Short dramas are rushing towards brand customization. How many "Korean series" can they create?

After Hansu became popular in Jiang Shiqi's short drama, brand-customized short dramas have become a trend. Let's read this article to learn more.

After short dramas continued to create wealth-making myths by attracting paid users in corners of the Internet, thus triggering topics across the entire network, the short drama's sickle, with its wind of harvesting traffic, blew towards various brands.

Short video players represented by Douyin and Kuaishou have been constantly announcing the excellent results of brand-customized short dramas. Even Taobao, which is nearby, can't sit still. Not only has it opened a "short drama" entrance, but it has also teamed up with a professional team to put short drama content on the shelves since Double 11 last year, among which the "selected" ones are directly aimed at brand-customized dramas.

Before the 618 campaign this year, Taobao launched customized content such as the short drama "Daddy's Alliance" sponsored by L'Oréal Paris and the short drama "Work! Boss" sponsored by PROYA, shouting out the slogan "good-looking and easy to buy", and further using "customized short dramas" to open the budget valve of brands.

Taobao screenshot

Of course, the brands themselves are not idle either. After the "Towel Empire" series of short plays written, directed and edited by Jieliya Towel Master became popular, various brands have also strengthened the construction of their own short play content. The news that Xiaomi announced external recruitment for short play positions has made the outside world look forward to whether the "Leibs Biography" will finally be born.

At the same time, the big anchors couldn't sit still. Crazy Xiao Yangge started making "Three Sheep Short Dramas" and released promotional photos of his first drama "Master Fu, Your Substitute Bride is a Boss". Simba, on the other hand, directly announced that Xinxuan and Oshiman would launch a brand-customized drama "She is Like a Pearl" to further link short dramas with live streaming. So why are brands and the platforms and anchors that serve brands flocking to short dramas? In addition to their traffic, the core reason is that the market has seen an example of a short drama that has created a surge in sales and achieved a counterattack in the category, and that is Hansu.

According to the Top 20 beauty and skin care products on Douyin in the first quarter of 2024 released by Qingyan, Hansu ranked first with a GMV of 2 billion, beating Proya, which just emerged last year. Public data shows that Hansu's total GMV on Tmall and Douyin reached 2.1 billion+, which is enough to prove the huge benefits that Douyin has given Hansu. If we talk about the heroes behind it, it is inseparable from the short drama marketing of Korean dramas on Douyin. According to incomplete statistics, Hansu ranked first in the number of customized short dramas released on Douyin in 2023, among which the playback volume of many popular short dramas such as "Dress Up to Grow" and "You Will Be Famous" was measured in billions.

Hanshu customized short plays "Dress up for growth" and "You will be famous eventually"

As Hansu became famous in the short drama market, more and more beauty brands also set their sights on this popular market. Guyu launched a customized short drama "New Year's Day" starring Xu Mengjie and Li Chuan; Marubi teamed up with Kuaishou, Gumai Jiahe, and 6D Media last year to produce the love short drama "Close to the Gemini"; SK-II became the title sponsor of Jiang Shiqi's short dramas "You Shine Brighter Than the Stars" and "Legal Beauty".

Only a few lucky people caught up with the first bite of the crab, and the speed of the track's internal circulation was so fast that even Hanshun had to run hard. But on the other hand, some industry insiders mentioned that Hanshun's founder Lv Yixiong said in his circle of friends, "The supply of short dramas has increased 20 times, the price has doubled, and the audience is measured, that is, the effect of short dramas has declined 40 times. All the brands that entered the short drama since August last year have been making leeks, and there is no successful case. After November 2023, Hanshun will basically stop making short dramas."

Behind these words, everyone is thinking again, how to judge the "short drama marketing" story created by the platform. When the marketing empowerment of short dramas shows a downward trend, is brand-customized short drama still a good business? Will the end result be to be cut off by leeks, or to become the next "Hansu", how sure are the brands? How should each platform open the link for "customized short dramas" to trigger the next sales miracle and thus consolidate its own service growth? How long can the story of brand-customized short dramas be told in the end?

1. Is Hanshu’s success all due to short dramas?

As the saying goes, small fire depends on support, big fire depends on luck.

While the industry was repeatedly pondering how Hanshun could surpass a number of star players such as Proya and L'Oreal, as early as the end of last year at the beauty industry conference, Lv Yixiong taught the outside world his own methodology, including betting heavily on Douyin, focusing on Hanshun, focusing on daily sales rather than big promotions, and avoiding competing products. He emphasized, "The reason why we succeeded on Douyin is because we found our own model."

