Text | Planet, author | Zhu Ming, editor | Ji Ran, the boss in real life, actually starred in a short drama with "tyrannical presidents" gathered together. What would be the reaction? Now Zhou Hongyi has become "the first person to eat crabs." Earlier at the Wuzhen Internet Confe

When the boss in reality actually stars in a skit with "tyrannical presidents" together, what will happen?

Now Zhou Hongyi has become "the first person to eat crabs."

Previously at the Wuzhen Internet Conference, Zhou Hongyi mentioned casually that he didn’t like watching variety shows, but he liked watching “Boss Shorts”. Unexpectedly, this comment was misunderstood by the media as being addicted to short dramas. In fact, he has only watched one short drama called "50-year-old nanny falls in love with 20-year-old domineering president" and has not finished it yet.

However, it was this "misunderstanding" that inspired the creativity of his company's marketing department, which decided to plan a short play and invite Zhou Hongyi to star. According to Zhou Hongyi, he doesn’t really want to act because he is worried about vilifying himself. “What role do you think I should play in the short play? I definitely can’t play a domineering president in his twenties. You want me to play a 50-year-old cleaning lady? My The effect of unshaven hair is not right either. "

However, even though I say I don't want it, my body is still very honest. Although he couldn't play the role of a domineering president, Zhou Hongyi was still very interested in the short play and actually acted in it. He also aroused the curiosity of netizens in advance, "This is the first time in my life that I have filmed a short drama. What role do you think Zhou should play? Act in his true colors, play a network security expert? Play a patriotic hacker leader?"

November 27 , at the 360 ​​new product launch conference, Zhou Hongyi aired this short drama first, allowing the outside world to see a Zhou Hongyi that they had never seen before. And what is the conspiracy behind entrepreneurs appearing in short plays?

Lao Zhou starred in 365 Company's Lao Zhou

Zhou Hongyi starred in this short drama called "Reigniting Life: The Hidden Hacker Stuns the World". The name alone reveals a strong "short drama style". The rhythm and soundtrack of the entire play are also typical of the short play style. The theme of the

movie revolves around the love story between the father and son of the boss and the female cleaner and the AI ​​entrepreneurship story, and the plot is also relatively exaggerated. For example, a son wants to start an AI business, but his father is not optimistic about it. The company’s cleaning aunt helps his son solve bugs every day, and the project is finally successfully developed. The son also develops feelings for cleaning, but is rejected by cleaning, claiming, “I also rejected Sam O’s job. "Terman's Proposal", it turns out that cleaning also wants to start an AI business.

At the new product launch conference, my father suddenly confessed to Baojie. It turned out that Baojie was his father's high school classmate and his first love. In the end, his son and Baojie received a 100 billion investment from the boss of the "Red Hat Hacker Alliance" and Lao Zhou of 365 Company.

This old Zhou is played by Zhou Hongyi. He is wearing a hoodie in a dark room, sitting in front of the computer, showing half of his face. Some netizens joked that Zhou Hongyi reproduced Xiang Zuo's classic moves in the performance - touching the bridge of the nose and slapping the face, joking that "Zhou Hongyi's first short play entered the Xiang Zuo track."

Previously, when Zhou Hongyi was preheating for this short drama, he said, "We are also planning to bring in a few entrepreneur friends to make guest appearances and let them play the role of a domineering president who falls in love with a 50-year-old cleaning lady. Who do you think is suitable to play this role?" In the short drama released this time, we can indeed see many familiar faces in the business world: Li Guoqing, Sun Yuchen, Jia Yueting...

Overall, this micro-short drama does not have obvious features. The gimmick is Zhou Hongyi himself.

In fact, before Zhou Hongyi, there were many entrepreneurs who starred in short videos or micro-movies.

In 2012, Sohu produced the sitcom " ", which can be said to be one of the earliest short dramas. Each episode lasts about 15 minutes, and each episode is composed of short stories. At that time, short video platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou had not yet emerged, but this drama was still very popular among many viewers. At that time, Sohu CEO Zhang Chaoyang also appeared in many guest roles in this drama.

In 2017, Jack Ma made a 22-minute micro-movie "Gong Shou Tao", which had more than 100 million views on Youku within two days of its release.In the film, Jack Ma plays a martial arts master. Jet Li , Donnie Yen , Wu Jing, and other kung fu stars all become his defeats in the film, and are ridiculed by netizens as having "money power."

