On September 25th, the 2024 iJOY Autumn Enjoyment Conference with the theme of "Towards the Center" was held. Gong Yu, founder and CEO of iQiyi, Wang Xiaohui, Chief Content Officer, and Wu Gang, Senior Vice President, delivered keynote speeches respectively, sharing iQiyi's judgment on current industry trends and its latest layout in content creation, technological innovation, and brand marketing with industry guests. At the same time, iQiyi has released over 300 latest film releases for 2024-2025, showcasing iQiyi's rich content reserves and mature creative methodology.
Only change remains unchanged, actively responding to changes in length, AI, and land drama
With the theme of "All things flow, nothing stays forever, and change is the constant in the world", Gong Yu analyzed the three changes facing the current content industry, namely "changes in length", "changes in AI", and "changes in land drama", and announced iQiyi's three major response measures.
Since 2016, the average number of episodes in the TV drama industry has been decreasing year by year, meeting users' viewing needs with more compact plots and faster rhythms. In 2020, iQiyi took the lead by launching the "Mist Theater" featuring short drama collections, which attracted high attention and imitation from the market with its film grade production and condensed narrative. At the same time, short video platforms that have rapidly emerged relying on fragmented content have also begun to explore the direction of structured narrative storyline content. Paid micro dramas have developed rapidly, with a market size of 37.4 billion yuan in the past year, a year-on-year increase of 268%. The evolution of long and short videos has brought the possibility of competition and new growth space to the market.
In response to this change, Gong Yu announced that iQiyi will officially launch "Short Theater" and "Micro Theater" on the same day. The short skits in these two theaters are exclusive to iQiyi VIP members and do not require additional single point payment. This further enriches the content selection for iQiyi VIP members and brings more marketing growth opportunities for the brand. Gong Yu stated that iQiyi short dramas are not equivalent to short, low-cost web dramas, and iQiyi micro dramas are not equivalent to low-quality mini program micro dramas. He hopes to collaborate with industry partners to explore and innovate together. He emphasized, "Unlike the micro drama business model in which over 90% of revenue is used for streaming in the market, iQiyi's business model distributes over 70% of revenue to content producers
With the continuous improvement of AI and other technological capabilities, the content distribution methods that relied on manual editing and algorithm recommendations in the past have also undergone changes. Gong Yu believes that the current development trend of AI "big model" intelligent agents is to deeply understand content and user needs, promote strong interaction between users and machines, and provide emotional companionship for users. Gong Yu revealed that iQiyi's intelligent assistant "Taodou 2.0" is currently under development. The tool integrates big language modeling technology, integrates scene functions such as recommendation, search, and customer service, and is committed to providing users with an "what you want is what you get" entertainment experience. Currently, within the iQiyi app, users can chat and interact with virtual characters through "Taodou 1.0".
At the same time, there has been a continuous increase in the attention and popularity of Chinese dramas in overseas markets. According to Google search data, the search attention for mainland dramas continues to climb and has recently surpassed that of Korean dramas. According to AMPD's Q1 2024 data, in the Southeast Asian market, mainland dramas have surpassed Korean dramas in terms of popularity and market share, becoming the preferred entertainment content for local users. Gong Yu said, "The value of mainland content in overseas marketing has significantly increased, and content creators deserve to start investing their energy and focus on creating content for overseas markets. Currently, half of iQiyi's overseas content is mainland content; Next are Thai dramas, Japanese and Korean content, which constitute cross regional popular content; There are also pure overseas local content such as Malay dramas, mainly serving local users.
Content centripetal, over 300 film orders released
Since the beginning of this year, iQiyi has successfully released a series of touching and resonant works such as "My Altay" and "King of Comedy Solo Season". The enthusiastic response to these contents has verified iQiyi's keen insight into market trends.
Wang Xiaohui said, "We are now entering the second era of collaboration between creators and the public in fifty years. The public has become the biggest creator, and deconstruction can stimulate the greatest empathy. Deconstruction refers to the questioning, denial, or destruction of some natural and correct concepts that we believe in in in traditional society." He pointed out that in the future, iQiyi will still adhere to "empathy downwards and creation upwards", and the home field and the largest amount and most diverse content of creation will be in "positive deconstruction", while also adhering to "reverse construction", advocating the courage to subvert conventions and innovate content forms. Although it is difficult, it can heal people's hearts, arouse fighting spirit, and nurture the greatest explosive products.
