Short dramas are fierce, brands are entering the market, who is making money in the multi-billion market?

The popularity of short dramas has attracted the attention of many people. This article analyzes the logic behind brands' preference for short-term investments and the reasons why audiences are so receptive to short drama marketing.

"All kidding aside, I spent over 800 on the show."

"What kind of drama is so expensive to watch on demand?"

“It’s not on-demand, it’s about buying things.”

The above conversation is from Morketing and her friends, so what kind of big production has such a strong ability to bring goods? She stammered: "Just a short skit." The editor instantly understood that in 2023, who hasn’t gone overboard for a few sweet and slightly embarrassing short skits?

In places where movies, TV series and refrigerators cannot reach, there is a type of video that is growing wildly. Their plots are bloody, the actors’ acting is exaggerated, and the filming is shoddy (the above is a stereotype, which is not the case now), but it has leveraged tens of billions of dollars in business. This is the latest "top-tier" track - short dramas.

01 Double 11: Betting on short dramas, a new way of content marketing

How popular short dramas are is probably enough to make the film industry, which is experiencing a cold winter, jealous to the point of spontaneous combustion. Since November 6, short drama concept stocks such as Chinese Online, Tianwei Video, and Tangde Film and Television have seen their share prices soar for three consecutive trading days. According to Guolian Securities' estimates, the turnover of short dramas in the ByteDance system alone can reach 22 billion, while the box office of movies in mainland China this year is less than 50 billion yuan.

The secondary market is excited, the platform is excited, and the brand is excited. During this year's Double Eleven, people from all walks of life bet on short dramas.

In terms of platforms, Taobao teamed up with the team of "Mao Pian", the originator of domestic web dramas, to launch "Amazing Stories", which uses objects as clues to tell various imaginative stories and plays them on Taobao and Tmall APP. After watching it, Morketing just wants to say that this is much better than some watered-down TV dramas, with a tight rhythm, a lot of imagination, and humanistic care.

In addition to the platform's own short dramas, many also insert their own advertisements into the short dramas. Taobao and Kuaishou cooperated to insert the "search to win a free order" gameplay into 10 Kuaishou Xingmang short dramas. JD.com also customized an exclusive extra and live broadcast for this year's hit short drama "Donglanxue". Because of the sweet interaction between the male and female protagonists, the audience said that they loved watching advertisements so much for the first time.

In terms of brand, Feihe sponsored "The Starry Journey of Wanzha", and the heroine "Yizhilu" is a top e-commerce anchor on Kuaishou, which innovated the "short drama + live broadcast" model to attract traffic from each other; Volkswagen Touron V6 invited Wang Yaoqing to shoot the short drama "Unexpected Life", and the uncle Wang's personality was not bad, which was very consistent with the brand tone; MaruMei sponsored "Double A Couple is Beautiful and Cool", and the heroine was directly set as MaruMei's daughter, and the brand appeared very reasonably; spes shampoo sponsored "Hearing Love"; Red Elephant Primary School Cream sponsored "Romance Full Score"...

A more representative one is PROYA. During the Double Eleven period, PROYA sponsored the short drama "Full-time Househusband Training Program", which was broadcast on the Douyin platform. Liu Yun played the leading role. It topped the Douyin short drama hot list in the first week of its release. As of November 7, the total number of views of the feature film has exceeded 220 million, and all 16 episodes have been updated. PROYA's brand is exposed in almost every episode, and there are also oral announcements by the protagonists. In each episode of three or four minutes, the soft advertising time can account for more than ten seconds.

The main product promoted this time, the Ruby Set, focuses on anti-wrinkle and firming, which highly overlaps with the audience portrait of this short drama, which is concentrated in the age group of 24-40 years old. The character setting of a full-time mother returning to the workplace focuses on the current hot topic of female independence, and uses characters to shape the brand image. It is very natural when inserting advertisements and can resonate with the audience.

For example, in the fourth episode, the heroine encountered difficulties in the interview, and the female leader encouraged her with a ruby ​​set, "It can help you be more confident in the workplace, face prejudice in a better state, it can be your mother or yourself." When this sentence was said, it was not only the heroine who was touched, but also the audience who put themselves in the shoes of the heroine. Women's self-reflection consciousness was awakened, and the sense of brand value was established.

In conjunction with content marketing, PROYA designed a closed-loop link. Click "#Full-time Househusband Training Program" at the bottom of the video to enter the topic page. A clear jump path is displayed at the top of the homepage. Pull down to enter the official live broadcast room of PROYA flagship store. The same products in the video are also specially marked. The current sales volume has reached 1.4 million+, far exceeding other product combinations.

There are many ways to market short dramas. This Double Eleven, both brands and platforms have focused on short dramas. It is not only because this track is popular and has a lot of traffic, but also because it has many advantages that are different from other content marketing.

02 Why short dramas also attract brands

The short drama marketing strategy is more like a combination of TV dramas and short videos, while solving the pain points of both.

1. Short cycle and more flexible

Unlike the production cycle of TV series that takes several months, practitioners revealed that at Kuaishou's top short drama company, each director is expected to produce 24 dramas each year. A short drama of more than 100 episodes only takes 5 days from start of filming to completion, and with pre-production preparation and post-production editing, it only takes about a month.

