Interpreting the marketing logic of video platforms

At the 9th Internet Audiovisual Conference, "iQIYI, Youku and Tencent Video" staged a melee over short video platforms.

As early as the beginning of April, long video platforms such as "iQIYI, Youku and Tencent Video" joined forces with film and television companies, celebrities, and related associations to launch a protracted battle against infringements of short video secondary creations.

Image source: Weibo topic

Under criticism from all sides, Bilibili and Douyin have strengthened the review of secondary creation videos. At present, the latest "x-minute commentary" videos on Bilibili have decreased, and the commentary on Douyin has turned to classic old movies at home and abroad.

Image source: TikTok

This seems to be a temporary victory for long video platforms, but in terms of user volume, usage time and even market value, long video platforms have fallen far behind, and the battle between long and short videos is inevitable.

01 The battle between long and short videos, is it to divert attention from "membership price increase"?

According to the "2021 China Internet Audio-Visual Development Research Report", the scale of short video users has reached 873 million, and has been on an upward trend in recent years. However, the scale of comprehensive video users has been declining. By comparing the two, it is obvious that users are migrating to short videos.

Image source: "2021 China Internet Audiovisual Development Research Report"

In recent years, "loss" has become a key word in the financial reports of major long-form video platforms. The high film and television costs and difficulty in making a return have caused iQiyi and Tencent to increase membership prices one after another. In addition, their pioneering "advanced on-demand" and "SVIP" models have also been criticized.

As the controversy continues, they are using the "pig food theory" to provoke further conflict, seemingly trying to turn the conflict between the platform and users into a hedge between the two business models of long videos and short videos.

02 The battle for users has already begun

It can be seen from the data in the above figure that before 2019, the difference in user scale between long and short videos was not very obvious. However, after entering the bonus period of staying at home due to the epidemic, the scale of short video users has started to grow. In addition to the adjustment of the platform's own operating strategy, there is no lack of support for advertising to acquire customers.

By looking at the mobile advertising trends of the top video apps in the past six months, it can be seen that Tik Tok, Bilibili and Kuaishou are stronger in advertising than Tencent Video and Youku, that is, short video platforms are more keen on attracting traffic through advertising.

In the promotion ranking of video advertisers in May, "Tik Tok", "Kuaishou Express Edition" and "Tik Tok Express Edition" also ranked among the top.

It is worth noting that "Tik Tok" mainly draws traffic through the Big Data Engine, "Kuaishou" draws traffic through Tencent Advertising, and "Tencent Video" is placed on NetEase Yixiao and Kuaishou.

Specifically in terms of advertising materials, what kind of advertising content are long and short videos using to attract users?

1) Long videos: own IP and dramas are still the primary attraction

Judging from the advertising materials invested by iQIYI, Youku and Tencent Video, popular online dramas, online variety shows and high-scoring movies are their primary attractions, among which youth idol dramas, high-scoring self-made theaters, and self-made/licensed animations are the main ones. Mainly targeting young groups, the videos are mostly heavy content with a length of more than 20-30 minutes.

It is only in recent years that long videos have been able to successfully adopt the rapid monetization model of IP novel adaptation into film and television. Even if the "traffic" bubble bursts, high-quality IP can still make a lot of money through peripheral products, online game authorizations, etc.

After the impetuous capital withdrew, long video platforms turned to carefully cultivated self-made content.

Based on this, Tencent's China Literature announced the "Big China Literature" strategy, which aims to attract and cultivate more online authors to provide high-quality IP for its film and television industry. iQiyi's "iQiyi Novels" has also begun to operate seriously, trying to build its own IP ecosystem.

2) Short videos: User-generated content is more flexible and promotes immediate spiritual pleasure

Compared with the mature and exquisite film and television content on long video platforms, the works promoted by short video platforms are more down-to-earth and tend to provide instant information or spiritual pleasure.

It is worth mentioning that in addition to recommending short video content, a considerable portion of advertisements on Douyin and Kuaishou attract users through e-commerce coupons and recommendations of low-priced products. It can be seen that they have begun to consciously convey the impression of "content e-commerce" to new users.

