This article is from the WeChat public account: Leopard Change, Author: Gao Yuzhe, Editor: Liu Yang, Title Image Source: AI Generation
At the birthday banquet of the wealthy family, the poor heroine was scolded by her daughter-in-law's whole family, and when she was powerless, the domineering president arrived in time and shouted angrily: "I see who dares to touch her and try it!" ”
The formula for Mr. Ba to fall in love with Cinderella is not new, but when the 60-year-old Mr. Ba rescued the 50-year-old "me", the middle-aged and elderly sweet pet drama stood at the top of the list of popular dramas.
The wind of short dramas has blown to the silver-haired people, and since June, middle-aged and elderly short dramas have been slaughtered repeatedly. In the WETRUE short drama popularity list, "Flash Marriage Wife is a Wealthy Family", which was launched on August 29, dominated the list for five consecutive days after its launch, with the total number of Douyin topics exceeding 2.5 billion and the cumulative number of broadcasts on the terminal exceeding 500 million; The Douyin topic of "Flash Marriage at Fifty Years Old" with the theme of "Mary Sue" is nearly 600 million.
In addition to sweet pets, short dramas such as "Mother's Love is Silent" in the family category, "Half-life Couples Become Strangers" in the family emotion category, and "The Group Pet Mother Can't Be Provoked" in the counterattack category are popular among middle-aged and elderly people.
The short drama, which is mainly aimed at young people, has gained unexpected attention after turning to the middle-aged and elderly groups. The explosion of middle-aged and elderly short dramas has not only contributed considerable data to the platform and the producers behind it, but also allowed the middle-aged and elderly groups to gradually move from the neglected margins to the center of content consumption. Can they continue to be the "traffic password" for short drama creation?
"Mom and Dad" obsessed with "Mary Sue"
While young people are not paying attention, "parents" are quietly indulging in skits.
Wang Qing, who is studying for a Ph.D. in management, noticed that her mother's interest in family ethics dramas had recently decreased, and she had become obsessed with the "elderly boss" skit on her mobile phone. Bai Bai, a post-95 white-collar worker who worked in Xi'an, also found that the "old father" who was reluctant to even spend parking fees before actually chased the "old-fashioned" plot of "ugly duckling turned white swan" on short videos.
This kind of skit that is popular with middle-aged and elderly people often has a familiar formula. For example, the two middle-aged and elderly short dramas "Flash Marriage at Fifty Years Old" and "Flash Marriage Wife is a Wealthy Family", which have been launched this year, both tell the story of "the middle-aged heroine encounters a wicked daughter-in-law and is rescued by a middle-aged boss who pretends to be a worker" when she lives in a chicken feather.
Although it is still a sweet pet routine of "the domineering president falls in love with me", the unique reversal and "coolness" of the short drama still meet the needs of middle-aged and elderly audiences. Take "Flash Marriage Wife is a Wealthy Family" as an example, this short drama consisting of 69 episodes and only 2 minutes per episode enters the main story line at the beginning, with a strong sense of character conflict, from the hard-working mother who sells box lunches, to the son who is not angry, the daughter-in-law who is domineering, and then to the middle-aged boss and the adopted daughter of the boss, creating suspense and full of reversals at the same time.
The collection of various elements such as "middle-aged flash marriage", "child conflict", "sweet pet wife" and "adopted daughter looking for relatives" makes the 2-minute plot suspense full, which not only attracts a large number of middle-aged and elderly people to watch, but also many "parents" pay for it.
Wang Qing, who was busy with her studies, didn't find that she spent more than 100 yuan on short dramas every month until she checked her mother's mobile phone consumption records. On social platforms, many young people posted payment records of their parents chasing short dramas, and the amount of a single payment ranged from a few yuan to hundreds of yuan. In July this year, a Chengdu netizen posted that his mother recharged to watch short dramas on the short video platform, and the recharge record was as high as more than 6,000 yuan.
