Video advertising plays tricks: industry integration may be ushered in due to content copyright

In the past few weeks, reporters have evaluated mainstream video apps from four perspectives: functionality, response speed under the mobile network, payment, and content. Judging from the current high copyright fees on the market, video websites may usher in a new wave of integration.

The mobile Internet, driven by the development of Mobile device devices such as smartphones and tablets, has brought new hope to the online video industry. Both online video companies and traditional radio and television companies have set foot in this field.

Whether the future of mobile video will really be as beautiful as imagined depends on the common development of content, operators, mobile devices, etc. Whether mobile video is good or bad, in the final analysis, we must start from the product experience.

In the past few weeks, reporters have evaluated mainstream video apps from four perspectives: functionality, response speed under the mobile network, payment, and content.

Although the loading and response speed of various videos on the mobile network are satisfactory, advertising has been fully utilized by video apps, which seriously harms the user experience. In addition, from a content perspective, some video apps already have some cooperation in content copyright. Judging from the current high copyright fees on the market, video websites may usher in a new wave of integration.

The UI is basically consistent to highlight the advantageous content.

The UI designs of several video apps basically adopt the segmented arrangement design of focus image + popular videos + TV series + movies. Although everyone has adopted a kind of arrangement logic, the highlighted content is each family's own advantages.

For example, Tencent Video mainly promoted the good voices of China on the first screen; LeTV mainly promoted the content of its sports on the first screen and the focus map; Sohu placed the two parts of "hot topics" and "self-media" into a relatively eye-catching position respectively; in iQiyi, Hua Qiangu's content is ubiquitous.

Only Youku's App should promote its own homemade content in a prominent position, but perhaps in order to increase click-through rates, Youku chose to place high-click-rate entertainment news such as celebrity romance exposure under the focus map.

At the search level, Youku is also a maverick. Other companies have designed content classification into second-level categories, and some even refine it to third-level and fourth-level categories. However, Youku still uses 24 icons without color blocks to stack them together in content classification.

In terms of iOS and Android, except iQiyi, other video apps have different degrees of differences in playback. Overall, the performance of the iOS version is better than the Android version.

Ads have been played to harm the user experience.

During the entire video App evaluation process, the problem with the breakpoint resume function itself is not a major problem in each product. The video apps reviewed had to include another advertisement when they were renewed, which hurt the user experience.

In terms of advertising time, the six video apps are basically around 90 seconds, and only Tudou and Sohu have advertising time of 120 seconds. But the advertising game of video websites goes far beyond that.

The exclusive and powerful content of Tencent videos such as "The Voice of China" has only 60 seconds of opening ads. At first glance, Tencent videos are considered conscience compared with other video apps that often have 70-second ads. However, during the review process in Sina's review room,"The Voice of China" will enter an advertisement every 10 minutes of play. The advertisement duration is at the level of 20 seconds. If the user fast-forwards the video in about 10 minutes, the advertisement will still enter the advertisement and the duration will double at the next 10-minute node.

Sohu Video adopts a similar format. Popular variety shows like "Where Are We Going, Dad 3" have only ten seconds of advertising at the beginning, but don't think that Sohu Video has spared users. For this kind of content, the advertising is just a segmented loading form. Overall, this experience of using advertising to dismember content is not very good.

Although Youku also had two commercial breaks during the normal broadcast of a TV series. But Youku also adopted a method of earning two ads at the same time to maximize the benefits of its video advertising. During the title advertising period, Youku can allow users to obtain ad-free privileges by selling titles. This method can not only improve the user experience, but also increase Youku's own advertising revenue. I just don't know how manufacturers who have bought title ads before think.

Some video App purchase members are still unable to advertise.

We are not in a position to comment on whose membership price is higher or lower, so the membership prices of several video apps (based on the iOS version) are listed as follows:

Youku Mobile members are 25 yuan per month, per quarter 73 yuan, 148 yuan for half a year, and 198 yuan per year;

Tencent video members are 25 yuan per month, 50 yuan per quarter, and 158 yuan per year.

Sohu Video members are 18 yuan per month, 45 yuan per quarter, and 148 yuan per year.

iQiyi members are 25 yuan per month, 68 yuan per quarter, 138 yuan per half a year, and 248 yuan for one year and get half a year (actual 18 months).

The LeTV Mobile membership fee is 25 yuan per month, 60 yuan per quarter, and 198 yuan per year.

Tudou Mobile members are 25 yuan per month, 75 yuan per quarter, 148 yuan for half a year, and 198 yuan per year.

It should be pointed out that although the membership services provided by each family are similar, some video apps still cannot achieve de-advertising functions for some content even when purchasing members.

When watching some popular American TV dramas on Youku, users still have to endure advertising time. For popular movies like "The Taoist Down the Mountain" that are not exclusive, Youku members only have the right to buy them at half price. Compared to free viewing by members on other platforms, they are not competitive.

Sohu Video, which also has the advantages of American TV series, is similar to Youku. Even if you purchase members, advertisements will still appear before some American TV series are broadcast.

Summary: Perhaps because content is ushering in industry integration

, our evaluation of 6 video apps found that currently mainstream domestic video apps have no obvious advantages in content.

Youku is one of the earliest and frequently used video websites. However, in the highly competitive video industry, its advantages are decreasing little by little. At present, Youku's content is still mainly homemade content and UGC, and users stay at Youku. The reason is more inertia.

Tencent Video's number of paid sources and their old and new levels are comparable to those of other platforms, but the source quality promised by 1080P is still low, and the source quality of members of other platforms is already at Blu-ray level.

Sohu Video once used American dramas as a selling point."The Big Bang Theory" and "House of Cards" are both strong content on the platform. Homemade dramas such as "Dick Men" are still Sohu's selling points, but now it seems that this point has been downplayed by the emergence of self-media. Maybe I was too impressed by "going to Sohu to watch American dramas" before, but now I feel that it lacks characteristics.

iQiyi has relatively few copyrights in film and television dramas. However, it recently purchased the exclusive TV series "Tomb Robber Notes" and signed a contract with Paramount, which has brought many new users to it. In terms of homemade dramas, iQiyi is striving to win over its own celebrity resources and build its own brand. For example, it has launched homemade programs such as "Xiao Song Qi Tan" and "Qi Shuo". However, celebrity resources are not very reliable than users. They will always "transfer" phenomenon over time.

Compared with free content, LeEco's video content is similar to that of other platforms; as for member content, although LeEco's copyright content and fields of coverage are relatively rich, there is basically no popular content in the theater synchronous blockbuster columns.

Tudou is more like a distribution channel for Youku video content. It is also because of this big tree that the quality and quantity of Tudou's own content have begun to decline. From the perspective of platform value, Tudou will be able to do less and less.

In fact, domestic video websites will encounter several common problems. For example, the layout of traditional videos is relatively messy, the number of sources is average, and the actual content is not very visible. In particular, the names of many video titles have an interference effect on the search for effective content.

Although everyone is now claiming the era of self-media, in the video field, self-media can really produce not much high-quality content, and more content lies in some high-quality copyright purchases. However, with the relative concentration of high-quality content and the competition of many video websites in the industry, the price of high-quality copyright is constantly being raised. Judging from the current content cooperation of the six video apps, several of them have put aside retaliation from competing products and moved towards a cooperation model of jointly funded procurement.

Therefore, after observing six video apps by Sina's evaluation room, we boldly speculated that the integration of the content-driven video industry is likely to come earlier than expected. Among them, iQiyi and Youku are likely to cooperate at the capital level due to content, while Tencent Video and Sohu Video are likely to imitate the models of Sogou and Soso to come together.

Editor: vian