Taobao, Meituan, Pinduoduo... What's the purpose of making short dramas on Internet platforms?

As competition among Internet platforms intensifies, short dramas are rapidly emerging as a new marketing method. With their high CPM and fascinating narrative techniques, short dramas have not only attracted the attention of many brands, but also prompted major Internet platforms to make layouts. This article will deeply analyze the new growth brought by short dramas to Internet platforms.

After the marketing value of short dramas was confirmed in the practices of many brands, various Internet platforms were not to be outdone and have embarked on the path of short dramas.

"Compared with other forms of advertising, the CPM of short dramas can be less than 10 yuan," more than one MCN manager revealed to us.

Doujiao disassembled the short drama strategies of many Internet platforms and found at least three different genres:

The first type is the "investment promotion group", a typical example being Taobao . Last year, Taobao had already begun trying to "short dramas to bring goods", and leading brands such as La Mer, Haier, and Samsung have all started cooperating with Taobao short dramas. When brands discovered that the ROI of Taobao short dramas was higher than other forms of Taobao advertising, the short drama product naturally gained continuous recognition from brands.

"We can get full investment of up to nearly 1 million yuan for each production", the real money investment shows Taobao's determination to make short dramas. The resources in the site also prove the importance of short dramas in the site. In the "Browse" section, there is now a separate "Theater" section.

The second type is the "operation faction", such as Meituan and Pinduoduo, which take the route of reaching the C-end . At present, these platforms have launched a batch of free short drama content to increase user stay time and even increase new users. Of course, in this model, the quality of the content is different from the short dramas on the platform for brands.

However, these platforms are not completely unrelated to product promotion and marketing. When users of Pinduoduo short dramas watch free content, a product promotion video will pop up every 7 to 9 episodes. Meituan uses short dramas to conduct event marketing inside and outside the drama.

The third type is the "marketing faction", such as Xianyu and Qunar. They are more of a brand side, using customized short dramas to spread the advantages and characteristics of the platform. Xianyu launched a platform-made short drama "Mrs. Fu is cheating all the way", which tells the story of the heroine cheating all the way by cheating on her ex-boyfriend's baby, picking up wool and leaking coupons. The short drama "The Curse of the Missy's Counterattack" launched by Qunar cleverly incorporates "price comparison" to highlight the characteristics of the platform.

Although short drama marketing has become a new trend, as a large number of brand owners have poured into short drama marketing, the ROI has also dropped significantly.

So what kind of new growth can short dramas bring to Internet platforms?

1. Taobao: Its determination and ambition in short dramas are greater than expected

"The Little Thing Called Marriage" focuses on family ethics such as widow-like parenting, nanny-like wife, and mother-like mate selection;

"The Temperature of Growth", in which the heroine refuses to be a brother-supporting demon and tries to escape from her original family;

"If the Post-00s Become Mothers", which targets the pain points of current parent-child relationships;

There is also "Let Me Get Addicted" which says "After I won the lottery, the whole world started to love me"...

Taobao has been launching short dramas on the site since last year. Not only are the themes diverse, covering popular topics such as family, workplace, and love, but the formats are also rich. There are also dramas with time-travel backgrounds, such as time-travel to game live broadcasts, time-travel to novels written by oneself, and so on.

Doujiao learned that the short dramas on Taobao are mainly divided into the following categories:

One is short dramas that are purely content-oriented , such as "My Office Lover", "Boxing Dad", and "Evolution of Appearance". Last year, Taobao further enhanced the strategic position of content-oriented content. Compared with GMV, user time has become a more core goal. As the most popular content form with the greatest development potential, short dramas are an opportunity that cannot be missed by any platform that wants to go the content-oriented route.

"We started working with Taobao last year, mainly on a platform-customized drama, where the platform provides the budget and we serve as the producer," Li Hongliang, head of Kuaiyu MCN, told us. "The platform will evaluate the investment based on the script, account attributes, number of fans, and influence, so there will be prices ranging from high to low."

The other category is short dramas produced in collaboration with brands , such as "Love in the Heartbeat" customized by Samsung, "Marriage Diary" produced in collaboration with Haier, and "My Beauty Diary" produced in collaboration with La Mer. The advantages of exposure and conversion make short dramas a major trend in current brand marketing, and also make brand-customized short dramas a new market that major e-commerce platforms are competing for.

