Viral short-video app Douyin (known as TikTok outside China), announced a partnership with 6 film majors in mainland China and Hong Kong today.
The partnership will see more collaboration between the Beijing-based tech giant with some of the heavy hitters in the film industry, including Edko films, Wanda Media, Beijing Enlight Pictures, Alibaba Pictures, New Classic Media, and Emperor Motion Pictures.
Douyin and the film majors will cooperate on film production, product placement, data analysis, and marketing, according to ByteDance Vice President Zhao Tian. “[We] will produce no less than 40 films together in the coming year,” he said. ByteDance is Douyin’s parent company.
By teaming up with one of China’s most popular apps, these major film studios can potentially increase the exposure of their films to a vast online user base.
The theme song of Hello Mr. Billionaire, one of the highest-grossing Chinese films to date and produced by one of the six studios, has been played more than 5 billion times and got more than 1 billion likes on Douyin, according to data released by ByteDance.