文/陈默
Sweet pet drama, has always been the most durable drama genre in Yangyang Greater China. No matter what schedule, there will always be a seemingly "plain" drama. With the "sweet pet" full of girls' hearts, it will become a traffic tycoon, frequently squeezed into hot searches, and break into the forefront of the drama list. .
In the special period of spring 2020, when home entertainment is accepted by the public, chasing drama has become a standard feature. At this time, video websites are also ingeniously arranged to meet the needs of multiple parties. "The sweet pet drama" has become the number one "heart water" of the video website.
Youku also deliberately chose a sweet pet drama "Snow Pear Stewed in Rock Sugar" about "Dream on Ice". "Rock Sugar Stewed Sydney" is a sweet pet drama jointly produced by Perfect World Film and Television, Happy Blue Ocean, Youku, Kunchi Films, and Haohan Xingpan, and produced by Perfect World Film and Television Liu Ning Studio. The play was produced by the original crew of "Fragrant Honey as Ashes as Frost" and is the second part of the "Fragrant Honey Trilogy".
Different from the previous "Silly White Sweet" routine series, "Bing Sugar Stewed Sydney" has achieved differentiation and high-quality production in terms of the selection of the main creative team, the establishment of the protagonist and the professionalization of the story background, and so on. These, once the show was broadcast, it won a lot of hearts. Douban scored 7.9 after the show went live. Weibo has more than 650 million views and more than 275,000 discussions on 3 topics. According to the data of Guduo on March 23, the show ranked first in the ranking of Guduo's drama popularity index.
▲ "Snow Pear Stewed in Rock Sugar" ranked first on the ranking of Guduo's episode popularity index on March 23, and the second and third episodes that day were also launched on Youku
A sweet pet drama, why in the environment of cloud entertainment, arouse people's continuous attention and discussion. Recently, One Entertainment Observation interviewed Xie Ying, general manager of Youku Drama Center, and the chief producer of "Bing Sugar Stewed Sydney" , Liu Ning, the vice president of Perfect World Film and Television, started from creation and marketing, and analyzed the new changes in the development of sweet pet dramas by understanding the behind-the-scenes stories of "Snow Pear Stewed in Rock Sugar", and how to establish the new coordinates of sweet pet dramas.
How to differentiate and make the sweet pet drama just needed?
In the past two years, sweet pet dramas have attracted more and more attention. According to data from the Yien Video Think Tank, the sweet pet drama has become the most popular drama theme among women in 2019.
In Xie Ying’s view, the popularity of sweet pet dramas indicates that young users have been working fast and under pressure in life in the past few years. In a fast-paced society, they have a preference for romantic, relaxed and warm tones. The beautiful yearning for love and the warm expectation of humanity. "This may be an emotional just need. From this perspective, sweet pet dramas will still be popular mainstream themes."
Compared with big IP and big investment headlines, sweet pet dramas are mostly low-cost investment. , Which is quite attractive from the perspective of risk and return. According to data from Yien in December 2018, there are 7 sweet pet dramas in the TOP50 dramas in 2018. The total number of hits on the 7 titles exceeded 35 billion.
The favor of the female audience market and the relatively low-risk investment of “boosting from small to large” make the platform and producers prefer the genre of sweet pet dramas. According to another public report, according to incomplete statistics, from the fourth quarter of 2019 to 2020, nearly 30 sweet pet dramas will enter the market, including projects to be broadcast, completed, and started.
▲ "Snow Pear Stewed in Rock Sugar" stills
In the environment of Red Sea competition, the past "silly white sweet" sweet pet dramas can no longer attract more female audiences, sweet pets It's becoming more and more difficult for a drama to "explode".
"We need to distinguish, to be a boutique trend, not simply tease." Xie Ying believes that from the perspective of female audiences, love dramas are needed and emotional fantasies need to be satisfied. In terms of production, the sweet drama from now on is not just a sweet pet.
"We advocate nutritious sweetness, not sweetness deliberately made for sweetness." Xie Ying said bluntly when talking about the future direction of the sweet pet drama.
It is worth noting that "nutritious sweetness" was mentioned many times by Xie Ying in this interview. Also thankedAnother one that Ying repeatedly mentioned is "a reliable team."
As the platform party, the choice of broadcast episodes is particularly important. A good episode can be favored by the platform's target users, increase user stickiness, and even attract more paying users' attention. How to choose high-quality drama series, Youku Drama Center has its own set of internal evaluation system and standards.
According to Xie Ying, a trial matching system was introduced through scripts in the early stage. For example, screenwriters, directors, male one and female one are suitable for this theme. What's more important is the core demand for the creative team. For example, the aesthetics, production ability and production level of the main creative team can make this show clearly different from similar series.
