From short videos to short dramas, brand "heirs" are playing Internet "games"

This article analyzes how the "heirs" build personal brands and attract traffic on the Internet through short videos and short dramas, and explores the marketing strategies and social impact behind this phenomenon. Reading this article hopes to provide you with a new perspective on current Internet culture and brand building.

"While my father was addicted to fishing, my second uncle, who had returned from England, quickly seized power and exiled me to the Xinjiang branch..."

Recently, a self-made "short play" by a third-generation entrepreneur - "Towel Empire" became popular on Douyin.

After the second episode of the short drama was "broadcast", the Douyin account of this third-generation entrepreneur, @手工少爷, gained 59,000 followers in three days, and the cumulative number of views exceeded one million.

The plot of the young master "seizing the family property" in 1999 and the character of the "second male lead" who is a dark and handsome uncle have attracted many netizens, and they have joined in the "planning" of the next plot. Many netizens left messages saying: "We will work together inside and outside to plot a big plan. The first step is to help me design a plan to get close to your second uncle."

After seeing @手工少爷 become popular, the second and third generations who were also taking over followed suit and copied @手工少爷's scripts and filming techniques. As a result, there appeared the Liquor Master, Toy Master, Underwear Master, Tea Company Daughter... almost the same plot + character settings, the only difference is that none of these "latecomers" have a handsome second uncle.

With the explosion of skits, the successors who keep up with the times have changed from creating Internet personalities to creating cool characters, so as to "grab" more fragmented time of the public and thus receive more traffic. However, whether it is self-made skits or publishing daily life videos, the core is always inseparable from a few routine personalities. For example: "socially anxious boss", "gentle daughter", "funny male president", "successor of silly goose", etc. This universal formula can be summarized as: down-to-earth adjectives + their domineering president/daughter status.

So the question is, why do these "heirs" who have to go home to inherit the family business without working hard, risk showing off their talents and squeeze into the celebrity track?

1. Succession of traffic codes, from creating Internet personalities to creating cool characters

Among these heirs, the first to become popular was the second son of Holiland, Luo Cheng. "I was originally a second-generation rich man with social phobia. I surfed, went to bars, skied, played golf, and only played with people I liked. Yesterday was my birthday, and my dad gave me a company..." This was his first video copy. Although he did not reveal his identity as the "second generation" of Holiland, many netizens were still attracted by the second son's handsome appearance and the life of a domineering boss who was forced to take over, and many fans "went to the table" directly.

In order to highlight his social phobia, his video style is mostly about: working overtime until the end just to avoid taking the elevator with employees; seeing employees coming towards him, he is torn about whether to take the initiative to say hello, etc. According to Relang data, Luo Cheng gained 300,000 followers in less than two months after registering his account.

Image source: TikTok screenshot

After the video went viral, Luo Cheng's second-generation vest also dropped. So Luo Cheng began to build momentum for his own brand, Holiland. In addition to sharing his daily "dominant life" Vlog, he launched his own product review column and linked up with popular celebrities such as Piyou and Audrey Houben to co-create.

Image source: TikTok screenshot

So far, the cumulative number of views of his cake-related videos has exceeded 200 million. Among them, the most popular one is the content of the 10,000 yuan caviar cake designed by Luo Cheng for his neighbor. This video directly increased Luo Cheng's Douyin account by hundreds of thousands of fans. There are many similar videos. Under the dual effects of personality + content, Luo Cheng has become a top blogger with more than 3 million fans. According to calculations, Luo Cheng's cumulative number of fans on the four platforms of Xiaohongshu, Weibo, Kuaishou, and Bilibili also exceeds one million.

Luo Cheng has always been brave enough to try when it comes to building his personal IP. Under the craze for short dramas, videos with fast pace, big imagination and a sense of excitement have become the core elements of the current explosive content. In fact, in 2023, Luo Cheng tried to create related works. At the beginning, Luo Cheng's creative direction was mainly based on emotional fragments, and the characters were mainly himself, and the pictures were relatively simple. After that, he began to co-create stories with celebrities such as Daigula, Yan'er, and Jiafeihan. Not only did the pictures become richer, but the plot was also more complete. There were also lighting, scenery and other technical enhancements to the atmosphere of the video. It can be seen that Luo Cheng's team is still working very hard. According to Douyin data, the relevant videos have received a total of one million likes.

Image source: TikTok screenshot

Since the second son often cooperates with different celebrities, the founder of Holiland, Luo Hong, appeared in the comment area and asked his son eagerly: "Do you like this girl?" This directly increased the current video data. Luo Cheng also struck while the iron was hot and tried to shoot some short drama clips with hot themes, such as the time-travel theme "After time travel, I became an idle prince" and the campus sweet pet "True Love Lies" in cooperation with Audrey Houben. After seeing Luo Cheng's more and more short drama videos, fans left messages saying: "Sooner or later, he will invest in a movie and play the leading role himself."

The short play style of @手工少爷, who is now very popular, is mainly based on photos and daily casual shots, and is a series of stories centered around the theme of "fighting for family property". The copywriting also has the flavor of the early Jinjiang "rich family fight", and the general framework is: I am a second/third generation XX, my family has been doing business for generations, my grandfather has achieved success + my father has achieved success + my son has inherited my father's business, when an uninvited guest appears and I begin to awaken and take everything back...