Data source: App Growing

Similar to long video platforms, Kuaishou is also actively exploring platform-produced dramas to improve user retention. It is reported that Midu adapted the novel "Mr. Qin's Little Mute" into a micro-short drama and launched it on Kuaishou, with the number of views of a single episode exceeding 100 million. Tencent Weishi also launched the "Mars Project" to support micro-short dramas, and even claimed that it would invest 1 billion yuan in support, seemingly trying to replicate the Kuaishou model.

03 "Delicious food" or "pig food", users have their own standards

At the 9th Internet Audiovisual Conference, the vice president of Tencent delivered the famous "short video pig food theory."

"Sun Zhonghuai said that short videos are simple brainwashing repetitions that subtly impact user perceptions and lower user minds. He said, 'Personalized distribution is too powerful. If you like pig food, all you see is pig food.'"

In fact, due to limitations in venue, personnel, aesthetics and other reasons, short video content is naturally incomparable with the film and television content operated in depth by long video platforms. Therefore, most people in the industry believe that long videos and short videos are actually two business models.

On the premise that users actively choose content, there is essentially no difference between long and short video content, but rather a difference in personal preference. Before short videos fully emerged, "iQIYI, Youku and Tencent Video" also experienced the "pig food era". Continuous water injection, dragging plots, and traffic stars with zero acting skills were once synonymous with online dramas.

It can be seen that blindly tolerating simple and crude content will cause the ecology of the platform to deteriorate, causing users to greatly reduce their scores on the platform. Currently, the penetration rate of short videos has reached 88.3%, saying goodbye to the violent growth dividend, and the content on the platform has become more standardized.

According to App Growing's observations, in terms of advertising videos alone, both Douyin and Kuaishou have strengthened their review. After several rounds of supervision, the number of simple, crude and exaggerated advertisements has been significantly reduced compared to last year.

04 In the era of fast food, traffic is king

The "2021 China Internet Audiovisual Development Research Report" also pointed out that micro-short dramas, micro-variety shows, and micro-documentaries will become the key development targets of short video platforms.

Such a strategy is clearly aimed at iQiyi, Youku and Tencent Video, and aims to further erode market share with "small and beautiful" content. The success of short dramas also proves that users' entertainment threshold has changed.

In the fast food era, traffic is king. Whether it is a long video or a short video, only the ones that users are really willing to pay for are "good videos". Although there are still commodity barriers between long and short videos, when IP and serialized content develops, the commercial boundaries between long and short videos will become further blurred.

The biggest manifestation is that long video platforms continue to increase their investment in short videos. For example, Tencent will create a daily "micro theater" and devote itself to the short and medium video tracks.

Based on this, the strategic advantages of long and short video platforms are becoming increasingly prominent.

For example, iQIYI, Youku and Tencent Video each have their own literary products to provide blood transfusions for IP, and film and television companies turn IP into dramas, which are then digested by the platforms themselves.

Among short video platforms, Tomato Novel, owned by ByteDance, has successfully demonstrated its ability to adapt short dramas when promoting advertisements. There are also many high-quality works on the platform. Kuaishou adopts a model of cooperation with copyright holders to create content.

Therefore, it can be said that both long and short videos have the possibility of opening up the IP-production-dissemination chain. In the future, content will become more "privatized", and popular IPs will be bought out by a certain platform.

This is also reflected in the advertising content promoted by Tencent Video, such as the promotion of "Friends Reunion Special" and "Douluo Continent" for which the company has the copyright, and it pays more attention to the crackdown on video infringements to further safeguard its own content city.

On the other hand, IP development will be more fully utilized, and monetization methods such as peripherals and mobile games will be indispensable to dig deeper into the value of the content. For example, after Youku's "Word of Honor" became a hit, it launched small merchandise such as clothing, headwear, dolls, etc. that sported the same characters.

Author: AppGrowing

Source: AppGrowing