Uncovering the secrets behind the "double championship" of "The Rap of China", how much did iQiyi "win"?
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Compared with the various opinions from the outside world, Chen Wei, the chief producer of "The Rap of China", is very calm: "Being without desires makes you strong. We are a platform and have no vested interest in who wins the championship. So, it doesn't matter who the champion is. This summer, hip-hop culture is the biggest winner." Many people are very curious, how much can iQiyi earn? It is reported that the total cost of the program exceeded 250 million yuan, with Nongfu Spring's sponsorship fee of 120 million yuan and McDonald's not cheap. Xiaomi, Douyin and other sponsors have successively joined the game. Xiaomi, which signed Wu Yifan, finally spent more than 30 million to buy the super insert for the finals. Not only that, as the saying goes, "kill two birds with one stone", how can this IP attract new members for iQiyi VIP and live broadcast platform Qixiu, how can it help brokerage companies to recruit artists and expand their business, and how can it create more profits for iQiyi's IP value-added department? Where is the room for improvement in the second season? We did some calculations. From being dissed by the whole nation to "entering the circle with strength", is the secret of "The Rap of China" "all in"? From the controversy surrounding the “Hip-Hop” auditions, to rappers writing diss songs about the show, to the show’s reversal in reputation and contestants becoming overnight sensations, what happened in between? It all started with Wu Yifan’s freestyle. Although it was a meme that was discovered and planted later, no one thought that "freestyle" would become so popular. This is different from other variety shows which will first invest 30% or 50% to test the waters in the early stages to leave some room for themselves. According to Chen Hongjia, iQiyi's vice president of marketing, "90% of our promotional expenses were used up in the program warm-up and the first two episodes. If the program doesn't take off at the beginning, everything we do later will be in vain." Everyone simply went "all in." From the production team, lighting and stage design, post-production, to content operation , "there can be no shortcomings, and every aspect must be perfect." When Xiaoyu asked back: "Is this considered being good at hype?" Chen Hongjia replaced the expression: "I think it should be called manipulation, manipulating the direction of public opinion." Yes, there is a certain degree of randomness in the creation of a hit product, and it requires luck. Just like if this person was not Kris Wu, the result might be completely different. Fortunately, starting from the third and fourth episodes, "Time" became popular and Ouyang Jing became a hot topic. The program team created a wave of flesh-and-blood rappers through the editing and operation of "drama-type reality show". The contestants continued to gain fans and were cultivated in large numbers by mainstream media and advertisers, eventually pushing hip-hop into a national craze. Chen Hongjia felt that he had made the right bet: "The subsequent hot searches basically dominated the screen, and they were not bought. If I really wanted to buy them, they would be too expensive (laughs)." What does it mean to spend money wisely? Geng Danhao, senior vice president of iQiyi, said that all resources inside and outside the site should be connected and squeezed out to the fullest. Many netizens commented that the rappers in “Hip Hop Headlines” are more like ordinary people than those in the show, and that the million-dollar CPs come from here. For example, internally, iQiyi Entertainment Center will produce derivative programs such as "Hip-Hop Headlines" and "A Brief History of Hip-Hop", and the platform's full-platform variety shows such as "Are You a College Student?" and "Unparalleled Press Conference" will also interact with the contestants of "Hip-Hop". Outside the site, after the rappers became popular, they won " Happy Camp ", "Day Day Up", and even "GQ" and "Harper's Bazaar" to cheer for the contestants. Of course, some people are also worried that when rappers become popular and the novelty is over-consumed, as the finals officially come to an end, how long can their popularity last ? Chen Xiao, vice president of sales at iQiyi, is very clear about this: "In the first season, we only completed the popular science work of hip-hop, which is a bit like throwing a small stone into a big lake and creating ripples. Our next job is to make hip-hop truly enter people's lives and penetrate into consumers." He meant that iQiyi wants to provide more derivative services, offline activities , and merchandise, and the first step is to launch a national tour concert with the theme of "Hip-Hop". The purpose is to allow consumers or fans to be truly infected by the hip-hop brand and culture and to have a more holistic consumer experience. Chen Hongjia set a flag for himself: "We will never do a simple and crude compilation concert. We will put star producers and hip-hop contestants together, and everything will be carefully planned and rehearsed." On the one hand, in addition to continuing the popularity of the "Hip-Hop" IP, on the other hand, they want to take the opportunity to audition contestants