Among all the big IPs with a lot of advertisements, is "Joy of Life 2" the only one that is controversial?

The recently popular "Joy of Life 2" has been hotly debated due to its numerous advertisements. Among all the big IPs with so many advertisements, why is "Joy of Life 2" the only one that is controversial?

The long-awaited "Joy of Life 2" finally returned to the public eye after 5 years.

The number of views of the feature film on the first day set a new record for the first-day views of new dramas launched in 2024, and it "drained the market" in a discontinuous manner during the broadcast period... The excellent broadcast results have earned "Joy of Life 2" the title of "King of Dramas".

Data source: Cloud and Data May 20

Of course, the “King of Dramas” returns, bringing with it its 29 advertisers.

However, "Joy of Life 2" was also criticized for being too densely populated with advertisements. However, this situation has never happened in previous hit dramas. Why is "Joy of Life 2" the only one that is controversial because of its advertisements?

1. Drama King, ALSO Advertising King

Judging from the 26 advertisers announced on the official Weibo account of Joy of Life 2, the brands include the following partners:

• Title Sponsor: Chun Zhen
• Co-Sponsor——Pechoin
• Leading Special Partner——Jingdong Supermarket
• Special partners——Dong-E-E-Jiao, OPPO, TCL, Magiray
• Others: Qidian Reading, You Yogurt, Du Xiaoman, By-Health, Biostime, Alien Electrolyzed Water, East Sunshine Pharmaceutical, Tongcheng Travel, Yunnan Baiyao, Nestle Coffee, Royal Friso, vivo, HiPP Noka 1897, Beijing Tongrentang, Daxi, Mama.com Pregnancy, Guizhou Xijiu, Trumpchi New Energy, Kabrita

Such segmented advertising identities also made the audience sigh that "advertisers also have rankings" and "when you are as awesome as Joy of Yu Nian, you can also rank your sponsors." Of course, in terms of exposure methods, Tencent has also customized different types of products for brands with different identities.

Judging from the advertisements in the first episode, Chunzhen, as the title sponsor, appears in two ways in the drama, namely "Yu Nian Broadcast" (01:38-01:50 in the drama) and "Yu Leisure Moments" (26:17-27:00 in the drama). The two placements are exposed in the form of opening trailers and creative advertisements. For example, in the opening of the first episode, Zhang Ruoyun said, "Yes, I'm back with it. Chunzhen is here to celebrate the rest of my life." This connects to the plot of Fan Xian's death in the first season. The brand is also naturally exposed.

The creative advertisement "Leisure Moments" inserted in the middle of Chunzhen E01's "Yu Nian Report" E01 film uses the tension of Fan Xian encountering the Northern Qi spies to highlight the product's taste characteristics while combining the plot background.

Chunzhen E01 "Leisure Time" also appeared in the first episode of Qidian Reading in the form of a creative advertisement. It teamed up with the character Wang Qinian in the play in "Investigating the World" to highlight the original work, plot revelations and character profiles.

Qidian Reading’s creative advertisement is embedded in the plot, and Qidian Reading also has product placement.

In addition, the advertising format of "Joy of Life 2" also includes highlight moments, opening and ending film ads: By-Health's 15-second brand logo appears in the form of a highlight moment to highlight the key points for the audience; Pechoin, TCL, Du Xiaoman and Dong-E E-Jiao each appear for 5 seconds at the beginning; Pechoin appears for 15 seconds at the end.

Highlights

Pre-roll Ads

End credits

In the middle of the series broadcast, Pechoin and Qidian Reading also appeared in Band-Aid's pop-up products, and the APP even had a watch-and-buy interface, providing users with the opportunity to purchase limited peripherals.

According to the statistics of advertising data of "Joy of Life 2" by @来看月, the leader of Douban's "Carrot Go Away Group", the exposure of other brands is not much different from the first episode. The longest advertisement is in the 11th episode, which is as long as 150 seconds.

Advertising placement in the second season of Joy of Life (as of May 20) Data source: Douban

It is worth noting that @来看月 from the Luobozoukai group also counted the number of advertisers for the first season of Joy of Life, and said in the comment section, "I heard that the second season is bundled with the first season, and there may also be new advertising in the first season." With a long duration and a large number of ads, Joy of Life 2 has brought advertisers a variety of exposure forms, and the title of "drama king" is well deserved.

2. Among so many TV series, is this the only one that is controversial?

It is common for TV dramas to have a lot of advertisements. In the first season of Joy of Life, 15 brands were exposed through advertisements, while Kuang Biu had 26 brands and Fan Hua had 42 brands. None of them were criticized for being on the hot search list. However, the "king of dramas" Joy of Life 2 was criticized for having too many advertisements, with "one advertisement every five steps and a bunch of advertisements every ten steps."

For example, the famous writer @菲我思存 complained that there were too many ads in "Celebrating Yu Nian 2", but as a distinguished Aurora member, he still couldn't skip the ads. The advertisement of "Celebrating Yu Nian" and JD Supermarket cooperation posted under his Weibo made the effect of this complaint even better.

