Product Analysis | How does iQiyi perform operations and product optimization?

With the improvement of material level, people have a higher demand to enrich their lives, and various video resource websites emerge one after another. IQIYI got a big piece of the pie with its rich video resource library and high-definition content. Later, it attracted a lot of people's attention by introducing high-quality and popular dramas, broadcasting self-made dramas and variety shows, and launching idol development programs. These unique contents also pioneered a membership system and became the leader in the comprehensive video field.

However, in the past two years, major video companies have entered the fields of self-made content and idol creation, and the market has become increasingly crowded. How iQiyi can stand out and maintain its high ground is worth exploring. This article analyzes from the perspectives of market, users, functions, and operations, and proposes optimizations for the main functions.

Introduction to iQiyi advertising: http://www.iqingua.com/25.html

1. iQIYI Functional Analysis Structure

1.1 Product Architecture

1.2 User Usage Path

The main usage paths of iQiyi users are divided into: resource viewing path, hot spot viewing path, and live broadcast path

Resource viewing path:

View hotspot paths:

Live broadcast path:

2. Market Analysis

2.1 Market Scope

Founded in April 2010, iQiyi is a video platform that integrates movies, TV series, variety shows and animation.

In September of the same year, he launched the web version and client version for the first time, supporting iPhone 4/iPad viewing. In May 2011, iQiyi's APP was fully launched.

From 2017 to date, iQiyi has continuously expanded its business scope to upgrade the "apple tree" to an "apple orchard", adding upstream businesses such as literature, comics, novels, live broadcasts, and hot videos, thereby strengthening the platform's penetration, expanding its scope of dissemination, and attracting more users.

According to iResearch's latest monthly coverage and monthly independent device data, iQiyi ranks 11th and 5th on the web and mobile terminals respectively, and firmly occupies the first place in the film and television category, with a user base of 578 million.

According to the latest "Statistical Report on the Development of China's Internet": As of December 2018, the scale of Internet users in my country was 829 million, the Internet penetration rate reached 59.6%, and the scale of online video users was 612 million, accounting for 73.9% of the Internet entertainment usage rate.

With the development of medical technology and the extension of human life span, the working years are also increasing. People under the age of 60 have close contact with society. The labor force population aged 16-59 is 897 million. The current user ceiling is expected to be 663 million. 5G networks can improve video resolution and provide better distribution channels for ultra-high-definition content. I believe that with the further popularization of the Internet, the commissioning of 5G and the improvement of iQiyi's video quality, the user ceiling will continue to increase.

(Ranking of website monthly coverage in January 2019)

(Monthly independent mobile device rankings in January 2019)

(The impact of 5G on video platforms)

2.2 iQiyi’s Market Performance

Different from the common video sharing model on the market, iQiyi has been working closely with content copyright holders since entering the comprehensive video market in 2010. It has established a high-quality brand image by outputting a large amount of free and genuine high-definition content, and has quickly acquired a large user base.

In May 2011, it first launched its membership service and fully launched its APP to occupy all major mobile terminals; in 2013, it merged with PPS, further expanding its influence; in July 2018, it acquired Tianxiang Interactive Entertainment and began to build a multi-ecological "Apple Orchard"; in August of the same year, it established a joint venture with Xinying Sports to enter the sports sector. It can be seen from Analysys's 2017 Chinese online video market AMC model that iQiyi is still in a stage of rapid growth.

According to the trend analysis from 2014 to 2018, three giants have emerged in the comprehensive video field, namely: iQiyi, Tencent Video, and Youku, which occupy more than 90% of the market. Among them, iQiyi and Tencent Video are in a stalemate, but iQiyi is slightly better and ranks first.

From the perspective of "market share and active users", as of July 2018, although iQiyi ranked first in monthly active users with more than 500 million, its industry exclusivity rate lags far behind Tencent Video, which may be related to the fact that Tencent Video is backed by Tencent Group.

