After a 5-year hiatus, the eagerly awaited "Joy of Life 2" finally lifted its veil of mystery. On the premiere night of May 16th, "Joy of Life 2" made its simultaneous debut on CCTV Channel 8 and the Tencent Video platform. The drama efficiently resolved the cliffhangers left at the end of the previous season, unveiled the mystery of Fan Xian's life and death, and quickly ushered the audience into the new circumstances and developments following Fan Xian's staged death return.

"Joy of Life" continues to attract a large audience with its unique light comedy style and vivid character portrayal. According to data provided by Tencent, "Joy of Life 2" broke the record for the highest heat value on the day of its release on Tencent Video platform, surpassing 32,906, creating a new historical high for the series' premiere day. Additionally, the drama became the first TV series to enter Tencent Video's hit club on its premiere day. Driven by its popularity, the topic "Joy of Life - King of Dramas" soared to the top of the Weibo hot search list.

The advertising performance of "Joy of Life 2" has also garnered much attention, matching its immense popularity. According to data released by the Douban group "Radish Move Away," the drama uploaded five episodes on its first day, each episode featuring an enticing number of 9 advertisements, including 6 pre-roll ads, 2 creative inserts, and 1 end-roll ad. Advertisements included brands such as Tomson Biotech, Chunzhen, Pechoin, and Du Xiaoman, with each episode's ad time reaching up to 136 seconds, ranking at the forefront among popular dramas aired at the same time.

In terms of the online broadcast's hard advertising data, "Blossoms," "North and South," and "Along with the Phoenix" were the three best-performing dramas of the year. "Blossoms" slightly edged out in the number of advertisements, reaching 10, but "Joy of Life 2" led in advertising duration, with 39.37 seconds more than the second-placed "Blossoms" with its 96.63 extra seconds. This shows that although there are limits on the number of ads, longer ad duration means brands are willing to pay higher prices for better advertising effects.

The responsible party explained that ad duration indeed restricts the number of ads, as either pre-roll or mid-roll ads that are too long may cause audience dissatisfaction. For example, other dramas might place 3 creative insert ads for 8 seconds each, totaling 24 seconds. "Joy of Life 2," however, had a single creative ad lasting up to 43 seconds, which almost took up all available time, naturally limiting the number of ads.

The placement of advertisements also significantly affects their pricing, with prices for insert ads generally being higher than other positions. Additionally, the frequent brand changes within the creative ads per episode indicate that this slot is a highly contested focus for advertisers. Therefore, achieving such business results indicates that "Joy of Life 2" truly deserves its reputation as a "Drama King."

In terms of title sponsorship, "Joy of Life 2" included Chunzhen's main title sponsorship, Pechoin's joint sponsorship, and lead special sponsorship by JD Supermarket, as well as special collaborative sponsorships by donkey-hide gelatin brand Dong-E-E-Jiao, TCL, OPPO, Magee et al., totaling seven companies' naming sponsorship, making for a luxurious lineup. Observing these results, some even jokingly said: "Now it seems that even advertising sponsors are competing for better spots."

With the popularity of "Joy of Life Season 2," its prospects for increasing membership numbers are broad.

For example, Tencent specifically emphasized in its latest quarterly financial report that, driven by popular self-produced works such as "The Blooms at Ruyi Pavilion," its long video paid user count increased by 8% year-over-year, reaching 116 million. Specifically, Tencent added more than 9.28 million paid members in the first quarter. Strategies such as advertising sponsorships, title collaborations, and membership promotions have continuously amplified the commercial value of the hit IP "Joy of Life."

As a work adapted from male-channel network literature, Tencent's "Joy of Life" is undoubtedly a commercial success. When it comes to the commercial achievements of "Joy of Life," the performance of its second season did not surprise the market. In November 2019, the first season of "Joy of Life" was first broadcast on platforms such as Tencent Video and iQiyi, quickly igniting the online drama market. According to official data, the cumulative play count of the first season of "Joy of Life" exceeded 16 billion, and it received a high score of 7.9 from netizens on Douban, with ratings from over 1.2 million people, firmly ranking in the top three across all platforms.

According to statistics from Lighthouse Professional Edition, "Joy of Life" topped the online full-episode playback market share chart within 37 days, with the highest single-day playback market share reaching an astonishing 37.04%. In addition, during the popular broadcast period of "Joy of ’Life," the two major platforms iQiyi and Tencent Video launched advance on-demand services for the series. Through this service, VIP members could pay an additional fee to watch unreleased episodes in advance. Although this strategy sparked considerable controversy and even topped the Weibo hot search list for a time, "Joy of Life" thus gained additional revenue. According to a report by Blue Whale TMT, the advance on-demand revenue for the drama on Tencent Video and iQiyi platforms reached 145 million yuan.

Financially, "Joy of Life" also had a positive impact on the performance of related companies. Tencent's financial report shows that in 2019, the number of video business paid members increased to 106 million, and the annual operating loss was reduced to less than 3 billion yuan, which is low in the industry. China Literature Group, the IP rights holder, reached a revenue of 8.348 billion yuan in 2019, a year-on-year increase of 65.7%, the highest growth rate in recent years.

Even five years later, the market influence of "Joy of Life" remains undiminished. Before the second season was launched, the number of reservations on Tencent Video alone had exceeded 17 million, making it the first drama series on the whole network to break through the ten million reservation mark. On May 7, Tencent Video launched a special edition of the first season to help the audience recall previous plots and independently carried out advertising sponsorship activities for it. According to statistics, a total of 78 online broadcast advertisements were inserted in the special edition of the first season, involving 15 brands, including Pure & Mild, Xiaomi, JD.com, etc., with an average of 3.13 ads per episode, and a total duration of 555 seconds, averaging 22.2 seconds per episode.

