The short drama that has attracted 500 million people is the new traffic code for brands

This article delves into how the short drama market has become a new front for brand marketing, reveals the marketing value behind short dramas and the growing trend of brand-customized short dramas, and guides readers to understand the commercial potential of this emerging field. I hope it will be helpful to you.

Short dramas have a new player. On April 16, the Three Sheep Network officially opened the "Three Sheep Theater" account, and Brother Yang also decided to share the short drama pie. The short dramas are simple and refreshing, and they are born to be popular, so it is not surprising that more and more people are joining the game. After the first year of popularity, in addition to the quantifiable revenue sharing and traffic revenue, the marketing value behind the short drama battlefield has also been seen by more and more brands.

In less than a year, brand marketing has evolved from implanting brands or products into short drama plots to directly customizing brand-titled short dramas, which is seamless from product promotion to product promotion, greatly shortening the conversion link, thus attracting a large number of brands to rush in. At the same time, short drama masters such as "Jiang Shiqi", "Fangyang Xinxin", and "Witch Yueye" have also taken advantage of the trend to focus on the customized short drama track, broadening the commercial realization space.

In 2023, the box office revenue of short dramas nationwide will reach 50% of the annual revenue of national cinema films, that is, 25 billion to 30 billion yuan. This year, the short drama market, which continues to attract large companies and capital, will continue to serve as a new front for brand content marketing, using "top" to exchange for growth.

1. Once the short play is released, it will bring you a fortune

"Laughing at you won't make me better. I can only be a little princess if I rely on my parents. If I want to be a queen, I have to rely on myself. If you have time to compete with me, you might as well study the product." After a cool and sassy speech by the heroine, a close-up of Huaxizi's products followed. This is a scene from the short drama "Shining Sister" promoted by the Douyin short drama area, and it is also a common product placement method used by many short dramas. "Crossing Mountains and Mountains to Love You", which ranks first on the Douyin short drama list, has now updated eight episodes and has received a total of 363 million views.

In this drama, the Pechoin Frame Color Lightening Cream gift box is used everywhere. Whether it is the gift that the male protagonist brings when he first meets the female protagonist or the gift that the female protagonist prepares for American customers, they are all this gift box. Episode 6 is the episode with the highest number of likes. The female protagonist also uses this product before returning as the heir. With the line "There will be so many people at the inheritance ceremony tomorrow. I have to apply this Pechoin Frame Color Lightening Cream thickly to quickly lighten the lines and show my best condition tomorrow." It is not difficult to see that this short play is a customized short play of Pechoin, focusing on the product promotion effect.

There are more and more brand-customized short dramas. There are many similar short dramas, and the brands involved range from beauty and snacks to daily chemicals and Internet companies. The "2023 China Internet Audiovisual Development Research Report" shows that 1 billion people in China watch short videos, and more than half of them have watched short dramas.

Compared with the product placement or interstitial ads in traditional TV series, brand-customized short dramas are more acceptable. "The rhythm of short videos is very fast, and the excitement is very dense. Even if there are a few seconds of ads in the middle, it doesn't really affect the viewing experience." 35-year-old Qiu Li has become a fan of short dramas since last year. In her own words, after watching too many short dramas, she can no longer watch normal-length TV series. "There are many product placements in TV series, movies, and variety shows, and they often take dozens of seconds to read. The speed of short dramas is much faster. The most important thing is that many short dramas are themselves tacky and awkward, so when product placements appear, they don't seem as abrupt as in TV series."

In Qiu Li's opinion, when the sensory stimulation brought by the short drama is large enough, the impact of advertising placement becomes negligible. Moreover, the audience of short dramas and the audience of short videos have a high degree of overlap. The latter have long been accustomed to the presence of advertising placement in short video content through long-term use. From the perspective of communication form, poster-type advertisements rely on vision, article-type advertisements rely on vision and reading, and short video advertisements rely on vision, reading and hearing, which can bring a more immersive experience. Therefore, the tolerance of short drama advertising placement is naturally higher .

2. Brands show up collectively: face recognition, marketing, and conversion

After several years of exploration, paid short dramas have entered a period of explosive growth. According to Datawin data, a total of 705 new short dramas were released in the first three quarters of 2023, an increase of 55.3% compared to the 454 new dramas released in 2022. Many viewers also found that film and television stars such as Liu Yun, Xu Mengjie, and Yang Rong have appeared in short dramas, and the economic benefits and influence that short dramas can generate are still continuing to expand. For brands, the traffic and influence generated by short dramas in the market are the best marketing effects. Customized short dramas can not only play a role in publicity and promotion, but also rely on the e-commerce systems of Douyin and Kuaishou to promote rapid transformation of brands and unlock new ways of brand marketing.

According to incomplete statistics from Zinc Scale, the brands that will launch customized short dramas on Douyin and Kuaishou in 2023 include Internet companies such as Taobao, JD.com, Tmall, Meituan, and Quark, as well as consumer goods companies such as Marubi, Sprite, PROYA, Hanshu, Cha Baidao, C Cafe, and Heilan Home. In terms of results, according to Kuaishou's Q3 financial report, the commercial customized short drama "Beauty Comes True" launched in the summer brought 1.09 billion exposures to the title sponsor Tmall International, and also drove Kuaishou's online marketing service revenue of 14.69 billion yuan in the third quarter, a year-on-year increase of 26.7%.

