Investing over 10 million to make a short drama, what is the brand trying to achieve?

This article deeply explores the new trends and challenges of brand short drama marketing, and how to achieve high conversion and enhance brand value in short dramas. The article analyzes the key elements of brand short drama marketing from multiple perspectives, such as content logic, conversion gameplay, and brand adaptability, and solves the marketing dilemmas and challenges faced by brands. It is suitable for marketers and brand decision makers who are interested in brand marketing and short video fields.

"Many beauty brands followed Hanshun's lead and joined the short drama market, which increased the supply of short dramas by 20 times."

"Short plays have now become a necessary step in brand marketing, and many brands are worried about missing out on this trend."

“As more and more brands enter the market, what kind of short dramas do brands want in 2024?”

At the just-concluded 11th China Internet Audiovisual Conference, long and short video platforms such as Douyin, Kuaishou, Tencent, and Migu, various MCN agencies, and even traditional e-commerce platforms such as Taobao were discussing the ecology and commercialization of micro-short dramas, especially brand short drama marketing, which has become a core issue of concern in the industry.

"It is undeniable that short dramas are one of the most popular and widely used content forms at the moment," this sentence was repeatedly emphasized at the audio-visual conference. The 2024 China Online Audio-visual Research Report released a set of data, showing that 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.

Previously, Doujiao visited many brands and brand short drama operators and clearly felt that more and more brands are starting to invest in short dramas. "It's not just a single department. Now some brands' markets and e-commerce have short drama marketing needs, corresponding to different demands," the marketing director of an e-commerce company told us.

"Clients who previously only did performance advertising are now willing to try short dramas. Since last year, the customer structure of our marketing department has become more and more diverse, and the number of customers has also increased," YOYO, head of short drama commercialization at a certain platform, once mentioned to Doujiao.

Obviously, brand micro-short drama marketing has entered the explosive stage.

A large number of brands began to enter the short drama market, realizing the transformation from sales to brand audience through product placement, customization, and cooperation with extra episodes. At the same time, brands also began to explore new ways of playing, from the simplest and most direct link and blue word settings to slicing and diverting traffic, configuring plot numbers, and taking over live broadcast rooms.

However, as more and more brands start to adopt short drama marketing, the ROI that short drama marketing can bring has decreased to a certain extent.

"The supply of short dramas has increased 20 times, the price has doubled, but the audience is measured, that is, the effectiveness of short dramas has dropped 40 times. All the brands that have entered the short drama industry since August last year have been trying to make money, and there has not been a single successful case. After November 2023, Hansu will basically stop making short dramas," said Lv Yixiong, the founder of Hansu, in his circle of friends.

The decline in effectiveness is related to the evolution of the entire short drama ecosystem. Today, the types and quality of short dramas are rapidly improving. With more choices for users, the overall traffic of a single short drama is not as good as in the early days. At the same time, brands are lining up to make short dramas, and the customization costs are rising, which has also led to a significant decline in ROI. More importantly, for many brands, short drama marketing is still a new path, and the industry lacks effective and universal gameplay.

How can brands achieve high conversion? What kind of brands are suitable for short dramas? After visiting many operators, we summarized some effective ways to play in terms of effect conversion, brand awareness, and brand adaptability.

1. Accelerate cold start: How brands can achieve high conversion through short dramas

One of the core reasons why brands have entered the micro-short drama marketing is that short dramas can bring actual conversions to brands , especially as platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou are constantly shortening the conversion link from content to e-commerce. In this system, brands can clearly see the traffic and conversion data that short dramas bring to the live broadcast room.

"The traffic link is very clear, otherwise brands would not invest so much money in it," Li Yuqian, producer of the brand micro-short drama, told us.

It is understood that the short play "Pearl Project" customized for OSM by Li Yuqian and Douyin celebrity Damoshu has reached a total of 520 million views, bringing the brand nearly 1.8 billion comprehensive exposures across the entire network;

The "Flash Marriage with a Big Boss" launched by Chando is centered on short drama content, with interactive advertising, marketing account layout and blue word settings. In the end, the short drama viewers contributed 12% of the live broadcast room transaction population.

