After the excellent works were put on the market, they were able to detonate one after another, and the superposition of the influence of the works will continue to strengthen the label style of Youku costume dramas, making them synonymous with "worth chasing".
Author | Li Wei (Beijing)
The "hate" couple Li Rong and Pei Wenxuan's "restart life" ushered in the finale. On July 23, Youku's solo broadcast of "Du Hua Nian" officially ended, and during the broadcast of the show, it was on the TOP1 of the Yunhe Hegemony Screen List for many consecutive days.
Whether it is the setting of multiple people being reborn, the brisk story rhythm, the elegant and leisurely visual presentation, or the sweet and refreshing interaction between the male and female protagonists, "Du Hua Nian" has created a huge volume among young users.
As Quan Xianglan, the producer of the show and the general manager of Ali Entertainment Flickering Studio, said: "The equal love of "Spending the Year of China" that achieves and grows together can link the emotions of young audiences today and resonate with this era."
The clear young positioning and the promotion of works with distinctive characteristics not only allow Youku to provide differentiated content value in the highly competitive summer season, but also allow Youku costume dramas to establish a clear label style in the minds of users.
Behind the continuous clarification of the label's style is Youku's firm and long-term implementation of the new explosive methodology. Xie Ying, vice president of Youku, believes that "good content + good creator + actor adaptation is the only formula for Youku to increase the probability of a hit." It guides Youku's layout of new content power."
Under this insistence, excellent works have been continuously launched, and "Between the Ink Rain Clouds", "Cherish the Flowers" and "The Order of the Flowers" are all produced by Youku, creating what the audience calls the "2024 Three Masters of Ancient Costumes". "Du Hua Nian" further extended Youku's good results in ancient costumes in the first half of 2024 to the summer file.
A virtuous circle is generated: after excellent works are put on the market, they can be detonated one after another, and the superposition of the influence of the works will continue to strengthen the label style of Youku costume dramas, making them synonymous with "worth chasing". As a result, the platform has won more high-sticky users, made the platform more confident in its own creative methodology, and produced more excellent works.
1. Youku ancient costumes, the style is gradually established
Even if you just swipe the relevant slice on short videos and social platforms, you can see at a glance that "Du Hua Nian" is produced by Youku, and this sense of distinctiveness comes from a series of hidden content details, the continuation of Youku's interest in the field of ancient costumes.
The first is a highly innovative and breakthrough concept setting. The crossing of "Long Moon Embers" to save "Black Lotus" created a precedent for the theme; The face-swapping setting of the original script "Flower Order" is fascinating, and the fusion of ancient puppets and suspenseful genre elements is refreshing; "Between the Ink Rain and Clouds" is a woman in distress who changed her identity and became the daughter of the prime minister's house, opening a "double-line revenge", bringing the audience an unprecedented sense of relief and coolness.
"Spending the Year of China" further plays the concept innovation to the extreme, the male and female protagonists have a double life, and the setting of restarting life is also superimposed with multiple elements such as killing first and then loving to kill, and reuniting after breaking the mirror. At the same time, "Spending the Year of China" presents temple dramas from the perspective of the workplace, with light power scheming and weak struggle, focusing on showing the workplace psychology of young people and creating a unique taste, which is also rare among ancient puppets.
Secondly, in terms of character relationships, Youku costume dramas emphasize contemporary expression and realistic care on the one hand. The depiction of powerful and mutually supportive female group portraits in "Cherish the Flowers" has earned her the reputation of "Little Know", showing the true face and real situation of women with a sense of the present. In "The Year of China", Li Rong always adheres to self-improvement in marriage and power struggle, showing a sense of independence and autonomy that is in line with contemporary women's values.
On the other hand, Youku's costume drama will create a delicate and tense CP through the superposition of story and casting adaptation. In "The Order Between Flowers", Liu Xueyi and Ju Jingyi's first match, "gloomy and evil man" and "tenacious and energetic girl" collided with different sparks; The temptation between Su Guogong and Xue Fangfei in the early stage of "Ink Rain and Clouds", and the mutual honesty in the later stage, tugged at the heartstrings of countless audiences.
