Tencent, ByteDance, and Kuaishou are adding more investment. Who will lead the short drama race in the decisive year?

This year, the momentum of the short drama market continues to grow, and competition between platforms is gradually intensifying. This article explores the strategic deployment and future development of different platforms in short dramas.

With "I Was a Stepmother in the 1980s" and "Hot and Hot: Gorgeous Transformation" in the past, the short drama market has continued its explosive growth momentum since 2024, frequently occupying the hot search list, and almost sharing the same popularity with the Spring Festival movie during the Spring Festival, and the online discussion is not inferior at all. After the catalytic penetration of this year's Spring Festival, short dramas are expected to become not only an annual "electronic New Year's goods" in the future, but also a daily entertainment for all people to consume.

In the short drama market, although Douyin and Kuaishou are currently in the first echelon, it does not mean that other players have no chance to counterattack. At the beginning of the year, platforms such as WeChat and Yuewen began to make frequent moves and secretly increase their investment. Even Douyin, one of the "two giants", mobilized multiple business lines to attack at the same time .

Undoubtedly, 2024 will be the year when the short drama market structure is established. For all players, this year will be the last time window to "give it a try". However, for a short drama platform like Kuaishou that has certain first-mover advantages, it is far from the time to sit back and relax. Commercialization too early and too fast may be a "double-edged sword" for it.

01 WeChat launches a short drama zone, ByteDance launches multiple business lines

According to media reports, WeChat has quietly launched a special area for short dramas recently . If you search for keywords such as "short drama", a special area for short dramas will appear on the search results page, with multiple classification entries such as sweet pet, hot-blooded, fantasy, and sadomasochism. WeChat's move is equivalent to opening up an exclusive traffic entrance for short dramas, which is "late but here" compared to Douyin and Kuaishou .

Through the WeChat Index, we found that the popularity of short dramas in the WeChat ecosystem has increased by more than 5 times in the past year , and it has risen rapidly during the Spring Festival. The "Short Drama Zone" is undoubtedly to meet the increasingly strong content demand of users. It is worth noting that the content of the "Short Drama Zone" almost all comes from third-party short drama mini-programs, and the content quality is uneven. WeChat officials have no plans to produce or co-produce short dramas .

Compared with Douyin and Kuaishou , which actively create benchmarks for high-quality short dramas and launch various short drama support plans, WeChat has not personally invested in the content field, but is more willing to naturally take on the traffic dividend of the short drama market. As the high-quality short dramas become a general trend, major platforms have formed deep alliances with professional producers, and WeChat's "non-actionism" is becoming out of date.

Of course, Tencent has more than just the video account in the short drama track. Recently, Tencent Video, QQ Short Video, and Tencent Content Open Platform jointly launched a short drama recruitment plan, aiming to attract professional creators through traffic incentives, revenue incentives and other measures. China Literature Group's short drama platform "Miracle Short Drama" has also been registered with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and is currently in the internal testing stage.

This "divide and conquer" strategy stems from Tencent's organizational structure. It was because of it that it missed the opportunity in the short video era, and it is possible that it will repeat the same mistake this time. Originally, China Literature's IP reserves + Tencent Video's user base + the distribution channels of video accounts could form a highly coordinated short drama industry chain. However, it is difficult for us to see the possibility of them forming a synergy in the short term.

After last year's boutique strategy, Douyin continued to increase its investment in the short drama track this year, and several business lines have "bloomed in multiple places". The huge engine of the commercialization department of Douyin Group has launched the "Pao Pao Xin Xuan" short drama mini program on Douyin. Currently, there is only one short drama "The Choice of Ex's Love" on the platform. The short drama adopts an interactive gameplay. In the last episode, users need to choose the ending direction. Each choice corresponds to a new story ending. The short drama needs to be paid to watch, and the monthly membership price is 199 yuan.

Obviously, this is a "test field" for Douyin to carry out innovative short drama gameplay and explore business models. Last year's hit "It's Over! I'm Surrounded by Beauties!" showed us the huge potential of interactive entertainment, and Douyin is exploring the content possibilities of "interactive short dramas" and users' willingness to pay . In January this year, Douyin also launched the country's first virtual production short drama "Seven Two Life", unlocking the imagination space for science fiction and fantasy short dramas. With the launch of "Bubble Heart Selection", Douyin's ambition to achieve differentiated competition through form innovation has become obvious.

