How many brands have been made popular by the spillover effect of "Fanhua"?

"Fanhua" has become the well-deserved hit of 2024. Many brands and businesses have carried out brand marketing by taking advantage of this wave of topics. How big is the spillover effect of "Fanhua"? How many brands have been popularized?

"Fang Hua" has become a well-deserved hit at the beginning of 2024. After 6 years of preparation and 3 years of shooting, Wong Kar-wai's first TV series "coming down to earth" has all the eye-catching elements. The long production period, the excellent cast, the support of the producer and the broadcasting platform Tencent Video, and various top configurations ensure the quality of the work.

Although the frequent use of adaptations of the original work and flashback editing techniques has caused some controversy, it is not difficult to draw a conclusion from the hot searches on Weibo, media discussions, and the hawking of the same products in popular shopping streets: "Fang Hua" is a hit. Few TV series can arouse such high popularity and the audience's enthusiasm to "check in for the same products."

Against the modern backdrop of Shanghai, with neon signs, clinking glasses and other commercial elements as the basis, the exquisite portrayal of Shanghai-style items, coupled with the movie-like light and shadow texture, brings the audience into a nostalgic mood of changing times, arousing strong group resonance.

Audiences visit old street scenes, hoping to connect with the plot in time and space; check in the same products, hoping to have more interactions with the characters in the play. These scenes and objects break through the limitations of physical space and become the carriers of public emotions.

The brands embedded in the drama have the deepest understanding of this point and have keenly captured this trend. They may be the first brands to get massive exposure in 2024. Even after the broadcast of "Flowers", some brands continue to add investment, hoping to catch up with this traffic luxury car and release the brand effect.

They couldn’t imagine how great the loss would be if they missed the new year’s hit “Fanhua”.

1. The aftereffect is a bit strong

After the show was launched on CCTV, the ratings quickly exceeded 2, with over 4,100 hot searches on the entire network, more than 200,000 viewers giving it a Douban score of 8.5, nearly 3,000 related hot searches on Weibo, and 10.3 billion readings of related topics... Many data show that this winter, the most popular TV series is none other than "Fang Hua".

"Fang Hua" is not just a film or TV work that allows people to briefly return to the exquisite retro Shanghai of the 1990s. It also promotes the "Shanghai accent" to become a more lasting cultural phenomenon: say "Nonghao" when meeting, eat "pork ribs and rice cakes" when discussing business, go to "Yellow River Road" for City Walk, and remember to "be quiet" when dealing with people.

What is even rarer is that the staying power of "Fang Hua" has led to widespread discussion of the brands in the era of the play. They have accompanied a generation of people in their growth and also evoked the warmth in people's memories.

The Guangming brand ice brick that Factory Manager Fan scooped up with a spoon is a summer vacation memory for those born in the 1980s. Xiaohongshu netizen @卿爱书 wrote, "When I was a child, my father gave me this Guangming brand ice brick as a welfare during the high temperature in the state-owned factory. It was wrapped in blue paper. My father always wrapped it in a towel and brought it home. He couldn't bear to eat it himself, so he saved it for me. The whole summer vacation was full of expectations on this ice brick."

Minmin, the foreman of Zhizhen Garden, held up a gold-tube lipstick and showed off to her sisters, "Mine is from Estee Lauder." This triggered a collective archaeology among beauty bloggers - what lipsticks and facial creams Shanghai fashionistas used in the 1990s became a hot topic on social media.

During the drinking and toasting on Yellow River Road, Remy Martin, Moutai, Johnnie Walker, Wuliangye, and Shaoxing rice wine were also listed one by one by careful netizens. "The story takes place in 1993, and the drink on the table is Remy Martin Xiaohua XO from the 1990s. I like the director's meticulous attention to detail."

When Po puts on an Armani haute couture suit, he becomes Mr. Bao. In the play, the uncle's eyes are filled with tears, as if he saw his younger self; outside the play, the dressing philosophy of "wearing a suit should let the person wear the suit, not the suit wearing the person" has also made "tailor-made suits" popular.

No wonder some viewers commented that "the popularity of "Fang Hua" was gradually increased by the audience. It has a long tail effect and has spread to all aspects."

The product placement in the drama continues to ferment offline.

