Long video marketing trends in 2024: Brands need to be both stable and prosperous

This article deeply analyzes the new trends in long-form video content marketing in 2024, emphasizing that brand marketing should not only pursue stability, but also seek vigorous market response. From the successful cases of high-quality dramas to the value delivery strategies of advertisers, the article provides valuable guidance for brands on how to stand out in the highly competitive content market. After reading this article, you will learn how to maximize brand value through precise content marketing strategies. I hope it will be helpful for your brand marketing planning.

Highlights + selling points + funny points, none of them can be missing.

Since the beginning of 2024, high-quality dramas have reaped great rewards - traffic, reputation, and advertising.

Content is justice. The audience’s tastes are becoming more and more discerning. They don’t like to eat “fast food” but prefer to eat “big meals” collectively.

"Fang Hua" ranked No. 1 with a total of 179,934,000 views, and scored 8.7 points on Douban. "Joy of Life 2", which was released subsequently, took the lead in ratings, more than 40% higher than the second place, and secured the title of the best drama of the year in advance.

From a broader perspective - VLinkage data shows that in the past three years, the number of high-quality TV series with a Q1 online broadcast index of 80+ has continued to grow. This year, the number of high-quality TV series in Q1 increased by 22% year-on-year. According to Lighthouse data, the average number of views of the hit TV series in Q1 this year was 282 million, an increase of 25.5% year-on-year.

Users love to have "big meals", and brands are also keen on "grabbing the best", and they all turn to hit dramas.

The marketing value of dramas such as "Fang Hua", "Joy of Life" and "The Three-Body Problem" is maximized, from the opening announcement, to the creative interludes, to the small theater, and fireworks barrage, etc., from the first-ranked title sponsor, to the second-ranked leading sponsor, to the third-ranked leading special agent, and the fourth-ranked special cooperation, etc., the situation in which advertisers "compete for favor" to attract consumers is inseparable.

With users and brands competing for the best at the same time, good content, good reputation, good traffic and good returns are highly consistent, and the hit drama wins the grand slam.

However, under the effect of pinching the best, there will inevitably be a "reservoir effect" - the advertising density of popular high-quality dramas will be significantly increased, and more emphasis should be placed on balancing brand appeal and user experience.

Dancing with shackles on and building a seemingly impossible "golden triangle" has become a compulsory course for platforms and brands - it is necessary to convey the product selling points as the brand wishes, and to have highlights and explosive points like a TV series, and it is best to hit the audience's tears and laughter points to maximize the emotional value.

For example, the advertisements of the show "Fan Hua" are popular and not annoying because they fit the plot and the characters. A Weibo user commented, "It's worthy of 20 advertisements in one episode. The movie-quality "Fan Hua" is a dimensionality reduction blow to the TV series."

It is estimated that the audience will not only not have too much of such "Golden Triangle" advertisements, but will also "not have enough".

1. Instead of casting a wide net, brands prefer to “pick the best”

As an economic barometer, advertising will prosper when the economy recovers.

According to the State Administration for Market Regulation, in the first quarter of this year, 857 leading companies generated internet advertising revenue of 137.52 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 20.6%.

However, today's brand owners who are pursuing cost reduction and efficiency improvement have long stopped blindly airdropping and casting a wide net, and instead are investing their money in top IPs and high-quality dramas.

The popular and high-quality dramas that rank high in terms of traffic, reputation, and ratings have all received the brand's "favor".

As the champion of investment promotion for TV series aired at the beginning of 2024, on the day the finale was updated, "Fanhua" publicly thanked 49 brands, with the number of advertisements in a single episode reaching 10+.

"Joy of Life 2", which has the aura of a TV drama king, is also favored by advertisers. In addition to the official brands announced before the broadcast, as the popularity continues to rise, new brands have joined in the "competition for the role".

As the leading science fiction drama, "The Three-Body Problem" has also received heavy investment from more than 30 advertisers. Its avant-garde nature and sense of technology have won it the favor of technology brands.

In terms of total volume, since the beginning of 2024, "Fang Hua" and "Joy of Life 2" have respectively taken the first and second place in the number of TV series advertisements. And in terms of the average amount of advertisements per episode, the two dramas have also surpassed the exclusive TV series with the most investment in the history of iQiyi and Youku.

The above-mentioned dramas include modern dramas that closely follow reality, ancient dramas with fictional history, and imaginative science fiction dramas.

In the past, because costume dramas are so far away from the present, they are difficult to have a soft landing in terms of advertising formats, especially brand placement, and are relatively restricted.

According to Enlight's "2023H1 Drama Marketing Value Report", in costume dramas, the number of brands cooperating in the form of patch advertising is the largest, followed by mid-inserts. In contrast, in contemporary dramas, the number of brands using in-drama product placement is the largest.

