Analyzing the reasons for the popularity of "Story of Yanxi Palace" from four perspectives of Internet operations

This article mainly analyzes the reasons for the popularity of "Story of Yanxi Palace" from four perspectives: Internet products, content, users, and market operations . Taking "Story of Yanxi Palace" as an example, this article discusses the operational strategies for creating popular Internet products .

I believe that for many readers, "Story of Yanxi Palace" is the most heard word recently. Before entering the main text, the author first gives a brief introduction to it:

"Story of Yanxi Palace", a large-scale Qing Dynasty palace drama produced by Dongyang Huanyu Film and Television Culture Co., Ltd., directed by Hui Kaidong and Wen Deguang, with Yu Zheng as producer and screenwriter, and starring famous actors such as Qin Lan, Nie Yuan, Wu Jinyan, Charmaine Sheh, and Tan Zhuo, was exclusively broadcast on iQiyi on July 19, 2018. Since its launch, its ratings and reputation have soared. As of August 22, 2018, it has appeared on Weibo's hot search list 133 times, including 14 times in the top 1, with 9.41 billion Weibo readings and 10.7 billion online broadcasts, crushing all film and television variety shows of the same period and firmly ranking first on the Internet's hot list.

There is no doubt that "Story of Yanxi Palace" has become a national hit today, and its influence is even not inferior to that of "The Legend of Zhen Huan" back then. It not only frequently appears on major social networking sites, but has also become the material for countless self-media marketing accounts, and has been deeply analyzed by writers from various angles.

As an Internet operator , after watching more than 60 episodes and reading countless articles about Story of Yanxi Palace, I would like to think about and analyze the reasons for its popularity from four operational perspectives:

1. Product perspective: Since ancient times, true feelings can be retained, and routines have always won people's hearts.

Looking back at the costume palace dramas over the years, although they are updated and launched every year, there are actually only a handful of them that the audience can remember their names and talk about them with relish and savor them after the moment has passed. Yu Zheng has been in the costume film and television industry for many years and is well versed in how the market operates. He is also more aware of the importance of the product itself. Even if a shoddy drama can temporarily attract traffic through marketing, it will never retain the audience's discerning eyes.

In terms of product production itself, "Story of Yanxi Palace" is not only an excellent commercial film and television drama, but also an exquisite promotional film that showcases historical culture and artistic design.

In the drama, Yu Zheng abandoned the high-saturation "A Bao style" that had been used for many years, and spent a huge amount of money to hire professionals to realistically restore the costumes, antiques, houses, and props of the Qianlong period. He also used many folk intangible cultural heritages for plot settings.

In terms of the composition of the picture , symmetrical structure is mainly used. There has always been a saying in Chinese history that "square, round and regular". Moreover, in the Qing Dynasty when feudal autocracy reached its peak, the royal family paid attention to solemnity and majesty. There was a huge Forbidden City, countless red walls and golden tiles, palaces and pavilions. "Symmetry" means "rules" and also means "inheritance".

In terms of house furnishings , there are no glittering objects in "Story of Yanxi Palace". The layout of the Qing Palace during the Qianlong period is restored one by one. The carved wooden tables and chairs, wooden beds and couches, and all kinds of antiques and utensils seem to have walked out of the Forbidden City. In some shots, you can even see the mottled red paint on the outside of the wall. This sense of heaviness and retro feeling was also shown in "Kangxi Dynasty" many years ago.

In terms of art photography , "Story of Yanxi Palace" chose the "cold" style and high-quality "Morandi" color system. Morandi color is known as the most gentle color. The unsaturated colors are combined with each other to create a soft visual sense. Choosing this color combination will give people a gentle, elegant and luxurious visual effect. Such an artistic style, combined with dignified pictures and retro furnishings, not only highly restores the history in the hearts of the audience, but also enhances the aesthetics of the drama.

In addition, the audience also raved about the soundtrack, which was extremely consistent with the characters' personalities and lives, the "red lips" and "small two-bun" hairstyles made with reference to the historical portraits of Qing concubines, and the "three earrings in one ear" that followed the "original Manchu custom that must not be worn anymore." The play features embroiderers who were invited to restore cultural relics for the Forbidden City, and they create exquisite headdresses, costumes, round fans and jewelry. Even intangible cultural heritage such as Kunqu Opera, iron flower making and kesi silk techniques are reflected in the play.

Since ancient times, true love has won people's hearts. The creative team's attention to the details of the costumes and props in the play made the audience feel the sincerity of "Story of Yanxi Palace", and they were willing to contribute a lot of ratings and reputation for it.

2. Content perspective: A mountain looks like a ridge from the side and a peak from the front, and it looks different from far and near, high and low

A few days ago, a friend asked a question: What female role is Mingyu in "Story of Yanxi Palace"?

