exclusive interview| Zhou Yun, Editor-in-Chief of Ali Literature--The correct posture for the advancement of online literature IP film and television

With the popularity of the IP market, how to cultivate high-quality IP and how to develop high-quality IP have become issues that need to be considered by the online text and even the entire film and television industry. Yi En interviewed Zhou Yun, editor-in-chief of Ali Literature, to discuss the positive interaction between online literature platforms and IP.

From the 2015 super-season online drama "Tomb Robber Notes" to the 2016 "Old Nine Gates", to the 2017 hit dramas "Three Life's Ten Miles Peach Blossom" and "Choice of the Sky", etc., IP dramas have emerged one after another, and Internet IP has also become a standard for major dramas. Yien data shows that 76% and 62% of TV dramas and online dramas in the TOP 50 views from 2014 to 2017 are IP-adapted film and television dramas respectively. With the popularity of the IP market, online literature platforms are no longer just a single online literature platform that simply serves the online literature user group. As an important base for cultivating IP, online literature platforms have begun to play an increasingly important role in the film and television drama development industry chain. Role, how to cultivate high-quality IP and how to develop high-quality IP have become issues that the online literature and even the entire film and television industry need to think about. To this end, Yi En interviewed Zhou Yun, editor-in-chief of Ali Literature, to discuss the positive interaction between online literature platforms and IP.

1. Internet IP to film and television: Win-win cooperation, mutual diversion

With the popularity of the Internet IP market, from short video dramas to Internet cafes, online dramas, TV series to theater movies, IP copyright prices range from tens of thousands to Hundreds of millions. Regarding the relationship between IP and film and television, Zhou Yun, editor-in-chief of Ali Literature, believes that IP does not support film and television in one way. The two promote and complement each other. Film and television is a very important part of the IP development process of online literature. The influence of film and television dramas generated by IP film and television will further promote the continued exposure of online literature, bringing considerable traffic to online literature platforms to a certain extent. Because of this, major platforms are currently paying more and more attention to in-depth interaction with film and television dramas. Since 2017, film and television dramas have also driven online literature sales.

Recently, the hit drama "Ten Miles of Spring Breeze, Not as Good as You" has been deeply linked with Youku. Youku and Ali Literature have promoted "Ten Miles of Spring Breeze, Not as Good as You" on their respective platforms. Youku's playback page has Feng Tang's original novel "Beijing Beijing" at the reading entrance of Ali Literature, and Ali Literature also makes strong recommendations for the series, reaching user groups with different attributes on the two platforms through joint marketing to maximize traffic. "Interaction between platforms can greatly enrich the entertainment and consumption forms of users on different platforms, as well as enrich the types of users between platforms. This mutual assistance marketing concept is a good thing here and there." Zhou Yun concluded.

2. Wool comes from pigs: Paid subscriptions are facing a ceiling, and hidden profits have become a new choice for online text platforms

. In addition to mutual diversion, judging from the profit model of online text, the film and television transformation of online text seems to be inevitable. In 2003, the first paid reading of online literature opened a business model that supports the continued operation of online literature. Although the value of online literature IP has increased significantly with the precipitation of online literature IP, its main profit model for the platform is still paid subscriptions. In addition, although the platform is also trying profit models such as intermodal games, it is still difficult to support profits under the pressure of copyright fees and author sharing fees.

In addition, as the main profit model of online culture platforms, it is also facing increasingly arduous challenges. On the one hand, because the demographic dividend of young users has passed, and the entertainment methods of a new generation of young people are constantly enriched, various entertainment forms such as comics, animations, games, online dramas, and online movies have exerted certain competitive pressure on online texts. With the new generation of young people's long-text reading ability and concentration are declining, and the direct competitiveness of online texts in the new era is declining. Zhou Yun believes that online texts subscriptions may encounter bottlenecks in the next one to two years; On the other hand, with the fierce competition among online literature platforms, platform users and contracted authors, the two major sources of profit for online literature platforms, have broader personal choices. For the Retention rate of users and authors, the platform relies on the traditional model of squeezing users and authors in the past to make profits is difficult to establish. The platform needs to make more profits to users so that more readers can obtain a richer reading experience at a low cost. At the same time, the platform needs to provide more generous benefits to retain more valuable authors.

