In the past 2023, the general consensus in the variety show industry is "variety show small year". On the one hand, the variety show market tends to be conservative, and the N generation of variety shows is more likely to be favored by the market than new projects. According to Yunhe data, in terms of the performance of variety shows in the first half of 2023 alone, the number of departments of the N generation of variety shows accounts for 43% of the number of headquarters, but the effective ** accounts for 77% of the total effective**.
It is difficult to promote new variety show projects, and many projects are still in the PPT stage, even if they are screened through layers of projects, they will face an unfavorable situation of attracting investment.
For brands, the advertising business model of variety shows is a little outdated. Compared with the stimulation of instant income such as live broadcasting, it is indeed difficult for most variety shows to earn money from the pockets of the financiers.
Liu Xin, a variety show producer who has worked in a large factory for ten years, left her job to start a business in early 2023. Although the new project she carefully prepared has passed the internal audit, the project has encountered obstacles in attracting investment, and her income has also dropped by half.
She posted her year-end summary (crazy version) on social **. Different from the usual year-end summary of the workplace, Liu Xin ridiculed customers and herself in her "summary": she unlocked new skills in business, and improvised poems in the wine game; One of the most frequently asked questions by customers is, "Can you help me clear my inventory?" ”；When the new project is solicited, it is required by footwear brand customers to back the KPI of "selling shoes"; finally relied on writing poems to negotiate a project, and when signing the contract, the client perfectly interpreted the realistic version of the "disappearing her" ......
Houlang Research Institute "found Liu Xin, a person in the entertainment industry who is accustomed to arming herself with red lipstick, and talked about her career pain period from a big factory screw to an independent entrepreneur this year, how she "got out" in a group of brand customers as a "little white from the Commerce Bureau", and her perception of the water temperature in this field of the variety show market after being immersed in the industry for ten years.
The following is Liu Xin's account.
Customer, customer, customer
This year, in terms of income, my salary is almost half less.
I am a variety show producer who has been a variety show producer for nearly ten years, entered the industry after graduation, followed many variety show projects, and also handled large-scale galas for tens of thousands of people, artist concerts, etc.
I have been in Dachang before, and I left Dachang at the beginning of 2023 to start a business, and now I am the co-founder of an entertainment company.
We have two or three variety shows in planning, and the content planning is very smooth, but the investment promotion is very unsatisfactory, originally this planning wanted to rush to the S level of the platform, and the total title price we set was hundreds of millions, but now half of it is very good.
In order to save the budget and develop a new program, in order to increase the scientific support of the program, my colleagues and I spent half a month watching a lot of science**, you know that for an art student, this is like listening to a book from heaven, and I didn't understand it after watching it for 5 days.
This year, the thing I insisted on for the longest time was to write PPT, PPT to the platform, PPT to customers, PPT to artists, PPT to advertising agencies, and I could write more than 30 a year. The project didn't sell, but my ppt got better and better, so good that it could be sold for money, and I also made a deal of **ppt business.
If you can't make a big order, you can make a small order, and we sometimes do some artist business. I have a good relationship with some artists, and I can get a relatively low ** through me.
But you also find that this year everyone wants to empty the gloves white wolf. Some clients want to use the artists in my hands to find other major budgets, but I have encountered too many situations and will not accept them.
Sometimes you finally rely on poetry to help the artist win a business cooperation at the dinner. Unexpectedly, before signing the contract, the customer perfectly interpreted what is called the real version of "Disappearing Her".
Later, I could only disappear from the artist, and I still don't dare to talk to the artist.
Because of the pressure, I can often dream of customers in my dreams, every day I suffer from gains and losses, customers say a word to me today I am very happy, customers ignore me today I am sad, ah, this feeling is like falling in love......
Lama Temple queuing scene.
It's not very popular to go to the Lama Temple to incense this year, I hope my project can also be smoother, so I went to the Lama Temple to worship. At that time, I felt that I should be sincere, so in July, I worshiped all the Buddhist halls that were open in the high temperature, and queued for hours to ask for a bracelet of 1,500 yuan.
After I arrived, I heard that I was going to open the light, so I went to line up with the bracelet to find the master to open the light. Twenty or thirty people entered the consecration room at one time, and you still don't know what's going on, but it didn't take 2 seconds to hear the master say "the next wave", and then we were kicked out, which was very efficient.
It is said that you can't take the bracelet to the toilet with the light open, I have a bunch of bracelets in my hand, but I really want to go to the toilet, you know what, I held it for two hours.