As an important filming location in the drama, the Peace Hotel not only set up a check-in point for "Flowering", but also launched a co-branded customized meal for two. According to data from Meituan and Dianping, the search volume for the keyword "Moss Holy Garden" increased by 13 times month-on-month; among them, the online transaction volume of the Huanghe Road store increased by 170% month-on-month.

In the past, even for popular dramas, the basic broadcast data would be almost stable after the plot was halfway through. However, after the end of "Flowers", the data continued to rise, which shows that many viewers began to "watch it twice" or even "watch it N times". This also led many brands to continue to invest in "Flowers" after it was broadcast, including Tmall, Pechoin, Wanglaoji, Oppein, etc.

When "Fang Hua" was first broadcast, there were 9 advertisements in each episode; by the 16th episode, there were more than 11 advertisements in a single episode. By the end of the show, "Fang Hua" had more than 40 cooperative brands.

According to Douban user @来看月, there are 286 advertisements in the opening, ending and interstitial parts of the 30 episodes of "Flourishing Flowers", and nearly 40 brands have placed advertisements, not including all official sponsors. The brands personally thanked by the official account of "Flourishing Flowers" include: PepsiCo China, Macro, Estee Lauder, Montagut, Armani, Prada, Remy Martin, Ferrero, and Bright Dairy.

2. Continuation of the Spillover Effect

There are so many advertisements in each episode of "Fang Hua", but the audience has gone against their usual practice and said "I love watching it", and even started to quote the advertisements in the show. Perhaps the audience is not unable to accept advertisements, but they cannot accept abrupt and incongruous content.

Modern business elements, coupled with the background of changing times, turn the plot setting into a natural advertising space. Director Wong Kar-wai believes that this drama "is about eating, drinking, men and women on the surface, but it is about mountains, rivers, time and changing times inside."

The props and scenes were implanted to the greatest extent possible, respecting the urban style of Shanghai in the 1990s, and were integrated into the plot, rather than being inexplicably dropped in. For example, whether it was the milk delivery truck with "Guangming Milk" written on it shuttling through the alleys, or the wooden Guangming milk boxes at the door of every household, they were the real life of many Shanghainese people for decades.

The lines and plot placements are often closely linked to the development of the plot, revealing the current state of mind of the characters or foreshadowing the future development of the plot. Wong Kar-wai is best at this kind of "realistic details": an object can be a portrayal of a mood or a token of a relationship.

The most impressive scene is Episode 12, when Miss Wang hears people talking about the relationship between Li Li and Mr. Bao. She is jealous and restless, and keeps stirring the Pepsi bottle with a straw. Frequent close-ups and bubbles surging in the picture not only tell the mood swings of the characters in the play, but also use details to drive the story forward. Through the mouth of the store owner, she said, "Huanghe Road is like a soda bottle. If you don't open it, it won't make a sound. But as long as you pick it up and pry it gently, it will spray out immediately. The bottle is open and can't be closed tightly."

The New Year gift that Mr. Bao gave to Miss Wang, Bausch and Lomb contact lenses, are the key item for Miss Wang's identity transformation. Her image change after taking off her glasses indicates that she has shed her early "timidity" and grown into an independent professional woman. The Meituan takeaway advertisement is placed at the end of the film in the form of "flower headlines", and the scenery is so restored that people mistake it for an Easter egg in the series. The tobacco shop owner in the play is also consistent with the character in the film. He sells information through casual conversation and then suddenly broadcasts the Meituan takeaway advertisement. Although "cheated", it also makes people sigh, "Even the end-of-film advertisement is so beautiful."

In addition, the audience needs an object of empathy. Checking in, using the same items in the drama, and further sharing on social platforms, immersing in the "plot" is the norm for young people to chase dramas. Meituan has also made corresponding undertakings outside the drama, launching special events in Shanghai, allowing the audience to taste the Shanghai dishes in the drama at the same time.

Many viewers followed the route of "Fang Hua" and started City Walk, from the Bund Road to Xian Road, hoping to intersect with the plot in time and space; the same delicacies in the drama, such as pork ribs and rice cakes, dry fried beef noodles, hot lamb, and Xinghualou pastries, have also become new check-in spots; Miss Wang and Li Li's outfits and jewelry have also been imitated by fashion bloggers, and retro style has become popular again.