In "Du Hua Nian", "Double Strong Love" is the ultimate longboard of the show in Quan Xianglan's eyes, "I will take responsibility when you are weak, and you will take responsibility when I am weak."
After Li Rong and Pei Wenxuan resolved the misunderstanding, they fought side by side and protected each other, the construction of this modern equal intimate relationship satisfies the imagination of contemporary audiences for ideal love, and also breaks the gender barrier, not only female audiences regard Pei Wenxuan as the ideal husband in the world, but also many male viewers are attracted by Li Rong's role of "not attached to male power, bravely saving her husband", and regard her as an ideal wife.
In addition, the combination of Zhao Jinmai and Zhang Linghe also shows the freshness that Youku has been pursuing, using newcomers and new combinations. "Du Hua Nian" is Zhao Jinmai's first time playing ancient costumes and heroines, and it is also Zhang Linghe's first time acting in a light comedy, the cast has a new look, handsome men and beauties are fresh and natural and unpretentious interaction inside and outside the play, and the CP of "Jinmailang Beef Noodles" made the audience taste all kinds of meat and vegetables.
In addition, as the basic plate of ancient costumes, Youku also attaches great importance to the visual presentation effect, and uses traditional elements to realize the overall aesthetic upgrade of the costume.
Previously, Yang Le, co-founder and CEO of Huanyu, mentioned that Youku and Huanyu are both committed to creating good works that are "full of oriental aesthetics", and the restoration of the pearl makeup of the Song Dynasty in "Ink Rain and Clouds" also sparked heated discussions after the broadcast. Earlier, "Long Moon Embers" used the shape of Dunhuang mural elements, and was known as the aesthetic benchmark of the national style fairy.
"The Order of the Flowers" refers to the ancient books and murals of the Wei and Jin dynasties in the scene layout and costume design, presenting an elegant and sparse style, and at the same time conforming to the suspenseful nature of the story, adding Chinese horror elements, arousing the audience's heated discussion about the "aesthetics of the Flower Order".
Also based on the "Wei and Jin Dynasty style bones", but taking place in temples, the costume of "The Year of China" highlights the elegant and elegant charm of Gaomen, and shows a modern beauty through the refinement and redesign of classical elements. In addition, the display of the unique customs of the Wei and Jin dynasties in the story, represented by the Qushui Liuzhen, is not only historically interesting, but also creates a beautiful picture.
2. Youku costume dramas have a virtuous cycle, and the popularity continues
"Between the Ink Rain Clouds" topped the list of effective playback of feature films of Yunhe Data in June and the average V7 effective playback list of dramas launched in June, becoming the first hit in the summer file. The broadcast of "Du Hua Nian" broke the popularity record of Youku on the first day in 2024, becoming another popular costume drama on Youku in 2024, extending the good results of Youku's ancient costumes in the first half of 2024 to the summer.
This continuity inherits the trust of users cultivated by works such as "Flower Order" and "Cherish Flowers", and further strengthens the impression of Youku's brand as a younger, energetic, and innovative brand in the minds of users.
In terms of topic selection, Youku costume dramas pursue spiritual resonance with young people. "Du Hua Nian" focuses on the double strong character of double life, and under the shell of costume drama, it injects the core of "equal love" pursued by young people nowadays. Under the concept of revenge and counterattack in "Ink Rain and Clouds", Xue Fangfei's character charm comes from her tenacity to constantly find a way out for herself in difficult situations, and supporting roles such as Jiang Ruoyao also have their own lives after death, which not only makes the current young people resonate with their situation, but also inspires.
In terms of creation, Youku costume dramas choose the content form and expression that young people like. The person in charge of the drama series of a leading film and television company once told "New Voice Pro" that whether it is a short video, a short drama or a game, it is essentially technology that brings about a change in lifestyle, and the creation of long videos should follow such a change in lifestyle. Both "Between the Ink Rain and Clouds" and "Spending the Year of China" have chosen fast-paced narratives that are more suitable for current viewing habits, which is the embodiment of this.