With short dramas such as "Big New Year", Guyu has helped the proportion of people actively searching for brands reach 35%, and the assets of private users and people with positive perceptions of brands have exceeded 300 million;

After three episodes of "Don't Mess with a Foxy Girlfriend", a collaboration with Clinique, the number of people reached through exposure increased by more than 110%. After the fifth episode was aired, the number of people interested in the brand increased by 20%.

"From the perspective of the complete chain of brand effectiveness and marketing, when a brand client invests in short drama marketing, it can add considerable value to subsequent purchases, conversions, repeat purchases, and the accumulation of long-term population assets," YOYO previously told us.

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.

At the same time, compared with traditional information flow advertising and influencer recommendation, short dramas have more advantages in conversion. On the one hand, short dramas bring more natural traffic and a larger audience base, so the exposure efficiency is higher, and they can bring new people to the brand. "Short dramas can attract people who like to watch short dramas. The influencer's videos are 80% of their own fans, 20% of external users, and very few new people."

In addition, short drama content has higher user stickiness. Users who are attracted by the plot content can watch the entire story. Therefore, during the drama time, the brand can be repeatedly implanted without affecting the broadcast.

Moreover, the user conversion brought by the short drama has a higher retention rate and greater consumption potential, because these users who are attracted by the plot are more likely to transfer their perception of the story to the brand and become potential consumers of the brand.

The above background also means that only by combining e-commerce conversion logic and content seeding links can brands achieve high ROI. Especially for brand e-commerce, in addition to simply attracting traffic, it can also achieve brand crowd accumulation, expand the original consumer crowd, etc., and accelerate the cold start of the e-commerce sector.

Specifically, brands can complete conversions through short drama association + slice diversion + plot number synchronization configuration .

In the skit, the simplest and most direct way is to use links and blue words to attract traffic to the live broadcast room. Brands such as Guyu, Chando, Pechoin, and Hanshu will pin jump links in the comment area of ​​the customized skit. At the same time, the live broadcast room promotes related products to achieve sales conversion. In fact, Hanshu also completes the conversion through the method of attracting traffic + live broadcast room + live broadcast room promotion.

Slicing and diversion is also a conversion method that must be configured for short dramas, that is, diversion through the relevant slices of the short drama content and shooting highlights. This requires that during the production of the short drama, a large number of materials of actors holding products should be shot simultaneously for slicing materials.

Unlike celebrity-led sales, short drama-led sales are mainly for traffic generation. “Currently, celebrity-led sales are more effective. Our approach is not for sales, but to attract natural traffic to the live broadcast room. Therefore, we will try our best to control the cost of slicing,” said Li Yuqian.

Synchronizing the configuration of theater accounts based on the content of short plays is also a very core path for brand transformation. Brands can launch relevant content on the plot account, including short plays, extras, and highlights, and even start live broadcasts of plots on the theater account, inviting the main creators to enter the live broadcast room, and directly manage the short play content with e-commerce.

When OSM launched the short drama "Pearl Project", it also launched the drama account @谁的天才女友. "When I cooperate with each brand, I will set up a theater account, because the theater account can make users emotionally invested in the brand, and all the brand's values ​​can be played and upgraded on the theater account to interact with everyone."

Moreover, platforms such as Kuaishou have launched a one-stop shop, which further shortens the distance between users and products, allowing users to seamlessly switch to the goods field after being attracted by the content. Therefore, establishing a drama account is equivalent to creating a content position for the brand at the same time, and turning drama users into potential consumers of the brand.

However, it should be noted that these methods must be combined to achieve the maximum conversion and realize the effect of 1+1>2. In fact, the reason why brands such as Hansu can achieve big success through short dramas is that they achieve it through the whole set of methods of short drama content + global promotion and drainage + e-commerce.

2. Return to content logic: How can brands enhance their value through short dramas?

High conversion and high ROI are the core perceptions of brand short dramas in the market. For this reason, short dramas have been classified as performance advertising for a long time, in order to pursue more intuitive and efficient conversion effects. However, unlike Internet advertising such as information flow, short dramas have a complete set of content logic and story core behind them, which has also become a form of brand advertising.

YOYO gave an example to Doujiao, "In 2021, short dramas will mainly serve effect-oriented customers. For example, during major promotions, Vipshop will use short drama marketing to drive conversions. Starting from 2022, brand customers will begin to enter the market."

