A few days ago, a short video ad for a loan from Jingdong Financial was scolded on the hot search.
The 80-second-long vertical screen ad was shot in a studio simulating an airplane cabin, with most of the shots being close-ups of the camera disliking the actor’s face directly, with large font captions across the center of the screen, paired with the short video’s popular rap BGM, telling the story of an online loan saving the face of an ordinary person.
A man dressed as a migrant worker took his mother on a plane, and when she became airsick, the man asked the flight attendant if he could open the window and was disliked by other passengers. The flight attendant then suggested that the man could be upgraded, but the upgrade price is not low, the man did not have money on hand. When helpless to give up, a man in a suit in the back row said “I’ll pay for the upgrade”. However, the reversal appeared, the man in the suit took the man’s cell phone a meal operation, but began to promote Jingdong Finance.
Public opinion was stung by this low-cost but emotionally-charged ad. One Weibo user commented that the ad “highlights the borrower’s predicament, weakens the pressure to repay, and exaggerates the benefits of interest-free”. Xinhua also criticized the ad in harsh terms for “disregarding the appearance of food for the sake of traffic, having a wrong outlook and being cheap and treacherous.
Subsequently, Jingdong Finance and its parent company Jingdong Group made apologies. Jingdong said the ad reflected the “orientation, culture and values of the operation team” and that The company has “lost itself, lost its responsibility, and lost its original intention” and will therefore “hold its subordinate companies strictly accountable for the problems that have occurred. Therefore, we will be “strictly accountable for the problems that occur in the subordinate companies, and conduct introspection and education for the whole group”.
In fact, in the field of short video marketing, this type of advertising has been popular for a long time. Financial online lending companies were already big customers of short video platforms, and Jingdong Finance, as one of the customers, inevitably finally walked into another public opinion field represented by Weibo WeChat once due to the large amount of placement, before that, 360 debit also apologized for vulgar short video ads.
However, there is still a very important question left unanswered. Who exactly is producing these exaggerated ads popular on short video platforms and how are they produced?
Routinely, the short video ads of brands such as Jingdong Finance and 360 Debit are outsourced to advertising agencies, and advertising agencies without content production capacity also look for specialized video content suppliers. The content suppliers and agents make videos, and after the first party approves them, the agents put them in the advertising background to short video platforms like Jieyin and Racer.
36 Krypton interviewed a short-video advertising entrepreneur Qin Yu, who used to provide short-video content for financial platforms, and with a team of about 20 people, he could produce more than 500 short-video ads every month. He has experienced the windfall period when “a video costs tens of dollars, but the commission is more than 100,000”, and has also witnessed the cruelty of this business. They were born with the rise of Jitterbit, the goal is to divide this hundred billion level of advertising market.
During the bonus period, a pop-up ad costing within a thousand dollars can bring a maximum of a million in revenue, and this rate of return is enough for countless media people to enter this field at the lowest end of the industry’s contempt chain. As with the non-advertising video content of Jitterbug, the more users an ad converts, the higher the benefit, and the higher the commission the agent gets.
If the short video content competition in Jitterbug Racer is “quick life and death”, the competition in short video advertising is more bloody.
In the same short video information flow, advertising to be more attractive than normal content to achieve the purpose of conversion. Most of the short video ads are now tested in a small pool of traffic and are immediately abandoned by the algorithm, not getting more traffic and not bringing any return – the ads are scrapped and the scrapped ads account for 99% of the short video ads.
Qin Yu believes that this ad of Jingdong Finance is just a regular paragraph in the short video ads of lending, and it was only because it was carried out of the Shake Fast platform that public opinion was triggered. After the incident, everyone chose to “hide” and wait for the wind to pass before shooting.
He doesn’t feel that the criticism generated by the Jingdong Financial ad will destroy the industry or make any substantial changes. Many critics don’t realize that short video users do love these ads, so whether it’s the platform or the brand, those who have the power to decide have no incentive to change.
The following is the practitioner’s own words.
Users like positive energy, so mass production of positive energy
I was previously a writer and director in the film and television industry, and I made a big network, and in 2018 I entered the infomercial industry and made this company.
There are more than 20 people in our company now, and we make five or six hundred videos a month. At the beginning, the industry was very profitable, the platform gave subsidies, plus the share of advertising conversion users, three employees plus one or two actors shooting a day of advertising, easy to account for 30,000 to 50,000, the highest we can a film commission of more than 100,000. My friend’s company earned more, the most time a month to earn four or five million, gross profit of more than 80%. At that time in this industry is to pick up money.
The advertisement of the incident of Jingdong Finance is very conventional in the lending advertisement, and all the lending advertisements on the short video platform are this routine.