Image source: TikTok screenshot

After seeing that this logic has attracted much attention from netizens, heirs with the same background have copied it one after another. As a result, there have appeared liquor masters, toy masters, underwear masters, and tea company daughters who have highly similar copywriting, music, and editing techniques.

However, they overlooked the most critical issue. That is the handsome male second character. The reason why @手工少爷’s videos went viral is not only because of his own succession experience full of twists and turns, but also because of his handsome and wealthy second uncle. This can be seen from the hot comments of his short drama "Marrying the Second Uncle" in each episode. Even in the interview, @手工少爷 said that he was very happy that everyone liked his second uncle, and that he was still "old and handsome" at the age of 32.

2. From short videos to short dramas, character setting is still the "universal formula" of the successors

Whether it is self-made skits or daily life videos, the core is always inseparable from a few routine character settings, which are used to create a down-to-earth contrast for the public and narrow the distance between themselves and fans. This universal formula can be summed up as: down-to-earth adjectives + domineering president/daughter.

In addition to Luo Cheng's "social phobia + boss" persona, Princess Ding Jiamin of Xtep has magnified her gentle personality + rich girl persona after her "marriage" with her childhood sweetheart, the young master of Septwolves. Earlier, Ding Jiamin's videos were generally centered around celebrities and fashion shows. After this "refreshing novel hero and heroine entering reality" marriage went viral, she began to share her daily life after marriage and her daily work with her CEO father. In her videos, there are occasional clips of showing off her love, which not only captured a large number of female fans, but also made Ding Jiamin's gentle girl persona closer to the public's life.

At present, Ding Jiamin's main positions are Douyin and Xiaohongshu. As of now, her Douyin account has 665,000 followers and her Xiaohongshu account has 181,000 followers. She used to run Weibo for a period of time in the early days, but after seeing the rise of emerging platforms, she stopped updating her Weibo at the end of 2022. Although she has registered on Bilibili and Kuaishou, the cumulative number of fans is only 2,000+.

The second son of Want Want Group, Cai Wangjia, became famous on Weibo by being a "funny man + boss". Cai Wangjia not only uses Weibo as a memo, but also suffers from the same "social animals" who work after the holiday syndrome, such as getting tired easily in meetings, crying in daily emo, and fantasizing about his retirement life. Therefore, netizens jokingly call him: a silly president who posts on Weibo as a circle of friends. Some fans even said that the second son of Want Want is most like a boss when he questions the official editor whether he can complete the KPI.

Zhang Zilong, the second generation of the spicy prince, who became popular at the end of last year, became popular with his "cool" character of a worker who concealed his family property and the heir of a billion-dollar fortune. In a co-creation video with the B station UP host "Xiangxiang Dazhan", Zhang Zilong, born in the 2000s, introduced that he had lived in a village before he was 8 years old, and his father had previously told him that his family was in debt. After graduation, because he couldn't find a job, his father let him join his own company, and it was at this time that he discovered that his father was the founder of the spicy prince with a billion-dollar fortune. After becoming popular, Zhang Zilong used the popularity to increase his Douyin account by 47,000 followers.

Image source: TikTok screenshot

It is worth mentioning that while @手工少爷 was going viral, a second-generation daughter of a tea company gained a wave of attention by using the same routine. Although her "The Return of the Tea Company Daughter" is almost identical to the plot of "The Towel Empire", "Tea Sweetie Succession Diary" still attracted the attention of netizens with her cute successor image of pink hair and "business is not as good as playing games". As a result, the number of fans of the @"Tea Sweetie Succession Diary" Douyin account began to rise sharply. In addition, at that time, @手工少爷 had just become popular, and the public was enjoying the melon, and there were even many fans looking for hidden second-generations on Douyin and other platforms. However, now that there are more people copying, netizens have already developed "aesthetic fatigue", and some netizens said: "Why are there rich second-generation scripts everywhere?"

3. Why do successors who are “not short of money” flock to become celebrities?

In addition to the heirs introduced above, there are currently many videos on platforms such as Xiaohongshu and Douyin with topics such as "Young lady's succession diary" and "President's internship diary". More and more second and third generations are beginning to actively access the Internet.

Obviously, in the current era of reducing costs and increasing efficiency, using social media to “win big with small” and become an Internet celebrity with their own traffic has become the “traffic code” for the second and third generations to do business.

Take Holiland’s second son Luo Cheng as an example. After he became popular with his socially phobic boss personality, he attracted a large number of advertisers to invest in him. The brands he cooperated with ranged from toothpaste to refrigerators. Most of his videos are presented in the form of a combination of advertisements and cakes, which promoted Holiland while advertising. Holiland has not had a spokesperson in recent years. Its marketing routine is mainly to enter different cultural circles through joint ventures with well-known IPs, so as to make consumer groups flow. For example, with mature big IPs such as Pokémon, Disney Princess, and Barbie, it is conceivable that the cost of the joint venture will naturally "rise with the tide."

