2024’s first hit at the beginning of the year was actually won by an earthy short drama.
During the Spring Festival, whether you are scrolling through Douyin or Weibo, you can see the short drama "I Became a Stepmother in the 1980s". A female college student travels back to the 1980s to become a stepmother. The combination of points makes people feel very excited.
Ai, You, and Teng, the long-form video platforms for the Spring Festival, all came up with big dramas to seize the drama market. Unexpectedly, was overtaken by short dramas and .
The micro-short drama market has grown wildly in the past few years, and the industry has expanded rapidly. However, what followed was strict crackdown, supervision, and rectification. The short drama industry ushered in a "sudden brake". "I Became a Stepmother in the 1980s" ” is undoubtedly a good start for the short drama market in 2024. The craze of short dramas is still continuing with .
And the driving force behind the popularity of "I Was a Stepmother in the 1980s" - Zhangwan Network, also took advantage of this Spring Festival period to shine in the industry, completing the extension of the production ecology, and driving the development of the short drama market in 2024. Here comes new possibilities.
What corner does the stepmother rely on to overtake?
As of the date of publication, the topic views of "I Was a Stepmother in the 1980s" on Douyin have exceeded 400 million, and the number of likes for a single episode has exceeded 1.5 million. The data performance is very good.
According to data released by Xin Wan Er and Whip Bulls, "I Was a Stepmother in the 1980s" topped the Douyin short drama hot list on the fourth day of the Lunar New Year, with a heat value of nearly 10 million, and it also topped the Douyin short drama list. The Douyin hot list all reflects the popularity of the drama in the media market.
But objectively speaking, in terms of content and production, "I Became a Stepmother in the 1980s" is not as good as the new year's high-quality dramas on long-form video platforms.
Bad actors, outdated plot routines, crude production... There are not many advantages that can be picked out, but why did this short drama become a hit during the Spring Festival?
In fact, the popularity of "I Became a Stepmother in the 1980s" is not unexpected.
On the one hand, the focus of the announcement is to find the right , and increase the popularity by promoting the appearance of the male and female protagonists. Simply put, it is "to gain popularity".
I believe everyone will be dazzled when they see the male protagonist, who is like a mixture of Xiao Zhan and Huo Jianhua . He is jokingly said that "you are lucky to look a bit like the top class". The actor himself also specially commented Weibo responded to the incident. The heroine is quite similar to the late Korean actress Choi Sulli.
The actors' double-faced confrontation brought a lot of attention to the drama. It shared more traffic during the Spring Festival when the short drama market was saturated, and also allowed "I Was a Stepmother in the 1980s" to successfully break through the circle and gain more recognition. Many new users.
On the other hand, short and refreshing short dramas have no viewing threshold . Through Douyin, they can firmly capture the users in the sinking market. They can watch the entire episode for just a few dollars. Compared with the big dramas on long video platforms, they can reach more people. A wider audience.
And "I Was a Stepmother in the 1980s" captured the favorite points of users in the sinking market. The heroine is full of firepower, the main character is one that no one can get used to, there is no peeing throughout the whole process, and it is completely impossible to stop.
In essence, short drama is a fast-moving consumer product. It cannot be the main dish, but can only be used as a side dish. It does not require good acting skills or much nutrition. As long as can provide immediate emotional value , You can retain your audience.
And the producer of "I Was a Stepmother in the 1980s", Fangzhangwanwang.com, has captured the psychology of users. Whether it is the exciting plot from beginning to end, or the marketing of male and female characters, they are essentially designed to make the This side dish looks more delicious, attracting seven aunts and eight aunts to eat this dish.
Zhangwan Network creates the myth of getting rich
The popularity of "I Became a Stepmother in the 1980s" has given Zhangwan Network a strong presence in the short drama market, but in fact, this is not the first drama launched by Zhangwan Network in 2024 A hit item.
According to the comprehensive data analysis of Xin Wan Er and Whip Niu Shi, in January, "Mr. Pei Thinks of Father and Son Every Day" jointly produced by Zhangwan Network and Dianzhong won the first place in short drama heat value for three consecutive days, and The top spot on the hot short drama weekly list in the fourth week of January was also taken by "So Mysterious She", jointly produced by Zhangwan Network and Dianzhong.
html In early February, Zhangwan Network once again topped the list of hot short dramas with "Mr. Li, You Got the Wrong Wife" for three consecutive days. "Go Where I Am" also topped the list for many days, with many hits Let Palm Network continue to dominate the rankings.summarizes these popular short dramas. In fact, it is not difficult to find that Zhangwan Network has formed its own model in the production and distribution of short dramas. insists on working hard on the two aspects of "actors + plot" .
