Text丨Huang Xiaoyi
Editor丨Liu Yuqi
In the first month of 2024, Douyin can't hold back.
Continuing last year's high attention to the short drama industry, on January 29, Douyin announced that it would cooperate with Stephen Chow, the king of comedy, to develop micro-short dramas, and the two sides will jointly develop and operate the "9527 Theater", the first season of the first high-quality micro-short drama "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf" is expected to be launched on Douyin in May this year.
The short drama industry has another "King Bomb", which directly boiled the creative circle.
Stephen Chow has not done short ** before, which once again shows that short dramas are a very large industry. Cao Feng, the author of Shenhao's popular drama, said to the business data faction, "He has almost never taken the initiative to appear on social ** before, once in the previous web3."0, this time it's a skit. web3.0 skit digital assets may also become a new product. ”
However, judging from the news officially released by Douyin, Douyin and Stephen Chow are mentioned on the surface, but the "9527 Theater" behind it is the protagonist.
In addition to the first short drama produced by Stephen Chow, "9527 Theater" will also cooperate with other creators other than Xing Ye to distribute it based on the Douyin account of "Stephen Chow's directorial works". In other words, Stephen Chow may not be required to participate in the production in the follow-up, which is equivalent to Douyin borrowing the power of Xingye to quickly build a short drama IP account and continue to replicate its influence.
This is also Douyin's consistent "routine", from talent to live broadcast, it is a benchmark role raised by the power of the platform, driving the rise of the entire vertical category.
And this time on the new track of the short drama, Douyin hugged the thigh of the King of Comedy again, is there a bigger plan behind the miracle soldier of Xing Ye?
This starts with the 2023 year of short dramas, this year has gone from explosive and savage growth to finding a new way out after regulatory norms, and the industry has moved towards high-quality production.
However, the difficulty of high-quality production is the balance between efficiency and effect. Previously, the production cycle of short dramas was even compressed to one week, relying on rapid iteration to win by quantity; Moving towards high-quality products means a longer production cycle and higher costs. Taking Stephen Chow's short drama as an example, it is tentatively scheduled to be launched in May, and there is at least 3 months of production cycle.
Therefore, as a platform, Douyin is also exploring a balance between the quality and commercialization of high-quality short dramas, and this joint star is an attempt, but it is still unknown whether it can solve this problem in the end.
But in any case, such a big move in the first month of the year also indicates that in 2024, the short drama industry will still move forward in turmoil.
Please, how much money can make me play an episode", "Director, I can play a dog in Washington"...
At present, the number of fans of the "Director Stephen Chow's Works" account is 2.5 million, and there is already "crazy literature" in the comment area.
As a well-deserved king of comedy, when Xing Ye meets a short drama, whether it is from the perspective of traffic that is collectively worshiped by the post-80s and post-90s, or the creative ability of frequent golden sentences and extreme nonsensical, it can be called a dimensionality reduction blow in the dimensionality reduction strike world.
Behind Stephen Chow's joining this time, it is also the general trend of short dramas moving towards high-quality films.
In 2023, with the surge in the number of short dramas, the problem of homogenization is becoming more and more prominent, and the stitching weird plot is losing its appeal. Since the second half of the year, the gods have ended, the regular army of film and television has poured in, and the supervision has intervened, and the level of short dramas has soared from all dimensions of plot, production, performance, and props.
The industry has changed its rudder, which has also brought new problems.
You must know that the reason why the short drama is popular is all because of the charming characters of the boss and the god of war, as well as the plot of repeated slaps in the face; After the high-quality product, will users still pay? Is the monetization link unclear? Perhaps the hearts of all skit practitioners are beating drums.
At this juncture, the Douyin of Xingye is actually hoping to use Stephen Chow's influence to set a benchmark again, and copy this set of unique skills from talents and anchors to high-quality short dramas.
Becoming popular in the "9527 Theater" and making this benchmark account make money is the first trick that Douyin wants to change.
Focusing on the overall commercialization of the Douyin platform, the means of monetization of short dramas are already very clear. One end of the account is connected to the fan user of a specific portrait, and the other end is connected to the brand and business that want to accurately reach the user, which can be monetized through single episode payment, ad placement, customized short dramas, mounted links, and starring actors.
However, how to achieve the specific path, what is the willingness of brand merchants to launch, the standards and fees of advertising cooperation, and various industry standards are still very vague.
In fact, this is not the first time that Douyin has tried to benchmark a short drama account. As early as 2022, Douyin has a short drama account of Cool Burning Theater, a martial arts vertical category. At the end of December 2022, Cool Burn Theater launched the male frequency short drama "The Lost Shadow of Brocade", starring star Liu Ruilin and others, and Douyin Culture is among the producers. The film and television company that operated the show, Freedom Cool Whale, also created the "Embroidered Spring Knife" series, "Assassination of ** Family", "Feng Qi Longxi" and other movies and online dramas with excellent quality and effect.
As a representative of high-quality short dramas, it has been reported that Douyin plans to build the brocade series into an IP account, combined with the "Cool Burning Theater" created by Douyin for male audiences, and uses the dual operation model of "IP + Theater" to tap male frequency traffic.
However, the current commercial performance of Cool Burn Theater is not outstanding.
Whether it is the account or the plot content, I have not seen the brand or advertising placement for the time being. Previously, there were also ** reports that Free Cool Whale will still focus on the content and increase the amount of short dramas in terms of monetization. As for more monetization methods, such as ad placement, creating characters and accounts that are conducive to subsequent advertising and e-commerce monetization in the vertical track, and even IP incubation, will be tried one after another.
Compared with the cool burning male theater, with the star master and the funny vertical 9527, the mass base is large, and commercialization may be easier. But because there have been no successful cases before, it is also a challenge for Douyin.
