1.041 billion yuan, this is the latest season of advertising "report card" given by Bilibili Inc., a video sharing platform on the bullet screen.

Bilibili Inc. 's achievement may not be worth mentioning compared to Kuaishou Technology's more than $10 billion in online marketing service revenue, but 46 per cent year-on-year growth in advertising revenue has shrugged off established Internet companies such as BAT.

For a long time, as the largest profit model of the Internet, advertising has witnessed changes in the development trajectory of the whole market.

With the disappearance of the flow dividend, the marketing concept of "flooding" advertising and channel as king in the past is no longer effective; instead, advertisers fully embrace content marketing by expanding communication channels and creating diversified advertising content. in order to establish a brand image and seek transformation opportunities in high-quality content.

As early as in the "Quarterly report: 2013 Digital Media Trends" report released by Econsultancy and Adobe Inc, a survey shows that in the face of various digital marketing trends, marketing customers have put content marketing in the most important position, 39% of the respondents think content marketing is very important, and this proportion has increased by 10% in just one year.

Under the reform of marketing communication, the video live broadcast platform has developed rapidly with the advantage of content, especially since the promotion of the goal of commercialization, even if the growth rate of advertising revenue of each content platform has slowed down from the same period last year, it is also significantly higher than the previous batch of advertising overlords-BAT and so on.

But that doesn't mean the content platform can rest easy from now on.

"Transformation ability" is not only an important standard to measure the effectiveness of Internet advertising, but also a weather vane that affects the revenue of the platform. Will the logic of Internet advertising operation change in the future? Who will be the new overlord of the industry?

The BAT cake was robbed.

As one of the programs with the highest gold content and the greatest commercial value in China, the CCTV Spring Festival Gala has always been regarded as a "barometer of China's economy". There is no doubt that the enterprises that have become the king of standards come from the industries with the leading momentum of development.

Since it was held in 1983, except that the advertising consciousness of early business owners has not been fully awakened, Kangbasi, the Jinan enterprise that produced China's first quartz clock, has "occupied" zero-point time advertisements. Since then, the CCTV Spring Festival Gala has been a marketing arena for domestic excellent enterprises, making countless enterprises with dreams flock to it.

From the liquor and health products enterprises at the end of the last century, to the household appliance brands at the beginning of the 21st century, and then to the Internet companies after 2015, the dispute over the "standard king" of the CCTV Spring Festival Gala is becoming more and more intense.

In the past decade, Internet companies have stood out from a number of industries with traffic dividends and made a lot of money. Advertising revenue is undoubtedly the "strength" of giant enterprises to carry out their fists and chase waves.

According to data from market research agency Zenith, traditional advertising accounted for almost 100 percent of the global advertising market before 2000; by 2017, the Internet has surpassed television to become the world's largest advertising medium, while Baidu, Inc. and Tencent have also entered the list of the world's top 30 media with advertising revenue ahead of CCTV. Today, nearly half of the global advertising market is occupied by Internet advertising.

From the macro level, Internet advertising has replaced traditional advertising to become the mainstream of the industry. The basic logic behind the industry change is the transfer of user time.

Today, when the number of Internet users in China exceeds 1 billion and the Internet penetration rate exceeds 70%, more and more people are used to browsing information and social entertainment on the Internet on their mobile phones.

As of June 2021, the proportion of Chinese Internet users using mobile phones to surf the Internet has reached 99.6%, while the proportion of Chinese Internet users using TV to surf the Internet is only 25.6%, less than desktop computers (34.6%) and laptops (30.8%). From the perspective of Internet time, the average Internet user spends 26.9 hours per week, which is lower than that of the same period in 2018 and 2019, but still maintains a high stay.

If it is calculated that everyone has an average of eight hours of rest and eight hours of work a day, Chinese netizens spend nearly half of their free time surfing the Internet. From this point of view, it is not surprising that business owners have shifted from traditional platforms to Internet platforms.

However, even if Internet advertising has developed steadily in recent years because of the preference of advertisers, the industry pattern has undergone a lot of "turbulence".

Before 2017, the Internet in China was still dominated by giants such as BAT.

Baidu, Inc. successfully opened the revenue pattern by using search advertising by taking advantage of the dividend of the PC Internet. By 2016, Q1 Baidu, Inc. 's advertising revenue had accounted for 94% of the total revenue, reaching 14.931 billion yuan. BABA riding on the mobile Internet has grown rapidly. According to market research company eMarketer, BABA Group's mobile advertising revenue reached 11 billion US dollars in 2016, accounting for 40.3% of China Mobile Limited's advertising market. Tencent is in the game and social combination, online advertising revenue is also rising.

According to the 2021 advertising revenue list of China's top 18 Internet companies released by Morketing, BABA topped the list with absolute income advantage, with an income of 316.4 billion yuan (including marketing services and display advertising, Taobao guest plan, commission income, etc.), followed by Tencent and Baidu, Inc. (including iQIYI, Inc.).

It is worth noting that some unlisted companies did not appear on the list because of their opaque financial data. According to KE Holdings Inc. Finance and Economics of the Beijing News, the revenue from commercialization of advertising in 2021 is about 250 billion yuan. This figure is much higher than Tencent and Baidu, Inc..