In July this year, Lei Jun released the second video of "Lei Jun Asks Netizens" on Weibo: "I would like to ask everyone, do you usually watch cool articles and short dramas? Why do you like to watch them?" Lei Jun is still in the video. He repeatedly explained that he is not a cool hero, and many rumors are false.

Since this year, the saying "Lei Jun is the male protagonist of Shuangwen" has been circulating on the Internet, saying that he scored 700 points in the college entrance examination and was the top pick. When he was most frustrated, he only had a cold 4 billion in his card. Later, Lei Jun repeatedly refuted the rumors, saying that he actually came from a rural area like everyone else, and he got to where he is today step by step through hard work. However, no matter how he refuted the rumors, the cool rumors about him never stopped.

Although he denies that he is the male protagonist of Shuangwen, Lei Jun claims to have enjoyed watching the short drama: "It seems to have opened up a new world, which is faster and more exciting than Shuangwen."

In fact, Lei Jun has not only watched the short drama, but also Acted in short films. In 2015, Lei Jun and Huang Xiaoming filmed the micro-movie "The Wind" together. In the film, Huang Xiaoming and Lei Jun start a mysterious dialogue with a tribute to "The Godfather of ". Lei Jun plays Marlon Brando's version of the Godfather, dressed like a domineering president, with a slicked back hair, a mustache, a black suit, and a red rose on his chest.

Lei Jun said that acting makes him very excited because he needs to show every detail.

More and more entrepreneurs are willing to act in short plays or short videos. What trend does this reflect?

More people watch short dramas than order takeout

In fact, entrepreneurs play roles in short dramas, mostly to promote personal IP or implant brands.

On November 26, Zhou Hongyi posted on Weibo that he had long ago called on entrepreneurs to create personal IPs and must do so in person. He also said that many people laughed at him for not doing his job properly and becoming an Internet celebrity. In fact, he did not want to be an Internet celebrity at all, but wanted to get traffic. Drucker said that entrepreneurs have two major missions: one is to make awesome products, and the second is to let consumers know about them so that the products can be sold.

Zhou Hongyi also took his own business as an example. He has accumulated tens of millions of fans through IP this year, and the effect of promoting 360ai search is very good. Because everyone no longer believes in advertising, investing in advertising is far less effective than the entrepreneur's own traffic conversion. This time he filmed a short drama to build momentum for his AI products.

The "nano search" in Zhou Hongyi's short play is exactly the new product released at the 360 ​​conference

In fact, entrepreneurs do have many advantages in doing IP. For example,

relies on its own reputation to increase users' recognition of brands and products, which is equivalent to saving an advertising fee. At the same time, it can actively and quickly speak out in crisis public relations to reduce negative impacts. In the long run, entrepreneur IP can build brand trust, spread corporate culture and values, and attract talents, capital and market attention. One of the most typical examples of

is Musk. Why does Musk say that Tesla never does marketing? That’s because he himself is Tesla’s biggest advertisement.

So, why are skits good for promoting entrepreneurs’ personal IPs and brand implantation?

First of all, the short drama has a large number of users and the publicity effect is good. The "White Paper on the Development of China's Micro-Short Drama Industry (2024)" recently released by the China Internet Audiovisual Association shows that as of June 2024, the number of users of micro-short dramas in my country has reached 576 million, accounting for 52.4% of the total Internet users, surpassing online takeout , online literature and the number of online ride-hailing users.

To put it bluntly, more people watch mini-series than order takeout.

Secondly, the number of users who watch short dramas is not only large, but also frequent and sticky. Data shows that the average viewing frequency of short drama users has increased from three times a week in the same period last year to at least once a day now. Some users even watch multiple short dramas every day, forming a stable viewing habit.This also allows entrepreneurs' IP and their own products to be exposed more frequently in front of short drama users, forming a deeper understanding, thereby promoting conversion.

For example, public information shows that the brand short drama "Love You Like a Heartbeat Is Hard to Touch" by the beauty brand Skin Future exceeded 1 billion topics on Douyin within 3 days of its launch, and the brand's user asset data returned to 100 million yuan. On the 7th day after its launch, the number of topics on the entire network exceeded 1.2 billion, and the recharge amount went straight to 15 million.