Cats and dogs spell "slash" short play: poison or antidote?

The rustic short dramas that once dominated Kuaishou are now active on various e-commerce platforms. Can short dramas bring benefits to the platform? Why are various e-commerce platforms vigorously developing this section? This article will reveal the answer for you~

Micro-short dramas are like another hammer picked up by platform e-commerce after short videos. No one knows whether it can summon lightning or can only knock screws.

In 2023, there are two tracks that can achieve "big factory mobilization", one is large models, and the other is micro-short dramas.

However, unlike the large-scale models that require hundreds of millions of dollars of investment and take ten years to achieve application, the input-output ratio of micro-short dramas is staggeringly high. Each episode is less than 3 minutes long and the investment does not exceed 500,000. If it is operated properly, a hit like "Wushuang" can "recharge over 100 million in 8 days after its launch".

For a time, Hengdian was crowded with teams shooting short micro-dramas, "horizontal drifting" became "vertical drifting", and all links in the industrial chain were crowded with people and money.

Among the Internet giants, short video platforms Douyin and Kuaishou have entered the Next Level. Douyin is no longer satisfied with just making money from investment traffic, but has changed the name of Hongguo Short Drama to Fanqie Short Drama, and like the free online articles in the past, it is using free short dramas to reap the industry; in Kuaishou's third-quarter financial report, the consumption of paid short dramas increased by more than 300% year-on-year and nearly 50% month-on-month, and micro short dramas have become the best-growing part of Kuaishou's media information sector.

Where the spotlight cannot reach, forces from another hilltop also quietly set out.

On Taobao, Pinduoduo, JD.com and other e-commerce platforms, short dramas exist in two forms: one is as a commodity. Just like buying an electronic version of an online novel, you can search for short dramas and buy download resources.

In a certain store, "Blue Hole Business" ordered the full content of the popular short drama "Oh, the Queen Comes to Work" for 2.86 yuan. On the official channel, this 80-episode short drama is free from episode 10 onwards, and if you want to watch the full episode, you need nearly 100 yuan.

"This is certainly considered infringement," an industry insider told Blue Hole Business, "but many times, the copyright holder is unwilling to spend extra energy dealing with stores that have only sold a few hundred copies."

A more subtle change is the second form, that is, micro-short dramas are becoming the traffic code for acquiring and retaining users.

Taobao, which has explored "content" most deeply, has a "mini theater" as a secondary page in the "Browse" section of Taobao that it strongly supports. It has absorbed many short drama contents purchased and produced by Taobao, and some of them also have purchase links embedded; Pinduoduo and JD's investment is relatively low-key.

But just as platform e-commerce entered the short video and live broadcast industries almost at the same time a few years ago, no one is willing to give up on micro-short dramas as a potential panacea to alleviate their thirst for traffic.

When e-commerce giants encounter micro-dramas, some take bold steps while others cautiously test the waters. However, the platform genes are set and the user mindset is different. Micro-dramas are like another hammer picked up by platform e-commerce after short videos. No one knows whether it can summon lightning or just knock on screws.

1. How popular are skits? How urgent is Taobao?

Whether e-commerce giants admit it or not, their apps are becoming more and more similar.

In the second position of the bottom sidebar of the homepages of Taobao, Pinduoduo, and JD.com, there are "Guangguang", "Duoduo Video", and "Guang" respectively. The names are similar, and clicking on them will lead to the same type of content: short videos.

While Douyin is vigorously promoting shelf e-commerce and planning to cut a big piece of the industry pie, shelf e-commerce has also begun to lock in the strategic hinterland of interest e-commerce and seize the content ecological niche in advance. At present, "micro-short dramas" are becoming an important part of this sector.

"I've lived long enough to see short dramas on Taobao. How popular are the short dramas? How anxious is Taobao?", netizen @Kuei expressed his feelings on the social platform.

Clicking on the secondary page "Small Theater" of "Shopping", users will suddenly feel that they have entered the wrong APP. Short short plays such as "Mr. Gong, Your Flash Marriage Sweet Wife, Please Check" and "First Meeting, Let's Get Married" are neatly arranged. Swipe up to start playing, and you will be addicted in one second - is this a vertical screen Tencent video? Or a Douyin tomato short play?

Image source: Taobao

The only thing that can make people "distracted" from the relevant pages is that some short dramas will embed links to sell goods according to the plot, making people realize that this is ultimately a trading platform.

As the trend of micro-short dramas rises, Taobao is the most attentive. Compared with Pinduoduo and JD.com, it not only supports influencers, but is also the only platform to purchase from MCN.

Titan, an investor in short dramas, told Blue Hole Business that Taobao's short dramas are basically exclusive. Judging from the source of release, the talents are backed by well-known MCN companies, such as Gumai Jiahe and Kuaiyu Media. "The overall quality of the series can be seen in the MCN, but the number of episodes is much less than that of paid short dramas."

Currently, most of the dramas on Taobao are within 20 episodes. For example, "Amazing Stories", which was popular in a small circle during Double 11 this year, is a benchmark project with only 8 episodes. Compared with the overall market of paid short dramas, generally, they start charging after 6 episodes, and the number of episodes can easily reach hundreds. The more episodes, the higher the revenue.

