Taking "The Debaters" as an example: How can popular content extend its life cycle?

The latest season of " The Debaters " is finally online.

In the world of online variety shows, "The Debaters" is considered an old hand and is definitely the oldest IP in the world of online variety shows. The fifth season starts again this year, and Ma Dong, who was born in the 1960s, directly faces the unbridled growth of the post-2000s generation.

The reality is, for someone like me who has watched the show from the age of 22 to 26, I was a little confused when I first watched the revised version of "The Debaters". The debate topics are more down-to-earth, more lifelike, and younger, which seems to be very different from the "U Can U Bibi" I used to know, which focused on speculation and thought while entertaining.

But judging from Weibo and the feedback from some people born in the 1990s and 2000s around me, "The Rap of China 5" is the "Rap of China" that they like more. Some "kids" who haven't even watched the first four seasons said that after "Produce 101", they finally have a new national variety show.

When I saw Zang Hongfei expressed a point of view that I liked very much, but he was actually at a disadvantage in the PK with the "Trump" youth Li Siheng, I felt a little unhappy, but I didn't seem to know how to refute it. This is probably due to the conflicting feeling among the younger generation, who have their own way of thinking and living. This sense of conflict actually stimulated my desire to continue pursuing it.

For a five-year-old content product, it is bound to lose some old fans while also gaining new audiences. The first batch of post-2000s have reached adulthood and have greater autonomy and independence. Their expectations for blockbuster content are very different from the past.

On the other hand, the overall environment for content is not ideal, and can even be said to be gloomy. Top screenwriters and directors are still scarce, the capital winter, weak stock prices of film and television companies, and financing difficulties for start-ups , and traffic stars are no longer a guarantee of ratings...

The total investment revenue of the "U Can U Bibi" series over the past five seasons is 1.5 billion, which is equivalent to the total box office revenue of " Transformers 5 " in China and close to the total box office of "Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back". However, we have never seen an online variety show as vigorous and long-lasting as "Harry Potter", "Friends" or "The Big Bang Theory".

Compared with this hit, "The Debaters" still faces a big problem: how to extend its life? From the changes in "The Rap of China 5" and the sharing of Miwei co-founder CCO Mou Di and producer Li Nannan, I seem to have found some answers, or rules.

01 Dare to kill your past self

It should be said that all popular content has its own life cycle, including the well-known Mimi Meng and Papi Jiang, as well as Honor of Kings , which is also a form of entertainment content.

Mimi Meng not only runs a public account matrix, but also announced at her third anniversary birthday party that she would enter the fashion circle. She personally promoted fashion by losing weight and doing makeup, and sang "Little Lucky" while wearing what looked like 20cm high heels.

Papi Jiang set up the short video MCN agency Papitube two years ago, but that was not enough. As the online dividends faded, she also started recruiting hotpot brand operators . This internet celebrity is a breath of fresh air and is extending its business offline.

Honor of Kings was once a national mobile game and the undisputed king of mobile games. Many people say that this game is dead, but the reality is that it is still constantly adjusting the game structure and character settings to balance the version. The bigger fact is that it has survived the three-year aging period of mobile games and is still Tencent’s cash cow.

Like these once new hits that are now “old” hits, “The Debaters” has also reached its own life cycle bottleneck. I don’t know if you still remember that “The Debaters” made a metaphorical short film for itself as a “patient”.

In the short film, "The Debaters" is a patient. The nurse (market) said to him: "Your IP is aging, your reputation is declining, your users are lost , and you are terminally ill. I advise you to sign and give up treatment." His mother ( iQiyi ) and girlfriend (advertiser) also expressed some doubts.

Ma Dong himself has also publicly expressed his thoughts on whether to continue the "U Can U Bibi" series. The public disclosure of anxiety and persistence on "The Debaters" reminded me of Tencent, which held a diagnostic conference for itself after the 3Q war. If Tencent had not been open, there would be no industrial forest today.

Even now, Tencent's social network remains unbreakable, and we no longer see super IPs like Mimi Meng, Papi Jiang and Honor of Kings in the content field. Since there is still vitality, there is no reason not to continue living.

Mou Di said that the patient's feelings were real. When you have no desire to survive, you won't have so many desires to break your own boundaries. She mentioned in a team meeting that if the fifth season was the ending, then they would rather not do it. After the fifth season, there must be a sixth season for it to be worth continuing. Therefore, launching the fifth season is a driving force from within for Miwei.