After five years of popularity, the special edition of the first season of "Joy of Life" still maintains a high number of ads and duration to this day, performing remarkably in the drama series market. In the past month, its advertising performance was only slightly lower than popular dramas "Romance of the Spring" and "Along with the Phoenix." The popularity of "Joy of Life" not only brought significant direct benefits, but also had a wide-ranging impact on its original work and other related fields.

Data shows that during the first season of the broadcast, the number of readers and income of the original novel of this series on the Qidian Reading App increased by 50 times. China Literature Group is even seeking to deeply exploit this strong IP in various ways. For example, in March 2022, China Literature Group successfully authorized Shengqu Games to develop a 3D MMORPG "Qing Yu Nian Mobile Game" which was launched online. This new game triggered a creative interplay of film-game marketing strategy that was promoted as "Celebrating More Than Years Season 1.5", ingeniously converting the anticipation of the series' fans into a player base for the game. According to Gamma Data statistics, within the first two months of the game's launch, the cumulative turnover approached 200 million yuan.

In addition, according to a report by Time Finance, China Literature Group internally positioned "Celebrating More Than Years" not merely as a single film and television project, but elevated it to a key project at the company level. Currently, related short drama productions are being prepared, and through cooperation with Tencent Video, a complementary mechanism is forming between long and short dramas. At the same time, to synchronize with the series, a mini-game themed on "Celebrating More Than Years" is also set to launch. Furthermore, expansion into the offline market is equally important, with derivatives such as blind boxes, figurines, soft peripherals, and trading cards being successively brought to market.

For Tencent, "Celebrating More Than Years" project has provided a powerful example in driving its exploration of IP commercialization. Tencent has been exploring the commercialization of IP for many years. As early as 2011, Cheng Wu, vice president of Tencent, proposed the pioneering concept of "pan-entertainment", intending to incubate and develop various IPs through mobile internet. Based on this concept, Tencent started from a single gaming business and gradually expanded into the fields of animation, online literature, and film and television.

It is worth mentioning that Cheng Wu also facilitated the establishment of Tencent Literature, and two years later, he promoted the merger of Tencent Literature with Shanda Literature to form China Literature Group. Meanwhile, in 2015, Cheng Wu took charge of establishing Tencent Pictures, advancing Tencent's forays into the realm of film production. Although Tencent Pictures had mediocre performance in its initial years, its strength increased significantly after purchasing the professional film production company New Classics Media for a high price of 15.5 billion yuan in 2018.

With these arrangements and preparations, Tencent has gradually perfected its pan-entertainment business matrix. "Celebrating More Than Years," as the first project of deep collaboration between Tencent Pictures, China Literature Group, and New Classics Media, not only consolidated the market position of Tencent Pictures but also became a model for integrating interests and consolidating the industry chain. Cheng Wu used this to reverse the situation of independent operations in the film and television business internally, paving the way for Tencent to replicate more successful cases similar to "Celebrating More Than Years" in the future.

In October 2020, Tencent Pictures, China Literature Group, and New Classics Media worked closely together, becoming Tencent's core strength in the new cultural and creative sectors, successfully creating multiple popular works. At the beginning of 2021, "The Unwanted Son-in-law" achieved a viewership of 5 billion within just one month, breaking the record for swiftly gaining attention on iQiyi's dramas. By 2022, "The People" had nearly 400 million viewers for its premiere on CCTV-1, and the viewership share soared to 15.47% during the grand finale, a peak unseen in nearly a decade. However, behind this, the internal business integration issues of Tencent have emerged. Two exceptionally popular drama series produced by the Tencent group were exclusively broadcast by iQiyi, bringing significant traffic and positive reputation effects to the latter, while compressing the market share of Tencent Video itself.

Chinese young playwright and director Xiang Kai, in an interview with the media, analyzed that Tencent needs to integrate at a deeper level. Xiang Kai pointed out that if the content produced by Tencent ultimately benefits competitors, even though it has gained economic profits, it is not the most efficient practice for the group as a whole. In February 2022, Tencent restructured its content department, transferring the main part of Tencent Pictures from the Platform and Content Group (PCG) to the Corporate Development Group (CDG). After the adjustment, Tencent Pictures will focus on developing works with contemporary characteristics, while the development of film and television from commercial IPs will be undertaken by New Classics Media, China Literature Film and Television, and Tencent Animation. By the end of 2023, China Literature Group invested a total of RMB 600 million to acquire Tencent Animation, marking the comprehensive integration of IP film and television development into the China Literature system.

As for Tencent Pictures, its former CEO Cheng Wu left the management position after achieving great success. In June 2022, the news that Cheng Wu was no longer the CEO of Tencent Pictures was announced through an internal email, and the following May, Cheng Wu announced his resignation as the CEO of China Literature due to health issues. His successor, Hou Xiaonan, has always been known for breaking down departmental barriers and clarifying the relationship between various stakeholders. These adjustments were ultimately reflected in the development of "The Joy of Life 2," with Tencent Video directly appearing as the main producer of the drama, an unimaginable scenario during the "Triple Drivers" era. "The Joy of Life 2" also became a series exclusively broadcast on Tencent Video. Xiang Kai believes that these series of adjustments have made Tencent's layout in the film and entertainment sector clearer, and in the future, Tencent will focus more on providing internet open platforms as content carriers, while the incubation and supply of content IPs will be mainly handled by China Literature.