The advertising placement of AI manga dramas has surged.

On November 18th, Jiemian News exclusively learned from an informed source that AI comic dramas have become a new content category pursued by short - drama practitioners this year, and the daily advertising consumption of OceanEngine, the marketing service platform under Douyin, has doubled recently. Prior to this, the average daily advertising consumption of OceanEngine's AI comic dramas was about several million yuan, equivalent to the daily consumption of top consumer brands during high - exposure periods.

Jiemian News verified the above information with ByteDance. As of press time, the other party has not responded yet.

Data released by DataEye - ADX at the beginning of this month showed that there were more than 19,000 products related to comic dramas/anime micro - dramas, and more than 4,000 comic drama products had been advertised in the past 30 days. Among them, "Let You Rush the Project Schedule Season 1" ranked first on the Douyin dynamic comic list with 31.323 million views.

Last year, the short - drama industry experienced a period of rapid growth. However, several production parties told Jiemian News that as more and more production parties entered the market, the short - drama industry became more competitive this year, and the income of production parties also declined to a certain extent. Some production parties are trying to reduce the production cost of short dramas through AIGC and have begun to explore AI comic dramas.

As the short - drama platform with the highest daily active users, Hongguo Short Dramas launched the Hongguo Free Comic Drama App on the Android platform last month. However, Jiemian News learned from an AI comic drama practitioner that there is a significant difference between the user group of Hongguo Short Dramas and the target audience of AI comic dramas. Most AI comic drama practitioners regard Douyin as their main operating platform.

Currently, AI comic dramas mainly include two models: paid and free. According to the above - mentioned AI comic drama practitioner, the net profit of a paid AI comic drama with over 10 million views is about 200,000 - 300,000 yuan, while the net profit of a free AI comic drama with 10 million views on the Douyin platform is about 100,000 yuan.

A short - drama production party told Jiemian News that currently only 20% of short - drama works in the industry can make a profit, and the rest are at the break - even point or slightly in the red. "Works that can make a profit basically need to reach the level of an entry - level hit (with over 40 million views), and for most industry - recognized hit works, the production party can get a share of several million yuan."

Image source: Visual China

Compared with short dramas shot with real - life actors, AI comic dramas have lower production costs and more stable profit expectations. A report from Soochow Securities shows that AI can improve the efficiency of some production links of comic dramas by 50% to 80%. From a cost perspective, the cost per minute of a comic drama is 2,000 - 5,000 yuan, and after applying AI, it drops to 1,000 - 2,500 yuan.

The above - mentioned short - drama production party said that short - drama production parties have a strong desire to reduce production costs through AI technology, but AIGC is still difficult to completely replace real - life actors in the short term, especially in details such as micro - expressions. AI comic dramas are now popular among short - drama production parties because they do not require the participation of real - life actors at all.

In addition to Douyin and Hongguo Short Dramas, Kuaishou has also been actively deploying AI comic dramas this year. Since last year, Kuaishou has strongly promoted the application of Keling AI in film and television production and produced the industry's first AIGC short drama, "The Wonders of Mountains and Seas: Cutting Through Waves". As more and more short - drama production parties are involved in AI comic dramas, Kuaishou also tries to seize the opportunity to expand Keling AI.

Jiemian News learned from short - drama production parties that Kuaishou will invest one million yuan in cash, ten million Keling AI points, and over one hundred million traffic resources to launch a cooperation plan for AI MCN agencies and AI content agencies. The cooperation models include co - production, paid short dramas, and co - operation. The content that can participate in this cooperation plan includes not only AI comic dramas but also vertical content such as science popularization and education created with AI and content created by using AI to re - create classic film and television dramas.

Judging from the data, the content of AI comic dramas on the Kuaishou platform is also growing rapidly. Jiemian News learned that the user scale of Kuaishou's dynamic comics exceeded 4 million six months after its launch. According to data recently released by Kuaishou, in the past year, Kuaishou has launched tens of thousands of comic drama works in total, with a single - day advertising investment income of over 4 million yuan, and dozens of dramas have advertising consumption exceeding 1 million yuan.

"The most profitable way to operate AI comic dramas at present is to publish them on Douyin accounts. Hongguo Short Dramas still allocates most of its traffic to high - quality and super - high - quality short dramas, and many production parties are still waiting and seeing about Kuaishou," the above - mentioned AI comic drama practitioner told Jiemian News.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Jiemian News". Author: Xiao Fang, Editor: Wen Shuqi. Republished by 36Kr with permission.