02 Kuaishou goes left, Douyin goes right

In addition, Pipixia, a subsidiary of ByteDance, recently launched an independent short drama APP "Pipixia Lite", which is free . This shows that ByteDance is unwilling to miss any opportunity to acquire short drama users. Given Pipixia's influence among post-90s and post-00s users, "Pipixia Lite" is expected to further expand its territory among young short drama audiences.

The huge momentum of this year's "Spring Festival short drama" is inseparable from the collective efforts of long and short video platforms such as Douyin, Kuaishou, iQiyi, and Tencent Video. The reason why major platforms have unanimously focused on the concept of "Spring Festival" is to cultivate more users' habit of consuming short dramas, and to grab more market share while expanding the pie.

In the competition of "Spring Festival short drama", each platform has its own characteristics, which can give us a glimpse of their respective content strategies. As a pair of leading players in the short drama market, Douyin and Kuaishou's Spring Festival content deserve to be put together.

First of all, Douyin and Kuaishou are in agreement in terms of leveraging the "star effect" . For the current short drama market, inviting stars to perform is a shortcut to trigger a breakout effect, spark nationwide discussion, and gain incremental users. The participation of stars not only makes it easy for the audience to feel familiar, but is also a necessity under the trend of micro-short dramas becoming high-quality. Douyin's Spring Festival hit "Big New Year" is starred by actress and singer Xu Mengjie. The feature film has been played more than 800 million times. The star's performance and hard work have driven this short drama to appear on multiple Weibo hot searches.

Compared with Douyin, the frequency of celebrities appearing in Kuaishou's Spring Festival short dramas is higher. Four out of the six Spring Festival short dramas are starred by celebrities . "I Open a Bar in Song Dynasty" allows the classic CP Wen Shichu and Shen Meizhuang to "renew their relationship", which immediately raised the topic level. "Super Office Worker" is the "double insurance" of the two stars Guo Xiaoting and Yin Zheng. The reason why Kuaishou relies more on the "star effect" than Douyin is due to the "hard demand" of commercialization . There are brand partners behind these works, and only with the help of celebrities can the topic level of the short drama rise .

Secondly, Douyin and Kuaishou have intentionally guided the short dramas to "go from virtual to real" during the Spring Festival. Not only are they closely based on realism in terms of subject matter and production, but they are also closely tied to social hot topics in the plot settings, thus resonating with the emotions of the audience and triggering cross-circle communication . The Douyin short drama "The Big New Year" aims to explore the contradiction between "New Year reunion" and "divorce of couples". Such a theme that reflects reality can be said to be tailor-made for the Spring Festival period. The three "derivative short dramas" "Surpass! Ajuan", "Disguised Game" and "My Way Home Has Wind" all focus on real-life issues. The Kuaishou short drama "Super Office Worker" is wrapped in a humorous sci-fi comedy coat, which is a reflection on the strange phenomena in the modern workplace. "I Open a Bar in the Song Dynasty", a modern-day ancient theme, is also interspersed with social topics such as workplace PUA and pig-killing plates.

The reason why Douyin and Kuaishou focus on realistic themes in the short dramas during the Spring Festival is, on the one hand, to compete for the traditional audiences of movie theaters and long video platforms and expand the basic user base of the short drama market. On the other hand, it is also to change the audience's stereotype that short dramas are bloody, clichéd, and frivolous . The reason why "I Was a Stepmother in the 1980s" was so popular during the Spring Festival is that it was a time-travel novel that was covered with the shell of a "period drama", changing the revenge of the rich that the audience had long been tired of to the counterattack of the rural daughter-in-law with full sense of substitution. The content trend of the Spring Festival indicates that realism will become the "main theme" played by short drama platforms this year.

