Recently, the ten key tasks of the "Qinglang" series of special operations in 2022 were announced, and "resolutely cracking down on unnatural fan growth through mercenary navy, malicious marketing, etc." is one of the important contents.
The special work supervision team stationed in Douban, urging it to rectify the existing serious network chaos.
Relevant government departments have attacked, making the topic of film and television control and review a focus of public opinion, which should arouse the alarm and attention of people in the industry.
With the rapid development of the film and television industry, the process problems from film and television creation to film and television dissemination have also emerged, and structural upgrading is urgently needed.
Following the "backtracking" of the chaotic and complex appearance, a link that plays a significant role but is often "underestimated" - film and television marketing is being re-understood and evaluated by the industry.
The vigorous development of the film and television industry has brought unprecedented activity in film and television marketing.
This industry link, which was originally intended to win the attention of the audience, has gone astray in the search for a "shortcut" to maximize profits.
In recent years, chaos in the film and television marketing industry has appeared, and there are many actions that have adverse effects.
For example, the use of capital power to disrupt the evaluation system of film and television works, to "flash the rankings", "flash the reviews" and "manipulate the ratings" on film reviews or social platforms that are well-known to the audience, to interfere with the audience's objective choice; use the star traffic to guide the fan group to frantically "control" in the comments. "Comment", covering the substance of content evaluation; using marketing packaging to blindly create topics, even gossip and gossip, to attract the audience's attention, while the content quality of the work is absent from the discussion.
Under such a "trend", the industry often sees traffic and word-of-mouth upside down. High-profile works are shoddy, but many high-quality products are lacking due to lack of topics, which seriously affects the healthy and orderly operation of the industry.
Chaos emerges:
Exploring "shortcuts" and creating with bias
In the process of dissemination of various film and television works, film and television marketing plays an important role.
Jiuxiang is also afraid of deep alleys, and relies on film and television marketing to open up a positive communication situation, so that more and more high-quality content will have the opportunity to be seen by the public.
The work should have been limited to this claim.
However, the reality is that, faced with the coercion of capital and traffic, coupled with the background of the rise of social platforms, especially various short video platforms, some film and television marketing practitioners have been lost, and some promotion cases have even gone to great lengths. , which deviates significantly from the normal trajectory.
From the content point of view, some film and television works have abandoned their adherence to lofty ideas and positive values, and instead catered to the audience's curiosity, using non-mainstream emotions, ugly content, etc. "Get the heat.
Or lack of innovation, blindly remake, use "revisiting the classics" as the "selling point", and consume the audience's enthusiasm for the classic IP.
In terms of publicity channels, some word-of-mouth marketing has made great efforts in creating gimmicks and selling feelings.
For example, before some movies are released, they use Weibo, official accounts and even short video platforms to create momentum, and use topics such as "On the last night of this year, I will watch a movie with the people I like" and "cry because of the movie". "Cheating" the audience into the theater, as a result, the low quality and roughness of the content connoted the audience, causing the film's reputation to plummet.
In addition to the extensive marketing that simply pursues exposure and high volume, the popular talent show variety shows in the past few years have been bundled with branded products, guiding the audience to obtain the right to vote for the contestants by purchasing goods, and making the corresponding product sales in a short period of time. The number of times surged, and then triggered events with bad influence such as "drinking beverages instead", which caused a public uproar for a while.
In addition to film and television works and their derivative products, some practitioners even started parasitic marketing in the form of "heating".
For example, a movie vigorously promotes a news spot where a star will appear, but only the star's humanoid stands in the movie; the press release claims that a movie is a sequel to another well-known movie, but in fact it completely changes The theme of the story and the main line content; there are also some works that are highly similar to the names of film and television IPs with high attention, but actually have nothing to do with it.
Most of these propaganda chaos is "selling dog meat with sheep's head", which leads to the phenomenon of false marketing is not uncommon.
The film and television market should use good works to obtain economic and social benefits, but some film and television marketers are result-oriented and invest most of their energy on the sidelines other than high-quality content.
This kind of abandonment has brought the sweetness of small costs and high profits in a short period of time, but "shortcuts" are not the right way after all.
Multi-dimensional causes: capital control, traffic dominance
The reasons for this situation are multidimensional.
When capital and traffic are excessively pursued by the film and television industry, many marketing methods are inevitably "aliased".
With the vigorous development of popular culture, the society has a bad tendency of pan-entertainment.
This trend of thought has penetrated into the production and broadcast of film and television, forming a wind of gamification and entertainment consumerism.