Tencent Group has abundant video and music resources, which gives Tencent Video an inherent advantage. By analyzing user stickiness based on "average daily launch times", "average daily usage time", "monthly usage time" and "next month retention rate", Fengxing Video has obvious advantages in "average daily launch times" and "daily usage time", but its user retention rate is very low, resulting in a total monthly usage time of less than 10,000.

Although iQiyi's performance in the two indicators of "average daily launch times per person" and "average daily usage time per person" is average, it is very stable, with a next-month retention rate of 66.1%, and strong user dependence. It is speculated that this is related to the launch of "Story of Yanxi Palace", "Soul Ferry", "Idol Producer" and "The Rap of China" on iQiyi in 2018. At the same time, he also launched the "VIP members can watch the entire series at one time", which effectively improved the member user experience and ensured the retention and acquisition of new platform users.

At the end of the fourth quarter of 2018, the scale of subscription members reached 87.4 million, of which paying members accounted for 98.5%. The net increase in subscription members for the whole year was 36.6 million, a year-on-year increase of 72%, setting a new record for annual membership growth in the global streaming media industry.

In addition, with video business as the core, he made multi-faceted layout in the fields of games, comics, literature, novels, live broadcasts, bubble communities, etc., to continuously attract user attention and increase user stickiness. Questmobile data shows that in December 2018, iQiyi's total monthly usage time reached 4.36 billion, ranking first in the industry and 17.53% higher than Tencent Video.

However, considering indicators such as the number of active users, industry exclusivity, usage time, and user retention rate, Tencent Video is still iQiyi's biggest competitor and should not be underestimated.

In June 2017, iQIYI's membership fee income and advertising revenue reached a 1:1 ratio. In the financial statements released in 2018, the annual membership revenue was RMB 10.6 billion, a year-on-year increase of 72%, and advertising revenue reached RMB 9.3 billion, a year-on-year increase of 21%. Membership revenue has exceeded advertising revenue and has become the main source of income.

In order to further increase the number of users and expand its influence, iQiyi has teamed up with JD.com and Zhihu to launch a one-year membership service for all three for 198 yuan.

On the other hand, although advertising revenue is growing, the growth rate has gradually slowed down. One of the reasons is that advertising and the membership system are contradictory to a certain extent. Members can watch no long advertisements, which reduces the amount of advertisements played and reduces some advertising revenue. Fortunately, iQiyi has taken measures to stop the downward trend of advertising. The newly added member-only advertisements and 15-second VIP movie recommendations not only promote the movies but also do not cause disgust among users.

In addition, CEO Gong Yu plans to better integrate advertising into variety shows and let self-produced dramas take on more advertising pressure, consciously boosting declining advertising revenue.

In addition to advertising and membership revenue, the multi-ecosystem revenue of "Apple Garden" reached 2.9 billion yuan, accounting for 16% of total revenue, a year-on-year increase of 105%. It can be seen that iQiyi's marketing strategy has shifted, gradually forming a profit structure with advertising and membership income as the main source, supplemented by multi-ecological income.

In summary, iQiyi has performed well in both market share and profitability.

2.3 Problems and Prospects

In March 2018, iQiyi was listed on the Nasdaq in the United States at a price of US$18, and in June of the same year the price was close to US$35. With his professional ability, advantages in resource allocation, and outstanding performance in original content, foreign investors are optimistic about him and call him "China's Netflix." Despite its soaring stock price and decent earnings throughout the year, iQiyi faces the same problem as Netflix once did: heavy losses that are increasing year by year.

iQiyi's continued investment in content and research and development has resulted in a considerable amount of losses. The loss in the fourth quarter of 2018 was 3.5 billion, compared with 61.24 million in the same period of 2017. The full-year net loss was RMB 9.1 billion, an increase from RMB 3.7 billion in 2017.

In fact, as a video platform, investment in content is inevitable, and this is also the key to remaining invincible. However, whether or not we can control costs and improve the quality of our work is the key to profitability and steady growth.

Faced with this dilemma, iQiyi, together with Tencent Video, Youku and several other video platforms, issued a "Joint Statement on Restraining Unreasonable Film Pay and Resisting Unhealthy Trends in the Industry". In November of the same year, the State Administration of Radio and Television also issued a document requiring the control of star pay and the correction of the unhealthy phenomenon of inviting stars at high prices and competing for stars.