@菲我思存 complained that some viewers cannot skip ads even if they have membership, and they may miss the plot of the show by dragging the progress bar.

For example, audiences complained that pop-up ads appeared on the actors' faces, which greatly affected the viewing experience.

With so many comments from the audience, TOP couldn't help but wonder why the advertisement of "Joy of Life 2" caused such a big reaction from users? "Joy of Life" is a big IP, so it is star-studded and widely anticipated by the audience, and it has also become a concentrated place for advertisers to place ads. But is the controversy caused by the big IP?

TOP's answer is "no". "Fang Hua", which was also broadcast on Tencent and had 286 advertisements inserted in 30 episodes and had 42 advertisers, had more advertisers but did not receive any advertising controversy. Instead, the audience looked for the advertisements as "easter eggs" because they appeared so naturally.

Therefore, the controversy over "too many advertisements" can only be said to be a risk faced by brands when competing for the big IP cake. It is not the only reason for complaints. Let's look at it from the perspective of subject matter.

The setting of "Fang Hua" is Shanghai in the 1990s, and brands with a history do have a more natural exposure opportunity. However, as a costume drama, "Joy of Life 2" is indeed not easy to integrate modern products and brands.

In addition, it also has the characteristics of focusing on the plot, and also requires the smoothness of the content connection. These two points are also the reasons why brands adopt the patch advertising method, but they are also the reasons for controversy.

Big IP + costume drama, neither of them is the only source of controversy for the advertisement of "Joy of Life 2". The combination of the two has greatly increased the difficulty of brand advertising exposure - adding a large number of advertisements in a soil that is not suitable for advertising insertion has aroused the disgust of the audience.

3. Content Marketing: There is Still Room for Improvement

Of course, from a marketing perspective, a large number of brand advertisements actually means a positive development of the business environment - popular IPs can exert their energy and continue to output excellent film and television works, which makes the producers happy and the broadcasting platforms reap rich rewards, and brands can also get a share of the pie as advertisers.

The popularity of the first season of Joy of Life in 2019 boosted the two major producers, Tencent Video and China Literature Group, with the number of paid members of Tencent Video increasing to 106 million. With the broadcast of the second season this year, China Literature Group's stock price also rose on the same day.

Back to the controversy surrounding the advertisement in Joy of Life 2, since both brands and platforms want to recapture a piece of the action in the big IP hit, they can only choose between exposure and word of mouth. The "Regulations on the Administration of Broadcasting and Television Advertisements" issued by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television stipulates that when broadcasting a TV series, advertisements in any form shall not be inserted in the middle of each 45-minute episode.

If the regulations are violated, the radio, film and television administrative departments of the people's governments at or above the county level will impose penalties in accordance with relevant regulations. However, this regulation does not apply to online broadcasting platforms. After the talks in 2020, several major video platforms no longer use absolute promotional terms such as "open a membership to get free ads", and the dilemma of being forced to watch ads has returned to the audience.

In this case, what kind of advertisements in the series can balance brand exposure and audience experience? As far as "Joy of Life 2" is concerned, there is room for improvement in the length, content and location of advertisements.

One is the length of the advertisements. For the audience, advertisements that are too long actually infringe on the viewing time.

In "Joy of Life 2", the 45-minute episodes have more than 2 minutes of advertising time, excluding the 4-minute opening and ending songs. Even for SVIPs who can watch an episode in advance, the effective plot time is shortened.

The second is whether the content of the advertisement really fits the content of the series. Long-running creative advertisements are performed by important characters in the series and are deeply integrated with the plot to expose the brand, which is theoretically a complementary move.

However, the advertisement of "Joy of Life 2" was able to integrate the plot, but failed to truly empathize. Watching a drama is an entertainment activity that is both private and social. The reason why the brand advertisement of "Flowers" was highly praised is that the product exposure fits the background of the times and the psychological state of the characters in the drama.

The advertisement of "Joy of Life 2" only used the gimmicks of the actors, but failed to use resonance to attract the audience. In an era based on emotions, the effect was naturally mediocre.

The third is the position of the advertisement, which refers to the screen position and timeline position. Costume dramas are not suitable for direct implantation and therefore use patch ads, but this has a negative impact on users by interrupting the plot. Some viewers skip the advertisement by pulling the progress bar, which may miss important plots and prevent the brand from being effectively exposed. If the screen position blocks the main subject of the drama, not only will it be impossible to interact with the drama effectively, but it will also greatly reduce the audience's favorability.

The feedback received by "Joy of Life 2" is a commercial success, but also a reflection on the content. Only appropriate platform strategies and rich drama content can support the effect of brand advertising.

When conducting brand marketing in TV series, one must not only consider the compatibility of the series length and the adaptability of the series content, but also ensure the continuity of the plot from the perspective of viewing experience to avoid the audience from having negative emotions towards the brand. At present, there is still a possibility that the number of advertisers for the "Celebrating More Than Years" series will increase, and the final results are still worth looking forward to.