"What we value more is the selection of the creative team and the human factor, plus the previous script, so that we can produce really good works." In Xie Ying's view, the production team of "Snow Pear Stewed with Rock Sugar" is obviously Such a "reliable" team and "tacit understanding" with Youku. "Reliable" refers to the ability to make, and "tacit understanding" mainly refers to both parties' cognition of how "sweet" is.
The sweet pet drama should be real, not "xylitol"
The production team of "Snow Pear Stewed with Rock Sugar" is the original cast of the previous hit drama "Sweet Honey as Frost" Centaur. In the opinion of Liu Ning, the chief producer of "Rock Sugar Stewed Sydney" and the vice president of Perfect World Film and Television, although one is a costume drama and the other is a modern drama, he will not be too limited by the subject matter. He believes the creative concept of the two dramas Are the same.
It is understood that the play lasted 4 months of filming and 6 months of post-production. It involves three major ice sports: short track speed skating, figure skating and ice hockey. It is the first domestic TV series on ice and snow sports. Liu Ning told 壹娱乐视（ID: yiyuguancha）, in order to make this series well, the production team built a professional ice rink in compliance with international competitions in a 6,000 square meter studio. And this was not the only difficulty he encountered. The main difficulties Liu Ning encountered in shooting were personnel and equipment.
▲ "Snow Pear Stewed in Rock Sugar" stills
To ensure the professionalism and authenticity of the sports scene in the play, a large number of professional athletes participated in "Snow Pear Stewed in Rock Sugar". In addition to Olympic champion Wu Dajing, it also includes a world record holder, two world record breakers, five world champions, seven national champions, three international-level athletes, 26 national-level athletes, and 17 Nearly 200 professional short-track speed skating, ice hockey, figure skaters and coaches, including national first-level athletes, participated in the shooting, including three national-level ice hockey teams.
also has higher requirements for actors because of the particularity of the subject matter. However, Liu Ning told Yiyu Observation that before the filming of "Snow Pear Stewed in Rock Sugar", all actors on the ice in the play must ensure at least one month's advance training, which includes the popularization of professional knowledge on ice and also includes training on ice.
In addition, every actor on the ice will have a professional former national team athlete to give him as an ice guide. "Every athlete is a professional guide on ice, teaching the actors to skate, and the actors in turn have to teach him to act."
In shooting, Liu Ning encountered challenges because he did not have the necessary equipment. Because shooting on ice is different from that on land, the position and shooting of the camera require assistance, which is not available on ice, unlike traditional studios that can be rented. In addition to auxiliary equipment, the structural materials of the equipment also need to be reconsidered. Usually the equipment is a steel structure, but shooting with ice on this material will cause the ice surface to melt. For this reason, Liu Ning's team chose to try a variety of equipment made of different materials that can be used on ice without melting.
solves the equipment, and the other difficulty is the people that can be used for shooting. In order to ensure the details of the picture and the authenticity of the scene, "Snow Pear Stewed in Rock Sugar" introduced a large number of professional athletes as actors. Liu Ning felt very lucky to meet Li Zongrui. As Wu Dajing's junior, Li Zongrui has just retired from the national team and has a talent for photography. In order to keep up with the speed of the national players and better present the sports scenes on the ice, Liu Ning's production team directly trained Li Zongrui as an ice photographer, and he did all the ice photography.
"We have encountered many difficulties like this, this is a very difficult process to complete, The subject matter is scarce, no one did it. When we did it, we discovered that as long as we break through one point, that point must be extremely difficult. "
Even so, but for Liu Ning, these are all for the plot. This drama is still a sweet pet drama. The overall drama is based on emotional lines, supplemented by ice sports, probably It is a 7:3 ratio. There will be a replay every 4 episodes or so, which will make the audience have a node climax. "If "Sweet Honey and Frost" is sweet, then "Rock Sugar Stewed Sydney" is high Sweet and burning. "
▲ "Snow Pear Stew in Rock Sugar" stills
In Liu Ning's view, a good sweet pet drama, the most important thing is nature. "We like nature to promote the story. It makes people feel sweet. Many bridges happen in everyone's real life. They are real and natural. This sweetness comes from the simplest and most primitive sweetness, not the unreasonable wall bang and head touch. We don’t like this too much. do. "
Liu Ning said bluntly that none of the scenes in "Snow Pear Stewed with Rock Sugar" is water. "We are not sweet for'sweet', we are sweet but not embarrassing." "
"Snow Pear Stewed in Rock Sugar" has been launched. From the current episodes, it can be seen that the overall setting of the characters is more suitable for life and in line with the temperament of college students themselves. Liu Ning revealed that with the plot People will feel sweet and real love while watching the drama.
