Short video marketing enters an era of disorder

Short video marketing seems to have become one of the necessary means of promoting movies, but can the rigid dance and routine content really impress the audience and make the movie get better box office? This article conducts in-depth thinking on the movie short video marketing that has gradually reached a deadlock.

Throughout the year, I have seen countless awkward dances in road shows. Those actors with stiff limbs and dull expressions not only embarrassed themselves, but also embarrassed the audience's eyes. Fortunately, where there are demons dancing in disorder, there is always a way to set things right. At the end of 2023, the "lone hero" in the entertainment industry finally appeared - Zhang Yi, who directly rejected a certain audience's request to dance "Subject Three" at the "Third Squadron" road show.

Zhang Yi's refusal caused a great deal of controversy. It turns out that many people have been suffering from "Subject 3" for a long time . The problem is not that "Subject 3" is too rustic, but that it is abused in all occasions, which makes people deeply troubled.

"Subject Three" was first created for use in wedding scenes, so it is self-evidently a comedy. But if you know a little bit about the plot of "The Third Squadron", you will know that this is a movie about the difficulty of the people's police chasing criminals. How can such a serious plot be paired with "Subject Three"?

Unfortunately, there are only a few actors who dare to be so tough. If someone is not experienced enough, he might be disliked for being "unskilled in business", so this kind of inappropriate movie marketing is common. To some extent, Zhang Yi's refusal can be regarded as a voice for the industry, a rebellion and reorganization of the short video marketing template.

Movie roadshows have long been distorted by short videos, and I feel deeply about this. The audience has lost the opportunity to communicate deeply with the creators, and the opportunity to ask questions is controlled by various "conspicuous" Internet celebrities who have been arranged in advance. They perform awkward hot topics and dances everywhere, which have nothing to do with the movie, and they don't care about the movie at all.

Originally, the role of movie marketing was not only to publicize a movie, but also to accurately predict the content to manage audience expectations. However, after entering the era of short videos, movie promotion often ignores the latter. Short video hot topics are abused in various occasions. Short video marketing has gone too far in the direction of traffic being king, and ultimately deviated from the movie content itself.

As a result, audiences often feel that they have been "tricked" into going to the cinema. This is because the "movie" they know from the short video is not the same as the "movie" shown in the cinema. Over time, it affects not only the reputation of a certain movie, but also the market for a certain type of movie, and even affects the audience's perception of the movie.

01 A marketing model that puts the cart before the horse

After Zhang Yi refused to skip the third subject, he compared the road show to "dream interpretation", which can be said to be a wake-up call. Traditional road shows originally play the role of "dream interpreter". When the audience follows the movie and has a dream, the process of communicating with the creators is dream interpretation.

This is the key to maintaining a movie's reputation in the early stages. After the audience's questions are answered and their doubts are resolved, they will have a deeper understanding of the movie and share it on social platforms, effectively attracting moviegoers. This is because the content is closely related to the movie, rather than jokes that are forgotten after a laugh.

In the past, film marketing was basically centered around “content”, organizing an event or a roadshow, and considering the possibility of accurately conveying the content to the audience. Now the focus has become how many internet celebrities there are, how many memes are created, and how many clicks can be gained on short videos.

In a nutshell, many movie marketing campaigns have been kidnapped by the KPI of short video dissemination. As the saying goes, "black and red are also red", based on this thinking, movie marketing has gone to great lengths, and there are overly exaggerated short videos everywhere, without considering the perception of ordinary audiences at all, let alone the accuracy of content communication.

However, the audience will not spend money to go to the cinema just because they can watch old artists pretending to be "Hakimi" and doing "Subject Three" in variety shows. Because nipple music is nipple music, just scratch it with your fingertips and have fun. Audiences who really want to watch movies must want to know what the content of the movie is in advance. The traffic brought by a popular short video that has nothing to do with the content of the movie can neither attract effective moviegoers nor convert it into effective movie reputation.

At the same time, during the five years of the wild growth of short video marketing, the public has developed a serious resistance to this type of short video marketing routine. Since the beginning of this year, there have been several waves of condemnation of short video marketing routines on the Internet. From the "dogs are crying" series to Zhang Yimou's shock, Huo Siyan's tears, and Wu Jing's visit to the set, the plots played out in short videos are more outrageous than one another.

The audience's "anti-fraud" sentiment was quickly reflected in the movie box office. This year's popular love movies on short videos were almost wiped out at the box office. "So Many Years" only had a box office of 300 million yuan, and "Forget Me Not" only had a box office of more than 70 million yuan.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to market romance films on short videos. The most typical example is the art film "Burning Winter", which followed the model of romance films for short video marketing, attracted the wrong audience, and repeated the reputation crash of "The Last Night on Earth", but failed to bring in the same box office as "The Last Night on Earth", which can be said to be a loss of both the wife and the army.

The PTSD sentiment towards "marketing fraud" not only occurs in the field of romance films, but also begins to spread to other types of films. "Parrot Killing" reproduces the short video marketing model of social themes, which is also a double loss in word-of-mouth and box office. The traffic brought by the "mismatched" short video marketing is not only increasingly unrelated to the box office, but also increasingly damages the reputation of the film and filmmakers.

The era of short video marketing has created a deformed publicity and promotion industry. Marketers who make plans around movie content are abandoned, while joke writers who write outrageous plans around short videos are sought after. Audiences often watch short videos of a certain movie, but still don’t know what the movie is about. Today’s short video marketing seems to just promote the name of the movie.