Although Taobao has invested a lot of effort, it does not expect to make money from sharing the revenue from short dramas. To put it bluntly, Taobao's efforts in short dramas are still under the command of Taobao's top-down content strategy.

In May 2022, Dai Shan, then head of the Chinese digital commerce sector, publicly stated that "Taobao will make huge investments in the new gear of contentization, and the two independent central content fields of browsing and live streaming will assume greater responsibilities." And on this year's Double 11, Shao You (nickname), head of Taobao content, said in his speech: Taobao's contentization strategy was determined last year. MM (Dai Shan)'s team led everyone to set a 3-5 year plan. This year is the first year of contentization.

Of course, Taobao is not the only e-commerce platform that has set its sights on short dramas.

Under @Kuei's post, a netizen had a wild idea: "So when will we be able to watch short dramas on Pinduoduo? Maybe there will be free gold coins." In fact, the Duoduo Video at the bottom bar of Pinduoduo has long been realized. Not only can you watch short dramas - but you can also get gold coins.

But the difference is that Pinduoduo's short dramas do not have a dedicated section, but are hidden in the short video information flow. If you search the keyword "short drama" in Duoduo Video, you will see three sections: "video", "product" and "user". Among them, "video" is the short drama and episode slices posted by the influencers, "product" is the short drama content that can be purchased or the products brought by the short drama, and the user is the relevant influencer - although there is no official intervention, it is hard to say that Pinduoduo is not concerned about the short drama.

Image source: Pinduoduo related page

However, unlike Taobao, Pinduoduo's short drama ecosystem does not rely on official procurement, but on the "transfer" of experts attracted by the incentive mechanism. Starting in 2022, Pinduoduo has vigorously supported Duoduo Video, and its monthly active users exceeded 150 million at the beginning of this year. Because the threshold is low and it can be "brainlessly transferred", a large number of sideline parties have gathered in a short period of time, earning commissions by releasing a large number of short videos, and micro short dramas with their own popularity are an important type of release.

In other words, if Taobao's micro-short dramas are buildings constructed based on blueprints, Pinduoduo has opened up a piece of farmland called Duoduo Video, which has naturally grown a variety of content with an ecosystem similar to that of Douyin in its early years.

As a result, industry insiders can see at a glance that the short dramas on Pinduoduo are all hit dramas that have already been popular. In order to "catch the eye", individual publishers often choose the most explicit scenes as the cover, and some sideline bloggers even publicly share their experience, "anything without a watermark can be copied." Whether it is original or not is not yet within their consideration.

Taobao officially takes action, Pinduoduo mobilizes the masses, and JD’s content field is the home ground for merchants.

At present, the "Shopping" section of JD.com is mainly composed of product promotion videos and digital product reviews, while the short drama content is mainly self-made brand promotion and product promotion short dramas by merchants, such as Hanshu's "Dressing for Growth" and Yang Yuanqing's "Picture of Black Hair on the Forehead". The number of viewers is only a few hundred, far lower than the thousands or tens of thousands of views of the short dramas released on the first two platforms.

Image source: JD.com related page

Compared with JD.com's unwavering commitment to its "low-price" strategy, its investment in content ecology is obviously slightly inferior. From an official perspective, JD.com is more willing to emphasize its "transaction" attributes.

In the just-concluded Double 11 promotion, JD.com's procurement and sales live broadcast room, with top anchors such as Li Gang and Li Jiaqi, received over 380 million views. In subsequent media meetings, this was attributed more to the "real cheapness" brought about by the supply chain advantage and the "professionalism" of the anchors, rather than good content.

2. When will the thirst for traffic end?

Whether it is Taobao, which has put a lot of effort into it, Pinduoduo, which has done something by accident, or JD.com, which has been pushed by the trend, the content of their short plays is not, strictly speaking, the paid short plays that are currently hotly discussed.

Titan has been paying attention to the paid short drama track since August last year. She told "Blue Hole Business" that the public often confuses several concepts in the form of short dramas, namely "paid short dramas", "short dramas of online dramas", and "situational short videos".

"The key difference lies in the revenue model. The profit model of the micro-short dramas that we are discussing now is pay-to-watch. Basically, you have to pay starting from the 6th episode. The short-form web drama is essentially still a web drama, and like the web drama, it is free. The purpose of situational short videos is to increase fans, bring goods, and advertise. Generally, the continuity of the characters is maintained, but the plot does not necessarily have to be continuous."

Based on this concept, the brand promotion short plays or product promotion short plays on JD.com and Taobao are more like "situational short videos"; and "Amazing Stories", a collaboration between Taobao and the "Mao Pian" team, has a single episode length of about ten minutes and is free to watch, which is more like a short drama of an online drama; although the content carried by the Pinduoduo platform was formerly a standard micro-short drama, there is no "sharing" or "payment" to speak of.

In this case, what is the purpose of e-commerce platforms, putting on the shell of micro-short dramas and building a content ecosystem with the core sections on the homepage?

