Short drama marketing puts the brand at the center

This article starts with the phenomenon of short dramas on TikTok becoming popular, and analyzes the marketing potential of short dramas. It is recommended for brands and advertisers who want to get involved.

In this year of short drama craze, some brands have already tasted the sweetness of short drama marketing.

In the first half of the year, the three short dramas sponsored by Hanshu had a total of 3.06 billion views on Douyin. The traffic dividend successfully created a hot product for it - the Hongmanyao series of skin care products had sales of more than 1.5 million sets through all channels.

In September, PROYA launched two short dramas, "Behind the Resistance" and "Fight Back, Wife", to promote its product series. In October, the brand's own IP micro-short drama "Full-time Househusband Training Program" was launched with a total broadcast volume of over 230 million. In the just-concluded Double Eleven, PROYA also topped the beauty category on multiple platforms.

The data of Douyin short drama rankings show that short dramas have become a new traffic outlet. For brands and advertisers who want to enter the market, the most concerned issue is the marketing potential of short dramas and how they differ from traditional content marketing. TOP will take you to find out.

1. As traffic grows, short dramas move towards brand marketing

Short dramas have been celebrating in the sinking market for a year. The "Micro-Short Drama Market Report in the First Half of 2023" shows that a total of 481 new micro-short dramas were released in the first half of 2023, exceeding the 454 in the whole year of 2022. However, many people are still wondering: Why is it so popular and who loves to watch it?

The length of a short drama episode is generally about 1-5 minutes, which can be regarded as the content form of the previous "instant noodles" and "instant noodles drama" grafted onto short videos. Compared with long videos, it is cheaper and has its own "double speed". It uses constantly reversed plots and extremely compact rhythms to attract users to continue watching, and even pay for it.

Initially, the user positioning of the short drama was very clear: middle-aged and elderly groups, third- and fourth-tier cities, and low-end users. Recently, this range has tended to expand.

Among them, the platform micro short dramas are mainly for female users, while the mini program short dramas are mainly for male users. The production themes of the short dramas will vary according to different genders, but they are all inseparable from the "bloody", "earthy" and "golden finger" labels such as ancient and modern sweet pets and time travel and rebirth. Its popularity happens to be precisely because it hits people's "cool points".

One media summarized it as, "In one minute, an ordinary and cowardly son-in-law turns into the powerful Brother Long, in three minutes, he completes the gorgeous transformation and revenge of his former abandoned wife, and in five minutes, he witnesses how the urban god of war strategizes and wins the business battlefield..." Unlike online novels that require users to read a long preparation before waiting for a counterattack, short dramas allow users to get "instant satisfaction" with just the movement of their fingers.

The market potential of short dramas is based on the vast short video user group. According to the "China Internet Audiovisual Development Research Report", by the end of 2022, the scale of short video users in my country has reached 1.012 billion, and more than 50% of users have watched short dramas of less than 3 minutes. The number of people radiated is the core indicator of advertising, so the main assessment indicator of short dramas on short video platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou is also exposure.

Douyin's "Drama Gravitation Plan" has launched episodes with an average effective playback of more than 2 million, with a unit price of 6 yuan per thousand effective playbacks, and a cap of 1.5 million for a single drama; Kuaishou's "Star Plan" has a CPM of 8 yuan for S-level short dramas, also capped at 1.5 million.

The model of high unit price + low cost + wide audience has attracted many players to join the market. Recently, Yaowang Technology, the "first live e-commerce stock", announced that it would produce short dramas, and China Literature Group launched a call for scripts. People in all aspects of content, distribution, and production want to get a piece of the pie, and their participation has invisibly increased the investment scale of short dramas.

In the past, the cost of shooting a short drama was only around 100,000 or 200,000 yuan. Now, the cost of many short dramas has risen to several million yuan. Even the investment amount of some short dramas is already on par with some small-scale feature-length dramas. The previous "Please, Don't Spoil Me" had a cumulative investment of more than 20 million yuan.

The platform’s revenue sharing for the short drama “Please, Don’t Spoil Me” is gradually unable to cover the rising cost of the short drama.

As the traffic pool grows, short dramas have also explored other ways to monetize, and brand placement and customized short dramas have become more popular choices. On Douyin, the MCN agency Silver Earth cooperated with the hair care brand KONO to customize the short drama "Unfamiliar Lovers", which has accumulated more than 300 million views.

On Kuaishou, Gumai Jiahe has also cooperated with nearly 20 brand-customized short dramas.

2. Brands take center stage in skit marketing

Wherever there are users, there are traffic and markets. It is not difficult to understand the motivation of brands to deploy short drama marketing. Short drama marketing and long drama marketing have similar logic, both rely on content to attract user attention, and then adopt a variety of means to increase brand exposure and interaction.

The difference is that lightweight short plays can give way to brands and bring more playability to brand marketing. First of all, the short play preparation cycle is short and the production is flexible, which can actively match the brand's marketing rhythm.