02 Misunderstood “Feature Film Content”

Initially, with limited materials, short video marketing was still based on movie content. But now, with a vast amount of materials and highlights, short video marketing can be more "free", like creating your own "short video movie".

This type of "short video movie" seems to tell the audience a story within 2 or 3 minutes, which caters to the "short, flat, and fast" content characteristics of short videos, and has the same creative thinking as micro short dramas. But how can the audience attracted by this type of content be satisfied with the "featured film content" when they go to the theater? It's not that they can't appreciate the "featured film content", but that they are guided to watch movies in the wrong way, which makes them misunderstand the "featured film content" in advance.

Furthermore, the medium of short videos itself has certain limitations, and it is difficult to carry the thickness and depth of feature film content. In a limited few minutes, it is difficult for us to understand the full picture of a feature film through a direct and refreshing way.

After watching "Kuang Bi" explained by others on short videos, you must think it is a retro Hong Kong-style gangster movie. But when you open the long drama, you will find that its story is rich, like a ukiyo-e of people from all walks of life. Many times, we "plagiarize" in short videos, and lose the opportunity to taste and think independently.

It used to be said that there are a thousand Hamlets in the eyes of a thousand readers, but now, it seems that there is only one "Hamlet" interpreted by a celebrity blogger in the eyes of a thousand viewers. In a few minutes of short videos, we may be able to see the disparity in the world, but it is difficult to see the reasons and depth behind the disparity. Just like recently, many celebrity bloggers posted videos to denounce the dog sledding project in Harbin for abusing dogs. After the project was banned, the price of dog meat in Harbin collapsed because the laid-off dogs were all sent to the slaughterhouse. The celebrities thought they were playing the role of the Virgin Mary for the traffic of dog lovers, but in fact they were the King of Hell.

To some extent, the experience of short videos is contrary to that of feature films. In order to cater to the popularity of certain short videos, movie marketing "dismembers" the movie and leaves only eye-catching and stimulating clips. Because the audience who enter the theater with stimulating clips will not get the expected satisfaction.

For example, because sentimental short videos have high traffic, crying scenes from almost every movie are cut out and put on short videos to make a fuss. But in fact, many movies are not mainly sentimental and cannot provide the "emotional value" that short videos can provide to the audience.

The purpose of marketing is to attract audiences to the cinema and enjoy the viewing experience on the big screen. Unfortunately, after entering the era of short videos, more and more audiences are influenced by marketing and use the experience of short videos to view feature films, often returning home disappointed. The big screen is naturally unable to give the super-concentrated "emotional value" of the small screen. As this misunderstanding deepens, creators in the film industry may face a career crisis.

03 Let marketing return to the content itself

I don’t know if you have similar feelings to me. Nowadays, every movie has created millions of likes on short videos, but their market visibility is getting lower and lower. In short videos, each movie seems to have entered its own information cocoon, with good traffic, but it is difficult to form a real topic .

This is determined by the distribution mechanism of short videos. Short videos that lack the plaza effect are difficult to gather public discussion and build collective consensus. And now with the in-depth understanding of the Internet celebrity economy, people are increasingly skeptical of those Internet celebrity contents with large traffic.

When clicking on the comments of every video with millions of likes, what the audience needs most is still the real evaluation of the movie content, especially the evaluation of ordinary people. Short video users are no longer blindly following the trend like in the past, and this is not only reflected in movies. In many consumer areas, people have become more cautious. Compared with the past, users are no longer superstitious about a certain internet celebrity blogger, and small bloggers who are deeply involved in vertical fields are more popular.

The marketing tactics that worked in the past are failing, and the bubble of "scam" marketing is fading. Audiences are increasingly distrustful of the hits on short videos, and are more willing to wait for the real response of the first batch of ticket buyers. This has also caused another obvious change in the film market in 2023, that is, the word-of-mouth fermentation of high-scoring movies on the market is slower than before. For example, it was only a week after the release of "The Third Brigade" that word-of-mouth spread, and the box office expectations were gradually raised from 300 million to 600 million.

Short video marketing is still booming, but the speed of movie word-of-mouth fermentation has slowed down. Obviously, there is something wrong with the current movie promotion method. It is time to reflect and even adjust. Movie marketing should return to rationality and get back on the right track - based on content, do a good job of word-of-mouth and expectation management. Following the trend of traffic can only bring temporary popularity, and it will not be able to enjoy the dividends for a long time. Those who are late to the party may even get nothing. Movies sell content. If the audience does not even know what the content is, it is naturally impossible to pay for it.

No matter what kind of marketing method is used, it must be based on the content of the film, and it must not damage the experience of the feature film. Short video marketing is not a panacea for box office, and not all movies are suitable for "short, flat, and fast" communication. This year's popular Japanese blockbuster films "The Journey of Bell Buds" and "Slam Dunk" did not focus on short video marketing, but on people in vertical segments , accurately announcing the content of the film to its audience - "secondary", "animation fans", "80s and 90s nostalgic fans".

Facts have proved that the precise approach of traditional marketing is still effective. Finding the audience of the movie and spreading word of mouth will naturally achieve twice the result with half the effort. I sincerely hope that movie promotions will no longer blindly "cheat people" and not add trouble to the audience while blocking the future of the film industry. Returning to the normal logic of promotion and building a healthy promotion environment is also to prolong the life of the film industry.

Author: Wei Nika; Editor: Li Chunhui

Source: WeChat public account "Entertainment Hard Candy (ID: yuleyingtang)"