Although it is still a newcomer in the short drama track, backed by strong brand resources and mindset, Taobao Short Drama’s current brand customers are not only diverse in categories, but also have attracted a number of high-end brands with high unit prices.

Moreover, compared with new e-commerce platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou, which have started with content, Taobao, as a latecomer in the short drama industry, has invested heavily. It is understood that Taobao currently cooperates with brands in the form of mutual investment, and also matches them with in-site resource positions, traffic support, etc.

"'Love in the Flutter' is a model where the platform and we each invest half, and short dramas are also what we want to continue to do. From the perspective of broadcast and conversion, short dramas are indeed much better than other brand content with the same investment," Wang Dingxin, marketing director of Pengtai Baozun E-Commerce Co., Ltd. told us. A comparison of the overall users of "Love in the Flutter" with brand stores found that 90% of them are new customers, which has a significant effect in attracting customers.

In addition, as a brand, Taobao also launched self-made short dramas on the site to amplify the influence of its own marketing IP. "Amazing Stories" is a suspense short drama created by Tmall Double 11 and the Mao Pian team. It revolves around 7 products and leads to 7 suspense stories with constant twists and turns and compact plots.

Continuing the brand's tone and high-quality content direction, Taobao's short drama ecosystem is still mainly based on high-quality short dramas and positive stories, which is significantly different from short dramas that focus on C-end payment . "The content is mainly controlled by the producers and brands, and it also meets Taobao's review requirements from the platform perspective," said Wang Pei, copyright marketing director of Capacity Short Drama.

Judging from Taobao’s current investment and layout in short dramas, short dramas are obviously not only a way to extend the length of content, but also an important means to connect the site’s e-commerce business and brand content marketing.

This year, in addition to user time, GMV has also returned to the strategic focus of Taobao and Tmall. It is understood that Taobao's budget for short dramas this year is also more inclined towards brand short dramas.

However, the linkage between Taobao short dramas and e-commerce is relatively simple at present, mainly involving methods such as hanging product links on the brand-customized short drama playback page, identifying products on the screen with one click, and short drama actors entering the brand live broadcast room .

"In order to better leverage the marketing value of short dramas, we will also provide live broadcast promotion and marketing services for brands. Considering that the actors themselves have limited ability to sell goods through live broadcasts, brands can use their own anchors and invite the leading actors to actively interact in the live broadcast room, and continue to increase brand attention by chatting about the plot, products, brand stories, etc.," said Wang Pei.

In fact, from the perspective of the supply chain, Taobao has not yet formed a complete difference from other platforms, and the gameplay is relatively simple, but from the perspective of bringing goods, Taobao short dramas have unique ecological advantages.

On the one hand, there is the advantage of brand resources. Currently, many brand skits on the site are completed by Taobao and MCN. And judging from the current cooperation situation, first-tier brands that are more cautious about skits have a strong trust in Taobao. Brands such as La Mer, Samsung, and SkinCeuticals have all launched skit content on Taobao.

"Different industries and categories have different perceptions of short dramas, and the choice of platforms will also have different focuses. For example, some brands will choose Taobao, because Taobao itself is an e-commerce platform, and the subsequent marketing integration will be deeper," Wang Pei said frankly.

"Tmall's backend tracking of content and analysis of content data is still better than other platforms," ​​said Wang Dingxin. "Short dramas are indeed what we want to do next, and we are also discussing new cooperation with Taobao."

On the other hand, there is the user mindset advantage. Compared with content platforms, Taobao users’ strong shopping desire is an important background for brand short dramas to be effective. Wang Pei told us, “In fact, people who go to Taobao already have a shopping mindset. If we use short dramas as a form of content marketing to reach users, conversion will be easier.”

In addition, there is the conversion path advantage. On Taobao, branded short dramas can directly display product links in the lower left corner, while other platforms require clicking on the comment area or keywords to jump. "The conversion efficiency of directly displaying it to users is definitely higher than that of users finding it inadvertently. There is still a difference."

Obviously, Taobao's determination and ambition in short dramas are greater than imagined. The core reason is that driven by the strategy of "Taobao content e-commerce", multiple content forms including short dramas, short videos, and live broadcasts have become new anchor points for Taobao to gain growth.