There are many answers to this question, but the answers are different. Some people think that Mingyu is the third female lead, while others think that Mingyu is the second female lead among the maids. The author cannot answer this question because in the drama, almost every character is wonderful and everyone has the aura of the protagonist. Even the palace maids and eunuchs who appear and disappear shortly after their appearance can leave a deep impression.

For people who do content operations , the most important thing is to present attractive and valuable content to users. The attractiveness and value are first reflected in meeting user needs, which is the passing line. Secondly, it must exceed user expectations and make users feel pleasantly surprised and excited, which is considered excellent.

The palace fighting drama market has always been a red ocean. In the past, dramas with strong female protagonists all followed the routine of being a white lotus, getting hurt and turning black, and finally successfully rising to the top. If the same routine is used to create "Story of Yanxi Palace", with such absolute gems as "The Legend of Zhen Huan" and "The Legend of Miyue" in the past, even if the pictures, costumes and props of "Story of Yanxi Palace" are made with exquisite details, the repetitive and dull plot will not allow users to continue to follow the drama, and the ending will surely be lost in the market.

Yu Zheng is very smart. When making "Story of Yanxi Palace", he did not follow the rules, but unexpectedly chose a risky path. Contrary to previous dramas where the heroine becomes "good first and then bad", the heroine Wei Yingluo in "Story of Yanxi Palace" is actually "bad first and then good", creating differentiation through the anti-routine setting of the black lotus counterattack. The heroine Wei Yingluo is not a naive and innocent girl at all. She enters the palace with the purpose of revenge and declares her sovereignty from the very beginning. In the early days, she is always fearless and domineering in the Forbidden City. She dares to deceive the emperor and the empress dowager and beat the concubines in the harem. It is not until she hits a wall and loses her lover and relatives that she truly learns to be restrained and calm.

This counter-intuitive approach is very risky because the heroine's early role setting is not in line with the rules of the Qing Dynasty harem. Netizens sighed while watching, "If Wei Yingluo didn't have the aura of the protagonist, she would have died thousands of times ago with her personality."

This unreasonableness has more or less brought controversy to the drama, but despite the controversy, the audience is used to seeing white lotus, and when faced with Wei Yingluo who dares to love and hate and is brave enough to defend her own interests, they are as surprised as when they saw the reckless and unconventional Princess Huanzhu.

However, the wonderful content of "Story of Yanxi Palace" goes far beyond that. Yu Zheng has been immersed in the film and television industry for many years, and he can almost easily come up with the jokes that users like. On the one hand, he overtly or covertly pairs up CPs for various characters in the play, and on the other hand, he uses various popular films and TV shows to make memoirs. "Inappropriate Couple", " Weilong CP", "Empress Ling CP", "Empress and Empress CP" and "Big Mouth Monkey Couple" make the CP group laugh and cry and can't stop. On the other side, the family recognition group follows "Story of Yanxi Palace" every day, and looks for related character relationships in "My Fair Princess", "The Legend of Zhen Huan" and "Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace". Everyone can find their favorite points in the process of following the drama, which also provides perfect material for drama fans to spontaneously promote.

3. User Operations : A Spark Can Start a Prairie Fire

We have previously analyzed the products and content of "Story of Yanxi Palace". If the products and content are the work itself, then the users and the market are the extension of the work. The operators use beautiful user operations and market operations to attract the target group, and then use their own value to retain users. Only when all links are properly coordinated can it have the possibility of becoming a hit.

The main means of user operation are attracting new customers , retaining customers , and promoting activation. Different strategies for attracting new customers and retaining customers are used for different target customer groups. Since the content of "Story of Yanxi Palace" covers a wide range, its target customer sources are also wide. From the above content, we can analyze some of the user groups of "Story of Yanxi Palace":

iQiyi members, fans of costume dramas, history fans, fans of "My Fair Princess", "Empresses in the Palace" and "Ruyi's Palace" who are interested in the relationships between characters in the same period, fans who are interested in the actors in the dramas, fans of "Dying to Survive" from Tan Zhuo, fans of "My Fair Princess" and "A Dream of Red Mansions" from Qin Lan, fans of "Beauty at War" and "The Legend of Concubine Zhen" from Charmaine Sheh, etc. These users are the native users of "Story of Yanxi Palace" and will actively pay attention to it without the promotion of the operation team.