In addition, as the quantity and quality of iQiyi's original content increase, it will attract more paying users, and the domestic recognition of payment methods is increasing, so it is estimated that the net growth of paying users in 2019 will not be lower than that in 2018.

The market behind iQiyi is huge, and China's regulatory framework makes it difficult for overseas competitors to enter, so the market will not be too crowded. China now has 800 million Internet users, and this number is still increasing. Therefore, if iQiyi can continue to expand its business, improve its existing business such as community interaction, control costs well, continue to attract members, and increase advertising revenue, I believe it will firmly occupy the leading position in the industry and achieve stable growth and substantial profits.

3. User Analysis

3.1 Product positioning and target users

iQIYI is a leader in China's video industry. Adhering to the brand slogan of "Enjoy Quality", it provides users with rich and clear authentic videos. In 2017, Gong Yu proposed a new corporate vision - to be a great entertainment company driven by technological innovation, aiming to provide producers with information on popularity, subject matter, etc. in the form of a "technology + entertainment" double helix, with the help of technologies such as artificial intelligence, so as to provide users with a more personalized viewing experience.

In the same year, iQiyi expanded its business scope to include literature, light novels, comics, knowledge, and bubble communities, becoming a comprehensive entertainment platform - targeting young people who are interested in entertainment.

3.2 User Data Analysis

Observing iResearch’s survey data in January 2019, we found that:

There are more female users on mobile devices, with a male-to-female ratio of about 9:11; there are more male users viewing the website, with a ratio of about 14:11. Combining the data of both, the gender of the user population is relatively balanced without any major bias.

In terms of age distribution, people under 35 years old account for more than 75%, and all users are young people. The mobile users are mainly 25 to 30 years old, mostly office workers, who usually use fragmented time to watch videos; the web users are mainly 19 to 24 years old, mostly college students. After studying, they have a lot of free time and can sit down and watch videos on the computer; there are also some users under the age of 18, all of whom are middle school students. Most of them do not have mobile devices, so they mainly use web pages to browse videos.

(Monthly gender ratio of independent mobile devices in January 2019)

(Gender ratio of monthly website coverage in January 2019)

(Age range of monthly independent devices on mobile devices in January 2019)

(Age range of monthly website coverage in January 2019)

In terms of geographical distribution, iQiyi users are concentrated in coastal provinces such as Guangdong, Zhejiang, and Jiangsu, with second-tier and above cities accounting for 68%. The economy in these areas is developed, people's basic needs have been met, they have relatively high demands for spiritual and cultural life, are more willing to enrich their entertainment life, have a certain purchasing power, have developed consumption habits, and are highly receptive to paid services.

In terms of consumption capacity, middle-class consumers accounted for the highest proportion, 32.31%, up 0.49% from the previous month. Upper-middle-class consumers were second, accounting for 27%, up 0.97% from the previous month. Lower-middle-class consumers accounted for 25.01%, up 0.16% from the previous month.

Most of iQiyi's users are college students and office workers. They are willing to accept new things, interested in entertainment, and have fixed living expenses and income every month. The monthly membership fee of iQiyi is only 14 yuan, so these three levels of consumers account for the largest proportion.

It is worth noting that high-end consumers increased by 8.36% month-on-month, the largest increase.

High-income groups generally work under high intensity and pressure and are more focused on self-improvement, so they are not very keen on entertainment content. iQiyi's newly launched knowledge payment covers literature, history, art, finance, sports, technology, etc. These contents can better attract users at this level.

The figure below shows the number of people using iQiyi in different time periods from April to August 2018.

From the figure, we can see that except for the time period from 1:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m., when the number of users is relatively small, the number of users in the remaining time periods exceeds 100 million. The peak hours for user usage are from noon to 2pm and from 8pm to 10pm. During these two time periods, users are in their leisure period during lunch break and after dinner, and have time to watch videos and relax.