Wang Xiaohui stated that iQiyi will deconstruct and construct its creative content through different types of TV series. At this Joyful Party, iQiyi released a variety of upcoming dramas with rich themes, featuring heavyweight dramas in various fields such as realism, historical fantasy, suspense, and more. At the same time, multiple theater brands will continue to launch new products, and Micro Dust Theater and Dajia Theater will explore "reverse construction" to lead high aesthetics and high literature. Micro Dust Theater will bring "In the Human World", and Dajia Theater will present works such as "Going North", "Living All Things", and "Happiness". Xiao Dou Theater, Love Theater, and Mist Theater will be committed to "positive deconstruction" and analyzing current social relationships. Xiao Dou Theater will release the second season of "Don't Panic, King of Comedy" and "King of Comedy". Love Theater covers works such as "Seven Nights Snow", "Big Dreams Return", "Endless Thoughts", as well as Mist Theater's upcoming releases such as "Born by Fate" and "Just Defense". In addition, iQiyi will continue to promote the series development of drama IPs, such as "Tang Dynasty Mystery Chronicles in Chang'an", "Police Honor 2", "Fearless 2", "Crime Hunting Guide 2", etc., which will be gradually introduced to users, continuing the vitality of high-quality content IPs.
In terms of micro dramas, iQiyi will promote the integration of long and short videos in creation. "Micro Theater" will release two new works every week, focusing on male and female frequency and silver haired groups, with 1-5 minutes of vertical screen content as the main content; The "Short Theater" program plans to release a new work every week, covering various genres such as ancient stories, current events, suspense, etc. Each episode is 5-20 minutes long and mainly features landscape content.
Focusing on the field of variety shows, iQiyi accurately captures the current trends and emotional needs of young people, and strives to create high-quality content that is empathetic, joyful, and accompanies users. At the conference, the strongest variety production lineup of iQIYI in 2025, including Yan Min, Che Che, Jin Lei, Lu Wei, Wang Zhengyu, Sun Li and other top variety directors and producers in the industry gathered to make an appearance, and released a number of new original variety shows, including "Asian New Voice", "My Sister in Charge", "Go Home to Have a Meal", "Flowers All the Way" and "You the final say". At the same time, popular "variety shows" such as "Farming 3", "New Rap 2025", and "Hahaha 5" will also appear one after another. iQiyi will also launch a series of cultural and tourism variety shows such as "Just Going Far Away" and "Talking about Mountains and Seas 2" to light up the charm of the city with content.
In addition, iQiyi has made new breakthroughs in various industries such as documentaries, movies, anime, children's content, sports events, and entertainment. IQiyi will continue to deepen its IP ecosystem, work together with numerous partners to expand the length, depth, and breadth of the IP ecosystem, extend its lifecycle, and create richer commercial value.
Wang Xiaohui stated that currently the largest IP in China is cities, where content and urban cultural tourism are closely integrated, providing a vast market space. Since 2021, iQiyi has adopted the "One Drama Brings Fire to One City" cultural and tourism marketing methodology, and has successively cooperated with more than 20 provinces, regions and municipalities to create film and television cultural and tourism IPs. At the same time, iQiyi enriches its IP landscape through IP content development such as seasonal broadcasting, drama integration, and drama film animation integration, as well as cross-border cooperation in offline VR full sensory theaters, stage plays, and official IP peripheral experience stores, in order to meet the increasingly diverse entertainment needs of audiences.
Brand up, find the way to break through with 'deterministic growth'
High quality content is the core link between brand and consumer value communication, and iQiyi's rich and diverse reserve of high-quality content provides a fertile natural soil for brand marketing. The current brand is facing multiple challenges such as scarce user attention, compressed profit margins, and difficulty in promoting new products. In a marketing environment full of "uncertainty", how can iQiyi help the brand win, hold on, and go further? In his speech, Wu Gang proposed the three major marketing values of iQiyi's content - emotional consensus, scenario marketing, and global ecology, and provided a clear and feasible growth path for the brand from these three dimensions.
Wu Gang emphasized that in the current media environment, high-quality content is the only medium capable of penetrating fragmented hot topics. Users resonate with high-quality content and establish an "emotional consensus" with the brand, setting the tone for the brand's spiritual core, which is the cornerstone of establishing a stable brand cognition and emotional connection. For example, through a deep collaboration with "My Altay", Ideal Automobile has resonated with the public with the universal emotional topic of "home" in the drama. Through offline outdoor concerts and the spin off film "Home, Altay in the Heart", it has quickly established emotional connections with users, deepening their recognition of Ideal Automobile's brand concept of "creating a mobile home, creating a happy home", and fully demonstrating the important role of high-quality content in brand building.
At the same time, with the launch of micro drama theaters, the "global ecosystem" of iQiyi's content marketing will continue to upgrade. Wu Gang stated that iQiyi will further unleash the commercial potential of the new ecosystem of "long+short" drama series. In the marketing of long dramas, brands can accurately target users through the reservation function before broadcasting, and layout marketing products throughout the IP lifecycle; Short drama marketing focuses on theatrical operations, accurately reaching target audiences through characteristic theaters and providing customized short drama content to ensure efficient dissemination of brand information. In terms of variety show marketing, iQiyi has pioneered the "long short straight" model, which has been validated in the second season of "Farm Farm Bar". In the future, this model will be practiced in more projects such as "Burning Moon" and "My Home", providing brands with a comprehensive marketing closed-loop solution.
Looking towards the future, iQiyi stated that it will focus on a new content ecosystem that combines "long+short", continuously producing high-quality content that penetrates people's hearts, and helping brands achieve marketing growth.