A poorly-produced historical drama series regained second place on the popularity charts thanks to word-of-mouth.
On March 24, the period drama "A Smile Follows a Song" jumped to second place on the iQiyi platform's popularity chart, 169 days after its premiere. This production, made without any official marketing and with a "poor production team," has achieved a remarkable turnaround in reputation thanks to its solid script logic and vivid character portrayals.
Key information about the series:
- Leading actorChen Zheyuan plays Feng Suige, the eldest prince of Su Sha Kingdom.
- Character popularityThe character Feng Suige has garnered over 200 million views, becoming the biggest highlight of the series.
- SoaringThe daily popularity surged by 39%-40%
- Reputation characteristicsZero official marketing, relying entirely on word-of-mouth.
- Praise for acting skillsChen Zheyuan's expressive eyes, original voice acting, and action choreography are all highly accomplished.
The rise of "A Smile Follows a Song" is nothing short of legendary. While its initial broadcast saw only moderate popularity, its high quality led to word-of-mouth recommendations and a steady increase in viewership. Chen Zheyuan's portrayal of the eccentric prince Feng Suige showcased his acting prowess, delivering powerful and expressive performances with expressive eyes, explosive original dialogue, and fluid martial arts choreography.
Sina Music Fan Community published an in-depth analysis article, examining how this "poor production team" managed to climb back to second place on the popularity charts through word-of-mouth. On domestic social media, the topic "#一笑随歌#" continues to gain traction, with viewers sharing their viewing experiences.
The success of this drama proves that in an era where traffic is king, high-quality content can still stand out. Without a large investment in promotion or the support of top celebrities, only a solid script and dedicated performances, it won the audience's recognition.
Pain points for watching TV series overseas: geographical restrictions + slow loading.
For overseas Chinese viewers, the viewing experience is far from ideal. iQiyi's video content copyrights are limited to mainland China, and overseas IP addresses will display "Unable to play in this region." Even if the page can be opened, the video often fails to load halfway, and the comment section cannot be viewed at all.
A completely different viewing experience with QuickFox.
Xiao Chen, who was watching TV series in the US, said, "Before, when I watched 'A Smile Follows a Song,' iQiyi kept saying 'This region cannot play it.' After using QuickFox, not only can I watch it normally, but the loading speed is also much faster, and I can also send comments in real time."
QuickFox is designed specifically for overseas Chinese, optimizing network paths back to China through intelligent routing technology. Simply put, it makes your network requests "appear" to originate from within China, thereby bypassing geographical restrictions and cross-border latency.
For video platform viewing scenarios, after acceleration, the homepages of platforms such as iQiyi, Tencent Video, and Youku open instantly, the main content plays smoothly without buffering, the picture quality is clear and uncompressed, and interactive functions such as bullet comments, comments, and sharing can also be used normally.
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