In the drama market in the first half of this year, Youku's performance can be described as quite bright.
At the beginning of the year, there were two dark horse dramas "Flower Order" and "Cherish Flowers", and a "Ink Rain Clouds" in June triggered a national drama craze, and now "Ink Rain Clouds" is finished, and the baton of "Spending the Year of China" continues to be popular, adding another fire to this summer's drama market.
Recently, Youku's pet theater was officially upgraded to Shenghua Theater, "Shenghua" means "love in the heart, Vientiane gives birth to flowers", I don't know why this upgrade action is always reminiscent of the process of flowers from buds to blooming. In fact, from the pet theater to the Shenghua theater, it is a kind of growth and blooming in itself, which not only represents the new path explored by Youku in the high-quality of emotional dramas, but also implies the common exploration of Youku and users to grow and accompany each other.
Along with the upgrade of the theater, Youku Shenghua Theater also announced a film list, including 15 high-quality emotional dramas with different backgrounds and time and space: "Eating, Running and Love", "Spring Flower Weariness", "Spending the Chinese Year", "Flower Order", "Ink Rain and Clouds", "Difficult to Coax", "A Thousand Peach Blossoms Bloom", "Shu Jin Family", "Cherish Flowers", "Offering Fish", "Shhh! The King is Hibernating", "In the Name of Beauty", "The City of Dance", "Bead Curtain Jade Curtain", "Scorching Shaohua Wind Rises".
Looking at the weight of this single and the cast, I have to say: In the second half of 2024, I will be "hard controlled" by Youku Shenghua Theater.
Ancient puppet anti-type
Youku Sanshenghua
Recently, Lighthouse Professional released a drama market insight report for the first half of 2024, and Youku accounted for six of the top 10 online drama feature films in the first half of 2024 and occupied the top five. Among them, known as the "Three Heroes of Youku Ancient Puppets", "Ink Rain and Clouds", "Cherish Flowers" and "Flower Order" are among the top three.
It is worth mentioning that among the TOP10 works, "Between the Ink Rain Clouds", which was broadcast on June 2, was the latest to be launched, but it ranked first with 2.349 billion feature film views, which shows its fierce momentum.
A warm knowledge: When "Ink Rain and Clouds" was first finalized, it did not show the momentum of "killing all sides" now, but many people expressed puzzlement: Why do you want to have a hard time with the closing period of "Celebrating More Than Years Season 2"? However, only two days after the show was launched, the popularity of the station quickly exceeded 10,000, setting a record for the fastest Youku popularity value to break 10,000 dramas in 2024.
Even the downloads of Youku App were driven by "Ink Rain Clouds" - according to Qimai data, on June 5, that is, four days after the launch of "Ink Rain Clouds", Youku App downloads soared by 92%, and from June 7th to 8th, Youku App topped the top three on the free list of the Apple App Store for two consecutive days.
Such a headwind story has also been staged in "Flower Order" and "Cherish Flowers". Because there is no popular IP and the blessing of top actors, these two dramas were not favored by the outside world before they were broadcast, but they achieved outstanding results after the broadcast.
Behind the word-of-mouth and broadcast volume of "Three Heroes of Ancient Puppets" is Youku's insight into female frequency dramas. If you are a loyal viewer of female frequency dramas, you will find that "Ancient Puppet Three Heroes" is actually very different from the female frequency dramas of the past, if you summarize it with a few key words, it should be: anti-routine, anti-suspension, and resonance with the emotions of the times.
Anti-routine. It is most vividly reflected in "Ink Rain and Clouds". The male and female protagonists belong to the type of "if you have something to say directly, and if you have revenge, you will take revenge immediately", and they will never be affected by "overnight gas". As for the traditional male and female protagonists who have all kinds of mistakes caused by misunderstandings, they are even nowhere to be seen in this drama, and the two always believe in each other and are consistent with each other. This kind of processing gives the audience a sense of freshness and a sense of coolness.
Speaking of anti-suspension, ancient puppet dramas and even the entire idol drama category have been criticized by the audience for a long time as "suspended" and "ungrounded", and compared with modern themes, ancient puppets themselves are far away from our era, and it is easier for the audience to feel "suspended" because they are too surreal.
Youku's treatment method is to further consolidate the story and characters, no matter what the characters' identities, situations or family backgrounds are, they all have their own predicaments and last resorts, and there is no goldfinger in the entire growth line, this kind of processing effectively pulls the story to the ground, so that the audience can produce a stronger sense of substitution and resonance.
resonates with the mood of the times, so that the vitality of the series and the stickiness of the audience can be extended.
