Key takeaways:
- Joy of Life 2 is attracting advertisers to spend money.
- To include good product placements, the show makes extensive use of commercial inserts.
- Advertising battlefield outside the TV series allows brands to market the show offline.
Joy of Life 2, which is currently airing on the CCTV Drama Channel and Tencent Video, has undoubtedly become one of the hottest IPs in the first half of this year. On 16 May, the first night of broadcast, the drama reached 33K views on Tencent Video, with a market share of 27.7%, making it the first Tencent Video drama to become a hit on its first day of broadcast. On 20 May, the drama’s viewership rating on the CCTV Drama Channel was 1.07%, with a viewership share of 5.29%, placing it in first place of the evening TV series category across all the top-star channels.
Joy of Life 2 is a Chinese alternative reality historical costume TV series, the first season of which was launched in 2019. Due to its excellent quality and topicality, more and more netizens, media and influencers joined the discussion. On the opening day, Weibo topics such as #Joy of Life 2 Black Humour# (庆余年2黑色幽默), #Joy of Life 2 Old Gold Head Died# (庆余年2老金头下线) and other related hashtags occupied the trendy list and stole the heat belonging to Singer 2024. Until today, Joy of Life 2 has had a daily presence on social media.
Advertisers sending money to the door
The film and TV drama sector has always been a commercial must-have, and this year has been particularly fruitful. The opening drama Blossoms attracted advertisements from Estée Lauder, Coca-Cola and other branded products. As for Joy of Life 2, according to statistics, there was an average of 9 adverts per episode. In addition to the openings and endings, there were a large number of product placements, including but not limited to:
- Overall Title: Just Yoghurt
- Co-Sponsor: Pechoin
- Lead Contributing Partner: JD.com supermarket
- Contributing Partners: Mageline, TCL, OPPO, Dong-E-E-Jiao
- Other special partners: Ambrosial, Du Xiaoman, Quark, Heytea, etc.
Joy of Life 2 is adjusting its ad bids based on investment amounts
As the series is so popular, many advertisers are sending money to the door, and Joy of Life 2 is bidding on a gradient according to the investment price. It’s only natural that the show will have to segment brand treatment into different grades.
The most obvious is the Overall Title Just Yoghurt, which is the first commercial insert to appear in the opening credits of the series. The creative storyline of the main character bringing Just Yoghurt back is also a good fit for the viewers to release their emotions after waiting for five years.
As for the special partners with Dong-E-E-Jiao, TCL, OPPO, etc., some of them also made special product placements, while others could only squeeze into an opening or ending credits position. But for brands, being shown in a TV drama is a victory.
Tips for product placement
Joy of Life 2 uses a lot of commercial inserts to advertise, and deeply integrates with the brand in terms of content and story. Through the secondary interpretation of the actors, a different brand story is formulated, so there is an independent storyline in the TV drama, and the audience can remember the brand’s established image while watching, thus effectively strengthening the audience’s enthusiasm towards them.
Joy of Life 2 heavily uses commercial inserts and deeply integrates brands into its content and story
Pechoin’s spokesperson, Xin Zhilei, plays an important role in the drama, so the brand combined the drama with commercial inserts, which not only showed the character’s domineering personality, but also highlighted the selling point of Pechoin’s Framing Face Wrinkle Reducing Cream.
JD.com supermarket’s commercial inserts featured the main character in an advert, in which he personally introduces the market’s differentiating features such as ’10 billion agricultural subsidies’ and ‘refund if you don’t like what you eat’. JD.com supermarket also launched a variety of exclusive Joy of Life IP derivatives, as well as organising themed offline activities and launching special livestreaming.
Advertising battlefield outside the TV series
For other special partners, the drama has also opened up an off-drama advertising battlefield, allowing brands to market offline in conjunction with the drama.
Some brands are launching offline campaigns to collaborate with this popular series
When the main characters get married in the drama, Heytea officially announced its co-branding with Joy of Life 2, bringing its new product ‘Qing Xi Hao Li’ (a fusion of lychee and coconut milk). In addition to the co-branded cups and bags, Heytea also brought a variety of co-branded peripherals, such as lenticular badges and card stickers, which will be available to consumers from 28 May when they purchase the designated packages. At the same time, Heytea has also created 500+ themed atmosphere shops and 9 themed shops, where consumers can go to check in.
Quark, a reading app, launched the ‘Read Joy of Life novels for free on Quark’ campaign together with the main character, calling on users to re-read the original novels free of charge. Users can search for Joy of Life in the Quark App to enter the event page, get various peripherals and rights, and have a chance to win gold bars. Offline, Quark also created a flash mob at Xixi Wetland Park in Hangzhou, where users can create poems for an immersive and interactive experience. The Weibo topic #On Quark to read Joy of Life novels for free# (上夸克免费看Joy of Life小说) has already gained 280 million views.
Advertise effectively, and even the audience will applaud it. By capitalising on the Joy of Life 2 craze for co-branded marketing, even offline events can attract a loyal following.