If there is a lack of in-depth thinking about real life and careful polishing of artistic quality, marketing that should be based on high-quality art will become "cook without rice".
Under the intervention of market forces, some film and television marketing gradually tends to the entertainment economy and other aspects.
With the continuous development of the film and television market, the misuse of the password "traffic" has intensified, making the fan economy hot.
For a period of time, traffic artists seem to have become the "trump card" in the process of film and television marketing.
In contrast, the quality of the work itself seems irrelevant.
On the one hand, the majority of fan groups have paid for their favorite idols and actively contributed to the ratings and clicks; on the other hand, the fan groups have organized comments and likes on various social platforms such as Weibo. High praise confuses the public's perception and prevents more audiences from grasping objective information and evaluation in a timely manner.
In addition, in order to maximize the popularity of some film and television works, they do not hesitate to create contradictions. For example, in recent years, the battle for the "ban position" of film and television drama promotional posters has been criticized, which has triggered battles between different fan groups. These are all alienated results of traffic competition.
There are also the integration of emerging new media marketing methods such as live broadcasts and hot search topics. Film and television marketing uses more gimmicks and "exploding points" to enter the topic. Fragmented deconstruction adapts to the audience's fragmented reading habits. The propaganda has created a puzzle of "seeing flowers in the fog" and "monitoring the moon in the water".
In addition, the current evaluation mechanism and system of the film and television industry also have imperfections, which cannot better guide the audience to make the correct choice.
The main online evaluation platforms for film and television works do not set thresholds, and it is doubtful how much "water" is in the ratings that the public sees.
The so-called "big V" of film and television on the new media platform may also make a lack of neutrality and objectivity in the evaluation of film and television works driven by interests.
Breaking through the game: scientific evaluation, correct guidance
If the film and television marketing wants to return to the right path, it needs a multi-pronged approach to break the situation.
Correspondingly, the evaluation system should also further strengthen the restraint and supervision, so as to jointly promote the positive and healthy orientation of the film and television market, and the ecological atmosphere of the industry is clean.
Compared with creating selling points and attracting attention with endless film and television marketing models, the film and television industry needs more objective evaluation and precipitation of content.
The existing film and television scoring system urgently needs to be further evaluated and improved. On the one hand, more scientific algorithms and designs should be introduced to more accurately identify and eliminate behaviors such as online navy, control and evaluation, and rankings; on the other hand, it is necessary to clarify the evaluation platform. The relationship with film and television works and enterprises makes the scoring system truly suitable for the needs of the vast audience, and achieves the unity of social effect and market recognition.
Topic marketing is a popular trend in film and television promotion. Not only that, but current film and television works have begun to accurately grasp the audience group portraits for differentiated communication.
However, because the media literacy of some audiences, especially the youth group, needs to be improved, it is easy to be led by the nose by public opinion, resulting in irrational thoughts or behaviors.
Therefore, major video platforms and social platforms should further consolidate their responsibilities, and strengthen the management of marketing through the use of artists, emotional memories, and bundled promotion, and control them within a rational, positive, and appropriate range.
The majority of practitioners should be soberly aware that marketing is only a means, not an end, and should not be a distraction. Only by serving high-quality content can we avoid the embarrassment of "gold and jade".
In the complex film and television market, audiences need professional guidance and viewing opinions.
Therefore, it is particularly important to strengthen the work of literary criticism.
With the continuous deepening of "comprehensive governance in the cultural and entertainment field" and "clear action", the phenomenon of film and television control and evaluation has improved.
In particular, the introduction of the "Guiding Opinions on Strengthening the Work of Literary and Art Criticism in the New Era" has given further orderly and healthy guidance to practice in this regard.
Literary and art criticism should be more objective and professional, steering the wheel well, recommending more excellent works with bones, morals, and warmth to readers and audiences, starting from artistic standards and social values, and being a "guide".
Film and television marketing has become an indispensable link in the process of video reaching the audience's field of vision.
It is beyond reproach that film and television works pursue a win-win situation of economic and social benefits, but marketing that deviates from content support is ultimately just a mirror image.
In the current development trend of the film and television industry, we can see the determination and hope of relevant government departments and practitioners to change the status quo.
Those "shortcuts" full of opportunism and profit-seeking should have been cut off long ago. Correct value guidance, down-to-earth approach to life, and let quality and popularity fly together are the right path that film and television marketing should pursue.
(Author: Zhao Xiaoman, a researcher at the Journalism and Social Development Research Center of Renmin University of China)