Combined with the explosive time of Hansu's sales on Douyin, it coincides with the explosion of Douyin short dramas. From February to September 2023, Hansu and Jiang Shiqi cooperated to shoot 5 brand-customized short dramas such as "Dressing for Growth" and "Heartbeat More Than a Moment", and soft-implanted Hansu's "Red Waist" series of products in combination with the plot.

Hanshu Shangmei Shares 2023 Financial Report

Judging from the plot presentation, Jiang Shiqi plays the ideal self of most women: kind, capable, and independent, but she will fight back if bullied and speak directly when there are problems, completing the introduction, development, climax, and implantation with a compact plot.

The story often takes place in Hansu Company, with the heroine's growth and development, and she becomes the brand leader. Such a high frequency of exposure makes it easier to implant products and convey brand awareness to the audience, and the interspersed product introductions strengthen the sense of substitution. In terms of rhythm control, each brand short drama that Hansu and Jiang Shiqi cooperated on is almost 16 episodes. Each episode has an independent story theme, but the general context is still the growth of the heroine and the emotional line with the hero, which does not affect the viewing experience of a single video, and can also use the continuous emotional line to attract the audience to continue watching.

Including Jiang Shiqi, Hansu also created 22 serialized short dramas with 5 other female drama experts in 2023, bringing more than 7 billion exposures to the brand. The narrative perspectives are mainly based on life and workplace, and the types of cooperative experts are also concentrated in the fields of life, emotions, comedy, mother and baby, food, beauty, etc., penetrating multiple scenes such as workplace, gift giving, and parenting.

Whether sales are generated is related to whether the final GMV is achieved, and brand-customized short dramas are no exception. Under each Douyin short drama customized by Hansu, there is an associated product yellow cart, and users can directly jump to the product purchase interface when they click on it, completing the process from planting grass to consumption in one stop, converting consumers' favorability into visible sales.

Some of Hanshu’s customized short dramas in 2023 Source: BeautyNEXT

On the one hand, Hansu has accumulated a large number of interested people by relying on short dramas. On the other hand, Hansu has also increased the frequency of brand self-broadcasting and broadcasting on Douyin to meet the long-tail shopping needs of users. On Douyin, the number of authorized accounts of Hansu flagship store exceeds 30, which are segmented according to product efficacy and applicable groups, covering multiple dimensions such as oil control, washing and cleaning, and men's special. It not only targets different groups, but also uses different words and scenes to accurately operate the audience of the live broadcast room.

Big accounts with over one million fans, such as "Hansu Official Flagship Store" and "Hansu Skin Care Flagship Store", broadcast live 24 hours a day, with multiple groups of anchors taking turns to broadcast live. In April this year, "Hansu Official Flagship Store" ranked first among the beauty and skin care brands' self-broadcast accounts, higher than European and American brands such as Estee Lauder and L'Oreal.

To a certain extent, the short dramas did help Hansu find a source of traffic, but the core issue lies in Hansu's investment in the construction of the entire Douyin ecosystem. It combined the traffic direction of Douyin, identified the target group for the product, and began more refined operations targeting this platform trend.

Rather than saying that it was the short drama marketing that revitalized Hanshu, it would be more accurate to say that it was the determination and action that Hanshu took after choosing to "go all in on TikTok."

2. Who can copy the next "Hanshu short drama"

In addition to Hansu, brands such as Guyu, Marubi, and SK-II have also followed suit and customized short dramas, adding heat to the competition for short dramas in the beauty and cosmetics track.

During the Chinese New Year, Guyu launched two customized short dramas on Douyin, "Big New Year" and "Picking Up Gold·Fang Yu Yining". The former combines dramatic elements such as childhood sweethearts, divorce, and running away with the baby, starring Xu Mengjie and Li Chuan, with over 1 billion views; the latter is set in the workplace, and Guyu products are used as props to promote the development of the plot. MaruMei is also well versed in short drama marketing. In the customized short drama "The Double A Couple is Beautiful and Cool", the heroine is set as the daughter of the MaruMei Group, pretending to be stupid and "outsmarting" the hero, which ensures the fun of the plot while also subtly strengthening users' awareness of the brand.

Tik Tok screenshot

Overall, most of the customized skits for beauty brands are emotional in nature. Through a series of complete episodes, they closely connect brand concepts, product application scenarios, and product effects, implant brand information in all directions, and promote consumer purchase conversion. Compared with traditional advertisements, the plots of customized skits have more creative space and reduce consumers' resistance to hard advertising.

