Is Opera Mini Chinese App
Rosalia Kemme
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Mini soap operas are a visual interpretation of web novels, a distinct cultural product in China. These novels typically revolve around themes such as workplace romance, tales of revenge, time travel, fantasy, and more. They are regularly updated online, with each chapter taking approximately 10 minutes to read, providing readers with mental stimulation and pleasure.
In the era of TikTok, where there's a trend towards shorter visual content, mini soap operas have gained prominence. Characterized by their fragmented presentation, fast pace, intense conflicts, frequent updates, and eye-catching features, these mini soap operas have become popular on streaming platforms.
Investors' preference for mini soap operas over traditional TV dramas is evident due to their lower investment requirements and shorter production cycles. The cost of producing a mini soap opera in China is typically several hundred thousand yuan. Similar to a lottery, one successful story could yield returns in the millions. However, this pursuit of quantity has raised concerns about low-quality and sexually explicit content, prompting the Chinese government to introduce regulations in November 2023 to manage this burgeoning market.
While mini soap operas in China have a presence across diverse social media platforms and independent apps, the landscape in the American market presents a different perspective. Platforms such as ReelShort, DramaBox, ShortTV, and FlexTV dominate the market, redirecting users to their developed applications by posting video clips on TikTok. Initially, productions involved subtitling Chinese mini soap operas or recording in bilingual formats. However, as the market matures, there's a trend towards localization, with productions hiring local talent and focusing on themes popular in the American market, such as werewolves and vampires.
Consumers of mini soap operas in both China and the US share many similarities. The primary age demographic ranges between 25 and 45 years old, with females comprising over 50% of the audience (70% in the US). Interestingly, in China, the majority of heavy users (those watching for over 2 hours daily) are male.
Mini soap opera enthusiasts exhibit significant loyalty and stickiness, with a high willingness (41%) to spend on the storyline, including purchasing individual episodes, memberships, etc. Therefore, we observe customers developing a certain degree of dependence on mini soap operas. This might be attributed to factors such as societal pressure, family stress, or boredom with routine life, prompting them to seek quick dopamine stimulation. The realistic pleasure derived from mini soap operas can deeply immerse consumers in the storyline.
Unlike TikTok, Douyin's commercial ecosystem in China had become saturated. While other brands were still investing in paid media to promote product efficacy, Kans found a lower-cost way to reach new audiences. By collaborating with high-profile influencers to create high-quality content, Kans ensured that the influencers' popularity would drive impressions. The company then expanded this model by collaborating with medium-tier influencers to co-create storylines and integrate product placements. Moreover, Kans didn't stop at content creation but also built a 360 marketing strategy around it. For instance, they invested in SEO so that when users searched for the series or influencers, they would find information about Kans. They also utilized paid media based on the popular series and created live shopping based on the series' themes to maximize marketing efficiency.
Sometimes, brands excessively focus on the return on investment (ROI) ratio, falling into the trap of KPIs. Kans's success lies in focusing on expanding impressions and accumulating potential customers. The consumers of mini soap opera shared commonalities with Kans's target audience: young to middle-aged women seeking beauty products with good value. Collaborating with top influencers ensured the quality of the miniseries and then the quality and purchasing power of the consumer base. In 2023, Kans's collaboration with influencer Jiang Shiqi on five miniseries generated 4 billion views and accumulated a significant number of consumers with purchasing needs and capabilities.
We noticed that Kans only promoted one product focus in the storyline. This is inspiring for brands with a large portfolio. The format and audience of mini soap opera limit the scope of product placements to focus merely on the product itself rather than the brand image. Kans's experience teaches us that by focusing on one popular product, repeatedly reaching the audience, and using this product to draw consumers' attention to the brand.
In conclusion, Kans's success lies not only in content innovation but also in its team and resource integration capabilities. Once a new content format captures consumer attention, it's essential to amplify its impact, facilitate secondary communication, and repeatedly deepen the product's impression in users' minds until it converts into purchases. Of course, the starting point for all this is the mini soap opera itself, and Kans's quality control over it is also crucial.
Mini soap opera marketing has rapidly evolved in the Chinese market, with international brands like L'Oral also experimenting with this strategy. However, it has not yet to be adopted in the American market.
For international brands looking to expand into the Chinese market, this strategy is worth exploring due to its relatively low cost and high tolerance for error. The key is to be well prepared before taking actions. From product selection and target audience identification to the development of a comprehensive marketing ecosystem. The competition among brands on the platforms like Douyin and Kuaishou is fierce. Inspired by Kans, brands should focus on maintaining content quality control and selecting the right partners to ensure positive advertising effects.
In the American market, there's immense potential for replicating the success seen in China. mini soap opera formats are popular, there's a large base of loyal users, and very few brands have deployed into this market, presenting a blue ocean opportunity. However, the biggest challenge lies in the US government's stance on TikTok. Since micro-series communication relies heavily on platforms like TikTok, and developing independent mini soap opera platforms costs much, thus, the choice of platform remains a crucial consideration.
Take France, for example, TikTok reaches 14.9 million monthly active users, with 66% being female, 34% male, and the majority aged between 13 and 25, spending an average of 50 minutes on the platform. Compared to China and the US, the age demographic in France is younger. Furthermore, the introduction of stricter influencer management regulations in 2023 indicates the status and commercial value of influencers among the younger people. Lastly, research shows that the popular web series in France primarily consist of comedy.
Combining these factors, mini soap opera marketing appears feasible in the European market. Considering that TikTok's e-commerce features are not fully developed in Europe, the impact of brands or products may not be as significant as in the Chinese market. Hence, the opportunities may lie more in owned media. Brands could collaborate with suitable influencers to create high-quality content and increase impressions through the viral algorithm of the platform.
On Saturday, Sept.19, the Confucius Institute at Webster University partnered with the Confucius Institute of Chinese Opera at Binghamton University, SUNY to offer a virtual workshop on Beijing opera to Chinese language learners in the St. Louis community. The event featured a presentation and mini performances by Beijing opera actress Chenfu Zhu.
Attendees learned a bit about the history of this art form before delving into the different roles an actor might play, followed by characteristics of singing, speaking, acting and combat that set Beijing opera apart. One surprising take-away for the audience was that, unlike a typical Western opera, Beijing opera draws heavily on the imagination, requiring spectators to infer much of the environmental context from sparse decorations and actions of the actors.
The workshop drew over 80 elementary, high school, and college-level students, as well as many teachers. As an interactive event, many of these students got involved answering buzzer questions and even imitating the contrived-style voice of Beijing Opera actors as they read out dialogues in Chinese. A Q&A session at the end gave students the opportunity to ask questions that came to them throughout the workshop.
On the whole, this workshop provided a fun way for students to experience an aspect of Chinese culture outside of their normal language class and to gather with other Chinese language learners from around the St. Louis area for a fun and educational experience.
Opera Mini is a mobile web browser developed by Opera Software AS. It was primarily designed for the Java ME platform, as a low-end sibling for Opera Mobile, but it is now developed exclusively for Android and iOS. It was previously developed for Windows 10 Mobile, Windows Phone 8.1, BlackBerry, Symbian, and Bada.
On 3 September 2014, Opera started taking registrations for the beta version of Opera Mini for Windows Phone. Opera Mini was released for Windows Phone six days later, on 9 September 2014, as a public beta. This marked Operas return to Microsofts mobile platform since the demise of Windows Mobile.
The Opera Mini logo is one of the Opera Software AG logos and is an example of the software industry logo from Norway. According to our data, the Opera Mini logotype was designed for the softwareindustry. You can learn more about the Opera Mini brand on the opera.com/mobile/mini website.
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