2. By launching free content in batches, can short dramas bring in user traffic?

Different from the logic of e-commerce platforms that are clearly aimed at bringing goods, Internet platforms such as Meituan and Pinduoduo are deploying short dramas more to increase user activity and alleviate anxiety about traffic and user growth.

Recently, Meituan, Pinduoduo and other platforms have launched a large number of short dramas. Pinduoduo mainly launched short dramas with a single episode of 1 to 2 minutes and a total of 80 to 100 episodes, that is, mainly mini-program short dramas, such as "One Child and Two Babies: My Mommy Can't Be Provoked" and "Mr. Fu, the Love Sin, Please Let Go";

Meituan has launched content with each episode lasting less than 3 minutes and a total of 20 to 30 episodes, which overlaps with the characteristics of short dramas on short video platforms, such as "Fated to Fall in Love with You", "This Heroine is Not Easy to Mess with", and "I'm the Favorite in the Entertainment Industry".

In fact, the current short dramas are either paid by the C-end or customized by brand cooperation, and both have clear profit paths. However, the short dramas launched on Pinduoduo and Meituan are mainly free to watch, which further shows that the core appeal of the platform layout of short dramas is user time and traffic.

The reason behind this is not difficult to understand. In terms of increasing user activity, short dramas are one of the most popular content at present. A large number of free short dramas can indeed attract users, especially since Pinduoduo users have a high degree of overlap with short drama users. Although it is a platform with strong tool attributes, after experiencing the rise of e-commerce and local service businesses on content platforms, these platforms have to start laying out content to grab user attention.

From the perspective of user growth, a major feature of short dramas is that they have activated user traffic in third- and fourth-tier cities and below. Therefore, using free short drama content can help the platform reach lower-tier users and achieve new user growth.

In line with the above demands, Meituan Short Dramas also simultaneously configured the gameplay of "swiping content to get gold coins". While watching the drama, the system will constantly remind users that "gold coins have arrived", attracting users to continue watching in the way of "watching dramas - earning coins - withdrawing cash".

Different from the platform’s path of customizing high-quality short dramas, the platform that launches a batch of free short dramas mainly attracts short drama agencies to authorize them. “Many of Pinduoduo’s short dramas are second-run dramas,” a short drama supplier told us. Another MCN agency manager also said that they have been cooperating with Pinduoduo platform to authorize short dramas.

Pinduoduo has also previously released a corresponding short drama support strategy, giving cash rewards to short drama organizations based on the average effective playback volume and playback volume per thousand episodes. Relevant information shows that the short drama "The Rich Lady's Counterattack" has been played more than 90 million times on Pinduoduo, with revenue exceeding 100,000 yuan.

Of course, the layout of short dramas on these platforms is not completely separated from their original business.

Although Pinduoduo does not directly use short dramas to promote products, when users are watching a drama for free, the system will automatically pop up a promotional video every 7 to 9 episodes. The pop-up video is also accurately pushed based on the user’s recent consumption habits. If the user does not want to watch it, he can just swipe away and continue watching the drama.

Meituan used the form of "dominant CEO" short plays to attract traffic and topic discussions before and after the marketing nodes, and completed an event marketing through the combined live broadcast room of the domineering CEOs . On the eve of the God Coupon Festival, Meituan released a preview, which brought together three short play stories: "Su's 18th Lover", "Xiaomei Zhao, Please Go Home", and "Dai's Love Pursuit Plan". On April 18, the three domineering CEOs appeared in the live broadcast room to guide the audience to understand the products and place orders on the spot.

However, the short dramas currently broadcast for free on Meituan have no associated products or store links.

The short dramas of Pinduoduo and Meituan are simpler and more crude, and the content costs are also lower. But the problem also exists. These free short dramas are weakly related to the original business, making it difficult to achieve big results with small efforts in conversion.

3. When doing short dramas for marketing, have you thought about the Internet platform?

But for most Internet platforms, it is not cost-effective to choose to open a short drama section with great fanfare and invest a lot of cash and resources in making short dramas. Therefore, many platforms currently mainly use short dramas as a marketing tool from the perspective of brand building.

In this context, the core appeal of Internet platforms in making short dramas is to strengthen brand awareness, platform characteristics, and customer acquisition.

