Short dramas "broke up" with online novels and married with Internet platforms?

This article deeply analyzes the latest trends in the short drama market, explores how Internet giants attract and retain users through short drama content, and the impact of this strategy on the short drama industry and content creators. It is recommended for readers who are interested in new media marketing, film and television industry, and Internet content strategy.

Interactive topic: What do you think about the layout of short dramas on various platforms?

According to statistics from Hengdian Group News and other sources, the number of vertical screen crews in Hengdian has recently dropped to about 30 per week, while in August and September last year, there were nearly 60 crews stationed in Hengdian per week to prepare vertical screen short dramas. Like the short dramas with twists and turns, the short drama market is also changing rapidly, and in the blink of an eye, the short drama business has begun to "cool down".

As the pace of short dramas becoming high-quality accelerated, and filing and supervision were strengthened, the industry began to return to rationality. Some people left the market, while others became stronger. On April 24, the first high-quality short drama "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf" produced by 9527 Theater, a collaboration between Stephen Chow and Douyin, was completed in Chengdu. Traditional film and television companies and listed companies are dividing up the short drama market, and small and medium-sized companies and those guerrilla production companies have to find other ways. At the same time, capital is rushing in.

Taobao hosted a "Taohao Short Drama" press conference and announced a series of short drama support plans. Meituan's Shenquan Festival brought together three short drama male gods, Zhao Yiqin, Dai Gaozheng and Su Chihe, to increase traffic for the brand... Short dramas still have huge potential. When the film and television industry is constantly rolling out production, "short drama +" seems to have become another blue ocean in the short drama market. So, what signals does the Internet giants' mighty entry into the short drama market bring to the short drama market?

1. Fine products in the left hand and innovation in the right hand

From turning online articles into videos to developing one's own creative ideas, the road to producing high-quality short dramas through mini-programs is divided into two steps.

The first is to take advantage of the momentum of traditional film and television, seize hot spots, and create blockbusters.

After "Hot and Hot: Gorgeous Transformation" won the first place on the daily list by taking advantage of the popularity of the Spring Festival movie "Hot and Hot", "Hot and Hot: The Rise of the Fool", "Hot and Hot: 80 Little Hot Wife", "Hot and Hot Wedding" and other "hot" short dramas have emerged one after another. Recently, short dramas derived from variety shows such as "Sister Riding the Wind and Waves" and "Brother Overcoming Thorns" have been on the DataEye list, and even the stories are exactly the same. Both dramas tell the story of a young lady who conceals her identity but is deceived by her successful husband, and then meets her true love and slaps the scumbag man and woman in the face. "With the Phoenix: God of War Mom Doesn't Pretend" has the same name as the popular drama "With the Phoenix", and has also received a lot of attention. It creatively combines the female-frequency family theme with the male-frequency God of War elements to bring freshness to the short drama. The play tells the story of the Xuan Kingdom War Phoenix who retired after success and sold barbecue to raise his daughter, but was disliked by his daughter, and then returned to Xuan Kingdom wearing armor to save the people.

No matter how the subject matter changes, the plot logic of the short play is always to cut off the beginning and the end, and only highlight it. Playing the pig to eat the tiger, slapping the face at the speed of light, refreshing, fast, and turning become the DNA engraved in the short play. Such typified and patterned creation makes the short play closer to traditional film and television dramas, and gradually get rid of the label of "video-based online literature".

The frequent integration of men and women, the enhancement of the depth of content and ideological value, and the improvement of the shooting and production standards of short dramas are the second step for short dramas to "break up" with online literature and move towards high-quality production.

The mini-program short dramas that are derived from online literature can be divided into male-oriented dramas and female-oriented dramas by type. Recently, the concepts of war gods and family heads in male-oriented dramas are being introduced into female-oriented dramas with greater audience potential. In addition to "The God of War Mom Stops Pretending" produced by Meiguang Shengshi, there are also "Hidden Dragon and Phoenix" produced by Meiya, "The Return of the Supreme Beauty" produced by Mai Ya, etc. This type of subject matter creatively creates a series of heroine images who dare to love and hate, fully satisfying the emotions of women watching dramas.