3.3 User Usage Scenarios

User 1:

Lele: Female, 19 years old, studying at a university in Guangdong, a fan of celebrities and TV series, watching TV series in her spare time outside of class. Recently, in order to follow my idol Zhang Yixing's new drama "The Golden Eyes", I subscribed to iQiyi membership and also watched all the paid movies I wanted to watch before.

User 2:

Xiaoxia: Female, 30 years old, works in Nanjing, likes to watch variety shows, but suffers from busy work, so she uses the spare time during commuting, lunch break, and before going to bed at night to watch videos. The recently popular TV series "All Is Well" helps her kill time during her two-hour commute.

User 3:

Xiaoyan: male, 24 years old, a graduate student in Hangzhou, loves sports, especially tennis and football. However, since I lived in the dormitory without a TV and was busy with scientific research, I often missed the live broadcast of the event. After recharging my iQiyi Sports membership, I can easily check the event schedule, often buy snacks with my roommates and classmates, and watch live broadcasts or replays together. I don’t miss any exciting games, but also get closer to my classmates and relax.

User 4:

Xiaoyun: Female, 49 years old, lives in Changzhou, is a retired worker, and has a 24-year-old daughter who works hard in Shanghai. During the Chinese New Year, her daughter bought her the latest iPad, downloaded the iQiyi APP, and taught her how to search for resources, watch movies and TV series, to enrich her retirement life. Now she feels that the free resources can no longer satisfy her, and plans to try a 3-month membership to experience the paid resources.

User 5:

Tingting: Female, 25 years old, works in an administrative position in Beijing. Her work is usually leisurely, but the salary is not high. In order to increase her income, she took advantage of her good looks and singing skills to start a part-time live broadcast on iQiyi and now has 2,000 fans. During each live broadcast, there are hundreds of viewers watching online, and fans will also send gifts online. At the end of the month, Tingting cashed in the gifts she received on the platform, which not only increased her income but also gave her a sense of accomplishment.

V. Main Function Analysis

This section takes iQiyi's community interaction, comprehensive video, and short video as entry points, conducts user research, and proposes improvement plans.

5.1. Community Interaction

Bubble is a community centered around stars, fans, and hobbies, and its audience is a younger group.

The following issues were discovered from user research:

(1) Users rarely use this section and there is little interaction between users. However, users actually hope to interact with more like-minded people here.

Improvement: In iQiyi's Bubble Community, fans can send cheering sticks to stars to support them in ranking. Depending on the fan level (divided by the amount of growth value), the number of cheering sticks that users can receive each day will also be different.

The current rules for iQiyi to obtain fan growth points are shown in the figure below:

In order to increase communication between users, it is recommended to increase the growth value when "users follow each other, comment, like and share on the user's homepage", and there is no daily upper limit for the growth value rewards obtained through the following behaviors. See the table below for details:

Users of iQiyi Bubble Community can be divided into the following categories based on their activity and fan level:

When iQiyi organizes offline celebrity meet-and-greets, it can invite senior fans of the celebrity to attend the event for free, and hold a lottery among the 15% contributing fan group - the first prize is free admission, and the second and third prizes are discounted tickets, etc., to encourage users to earn growth value and achieve the goal of increasing user interaction.

So, how to accurately divide user types?

Based on the most classic member growth value model, the RFM model, the author designed a fan level scoring system:

• R: the duration of the user's most recent browsing of the Paopao community;
• F: the number of times a user opens the Paopao Community every day;
• M: The number of posts per month.

Fan level score = RFM*weight 1+growth value*weight 2

Weight 1 = 0.5, Weight 2 = 0.5

According to the above calculation method, the top 5% of the total score are senior fans, 6%-15% are contributing fans, 16%-30% are active fans, and the bottom 50% are ordinary users.

(2) The entrance to the social circle is not obvious: Users reported that when they first came into contact with the Paopao community, they mistakenly believed that there was only information related to celebrities and no social circle because there were only labels such as "Highlights" and "Idols" at the top.

After following friends, there is no platform to view their updates.

