Original short drama: a new way of playing for brands in the era of short video

 　　Recently, 17 Guangnian, an emerging low-alcohol fruit wine brand, has teamed up with Ningmeng Films, a well-known domestic film and television drama production company, to set up its own label, Ningchuan Culture, breaking through traditional ideas, entering the market for short dramas, and building a new ecology of content marketing, which has attracted industry attention. Widespread attention, pushing the brand's original short dramas to the forefront again. More and more Party A and Party B have begun to pay attention to the brand's original short dramas and new ways to better build brand influence and enhance brand reputation.

　　Seventeen light years of brand-customized short drama "Fear of Men's Love for Students", with 90 million+ views, an 800% increase in fans of the brand's official video account and a record of 500,000 yuan in store broadcast GMV, which opened a new era of brand communication .

　　The brand original short dramas that began to sprout during the epidemic in 2020, after two years of development, are becoming a new way of brand communication in the Internet era. More and more brands are starting to participate in them to better adapt to the new communication environment and Consumers' preferences, seize the communication traffic brought by the rise of short videos and interact with consumers.

What is a brand original short drama

　　Brand original short dramas are customized short dramas derived from Internet short dramas specifically for brands. They are brand micro dramas with distinctive themes and continuous play tailored to the needs of brand strategy and communication requirements. Generally, each episode is 2-10 minutes long and consists of multiple episodes. The themes are generally sweet pets, love, urban, campus youth, ancient costume fantasy, etc. with high attention in short videos, focusing on exaggerated performance, mainly vertical screen.

　　To sum up, the characteristics of brand original short dramas are: brand original customization, short play time, exaggerated and eye-catching themes, and vertical screen.

The formation of brand original short dramas

　　When it comes to brand original short dramas, a word that has to be mentioned is "flying rice drama". In the initial stage of online student content, the joke-style "Men of Diaosi", "Unexpectedly" and "Report to the Boss" were very popular. Each episode of this type of drama is 5-15 minutes long, with 6-15 episodes in a single season, and is mainly humorous. Because this type of drama draws on the micro-drama form of the German "Ms. Diaosi", it is classified as a "flying rice drama".

　　"Flying Rice Drama" has achieved great success on the Internet, attracting the attention of a large number of audiences, allowing more and more film and television producers to see the development opportunities of Internet short dramas, and to devote themselves to Internet short dramas. Original brand short dramas have become popular since 2020. Due to their remarkable effects, they have become unstoppable and become a new communication tool for more and more brands. This is mainly due to the following aspects.

　　First of all, since 2020, the number of short video users in China has exceeded 800 million, and short video viewing has become a part of ordinary people's daily life, thus providing huge traffic space for brand original short dramas.

　　Secondly, in recent years, the state has severely cracked down on tax evasion and evasion in the film and television industry. In addition to the impact of the epidemic and other factors, traditional film companies and some leading drama companies are in serious shortage of funds. Choosing to shoot short dramas with low cost and quick money back is a way to save yourself. . A large number of film and television practitioners have transformed into Internet short dramas, paving the way for a lot of successful experience in brand original short dramas, and also laying a talent foundation for the development of brand original short dramas.

　　Finally, since the epidemic in 2020, major short video platforms have launched original short video support policies to provide traffic and share for well-produced and creative original short dramas, which greatly stimulated the enthusiasm of the creative team, activated the market, and created originality for brands. The skit boom provided a promising vibe.

　　All video platforms are using account sharing and service systems to launch popular short videos. Tencent’s account-sharing model is divided into two types: single-broadcast film cooperation and platform investment or buyout project cooperation. Youku's account-sharing model includes two types: "membership + advertising" and traffic-sharing. In the "Member + Advertising" model, the viewing time of members has become an important assessment criterion, and the share of advertising revenue is as high as 80%. iQIYI's account-sharing model is: Membership payment period account-sharing + advertising account-sharing period + investment promotion account-sharing. Membership fee income is closely related to the program level. In the regular account split, the platform side and the partner are divided into fifty-fifty.

