在戛纳国际创意节上，杨媛草做了演讲“Look out the Chinese are coming!”，向全球听众阐述了中国文化的爆炸性趋势，比如，内容创作者如何利用视频直播来赚钱。
Rebecca Yang’s Cannes presentation “Look out the Chinese are coming!” explained to an international audience how exploding cultural trends in China, such as live streaming, are being exploited and monetized by content creators.
活动之后，我们采访了杨媛草，视频直播似乎让她很不舒服，“不能说我是行家，但是我想去了解它。”尽管如此，她觉得虽然视频直播确实是一块肥肉，但还是有投机的嫌疑。“这对直播技术来说，在所难免。而我们作为内容提供者，要去想怎么能让它为我所用，去创作更有价值更有娱乐性的东西。”
Talking with her afterwards, she seems uncomfortable with it all, explaining, “I can’t say I am pro this culture, but I want to understand it.” Nonetheless, she is approaching the lucrative new medium with cold opportunism, “With the technology, it is inevitable. We as content providers need to think how it can be taken to our advantage, to create something a lot more valuable and entertaining.”
IPCN近期打造的节目名字听起来有点怪异，叫《耐撕实习生》（Tear Resistant Interns），这是“中国第一直播职场纪实剧”，他们想要借此探寻视频直播的潜力。IPCN上海办公室架起了24小时摄像机，按照剧本开演，同时又贯穿着真实的日常活动，打造出既真实又怪异的办公环境，让人有一种错觉。就如同《Big Brother》这样的节目一样，它是一种将内容和脱离剧本真人秀结合的新形式。
IPCN’s recent series (awkwardly titled in English) Tear Resistant Interns sought to leverage streaming through “the first live streamed drama in China”. 24-hour cameras positioned around the IPCN office in Shanghai captured scripted action interspersed with genuine everyday activity to create the illusion of a real, if bizarre, workplace. It’s a new type of content merging non-scripted reality shows like Big Brother with scripted dramas filmed live.
“真实生活中的场景很多都是在我们的操控之下，但是观众会觉得这就是真的办公环境。不过，这确实是真实发生的，但是很多东西看起来都有点奇怪，”杨媛草解释说。每周演员都会拿到一个设定好的商业文案，这是故事载体，两个女主角之间的勾心斗角就此开展，这两个人一个是部门负责人，另一个是部门投资人的情人。
“We’ve been manipulating a lot of what’s happening in real life. It is a real office, but the things happening in there are a little bit weird,” explains Yang. Every week the cast is set a business brief, a story vehicle to bring out the rivalry between the two lead female characters, the department boss and the mistress of the investor who is helping to fund the department.
直播的本质可以直截了当地进行解释。视频直播是社交媒体发展历程中的最新阶段，在中国的社交网络中，男性观众最有可能花钱买虚拟礼物，送给视频中的主角 – 最有可能是美女或者打游戏的人，观众可以指示视频中的人物要做什么，或者就是单纯地表达对直播的热情。现在起码有300个视频直播app和网站，同一时刻有多达60000人录制直播，在不超出监管部门的规定的前提下，有各种各样的直播超乎你的想象。而在这种情况下，直播造就了富有的新一代大咖和网络红人。
视频直播为什么如此大红大紫，个中缘由也很复杂。杨媛草说，“我不明白，因为它无法从心理学或者人类发展的角度去解释”。
Live streaming is the latest evolutionary step in social media, a vast network whereby a viewer, usually a male, on one side of China can donate money via e-gifts to get a streamer elsewhere, most likely a pretty young girl or a gamer, to perform his instructions or simply to express enthusiasm for the broadcast. There are at least 300 apps and websites on which up to 60,000 people are streaming themselves at any one time, doing just about anything within the realms of censorship boundaries. In the process, a wave of wealthy opinion leaders and online celebrities is being created.
Explaining why the phenomenon has gripped the country quite so aggressively is more complex. “I can’t understand it”, says Yang, “I can’t tell you the psychological or anthropological way of understanding it”.
她觉得理论上来讲，这是由于经济水平造成的，“人们的生活压力重重，越来越紧张，越来越夸张。贫富之间的差距越来越大，”此外，再加上深深无聊和孤独感。此外，手机和网络几乎无处不在，这就意味着“你可以找到那些跟你有同样感受的人一起分享，感觉很亲近。”
IPCN团队花了数月时间不断研究，试图了解观众的习惯，想知道为什么人们想要看看办公室宫斗，借此逃避现实。“（观众）一般都不会看超过一小时，那怎么才能让他们有兴趣呢？怎么保证直播剧的演员和观众都能够跟得上故事情节呢？他们到底在不在乎故事情节呢？”杨媛草如是说。
She theorises that it is down to economic concerns, “people’s lives becoming more pressurised, the gap between the rich and the poor getting bigger,” combined with a deep feeling of boredom and loneliness. Near ubiquitous smartphone and internet access means “there is a way you can share and bond with people with similar feelings.”
