles and other channels. There are nearly 100 Taobao exclusive short dramas in the theater, and some dramas are accompanied by product links.

In April, JD.com increased its investment in content, announcing an investment of 1 billion in cash and 1 billion in traffic to attract more original creators and high-quality content organizations. During the same period, short drama accounts and content appeared in the information flow of the "Browse" page of the JD.com App.

In early May, JD App added short drama content to the "Recommendations" tab information flow on the "Browse" page on the homepage. Most of the short dramas in the information flow did not directly embed product links, but used the "Search screen to find the same item" function to avoid excessive commercialization.

Not only e-commerce platforms, but brands are also increasingly willing to pay for short dramas.

Among them, Hansu is the leader. According to incomplete statistics, Hansu ranked first in the number of customized short dramas launched on Douyin in 2023, including "Dress Up to Grow Up" and "You Will Be Red" in cooperation with "Jiang Shiqi", and many other popular short dramas have exceeded 100 million views. (Click here to view: "Fang Xizi was defeated", but Hansu's core problem remains unresolved) At the end of February this year, the third-generation successor of Jieliya @Towel Young Master released the "Towel Empire" series of short dramas written, directed and edited by himself on Douyin. The total number of views of the 7 episodes exceeded 100 million, triggering a screen-sweeping effect.

The ongoing 618 Shopping Festival is a peak period for brands to launch short dramas.

According to Yiyuguancha, a short drama practitioner revealed that "in previous years, brands basically invested in expert graphic notes and short videos in the early stage of 618. This year, many brands took the initiative to contact and launch customized short dramas, giving priority to Taobao, Douyin and Kuaishou, which can directly link to 618 product links." Taking Taobao as an example, the Taobao short drama track is mainly for female users (such as the group of sophisticated mothers over 30 years old), who are the core of family shopping decisions. Therefore, the current cooperative brands attracted by the platform are mainly from the beauty and 3C digital industries. In mid-May, during the 618 promotion, Taobao Theater displayed PROYA's customized short drama "Work! BOSS" in the top promotion position. The main plot is the story of the heroine being exploited by the boss in the company and exchanging bodies with the boss on an overtime night. PROYA's 618 pre-purchase link was added below the video.

In addition, the exclusive content of Taobao Theater Channel also includes: L'Oreal's customized short play "Daddy Alliance", Midea's customized short play "We Who Reverse Our Lives", Yunnan Baiyao and Jiangzhong Lactobacillus Tablets sponsored the short play "Please Call Me a Boss", and Enos Yashi's exclusive title short play "Love as a Blade".

At the same time, the official accounts of several brands such as Proya, Hansu, and C-Café on JD.com also began to carry past short dramas. Before that, the homepages of the accounts were mainly dominated by videos recommended by influencers. A number of brands have begun to update short dramas on JD.com. For example, @Proya’s JD.com self-operated official flagship store launched two short dramas, each about 4 minutes long, with more than 200,000 views. The brand-customized short dramas not only revealed the brand logo and products, but also inserted product links and live broadcast links below the video, which is one of the fancy "traffic diversion" methods during the promotion period.

3. Gold-digging short play, the money is unpredictable

Behind the platforms and brands embracing short dramas, it reflects the deep-seated anxiety about traffic. As the cost of acquiring customers rises, they all hope to break through with short dramas. Even though big companies and brands are flocking to short dramas and betting heavily on them, the money prospects for brands, production companies, and traffic investment companies that have just entered the market are still unclear.

For brands, the probability of a hit short drama is decreasing, but the cost is rising. People familiar with the matter told Kas that the CPM (cost of getting 1,000 exposures) of the short dramas that Hansu cooperated with in the early days could be as low as 10 yuan, but with the increase in production costs and cooperation costs, the CPM is no longer the same.

For producers and investors, due to the influx of practitioners and oversupply, the proportion of profitable companies is very low.

Li Hao, founder of Kas Consulting, is a veteran entrepreneur with more than ten years of experience in the video industry. He also has long-term and in-depth thinking about the content industry. In his opinion, "short dramas may be the biggest and fastest-bursting bubble in the history of short videos."

Li Hao believes that shoddy content can rely on temporary subject matter advantages and inducements to periodically trigger users' paid experience, especially with the help of super platforms and algorithms. But common sense tells us that after paying once or twice, many users will begin to get aesthetic fatigue. In just two years, the payment scale of short dramas is almost catching up with movies. In fact, 80% of the paid income of short dramas eventually returns to the platform through advertising. In this deformed ecology, content providers will not have much money for production. "Short dramas are ultimately the same as long dramas. Long video platforms such as Youku, iQiyi and Tencent Video have a lot of high-quality content supply. Sooner or later, users will realize which platform to go to for high-quality content." From the perspective of the external environment, the surging short drama industry faces strict scrutiny from platforms and regulators.

On April 10, Douyin and Kuaishou issued announcements to rectify short dramas with negative values. Douyin removed six short dramas, Kuaishou removed four, and cleaned up 738 pieces of related content.

The State Administration of Radio and Television has also issued a short drama filing management method. Starting from June 1, the "Latest Work Tips on the Filing of Micro-Short Dramas" was officially implemented, and micro-short dramas that have not been reviewed and filed are not allowed to be disseminated online. Among them, the filing is divided into three categories according to the total investment amount. "Key micro-short dramas" with an investment amount of more than 1 million yuan are managed by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, "ordinary micro-short dramas" between 300,000 yuan and 1 million yuan are managed by provincial radio and television departments, and "other micro-short dramas" with an investment amount of less than 300,000 yuan are managed by the platform.

The short drama market has entered a period of integration, which means that the short drama market is further moving towards standardization. After the entry of disruptors such as Internet giants, the short drama industry will inevitably usher in a new round of reshuffles, with more and more projects starting and finishing, and the competitive pressure will also be greater.

But no matter how things change, short dramas are always To C products, which need to be iterated and upgraded based on user preferences and aesthetic changes. High-quality content will always be a scarce commodity and can be unimpeded on all platforms.