　　In addition, the platform side also invested real money in the short drama creation team. It is understood that the investment in Douyin and Kuaishou’s head short drama projects is about 3 million to 5 million yuan, and the investment cost of small projects is also several hundred thousand yuan. In this environment, not only the flow of the brand side is guaranteed, but the income of the creator side is also guaranteed, and the brand's original short dramas are more motivated.

The creation of brand original short dramas

　　After seeing the benefits brought by original short dramas, short video platforms began to launch brand-customized short dramas one after another, in order to attract more brands to join the market of brand original short dramas. On the one hand, the participation of the brand side can improve the influence of the platform side and the profitability of advertising; on the other hand, the brand original short drama can improve the stickiness of the platform and the value of the audience, laying a market for the e-commerce Unicom of the platform side and the brand side Tracks and fan base.

　　The participants of the brand original short play are mainly composed of the brand side, the producer side, the platform side and the service side. The four parties cooperate and complete it together. See below.

　　If there is no service provider, the brand original short drama will be completed by the producer, the brand and the platform. Especially when the platform side invests in original short dramas and directly faces the brand side, this kind of collaborative relationship sometimes becomes a joint construction of the platform side and the brand side, and then the production team of the platform side completes the execution.

　　The production process of brand original short dramas is generally divided into five links: strategic communication, script communication, production process, platform review and broadcast. The specific work content is shown in the figure below.

　　At present, there are not many brand original short dramas on the market, mainly including several super popular brand original short dramas produced by Wanglaoji, Mengniu, Vipshop, and Seventeen Guangnian.

　　In May 2020, the Qingxi online short drama "Sister Let Me Go" starring new-generation actors Wang Xinxin and personality Xiaohuadan Hong Yike was broadcast on Xigua Video, Tencent Video and other platforms, attracting sponsorship from many brands , video short series has therefore become one of the options for brand communication.

　　Combining the youthful and fashionable temperament of the drama, the film side joined hands with brands such as Olam Brewing Group, FUYE, Dongli Homestay, PJM Home Fashion and other brands to launch a unique cross-border marketing campaign. In addition to the traditional cooperation methods such as sponsorship and implantation, a variety of marketing materials have been co-produced and a number of offline joint marketing activities have been held.

　　In October 2020, Mengniu and the Happy Twist team created an exclusive original short drama on the Kuaishou platform. At 19:00 on October 20th, "Today's Menu Really Wants to Be Together", which was titled by Mengniu, introduced the comedy gold IP Happy Twist to Kuaishou Online for the first time, and broadcast it exclusively on Kuaishou Small Theater.

　　The play incorporates comedy elements into the food theme, telling the sweet love story of urban men and women. As a boutique customized short play jointly produced by Kuaishou and Happy Twist, the play has bold innovations in content and form, creating a new implantation channel for the brand with explosive content + vertical screen short play.

　　In February 2021, Wanglaoji cooperated with Kuaishou Small Theater to create Wanglaoji's "Auspicious Theater", which is a must-see for the Chinese New Year.

　　In June 2021, Vipshop will join hands with the magnetic engine to widely reach the huge audience of viewers on Kuaishou platform through matrix-style short drama marketing. Among them, the short dramas "CP Battle" and "Sweet Trap" with a playback volume of 420 million+ seamlessly connect Vipshop's brand concept of "brand special sale, which is value for money" with the plot, allowing users to watch the drama in a fun way. , get the preferential information of Vipshop, and drive the later conversion.

　　In 2022, Seventeen Guangnian will use its own Douyin Lan V account as the exclusive broadcast platform for "Fear of Men and Students", meeting the needs of self-media content publishing with a frequency of two updates a week. As of the end, a total of 12 episodes of "The Fear of Men's Love for Students" have gained dazzling data with a cumulative broadcast volume of 90 million+, a cumulative likes of 650,000+, and the brand's short drama Douyin topic exceeding 100 million.