This timely response to the emotional needs of young people and the aesthetics of the content reaps feedback on the C-side, forming a closed loop of a virtuous circle. More and more users regard Youku's ancient costumes as synonymous with "worth chasing".
3. The new law of explosions
Not only ancient costumes, including the White Night Theater "New Life", etc., Youku dramas have achieved outstanding results in the first half of 2024. According to the drama market insight report for the first half of 2024 released by Lighthouse Professional Edition, Youku occupies six of the top ten online drama feature films in the first half of the year, taking the top five, and "Ink Rain and Clouds", "Cherish Flowers" and "Flower Order" rank among the top three. According to Yunhe data, Youku's "New Life" has an average number of episodes, and it has also won the championship in multiple dimensions such as webcast dramas, suspense dramas, and short dramas.
Behind this brilliant performance, Youku's content methodology plays a decisive role. The underlying logic of this methodology is user-oriented, anchoring users' content preferences and consumption characteristics, boldly encouraging growth-oriented projects, and ensuring that the enthusiasm of creators is maximized through the optimization of management mechanisms and technological innovation.
According to the summary of Xie Ying, vice president of Youku, this methodology can be broken down into three key principles: good content, good creator, and actor adaptation:
Good content is to pay more attention to the quality of the story, and compared with big IPs and popular authors, Youku is more willing to "invest" in growth IP. In recent years, Youku has cultivated a number of growth IPs such as "Long Moon Embers", "Sito" and "Cherish Flowers".
Among them, Youku's "Long Moon Embers" is the first film and television work of the original author Fuji Luo Weizhi. At the same time, many of the author's works are also being put into film and television production on Youku, including "Turbid Moon Tide", "Falling Jade at Night", "Just Love", and "The Daughter of the Mountain Lord".
The original author of "Cherish the Flowers", Twentine, the original author of "Blazing Road" and "Ignite Me, Warm You", and Xixing, the original author of "Jun Jiuling", have all completed their first film and television works on Youku and have grown all the way. Among them, Twentine's work "The Unknown Past", Xixing's "Famous Doctor" and "Queen Chu" have also been put into production on Youku.
The original author of "Sito" is Taiyu, and the original author of "Stars Fall into Sugar" is once Junhua, and the most influential film and television works are all from Youku.
Yuan Yumei, the producer of "Du Hua Nian", revealed that Youku was the first platform to contact this project, and in the creative process, it worked with the main creative team to deal with various problems in the development process of the project, share risks, and fight together. It is also with the support of the principle of actor adaptation that the young actor Zhao Jinmai was able to complete the transformation from a national girl to a heroine of the drama with "The Year of China".
The "Zhou Mu Nan Youth Jianghu Series", which has been incubated since 2019, includes three works that have been broadcast, "Youth Song Xing", "Youth White Horse Drunk Spring Breeze" and "The Legend of the Dark River" that are being filmed, in addition to a number of animation works. With the support of Youku, Zhou Munan used "Youth Song Xing" to set out of the new track of "Youth Martial Arts" and accumulated a large number of fans.
A good creator is that Youku gives the main creative team a greater right to speak, giving it full respect and support; Actor adaptation is to let people serve the drama, and Youku will consider the adaptability of people and dramas above traffic.
On the basis of adhering to these three creative principles, Youku, which adheres to the concept of long-termism, has accompanied more creators and IPs to grow all the way in the past few years, and has become an important platform for creators to complete the leap of personal influence. The costume dramas launched in the first half of this year are the results of this kind of two-way rush between creators and platforms.
When a good story becomes the only goal, the creator's wish and the platform's vision are in line with each other, and the two parties work together to build a benign content creation ecology that continuously supplies new quality content. This may be the core reason for "Cool Concubine Returns to the Palace".