Short play: A handful of MSG in the content industry!

The universal value is similar. The reason why online articles and short dramas really caused discussion at the social level is similar - going overseas. First, online articles made foreign guys addicted to drugs, and then short dramas about overbearing CEOs swept the European and American markets, raising the share price of Chinese online.

But that doesn’t mean that short dramas are an extension of online articles. The length of a short drama episode is only one to three minutes, and its distribution logic still maintains the logic of information flow advertising. Short dramas that have been transferred to mini programs have quickly gained popularity on short video platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou, which have mature ROI formulas.

The production cycle also supports the myth of wealth creation and the rapid growth of the market size. According to industry insiders, the shooting time and cost of short dramas are relatively low. The production cycle of a short drama without action special effects and large scenes is about one week, with a few days of high-intensity shooting in between. The lowest cost can be controlled at around 100,000. The mid-range level is around 400,000, and the top cost of the industry is only one million, which is already very rare.

In the early days of short dramas, the main participants in filming were information flow advertising teams and some short video shooting teams. After this rich mine was discovered, practitioners such as online movies quickly followed suit, and then traditional media companies launched a dimensionality reduction attack. In the "Party A Finance" community, since 2020, some people have revealed that the future of short videos lies in short dramas, but the entire industry chain is not clear, and it is still a business for a small number of people to make money.

After the model matured, the short drama showed a strong industrial content attribute.

• Clearly positioned, the ultimate nipple pleasure product. Bringing a sense of pleasure is the core need, regardless of gender.
• The demand is clear, and the revenue model of rapid production and searching for blockbuster hits is almost identical to that of Hong Kong films.
• The plot is clichéd, but clichés are not purely bad things. The classic positioning of the movie script model in "Save the Cat 2" was once the starting point for Hollywood's industrialized screenwriting. The more bloody the plot, the better, such as the female narrative of a father and son falling in love with "me" at the same time, or the male-oriented cool story of the urban dragon king.
• The structure is clear. The structure of the short play is basically formed. Abandoning humanistic thinking and deep thoughts, a 2-hour movie or dozens of hours of TV drama plot is condensed. Now the basic discipline is about one minute of episodes, with at least 3 emotional reversals. For the "stuck point fragments" of payment and renewal, you can also add slaps, money throwing, and pretending to be slapped in the face to induce recharge under emotional outbursts. This content MSG that is complex to human nature has a certain universality. At the moment when emotional value is urgently needed, it quickly swept the content storm at home and abroad.

2. Feast cycle, don’t become a victim of division

Statistics from multiple sources show that the market size of short dramas will be close to 20 billion in 2023. The box office of movies in 2022 was 30.1 billion, which means that the scale of short dramas this year is already 66% of last year's domestic movie box office. Even this year, the box office of movies is expected to be around 50 billion, and the market size of short dramas is close to 40% of the annual box office of movies.

The growth in volume is also reflected in the stock price. The short drama export platform ReelShort has a number of popular dramas, which has made it rank second in the free list and first in the entertainment list in the US App Store. It also caused the stock price of the producer's parent company Chinese Online to soar. As of November 20, its stock price once reached 30.48 yuan per share, setting a new high in 60 days.

The same is true in China. In addition to Douyin, Kuaishou and WeChat mini-programs, apps such as Hippo Theater have previously climbed to the top of the domestic download list. Even in the hottest days, the stock prices of domestic short dramas were also rising - Haikan shares rose by 20cm, Tianwei Video and Yinli Media had previously closed the board, and Tangde Film and Television, Baina Qiancheng, etc. rose by more than 5%.

The secondary market's carnival does not mean that the short drama industry is a gold mine that can be mined at will. Compared with the wild growth in its early days, the current hit rate of the short drama industry has basically been fixed. According to industry insiders, the current hit rate of short dramas in the industry is basically maintained at 7%, and some professionals who have switched from online movies can control it to one out of five or six.

However, the profits from short dramas that cost tens of millions of yuan are not enjoyed exclusively by the producers. If the short dramas of Douyin and Kuaishou are still shared by the platforms and a few MCNs, then the lower threshold for short dramas in mini programs also means more intense competition.

In terms of customer orders, it may cost one or two hundred yuan to watch a short drama of about 60 episodes, which takes about three or four hours. The customer order is much higher than that of TV dramas and movies. However, such income is based on high investment costs. At present, the ROI of both good and bad is about 1.2, which means that for a recharge amount of 12 million yuan, 10 million yuan must be invested in the traffic platform.

Adding in the fees from streaming companies and platforms, as well as production costs, the final profit for the producer may not exceed 10%.

If there is no hit, short dramas will even be in a loss-making state. But often a hit can make up for everything. However, compared with the high-risk online movie investment, short dramas are indeed a very promising track, and it is even said that short dramas have saved the entire industry of small and medium-sized enterprises.

What attracts investors is precisely the business model of short dramas, which is very different from that of the traditional film and television industry. Instead of relying on platform subsidies, buyouts or advertising promotion, it directly communicates with consumers. For platforms and companies that can continuously produce content and bind consumers, this is a business story that can be told - a short drama version of Netflix.

3. The business equation of emotional value is still rising

It is worth mentioning that Mimi Meng’s figure appeared again.

The banned "Black Lotus Handbook" cost 2 million yuan, and the recharge amount in the first 24 hours after it was launched was at least 20 million yuan. Another popular mini-program drama "Black-bellied Maid" produced by the same company, which is also about the revenge of the heroine, had a recharge amount of more than 23 million yuan in 24 hours.

Multiple pieces of evidence show that Mi Meng is still the content operator behind the two hit short dramas. Indeed, the toxic chicken soup master who has disappeared from the public eye for a long time is still familiar with the logic of creating hits and continues to harvest traffic from young women.

Gender empathy under male-female conflicts, chicken soup implantation in the subtleties of human nature... It is still the familiar formula that stirs emotions. It is not difficult to find that the core of the short drama that can quickly sweep the world lies in the sense of satisfaction it can provide. Or it can be said to be emotional value.

The term "emotional value" originally comes from "customer perceived value" in the field of economics and marketing. The original intention is to measure the emotional benefits and costs of customers in consumption. As long as there is a positive difference between the emotional benefits (positive) and emotional costs (negative) that consumers can gain, emotional value exists.

Obviously, Mi Meng has uncovered the traffic code of short dramas. Under the veil of content industrialization, the essence is to provide emotional value content products.

In the operation of the industrial assembly line, short plays are like MSG, quickly becoming a daily condiment for the public.

However, short dramas in China are currently facing strict supervision. In particular, dramas that "advocate violence to fight violence, extreme revenge, gang-related, violent behavior" and other content basically have no way out. But the value of emotions is thousands of millions. In addition to the field of extreme provocation, there are always different types of scripts waiting to be explored, such as overbearing CEOs, urban dragon kings, and down-and-out princes.

Short plays, as a commercial equation of emotional value, are still on the rise.
Chief Writer: Spirited Away; Article Architect: Miaomiao

Source: Party A Finance (ID: jiafangcaijing2019)