In fact, middle-aged and elderly people have become one of the important forces promoting the development of the short drama industry. In March this year, "I Was a Stepmother in the 80s" was launched during the Spring Festival and quickly became a hit, with a recharge of 20 million yuan on the day of launch. The producer behind the short drama is Tinghua Island, a short drama label known as the "explosive style making machine" in the industry, and the current popular middle-aged and elderly short drama "Flash Marriage Wife is a Wealthy Family" is also created by them.
The screenwriter of Tinghuadao once revealed to "Tech Planet" that "Flash Marriage Wife is a Wealthy Family" is Tinghuadao's most profitable short drama since the Spring Festival this year, and as of September, the recharge amount of the show's mini program reached 26.4 million, with an income of more than 3 million. In their planning, more than 50% of future works will be middle-aged and elderly short dramas.
The explosion of middle-aged and elderly short dramas has made many people in the industry judge that this kind of subdivided short dramas will become a popular track for a period of time in the future. Da Qiao, commercial director of Yuansheng Star Technology, told "Leopard Change" that more creators are pouring into the middle-aged and elderly short drama market, and the market competition will be more fierce in the future.
Middle-aged and elderly people have become short dramas
Middle-aged and elderly short dramas seem to have suddenly exploded, but in fact, there are traces of the popularity of this kind of theme. According to Da Qiao, as early as the beginning of this year, themes such as finding relatives and bitter feelings have begun to attract attention, and today's popular middle-aged and elderly sweet pet dramas have gradually formed through continuous evolution.
Before the middle-aged and elderly sweet pet dramas dominated the screen, the short drama market had realized the huge potential of the silver-haired audience. In May this year, tragic and bitter dramas such as "I Am a Mother" and "Mother's Love is Silent" successfully touched the emotional resonance of middle-aged and elderly people. According to the data released by "DataEye Short Drama Observation" in September, the popularity of family affection to short dramas such as "Father's Glory", "Little Flower and Grandpa", and "I Am Mother" continues to rise.
Most of these skits revolve around family ethics and personal growth, such as "I Am a Mother," which tells the story of a single mother who raises two sons on her own and turns her fortunes around with the help of her youngest son, who unexpectedly becomes a CEO.
Da Qiao also mentioned that in addition to the theme of family affection, the stories of finding relatives are also very popular with middle-aged and elderly audiences. For example, her daughter was abducted and trafficked to a poor family since she was a child, and her mother became CEO many years later, and the two met again. "This kind of theme was very popular last year, and it continued to be derived later, from mothers looking for daughters to daughters looking for mothers, most of them were derived from domestic bitter love dramas, and then cut into the theme of elderly love in the first two months, which has a history of evolution."
As the content of short dramas becomes closer and closer to the life experience of middle-aged and elderly people, many production institutions have also discovered the potential great value of this group according to the changes in their own data.
In an interview with "East and West Entertainment", Listening to Huadao said that the reason why he set his sights on the theme of middle-aged and elderly people is related to the data changes of his own works. They found that the two hit dramas "I Was a Stepmother in the Eighties" and "Mr. Pei Thinks of Fathers and Sons Every Day" started with a paying age of about 30 years old, but after the Spring Festival in 2024, middle-aged and elderly men between the ages of 40 and 60 will gradually become the main force of paying users.
In fact, middle-aged and elderly people are gradually becoming the main audience for skits. According to the "2024 China Micro Short Drama Industry Research Report" released by iResearch, iResearch surveyed 1,022 micro-short drama users in May 2024, of which users aged 40-59 accounted for 37.3% of micro-short drama users, and users aged 60 and above accounted for 12.1%. This also means that about half of the users of short dramas, especially micro-short dramas, are over 40 years old.
Behind the change in audience and payment potential, more delivery and creative institutions are focusing on middle-aged and elderly short dramas, and this kind of theme has quickly become a new outlet for short dramas.
This also reflects that in the era of video platforms, with the transformation of profit models, content creation is more inclined to young audiences, while traditional family TV dramas focusing on the lives of middle-aged and elderly groups are gradually decreasing. Therefore, middle-aged and elderly audiences turn to those short dramas that can show family intergenerational relationships and convey warm emotions.