More than one brand short drama operator mentioned to Doujiao that brand owners have also experienced a change in their perception of short dramas, a new content format. "When I mentioned short dramas to brands before, they often equated short dramas with simple and crude, direct content short dramas on mini programs, which inevitably led to a certain prejudice and believed that this format would lower the brand's tone."

With the accelerated iteration of content and the continuous increase in traffic and popularity, brands have begun to re-examine the marketing value of short dramas.

The advantages of short dramas with high stickiness and fast pace in brand advertising are becoming more and more obvious. On the one hand, short dramas have a tight plot rhythm, which can continuously attract users to watch, and brands can also use them to frequently promote their products and increase exposure.

Several MCNs explained to Doujiao the marketing logic behind it, "With one implantation point in each episode, and after repeated emphasis for several episodes, users will naturally remember the brand's core marketing point. Compared with influencers and live streaming, the efficiency of short dramas is obviously much higher." In just ten minutes, a brand can complete in-depth education of potential users and expand its deep user pool.

On the other hand, short dramas with short production cycles and flexible content provide a high degree of freedom for brand placement. In addition to emphasizing brand awareness, brands can also directly place specific products in short dramas, and even adjust and replace placed products in line with the brand's marketing rhythm to achieve efficient conversion.

The main product promoted by Hansu and Jiang Shiqi is a red waist gift box that emphasizes high cost performance. The Guyu customized short play "New Year's Day" repeatedly shows whitening cream, and implants detailed information such as efficacy and ingredients in the short play.

From the previous practice of combining long content with brand advertising, if the brand exposure is too frequent and blunt, it is easy to cause users to be disgusted. Some users have gradually shown their dissatisfaction with short drama advertisements. This signal suggests that brands should strengthen their content awareness and combine content with product attributes smoothly and naturally.

"The bigger the brand, the higher the requirements for the content of the short drama. They hope to effectively combine the brand tone with the content of the short drama and product exposure," Li Yuqian told us.

As a brand short play, its content, planning, plot and other settings must serve the brand concept and product characteristics. In "Pearl Project", the heroine is named after the "Zhen Baiyin" essence of OSM, and her work scene is also set in the Pearl Museum. Pearls are used as the connecting element of the plot. As the story develops smoothly and naturally, the brand's product characteristics become the clues of the plot development, which not only avoids "deliberateness" but also strengthens brand awareness.

The subject matter and plot setting of brand short dramas must naturally be consistent with the content preferences of target users. Brands with a relatively high proportion of female users, such as cosmetics and skin care, tea drinks, and snacks, mostly use romantic and sweet love stories and idol plots to arouse the attention and interest of female users.

"Sweet love" has become the unchanging background of Jiang Shiqi's series of brand short dramas, breaking down the core of "The domineering president falls in love with me" into countless scripts. For example, "Unfamiliar Lovers" is set up as a "contract love", and in "All About Love and You", the male protagonist is actually a wealthy young master with amnesia. It is precisely these dreamy settings and sweet plots that Jiang Shiqi's short dramas can capture female users aged 20 to 40 in one fell swoop.

In terms of content production, visual effects are also an important way to highlight the brand's tone. "Visual effects are the main way for users to feel the brand's tone. If the lens is advanced enough, users' awareness of the brand will also increase." Li Yuqian revealed that compared with the scenery, short plays should pay more attention to lighting effects . "Short plays have many close-ups and close-ups, but fewer large-scale shots." According to her, she also invited the industry's top lighting designers to help with the production of "Pearl Project".

It should also be emphasized that the "sense of pleasure" of brand skits is different from that of mini-program skits. For brands, the clichéd sense of pleasure created by extreme emotional pull will lower the brand's style. Brand skits emphasize cutting into the mainstream emotions of society and inspiring user resonance with more positive and simple values.

Taking the Xianyu customized short drama "Mrs. Fu is Cheating All the Time" as an example, the heroine's continuous rise in career caters to the currently popular female-lead literature and independent female thought, thereby bringing a "sense of satisfaction" to users.

3. Riding on the trend of micro-short dramas: Who can become the next Hansu?

"Everyone wants to be Hanshun, but unfortunately, it is difficult for another Hanshun to come up with a brand short drama."

