How China’s short dramas are changing beauty marketing ROI (part two)

This is the second story of a two-part series exploring China’s booming short-drama economy and its implications for the beauty industry. Part one examines how China’s beauty brands are using short dramas to build emotional engagement earlier in the purchase journey than livestreaming, weaving products into storylines rather than ad placements — and why fragrance could be next to benefit as the format matures beyond fantasy and revenge plots. The more beauty enters short dramas, the more those dramas reshape what beauty means. Giuditta Natale has spent years supervising productions for Disney, Marvel, and several of the world’s largest vertical-drama studios, including RealShort, DramaBox, and AnyReel. She believes the genre is developing its own visual language. “Vertical dramas are created to be highly addictive but also highly forgettable,” Natale tells Jing Daily. “There is no significant loyalty to a single drama. But as a genre, they already have a distinctive look.” That look differs noticeably from the direction taken by mainstream film and television. While Hollywood has spent recent years embracing more diverse beauty standards and celebrating distinctive individual features, Natale argues that vertical dramas favor a polished, highly consistent aesthetic reminiscent of glossy television dramas from the early 2000s. "I wouldn’t be surprised if it becomes a recognizable beauty trend, just as audiences today talk about ‘the K-drama look,’” she adds. The aesthetic extends beyond styling. Despite the compressed production schedules that define the industry, beauty departments remain one of the few areas where productions rarely compromise. “Hair and makeup always have dedicated time on set,” Natale says. “The classic vertical-drama story is a modern Cinderella. The heroine may be dressed in rags, but she always has flawless skin.” That consistency is beginning to influence casting as well. Natale points to the emergence of what she calls the “vertical drama actor,” performers whose popularity increasingly extends across multiple productions and platforms rather than a single breakout title. China’s short-drama industry has already begun producing its own stars. Actors including Wang Peiyan, Liang Siwei, Zeng Hui, and Han Yutong have built dedicated fan communities through repeated appearances on ByteDance’s Hongguo microdrama app, with brands increasingly inviting them into livestreams and social campaigns after episodes air. For beauty brands, that presents an opportunity. Rather than attaching themselves to one drama in the hope of finding the next viral hit, brands can build longer-term partnerships around actors, production studios, or even specific genres. The approach reflects the industry’s growing maturity. As audiences become loyal to recurring creative worlds instead of individual titles, marketers have more opportunities to build recognition across multiple campaigns rather than relying on a single moment of viral success. Short dramas set new ROI rules As short dramas attract bigger budgets, marketers are also becoming more selective about how they measure success. High view counts remain useful for attracting headlines, but they reveal little about whether audiences actually remember the brand or buy from it months later. “Play and view counts can be impressive, but they don’t necessarily reflect real marketing impact,” says Milly Zhang, senior activation manager at Tong Global. “Brands should look at increases in branded search volume, social buzz, keyword mentions, and other indicators of brand awareness and consideration. Those provide a much better reference for evaluating long-term brand value.” James Hebbert, managing director at Hylink Digital Solutions Asia-Pacific, argues that marketers should adopt a similar mindset. Repeat purchase, often considered the ultimate measure of customer loyalty, can be misleading for beauty brands because replacement cycles vary widely across categories. A consumer who buys a moisturizer every three months is unlikely to repurchase within the lifespan of a campaign. Instead, Hebbert recommends tracking branded search lift, product saves, brand follows, and sustained audience engagement after a series finishes. Those metrics reveal whether consumers have moved beyond awareness into active consideration — a stronger signal of future demand than a spike in GMV generated by a limited-time promotion. Elsie Zhang, business and client services director at digital marketing agency DLG China, believes short dramas also require brands to pay closer attention to metrics that have been largely overlooked in traditional advertising. Completion rates, for example, indicate whether viewers stayed long enough to reach the product integration, which often appears around a major plot twist rather than at the beginning of an episode. ”Retention across multiple episodes may be even more valuable”, Zhang continues. ”If audiences continue watching a series over several days, they are also exposed to the brand repeatedly, increasing the likelihood that it becomes part of long-term memory rather than a fleeting impression.” Brand memory matters more than viral view counts While performance marketing rewards immediate conversion, narrative commerce asks marketers to evaluate something less tangible: whether consumers choose to spend time with a brand long before they make a purchase. Short dramas are unlikely to follow the same trajectory as livestreaming. They serve different purposes, attract different audiences, and reward different creative approaches. The brands generating the strongest results are those treating the format less like an advertising placement and more like entertainment. As more companies enter the category, audiences are becoming more sensitive to forced product placement and repetitive storylines. The novelty that initially attracted marketers is unlikely to survive if every romance, workplace drama, or family series follows the same commercial formula. “The key is identifying the right audience and the right creative work,” says Milly Zhang. “The story has to align naturally with the brand’s values rather than using the drama simply as a promotional vehicle. Successful campaigns are supported by a long-term strategy instead of one-off investments.” “Fatigue is already a risk as the market fills with similar plots,” Hebbert adds. “Durable campaigns need a distinctive point of view, consistent characters, and a recurring narrative world. Audiences accept products woven naturally into the story but reject forced placement. Quality and series-building now matter more than sheer episode volume.” ByteDance’s decision to establish Hongguo E-commerce as an independent business unit signals that narrative-driven shopping will remain a strategic priority, while integrated features such as in-app product search continue to shorten the journey from inspiration to purchase. At the same time, advances in AI production are lowering the cost of creating branded dramas, making the format accessible to a wider range of companies while raising fresh questions about content quality and differentiation. For more than a decade, China’s beauty industry has moved from search to social commerce, from influencers to livestreaming, with each platform redefining how brands compete for attention. Short dramas represent the latest stage of that evolution, but they also signal a change in philosophy. Instead of buying visibility, marketers are investing in stories that consumers willingly spend time with.

How China’s short dramas are changing beauty marketing ROI (part two)

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How China’s short dramas are changing beauty marketing ROI (part two)

How Bottega Veneta weaved China’s forever it bag