Although the entire episode has not been fully broadcast yet, One Entertainment observes what’s happening behind the scenes and now. A glimpse of it. The special ice and snow theme, the realistic and professional cast staffing, the pursuit of true and natural "sweetness", etc., are also in line with Youku's understanding of the female market and sweet pet drama.
As Xie Ying said, it is also a sweet pet drama, and Youku’s choice will make it more refined and more head-oriented. Sweet pet drama is no longer equivalent to a low threshold, and will do this in terms of project tonality and production. The difference. You can’t simply pursue sweetness and tease, and dig out the parts that female audiences can empathize with in order to get a wider range of attention. “We don’t really pursue sweetness without nutrition. This is "Snow Pear Stew with Rock Sugar", which is delicious. It is also nutritious, it will not be a sweet drama like xylitol without nutrition. ”
Customized drama marketing rule: Ali’s ecological linkage
Whether it’s last year’s "East Palace", or the hits "Big Sugar Stewed Sydney", "Three Thousand Crows", and the upcoming In the online "The Best You in the World", we can find that Youku, backed by Ali, has always paid great attention to younger content. And younger content is easier to connect with the group's ecology.
▲ Stills of "The Best You in the World"
At present, Youku's self-made dramas and customized dramas mainly have five major tracks, including passionate adventures, suspenseful actions, costume romances, youth idols and boutique skits. This year Youku will Introducing more female-oriented content, including the tentative introduction of short dramas with female suspense themes.
The purpose is also very clear. Xie Ying explained that the main user group of Tao Department is young women, and Tao Department buyers and Overlapping users of Youku paid members account for 12% of Taobao buyers. According to data released by the 2019 Alibaba Global Investor Conference, the unit price of these overlapping users on Taobao is 2.1 times that of non-overlapping users.
This provides Youku with a new idea for the marketing of episodes.
From the perspective of improving the stickiness of platform members, "Bing Sugar Stewed Sydney" is in addition to the main film, and another 8 episodes of small dramas are prepared for members. Some knowledge about ice sports will be conveyed to the audience in a relaxed and joyful manner according to the broadcast rhythm of the plot. Also for members, "Snow Pear Stew with Rock Sugar" will also experimentally shoot two endings, except for the original burning version. In addition to the ending, members can also see the sweet version of the small surprise.
It is worth noting that with the launch of the two female dramas "Big Sugar Stewed Sydney" and "Three Thousand Tooth Killer", Youku continues to exert its strength Women’s content layout enriches scene entrances. It is understood that Youku also announced on March 20 the launch of the "Love Theater". Users can enter through multi-screen entrances such as mobile phones, Pads, TVs, etc., including "You are beautiful when you smile". "The Best You in the World", "Heirloom" and "Mist Tracking"It includes youth, sweet pets, occupations, emotions and other female-oriented content. In the future, "Love Theater" will also launch more interactive experiences such as star meet-and-greets, VIP exclusive privileges, etc. to enrich user rights.
In terms of overseas marketing, similar to most popular online dramas, "Snow Pear Stewed in Rock Sugar" is also actively "going abroad." It is understood that this series will be broadcast simultaneously in South Korea, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia, Vietnam, North America, the Middle East, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan.
It is worth noting that, due to Youku's special "background", we have also seen more linkages with Ali ecology in the marketing of "Rock Sugar Stewed Sydney".
Before the series went live, it was jointly launched with Alipay Huabei, for a limited time for 0 yuan to buy the voice pack of "Ice God" Zhang Xincheng; and Zhima Credit jointly launched the "Watch "Snow Pear Stewed in Rock Sugar" and Save Sesame" activity..., Prompted the number of scheduled broadcasts of the show to exceed one million.
Youku also actively explored the new advertising and distribution model of IP delivery with the help of the show. Xie Ying revealed to Yiyu Observation that offline, it will cooperate with RT-Mart's more popular biscuit brand among young women. Youku will broadcast the QR code and conduct simultaneous announcements in the brand's 281 stores. When the episode starts, it will cooperate with the Hema of the Ali department to launch a customized youth group "Li Yubing" (played by Zhang Xincheng). In this way, at the level of publicity, online to offline connections can be realized.
"In the future, we will have more ecological linkages in custom dramas." Xie Ying said that in the future Youku will insist on making high-quality content, forming branding, typology and serialization. "We hope that from the perspective of ecological layout, users on both sides can make an ecological connection, but this is mainly the first stage of building a position and vertical benchmarking."
Obviously, in the specific In a single project, "Rock Sugar Stewed Sydney" has become a new benchmark established by Youku with innovative play styles. Youku's benchmark is far more than this one. Last year's "East Palace", "Tian Lei No. 1 Spring, Flower, Autumn and Moon", this year's "Small Smoke and Sparkle Chef", "Rebirth", etc., and after "Snow Pear Stewed in Rock Sugar", there will be more benchmarks like this.