Improvement: Change the existing labels "Highlights" and "Idols" at the top of the Pop Community to four parts: "Broadcast", "Highlights", "Circles", and "Idols".

In response to the problem that iQiyi currently has no module for centrally checking friends’ updates, the author has added a “Broadcast” platform in the Paopao Community. On this platform, users post short videos about their daily life chasing stars, their feelings and thoughts, and forward hot videos, and check out the updates posted by their friends.

In order to motivate users to use the broadcast platform, the author added a new function of "Q&A" in the "Broadcast" module.

The specific plan is as follows: users can ask idols questions during the broadcast and @ them; at the same time, iQiyi officials can invite celebrities to join and agree that within two months, the idols will drop in three times at irregular intervals, randomly select at least three fans' questions each time to answer, and it would be best if they could also respond to some fans' other broadcast dynamics (not a mandatory requirement).

In order to better promote the new functions of "Broadcast" and "Q&A" in the early stage, each time you click on the "bubble" at the bottom to enter the community and enter the "Broadcast" interface, as shown in the figure below.

After entering the "Broadcast" interface, there is a mask display for the "Q&A" function. If the user is not interested in this function, he or she can click on the blank area at will to exit the mask recommendation and continue to browse the broadcast interface. If the user is interested in this function, click the "Ask Me, Answer Me" button to enter the "Ask Me, Answer Me" section.

Under the category of "Highlights", most of the content is recommended by the system. iQiyi can accurately match the content to the user's taste based on the tags added by the user when forwarding to the PopUp Community, thereby increasing the number of circles that the user follows.

PS: The "label" function has a specific design below:

(3) The quality of content in the community varies greatly, and interest in the community wanes when people see meaningless messages.

Improvement: To address the problem of uneven content quality, iQiyi can set up a column for up masters in each circle. For example, a celebrity’s circle can invite big fans in the circle to regularly post relevant high-quality posts to accumulate PGC content and improve the quality of community content. In the later stage, PGC content will drive the output of UGC content, which will not only increase the popularity of the Bubble Community, but also better retain fans.

5.2. Comprehensive video area

Comprehensive videos include movies, TV series, and variety shows. These are iQiyi’s core businesses and the functions most frequently used by users.

5.2.1 Video Recommendation

Two common behaviors of iQiyi users are clicking on recommended videos to watch, browsing to see if they are interested or have a video in mind, directly using the search function, or searching under the corresponding category. Therefore, when users do not have a target video in mind, the function of the "Recommendation" column becomes particularly important, and can focus on promoting videos that have been popular recently.

The first page you see when you open the app is the "Recommendations" page, and the first thing that catches your eye is the recommended content on the scrolling screen. The scrolling recommendation format currently adopted by iQiyi is relatively traditional, with a total of six promotional slots, which are rotated every 5 seconds. The first four are TV series, variety shows, and movies, and the last two are advertisements. At the same time, in the recommendation column below, in order to avoid cluttering the screen, iQiyi only selects one video from each category to display in the form of a 2-second short video. Short videos have the advantages of being eye-catching, vivid, and able to quickly display content highlights. The author believes that they can be used in scrolling recommendation columns.

Improvement: In order to better promote popular videos, the movies, TV series, and variety shows in the scrolling recommendation content can be improved to first display a 1-second static image and text, and then play a clip of the content at 1.5 times the speed. iQiyi can prepare multiple clips of the content in the background, and deliver precise clips to different types of users based on the user behavior information collected in the past. For example, for users who like to watch martial arts movies, we can show you the exciting fighting clips of the content; for users who like fresh and clean content, we can play the beautiful picture clips of the content.

At the same time, a short-term monitoring system is established in the background to judge whether this improvement is really effective. The details are as follows: a certain number of users are divided into Group A and Group B. Group A still maintains the traditional scrolling recommendation mode, while Group B is given the improved scrolling recommendation. In these two cases, the length of time users stay on the recommendation page and whether the click-through rate of the scrolling recommendation content increases are compared.