Different from the logic of winning only by emotions in the past, these short plays began to show positive values ​​and cultural connotations. While emphasizing personal pursuits and values, they also showed the brilliance of human nature and patriotism. "Ten Years of Hard Study" focuses on scientific research themes, magnifying the friendship between the male protagonist and his teacher and the spirit of adhering to scientific research ideals and dedicating oneself to scientific research. In the popular "Your Majesty, I Am a Loyal Minister", the male protagonist traveled to Daxia and applied modern technology to ancient military wars, assisting the empress in punishing evil and eliminating evil, allowing the short play to show the complexity of human nature and scientific wisdom under the narrative of court struggles. From the production point of view, "Your Majesty, I Am a Loyal Minister" is also quite particular about scene composition and costume props.

However, despite the initial success of the refinement, the overall market of recharge for mini-program short dramas is declining. It is reported that the recharge consumption of vertical screen short dramas has dropped from an average of 60 million yuan per day to 50 million yuan. Some short drama practitioners said that the myth of making money does not exist at all. 70% of the recharge amount of short dramas is the cost of investing in the platform, while the producers can only get 7%-10%. More and more short drama practitioners are withdrawing and refocusing their attention on long dramas.

The homogeneity of content, high investment and streaming costs, shorter and shorter shooting cycles, and the participation of traditional film and television companies have made practitioners of mini-program short dramas increasingly anxious. Short dramas are no longer the secret to wealth, and behind the few hits are the failures of thousands of short dramas.

However, the commercial value of short dramas is still worth exploring. When the internal growth rate of an industry slows down, it is also a good time for it to expand outward. There are always people saying that vertical screen short dramas are sinking, but there are always more sinking content appearing and causing a sensation. The video blogger "Seven Orangutans"'s "Rebirth: I am a Nanny in Short Dramas" has soared on various platforms and was once on the hot search. His short video uses the plot arrangement and shooting techniques of short dramas to completely revitalize the plot number. In the video of "Seven Orangutans", the glamorous protagonists in the short dramas are still performing their brilliant lives, and Wang Ma is willing to be an NPC, showing the lives of ordinary people in front of users in various exaggerated and playful forms, and severely grasping the emotional value of the audience.

Short dramas have made drama accounts popular, and short drama marketing has become a new way for brands and platforms to compete for users. After beauty brands such as Hansu and Proya used short dramas to convey brand selling points and open up marketing links, various platforms such as Qunar, DingTalk, Meituan, and Taobao have begun to explore short drama marketing. From brands to platforms to Internet giants, short drama marketing has been tried and tested. So, what is the value of short dramas that are not online literature types, and what is the purpose of these platforms entering the short drama market?

2. The fate of the Internet to survive, the fate of short dramas to break through

Cost reduction and efficiency improvement in the Internet industry is not new. Previously, Feishu made large-scale layoffs, and Alibaba sold Ele.me openly or secretly, which showed that Internet giants were cutting non-core businesses and refocusing on core businesses. In this context, short dramas have become their new traffic pool, and the purpose is also obvious, which is to grab users and retain them .

Earlier, Alibaba Chairman Joseph Tsai mentioned in an interview, "The first thing we did was to admit our mistakes: we may not have paid attention to user experience in the past." Pinduoduo's market value surpassing Alibaba has sounded the alarm for Alibaba - the real customers of enterprises are not merchants, but users. In order to retain users, Taobao chose short plays among many ways.

At the 11th China Internet Audiovisual Conference, Taobao hosted a "Zheli Haokan·Taobao Hao Short Drama" press conference and released the 2024 short drama support policy, providing traffic and cash subsidies to brands, online and offline influencers, and experts. Cheng Daofang, general manager of Taobao Group's content e-commerce division, said: "In 2024, Taobao's content and e-commerce will change from addition to multiplication, releasing a new round of content e-commerce dividends."