How long can it be on fire?
The earthy sweet pet leverages the silver economy, behind which is supported by a huge number of middle-aged and elderly Internet users.
According to the survey data of China Internet Network Information Center, the age structure of China's Internet users in 2023 shows that the proportion of Internet users aged 50 and above increased by 1.7% from 2022 to 32.5%. This change shows that the Internet is gradually penetrating the middle-aged and elderly population.
Data from the People's Data Research Institute further pointed out that nearly half (49%) of middle-aged and elderly people spend between 1 and 3 hours online a day, and another 28% spend between 3 and 6 hours a day online.
In recent years, as more and more "silver-haired people" are active on live broadcast platforms, content with middle-aged and elderly people as the protagonists such as "Fashion Grandma Group" and "50-year-old Aunt Self-driving Tour" has quickly become popular, driving more middle-aged and elderly people to pour into the Internet. These trends show that middle-aged and elderly people with leisure time and certain economic strength are moving from the fringes of Internet consumption to the core, becoming the target audience that major platforms are vying to attract.
The growth in the number of middle-aged and elderly netizens has provided favorable conditions for the prosperity of the short drama market. In the TV era, high-national TV dramas such as "Mountains and Seas", "Golden Wedding" and "It's All Good" are deeply loved by middle-aged and elderly people. However, with the popularity of mobile video content, young people have gradually become the main force of content consumption, and the market is full of content such as revenge, counterattack and star-making, while entertainment content for middle-aged and elderly groups is relatively scarce.
According to the 2023 Statistical Communiqué on the Development of Civil Affairs, by the end of 2023, the proportion of the elderly population aged 60 and above in the country has reached 21.1%, and the proportion of the elderly population aged 65 and above in the total population has also risen to 15.4%, indicating that China is entering a moderately aging society. Although the middle-aged and elderly group continues to expand, there is still a lack of entertainment content specifically for them, resulting in the emotional needs of this group of people often being ignored.
Da Qiao, commercial director of Yuansheng Star Technology, told "Leopard Change" that when discussing the script within the company, he will have a deep feeling about the stories of middle-aged and elderly people. For example, the phenomenon of single middle-aged and elderly people quickly confirming their romantic relationship is puzzling at first, but after in-depth discussion, it is found that it is a true portrayal of their life situation, reflecting the unique emotional needs of middle-aged and elderly people.
This also explains why, even though the story framework is similar to that of traditional short dramas, and some plot designs may be regarded as "dog blood" by young audiences, such short dramas around family ethics are still loved by middle-aged and elderly people. They not only provide a new way of entertainment for middle-aged and elderly people, but also meet their emotional needs to a certain extent. For example, phenomenal short dramas such as "Flash Marriage Wife is a Wealthy Family" and "Flash Marriage at Fifty Years Old" show the preference of middle-aged and elderly people for simple, straightforward, and emotionally conflicting content.
However, it is worth noting that while some middle-aged and elderly people are willing to pay to watch skit dramas, most people still tend to watch ads to unlock content, and see ads as part of their breaks.
Da Qiao believes that in order to succeed in the middle-aged and elderly short drama market, the key is to continue to innovate, rather than simply copying the previous model. At the same time, from the perspective of the entire market, short drama creators also need to study the pain points of this group, and in the future, middle-aged and elderly short dramas will be more subdivided, including child support, middle-aged and elderly reemployment, etc.
In short, with the activation of the silver economy, middle-aged and elderly short dramas may become one of the first industries to benefit from the dividend of population aging. However, judging from the development process of short dramas, from the full-scale outbreak to the collective "offline" of young people, it reflects the problems of low quality and limited innovation of short dramas. In the future, if the needs of middle-aged and elderly groups cannot be truly explored, it is unknown how long the short drama of the elderly boss will be popular.
(Wang Qing and Bai Bai are pseudonyms in the article)
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