Is Short Drama Marketing a Sweetener or a Poison for Brands?

Text | Lan Jie

Editor | Qiao Qian

A boy in a Starbucks uniform accidentally collided with a girl in a white dress. When he got up again, the surroundings turned into an ancient and charming street - the boy time-traveled. This is the opening scene of Starbucks' customized short drama "I Open Starbucks in Ancient Times". Then, the boy embarked on the path of opening a store and achieving a counterattack in ancient times with the two bags of Starbucks coffee beans he brought during the time-travel.

Before Starbucks, a number of local life brands including McDonald's, KFC, Mixue Ice City, etc., have successively launched short dramas such as "Reborn: I Practice Magic at McDonald's", "Reborn: The Foodie Queen is Untouchable" and "The Crossing Diary of the Snow King".

This Double Eleven, short drama marketing is also becoming a focus for a number of e-commerce platforms such as Douyin. Among them, Douyin not only increased the investment in short dramas, but also launched a link gameplay of "Drama Promotion, Search, and Direct", linking multiple scenarios such as recommendation, search, and live streaming to promote short drama marketing.

During this period, there are both Han Shu, which has achieved a significant increase in sales through short dramas and continues to maintain its former glory, topping the Douyin beauty and cosmetics list for 14 consecutive months, and new success stories are unfolding - the leading smart lock brand Kaidishi released its self-produced short drama during Double Eleven, driving its stage exposure to over 300 million, and topping the TOP1 of multiple e-commerce platform category lists.

However, beneath the bustling scene, many things are changing.

Xiaofan established a short drama studio in September last year. In her vision, this studio would gradually develop into an integrated state from script production to shooting. At that time, Xiaofan was not sure which business model short dramas would ultimately rely on, but she had already shown a clear preference for brand marketing short dramas. But now, Xiaofan's short drama studio is still stuck at the script production stage because not so many orders have come in, and she has also devoted more energy to long dramas.

According to Su Cheng, the CEO of the brand marketing company Ouyou Group, who told 36Kr, in the first three quarters of this year, "A very large number of short drama creators' businesses have experienced a cliff-like decline and basically exited the mainstream market."

And the previously regarded as a dark horse in the short drama track, the top anchor Xiaoyangge, was also reported to have failed in his efforts to produce short dramas. The first short drama of his MCN agency, Three Goats Network, "Lord Fu, Your Stand-in Bride is a Big Shot", was taken down, and the short drama producer, Hangzhou Yimeng, was once rumored to be dissolved.

The wind of short dramas has been blowing for two years. For brands, is short drama marketing still a good business?

The Decline of Traffic Dividends

2023 is called the first year of short dramas by many practitioners in the industry. This year, there are numerous counterattack stories generated around short dramas, among which the most representative one is Han Shu, which is fully committed to Douyin short dramas.

In March last year, Han Shu collaborated with Jiang Shiqi, a Douyin blogger with tens of millions of fans, on the first short drama "Dress Up with Growth", which soon became a hit, and Han Shu's GMV (Gross Merchandise Volume) on Douyin exceeded 100 million yuan.

Judging from the data, this success has continued to this day - data from the live e-commerce data analysis platform Chanmama shows that from August 2023 to August 2024, Han Shu achieved a GMV of over 6.2 billion yuan on Douyin, ranking first in the Douyin beauty and skin care sales list. During this period, Han Shu has released nearly 30 short dramas.

Han Shu's soaring sales are closely related to its capture of the traffic dividend period of short dramas. Su Cheng and his company participated in this successful marketing case. He said that Han Shu's placement logic last year was to make batch placements, and it achieved a large-scale spread only by relying on natural traffic.

But such traffic dividends did not last long and almost ended at the end of last year.

According to the "2024 China Micro Short Drama Industry Research Report" by iResearch, the number of registered short dramas launched throughout 2023 is 584, while according to the data released by the Film and Television Center of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, in just the three months from August to October, the number of registered short dramas has reached 589.

More and more short dramas are pouring into the platform, followed by increasingly rare hits and increasingly expensive traffic.

At the beginning of this year, the free cake has been eaten up, and the CPM (Cost Per Mille, the cost per thousand impressions) for short drama marketing placement has increased from a few yuan at the beginning to the current range of 30 - 40 yuan, nearly a 10-fold increase.

Zhang Peiran, the vice president of the MCN agency Gangshang Kaihua, said that some brands that broke through the circle through short drama marketing will continue to reinvest in the agency, "so that some of our vlog accounts and even film and television commentary accounts have received short drama placements." But it is also heard that many brands rushed into the market after hearing the news, collaborated with some talents in the industry to test the waters with several short dramas, and then chose to exit because the results were not as expected, "Customers later found that not everything related to short dramas is good, and not all agencies and accounts are good at producing short drama content."