Taobao is making a big move, focusing on both users and brands. We can see that there is a "Short Drama" section under the "Shopping" channel, and its content is mainly short dramas produced and broadcasted exclusively by Taobao and short dramas customized by brands, which are generally 2-3 minutes per episode, with about 20 episodes. Self-made boutique short dramas use themes such as family and emotions to increase the retention time of the market segment, while brand-customized short dramas provide brands with voice, popularity and mental connection.

Meituan and Pinduoduo are in the trial stage, mainly using free short dramas and "platform payments" to enhance user stickiness, and this layout is more like a passive competition.

According to Haitong International data, Douyin's local life GTV (gross transaction volume) will be close to 200 billion yuan in 2023, nearly one-third of Meituan's GTV. Facing Douyin's confrontation, Meituan, the leader of local life, is anxious and fights back. As early as 2023, Meituan has increased its marketing expenditure, especially launching a variety of content display forms such as pictures, videos, and live broadcasts. It is not surprising that Meituan combined short dramas with live broadcasts to mobilize user emotions during this year's God Coupon Festival.

Pinduoduo's path to content e-commerce has not been smooth. Even though it once invited NBA star Marbury, it could not escape the fate of only selling 160 items through live streaming. Now, the users of short dramas and Pinduoduo are highly overlapped, so Pinduoduo will naturally not miss this opportunity to break through.

Compared with Taobao's boutique strategy, Meituan and Pinduoduo are more keen on harvesting free traffic. The short drama content of both platforms is free, generally a second-round distribution of mini-program short dramas or an old short drama of about 20 episodes, and the content and production are more down-to-earth. Their strategy is to attract users to consume by "platform payment", such as when watching Meituan short dramas, there will be pop-up windows for cash withdrawal from time to time.

Regardless of the short drama layout strategy, the entry of major platforms points to the same pain point, that is, users have a high usage rate on such platforms, but stay for a short time. Judging from the short dramas currently released by the platform, whether in terms of quantity, update frequency or channel operation, they are not enough to compete with content platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou.

The content channel is not prominently located in the APP. On Taobao, users need to click "Browse" or "Theater" to see the short drama content. The path from the APP to the short drama channel is deep, which will inevitably hinder the user reach of the short drama content. On Meituan, the voice red envelope reminders that appear from time to time when watching short dramas not only prevent users from immersing themselves in the plot of the short drama, but also invisibly put pressure on users' consumption decisions, which will cause counterproductive effects. The short drama market is changing rapidly, and the era of extensive content and delivery is over. Internet companies such as Taobao and Meituan have to rely on short dramas to attract and retain customers. They not only need to strictly control the content of the short dramas and produce differentiated content that is consistent with the platform's tone, but also need to carry out refined operation and promotion of the short drama content, which means more manpower, management and other expenses.

More importantly, with Internet companies cutting non-core businesses on the one hand and trying new businesses on the other, and facing content anxiety of being out of the game if they don’t get in, it remains to be seen whether the decision to enter the short drama market is a determined one .

However, when a whale dies, everything comes to life. Paying attention to user experience has always been the most fundamental starting point for all companies. Now all platforms are improving their content systems to better serve users, and the general direction remains unchanged. This has given the short drama industry a shot in the arm, after all, short dramas are the content that is closest to users and can most resonate with emotions.

3. Conclusion

Recently, WeChat launched the WeChat official account short drama CPS promotion function, which allows short dramas to be inserted into official account articles for promotion. Tencent has once again sent out friendly signals to short dramas. It seems that this "marriage" between the Internet and short dramas is unstoppable. However, the Internet is trying its best to survive, and the transformation of micro short dramas is imminent. At this critical juncture, both parties need to keep a cool head and find a consensus between the two. We call for a variety of high-quality short dramas, and we also call for more Internet products that serve users.

Author: Yao He; Source public account: Media No. 1 (ID: 1093893)