If " dim fire " is the Chinese version of "Dark Glory", then the newly launched " new life " is an out-and-out Rashomon - fraudsters may not have good intentions in their hearts. The victims may not be completely innocent. One person has many faces, the deception escalates, fraud and counter-fraud, and everyone is evil. It is not only a test of human nature, but also a cat-and-mouse game, with the taste of high-end werewolf killing coming towards you.
It’s no wonder that it topped the popularity list on the site on the day it premiered, and its momentum outside the site should not be underestimated. Currently, it has successfully ranked among the top reading searches on Douban and WeChat, and topped the Maoyan Network Popularity List and Yunhe Data Network Popularity List. Top of the list. It is foreseeable that "Rebirth" will further ignite the "fire" lit by "Gloomy Fire" and make it more brilliant.
The emergence of "Gloomy Fire" and "Rebirth" is not accidental. It is like an aspect that reflects Youku's original intention of adhering to good content and its full bloom in the drama market.
01
Advanced "Good Content"
Since the launch of Suspense Theater in 2020, Youku has been producing suspense dramas with high reputations. Recently, it has been fully upgraded to White Night Theater. "The long night must end, and the truth will be revealed." At the same time, it also peeps and reflects on human nature, which can be seen from the explosive start of "Dark Fire" and "Rebirth". Suspense lovers will indeed not lose money by investing in it.
In addition to these two popular dramas, White Night Theater has also launched many "socialist high-quality suspense dramas" such as "Once Upon a Time on the Edge of Water", "Snow Maze", "In the Wilderness", "Broken Cocoon 2", "Sandstorm", etc., which explore family in depth. Social issues such as violence, women's plight, regional power, fraud traps, etc. have opened up a new track in the domestic suspense drama market.
In fact, since the beginning of 2024, has started the year with the youth drama "Long Time Love" in January, the ancient costume masterpiece "The Case of the Tang Dynasty" in February, the dark horse "Huajian Ling" in March, and the ancient costume "Little Prince" in April. "Do you know?" " Xihuazhi "... Youku drama has begun to stage a multi-track comprehensive cheating and "involution" upgrade. uses high-quality content of multiple themes to defeat the audience groups one by one, maximizing Improve user stickiness and achieve user retention.
"Flower Order" became the first hit in the spring. It aired on air and exceeded 10,000 in three days. It became the fastest drama to reach 10,000 on Youku this year. It can be called the biggest "dark horse" of Q1. The subsequent "Cherishing Flowers" also broke out in the spring release. With various counter-routines and a love career, it gained a high number of views and a good reputation from the audience.
It is worth mentioning that "Xi Huazhi" does not just stop at the "emotional line of the male and female protagonists", but shows a group of women with flowers in full bloom. The women in the story are all fresh and vivid, and they are all beautiful. Gorgeous, this is not only a reflection of the current rise of female consciousness, but also Youku’s response and guidance to the spirit of the times.
When gender differences become blurred, the pleasure mechanism of female channels begins to converge with that of male channels, and female characters can also become powerful. This sounds simple, but it is actually a big step for female characters. In the released list of films to be broadcast, we can also see many dramas with female protagonists such as 's "Mo Yu Yun Jian", "Hua Hua Nian", "Pearl Curtain and Jade Curtain", which highlight the relationship between women. The mutual help, friendship, kinship and other present a dazzling female world to the audience.
"Mo Yu Yun Jian" closely follows the ever-watching theme of revenge, starting with the tragic experience of the heroine Xue Fangfei, step by step from a soft-hearted weak woman who was bullied to a shrewd, capable, smart and revengeful "cannibal" "Flower", the setting is very tense and not too emotional at all.
The first "Multiple Rebirth" setting of "The Years of Life" takes the eldest princess Li Rong as the main line, showing the love-hate entanglement of a legendary dream and two lives. In the previous life, she and the chief minister Pei Wenxuan were irreconcilable enemies. After rebirth in this life , she is determined to change her destiny and reveal the truth together with Pei Wenxuan. This setting that spans time and space is not only full of imagination, but also thought-provoking, giving people a deeper understanding and appreciation of life and love.
The story of "Pearl Curtain and Jade Curtain" takes place in the early Tang Dynasty. In order to resist humiliation, Duanwu, a rich girl from Hepu, was rescued by the poet Zhang Jinran at a critical moment. In order to find out his life experience, Duan Wu joined Yan Zijing's caravan. With his clever and flexible mind, he counterattacked and became a generation of businesswoman, and also made many close friends.
In addition to the charming heroines, the female supporting characters in these dramas are also extremely outstanding. They are either gentle and graceful, or resolute and courageous. These different character traits, identity backgrounds, life goals and different destiny trajectories give women The protagonist brings a variety of challenges and opportunities, making the entire story more colorful.