　　It can be said that the original brand short drama is becoming a new brand communication tool sweeping the whole network. With its unique communication method and high popularity, it is valued by more and more brands, and will become a new communication tool that brands are constantly chasing. play.

The value of brand original skits

　　So, what short-term and long-term value will the brand’s original short drama bring to the brand?

　　First of all, the

　　brand As a brand customized drama, the brand original short drama is more cost-effective than the traditional TVC (TV advertising) communication. The production cost of traditional TVC starts from one million yuan, plus the delivery cost. Generally, a TVC needs to prepare a budget according to 10 million yuan, while the production cost of a brand original short drama is generally about 100,000 yuan per episode, which is 10 episodes. About 1 million yuan, because the platform side is actively investing in traffic, the brand side basically does not need to buy too much traffic, and can play the dissemination of the brand's original short drama.

　　Secondly, the broadcast traffic is basically guaranteed

　　. Compared with other media communication methods, the most important value of brand original short dramas is that the broadcast traffic is guaranteed. The platform can generally maintain the traffic and push traffic for original short dramas, and can accurately push it to the target audience through traffic tools. At present, the original short drama has more than 100 million views. The huge traffic attraction is also an important reason why brands have begun to prefer brand original short dramas.

　　Taking Mengniu's customized original short drama as an example, "Today's Menu: Really Want to Be Together" has been updated to the 13th episode, with a cumulative playback volume of 51.05 million, ranking first in the Kuaishou Small Theater hit list, with outstanding brand exposure and conversion effects. The huge traffic effect has created super high brand value for Mengniu Zhenxiang Milk.

　　Third, the brand communication is vivid and the content is IP-based. The

　　traditional TVC advertisements are short in length and relatively simple in expression. It is difficult to impress consumers' emotions through 30 seconds, and can only rely on continuous advertising to strengthen the communication effect. At present, users' preferences for audio-visual content consumption are becoming fragmented and mobile. More flexible and free short-video follow-up mode and more youthful and lively short-play content are gradually becoming the mainstream. Branded short-plays are more flexible in terms of length and space. It conveys the concept and value of the brand, and deeply influences consumers' cognition and seizes the minds of consumers through vivid expressions and plots.

　　Brand original short dramas are customized content and can also be IP-based. Turn well-produced original brand short dramas into brand IP assets, and continue to create and develop systems to become a communication element that can continue to have an impact. For example, bypassing the crowded track of traditional film and television variety shows, Mengniu enjoys the advantage of public domain + private domain traffic on the Kuaishou platform, and is the first to start the gameplay of in-depth integration of dairy products into short dramas, relying on the creative content of top comedy teams to open up marketing scenarios, allowing potential consumption The customer group remembers the selling point of the product in joy. This not only forms a unique memory point for Mengniu to enjoy the differentiated play style of the situation, but also provides a breakthrough idea for other new brands that urgently need to get out of the circle.

　　Finally, the precipitation and dissemination of brand assets are sustainable.

　　Different from traditional media delivery methods, original brand short dramas are generally pushed through video platforms. You can precipitate your own super-traffic video accounts through the video platform, and the formation of video accounts on the platform It can feed back brand communication and platform e-commerce. Moreover, the retention time of short dramas is also relatively long. As long as the video website does not clear the background, it can always be exposed on the platform. Although the subsequent traffic is not as high as during the broadcast period, it will continue to affect consumers. Moreover, original short dramas are generally creative and humorous, which can trigger more re-creations by video creators, and are also easy to spread and expose the brand in the later stage. In addition, the original brand short drama can also be exclusive to the brand in terms of copyright, so there is no need to worry about being imitated and plagiarized.

　　The unique brand equity precipitation and long communication cycle add more charm to the dissemination of original brand short dramas, which is why more and more brands value the dissemination of short dramas.

　　It can be said that the brand original short drama is a derivative product of the outbreak of the Internet short drama market, and it is also an inevitable product of the vigorous development of the short video platform. This form will enable the brand and consumers to have a three-dimensional and all-round interaction.