At the same time, brand-customized short dramas will conduct information data analysis in advance based on the target audience's age, gender, hobbies, shopping habits and other characteristics to produce content that is more in line with the target audience's tastes and needs.

The production cycle of short dramas is short, and the production team can optimize the plot in time based on user viewing, comments, likes and other data, so that subsequent works can better match the audience. In addition to beauty and skin care, catering brands such as Cha Baidao and KFC have also joined the battle. In August last year, Cha Baidao and Jiang Shiqi customized a 5-episode short drama "Love Has Hundreds of Freshness", implanting Cha Baidao products in scenes to achieve exposure of stores and products. 3C digital products are also one of the growth directions of brand-customized short dramas, and some drama accounts with a strong sense of technology have become the first choice for brands.

Cha Baidao, KFC customized short play

However, with the popularity of brand-customized skits, the phenomenon of content homogeneity has become increasingly serious. Many skits lack novelty in topic selection and plot settings, making it difficult for audiences to identify the advantages and differences of different brand skits. This is just like the insertion of product advertisements into TV dramas in the early years. At first glance, it seems fresh and interesting, but after a long time, it will be complained as "TV dramas inserted into advertisements", which reduces consumers' recognition and loyalty to the brand and even reduces the viewing rate of similar skits.

A short play writer told Yiyuguancha (ID: yiyuguancha) that with the 618 marketing preheating node approaching, a large number of brand-customized short plays will be launched, which is also a major competition point for the development of short plays so far. However, he also mentioned that copying the next Hanshu short play is a rare opportunity. "Short plays are like the earliest live e-commerce. For brands, only the first to try it out has a greater chance of success. User demand and time are limited. Short plays are equivalent to dividing the live broadcast time and reshaping it."

3. Customized short plays can also open up several layers of imagination

The strong demand for brand-customized short dramas is closely related to their publishing platforms.

The list of Douyin and Kuaishou's 2023 brand short dramas shows that among the 35 Kuaishou brand short dramas counted, Taobao and Tmall accounted for 8, and JD also accounted for 8, and the broadcast time was all during the big promotion period.

Among the 18 Douyin brand-customized short dramas counted, Hansu and Proya's beauty and skincare brands dominate the battle, and other maternal and child and lifestyle brands have also begun to increase their investment. In terms of brand content placement, Douyin and Kuaishou have different requirements for brands, and they do not reveal everything to the brands. For example, Douyin short dramas are divided into deep placement, soft placement, and no placement, while Kuaishou emphasizes more on the overall commercialization plan to the brand, and short drama marketing is only one part of it.

Kuaishou Star Short Drama

The eager demand for customized short dramas has also nurtured a group of MCNs to find a second growth curve. In addition to the top anchors such as Crazy Xiao Yangge and Simba mentioned above, there is Mi Meng, who is good at investing in paid traffic. Behind her is Silver Land, and Jiang Shiqi is a contracted talent under it. More drama MCNs are also transforming into this track. For example, Gu Mai Jiahe, which has created many tens of millions of drama accounts such as Bankrupt Sisters and Brothers and Soul Pawnshop, used its own drama short video content team to produce micro-short dramas in the early days.

In this way, the customized short dramas that brands and MCNs collaborate on are more like short videos that are the same in essence, but the forms and techniques of expression have changed. In essence, they are still the same production team process, the former director has been replaced by a screenwriter, and the series of videos are more focused on the beginning, development, transition and ending. In this context, becoming the next "Hanshu" seems to mean losing more room for imagination.

As for Douyin, Kuaishou, and even Taobao, when they begin to make in-depth plans to use customized short dramas to serve brand customers, on the one hand, how to connect with MCN and short drama producers to provide brands with customized books on "finding precise users"; on the other hand, how to set up more conversion paths in terms of content implantation, main creators bringing goods, shopping cart links, comment area entrances, technical assistance, and live broadcast room diversion so that the brand's products can be "instantly attracted" and immediately converted into "orders". These are all things that the platform needs to re-evaluate.

Customized short plays for each platform brand

In this era of traffic data that is both disturbing and sufficiently circle-based, the value of continuously breaking billions is the attitude that the platform gives to brands, but what brands need to see more is the conversion of crowd assets, especially for those platforms that promote short drama marketing. After all, the e-commerce link is your more important bargaining chip.

The potential of brand-customized short dramas is in urgent need of the next valuable "Hanshu" to be born as all parties become more and more inward-looking and homogenized, showing more possibilities to the market.

Author: Thick Code

WeChat public account: Yiyuguancha (ID: lanhaiyingxiao)