"The Three Masters of Ancient Puppets" have such a commonality - love is not the only element in the play, or even the main line that promotes the development of the plot, the heroines have their own growth line, and their life and happiness are fought for and created by their own hands.
For example, in "Between the Ink Rain and Clouds", Xue Fangfei went from self-sacrifice of her husband and children at the beginning to the transformation of leaving the house and cherishing the world, and completed the awakening of self-consciousness; The group portrait of the women of the flower family in "Cherish the Flowers" discusses the issues of gender bias and workplace ceilings through the series; "The Order Between Flowers" uses the past to reflect the present, placing social issues such as the original family and school violence.
It is not difficult to find that Youku Shenghua Theater continues to explore the space for genre integration and topic expression, and has a set of effective methodology. This methodology drives Youku to continuously produce good content and "mass-produce" popular dramas, thereby establishing track barriers and boosting the platform to enter a period of systematic acceleration.
Be their mirror
Emotional dramas have reached a new stage from quantitative to qualitative changes, and Youku's pet theater has been upgraded to Shenghua theater, which is the concrete embodiment of this trend - if the audience cared about "pampering" in the past, it is the ultimate emotional experience and sweetness in the viewing process; So now the audience wants to see "raw flowers", to see how a flower grows from scratch, from bud to full bloom step by step.
Times have changed, and so have the needs of users. Female users are the basic market of emotional dramas, and with the awakening and enhancement of their self-awareness, these users are no longer satisfied with the one thing of "falling in love". This change is reflected on the creative side, that is, female frequency dramas have become difficult to do, the previous style of play that could pry the audience has gradually failed, and the golden configuration of big IP + top actors can no longer be 100% effective.
But in such a market environment, Youku seems to have found the "customs clearance password", not only the aforementioned "Ancient Puppet Three Masters", but also the recently launched "Ink Rain and Clouds", which also performed well and aroused discussion among many audiences.
As mentioned above, Youku has insight into the deepest needs of users in this regard: what they want is not just sweetness, but they want to see the story of the characters in the love relationship growing together through the series, they want to see different settings, such as breaking stereotypes and face-painted character design, etc., Youku has taken a step further on this basis, so that the content of the series resonates with the times at the same frequency and grows together with users.
Zhou Jing, producer of "Between the Ink Rain and Clouds", mentioned in an interview: "You want to make costume dramas look good, and you will look good in modern clothes, it must have a realistic foundation, that is, let the audience empathize." The so-called "let the audience empathize" means that the content of the drama can resonate with the times, even if it is a costume drama, but the issues it discusses are still relevant in the present. This also requires creators to keep up with the pace of the times and the growth of the audience, so as to constantly respond to the mood of the times.
Along with the upgrade of the theater, Shenghua Theater has also ushered in a new Slogan: "Love in the heart, flowers in Vientiane". It can be seen from the iteration of Slogan that the positioning of Youku Shenghua Theater is also changing.
In the past, the Pet Theater emphasized the sweetness of love, but now the Shenghua Theater focuses on the content concept of people who love each other walking hand in hand and growing together. Women are no longer objects to be gazed at, or pseudo-heroines waiting to be saved. She is herself, she may not be perfect or not so strong, but because she has what she loves, she is fearless and overcomes one difficulty after another. This flower of love, after a series of growth and tempering, ushered in the final bloom.
In terms of subject matter, "Vientiane Shenghua" seems to be predicting that the breadth and depth of the subject matter of Shenghua Theater will usher in a big improvement compared with the past. From a point of view, the previous pet theater focused on "emotion, sweet pets", and focused more on the creator's perspective, while the Shenghua theater emphasized the insight into social emotions and reality, and there is also a logical transformation from To B to To C, which is consistent with the trend of the current drama market.
It is also worth noting that Youku always has something eye-catching in the differentiated operation of emotional dramas, and many times their playing style appears for the first time in the market, which means that there is no successful precedent as a reference. One of the reasons why Youku dares to take the lead is directly related to their user base.
Youku has performed well in the drama market this year, and many netizens have played the stalk of "Cool Concubine Returns to the Palace", and behind the stalk is recognition and long-term trust in the platform. Youku has always been regarded as one of the most persuasive and spoiled users, and this practice of listening to and persuading pet fans has made the platform accumulate a group of loyal and highly sticky users, and it is precisely because of this group of loyal users that Youku will always dare to innovate and dare to break through itself, and form a virtuous circle of "new attempt - explosive content - user experience improvement - next new attempt".