In the future, Douyin may continue to expand new accounts along the route of vertical theme theater and establish a high-quality short drama theater matrix.
In 2024, the competitive landscape of the short drama industry will gradually mature. As a crossroads, all industries are pouring in, and from the production level, it is difficult for film and television companies and IP content to dominate; The distribution pattern has become fixed, and the biggest participants are Aiyou Tengmang's parents, as well as Douyin, Kuaishou as the representative of the short ** platform.
According to Detaven data, Douyin, Kuaishou, Youku, and Tencent** have launched 455, 214, 189, and 176 new micro-short dramas respectively. The supply of short dramas accounts for more than 70% of the overall market.
In 2024, the market supply will only expand, and the war will become more intense. We can even get a glimpse of it from this Spring Festival file: now, the most lively thing is not the movies queuing up for release, but the micro-short dramas crowded on platforms such as Douyin, Kuaishou, Tencent, and Youku.
After the high-quality and theatricalization, whether Douyin, which originally ranked first in the number of short plays, can still hold the "top spot" depends on the follow-up commercial money of each theater.
is not just Xingye, in the past month, Douyin short dramas can be said to be "allied" everywhere.
First of all, it was the platform experts who started to work around the short drama to keep warm.
Zhang Taoling, who has 8.69 million fans, wrote and directed it, Li Wei, the starring Li Weiwei with 22.56 million fans, and Zhang Baiqiao, who has 22.34 million fans. "Please Don't Pierce Me", jointly launched by funny big Internet celebrities, performed 100 ways for peers to collapse housesThere is a kind of irony and humor that will end up with the Internet, just aired to the 7th episode, and since the 4th episode, I have already received advertising sponsorship from the skincare product Yuesai.
Behind the scenes, Douyin short dramas have been connected with the main force of resource-rich high-quality products such as local ** and news**. On January 18, according to the official, Douyin reached a cooperation intention with more than 20 ** institutions such as Xinhua News Agency, Xinhuanet, CCTV, CCTV Network, Beijing Radio and Television, Zhejiang Radio and Television, Jiangsu Radio and Television, Dragon TV, etc., and the first batch of co-created high-quality micro-short dramas will be launched in March 2024.
It is worth noting that Douyin also found a partner in the previous incompatible long** platform-Mango TV, and signed a cooperation agreement on short dramas. Judging from the content of the conference, the cooperation between the two sides draws on their strengths, with Mango producing creative capabilities such as directors and screenwriters, while Douyin producing operational capabilities for traffic distribution and more new models for brand business monetization.
The above shows that Douyin, which is good at traffic and has content shortcomings, is filling the entire ecological chain of creation, distribution, and monetization of high-quality short dramas, trying to dominate the **.
At the meeting, Douyin also gave traffic and financial support to partners and short drama creators, and launched two short drama cooperation models.
The co-production model refers to the joint production of Douyin and the producer in the form of cash investment, and provides full-process support of "topic selection, script creation, content production, and account operation".
In the joint operation model, creators and institutions are responsible for the development and production of micro-short dramas, and Douyin provides tens of millions of traffic support and all-round operational support.
In short, one is that Douyin contributes money and effort, and the other is that it only contributes and does not pay. After this set of combinations, everyone is full of imagination about the Douyin short drama in 2024.
Will more traffic be allocated to short dramas and content monetization? Can it be used in collaboration with e-commerce businesses? Will there be more shopping cart hanging patterns? "In a group of skit writers, some people have already imagined it.
After Douyin sped up, it was the creators who were excited, but it may be Kuaishou who felt anxious, as well as Tencent**, Youku**, iQiyi and other long** platforms.
For the long-** platform, the unit price of long dramas is high, the operation cycle is long, the sunk cost is very large, and it is very difficult to sell advertisements or members under the cold winter of film and television. A single low-cost short drama of 20 1 million yuan, with its cost performance, has become a piece of honey.
Previously, the road of short dramas was still wide, and the paths of long and short were different, and the long-** platform was gradually shaking hands with the short** platform.
From the perspective of the monetization model, the income of long-term short dramas comes from membership income, advertising revenue, etc., and it is necessary to buy traffic from external platforms, such as Douyin, Kuaishou, etc., and the advantage is that users have good consumption habits and a higher payment rate.
The best performance among the long ** short dramas is the first hit micro-short drama "Provocation" in 2023, which not only set a record for this year's micro-short drama with a box office of more than 20 million, but also gained a high social voice on the whole network. 10 hours after the show was launched, the popularity value of Tencent** station exceeded 20,000, and during the popular broadcast, it won TOP1 in the short drama lists such as Maoyan and Yunhe.
Behind the high scores, marketing has also put a lot of effort into it.
In order to distribute, following the cooperation between Douyin and iQiyi, in 2023, Douyin and Tencent will also reach a cooperation on the long-term and short-term linkage promotion, and the reservation function of Weibo and Tencent** dramas will be opened; At the same time, the marketing of short dramas on Douyin and Weibo has also been further strengthened, with 88% of short dramas participating in marketing in 2023, and short drama-related topics have been on the hot search lists of Douyin and Weibo for nearly 30,000 hours, with a total of more than 85 billion Douyin topics.
The long-term ** platforms that have to rely on Douyin and fast distribution, how should they deal with Douyin's large-scale short drama production?
All in all, Douyin and Mango TV, which has less competition, joined forces, and this alliance in the first month of the year instantly changed the position of the long-short** confrontation, and this time, the balance of victory seems to be tilted towards the short**side.
However, 2024 has just begun, and it is still unknown how the long-** platform will fight back next, and whether the first performance of Douyin will go smoothly.
Kunpeng Project