However, the money-making power of "Joy of Life 2" proves that as long as it is a blockbuster product and is backed by a sufficiently strong ecological platform, no matter whether it is a modern drama or an ancient drama, from creative advertising to innovative product forms, no matter how many demands and difficulties there are, they will not become marketing bottlenecks.

Ultimately, brands tend to pursue good content and large traffic when choosing to invest. From this perspective, the ability to attract money is also a touchstone for proving the quality of a series.

More and more viewers agree with this. For example, a Weibo user said, "There are so many advertisements for "Joy of Life 2" because it is popular, it is good to watch, and it is worth investing in."

2. A good advertisement must have the "golden triangle": highlights, selling points, and funny points

Advertisers are intensively "grabbing" the best hit dramas. In addition to calculating economic returns, platforms also have to weigh user experience. Therefore, a good advertisement that is recognized must have "three points" - interesting, selling, and funny.

Apple's "1984" ad, which conveys the spirit of freedom, idealism and rebellion, still makes people feel excited. Thailand's ads are good at twists and turns, and they are also a good example of how to make the audience laugh and cry.

Recently, the advertisements for the series "Flower" also shined. Minmin, the foreman of Zhizhen Garden, showed off her Estee Lauder to her colleagues, the Cadillac that Mr. Bao gave to Miss Wang witnessed the sublimation of their feelings, and the owner of the tobacco and paper shop used bubbling Pepsi Cola to compare the fireworks on Huanghe Road.

The above brand placements fit the plot very well and are very realistic. Many viewers didn't even realize that it was an advertisement, and the brand also completed the product promotion silently. For example, Armani showed the brand's tone through the shot of Bao wearing a suit in the play. Many netizens joked that "cutting the clip can become a promotional video for Armani suits."

It is not easy to strike a balance between brand promotion appeals, advertising quality, and user tastes, but long video platforms have worked very hard and have made many attempts. For example, they have replaced "hard ads" with more "soft ads", which are highly integrated with the plot, and even seamlessly embedded into the ads, becoming an organic part of the series and even promoting the development of the plot. Not only do the audience not dislike it, they may even be happy to see it happen.

Compared with modern dramas like "Fanhua" that are close to life, it is even more difficult to smoothly embed advertisements in ancient costume dramas that are set in fictional times.

For this reason, most costume dramas simply lay low, reduce soft placements, and go directly to hard advertising.

"Joy of Life 2" also faced such a challenge, but the platform did not lie down on the spot, but "rolled up" itself.

First, mobilize different characters and customize advertisements according to their personality traits.

OPPO's advertisement stars the ambitious second prince, and the theme of the advertisement revolves around "the road to power"; Wang Qinian, who is humorous and often makes fools of himself, breaks into the temple at night to find the secret of the grandmaster, but makes a series of mistakes and mistook the TV screen for the real thing, bringing out the lifelike high-definition picture quality of TCL TV.

As you can imagine, it takes a lot of time, effort and money to persuade artists with expensive schedules to shoot customized advertisements. However, these soft implants have improved the audience's viewing experience, so the platform's work is not in vain.

By the middle and late stages of the second season, more and more viewers were happy with the advertising. "To be honest, the advertising in "Joy of Life 2" is still worth watching, and it's well made." "The advertising placement in "Joy of Life 2" is very natural."

Secondly, creative placement tries to make the advertising content fit the plot direction and the world view of the plot as much as possible, thereby enhancing the user's viewing experience.

For example, in line with its sci-fi temperament, "The Three-Body Problem" teamed up with nine major partner brands to jointly launch the "Extraterrestrial Exploration Plan" to witness the "flash of the universe" together. The anthropomorphic matrix communication took the lead and was deeply tied to the previous highlight plots, which naturally strengthened the brands' concept of technological pioneering.

For example, in the middle of "Joy of Life 2", Fan Xian was followed by a spy from Northern Qi. With the tense camera rhythm and music, he was immediately involved in the "assassin" plot line. It was not until the reversal of "everyone scrambled for the popular yogurt" that the clues were revealed. It was like the "extra" and "easter eggs" of the main film. The audience couldn't help but smile when they saw this.

Third, it is best for the advertisement to be good at using memes, with interesting content, to enhance the quality.

In "Joy of Life 2", Fan Xian's supermarket is opened in the east of Kyoto, and is named "JD Supermarket". Fan Ruoruo also shouts out "Dong'e Ejiao small gold bars, you can act coquettishly (Jingdong) anytime, anywhere" with a cute face, which has an inexplicable sense of humor brought by the homophony.

Fourth, by triggering emotional resonance, the audience’s acceptance of advertising can be improved.