"Because in addition to exposure and CPM, brands can also search back to see whether the users reached by this short drama are consistent with the brand's consumers, such as the proportion of user genders, user age groups, etc.," Wang Pei told us. "Now many brands are willing to try this. This year, the categories of brands doing short drama marketing are obviously much richer than last year. The projects we are discussing this year include platforms, kitchenware, home furnishings and other brands."

Li Hongliang also said that last year there were more beauty and skin care customers, but this year many 3C digital products and platforms have also started to do short drama marketing.

Not long ago, Xianyu APP launched its own short drama "Mrs. Fu is Cheating All the Time" on the site, and Qunar Travel launched the short drama "The Curse of the Eldest Lady's Counterattack" in conjunction with the May Day holiday.

When a platform invests in short dramas as a brand, the key is whether the selling point is cleverly implanted and whether the plot can attract users . "Mrs. Fu's Full-Time Cheating" tells the story of a scumbag heroine who restarts her life by cheating on her ex-boyfriend, finding a part-time job as a college student, and making friends with the rich second-generation "Little Brother" through a series of operations, using the "Xianyu Turnaround System" to cheat all the way and achieve her life goal of making 2 billion yuan and become a heroine.

In the absurd yet addictive plot, users gradually learn more about the uses of Xianyu, such as finding part-time jobs, running errands, etc.

"The Curse of the Eldest Lady" sets "price comparison" as a unique skill. Faced with the family curse of "you will die if you buy too expensively", the heroine works hard to practice "price comparison skills" and finally succeeds in taking revenge on the bully housekeeper who framed her grandfather.

In fact, price comparison is also a major insight into the current consumer trends. The drama cleverly used this psychological motivation to set up the plot, and finally successfully landed on the brand concept of Qunar Travel APP to provide consumers with low-cost services.

Of course, the advantage of the platform in short drama marketing compared to other brands is that it can be delivered within the site to accurately reach platform users, and it can also plan themes within the site through linked plots to attract user participation.

Xianyu APP has created a separate playback page for the short drama, and also launched the activity of "Play a good turnaround with the creators of the cool drama". Combined with the character of the protagonist, it has opened up four sections: "It's important to make money when you are sober", "Rich second generation come in to pick up bargains", "School has started! Develop skills to start a side job", and "International students return to China to use their idle time".

However, the model of only being able to be released within the site has also, to a certain extent, restricted its ability to break out of the circle and expand its customer base. Although Qunar.com has launched its own short dramas, it only publishes content through its official account and does not have more interactive gameplay.

In fact, the marketing methods of short dramas have evolved from the short dramas themselves to many other methods such as domineering marketing and anti-routine structured dramas.

Previously, "Wang Ma" @七颗猩猩"challenged" the classic plot of the domineering boss drama, played with memes, and became the audience's mouth from the perspective of the supporting NPC, which not only brought fun to netizens, but also became a popular content favored by brand owners. Huawei, Hansu, Veet and other brands have joined in, becoming part of the deconstruction of the domineering boss drama. Qunar Travel APP also cooperated with @七颗猩猩 on the content of "Rebirth: I am a nanny in the domineering boss short drama".

Later, Tencent Video's "Easy Drama Festival" started playing with the "domineering president" meme. Li Chuan and Zhang Weiwei's sketch "Please See a Doctor, President" perfectly presented the "domineering president" mode. The meme burst out as soon as they opened their mouths, "Why did you betray me, bronchus", "You dared to get inflamed without my permission, you crossed the line"... When the classic domineering president's quotes overlap with reality, the dramatic tension is full.

However, from a brand perspective, short drama marketing cannot rely solely on front-end content, but also needs to be combined with marketing methods and conversion links to be undertaken by the back end . "Short dramas themselves do not actually have conversion functions, but they can bring potential consumers to the brand. At the same time, the brand needs to combine marketing actions, e-commerce live broadcasts, etc. to form a closed loop," Li Hongliang told us.

When short dramas evolved from the favor of brand owners to the strategic choice of major Internet companies, this indeed proved that short dramas have strong commercial value. However, like any marketing method, short dramas are not a panacea. It is still unknown who can successfully stage his own "cool drama" and become a true "boss" in the short drama track.

Author: Bean sprout

WeChat public account spicy (ID: ylwanjia)