The IPCN team spent months in research, seeking to understand the habits of viewers, figuring out why anyone would choose to watch people working in an office. “[Viewers] tend not to exceed longer than an hour, so how do we keep them? How do we make sure that people inside and outside of the live streaming rooms keep following the storylines? Do they even care about the storylines?” says Yang.
《耐撕实习生》吸引了六个不同品牌的参与 – 包括智能电视、化妆品、服装、甜品、鸡尾酒、酱油。尽管这是一种从未尝试过的全新概念，但是看到各个品牌表现出来强烈的支持，杨媛草还是很吃惊也很欣慰，“各个品牌都想着怎么样从这种立体的角度触及观众，这让我们很有信心，直播中直接植入广告要比最后直接写上某某赞助有效多了”。
Six diverse brands, variously making smart TVs, cosmetics, clothing, desserts, cocktails and soy sauce, participated in Tear Resistant Interns. Yang was surprised but reassured by the level of support for an untried concept, “it gave us confidence in terms of how [brands] were thinking about approaching their audience so vertically, how live streaming penetrates much better than just X sponsors X, which has no transfer rate whatsoever”.
每一个品牌都嵌入到故事情节、人物生活还有商业环境里，同时，社交网络宣传同步开展，网上购物和线下销售活动同步进行。这部剧的粉丝很容易冲动消费，而且观众心血来潮，还会花钱买一些虚拟礼物。
《耐撕实习生》让原本就熠熠生辉的IPCN内容创作更加丰富。2007年公司成立时，杨媛草跟前ITV CEO Mick Desmond两个人一起定义了公司的理念，“集购物媒体娱乐授权的一站式公司”，引进、投资、创作IP，在中国大陆电视或网络上进行播放，通过播放赞助和支持社交媒体应用带来收益。
Each brand was built into the storylines with an extended social media campaign running in parallel, driving traffic to e-commerce links or the brands’ off-line sales promotion events. The audience was able to easily make impulse purchases within the show and encouraged to donate virtual gifts as and when the mood took them.
Tear Resistant Interns is another feather in IPCN’s distinguished content cap. Yang defines the company she co-founded in 2007 with a former ITV CEO as a “one stop shop media entertainment rights company” that imports, invests in or originates IPs and broadcasts them on TV or online in Mainland China, generating revenue through broadcast sponsorship and supporting social media applications.
“我们就是智多星，什么都做”，她解释说，“融资、找投资人，找赞助商，制作，选演员，跟政府疏通关系，保证我们的剧在黄金时段播放，打造国际知名品牌，再让中国政府知晓，这样我们的制作就会得到奖励。”
公司授权执行了多达35个节目，包括超火的《中国达人秀》、《中国好声音》和《超级育儿师》在内。现在正筹备中国版《Shark Tank》，携手一家孵化平台公司，支持节目中的企业家。
“We are the masterminds, we do everything”, explains Yang, “finding investors and sponsors, production, casting, making government relationships, ensuring the show is primetime, then creating a brand internationally that will travel back to the Chinese government, so that productions are rewarded.”
The company has licensed and executed more than 35 properties, including mega-hits China’s Got Talent, The Voice Of China and Supernanny, and is currently preparing to launch the official Chinese version of Shark Tank along with a separate incubator company to support the entrepreneurs featured in the show.
中国一向都被人认为是模仿强国，但是IPCN却以真实性著称，专注节目授权，而不是抄袭别人。杨媛草解释说，真实体现原来节目的感觉和制作，是打造成功节目的关键。“节目形式之所以很成功，能受到全世界各地人们的欢迎，是有原因的。这些节目打造了自己的品牌，商业品牌融入IP品牌中 – 应该是一个良性循环……我们是第一家打造这种模式的公司，而且我们会一直保持下去。”
In a country notorious for imitation, IPCN has earned a reputation for authenticity, licensing rather than ripping off established shows. Yang explains that truly harnessing the look, feel and production know-how of the original is crucial for success, “There is a reason why these formats are successful and travel around the world. They are brands and commercial brands buy into IP brands – it should be a healthy circle. We are the first company that started this and we’ll continue to do that.”
《耐撕实习生》于6月6号首播，首周就赚取了100万人民币，都来自于观众购买的虚拟礼物。最终该剧在播放期间一共赚得了1亿观众，一天之内最高达到170万人同时在线观看，引起媒体大量报道，微博上的评论达到数百万条。
Tear Resistant Interns debuted on June 6th, earning over one million RMB in audience donations in its first week. The show eventually drew in over 100 million viewers throughout its run, peaking at 1.7 million simultaneous viewers on one day, attracting extensive media coverage and millions of comments on Weibo.
本周杨媛草在邮件中表示，“整体来说，这部剧很成功，也是全新的节目类型和技术的很好尝试。” 《耐撕实习生》第二季也已进入制作，IPCN要一鼓作气，继续探索直播剧带来的机遇。IPCN在业界一直首当其冲，是他人竞相模仿的对象，这次也不会例外。
Speaking by email this week, Yang said, “overall it was a success and a great attempt in such a new genre and technology.” IPCN plans to keep exploiting the opportunity with a second season currently in the works. Much like the properties the company has pioneered in the past, expect the show to inspire a wave of imitators.
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