Grow at the same frequency and walk the road together
At the relevant seminar of this year's Shanghai TV Festival, Xie Ying once again attributed Youku's outbreak in the first half of the year to the methodology of "good content + good creator + actor adaptation", and emphasized: "Good content is the ballast stone that passes through the wind and waves. Youku continued to be popular in the first half of the year, and judging from the reserve film list, there will be more popular dramas born in the upgraded Shenghua Theater.
Costume dramas are the longboard of Shenghua Theater, and after "Du Hua Nian" was launched on June 26, it won the top 1 popularity of Youku dramas on the first day of broadcast in 2024, catching the popularity of "Ink Rain and Clouds". In the future, there will be costume dramas such as "Shu Jin People", "A Thousand Peach Blossoms Bloom", "Bead Curtain Jade Curtain", "Spring Flower Weariness" and other costume dramas to be broadcast.
Among them, "Bead Curtain Jade Curtain" has Liu Yuning and Zhao Lusi partnering, and the actor's plate itself is very appealing; "Spring Flowers" is the partner of Wu Jinyan, the star of "Ink Rain and Clouds", and Liu Xueyi, the star of "Flower Order", and the fireworks collided between the two are also expected. From this point of view, it is really hard to say whether the throne of the "queen" of "Ink Rain Clouds" can sit firmly.
In terms of modern dramas and period dramas, the reserves of Shenghua Theater are also worth looking forward to.
The powerful actress Reyiza starred in "Scorching Shaohua Fengheqi", which tells the life of a Chinese medicine entrepreneur who has been up and down in the business sea of the Republic of China, and the configuration of the big heroine + business war legend arouses people's interest just by looking at the introduction; "The City of Dance" starring Qin Lan and Zhong Hanliang, the narrative cut is aimed at the ballet dancers; "In the Name of Beauty" invited representatives of big flowers on both sides of the strait, Yao Chen and Jia Jingwen, to work together to interpret the story of the plastic surgery beauty industry.
Judging from the film list, although the genre is different and the theme is different, what remains unchanged is the vitality of the drama that grows upwards like a flower, the protagonists have their own growth lines and struggle stories, and love is no longer the only one that is portrayed. Or we can say that Shenghua Theater is taking "love" as the origin to link and express more content, such as plastic surgery, traditional Chinese medicine, etc., which further broadens the breadth of the subject matter.
From the performance of the dramas on the air and the dramas to be broadcast, we can find such a thing: Youku Shenghua Theater has been trying to make emotional dramas more "lighter" in expression and "heavier" in the core.
The expression of "light" is reflected in the rhythm of the story that is more in line with the habits of the current audience, becoming faster and more compact, and at the same time striving for excellence in service, whether it is B-level, A-level or S-level, there is a strong sense of quality.
The core is "heavy", which is to take the content of the episode as the starting point to carry more.
On the one hand, the audience watches the drama not only to relax, but also to obtain a "life compensation" experience by looking at themselves. The audience can feel the growth process of the characters in different episodes and roles at different times, and audiences of different ages and genders can get resonance and thinking here, and even get some inspiration and breaking ideas about their current life.
On the other hand, through the origin of "love" to pry into the discussion of more social issues, many issues such as the "Three Masters of Ancient Puppets" are still meaningful at the moment. This eliminates the sense of didacticism and makes it more receptive to the audience. At the same time, through the power of dramas, those social phenomena that should be seen can be seen and discussed, which is also a concrete embodiment of the creator's sense of social responsibility.
To put it more bluntly, the "growing together" mentioned by Shenghua Theater in the upgrade concept refers not only to the protagonist portrayed in the series, but also to the relationship between the creator and the user. Only by thinking about creation from the perspective of users and growing up with users at the same frequency can we achieve "allowing users to experience the sincere love and soul resonance that blooms like flowers and burns like fire in the process of watching dramas".
Through this upgrade action, we found that Youku has found a new possibility for the creation of emotional dramas, with the goal of "growing at the same frequency", echoing social emotions with a mature industrial creation system, so that good theme stories are highly combined with realistic issues that arouse the audience's empathy, and the audience gains the strength to grow and move forward side by side with their loved ones in the feelings of two-way redemption, and also looks forward to the upgraded Shenghua Theater to bring more high-quality emotional dramas.