Why this type of advertising fire? Because people like to see this kind of ads. If the user does not like, this kind of video will not exist.
The public just likes to get rich overnight, like the old ways, like outrageous and exciting.
For example, if you shoot two people in love, you may not feel much by watching the hand-holding episode, you may feel a little shy by shooting two people kissing, but if you directly shoot two people in a more exciting episode, don’t you want to watch?
In this platform, there are tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of videos every day, you want to earn money by advertising, we have to intensify to grab the traffic, traffic in this industry is equal to cash. What we want to do is to use this video to sell this thing in the shortest possible time, then we have to grab the public eye in a second.
Specifically to the lending scene, we love to see is, for example, I pushed down an old lady, and then the old lady let me pay, but I can not get the money, then came a particularly righteous boss, said this young man I help you download a XX loan, a second to the account.
For example, an employee was suddenly slapped by the boss, the boss questioned, why not let our users download XX loans? The employee explained that because the amount released was too large, our company would lose money. Then the boss rightly said, we should be responsible for the interests of users, rather than lose money to protect the interests of users, to release the amount!
I can tell you dozens of such stories off the top of my head, and these are the norm in short video ads, and the excesses are those rubbish plots.
For example, a guy comes home and finds his dad and his daughter-in-law alone in the room. He rushed in to see his father giving his daughter-in-law a massage, and he asked her angrily, “How can you let our father give you a massage? My father has brought me up with great pains, you should give my father a massage. Then the daughter-in-law smiled and said, “It’s okay, I bought XX insurance for our father.
This kind of advertising is very hard, the first solitary plot is to play rubbish, and then very hard to sell advertising.
The only way to filter out the “less intelligent” users is to be outrageous. This kind of advertising to you may be like “Qin Shi Huang sends you a text message, saying I am now sealed, give me 2000 yuan to help me unseal later return you 5000 yuan “. You’re not the target group so you’ll turn your nose up at it, but your parents’ generation might believe it.
We analyzed a regular video ad routine ourselves, which is somewhat similar to the structure of a Hollywood movie: step one, the main character is in a predicament; step two, he can’t solve the problem by his own strength; step three, the person next to him talks about a method to help the main character solve the predicament, and the main character becomes stronger with it; step four, you are asked if you want to try this solution too, and if you don’t try it now, you will be behind than others. Finally, you can add a discount or something, such as downloading now and then send you a rice cooker.
What’s the difference between this plot and a barbershop selling membership recharges? The script is also very easy, we have writers of all backgrounds, zero threshold.
Do short video, after a period of time the platform will be a popular theme, not only the rubbish will be popular, selling misery, sinking, earthy, show off the rich, each stage of the user is love to see that theme. For example, there is a very hot theme of poverty alleviation, a person helping a poor old man, give him food to eat and buy him new clothes, this time we will be moved, think good people live in peace.
After the poverty alleviation plot this person will go to help the old man to sell goods, because the old man’s family has a peach orchard, peach stagnation sale, originally 6 yuan a catty, now on the old iron 5 yuan a catty on the line. After selling peaches sell clothes, sell clothes sell mutton, such as mutton 25 yuan a catty, in fact, 10 yuan a catty on Poundland, the remaining 15 yuan is the advertising fee.
The user thinks it is positive energy to help the poor, but in fact, it is all planned out of the script. Since people like positive energy, “positive energy” content will be mass produced.
No one who has the right to decide wants to promote the industry
I wouldn’t define this ad as a “scam” at all, because these products do provide lending opportunities and are valuable. If I have an emergency and I can’t borrow money from a friend, the lending platform can be used for that, and it’s not the kind of naked lending that’s illegal after all.
But it does hide some things, such as interest. You borrow money when no problem, borrow 1000 yuan and then a year to 600 yuan of service fees, interest rolling. In fact, the practice of banks and loan companies in this matter is essentially the same, which is the problem of the lending industry itself.
You go to check the industry, will find all the big companies do, what 360, Baidu, Jingdong, Ping An all in doing. Then in various ways to fool others to convert, divided into many gradations of settlement, the first layer is the download or registration, the second layer is the credit, has been able to assess to whose users to lend money out of this layer; the further back the greater the return.
The actual advertisement on the airplane cabin is not essentially a fraud. My mother was seasick and wanted to upgrade but had no money, so an old man said I’ll help you get some money out, and the part after “I’ll pay for it” made it clear that it was a loan. If this scene is not a migrant worker’s first airplane seasickness, but a life-threatening, borrowing money to save lives, then the scolding may be a little less.
The short video platform is full of this type of advertising, the reason why it will explode is because it was carried to Weibo, the outrageous part of the dissemination process is magnified, they think you are unconditionally induced usury, so criticize. But microblogging and shake hands is not the same audience group at all, microblogging is not as down as shake hands, they think this is not my values, but in fact this is the plot that shake hands users love to see, otherwise this ad will not appear.