Tencent Video knows what the audience thinks and wants, and further connects the drama with the outside world to enhance the user's sense of immersion. On January 9, on the eve of the finale, Tencent Video invited more than 100 fans to participate in the "Flower" Open Day event, interact with the creators offline, and play the finale in the theater in advance. At the event site, various classic scenes from the drama, such as Zhizhen Garden, Night Tokyo, Tobacco and Paper Shop, Jinxian Road, and the Bund, were built for fans to check in.

Open Day is a festival brand specially designed for Tencent Video members. It was launched in May last year and held on the 9th of every month. This kind of small offline event seems difficult to scale and has a low input-output ratio, but it can best bring members closer to the platform: the platform is no longer an icon on a mobile phone or computer screen, but a tangible and warm activity venue.

Brands are well aware of this and take this opportunity to "get along" with users. At the Open Day of "Flower", we can also see brands such as Chunzhen, Vipshop, Remy Martin, and Meituan.

3. The correct way to take advantage of the "Goose Drama"

At this point in the market when confidence is more needed than ever before, "Fanghua" shows us that well-made and truly valuable dramas can not only win user reputation, but also create mutual benefit and win-win situations with brands.

This type of drama has two characteristics: they become the focus of the audience's attention for a period of time, making the efficiency of centralized communication possible; they can also trigger strong emotional resonance, like pebbles stirring up ripples on the water, promoting wider dissemination of the drama.

Over the past year, Tencent Video's methodology has been continuously verified.

From "The Three-Body Problem", "The Long Season", "Longing" to "Fang Hua" at the beginning of 2023, the influence of high-quality dramas has not only contributed innovative content to users, but also helped create new value for brands.

Well-known marketer Yang Buhuai once told a story about a snack brand that did not hire endorsements or produce its own advertisements. It only did one thing in marketing: product placement in various TV series and movies. "As long as there are scenes where young people appear, their snack products will be placed in them. There is no need to explain the lines separately, just as props for exposure." Through such subtle and silent product placement, after doing it for several years, the sales of the snack brand increased rapidly.

If it is implanted into a hit TV series like "Fanhua", this process will be greatly accelerated.

People often have an "empathy effect" on popular film and television IPs, making it easier for them to build awareness and goodwill towards the brand. More importantly, this binding chain relationship will not be easily diluted.

Nowadays, all kinds of brands emphasize "integration of brand and effect" in their marketing. The era of barbaric advertising with large-scale flooding is gone forever. Tencent Video's ability to produce high-quality content has enabled the placement and title of TV dramas to move from simple brand advertising to integration of brand and effect.

Although "Fang Hua" took six years to develop, the sponsoring brands have never lacked a sense of "security". Multiple third-party data platforms show that in 2023, in terms of the overall performance of new dramas, "Goose Drama" almost became the biggest winner.

Statistics from Guduo Data show that the content of "Geely Drama" is high-quality: among the dramas with an average popularity of more than 75+, Tencent Video tops the list with 22 works. Data from Endata shows that the quality is also diverse enough: in the broadcast index of major types of dramas, the first place comes from Tencent Video.

In addition to content capabilities, based on Tencent's ecological capabilities, Tencent Video can undertake brands' one-stop marketing demands from topics, product promotion, and product sales, and continue to innovate in marketing methods.

For example, Fan Tiantian, who plays Lu Meilin, the proprietress of Jin Meilin Restaurant in the drama, visited the Shanghai Sharpshooter live broadcast room and started the Weibo topic "Fan Tiantian invites you to eat at Meituan Waimai and watch the drama", which successfully helped Meituan Waimai to attract public domain users, and the sales of the main dishes such as fried beef noodles increased by 200% month-on-month.

On the first day of the new year in 2024, Tencent Video released posters for upcoming major dramas, including "Longing for You Season 2", "In the Snow", "A Flowing River 3", "Rose Story" and other top film and television drama IPs. The launch of these sequels is not only a continuation of the success of the previous works, but also a careful layout of Tencent Video in the construction of the content ecosystem, hoping to form a positive business cycle between the platform, brand, and content IP.

In this cycle, the vitality of the IP is extended, the brand gains more exposure and user favorability, and Tencent Video obtains the commercial value that long video platforms most desire.

Author: Shi Shengyuan; Editor: Zhai Wenting

Source public account: Xinmei daybreak (ID: new-daybreak), understand people and discover changes.