It was so hot that I suffered from heat stroke after all the worship halls, and I almost fainted on the side of the road, so I immediately took a taxi to the hospital ......
One of the most frequently asked questions: "Can you help me clear my inventory?" ”
In the past year, my peers and I got together to complain 274 times, they were artist agents, directors, producers, and publicity, and the most common thing everyone said was "it's too difficult".
When you are planning this case, you don't know if this case will be able to land. For me, it is more important for a plan to be implemented than to do it well.
In the past two years, many variety shows have been stopped. Many of the production teams are out of work, and everyone is quite confused. The few programs that perform well are some programs that promote newcomers. Since the talent show was stopped, domestic entertainment is almost in a state of no newcomers, and this industry is prone to fault once there are no newcomers. Therefore, everyone pushes newcomers through some other models, and the routine behind it is still the logic of the draft. In this way, it attracts some brands that hit the young market.
In addition, there is also a more obvious trend that many of the old variety show IPs that can be supported in the past two years are some old variety show IPs.
Under the condition that the market is not very good, everyone is in a conservative state of the market, because once the new thing is pounced, it is difficult to explain to the customer, it is difficult for everyone to pay for the innovative thing, and the project that has been tested by the market is relatively easy to succeed. I was communicating with an artist for my new show, and the feedback he gave me was that they would rather go to those variety n generations now. I think if our new project doesn't recruit an overall title this year, it will only have to lower expectations.
The scene of the program recording.
Not only me, but many directors have pressure to attract investment this year. I know the director of a production company under a central enterprise, they also have investment KPIs this year, if you can't recruit them, you will get a basic salary of 6,000 a month, which is miserable enough in Beijing.
This year, we are not asking customers to propose proposals individually. The customer will directly hold a proposal meeting, and the directors of satellite TV in various places will line up with the plan to hand over the plan. Clients have a huge number of cases in their hands, and they don't want to waste time.
Customers never complain with us, because one of the most asked questions from customers this year is: "Can you help me clear my inventory?" ”
Even though they forget, I'm just a hard worker who makes content.
When I was soliciting investment for my project this year, another customer asked us to sell their backlog of sneakers. I never thought that one day I would have to carry the K......PI of "selling shoes".
From what I've observed, customer branding is now more conversion-focused than before. However, how can you say that you have a variety show title that can bring direct order conversion?
Earlier, some beverage consumer goods paid attention to brand value, and they did taste some sweetness in variety shows. But now that the short ** is becoming more and more prosperous, the model of titled variety shows is relatively old. Now customers value the growth of orders the most, so they are reluctant to make such a high ** title variety show. Second, they have better options, such as live streaming, concert sponsorship, or the launch of some big short ** platforms. Compared with the stimulation of instant income brought by live broadcasting, it is indeed difficult for most variety shows to earn money from the pockets of financiers.
New Skill: Unlock the Bureau of Commerce
This year, I also ran some business dinners and unlocked a new skill – improvisational poetry.
When you find that you can't beat the middle-aged big brother in the business bureau when it comes to drinking, improvising poetry can also impress customers.
Sometimes customers like to have some lyrics at dinner, and you have to go along with them. Everyone got into a bit of a state when they drank to a certain extent, and they began to call each other brothers, and what they said was very sincere, but I knew that this sincerity was just trying to get something.
I used to do projects in large factories, and I was only responsible for the content, not for investment, and I didn't recognize business entertainment, so I thought it was just drinking tea and chatting. But after experiencing it myself, I realized that this is not the case.
Liu Xin at the wine party.
At a dinner, many peers gathered around a liquor customer to get some sponsorship for the project. The eldest brother sitting on my right looked quite old, and he praised the customers so much that he said that he wanted to share their wine with Audrey Hepburn, and I was shocked. Later that client did put some into his project.
For a person who is by nature, it is extremely painful to participate in this kind of situation. I don't quite say that. But we were in the same drinking party, and they got sponsorship.
I was instantly filled with respect for business people.
Then I figured it out. I think you're all sitting here, so get out of the way, you have to get over this hurdle from your heart, you have to be able to pull your face down. I'm just coming with my mouth open now, boasting hard, complimenting hard, and it's just a show.
One of my sisters asked me, do you like that? It doesn't matter to me, the most important thing is that I have to get it done. That's the biggest change for me this year.
After leaving my previous company, I was also going through the throes of my career.