for the second season, and at the same time use the "Hip-Hop" IP to expand the brand influence of the Kiwi Music Festival and expand the revenue of the music sector. Is the interlude in the finals of “Hip-Hop” more expensive than the 30 million of “The Voice of China”? What is the potential for next season? Although the hip-hop industry chain has great potential, it is currently dominated by advertising. What is not well known is that in order to stick to this vertical theme, "Hip Hop" once lost a 300 million yuan order. But few people realize that an important reason and premise is that Gong Yu said that even if this project loses money, the loss will not be too big. Chen Wei agreed very much. He gave an example: "Nowadays, when a video website buys a large-scale variety show from a first-tier satellite TV station, it costs hundreds of millions. You can only broadcast it for three months with this 100 million. The same money is used to make "Hip Hop", which is our own IP!" In fact, the first season of "Hip Hop" invested more than 250 million, which was a bit of a loss. But in the second season, Chen Xiao is confident: "Sales are expected to double." A strong signal is that the "creative inserts" sold in this episode of "Hip Hop" finals are more expensive than the 30 million sold for "The Voice of China 3" that year. Different from "The Voice of China" which provides more of a 30-second hard advertising time slot, it is more commercial through bidding. Chen Xiao firmly believes that Hip Hop is different. "In addition to providing time slots, we also provide creativity, filming, and services. We do not participate in bidding. We only provide advertising for clients that we have already worked with and that we know and trust, such as Xiaomi, with a more vivid, interesting, and organically integrated content." From the naked recording of the show, to Nongfu Spring and McDonald's quickly making the decision, to Xiaomi, Douyin, and Chevrolet joining in one after another, it was like a roller coaster ride. Fortunately, the process went smoothly and instead forced and created many fresh and anti-routine ways of playing. The power of suspense is fierce. In the process of looking for customers, Chen Xiao concluded: "For a topic that sounds so niche, we have invested the largest amount of money and such a strong production team. Some brands that dare to play and target young people will be very curious and want to take a gamble with us." Nongfu Spring was attracted by this "novelty". Its brand manager told Entertainment Capital: "For Nongfu Spring, which sells water, 120 million is definitely an extremely expensive price. But at that time, an experienced mobile phone brand in the industry withdrew its investment, and the auditions caused a huge amount of negative comments, almost none of which were positive. This made us even more curious, what exactly is this show like?" At that time, iQiyi took about an hour to introduce it. : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : "All our sponsors are overflowing," Chen Xiao is relatively satisfied. "Because of the flexibility of online variety shows, they are not restricted to the original 45-minute to 60-minute single episode. It is normal for us to make a half-hour show in the later stage. The traffic far exceeds expectations, and the amount and richness of the stories are also there." On the other hand, through this project, he also summed up several key words : refuse to be stable, be differentiated, advertising + content should be more profound, organically combined, and exceed market or consumer expectations. Compared to the normal product placement and logo exposure, their biggest innovation is to arrange contestants to sing rap advertising songs. Just write the lyrics, match the melody, and record the demo for the sponsor. After the running-in, "Hey, this is pretty cool, let's give it a try." Although the first season worked hard on innovation and completion, the time was still a bit tight, which made Chen Xiao more aware of the crisis. According to Nongfu Spring, “The design, plate-making, production and distribution cycle of beverages is too long. Especially now that it is the peak season, the whole company is busy and it is difficult to spare the resources to do something creative. If we want to try some creative bottle ideas to match The Rap of China, which will be aired in June, we must have started preparing in April at least. But when iQiyi recommended it for the first time, it was already early June.” As for the second season, Chen Xiao, vice president of sales, said that they would definitely give customers more production and preparation time. Like this time, Nongfu Spring opened a voting channel for "Hip Hop". Many people bought Nongfu Spring just to vote for Xiao Qinglong and help him revive. This also inspired Chen Xiao: "How can we help customers do more marketing cooperation, help them to sell goods offline and interact with consumers? We must provide better services and solutions." How does "The Rap of China" kill two birds with one stone by giving back to VIP, performing Qixiu live broadcasts , and developing IP value-added services? For iQiyi, a comprehensive platform with an "Apple Tree" business model, the ambition of "The Rap of China" goes far beyond traditional advertising sales. How to maximize the benefits of “head content”? Feeding back to other departments of iQiyi and achieving “killing two birds with one stone” has become a new challenge. The more intuitive one is the VIP membership. First of all, the daily traffic of "Hip Hop" continues to set new records. Secondly, the program team also designed the “revival wildcard battle” on the eve of the finals as a VIP exclusive. Although the data is not convenient to disclose, it is said that the effect of attracting new customers is quite good. The second is iQiyi’s live streaming platform – Qixiu, which is fully favored by the program team. Whether it was a press conference, a visit to a show, or a "live debut" by a popular contestant on Qixiu, there were 20 hip-hop-themed shows alone. Not only that, part of the live broadcast of the finals on August 31 was also given to Qixiu, with a total of more than 52 million viewers and over 6 million votes. With these high-quality contents, rewards and traffic have skyrocketed like a shot of chicken blood. As for some people saying that this is an attempt to get money from students one day before school starts? "They really don't understand us." Chen Hongjia responded with a smile: "First of all, the artist's contract has been signed long ago and it can't be changed at will, right? Secondly, how much money can you make from a live broadcast? Compared with our total investment, it's really not that much." Geng Danhao, senior vice president of iQiyi, added: "In fact, you don't have to give tips. Many users really want to cheer for their favorite contestants. We are only responsible for opening this channel , but ultimately it is the users who decide whether to pay." Of course, iQiyi's artist management companies also got a piece of the pie. At present, they have signed Xiao Gui and Zhu Xingjie, and have also won commercial agency contracts with rappers such as the Desert Brothers. Although I can’t say how much I’ve earned, compared to before I started working on “Hip Hop,” at least I’m making some money. The most noteworthy thing is actually the feedback to iQiyi's IP value-added department. When I first met with Entertainment Capital Theory, Ren Tao, vice president of the IP Value-Added Business Division, said straight to the point: "We are a pure profit department. The only cost is manpower. We are not large in scale, and I am very satisfied with the revenue in the first quarter." This department was established at the end of last year, and it happened to coincide with "The Rap of China", which began preparations at the beginning of the year and has huge room for development. They first designed the show props "R!CH" gold chains and hats, and then they designed and authorized the "Hip-Hop Snack Box" and hip-hop theme store packaging for McDonald's. It is reported that more than 200 SKUs have been developed, and recently "hip-hop licensed products" such as clavicle chains have been launched in cooperation with Chow Tai Fook. Their main source of income is licensing fees + sales commissions. The rule in the industry is that low-priced, high-volume products like Nongfu Spring do not participate in sales sharing. But if it is a trendy brand product with a higher unit price, they are also exploring and improving the profit-sharing model. For example, in the first season, they found that the best-selling item in a partner’s store was not necessarily the cooperative hat, but the traffic of the entire store increased sharply due to the popularity of "Hip Hop". To this end, they demanded to participate in the sales revenue sharing of all products of the brand. But can they convince their partners? Ren Tao is confident: "In fact, we have already discussed it." In the second season, they intend to cooperate with trendy brands like Adidas that match the influence and texture of "Hip Hop" and want to give the brand sufficient product design and preparation period. "By then, there will be more and more fresh gameplay and similar products. They can even be put on the shelves of merchants before the second season is launched." Ren Tao has repeatedly stressed that they have very high requirements for their partners, and they must not be ugly or low-quality. The core reason is: "We are not concerned about short-term popularity, but how to expand and extend the IP life cycle through the value of the IP itself to generate a longer-term business model ." Xiaoyu also clearly felt that just like "partial live broadcast" of "The Rap of China", if you want to not follow, open up a fresh way of playing, lead a new culture, new music taste, and develop a new business model, you really can't rush it. Take concerts as an example. If we really want to make quick money, "we can sell tickets at a higher price and reduce costs, but this is very short-term. We may hurt users' understanding of this culture and their consumption experience, which goes against our original intention." The essence of business will never change, just like this finals. Only more advanced players understand: "There is no need to make all the money at once." The author of this article @Entertainment Capital Theory compiled and published by (Qinggua Media). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting! Product promotion services: APP promotion services, information flow advertising, advertising platform |
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