However, native users are only a small part of the target users . Moreover, because Story of Yanxi Palace was launched in a low-key manner, only a small number of native users knew about it. The real low-start and high-end, full-scale outbreak trend was achieved through countless latecomer derivative user groups, who mainly came from three channels :

① Topic diversion in circle forums : As mentioned earlier, countless teams were generated as soon as "Story of Yanxi Palace" was launched. Due to the plot, the CPs in the play kept gathering and separating, and the various CP teams kept fighting in turns and diverting traffic to each other.

Secondly, due to the change in Yu Zheng's reputation, many people who were not optimistic about "Story of Yanxi Palace" gradually accepted "Yu Ma's" new drama and became a new wave of diversion crowd. Once again, it was the topics sparked by the characters in the drama. Topics such as "White Moonlight" Empress Fucha, "Big Pig's Hoof" Mistress Gan, "Society Sister Wei Yingluo", and "Good Night to the Whole World Except Erqing, Concubine Chun and Concubine Xian" were alternately screened in major social circles. According to incomplete statistics, there are currently 200,000 discussion posts on “Yanxi Palace” related forums and bulletin boards.

② Mainstream self-media added fuel to the flames : Due to its promotion of intangible cultural heritage and restoration of real history, "Story of Yanxi Palace" has been recognized by mainstream media and academia. With its high popularity, "Story of Yanxi Palace" has also been sought after by countless self-media platforms . As of last weekend, the total number of news releases related to "Yanxi" reached 15,400. All of this was jokingly called "blood writing" by the iQiyi marketing team.

③Full media coverage of "Yanxi" elements : In addition to the main propaganda platform Weibo, various celebrities of "Story of Yanxi Palace" have entered almost all platforms to promote the work. Open Douyin , 5 out of 10 short videos are posted by the actors of "Story of Yanxi Palace", 3 are made with the soundtrack of "Story of Yanxi Palace", and the remaining 2 are tourists checking in at the filming location of "Story of Yanxi Palace". When you open Meitu XiuXiu , you can see "Yanxi" makeup; when you open Sogou , you can see "Yanxi" skin; when you open Taobao , you can see the same "Yanxi" style. The fermentation of a large number of similar elements has allowed this drama to enter the public life from all aspects. These are all indispensable factors for "Story of Yanxi Palace" to become a hit.

IV. Market Operation: The east wind is not favorable to Zhou Lang, and the two Qiao sisters are locked up in Tongque Spring

Sometimes luck is very important in operations and marketing. Even if you have a good product and have countless good promotional resources, if the time of launch is wrong, it is easy for all your previous efforts to go to waste. The author often sighs that the success of "Story of Yanxi Palace" is almost a combination of the right time, the right place and the right people.

As the sister works of "The Legend of Zhen Huan", "Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace" and "Story of Yanxi Palace" were produced with the same theme and completed at the same time. The former had extremely high market attention before its birth and could be said to be the biggest competitor of "Story of Yanxi Palace". Unfortunately, "Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace" had too much foreshadowing in the early stage and insufficient follow-up. Taking advantage of the temporary gap in domestic costume dramas and the delay in the broadcast of Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace, Yu Zheng launched Story of Yanxi Palace in one fell swoop. With great timing, great work, and great marketing methods, it was hard not to be a hit.

V. Conclusion

There must be many factors behind the emergence of a hit product. From the success of "Story of Yanxi Palace", we can draw the following lessons:

1. A good blacksmith must have strong tools: The quality of a product itself is the basis for its success. Pay attention to every detail and respect the user group, and people will appreciate your efforts.

2. Differentiated competition: Product homogeneity is becoming more and more serious in the market, and users are becoming more and more discerning. Products that can catch users' attention must have their unique features. I have what others do not, I am better than others, and I am different from others. Only those who keep innovating have the opportunity to stand at the top.

3. Fight on all fronts and be good at utilizing resources: Now is the Internet age, and everyone has a microphone. The "Long Tail Theory" mentions that even the smallest and most niche field has its own audience. Marketing operations cannot only use mainstream platforms and main actors for publicity. Major social platforms, staff from all parties, and even extras A, B, C, and D can all be a promotion channel . They look at the work from different perspectives and encourage the people around them to participate in the interaction. The power of each bit comes together to form a vast ocean of traffic.

4. Seize opportunities and take advantage of momentum: The strong create opportunities, the wise seize opportunities, and the weak wait for opportunities. God-given opportunities like "Story of Yanxi Palace" are hard to come by in actual operations. When there are good examples ahead and our competitors are very strong, we should be good at discovering whether there are any resources that can be borrowed from our excellent competitors for marketing. For example, "Story of Yanxi Palace" borrowed character relationship topics from "My Fair Princess" and "Empresses in the Palace", and borrowed market influence and launch opportunities from "Empresses in the Palace" and "Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace". It is much more efficient to take advantage of the momentum than to cultivate the market and user habits by ourselves.