In addition, Kuaishou Technology, Bilibili Inc., Zhihu Inc. and other emerging Internet companies have been on the list, just like the new favorite of advertisers. Especially in 2022, when Internet advertising obviously cooled down, when the income of Tencent and Baidu, Inc. declined compared with the same period last year, these platforms still maintained steady growth.

According to the financial report, in the first quarter of 2022, Bilibili Inc. 's advertising revenue increased by 46 per cent compared with the same period last year, while Kuaishou's online marketing service revenue increased by 32.6 per cent compared with the same period last year. By comparison, Tencent's online advertising revenue fell 21.3 per cent and Baidu, Inc. 's online advertising revenue fell 4 per cent year-on-year.

With the change of consumer subjects and consumer habits, the content platform has the momentum to catch up with and surpass the e-commerce platform and become the new Internet advertising overlord.

Advertising marketing "content is king"

The Internet has not only changed the advertising market pattern, but also optimized the advertising logic.

In the 1970s, retail mogul John Wanamaker pointed out a problem that had plagued him for a long time-"I know that half of the investment in advertising is useless, but the problem is that I don't know which half."

This is known as the "Goldbach conjecture" in the advertising industry in China, which is essentially an indictment of the inaccuracy of early advertising marketing.

From the perspective of production content, most of the traditional advertisements start from the product function or brand name to convey its advantages and uniqueness.

For example, "Heng Yuanxiang, sheep!" , "this year's festival does not accept gifts, gifts only receive brain platinum", "which is the best excavator technology?" Shandong, China is looking for Lanxiang! " Impressive advertising words and so on failed to jump out of this logic.

This kind of strong brainwashing advertising, whether it is the way of content transmission, or the platform of choice, determines its lack of interaction with consumers, which is a single-line communication from advertisers to consumers. In the end, whether it can reach the users who really need it, to what extent it can promote the transformation, the effect is difficult to say, and even frequent "bombing" may also lead to hearing fatigue among consumers, which runs counter to the expectations of advertisers.

Until the emergence of Internet advertising, completely changed the advertising market logic, set off a revolution in the advertising industry.

Big companies use cloud computing, big data and other technologies to label individual behaviors such as consumers' interests, attributes, spending power, and consumption habits, and set up user databases, and then open the data to advertisers to a certain extent. so that the latter can meet the needs of users to mine consumer preferences and put advertising content.

Internet advertising, which can directly match the characteristics of users and the needs of advertisers, undoubtedly has the accuracy and efficiency of traditional advertising, and can even reach thousands of people, and it is most likely that users will not withdraw from the platform empty-handed.

In the early days, the difference between Internet advertising and traditional advertising was shown incisively and vividly in search advertising. From the perspective of advertising link, advertisers put advertising in traditional media, it is difficult to achieve direct transformation, usually leaving customer service or sales hotline follow-up services, which greatly reduces the efficiency of advertising conversion.

And Baidu, Inc. web search ads, you can directly through pop-up windows or patches to insert advertising pictures, users can click to enter the product introduction and purchase page. Taobao search advertising promotes the accuracy and efficiency of this kind of Internet advertising to a new level. The search results page with thousands of people deeply excavates the personalized needs of consumers and directly lets goods find people, which greatly stimulates consumer transactions.

The premise that search advertising can be effective is that users have consumer demand and will actively look for goods on the platform.

With the realization and development of the search ability of multiple platforms, the current Internet traffic dividend is also gradually disappearing, Internet information is obviously overloaded, consumers are gradually numb in the overwhelming advertising, and the purchase demand is not as good as before; coupled with social networking, entertainment and other applications occupy more time online, the advertising advantages of established Internet platforms have been weakened.

According to a report released by Aurora Mobile Limited and big data, short video, instant messaging, online video and mobile games are the four types of applications that mobile Internet users use App for the longest time every day. In particular, the proportion of short video usage has increased significantly, from 27.3% of Q4 in 2020 to 32.3% of Q4 in 2021, far exceeding other types of applications. On the other hand, the proportion of comprehensive news and shopping malls in the daily use of netizens is only maintained at the level of 4% and 7%.

Combining multiple factors, an advertising model that can help consumers select content, generate emotional links, and help advertisers reach users more accurately and improve transformation arises at the historic moment-content marketing.

The essence of content marketing in the era of network communication is to plan marketing information as interactive content to attract users to spontaneously participate in the discussion, reproduction and interpersonal communication of related content. For advertisers, its value lies not only in short-term marketing to promote transformation, but also in creating emotional links with users and establishing long-term relationship ties through continuous output and social fission.

The iResearch consultancy report shows that even in 2020, when the marketing environment is uncertain, 41.8% of the advertisers surveyed are willing to increase the content marketing budget.

More and more platforms are promoting advertisers to carry out content marketing for the sake of content quality and advertising effect.

On Douyin, some clothing accounts no longer just recommend clothes rudely, but start wear and wear teaching; makeup professionals do not bring goods directly, so they start makeup teaching instead. On Kuaishou Technology, there are fewer and fewer wheat-style orders, replaced by situational video content marketing and scene-based live streaming. Even the advertisements on Little Red Books have a lot of life and learning video marketing content.