At the same time, according to Douyin's 2023 beauty sales data, among the top ten beauty brands, Hanshu topped the Douyin beauty sales ranking with a GMV (gross merchandise volume) of 3.34 billion yuan, nearly 1 billion yuan more than the second-place L'Oreal. In 2022, Hanshu was still outside the top 20 of the list. The reason for this was that Hanshu cooperated with MCN agencies to launch a series of customized short dramas and created a hit product.

However, in addition to some well-known brands and companies that "showed their faces" in the short drama, some brands that are not well known to the audience have also made a breakthrough with the power of the short drama . For example, Dafeixin, a hair loss prevention and hair growth brand under the listed pharmaceutical company Shandong Zhendong Anxin Biopharmaceutical Co., Ltd., cooperated deeply with the "bankrupt siblings" in the short drama "Let Love Start from the Beginning", which exceeded 900 million views and achieved a leap in brand awareness.

Zinc Scale interviewed Colin, a brand owner who has launched customized short dramas many times. She talked about the reasons why brands choose to launch short dramas and the common methods: "Short dramas have a tight plot rhythm, which can continuously attract users to watch. Brands can also use this to frequently promote their presence and increase exposure. Generally, the proportion of implanted content in a short drama is one implantation point per episode, depending on the content and type of the short drama. After repeatedly emphasizing it for several episodes, users will naturally remember the core marketing points of the brand. In addition to emphasizing brand awareness, directly implanting specific products in the short drama, adjusting and replacing the implanted products in line with the brand's marketing rhythm can also achieve conversion."

According to a set of data summarized in the "2024 China Internet Audiovisual Research Report", the proportion of users who frequently watch short dramas has exceeded that of variety shows, reaching 39.9%, second only to long video series and movies. This means that the short drama market in 2024 will still be an important topic in the marketing plans of major brands.

3. Multiple parties work together to dig for gold, and everyone wants a piece of the pie

With a wide audience coverage and high brand participation, short video platforms are naturally making continuous efforts to shorten the conversion link from content to e-commerce and expand the more conversion forms that short dramas can generate. Entertainment Capital Theory reported that the short drama "Pearl Project" customized for Oshiman by Li Yuqian and Douyin expert Damoshu has a total broadcast volume of 520 million, bringing the brand nearly 1.8 billion comprehensive exposure on the entire network; "Flash Marriage with a Big Boss in the Circle" launched by Chando is centered on short drama content, coupled with interactive advertising, marketing account layout and fermentation, and blue word settings. In the end, the short drama viewers contributed 12% of the live broadcast room transaction crowd; Guyu also relied on short dramas such as "New Year's Day" to make the proportion of people who actively search for brands reach 35%, and the assets of private domain users and people who have a positive perception of the brand exceeded 300 million...

From the perspective of the platform's specific empowerment, the opening of Douyin mini-program access and the construction of the Douyin mini-program short drama ecosystem have boosted the growth of the number of industry customers and the average daily consumption amount; Kuaishou has launched the integration of accounts and stores, further shortening the distance between users and products, allowing users to seamlessly enter the goods market for purchase after being attracted by the content.

Colin further told Zinc Scale: "Short drama delivery is a way for brands to achieve the transformation from sales to brand audience through implantation, customization, and cooperative extra episodes. At the same time, from the simplest and most direct hanging links and small blue word settings, a combination of gameplay such as slicing drainage, plot number configuration, and live broadcast room acceptance has been derived."

She believes that from the perspective of the complete link of brand effect and sales, when brands launch short drama marketing, they can provide data feedback for subsequent purchases, conversions, repeat purchases, and the accumulation of long-term population assets. In addition to clear links, the short drama platform can also find the population preferences, behavioral characteristics, content preferences, transaction preferences, purchasing power and other portraits behind these content carriers. Brands can improve conversion efficiency based on these data.

Looking to the future, Colin said that more and more brands will start to invest in short dramas. "Not just a single department, but now some brands' markets and e-commerce will have short drama marketing needs, corresponding to different demands." From the category point of view, beauty, skin care, daily chemicals and other categories with high repurchase rates and wider users have shown a high degree of fit with short drama marketing.

In addition, clothing, beverages, snacks and other categories are also very suitable for skit marketing. Fresh categories and product concepts can quickly capture the minds of users with the help of skits. From a price perspective, brands need to anchor user groups based on product prices and develop skit marketing methods. Users in different circles have different sensitivities to product prices, so naturally different marketing strategies are needed. Specifically, the multiple backgrounds, occupations, scenes and other settings of skits have become an important way for brands to connect with target users.

In general, the content competition and traffic competition in the short drama market will also spawn a series of business methods. As content themes continue to expand, the professional level of participants continues to improve, and relevant departments carry out effective supervision, the joint efforts of all parties will also be able to make the pie bigger .

Author: Xing Wan, Chen Dengxin, Annalee

WeChat public account: Zinc Scale (ID: znkedu)