How do you judge the right and wrong of this values thing?
After this thing came out, financial and loan ads basically stopped shooting, to avoid a headwind. From experience, the recent airplane cabin and migrant workers are sensitive topics, and rich people should not be able to recommend products; the share of loan ads will become smaller in the next few months because brands are afraid to put them. Recently, financial advertisements should emphasize positive and sunny values.
But after a while, when the wind has passed, these kinds of stories will come back, until the next time when another ad is forwarded to other platforms for exposure.
Mechanically speaking, the evolution of this market is very slow. It is a game of several parties: the regulation and the platform from above, the users, the advertising agencies and the content production companies like us.
The platform and the brand on this kind of advertising review are previously put in the past, because each department has a performance assessment. Financial companies want to lending business this year to achieve 30% of the big picture, it is necessary to rely on the short video platform advertising to pull new, Jitterbug fast hands also want to earn this advertising fee rushing a rush of income. Everyone is to eat.
People who have the right to decide, there is no incentive to push it forward, we are thinking of hiding together on a good. Before there was an ad because of pornographic rubbish was named, the actors in it was blocked by the platform algorithm for a period of time, and even other actors with similar looks and height were blocked, but after a while they came back to shoot.
The Internet has the same memory as fish.
But if I do not consider the return, I immediately quit
In this industry, I define my company as a content wholesaler, so I give people wholesale content at the lowest possible cost.
In terms of the quality of content, except for certain parties, most people do not feel the need to improve quality, and improving quality means increasing costs. Because an ad is only placed once, and the vast majority of ads are cannon fodder, people have to consider the cost of the problem. Since the content is done in bulk, the cost should be pressed as low as possible, a few hundred dollars a piece is enough.
I feel that the industry is quite cutthroat. In a sense, this industry is interesting, it is more free than other industries, you study every day the pop-up is fun, what you want to shoot shoot what, do not touch too much red line on the line. But you also know in your heart, many times you do something is very “retarded”.
And this industry is more brutal than the general content. Where the money is, where the competition is. You invest a few million in a web series may return up to tens of millions, but you have the opportunity to get hundreds or even thousands of times the return in the short video advertising industry.
So we are very tired to constantly think about whether users are in a good or bad mood today, what they want to watch recently, what kind of content they will pay for, and also to figure out what kind of video traffic the platform will give.
So the most we do every day is to remake the popular videos, dozens of them a day. This industry is so copy to copy, a video fire, all do short video advertising are rushing to copy the pop, to analyze what music, write what script, how the rhythm, and then “upgrade “A pop out. As long as the full analysis of the elements of the pop-up to upgrade a, stick to it will certainly have a pop-up.
We also have some of their own original pop, pop we remake while quickly tell friends in this business to remake, shoot fast there are chances to pop. Anyway, you have to be copied sooner or later this video, why not let friends copy? It’s not good to earn money together.
Sometimes even if you want to innovate, agents will not care about you, he will throw you a piece of film said this burst ran a million traffic, quickly copy a few out let me take to put, copy the fast may be a small burst. A good relationship with the agent will give you the message, to give you a high degree of certainty of the program, or you original do 100 may not be able to explode a.
The platform’s mechanism does not block the same video, we once shot an ad, the exact same plot shot a dozen sets, on the actors changed clothes can also pass the audit, and there are a few run out of volume.
This is very understandable. Because an ad can not directly cover all the users, copy fast there is a chance to explode, and an ad explodes after the real money income. Just like you write an article in the public number below hanging a link to tea, the article exploded after the tea can be sold steadily tens of thousands, this thing you do not do? You are not a fool.
But after the bonus period is over, everyone’s income has dropped. Now many of our production companies are not counted, or the client’s bid for the film does not cover the cost, we live on commission, and then more dependent on the income brought by the burst. My friend’s company has lost several months in a row, and now we have a film’s commission capped at 20,000 to 30,000, earning a small income.
So this industry turnover rate is super high, 2 months to earn money people will want to change a higher certainty of work.
We have been busy to numb, have been shooting has been shooting will also empty you, you do not have time to think about the meaning of this thing ah value ah what. Friends and former colleagues never evaluate what I am doing, we are all very busy and numb, not so sensitive, where there are so many artists around.
But even if the industry is bad again, but it at least allows me to survive, can bring a group of people together to do a thing, I think this is quite good. During the epidemic, when the whole film industry was shut down, we could at least have something to do and a meal to eat. The threshold of the industry itself is not that high and can accommodate a group of people to survive.
If you do not consider the return, you will still choose this industry? Then I will immediately quit.
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