Hansu became the "best spokesperson" for branded skits with its marketing data. For a time, various brands rushed into the skit market, trying to share a wave of dividends. However, after visiting many brands, Doujiao found that the marginal effect of branded skits was decreasing, and many brands did not get satisfactory returns after trying skits.

"Brands are lining up to make short dramas. Jiang Shiqi's cooperation has been booked until next year. The strong demand from brands has led to a significant increase in the cost of customizing short dramas." A brand revealed to Doujiao that based on the current market pricing, the price of customizing a 6-episode brand short drama with a Douyin influencer with tens of millions of fans is about 1 million. The customization fee for some brands is even close to 10 million, but some brands also said that this price has a trend of continued increase.

In addition to the cost, the marketing effect of branded short dramas is not optimistic. "The supply of branded short dramas is continuing to expand, but the growth rate of the short drama user pool is very slow. After a large number of brands' screening and education, users are gradually desensitized to the content form of branded short dramas."

In Li Yuqian's opinion, the marketing form of short dramas is indeed not suitable for all brands and has a certain entry threshold.

From the category perspective, beauty and 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. Beauty and skin care categories such as Hansu, Guyu, and Marubi are the main force of short drama marketing. In addition, clothing, beverages, snacks and other categories are also very suitable for short drama marketing. Fresh categories and product concepts can quickly capture the minds of users with the help of short dramas.

From the perspective of price, brands need to anchor user groups based on product prices and develop short-play marketing methods. Different circles of users have different sensitivities to product prices, so naturally different marketing strategies need to be adopted.

Specifically, settings such as background, occupation, and scene become important ways for brands to connect with target users.

On the one hand, affordable domestic cosmetics and skincare brands focus on life scenes, starting with common life topics in third- and fourth-tier cities, and on the other hand, they create a dreamy and romantic story core to meet the emotional needs of female users. In contrast, international brands with higher price ranges target urban white-collar workers with higher spending power in first- and second-tier cities, and their content topics and scene settings are very different. The short play "Witch, Please Open Your Eyes" co-produced by L'Oreal and Taobao sets the heroine as a calm and rational lawyer, focusing on the work scene and empathizing with independent women in first- and second-tier cities.

The cooperation between Kaada smart lock and the short play "Escape from the Nursing Home" proves that products with rigid demand, high price and low repurchase rate can also find a marketing entry point for short plays. "Escape from the Nursing Home" focuses on the lack of companionship for empty-nest elderly people and their family members' dislike for not understanding technology, which naturally stimulates user demand.

From the perspective of marketing events, new product launches and node marketing are both suitable backgrounds for short drama marketing. For products with low repurchase rates and high unit prices, short drama marketing combined with new product launches can effectively achieve customer acquisition needs.

During key stages such as new products, festivals, and promotional festivals, the cost of purchasing traffic is low, the demand for entertainment content consumption is high, and the platform's back-end sales conversion resources are more concentrated, which naturally becomes the outbreak point for short drama marketing.

During this year's Spring Festival, Kuaishou launched the Tmall-sponsored short drama "I Open a Bar in the Song Dynasty", and brands such as Hisense and Yanghe launched branded mini-theaters such as "Warm Winter Dumpling Restaurant" and "Tie a God of Wealth to Celebrate the New Year" on Taobao, demonstrating the popularity of node marketing.

In addition, to match the event background, the fixed live broadcast room scene can also be played with a variety of tricks, such as designing it to match the festival atmosphere and product features, highlighting important elements, and coordinating with the host's makeup and scene, thereby achieving greater conversion on the data end.

From the perspective of brand scale, the brand gross profit must be controlled at least above 60% to have enough confidence in short drama marketing. After all, for brands, the investment cost of short dramas cannot be underestimated. In addition to the production cost, there are also subsequent investment costs. If you want to achieve conversion in the end, the brand's investment is much higher than the current market estimate.

Following live streaming and promotional effects, the emergence of short dramas has provided a new path for brand marketing. On the one hand, under the hot momentum of short drama marketing, brands need to break through the traffic bubble and focus on brand tone and user needs; on the other hand, with the rapid growth of short dramas, there is less and less time for brands to hesitate. Brands need to truly cultivate their internal strength, start with gameplay and strategy, and take advantage of the situation.

Author: Douya, Bukong

Source: chopped pepper spicy (ID: ylwanjia)