Finally, the different preferences of Douyin and Kuaishou for IP derivatives are also intriguing. Among the eight short dramas with over 100 million views during the Spring Festival on Douyin, half of them are film and television derivatives and adapted dramas, including the derivative live-action short drama "Surpass! Ajuan" of "The Lion Boy", "Disguised Game" derived from the movie "All or Nothing", and "My Way Home Is Windy" derived from "Where the Wind Goes". The reason why Douyin favors "long and short linkage" is not only to quickly achieve the quality upgrade of short dramas with the help of traditional film and television companies such as Beijing Jingcai, Huace Film and Television, and Bad Monkey, but also to absorb the vast audience of popular films and television into the short drama market .

In contrast, there is no film and television IP derivative drama in Kuaishou's Spring Festival short dramas. From the list of Xingmang short dramas in the winter vacation, we found a "short drama IP derivative drama" - the sequel to "Protect Our City Lord" "Wake Up! City Lord". Since the 2022 Spring Festival, Kuaishou has been deliberately planning the serialization of the hit short drama IP. The reputation of the previous work and the performance of the original cast have made these serialized short dramas achieve good broadcast results.

If we think of Douyin’s previous official announcement of jointly developing the “9527 Theater” with Stephen Chow, we might be able to say this: Douyin is more inclined to introduce “fresh water from the outside” to the short drama ecosystem, while Kuaishou focuses on creating a self-circulating and self-feeding short drama content ecosystem .

03 How long can the first-mover advantage be maintained?

In addition to the content dimension, we can also look back at this year's Spring Festival short drama schedule from a commercial perspective - compared to Kuaishou's unremitting efforts in short drama marketing, Douyin appears to be more cautious and restrained .

Kuaishou’s three main works, “I Open a Bar in the Song Dynasty”, “Yuanyang Duan” and “Super Office Worker”, have all been exclusively sponsored by Tmall. The deep implantation of Tmall, Ant Forest and other elements in “I Open a Bar in the Song Dynasty” even made many viewers mistakenly believe that this is a "New Year's advertising film sponsored by Alibaba."

The reason why Kuaishou is more "aggressive" in commercialization is due to its "first-mover advantage" in the short drama track. As one of the earliest platforms to deploy short dramas, Kuaishou has played a role in promoting short dramas in the past few years, and testing the waters for commercialization is also a matter of course. So far, Kuaishou has explored brand cooperation methods such as scene package implantation, brand customization, and advanced screenings.

Kuaishou's "first-mover advantage" is reflected in the stable content supply. The platform has formed a stable consumer group for short dramas. In 2023, the average daily active users of Kuaishou's short dramas reached 270 million, a year-on-year increase of 3.8%. The number of heavy short drama users who watch more than 10 episodes a day reached 94 million, a year-on-year increase of 52.6%. Such a basic user base is undoubtedly an important reason for attracting brands to throw out olive branches.

For Kuaishou, short dramas also bear the heavy burden of boosting the sluggish advertising business. The third quarter financial report of 2023 shows that the growth rate of Kuaishou's advertising revenue has slowed down, with a month-on-month increase of only 2.4%. From attracting high-quality brands to promoting e-commerce conversion and integrating brand and effect, short dramas are being expected to "support half of the commercialization sky." However, this may become an "unbearable burden" for it, and excessive commercialization may erode its unstable "first-mover advantage."

Referring to the development trajectory of long video platforms, in recent years, iQiyi and Tencent Video have been in a state of decline and growth. A hit drama can make users switch camps, and no one can stay ahead once and for all . Not only that, user loyalty on short drama platforms may be even thinner, and users may get tired of the old and like the new more quickly. Although the accelerated evolution of short drama commercialization can form positive incentives for creators and promote a virtuous cycle of the content ecology, it may also interfere with content creation and sacrifice user experience. Platforms have to be cautious about this.

The explosive start of the Spring Festival season indicates that this year will be a year of fierce competition in the short drama market. Faced with waves of rapid offensives from latecomers, as the penetration rate of short dramas continues to increase, whether the first-tier Douyin and Kuaishou can continue to maintain their lead, and whether latecomers have a chance to break through, the Entertainment Value Officer will continue to pay attention .

Author: Xingye; Editor: Meiqi

Source: Entertainment Value Officer (ID: wenyujiazhiguan)