To a certain extent, the "Strange Talk" team killed their past selves countless times to have the "Strange Talk 5" we see now.

In terms of the competition system, the old one has been overturned, and the current version is more exciting: four major teams, 1v1 debate, open competition, and 30 seconds to survive. As soon as the auditions began, the debate became a real one.

In terms of debaters, 60 newcomers and veterans compete on the same stage, and no one has the right to stay on this stage. All kinds of wildly growing new talents are gradually regaining their voice on the stage. The old weirdo's advantage that originally occupied the top of the contempt chain no longer exists, and everyone has to start from scratch.

The sweeping monk in " Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils " said: The greater your Buddhist teachings are, the more powerful your martial arts will be. This way you won’t fall into the “martial arts barrier”. "The Rap of China 5" is just like "The Rap of China 1", starting from zero equipment, fighting monsters and practicing, and upgrading and leaping.

02 Thinking about problems in the long river of time

As the saying goes, entertainment is permanent, but young people are transient.

Each generation of young people consumes Internet content differently. Those born in the 1970s and 1980s grew up in the early days of the Internet. Their impression of the Internet is more of an information channel , such as a news portal. Those born in the 1990s grew up with the mobile Internet , and the Internet has more relational connection attributes for them.

For the post-2000 generation, who are Internet natives, Internet life has become the most important part of their daily experience. The variety shows they follow, the movies they watch, and the music they listen to often become reflections of their personalities.

In a letter to Zhang Yibai, Jia Zhangke said that everyone's youth is a world of children. "There was no Internet in my youth, but like today's young people, I had my own favorite singers, Cui Jian and rock music, they were TFboys and Rocket Girls. The admiration and longing, the expectations and fears about the future, the preaching of parents and the desire to fly away are all so similar."

Therefore, when we look at entertainment content over the long course of time, there have been many changes, but there are also things that remain unchanged. Stubborn content producers believe that their content has a certain style and users will naturally understand and use it. They think the problem lies with the users and that this generation of users is not good enough and does not know how to appreciate it.

Regardless of how it is praised or criticized, Jiang Wen's "Hidden Man" is considered a classic among the movies released this year. Jiang Wen himself said that his films are often for those who love to dream. But in terms of broad user circles and commercialization, "Evil Never Dies" was a failure.

On the other hand, "Dying to Survive" is closer to Chinese audiences in terms of both subject matter and film presentation. It makes us believe that both story reputation and box office success can be achieved in China.

The medium may have changed, and the initiative may have shifted, but the power of the story and the spiritual core of the content remain unchanged. The key lies in which users you want to win and how large an impact you want to have. Therefore, good content creators must look at things from a dynamic and evolutionary perspective. They see the changing trends and unchanging values ​​over time.

Perhaps after continuous diagnosis, Miwei decided to return to the original intention of "The Debaters" and give the decision-making power to the users. You know, the earliest batch of loyal fans of "The Rap of China" have almost grown from 20 to 25 years old to 25 to 30 years old. If you want to make it a lasting online variety show, you should do it like QQ, allowing generation after generation of young people to unleash their youth.

Li Nannan introduced that when planning "The Rap of China 5", a large amount of user research was conducted, questionnaires were released online, and offline seminars were held to increase the number of auditions and the number of participants. In the past, contestants had to meet with the director for a video interview, fill out registration forms, and go through various other processes. This time, they can go directly to the audition site. After passing the audition, they can go directly to the Beijing meeting, and if they pass, they can enter the show directly.

In the selection of debate topics, only those that have passed the screening of public resonance can enter the debate topic database. In addition, before recording each episode, the director team and the old weirdo team have to go through several rounds of screening before the final debate topic can be determined.

Li Nannan said that the value of debate lies not in the competition system or gameplay, but in its original spiritual core, which is tolerance and empathy, and encourages looking at problems from different angles. This is a form that has always been valuable over a long period of time. The essence of debate is to discuss the relationship between people and between people and the world. Even if we are discussing a class reunion, it is actually a question of self-acceptance. When discussing metaphysical things, how can we be closer to the audience and make users more willing to listen?

"The debate topics are all happening around us. If you say now, let's talk about how people accept themselves, the audience's first reaction may be why don't I accept myself, why are you talking to me about this? But if the entry point for the discussion with him is, you are just an average person, do you still go to the class reunion? This matter is related to him, and he will seriously participate in the discussion on the show." Therefore, for "The Debaters 5", the change is from pursuing some philosophical and brain-opening questions to pursuing joy and life itself.