5.2.2 Page Layout

The layout of iQiyi is a bit messy and unreasonable. The two important functions, "My Favorites" and "Offline Cache", are secondary directories under the "My" label. Although in the years since iQiyi went online, users have developed the habit of entering the "My" page to view favorites and offline content.

However, compared with competitors such as Mango TV and Tencent Video, which have set these two functions on their homepage apps, iQiyi's operating costs are obviously higher. It may consider placing them in a prominent place on the homepage for user convenience.

Improvement: Add "My Favorites" and "Offline Cache" buttons next to the search bar on the home page to reduce user operation costs. In order to help users become familiar with this function as quickly as possible, iQIYI may provide guidance to users during the first three times after they update this function.

All content except hot spots will be classified into the "My Favorites" and "Offline Cache" directories. Since there are many types of content, it is necessary to classify the content in these two directories into more detailed types.

The category labels at the top can be set to "movies, TV series, variety shows, animation, novels, comics", etc. At the same time, keyword recommendation searches can be added under these two directories, and historical search records can be displayed to enable users to quickly find target content.

5.2.3 Advertising

In interviews with users, the author found that in addition to watching TV series, users recharge VIP mainly to remove advertisements; 70% of users are not interested in the 15-second VIP advertisement and will click the "Close" button at the top, and 30% of users believe that they can learn more interesting videos through this kind of recommended drama advertisement.

I tried to close the ads. The "Close" button is close to the top, and the entire ad interface comes with a hyperlink. When it is closed on the mobile client, it often jumps to the recommended episode page, reducing the user's interest in watching the video.

In addition, considering that when users are watching video A, even if they are interested in the recommended video B, they will most likely not actively jump to video B to watch it, so iQiyi can launch a new feature called "Add to Movie List" to facilitate users to quickly find new content later.

Advertising is another major source of revenue for iQiyi, so completely removing advertisements or canceling ad links will cause certain losses to iQiyi's revenue. How to strike a balance between user satisfaction and advertising revenue is a problem that needs to be solved.

Improvement: In order to address the contradiction between user satisfaction and advertising revenue, iQiyi can appropriately expand the hot zone of the "Close" button. This will not affect the normal playback of advertisements, but will also solve the problem that the button is too small and the user will be redirected to the advertisement page automatically if they click it by mistake. In addition, by showing users video recommendation ads that suit their tastes based on the types of content they have recently watched, the probability of users closing the ads can be reduced.

A new “Add to Movie List” function has been added to the ad playback page, and users can find the recommended content in the “Movie List” tab in the collection directory. At the same time, there are no more detailed classification labels in the existing collection directory. It is recommended to classify according to the type of video, and add a keyword recommendation search method under the collection directory, which can display historical search records (see the prototype improvement section on the above page for the specific prototype diagram).

5.3 Short Video Area

iQiyi’s short videos are concentrated in “hot spots” and are mainly posted by iQiyi accounts or users.

iQiyi mainly publishes entertainment, movies, and life information. The interface for users to publish short videos is in the form of one page with two columns. A maximum of four videos can be displayed on one page, and they can be played by clicking. Only the publisher and the "Like" button are displayed on the short video. The overall interface is clean and clear.

Based on user interviews and personal experience results, it was found that users have very little attention to short videos. The fundamental reason is that the recommended content is not what users are interested in, and the content quality is not high and not attractive enough. In the short video, the number of participants in the topic was also very low, and the highest number of participants in a topic did not exceed 2,000.

Combining the use of users and the author, we found the following three problems:

(1) Most of the videos recommended by iQiyi do not match the users’ interests. Usually, even after flipping through two pages, there is still nothing the users want to watch. The “dislike” button is in the secondary directory. So how can users quickly filter out short videos they don’t like? Also, how should iQiyi accurately push content that users like?

Improvement: Develop the "swipe left to remove video" function, and display it with dynamic effects when users first enter the short video recommendation page to help users quickly get started with this function. The development of this function can not only quickly filter out videos that users don’t like, eliminating the troublesome step of entering the secondary menu and selecting “dislike”, but also accurately analyze the types of videos that users don’t like, laying the foundation for accurate content push next time.