Including Han Shu itself, not only has the number of short drama placements decreased this year, but the data of the customized short dramas is also not as expected - during the 6.18 period, Han Shu's "Let Love Be Captured" in collaboration with Jiang Shiqi had a playback volume of 230 million, which is more than half lower than the 600 million playback volume of "Dress Up with Growth".

Bai Yunhu, the founder of Meiyun Space E-commerce, said that the reason why Han Shu can still maintain a good sales volume is because of the short drama's sound volume accumulated in the previous year. In addition, Han Shu's growth path is also difficult to replicate. In addition to seizing the outlet of short drama marketing, its success also has multiple factors - including the accumulation of many years as a domestic brand, its founder Lv Yixiong's grasp of the outlet, and a high-profile marketing style, etc.

So, when the advantage of traffic is running out, is short drama marketing no longer attractive to brands? Facts have proved that at least this year, there are still brands that have told new stories with short drama marketing.

Can Better Content and Smoother Conversion Resist More Expensive Traffic?

"Saved it again", this is Su Cheng's description of the Starbucks short drama marketing case.

With the decline of traffic dividends, brands once lost confidence in short drama marketing and chose to give up the short drama path, "The entire market experienced a huge crisis in Q3." The order volume of Su Cheng's company also declined significantly during this period.

The turning point appeared in October when Starbucks' first customized short drama "I Open Starbucks in Ancient Times" was broadcast on Douyin, and Su Cheng's company was responsible for the planning and marketing. This short drama finally achieved 80 million views. Although it is not very high, it brought 1.35 million local life buyers, and Starbucks surpassed Luckin Coffee for the first time on the Douyin channel to become the number one in the beverage category.

Su Cheng said that this marketing for Starbucks is very different from the past. On the one hand, both the traffic cost and the production cost have increased significantly - the CPM has reached 40 yuan, and the cost has reached 3 million yuan. On the other hand, this short drama marketing also focuses on cultivating consumers' brand mentality, "We are no longer harvesting at a low price for a high price, but using content to bring topics and emotional value, so that Starbucks can remain competitive even in the face of 9.9 yuan coffee."

This is in line with the brand's demand for the evolution of short drama marketing. Compared with many brands in the past who directly expressed the hope that short dramas can bring high conversion rates, more brands now require "the integration of brand and effect". In addition to conversion, they also hope that short drama marketing can fit or even change the brand image.

In order to achieve this effect, the quality of brand short dramas is constantly improving. Taking "I Open Starbucks in Ancient Times" as an example, the camera language is infinitely close to that of traditional film and television dramas, and the actors are also professional short drama actors with rich acting experience. When the traffic cannot be driven, driving the content is the path of short dramas and also the path of brand-customized short dramas.

In this process, the form of short drama marketing is also changing. From the original situation where a short drama can have multiple advertisements implanted, it has evolved into a situation where a short drama is created entirely by a brand, making the plot and the brand better integrated, which is also called soft implantation. Nowadays, the latter is becoming the mainstream of brand short drama marketing.

In addition, the success of the Starbucks marketing case is closely related to its affiliation with the local life brand. For e-commerce brands on Douyin, especially in the beauty and cosmetics category, using short dramas for marketing is already a very competitive situation, but local life brands have not yet entered the short drama marketing on a large scale, which also makes it easier to stand out. For short drama marketing, it can also enjoy the superimposed traffic of local life.

The success of Starbucks will also attract more brands to choose short dramas as a marketing solution. Before Starbucks, McDonald's, KFC, Mixue Ice City, Tai'er Pickled Fish, etc. have all launched their own brand-customized short dramas - it has become a trend that more and more local life brands are competing in the marketing short drama track, and the competition is becoming increasingly fierce, and the related investment costs will also increase accordingly.

The traffic conversion method is also evolving along with the content.

During this Double Eleven, the CP that should have appeared in the short drama also appeared in the live stream of the talents under Gangshang Kaihua. She told 36Kr that this is a new gameplay launched by Douyin E-commerce during this Double Eleven that can link short videos and live streams. Currently, nearly a thousand accounts across the entire network have participated. Gangshang Kaihua seized this opportunity to conduct a secondary interpretation of the products based on the character settings in the short drama in the live stream to achieve a better sales effect. And the MCN agency will also authorize the brand to make slices of these interpretations for secondary dissemination.

In addition, Zhang Peiran also found that Douyin officially connected the traffic pools of short dramas and live streams during the big promotion period, thereby raising the traffic ceiling of different category live streams. During this Double Eleven, the Douyin's Jumei Engine official account also announced a clear platform short drama investment promotion plan.

Facing more and more expensive traffic, all parties in the short drama marketing chain have exhausted all their efforts. Judging from the current results, the emergence of successful cases including Starbucks may mean that there are still brands that can enjoy the sweetness of short drama marketing, but the growth miracle like Han Shu cannot be replicated.