Text | AI Finance Agency Fang Lu
Edit | Yang Jie
Without Wang Xiaoli's version of "Liu Neng", "Rural Love Story 13" (referred to as "Rural Love 13") was broadcast exclusively on Youku at 10:00 a.m. on February 16, the fifth day of the Chinese New Year.
The new drama is late to the appetite, but for many viewers, this TV series with a 15-year vitality lacks surprises. Social platforms have a general evaluation of "hometown love", many people think that the storyline is lengthy, loose, awkward and boring, and some people think that the new "Liu Neng" imitates the old "Liu Neng" too much, and the frequency of stuttering is too high, making old fans very uncomfortable. Among them, the most criticized is the advertisement implanted in the play, which is simply more than "outrageous".
"Hometown Love" has passed its 15th anniversary since it was broadcast on CCTV on September 30, 2006. And if you want to ask when this "high-life" TV series can end, the answer is "impossible", because the filming of "Country Love Story 14" was completed on December 23, 2020, on the same day as the 13th part, and the harmonic sound of "1314" is "once in a lifetime". But when the implanted advertising reaches the point of "flooding", people can't help but ask: when the advertisement fills the countryside, how does "love" continue?
A TV series inserted in an ad
As a well-known "longevity" drama in China, the "Hometown Love" series has always been favored by advertisers. In its first 6 dramas, the number of sponsors implanted in advertisements reached about 60. In the "Country Love Story 7" broadcast in 2014, a large number of infertility hospital advertisements were also implanted, and the frequency of appearances once made netizens shout intolerable. According to some statistics, the advertisers who appear in "Hometown Love" cover medical, liquor, fertilizer, real estate, mobile phones, catering, food, television, electric vehicles, automobiles and other industries.
In the first few episodes of "Country Love 13", almost most of the plot has inserted the brand implantation of advertisers. In the first shot of the first episode of the TV series, Zhao Si and Xie Guangkun talked for more than 6 minutes next to a huge billboard, during which time it even tried to stimulate the audience to accept two "double yolk egg" advertisements: on the left side of the billboard was an electric car brand, and on the right was the Ivory Mountain Ice Spring.
The "Nostalgia" series has been broadcast for more than ten years, and the content of the script has been continuously combined with the current hot topics, and it is understandable that the creation is close to reality, but these topics are also constantly guided to advertising brands in "Nostalgia". In the "Country Love 13" that has been broadcast so far, "live broadcast" is frequently mentioned, and many plots also revolve around e-commerce live broadcasting, but yang Xiaoyan, the wife of Wang Dana, the character in the play, has repeatedly promoted the mineral water of "Ivory Mountain Ice Spring" in the live broadcast room. The love story of Ivory Mountain is fictional, but this mineral water product is real, can be searched on the e-commerce platform, the store is also under the banner of "country love", and the bottle is printed with the heads of several actors of the play. Including in the TV series, on the advertising column at the door of the "Bigfoot Supermarket" opened by Xie Dazu, the "Ivory Mountain Ice Spring" also appeared, and there was also a "merchant telephone".
Even Xie Guangkun in the play looked for Xie Dazu to buy a straw hat, but he also had to act too expensive, and broadcast a sentence to Taobao to buy cheaper. A few young people must stand next to the "Tmall Premium" LOGO, drive the electric three-wheeler, pick up the loudspeaker along the village to promote the "Taobao Service Station".
Xie Bigfoot stood at the counter to recommend a certain brand of air cushion cream to a man, one shot is not enough, and then a long shot is overhead, and it must be broadcast again.
In addition to the frequent oral broadcasts in the play, the "Xiang Ai" crew also recorded an interstitial advertisement for an e-commerce platform, and in the gap between the audience's sleepiness, there was another advertisement, and the "Xiang Ai" series was cut into more pieces as a plot that lacked the overall logical depth of light comedy.
As of the evening of February 18, "Country Love 13" had aired 8 episodes, because the implanted advertisements in the show appeared too frequently, and the plot seemed to be delayed, making many viewers shout "unbearable". A netizen who signed the name "Song Xu" said on Weibo that "Xiang Ai 13" "the commercial atmosphere is too strong, lacking the strong northeast comedy color of the past!" There are advertising implants that can be understood, but the live broadcast does not need to be emphasized repeatedly in three sentences. ”
More Weibo netizens appealed: "Please do not insert TV series, movies or variety shows in advertisements." ”
TV series can not be separated from implant advertising?