(2) After clicking "Like" and "Favorite", the video cannot be found in the relevant directory.

Improvement: Given that the content of short videos is mostly entertainment, film and television information, and user-generated videos, and they are relatively short in length, mostly within 10 minutes, they are very different from the content and presentation of comprehensive videos. If they are added together in the "Favorites" of the homepage, the contents in the collection directory will appear messy, so the "Likes" and "Favorites" of the hot spots are placed separately in the hot spot directory.

(3) “Share” currently only supports sharing to social platforms such as WeChat, Sina, and QQ, but iQiyi’s own “Bubble” community has been ignored. The author believes that if the “Broadcast” platform is opened in the Bubble community, a platform for storing short videos forwarded by users can greatly enhance the activity of the Bubble community and the frequency of user use.

Improvement: In the "Forward" function, add the option of "Forward to Pop Pop Community", and at the same time, add the function of adding tags to videos. This can not only increase the exposure of short videos (other users can search for it through the content of the tags), but also accurately grasp the content direction of the videos that users like, which is very helpful for making accurate recommendations to users in the next step.

To reduce the number of steps required when adding tags, iQIYI backend should first perform the following operations:

①Which tags can be used to summarize the content of this video?

②What tags did other users give to the video?

After the judgment is completed, 6 suitable tags are recommended to the user. If the user thinks that none of the above tags match, he or she can add tags on his or her own.

6. Operational Analysis

6.1 The core of iQIYI’s current operation path

Main screen:

The most popular recent events, dramas or advertisements are displayed to users in the form of a 5-second full-screen picture when entering the APP, such as: the promotion of Avengers 4, the 40% off event for iQiyi annual membership cards, etc. This form of presentation is eye-catching. If the content displayed to users is in line with their interests, it will make a huge contribution to the conversion rate and engagement of the content.

Bubbles:

IQIYI officials and official fan clubs often organize online and offline activities about celebrities. The promotion of such content is mainly in the top scrolling recommendation column under the "Idol" label of the Paopao Community and in "Celebrities Are Coming" and "Sugar Supply Station". The online activities include airdrops, interviews, and phone calls, and the offline activities include celebrity meet-and-greets, birthday parties, celebrity-sponsored charity events, and support activities.

VIP Members:

Different privileges are granted to members of different levels to encourage users to renew their memberships and increase the frequency of using iQiyi. Users gain growth points by completing tasks such as "signing in, watching videos, browsing the member club and member mall, and following WeChat public accounts" in order to obtain privileges such as "personalized skins, participating in theater movie premieres, celebrity meet-and-greets, and recording variety shows."

6.2 Analysis of specific activities

Taking the "Avengers 4 - Maoyan Movie Ticket Purchase" currently on the main screen and its derivative series of activities as an example, a detailed operational activity analysis is conducted.

6.2.1 Activity Analysis

(1) User needs:

Movies occupy an important proportion in the public's entertainment life, and are mainly watched through offline theaters and online by users after the films are taken off the screen.

In this promotion, iQiyi not only provides users with information about the latest and hottest films, but also provides users with a quick way to purchase tickets. It not only meets the public's demand for ticket purchases, but also serves as a preheat for the later launch of Avengers 4 on the iQiyi APP.

(2) Activity popularity:

While the Avengers 4 promotion was being shown on the main screen, the third section of the home page's scrolling recommendations also carried the promotion "Avengers, assemble for war", which was a list of movie recommendations including the Avengers series.

At the same time, the "My Ten Years with Marvel" event was launched in the Paopao community. The event includes: topics - share stories with Marvel to win movie tickets, write high-quality articles on the iQiyi account of Marvel movies, build a building to win Marvel gifts, lucky draws, and offline coser gatherings. Two days after the event was launched, 4,023 people have participated in the topic discussion, 18,000 articles have been read, and 39 floors have been built.

(3) Activity effect

As soon as the event was launched, users participated in discussions on "My Ten Years with Marvel" hosted by the Paopao Community by participating in topics, reading articles, replying to posts, and participating in lucky draws, which increased the activity of the Paopao Community.