On the one hand, Zhangwan Network has its own set of standards for the selection of actors. " good looks + topical " is the shortest way to get out of the industry.
For example, the heroine of "Mr. Pei Thinks of Father and Son Every Day" Xu Mengyuan is a long-form drama actor with a professional background. She can be seen in the recent hit "South to North" on CCTV, but she really She got out of the entertainment industry through her scandals with a number of male celebrities. Her acting skills were good and she was topical, which drove the traffic of the entire drama.
It is an eternal truth in the entertainment industry that appearance equals productivity. The two protagonists of "Mr. Li, You Got the Wrong Wife" both relied on their good looks to get out of the entertainment industry, not to mention "I Became a Stepmother in the 1980s". It has good looks and topicality.
On the other hand, in terms of plot production, Palm Network is the simple and crude "cool" of , which can be described as sticking to the original intention. The plots of these popular short dramas of
are all enjoyable dramas. In a sense, they have no connotation and no value, but they can quickly get people hooked in a short period of time and stimulate players to recharge.
In fact, the success of short dramas in the early days was due to their "coolness", and they did not dare to shoot long videos. However, with the development of the market, the production of many short dramas has gradually become more and more biased, blindly pursuing new content and improving quality. , volume connotation, but ignores the point that can most stimulate the audience.
In fact, at a time when the short drama market is seriously saturated, this style of play that is different from other short dramas is indeed very effective, allowing Zhangwan Network to get off to a good start in 2024. The output of many consecutive hit movies also directly reflects On the income account.
Taking "I Became a Stepmother in the 1980s" as an example, Wang Yunxiao, a short drama producer in the industry, revealed in a post that the drama only took 10 days of filming and 80,000 yuan was invested in the later period. But after it became popular, it can be recharged daily. Reached 20 million yuan .
There are more than one hits like "I Was a Stepmother in the 1980s", and the myth of getting rich through short plays continues. Zhangwan Network, a cutting-edge short play production company, has greater weight in the market. .
Palm Internet is like a restaurant. By steadily producing dishes that suit the audience's taste, it has cultivated its own regular customers and created a brand effect. provides a sample for the branding of short drama production companies.
Branding brings new possibilities to short dramas
In fact, Zhangwan Network only started to develop short drama business in 2022.
Zhangwan Network was established in 2014. Its initial main business was digital reading and new media advertising. It has long-term cooperation with many novel platforms such as China Literature, Dianzhong, and NetEase, and has a business ecosystem suitable for the development of short dramas. Whether it is a novel agent or a powerful new media advertising capability,
is a link in the short drama development industry chain. In essence, Palm Network’s development of short drama business is based on the existing business ecology. An extension made on .
So it is not difficult to understand why Zhangwan Network is so mature in plot control and publicity.
But objectively speaking, the early handheld Internet took a detour. Although
has a complete ecological chain of short plays, it is still in the early trial and error stage and has not established standardized requirements in terms of subject matter, content, publicity, etc. "I Will Make You the Richest Man" and other male channel short dramas have little splash.
Until 2024, Palm Network gradually found its development positioning, and began to form its own short drama brand , which featured female-driven dramas. While ensuring a stable style, through the selection of actors and the development of the plot, The production and content publicity are used to establish the difference from other short dramas and develop in the direction of branding.
In fact, the requirements for branding can be boiled down to two points: one is to shape the brand image through standardized content requirements; the other is to have stable product features and styles to form differentiated content. Through several popular short dramas in 2024, Zhangwan Network has completed the transformation of the short drama company's branding.
For the current short drama market, the unavoidable problem is that on the one hand, the market is gradually saturated, making one hit and another is a thing of the past, and the novelty of the audience is fading. On the other hand, the short drama market is growing wildly and is a mixed bag. Standardization is urgently needed.
and Short drama company branding means the projectization, standardization and process of content production and integrated marketing , realizing the segmentation of content areas and the specification of production, and creating a stronger connection with the audience, which is currently able to solve the problem of short dramas The best solution to market distress.
As a side dish, short plays have long been used to kill time and appetizers. It is difficult to have "die-hard fans", but the branding of the short play company may make this side dish gradually become something more The main course for the audience.