The shift in the topic and the conflict between the two generations were vividly demonstrated in the debate between Zang Hongfei and Li Siheng on "Facing the girlfriend's survival test, should you act or be yourself?"

Zang Hongfei's point of view is that love is equal and the survival test is like an unequal treaty. The smallest disadvantage of acting in this drama is that one can lie endlessly when seducing or forcing a man, or in the process of proposing or courting. To put it in a broader sense, this is the modern-day practice of calling a horse a zebra. However, this kind of acting was portrayed as the boy's first-class adaptability, superb logical reasoning ability, fearless courage in the face of danger and awareness of risking his life to survive.

Li Siheng, however, believes that this test is just a game, and you are the only best actor in your girlfriend's life. So, if you have never acted in your life, please save your best acting skills for the drama "Love". The conflict between their two arguments is, in a sense, also a PK between the metaphysical and the physical.

The different dimensions of the debate topics are just like the new mentor group this season. There are three veterans like Ma Xiaokang, as well as newcomers like Xue Zhaofeng who approach the topic from an economic perspective, and Li Dan who is responsible for making jokes and taking over the conversation.

03 A hit product is not a temporary fad, but a logic

Papi Jiang and Mimi Meng, Honor of Kings and U Can U Bibi, are all popular contents, and are also trying to extend their popularity cycle.

Mou Di believes that a hit is not simply created in a single season. The term "phenomenal" is short-term. Within a single cycle, the commercial value of even the most popular content is still limited. A true hit should be a series of sustainable content. In the end, a hit product is actually a business concept, not a separate content concept. The core of a hit product is the input-output ratio.

Anita Elberse, a professor at Harvard Business School, went deep into companies such as Warner Bros., Fox, and Sony and wrote a book titled "Blockbuster: How to Create IP." It mentions that Alan Horn always adhered to the blockbuster strategy, both during his 12 years at the helm of Warner Bros. and during his subsequent tenure at the helm of Disney Studios, and placed huge bets on the films most likely to sell well, the so-called "blockbuster bets."

Looking at Warner Bros.' investment strategy in 2010, the company released 22 films at a production cost of $1.5 billion, with more than $700 million spent on domestic advertising and other promotional expenses in the United States. Warner allocated one-third of its annual production budget to three blockbusters - "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows", "Inception" and "Clash of the Titans".

People have the illusion that film and television companies devote the same love to their own children. Warner Bros., under Alan Horn, expects the most expensive films to generate the most revenue and profit.

One blockbuster is enough to support a film company's performance for several years. Domestic companies such as Happy Twist have also made a comeback from the dead with works such as "Charlotte's Troubles" and "Shameful Iron Fist" to become top IP production teams, demonstrating the power of blockbuster products.

Of course, Anita Elbers has to "gamble big" on the one hand, that a hit will attract more viewers and sell more popcorn. At the same time, she also believes that in addition to large-scale productions, one must also worry about some small-scale investments. Because small scale can act as a touchstone, it helps to build reputation and attract talent, while helping producers spread the fixed costs of production and distribution infrastructure.

This is similar to Mou Di's view that hot-selling products are important and rational business logic. She believes that the most important thing for a content company is to stay alive. If the time comes, it’s okay to take a gamble, but the prerequisite is to stay alive. Some companies bet 90% of their cash flow on a movie, and may not be able to recover in three years. Miwei Media’s logic is that 25% of the company’s existing funds is the upper limit for “big bets”. A hit product is actually a result-based decision, partly depending on the content and production, and partly on luck.

In terms of input-output ratio, "The Debaters" is undoubtedly one of the most successful online variety shows in the past few years. If all online variety shows want to become a sustained hit, they can learn from Hollywood. The first priority is still the core content. After all, the original works of "Harry Potter" and "Game of Thrones" have stood the test of time.

Another aspect is the environment and mechanism. As director Zhang Jiarui said, movies are a cultural product that is more unique and more complex than hamburgers. Therefore, Hollywood has developed a system to sell their film products to ordinary audiences like selling hamburgers , that is, to establish and utilize the theater system, a variety of film genres, as well as the star system and powerful post -promotion to sell their films around the world.

Ultimately, hit content is first and foremost a content issue, but it also has to eventually evolve into business.

Source: Wu Duidui (esnql520)