The answer is still "traffic". The e-commerce industry has entered an era of stock competition. More traffic and user stay time means more order opportunities. The reality is that short video e-commerce has gradually taken the lead in key data.

According to third-party data platform QuestMobile, Taobao's daily active users during this year's Double 11 promotion were around 450 million, peaking at over 520 million. It was followed closely by TikTok, which reached 470 million.

But it is worth noting that Douyin's daily active users were very stable during the promotion period, and were significantly higher than the same period last year. In contrast, the year-on-year growth of various store shelves was not obvious, and Pinduoduo was even lower than the same period last year.

Image source: QuestMobile

The Double 11 promotion was originally the main venue for shelf e-commerce, but its popularity has been overtaken by short video e-commerce as a whole. However, the more "eye-catching" data is "user stay time".

According to a research report released by GF Securities in January 2022, the daily usage time of Kuaishou users was 111 minutes per day, and that of Douyin was 108.7 minutes per day. In contrast, the daily usage time of Taobao users was 21 minutes, Pinduoduo users was 23 minutes, and JD users was 16 minutes.

It is understandable that entertainment short videos absorb more users' time than e-commerce platforms with transaction attributes, but if placed in the same live broadcast venue, the difference in user stickiness is still obvious.

Taking September 2023 as an example, according to QuestMobile, the average viewing time of Douyin users for live broadcasts that month reached 41.6 hours, and that of Kuaishou was 26.4 hours. In contrast, that of Taobao was 5.5 hours, and that of JD.com was 2.0 hours.

Once the wall of traffic is breached, the city of the mind will be difficult to defend. Reiterating "the omnipotent Taobao", as Taobao covers almost all e-commerce users and product categories, why does Dai Shan repeatedly emphasize "users first, ecological prosperity"? Why is Taobao the most drastic in terms of content? Why do they invest the most in short dramas? The reason is self-evident.

In the just-concluded Double 11, the data that was highlighted instead of GMV was the length of time users stayed on Taobao. For example, the number of users watching Taobao short videos on Double 11 increased by 142% year-on-year, and the viewing time increased by 439% year-on-year.

In other words, traffic is the fruit that the platform really wants to pick, and micro-short dramas, as the hottest content nowadays, are the ladder chosen by the platform.

For Pinduoduo and JD.com, although they did not invest more in the ladder of micro-short dramas, they inevitably chose another simpler and more straightforward path of "making money online."

In Duoduo Video and JD.com's "Shopping" channel, users can earn coins or directly withdraw cash by watching videos; similarly, the "Duoduo Orchard" that was once popularized by Pinduoduo has now become a standard feature of major e-commerce platforms, such as Dongdong Orchard, Baba Farm, and even Meituan has created a "Xiaomei Orchard". By "watering" the virtual orchard every day, users can receive red envelopes and reward fruits and vegetables, and the platform can cultivate the habit of opening it.

At a time when it is no longer popular for Internet giants to promote themselves as "super apps," every company is doing everything they can to keep users.

But back to the micro-short drama segment, which has an additional layer of entertainment and mental support compared to online earning, can it alleviate the traffic hunger of shelf e-commerce?

"The content of Taobao's short dramas is too hidden," Titan said with regret. From the perspective of the entrance, the small theater is the third-level entrance of Taobao Mobile. Compared with the short video platform, the path is obviously much longer. "This means that it may be able to increase user usage time, but it is difficult to serve as a traffic entrance. And I am curious, how many people will place an order because of watching short dramas?"

Another dilemma brought by the short drama content is the misalignment with Taobao's own tone. According to "Xuebao Finance", an operator of Guanguan once revealed that the gender ratio of Guanguan users has been "inverted", with male users accounting for more than 60% of the users entering the area, while Taobao's overall user base is mainly female. In addition, Guanguan's "negative feedback rate" has increased, and most of them are female users at L4-L5, who are exactly the core user group of Taobao.

At present, Taobao is not without a preference for female users in terms of short drama content. "The short dramas displayed on the main page of Guanguang are all female-oriented," said Titan. However, the reason for the inversion of users is actually consistent with the overall market of short drama users. "Unlike what the outside world thinks, the main audience of short dramas is not women, but men, with a ratio of 40:60, mainly in the sinking market."

The misalignment on the user side may not be the most critical issue at the moment. The micro-short drama market, which has been booming in the past two years, is undergoing a new round of baptism at the censorship level.

Recently, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television has made it clear that the regulation of short dramas has become a regular practice and has launched a one-month special regulation campaign. The direct result of this is the removal of popular short dramas such as "Black Lotus". According to industry insiders, due to this, the advertising consumption of short dramas has dropped directly from 70 million per day to 40 million.

The micro-drama industry has clearly entered a period of volatility. WeChat, Kuaishou, and Douyin, the three major platforms, have successively issued notices on the handling of micro-drama accounts that violate regulations.

As a content supplement, how short dramas can develop healthily on e-commerce platforms and play their role as traffic codes rather than potential "minefields" is an issue worthy of repeated consideration.

Author: Yu Weilin

Source public account: Blue Hole Business (ID: value_creation).