According to Morketing, the general brand planning and launch cycle is 3 months. If you want to cooperate with a TV series, most of the time you can only do it in the form of a pure patch or a small theater insert, because the plot implantation needs to be communicated in the early stage of shooting, which is mostly too late in time, and the risk is very high. Who knows whether the ratings and reputation of this drama will be a surprise.

Short dramas are different. The traffic on short video platforms is more controllable. The short cycle means that they can be quickly followed up. Brands have plenty of time to discuss plot placement with producers, and even customize a short drama for an event or product, such as the short dramas mentioned above that are customized around Double Eleven. Some short dramas are also shot and broadcast at the same time, which makes it easier for brands to follow up in a timely manner, and it is also possible to implant content after a hit product appears.

2. Low cost and high cost performance

Zhi Zhu, the most popular director of short costume dramas (filmed "Donglanxue" and "The Princess Is Here"), said in an interview: "I am personally optimistic about the commercial exploration of short dramas. More and more brands are now consulting about customized short dramas, because the production cost of a short drama is not a high proportion of the traditional publicity budget. Party A can spend this money to make a short drama and rely on the dissemination of the content of the short drama to attract traffic to its own brand."

As Zhizhu said, the budget for short drama production is similar to that for traditional publicity and promotion, but short dramas are obviously better in terms of brand promotion effect. According to Kuaishou's data, the number of daily active users of short dramas reached 260 million in 2022, with a high market penetration rate. The cost of customizing a short drama is only one million, which includes content implantation, hard advertising exposure and traffic promotion.

Short drama traffic top Jiang Shiqi's six works in 2022 are all ranked in the top ten of Douyin short drama annual playback volume, with playback volume of around 1 billion. Her customized short drama quotation is only 558,000/episode, starting from 5 episodes. The total playback volume of the 5 short dramas customized by Jiang Shiqi and Hanxuan has reached 4.73 billion, which can be said to be very cost-effective.

3. Data conversion is clearer

Counting the number of views is a way to observe how an advertisement reaches users, but this alone is not enough. The real pain point for brands is how to understand the conversion effect, how many people made a purchase after being inspired by the short drama, and even more detailed purchase data and interest data.

Only by clearly grasping the data on the composition of different populations can we formulate strategies more effectively, help with review and evaluation, and avoid the possibility of data falsification, which is difficult to achieve with traditional TV drama product placement marketing.

4. High audience acceptance

The above are all the advantages of short dramas compared to traditional TV dramas. Next, let’s talk about the advantages of short dramas compared to short video promotion.

When you want to buy a set of lotion, but after scrolling through more than ten screens, all you see are ads, would you be speechless? When you are enjoying a funny video, a blogger suddenly releases XXX discount offers, would you be disappointed? It would be fine if the conversion rate is not good, but the main thing is that it affects the brand image. Sometimes it is really embarrassing to use soft advertising or hard advertising.

No matter how short a skit is, it is still a drama. It still has the three elements of characters, scenes, and plots. The more scenes there are, the more information can be contained, and the more convenient and natural it is to embed content. Not to mention customized skits, everything revolves around the brand, the protagonist can be the brand's general manager, the eldest daughter, etc., use their own products in the plot, and discuss their own product plans in meetings, but don't be too reasonable.

In terms of occupying the audience's mind, the short drama is all-pervasive, all-round and reasonable. The audience knows that it is an advertisement, and even the whole drama is an advertisement, but they still can't help but want to watch it. The voice-over, stickers, props... there is a sense of beauty that the information is forced into the brain.

If you pay more attention, it is easy to add value, just like the "Full-time Househusband Training Program" mentioned above. The whole drama deeply binds the brand with "independent women". The heroine gave a gift to a post-00 colleague who stayed up late to work overtime and told him not to take care of his skin because he was young. The editor remembered it and ordered a set of the same anti-aging products for himself.

Short drama marketing breaks the scene restrictions of short video content implantation, solves the pain points of long sponsorship cycle, high cost, low penetration, and easy failure of TV dramas, and naturally becomes a battleground.

03 The world is divided into three parts, and the battle is in full swing

Today, short dramas are divided into three parts. "Douyin, Kuaishou, and Video Account" have the first-mover advantage. The audience of short video platforms is seamlessly connected to short drama fans, accounting for half of the market and tending to control the overall situation. "Youku, iQiyi, and Tencent", the old long video platforms, saw the opportunity, entered the market, and moved forward steadily. In a few days, they have harvested a large amount of traffic. There are also a number of small programs that are fighting in a grassroots manner and focusing on the sinking market. They have also carved out a way out and their profits are quite substantial.

Although each platform has its own fixed audience, most viewers are still in the stage of developing the habit of watching short dramas. A large part of them watch them passively, and only a few popular dramas will be actively searched. The influence of a single drama is still not as good as that of a TV series. Therefore, when brands sponsor short dramas, the broadcasting platform is also one of the criteria to consider.

Today, platforms are in the midst of a fierce battle and brands are waiting for an opportunity, all wanting to get a piece of the pie in the short drama market. It will take some time and patience to see how the market will develop in the future.

Author: Tiana

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