The ending Easter egg "The Story of Career Ascension" is an example of this. Breaking through the internal circulation, finding a shortcut to success, and successfully getting a salary increase and promotion, Wang Qinian, the chosen worker, made this high-sounding statement, which hit the soft spot of workers at once, and Qidian also used this emotional resonance to smoothly implant it.

However, although the platform has worked hard, it is not easy to have all three, just like dancing in shackles. Many friends in the industry mentioned during chats that there is a very "heartfelt" aspect of "Celebrating Yu Nian 2", that is, in some emotional highlights, there are special barrage special effects, as well as plot-related card collection activities, etc., which is relatively rare in other dramas. It can be seen that the innovation of creative forms and carriers is a stepping stone to test the platform's skills and sincerity.

3. Behind the competition, advertisers favor “value delivery”

Advertising has never been a simple and crude game of money. Under the consensus of reducing costs and increasing efficiency, brands pay unprecedented attention to the efficiency of advertising. No longer casting a wide net and pursuing ROI, just like value investment in the stock market, brands are increasingly pursuing "value delivery", requiring both "stability" - avoiding airdrops, and "prosperity" - triggering conversions. Good content plus good traffic is the core guarantee of value delivery. The "2023 China Advertiser Marketing Trend Survey Report" released by CCTV Market Research (CTR) shows that advertisers are increasingly willing to pay for good content, and the penetration rate of content marketing has reached 99%. This delivery logic has also been preliminarily verified. Take Chunzhen, which has been the title sponsor of "Celebrating More Than Years" for two consecutive seasons, as an example. In 2019, when "Celebrating More Than Years 1" was released, Chunzhen's revenue exceeded 12 billion for the first time, an increase of more than 20% year-on-year; on May 16 this year, after the broadcast of "Celebrating More Than Years 2", Chunzhen's Baidu Index soared from 240 to 627, and its WeChat Index on May 21 increased by 398% month-on-month. Not only has the brand's popularity increased greatly, Chunzhen is also selling like hot cakes on e-commerce platforms.

Although it is a consensus that good content is important, it is not easy to identify good content. How can brands improve the success rate of "value delivery" and reduce the risk of empty or blind delivery under such uncertainty?

In short, the trick here is just like in the venture capital market, where investment institutions will choose to bet on the track in order to increase certainty - the hit rate of the track is much higher than that of a single project.

Similarly, when it comes to drama placement, brands can actually choose to bet on the platform and trust the platform's judgment and execution on content. This is a shortcut to value placement.

According to the "2023 Drama Marketing Value Report" released by Enlighten, in 2023, Tencent Video ranked first in the number of cooperative brands in dramas broadcast, and among the top 10 dramas with the most embedded brands, Tencent alone occupied three seats.

The strong ability to spend money comes from Tencent Video’s strategic positioning as a cultural craftsman. It is obsessed with high-quality content and is not afraid of “expensive” but “bad” content production.

At Tencent's annual meeting earlier this year, Ma Huateng once again set the tone, "Tencent would rather not produce some mid-tier dramas, and concentrate resources on producing high-quality ones. The key to supporting the entire long-form video membership is a few big dramas. If not every month, at least one every quarter."

Tencent is now adept at controlling content. In the V list of the TOP30 online broadcast index of TV series in Q1 2024, Tencent Video leads the four major platforms with 14 series and occupies the top three positions. This inertia of producing high-quality products also echoes the "top-notch" demands of users and brands. Therefore, betting on the platform is the first shortcut for brands to "invest value".

In addition to betting on platforms, brands can also bet on long-term IPs, similar to the "Joy of Life" series.

The advantage of long-term IP is that the popularity of the previous season not only verifies the audience appeal and explosive power of the IP, but also accumulates a lot of loyal fans for the subsequent episodes. Relatively speaking, the effect of the advertising is more certain. Moreover, these hardcore core users will spontaneously promote the content, which can leverage the value of advertising.

Judging from the above two "indicators" of investment, "Joy of Life 2" and the upcoming "The Story of Rose" and "Longing 2" can be regarded as "double insurance", so it is no surprise that their marketing value is high.

In short, the audience and the brand are both the first party of the platform, and the demands of both parties seem to be divergent on the surface. How to strike a good balance has become a compulsory course for the platform. Tencent Video takes good content as its starting point, satisfies the audience with a feast, and combines the commercial standards of "highlights + selling points + laughs" to maximize the marketing value. It has found the greatest common ground among the multiple demands of the platform, drama parties, brands, and users, setting an example for the industry.

Such exploration and innovation is a very valuable long-term proposition for the leading long-form video platforms.

Author: Wan Tiannan; Editor: Chen Jiying

Source: Financial Stories Collection (ID: cjgshui)