On the hot-blooded track, Youku's "Young Fantasy Universe" this year, which focuses on live-action comics and science fiction themes, has attracted the attention of many fans and Xianxia fans, especially "Mortal Cultivation of Immortality", which has a large number of fans of the original work. . "The Legend of Mortals Cultivation of Immortality" is already a big IP among men's online movies. This time, Yang Yang, who has directed " Jiang Ye " and " Meng Hua Lu ", serves as the chief director. It is worth looking forward to. I believe that the launch of this series will surely set off a new round of Xianxia craze.
Innovation is the lifeline of Youku dramas. Youku keenly captures the excitement of current users, adheres to the head-first strategy, injects realistic elements into content creation, and explores more diverse themes and expressions for the ancient costume and fairy tale tracks. For example, "The Order of Flowers" adds elements of detective work and intricate court disputes that use ancient metaphors to describe the present, and also explores real social issues such as native families and school violence; "The Story of a Mortal Cultivation of Immortality" allows the audience to feel the hardships and hardships of cultivating immortality. While having fun, you can also find the resonance of courage, wisdom and emotion in the play.
In Youku’s drama reserve this year, urban themes have also found new innovative openings.
"Half Mature Couple" is a dystopian love fable drama, focusing on urban mature people, with an anti-routine setting, revealing the emotional ukiyo-e of urban men and women seeking love and making a living; "Thank You, Hear Me" is the heart-warming drama of the year, featuring down-and-out civilian gentlemen. Breaking into the dark world of girls and saving each other, it also profoundly reflects the current reality of people being lonely and on their own islands; as a rare drama set in the medical beauty industry, "In the Name of Beauty" has its own popularity It not only focuses on the medical beauty repair industry for the first time, but also explores the warm stories behind female medical beauty, rejects appearance anxiety, and breaks the shackles and prejudices about "beauty".
When elements such as emotions, women, growth, and workplace are integrated, the sense of reality and the sense of urbanity form a just right balance in the play, and the urban story is finally filmed with a new flavor. Growth is no longer scripted, women are no longer symbols, and the workplace is no longer suspended in rigidity. Only then can such modern urban dramas become truly perceptible, believable, and empathetic.
Innovation is not only reflected in the exploration of themes and depth, but the wave of technology contains greater possibilities, and may even have the opportunity to truly subvert the form and production model of drama series.
Among the many dramas currently being filmed by Youku, the proportion of virtual filming has reached 10%. In the future, it is expected to be close to 50% in science fiction dramas. In "The Code of Along the River During the Qingming Festival", eight major scenes including snowy scenery under trees, sunset by the lake, and shipwreck cemetery were used for virtual shooting. This is currently the drama series with the most virtual shooting scenes in China.
Alibaba Entertainment’s self-developed AI digital human Lili appeared in "Under the Stranger", which became the first live-action drama series in which a domestic digital human participated. After the previous clips in which Lili participated were leaked by Reuters, the popularity soared on the Internet. #人人下二庄是ai#, #人人下二庄好狠#, #内娱乐有AI actor# three times in a row. It has become a hot search topic and sparked heated discussions among netizens.
In addition, in the "Hong Kong Arts Revitalization Plan" released by Alibaba Entertainment, we saw that Youku will carry out in-depth cooperation with many well-known Hong Kong film and television production companies such as TVB, Shaw Brothers, Emperor Films, Media Asia Media Group, etc. to jointly launch Many great dramas.At present, the audition activities for "News Queen 2" have begun. As soon as the news was released, it quickly became a trending topic. Netizens went crazy recommending their favorite actors, and even a number of acting stars volunteered to recommend themselves. "More troublesome than Liu Yan, crueler than Sister Man." ", it has already earned enough expectations before filming even starts.
Even though new dramas are constantly coming online, Youku’s old dramas are still very “playable”. According to Yunhe data, in 2023, the effective viewing volume of the full-year feature film "Do You Know Should Be Green, Fat, Red, and Thin" was second only to "Kurst", and "The Legend of Zhen Huan" ranked ninth. In addition to "The Legend of Zhen Huan" and "三生三世", Youku will acquire "Knowledge" in 2024. It can only be said that Pants knows how to use electronic pickles, and this membership card is worth it.
02
Return to the users themselves
Marketing will be done wherever the people are, and advertisers will naturally have a more positive attitude towards Youku.
According to Jialang data, in 2024 Q1 Youku has the largest year-on-year increase in investment, reaching 131%; the proportion of self-invested dramas on the Youku platform has increased the most, and 90% of online dramas have brand placement; Youku's "Long Time Love" ranks first in overall investment: The total number of brands is 56, and 37 brands are embedded in the show.
The success of “Love for a Long Time” in attracting investment further demonstrates that Youku’s comprehensive strength in the long-form video platform continues to improve while its hits continue to hit.
But this does not mean that Youku has tilted the balance between audience experience and platform commercialization in favor of business. In fact, in the development of the long video industry for many years, Youku has always emphasized the balance between content concepts and commercial rationality. Behind this It is the victory of Youku's long-termism. It has put aside the bubbles of traffic-only and data-only theories, significantly reduced water-filled dramas and gimmick dramas, and continued to show a trend of high-quality content, promoting the stability and improvement of the entire industry.