It is worth mentioning that on the occasion of the May 4th Youth Day in 2020, Bilibili Inc. released the "Houlang" video, which is a relatively successful content marketing in the past two years.

Prior to this, Bilibili Inc. users are mainly young users under the age of 25, the content is mostly concentrated in the second dimension and the game field, relatively minority. "Hou Lang" expresses envy, recognition and encouragement to contemporary young people through the tone of the older generation of state-level actors. This well-timed praise is a kind of pandering to the broad masses of young people. No matter from the point of view of content selection or propaganda node, the marketing meaning is full, and the purpose of "breaking the circle" is obvious.

The driving effect of "Houlang" proves the stamina of content marketing: the number of readings of Weibo Corp on the day of the video launch approached 90 million, and the number of secondary creations and content discussions on platforms such as Douyin also counted by 10 million. In the second quarter of 2020, the number of monthly active users in Bilibili Inc. community increased by 55% year-on-year to 172 million, and the number of monthly fee-paying households doubled to 12.9 million compared with the same period last year.

The content is the king, the channel is the auxiliary, under the same cost expenditure, the advertisement that combines the content and the channel to do marketing, can release more energy.

No one can rest easy.

Does this mean that content platforms based on Douyin, Kuaishou Technology and Bilibili Inc. can rest easy and "lie down and win" under the trend of short video live streaming?

The answer is not quite so.

Zhang Yi, a consultant from Ai media, pointed out that most advertisers' decisions are mainly affected by two aspects: delivery accuracy and price competitiveness."accurate and cheap enough, advertisers are willing to put it on this platform because it has a transformational effect. From a long-term point of view, Douyin can continue to go up the platform, advertisers may not be. Zhang Yi said.

He further explained to round-the-clock technology that Douyin, as a public domain platform, may have better users than e-commerce platforms, but it may take 1 single conversion for 100 traffic. "advertisers still have to pay for 100 clicks"; if Taobao platform put 20 traffic into 1 single conversion, the average unit price will be more cost-effective, "advertisers will choose Taobao".

In addition, for brands, especially big brands at home and abroad, when choosing advertising platforms, they will also consider the delivery strategies of other brands on the same track.

"some cutting-edge brands will use platforms such as Little Red Books to spread, frantically spend money on brand image and expand the scale of users, but for big brands with limited investment in disposable marketing, they are obviously unable to beat or not cost-effective."Zhang Yi believes that when these traditional big names are eager to find new platforms to tap increments and have to avoid competitors, they will create opportunities for advertising commercialization for more new platforms such as video accounts.

In 2022, the two-year-old Tencent video number entered strongly, making this seemingly stable war situation misty again. According to Tencent's position, the video number is only an atomized basic content component, a "capability" rather than an independent App.

Even if there is a lack of soil for independent development, video is not a light commercial task. it needs to help creators complete the closed loop from traffic creation to traffic conversion, and at the same time help Tencent enrich his income structure. make up for the building blocks of live streaming and e-commerce.

As far as the current situation is concerned, the video number may really be expected to achieve Tencent's goal.

Prior to the Cui Jian video number online concert received a strong response, more than 45 million views, 110 million likes directly pushed up the video number advertising revenue level. A supplier revealed in an interview with Baizun that "in the middle of the concert, nearly 10 brand customers have come to inquire about the price plan", and there are bound to be more named concerts in the video number in the future.

According to founder Securities estimates, Tencent video advertising annual revenue benchmark level of 3.154 billion yuan, long-term growth space is expected to exceed 80 billion yuan. This figure is about twice the online marketing service income of Kuaishou Technology in 2021 (42.7 billion yuan), which is better than Baidu, Inc. (including iQIYI, Inc.) advertising revenue in 2021, and is close to the online advertising revenue level of Tencent Group in 2021. The potential can not be underestimated.

Once the advertising revenue of the video account meets founder's expectations, it is expected to become the most commercially valuable product under Wechat Ecology after WeChat Pay and moments.

Before the formation of the new Internet advertising pattern, advertisers already have new considerations.

It is true that the Internet makes the advertising process information and digital, and content marketing also optimizes the advertising effect, but when this logic is mastered and used by more and more advertisers, the problem of homogenization of Internet advertising appears.

For advertisers, to establish a brand image and arouse consumer resonance is not the ultimate goal, in the final analysis, there must be a sustained and effective transaction transformation path.

So what on earth should be done?

It has become the consensus of current advertisers to establish multiple advertising channels, enrich brand marketing model and combine public and private operation.

According to the survey data of Ai Media Consulting, 30.9% of Chinese netizens expressed support for private domain traffic in 2022, and the proportion of opposition was only 0.9%. Compared with public domain traffic, private domain traffic has more advantages. for example, the traffic is owned by individuals and has controllable traffic that is free of charge.

Internet advertising is everywhere, and consumers have nowhere to escape.

As the "catcher" behind the market, whether it can always capture the trend of consumption, fine marketing of products, and really catch without leakage is the test of each family's ability. Until then, all good visions are empty talk.