When you come out to start a business, the aura of the platform is gone, and everyone's natural trust in you is gone. I know who I am, and now I'm just an entrepreneur. You need to impress others with something more practical in order to gain their trust.
One of the lessons I learned from the customer's "disappearing her" incident is that I don't want to have no credibility in the circle, we have to have a standardized process, and when someone finds me, I must see a demand from the other party on paper, and I will help you facilitate cooperation. After all, the threshold of this circle is very low, it is very chaotic, and it is common to be fooled, so trust is very important.
After working for so many years, you seem to have a lot of abilities, I have managed large projects for half a year, and the project budget is 30 million to 100 million, I can make the whole team run well, including how to save the budget, do risk management and so on. But you also come to realize that there are some things that you don't have the ability to solve that determine your life or death. For example, I'm a kid in sales, so I need to make a breakthrough from 0 to 1 to make up for my shortcomings.
Dare to do what you are not good at
A lot of people say that if you want to be successful, you have to do what you're good at. But then it turned out thatIf you want to be a super individual, you can only turn on hard mode for yourself, and dare to do those things that you are not good at, I have found that the time when I grow the most is when I cry the loudest.
Liu Xin waiting at the recording site.
When I first entered the workplace in my 20s, I was still a newcomer, and I had a weak personality and an empty head at that time, although I held the title of producer on the set, I didn't know anything about the small society on the set. You also don't know what is the purpose behind some people coming to you, so I often take the blame.
Shoot an advertisement for the artist, the artist does not cooperate with the customer's needs, the customer continues to increase the demand, and the production director also warns me to cut off the power at the stuck point. I took on pots from all directions, as well as some unreasonable needs with ulterior motives.
It was 2 o'clock in the morning, and I was sitting on the floor of the studio, and I broke down and cried for the first time. thought that a little girl's tears could be exchanged for the tolerance of a team, but it turned out to become a topic of conversation after tea and dinner in the group.
I still remember my boss sitting with me on the edge of the grass and teaching me how to fight the old fritters on the set.
I began to understand the workplace and grew little by little. For example, if you use someone else's venue to shoot something, and they say that they will cut off the power to you if they can't finish shooting, I have to realize that I want you to do something behind this.
As a producer, you are connected to both the client and the content, and the artist, the client, and the director team must be coordinated. ButThere will always be unexpected situations on the show that you can't imagine, you are like whack-a-mole, this one has just been pushed down, and that one has come out again。After experiencing critical moments large and small, I can summarize some "firefighting strategies".
Liu Xin's frequent business trips have accumulated air tickets.
We held a party of tens of thousands of people in a gymnasium before, and at that time, because of the problem of the first business, the artist's car did not get a car license, and he could not drive into the venue. Later, I also had a fight with the ** merchant for this. The other party is a man. We grabbed each other by the collar and yelled in the hotel lobby, another girl rushed to persuade the fight, we quarreled, the scene was chaotic, the hotel security also thought that we had a relationship between two women and a man, and persuaded us to go back to the room to quarrel.
I was a very responsible person on the spot. There was a live event where a lot of artists were invited at that time, and there were some fans or scalpers who wanted to get involved, and we caught a lot of them on the spot. I met a girl at the door of the toilet, thinking that she was also a fan, so I didn't let her in, and she went straight to the spot and said, "Come on, come on, you come in and watch me pee." "When Yitong came, she told me that she was really an actress.
When recording the show, some artists were not satisfied with the stage lighting, so the director team repeatedly adjusted until four or five o'clock in the morning. The director originally wanted to swear in the internal group, but he accidentally sent it to the art crowd, which was very, very embarrassing. The artist is clamoring to boycott the recording. I also have to appease this situation in time. At that time, I was often so busy that I was insane, and what happened during the day could continue to dream at night.
I occasionally post my work experience on social **, and some sisters said after reading my "firefighting strategy" that each of my "darkest moments" can make people anxious to the extent of growing a nodule, compared to the job she played.
I did have some problems with my body at work. Later, I had a tumor in my thyroid gland and had surgery, and since then I have let go of many of my obsessions.
I often imagine that my 30-year-old self must be a cool sister who is very calm. But when you really reach the age of 30, you find that you are just an ordinary ordinary person, and you have to constantly upgrade and fight monsters.
But I still believe that what I'm going through now is just one stage of my life. Growing up is like climbing a mountain, and although it is extremely difficult to climb the mountain in front of you, who doesn't cry while climbing?