Some users also watched some movies of the same type through the Avengers-related movie list recommended on the homepage, which increased the viewing volume of related movies. Some users also purchased movie tickets through the link "Avengers 4 - Maoyan Movie Ticket Purchase" on the main screen, which directly brought profits to iQiyi and Maoyan platforms.

6.2.2 Optimization Suggestions

With the help of the popularity of Avengers 4, this event brought some viewership to iQiyi's related films and increased some activity and traffic to the Bubble Community, but the popularity brought by this event to the Bubble Community was still not enough. This is because the entrance to the "Avengers 4 - Maoyan Movie Ticket Purchase" series of activities is relatively hidden, and the publicity is only concentrated in the Paopao community. Many users are not aware of this activity, so I made some optimizations to this activity.

(1) Promotion of the event

Currently, when you enter the iQiyi APP, there is a 5-second static picture display of "Avengers 4 - Maoyan Movie Ticket Purchase" on the main screen. Click it to directly enter the Maoyan movie ticket purchase interface.

Looking at this webpage, there are only "Special Ticket Purchase", "Movie Introduction", "Movie Reviews", and "Official Peripheral Introduction". The disadvantage of this layout is that it only provides users who enter this page from the iQiyi APP with a way to learn about movie reviews and buy tickets, but does not promote iQiyi's own related film and television resources and activities held by the Bubble Community.

Improvement: It is recommended that iQiyi redesign the webpage, add a list of movies related to the Avengers and button links to some Avengers-related activities hosted by the Bubble Community, so as to increase the number of views of related movies and increase the popularity of the Bubble Community. Click "Movie List" to jump to the movie list recommendation page, and click "My Ten Years with Marvel" to enter the event promotion page hosted by the Bubble Community.

(2) This activity can be linked to the circle

Currently, the only sections associated with "Avengers 4 - Maoyan Movie Ticket Purchase" and its derivative activities are certain areas in iQiyi's "Comprehensive Video Area" and "Bubble Community". Avengers 4 is extremely popular. The author believes that this is a good opportunity to improve the quality of articles in the circle, and iQiyi can infiltrate this activity into this section.

Improvement: Currently, the videos and articles about Marvel in the event are only released by iQiyi. The author believes that it is possible to solicit submissions from fans and big up-loaders in Marvel-related circles (putting a top post to solicit submissions within the circle). In addition to the regular growth value rewards, some physical prizes can also be set up (preferably Marvel peripherals). The award criteria are the fans' likes.

This will not only increase the activity of the circle, but also improve the quality of posts in the circle to a certain extent. On the one hand, the winning big up-hosts will be more enthusiastic about the circle and will continue to work hard to write high-quality posts in the future; on the other hand, it will stimulate the enthusiasm of the winning fans to become big up-hosts. As the number of big up-hosts increases, the number of high-quality posts in the circle will also increase, forming a virtuous circle.

Add an entrance to the small event "Call for Submissions from the Circle" in the "My Ten Years with Marvel" event promotion page.

VII. Conclusion

Currently, iQiyi occupies a leading position in the comprehensive video field, but judging from various comprehensive indicators, Tencent Video has performed well and is approaching iQiyi step by step, becoming its biggest competitor.

In order to seek better development and distance itself from its competitors, iQiyi has launched the "Apple Orchard" multi-ecological business chain to increase service types, expand its business scope, and tap more potential users.

As a unique functional section, the Bubble Community is a bridge connecting fans and idols. iQiyi should strengthen the connection between this section and the core film and television section, increase its exposure and popularity, and at the same time enhance the community's UGC output capacity, making it another trump card to attract users.

Membership and advertising are the two major sources of revenue for iQiyi. In order to maintain the stable growth of these two sources of revenue, iQiyi should coordinate the contradiction between membership and advertising and develop a new operating model for advertising implantation.

Introduction to iQiyi advertising: http://www.iqingua.com/25.html

Author: Job Scene Camera

Source: Zhijing Camera