With a turnover of 300 million and a fan increase of over 1 million in 3 days, the short drama made users fall in love with Douyin again

This article uses short dramas such as "Twenty-Nine" and "The Son-in-Law" as cases to analyze the reasons for the expansion of the short drama market. It is recommended for students who are interested in the short video track.

If you like watching dramas, have you ever had similar complaints:

"So sad! So sad! When will the male protagonist chase his wife to the crematorium?"

"When will the hero be able to take revenge successfully?"

"Scumbag! When did the heroine find out that he was cheating on her?"

In recent years, there have been more water-injected dramas and more complaints. Many people are too lazy to watch TV dramas and have lost the joy of watching dramas, and I am no exception. It was not until the emergence of the popular short drama "Twenty-Nine" at the beginning of the year that I regained the joy of watching dramas.

01 The 3 episodes have exceeded 100 million views, and the short drama "Twenty-Nine" on Douyin has performed well

The Douyin short drama "Twenty-Nine" has a very common theme, the original wife fights the mistress.

Although the subject matter is cliché, the expression is unconventional.

In "Twenty-Nine", the heroine Yuan Pei (played by Yang Rong) and the mistress Lu Xiaoshan (played by Wang Yifei) team up to fight against the scumbag. They go from hostility to reconciliation and then redemption. In the short drama market, such a story is still relatively novel.

In addition, in terms of production, "Twenty-Nine" is comparable to TV drama production, produced by the old company Lemon Studios, which is familiar with female themes, and starring professional actors Yang Rong and Wang Yifei. The old company plus professional actors have killed the short drama market.

"Twenty-Nine" performed well in many data. The number of fans increased by more than 1 million in 72 hours, the number of views of only 3 episodes exceeded 100 million, the number of views of the main film exceeded 830 million, and the Douban score was 8.1.

In addition to "Twenty-Nine", there are many other good short plays, which all highlight the trend of "fine works". In the past, short plays were not even remotely related to the term "fine works".

02 Short plays, once a representative of earthy taste

Many people's first impression of short dramas comes from the series of advertising short dramas "The Son-in-Law".

Having said that, you may not have any impression, but if I mention a word, everyone should know it.

Crooked-mouthed dragon king.

He was poorly dressed, slapped by his wife, despised by everyone, and kicked out of the house. In the end, there was always a reversal, a really gorgeous turn. To everyone's surprise, his true identity was revealed: Dragon King, Shura, God of War, Miracle Doctor...

It was so tacky! Back then, I bought a three-bedroom apartment after seeing it.

In 2020, the evil hook smile (also known as the Nike smile) of the Crooked Mouth Dragon King became a famous meme, causing the entire Internet to boil, especially the ghost animal area of ​​​​Bilibili.

In the early years, most short plays were adapted from online novels, most of which were the most popular male-oriented novels about sons-in-law and the most popular female-oriented novels about sweet pets. These two themes would sound tacky if not carefully filmed, and coupled with the poor filming conditions and amateur performances, it was simply a disaster.

Nowadays, short dramas have more refined pictures, richer themes, higher overall quality, and more and more traffic. Major giants have entered the short drama track.

Popular short dramas are frequently released, and major giants have entered the short drama track

At present, short dramas can be divided into three categories: Douyin and Kuaishou vertical screen short dramas, mini-program micro short dramas, and Youku, iQiyi and Tencent Video horizontal screen short dramas.

Douyin and Kuaishou were the first to start developing the short drama track, and each has its own exclusive short drama theater brand: Douyin Short Drama and Kuaishou Star Short Drama.

The Douyin platform has produced many popular short dramas, such as "Love Magic", "I Guess You Love Me", and "I Have a Little Heart Moved for You".

I personally think that "Escape from the British Museum" is the most representative and has truly broken the circle. The drama has 410 million views on the Douyin platform and 877 million readings on Weibo.

Kuaishou has also produced many popular short dramas this year, including "The Princess Is Here", "Donglan Snow", "Please Grandma", etc. Among them, "The Reason Why I Go Back to 17" successfully broke the circle. The number of views reached 490 million, and the total number of topic readings on the entire network reached 2.55 billion.

In addition to Douyin and Kuaishou, mini-program short dramas also performed well in the short drama track. For example, "Wushuang" consumed over 100 million in eight days, and the total turnover is estimated to reach 300 million.

Other giants (such as Youku, iQiyi and Tencent Video) are also testing the waters in short dramas, and many other companies (such as games and online literature) are also trying to get a piece of the pie by entering the short drama track.

03 Why are major companies planning to enter the short drama market?

Compete for traffic.

In this era, traffic is everything and traffic is money.

Now that online traffic has reached its peak, the Internet industry has already entered the era of competition for existing resources, and this is also true for major videos.

At present, the short drama market is one of the main growth points of the video market and it is still a blue ocean for the time being.

The "China Internet Audiovisual Development Research Report (2023)" shows that in 2022, the market size of the pan-Internet audiovisual industry will be 727.44 billion yuan, of which the market size of the short video field will be 292.83 billion yuan, accounting for 40.3%, which is the main source of industry growth.

In addition, short dramas bring real traffic to various platforms. By the end of 2022, the number of daily users of Douyin short dramas increased by 67% year-on-year, and the daily playback volume increased by 99%. The number of daily active users of Kuaishou short dramas exceeded 260 million, and there were more than 100 projects with over 100 million playbacks of Kuaishou Xingmang short dramas throughout the year, with a total playback volume of over 50 billion.

When the major Internet giants saw this kind of data performance, tears of shame flowed from their mouths.

The skit smells really good!

In addition, major platforms are also researching new content forms for various short dramas.

04 Different platforms have different business models for short dramas

As mentioned above, short dramas are mainly divided into three categories: Douyin and Kuaishou vertical screen short dramas, mini-program micro short dramas, and Youku, iQiyi and Tencent horizontal screen short dramas.

The business models of Douyin and Kuaishou short dramas are mainly profit sharing, product placement and live streaming with goods . Among them, live streaming with goods is a business model exclusive to Douyin and Kuaishou, and is highly consistent with their own live streaming business.

Taking the TikTok platform as an example, the first season of "Twenty-Nine" can already be unlocked with paid TikTok coins.

In addition, Douyin has many customized short dramas, such as "You Will Be Famous Eventually", "All Love and You", and "A Beam of Sunshine and a Beam of Love" by Jiang Shiqi and Han Shu.

The business model of mini-program short dramas is to distribute short dramas through advertising, and guide users to watch paid dramas or complete tasks. The entire viewing process is on the mini-program, and users can unlock dramas at the time by paying coins, watching, sharing, signing in, inviting friends, etc.

Promotion, or investment, is crucial for mini-program short dramas. The industry chain of mini-program short dramas is quite different from that of other short dramas.

As for Youku, iQiyi and Tencent short dramas, they are mainly "micro short drama revenue sharing cooperation model". Taking Tencent as an example, "Please! Don't Spoil Me" once set a record in the short drama industry, with a revenue sharing of more than 30 million yuan.

Mature market, diverse business models.

With more and more players joining in, I believe that the short drama track will soon change from a blue ocean to a red ocean. It will definitely become more and more competitive, and there will be more and more high-quality short dramas.

For us, this is a good thing.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to enjoy higher quality short dramas in fragmented time?

Author: Weaving

Source public account: Weiguojiang (ID: wjam123456), focusing on the forefront of new media and insights into new consumer fields.