Of course, implant ads don't just appear in Nostalgia. Previously, some Weibo netizens also said that in the popular urban love drama "Ode to Joy" released in April 2016, Qiu Yingying in the play actually "ate three squirrels in 15 consecutive episodes". AI Finance and Economics found that the snack brand Three Squirrels (300783) alone reached nearly 2.3 billion yuan in sales expenses in 2019, an increase of 57.31% over the previous year; while in 2019, the company's non-net profit attributable to listed companies was only 200 million yuan, a decrease of 19.98% over the same period last year.
"Ode to Joy" eats three squirrels, but this kind of advertising implantation is not limited to the scope of modern dramas. At that time, the three costume dramas of "Ancient Sword Qitan", "Yun Zhifan" and "Xuan Xian Qingyunzhi" were also implanted with 58 advertising in the same city; the characters in another costume idol drama "Fu Shao" used the "Geya Rose" product of Yu Nifang.
The demand for advertising implantation in TV dramas cannot be ignored. At present, the means of profitability of TV dramas are still relatively single. As we all know, the profit model of TV dramas relies on the right to broadcast in the first round, the right to broadcast in the second round, the right to broadcast on the audio network and the right to broadcast overseas. However, according to media reports, the highest price of a set of golden files and a drama on CCTV is more than 1.4 million yuan per episode, and the purchase price of first-line satellite TELEVISION stations has also shrunk significantly in recent years, and in order to reduce the cost, more choices are mainly for co-broadcasting, for episodes with a cost of hundreds of millions, advertising has undoubtedly become the most convenient way to increase revenue.
But TV drama viewers and advertising are difficult to compatible. Television can be changed, and web dramas can be "free of advertising for members". The 2020 Administrative Measures for the Broadcast of Radio and Television Advertisements also stipulate that the length of each TV series insertion advertisement shall not exceed 90 seconds. Therefore, more than the traditional hard broadcast, the implantation advertising that needs to pay more attention to skills is more and more favored by TV series sponsors.
A few years ago, Liu Liu, who was the vice president of Benshan Media and a national first-class actor, who served as the director of "Xiang Ai" and the actor of "Liu Big Head" in the play, once mentioned his views on advertising implantation: "Tv series investment is limited, the actor's remuneration has risen more and more outrageously, in order to ensure that the quality of TV dramas does not decline, it will cost more money, many prop sets can not be made up, but the money is not enough, the only choice is advertising implantation." ”
Because of this, only big productions, big IP, or dramas with traffic actors joining have more opportunities to get advertising implants. Just like "Hometown Love", which has lasted for 15 years and has a fixed audience group, it has such a confidence to implant the advertisements in the main drama so rationally.
Advertising implantation has been a tried and tested medicine for the film and television industry. At that time, Feng Xiaogang's "Private Order" New Year's Eve film was implanted with nearly 20 advertisements, which appeared every five minutes, and the implanted advertising income exceeded 80 million yuan. The tv reality TV show of the same name, "Private Order", won more than 100 million yuan in total bids, and the naming rights were sold for 45 million yuan. According to Huayi Brothers' june 2013 financial data, the cost of "Private Order" was about 115 million yuan. It can be said that the movie has not yet been released, and it has already made a lot of money.
How to offset the audience's rejection of advertising in the commercial operation of advertising implantation? The reason is that the script and content should be too good. Implantation is very particular about "sneaking into the night with the wind, moisturizing things silently", the hot drama of that year, "The Biography of Zhen Huan", also implanted a large number of East Ejiao advertisements, but the plot and actor interpretation of this drama are excellent, implantation and plot integration is also quite exquisite, and the audience also accepted it logically. However, as a light comedy, the original plot of "Country Love" does not focus on the overall logical depth, and frequent implantation of advertisements is very easy to interfere with the audience's thinking, affecting the feeling of chasing dramas, and it is inevitable to be complained about.
At present, the gradual "flooding" of implanted advertisements in hot dramas has brought benefits to the production team, but it has been separated from the content essence of TV series. The "overload" of implanting advertisements without paying attention to skills will only hurt the plot and further destroy the audience's motivation to watch the drama.
This article is originally produced by AI Finance and Economics, an account of Caijing Tianxia Weekly, without permission, please do not reprint it on any channel or platform. Violators will be prosecuted.