Nowadays, as the second son Luo Cheng gradually turns himself into an IP through social media, his accounts on various platforms have become direct promotional platforms for Holiland, and he himself has become the wild spokesperson for Holiland.

In addition to incubating its own IP to promote and sell its own brand, the co-creation of content by young masters and rich ladies has also enabled the brand to achieve a communication effect of 1+1 greater than 2.

Previously, Luo Cheng, the second son of Holiland, linked up with Ding Jiamin, the princess of Xtep, to create the "Dream Cake". In the video, Ding Jiamin mentioned that she didn't have any cakes she particularly liked to eat, probably because there was no Holiland in Xiamen, which caused fans to unconsciously interact and discuss with the Holiland brand. Some fans said: "It's unreasonable that there is no Holiland in Xiamen", and some fans said: "I also want to eat it in Chengdu", "When will Guangzhou open", "Can Qingdao have it too". In addition, Ding Jiamin also designed an exclusive sweatshirt for Luo Cheng inspired by half-cooked cheese. Some fans praised the sweatshirt in the comment area and asked about the white coat Ding Jiamin was wearing. At present, the video has received more than 55,000 likes on the three platforms of Douyin, Xiaohongshu, and Kuaishou. Through the co-creation of content by the two, the brand linkage between Holiland and Xtep has been realized.

In addition, the second generation of celebrities can also directly help old brands to renovate. At a time when old brands are increasingly not in line with the aesthetic concepts of young people, the second generation of celebrities can promote communication between brands and young people and improve young people's perception of old brands.

Take Xtep Princess Ding Jiamin as an example. She joined Xtep at a time when the company was in transition. Ding Jiamin once publicly stated: "For a brand that has been established for more than 20 years, rejuvenation is an area that must be broken through." Therefore, in order to fill the gap in Xtep's female market and add a second growth curve for the company, the "Half Sugar Series" managed by Ding Jiamin came into being. In addition to showing it in her daily Vlog, she also personally shot a promotional TVC and signed Dilireba as the spokesperson. With the blessing of Ding Jiamin's own IP, the Half Sugar Series achieved profitability in the first quarter of its official sale.

In addition, creating celebrity IP can also give old brands the opportunity to face customers directly, that is, DTC (direct to consumer) marketing, that is, brands promote directly to consumers through their own channels such as social media, without relying on middlemen. Previously, Chuanhan Tang, a high-end catering brand located in Qingdao, was not open to the public until 2017. The brand's audience relied on the unique scenery of "Qingdao Xiaojiangnan" and was passed on by word of mouth by consumers, so the brand has never had any Internet foundation. After Yang Yaqi, the young owner of Chuanhan Tang, came back to take over, her first thing was to make Chuanhan Tang go out. Therefore, she started to build a personal IP.

Unlike the successors mentioned above, Yang Yaqi became popular through short videos interpreting traditional culture, such as the founder of Wing Chun is a woman, and the 25-year-old girl has a unique skill of bamboo drifting, which also echoes the new Chinese style of Chuanhan Hall. Yang Yaqi's videos are "quickly produced". According to her MCN company Hippo Holdings, they shot nearly 40 videos for Yang Yaqi in 2 hours, which means that an average of one video can be produced every 3 minutes, and the video with the highest number of views has exceeded 70 million. In addition, Yang Yaqi will often share her daily life and brand concept of succession. Currently, her Douyin account has more than 240,000 fans.

Image source: TikTok screenshot

In recent years, as the first generation of entrepreneurs gradually enters old age, the topic of "second generation succession" has repeatedly become a hot topic of public discussion. However, not every second generation is willing to take over. For example, @巾少爷 of Jieliya chose to take over his own business after his own business failed. In countries with relatively mature business environments such as Europe and the United States, many family businesses are managed by professional managers or family trusts, and do not emphasize the daily management rights of family members in the business, such as IKEA.

Previously, financial writer Wu Xiaobo shared a personal experience of his own. He was invited to a private dinner hosted by a friend. There were eight second-generation entrepreneurs at the table, but none of them worked in their family businesses. They either worked in financial institutions or started their own businesses.

This situation is more obvious among the second generation of factory workers. Most of their fathers relied on low-price internal circulation to open up sales. Therefore, actively or passively seeking transformation has become the main way for a number of small and medium-sized factories to survive. However, even their fathers seem to have not fully "solved" this path to transformation. The new generation of successors are often "appointed in times of crisis", so many second generation factory workers are unwilling to take over.

Since the beginning of this year, many second-generation factory owners’ notes have become popular on Xiaohongshu, attracting a lot of attention. For second-generation factory owners who want to inherit the factory, becoming a celebrity can not only create new sales for the factory, but also gain more voice.

For some "second generations" who are unwilling to take over, the traffic brought by social media can not only create new sales channels for their parents' businesses, but also realize transaction conversions for their own entrepreneurship, which can be said to kill two birds with one stone.

In the future, the IP stories of these successors will continue. I wonder who will be the next to break out of the circle?

Which "Heir" do you like? Feel free to leave a message to discuss.

Author: TopKlout

Source: WeChat public account "TopKlout (ID: TopKlout)"