The preparation and production of long dramas are often very long, and the subject matter is relatively fixed. Brand placement is more concerned with the theme and promotional nodes of long dramas. In contrast, the production cycle of short dramas is between 1-2 months, and the brand marketing cycle is generally no more than 3 months. Short dramas can meet the marketing node requirements of brands and even customize their content .

Just in time for this year's Double 11 period, many short dramas broadcast on the Douyin platform, such as "Why Love" and "The Double A Couple is Beautiful and Cool", received brand sponsorship.

Among them, "Double A Couple is Beautiful and Cool" directly sets the identity of the heroine as the daughter of MaruMei, and completes the silky combination of brand and plot without affecting the tone of the content. As early as last year, MaruMei's manager Yijie starred in the Kuaishou short drama "Approaching the Gemini". In the drama, she appeared in the dual identities of a psychologist and MaruMei's CEO, accurately conveying MaruMei's products and welfare information to the audience. This kind of "tailor-made" personality and extended brand influence is unimaginable in a long drama.

Marubi's manager Yijie participated in "Close to the Gemini". Secondly, short dramas have down-to-earth genes, which naturally stand closer to consumers and can shorten the brand's conversion chain.

In the marketing of long dramas, it is not uncommon for celebrities to become strangers after their "business period", and there are many risks in live streaming. However, actors in short dramas are mostly Internet celebrities and amateurs, who are subject to fewer restrictions and constraints, and platform users are closer to them and have a stronger sense of freshness.

The ancient style short drama "Donglanxue" and JD New Department Store have innovated the form of exclusive extra episodes and customized live broadcasts by the main creators . The script is consistent with the plot of the original drama, which has mobilized the enthusiasm of fans.

The private traffic accumulated by the actors in the short drama can be directly used as a prelude to subsequent live streaming sales, and the actors become a bridge for brands to continuously communicate with users and cultivate emotional connections. Kuaishou @一只璐A DEER once played Qu Yan in "This Male Lead Is a Little Cold" and Su Luxia in "The Scumbags of the Dynasty", and the number of fans has exceeded 7.85 million.

Her account is a live streaming sales account. With the help of the fan effect and marketing potential activated by the short drama, the sales of her live streaming sales reached more than 10 million. In September this year, the drama "The Brilliant Star Road" starring her cooperated with Feihe Milk Powder, forming a feasible model of seamless conversion through in-drama title sponsorship and live streaming sales outside the drama.

3. Platforms expand the marketing space for short dramas

Short dramas have both the information density and the dissemination efficiency of short videos. Many results have been explored in converting traffic into brand value, and the platform has also provided many means and tools.

At present, there are both means that follow the same logic as long dramas, such as sponsorship, oral broadcasting, and framing , as well as special products of short video platforms such as live interaction and search advertising .

During the 618 shopping event this year, the TV series "Beauty Comes True" produced in collaboration with Tmall International received 1.08 billion views. Kuaishou not only embedded Tmall International's ordering page into the content of the short drama, but also upgraded Tmall's likes effects, brand corner logos and opposite-sex comments, increasing the fun of user interaction while enhancing brand exposure.

The short drama "Beauty Comes True" is still very popular at present. Douyin, Kuaishou, iQiyi and Tencent Video are all giving traffic support and policy support to the short drama.

Douyin launched the "Chenxing Project" to solicit creative short films from young creators on the site; Kuaishou launched the "Xingmang Excellent Talent Support Plan" to use tens of millions of cash and billions of traffic to discover more outstanding directors, screenwriters and producers to join the micro-short drama track; iQiyi's "Vertical Screen Control Theater", Youku's short drama channel "Small Theater", and Tencent Video's "Hot Pot Drama" are using the proprietary theaters of long video platforms to promote the prosperity of micro-short dramas.

With the encouragement of production and distribution, the themes of short dramas are developing in a diversified direction, such as time travel + time jump, road themes, left-behind elderly people... The "volume" of content quality gives brands more marketing space. On the whole, the industry trend is that brands tend to cooperate with closely related vertical content. Beauty and skin care brands prefer urban family dramas, and their audiences are mostly middle-aged women with certain purchasing power.

SAIC Volkswagen exclusively sponsored the short play "Unexpected Life", using Wang Yaoqing's well-known "dominant" image to promote the car's tough appearance, large space, and strong configuration. The brand can achieve twice the result with half the effort in brand promotion by choosing the right content and characters.

Conclusion

In the era of information fragmentation, short dramas try to make the most efficient use of every second to convey emotions and information to the audience. The process of users watching is also the process of communication. For brands, short dramas provide valuable scenarios, brand stories can be contextualized, and effective communication can be achieved through short video plots.

Recently, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television will once again carry out a one-month special campaign to regulate online short dramas. With the increasingly improved supervision, short dramas will inevitably enter a standardized and refined development. In the long run, the risks of brand marketing will be effectively controlled. At present, short drama marketing, as one of the links in brand integrated marketing, cooperates with other links to achieve the effect of 1+1>2.

Author: TOP Jun, WeChat public account: TopMarketing