Under the guidance of the new content strategy, Youku pays more attention to cultivating itself, no longer obsessed with competing with competitors, but returns to the users themselves, focusing on refined operations and insights for different users, and diversified layout.
On the one hand, it explores and develops content scenarios. Youku has created innovative advertisements such as "aigc mini theater", "aigc innovative screen-breaking standard version", and "dual-screen flower", allowing brands to ride on the dividends of popular dramas to achieve great exposure.
In the new year's popular drama "The Case of Tang Dynasty", Youku and 999 Cold Spirit jointly created the "aigc small theater", which used AI technology to generate a unique hand-drawn style of Chinese comics, helping 999 Cold Spirit "flash" in "The Great Tang Dynasty". Tang Di Gongan". Here, 999 Cold Ling is not only a brand, but also a part closely connected with the plot. "Di Renjie should drink 999", "Mingfu comes to pack 999", and the fun and youthful expression of "aigc Little Theater" make the brand and users Achieved a more natural link.
In addition, "aigc Little Theater" not only has flexible cooperation methods, but also can tailor brand customized creativity in different scenarios such as post-play extras and mid-play transitions according to the needs of the brand. It is also an advertising form visible to members, which can help the brand deepen Communicate with core target groups and leverage high-value groups. Youku backend data shows that the completion rate of the "aigc small theater" advertisement of 999 Cold Spirit is better than that of conventional advertising forms. The number of barrage mentions of the Sanjiu brand is more than three times that of other advertising forms, which greatly enhances users' awareness of the Sanjiu brand. discussion and memorability.
With the development and integration of technology, we will wait and see how aigc can further flexibly empower brand dramas, and to what extent it can optimize or even change the marketing experience.
On the other hand, it is an in-depth development of the value of IP and exploration of more diverse business models. Youku has also run some successful cases.
For example, in fan marketing, based on users’ drama-watching behavior and psychological insights, Youku extracted the highly popular touch points of young users’ drama-watching links and launched a large-scale marketing campaign centered on “highway, hit, highlight, habit, and heat”. The 5h marketing methodology of the drama "pampers" fans to a new level.
Youku joins hands with the brand Mengniu Youyic to use the drama "Can't Hide Secretly" as the basis to explore the marketing of dramas that share the same frequency, enjoy the same interests, and appear in the same scene as users to achieve brand influence, favorability, and fan base. , the new path of product-effect synergy with comprehensively increased sales volume makes "probiotics suitable for Chinese people" no longer "hidden".
At the same time, we delved into the current gathering places and consumption paths of young people, innovatively produced variety shows in the form of live broadcasts, fixed the "live interactive + IP star + content plot" method with high-quality production standards, and launched Tmall's first interactive variety show live broadcast "Tmall Big Celebrities Are Coming", and Youku's drama "Guard the Heart" became the first project linked to the special show.
During the live broadcast, the leading actors of "Protect the Heart" Hou Minghao and Zhou Ye showed their tacit cooperation and sweet interaction. Their super sense of CP and pleasing appearance, coupled with various fan benefits, made the drama Fans are the first to unlock the heart-beating moments of Tian Yao and Yan Hui.
The benefits are obvious. First of all, "Protect the Heart" has carried out effective drama promotion, preemptively satisfying the fans' expectations and fully raising the expectation threshold for the drama; secondly, as a new combination of e-commerce and variety shows, it has created a new The content system has achieved new breakthroughs in innovative drama marketing, allowing us to see the greater imagination and development potential of drama marketing under the in-depth linkage of "entertainment + e-commerce".
For entertainment marketing, good content is the core. The above cases also prove once again that good content still has endless potential and is a gold mine for brand marketing. With the help of high-penetration and good content, Youku can not only help brands connect with high-value groups with the greatest scale effect, but also ensure that brands can seize key nodes and continue to accompany the resilient growth of advertisers through continuous iteration of the marketing system.
03
Conclusion
The current drama market is already a red ocean. Looking at all platforms, there are many new dramas, but most of them are just short-lived and passed by. Practitioners are still in a hurry, and the audience can leave as fast as they come. No matter how determined you are, it may not be cost-effective for brands to participate.
The reason is simply that it ignores the fact that drama series as a "business" must not only have a steady stream of high-quality content, but also make every link in this "business chain" "profitable" .
Youku obviously sees this essence.
From the perspective of production, Youku focuses on the origin of content, cultivating talents, organizing iterations, and concentrating resources and budgets to more accurately serve the quality of "good content";
From the perspective of content ecology, through innovation and doing the right content increment , from subject matter to content, it has been deeply polished and reshaped, inspiring a new growth flywheel;
From the perspective of business ecology, Youku’s release of a series of “good content” will undoubtedly bring confidence to cooperate with brand customers and establish long-term cooperative relationships. , sustained win-win situation.
From high-quality content to marketing methods, I believe that Youku dramas will continuously inject vitality into the entire drama market, awaken everyone's confidence in the drama market, and look forward to more and more blockbuster surprises in the drama market.