"Wool comes from a pig." Zhou Yun laughed and said that this is a view he currently agrees with. As the largest source of IP for film and television dramas, the main role of the reading platform is to help IP attract and fix fans, thereby helping IP The film and television industry helps fans convert to fans of IP film, television and game works. Reading platforms need to allow downstream companies to make more money and drive their own profits through win-win cooperation. Comprehensive group companies have greater advantages in this regard. In the future, Alibaba Literature will also consider more joint IP development with brother companies to allow brother companies to make money at the back end of the industrial chain.

3. Current situation of online text IP development: Problems and countermeasures

1) IP supply: High-quality IP is seriously consumed, and the platform helps accelerate the growth of new IP.

Currently, the excellent online text IPs seen on the market are the result of years of accumulation and growth. They have passed The verification of the market has accumulated considerable fans and strong development potential. In recent years, with the popularity of the IP market, the emergence of various film and television works is rapidly consuming the stock of high-quality online text IP. However, according to the old model, the growth of IP even takes more than seven or eight years. The speed of development of new IP cannot fill the gap consumed by old IP. How to efficiently cultivate new IP has become a question that major platforms need to consider.

Ensuring the author's income and achieving a win-win situation with the author has become the primary condition for the platform to operate in a healthy manner and produce excellent works. On the contrary, the author was squeezed through harsh signing agreements in the early stage, which often led to the author breaking with the original platform and switching to other platforms after the contract expired. Zhou Yun also revealed that the current income brought by Alibaba Literature to most CPs ranks first among major platforms; In addition, the promotion of online literary works is also a part of the literary platform that needs to be paid attention to. Ali Literature currently uses Ali resources to set up eight mobile reading portals, including Shuqi Novels, Taobao Reading, UC Novels, and Youku Bookstore, to conduct accurate and intelligent distribution of big data., editors, screening and recommending excellent works to increase exposure, while focusing on the reputation of excellent works outside the platform, etc., to provide all-round support for excellent works from the perspective of creation and marketing.

2) IP development: Extensive development leads to the waste of high-quality IP, and refined IP development has become a trend.

In recent years, the extensive IP development model has always been a difficult problem in the development of online IP. Big IP+ small fresh meat + Wumao special effects have become an established routine, and IP that is developed and cashed out lacks sufficient fermentation in terms of production and popularity, which ultimately leads to the loss and waste of excellent IP. "Translation from text to film and television is a dynamic process, which means that the development of online text IP requires more refinement and more patience, and more links need to be added in the middle to penetrate."

In Zhou Yun's view, the solidification of character images is the most important part of the IP development process. Excellent IP generally has the development potential of various types of works. Only in the process of IP development in various forms can we gradually develop various types of people. In-depth penetration of people, thereby laying a good fan base. Generally speaking, the IP development logic is from online articles to comics to Internet dramas, TV dramas and theater movies, to games and peripherals. Comics can play a good role in consolidating characters 'images. In addition, IP is carried out during the incubation process. Short Video are operated, extracting important scenes and characters for external promotion has also become an effective IP marketing method. The development of IP peripheral derivatives is the ultimate goal to maximize IP development. Products that embody IP directly penetrate into users 'daily lives.

3) IP adaptation: IP adaptation still requires comprehensive companies to support the industrial chain.

At present, it seems that online literature content providers generally do not have the ability to independently develop and comprehensively operate online literature works. The refinement and high-quality development of online literature IP, especially large-scale online literature IP, must be completed by large comprehensive companies and rely on the joint efforts of all parties to achieve it.

Take Ali Literature as an example. The development of IP projects relies on the entire entertainment resources. Ali Company provides a comprehensive infrastructure for IP development. Youku, Alibaba Pictures, and Ali Games can serve as platform parties, and Literature can serve as IP evaluation parties. In addition, content producers can be introduced, and the three parties can organize meetings to benefit from IP development. Compared with individual companies, the IP development advantages of comprehensive companies are self-evident. From IP evaluation to production, to film and television playback, game publicity and operation, they all have absolute advantages. Ali Literature is also using its own resource advantages, inviting online IP authors to participate in film and television dramas, organizing editors to visit the crew, communicating with screenwriters, directors and other main creative personnel, etc., so that creators can learn a novel writing model that is more suitable for film and television adaptations in actual combat. It is reported that Ali has already started the production of IP online movies such as "Rock and Roll to the West","Xihekou","Criminal Murderer's Notes","Dou Yu", and "Wonderful Hand Small Village Doctor", and the market performance is worth looking forward to.

Editor: Mary