Kristian Kender  

So thank you very much for that nice introduction "future Kris." So we're going to start here in the gallery view where you can see both myself and Mr. Kuek. But after I finished my first question, we'll switch to the speaker view. So you'll only see Mr. Kuek on the screen. I'll continue to ask questions after the first one. But you won't see me further until the end. But don't be alarmed. I assure you, I'm here for the entirety of the interview. So with that out of the way, let's get started. Mr. Kuek, thank you so much for being here and taking part of our MIP China program. And let me start by asking you to give a quick overview of iQIYI's streaming business outside China for our audience.
非常感谢你的精彩介绍。那么，我们从现在的分屏画面开始，你可以从这儿看到我和郭先生。但第一个问题后，我们将切换到发言人视角。所以在屏幕上，你只能看到郭先生，我还将继续提问。要到快结束时，你才能再次看到我。但不必慌张。我保证，整个谈话我都会全程参加。那么，就先不谈这个，我们开始吧。郭先生，非常感谢您来参加我们的高峰论坛。首先，请您为我们的观众简要介绍一下爱奇艺在中国以外的流媒体业务。

Kuek 

Absolutely, and thank you for having me, it's such a treat. So basically, for iQIYI International, what we're doing is that we are taking the most premium contents from one of the largest entertainment markets of the world, and making it available to international audiences. So the amazing content you see from China, whether it's the variety shows, whether it is your contemporary dramas, whether it is your thrillers, whether it is your period, costume, epic pieces, these become the cornerstone of our content offering to international audiences. Together with that we're looking for adjacent contents that will complement this main piece. And this could be top Korean IP that we have, it could be also gems that we get from Southeast Asia, whether it's from Thailand, or it's from Malaysia, or the Philippines together with anime, so that we really become the authoritative home of beloved Asian content. And this is really the content strategy. And when you're looking at what the service offers outside of China, this is what we're hoping to bring to a global audience.
当然，谢谢您邀请我，真是太棒了。基本上，就国际而言，我们正在从世界上最大的娱乐市场之一获取优质内容，并提供给国际观众。因此，你在中国看到的精彩内容，无论是综艺节目、剧情片、惊悚片，还是某个时期、某种服装、史诗作品，我们都基于这些向国际观众提供内容。  除此之外，我们还在寻找相似内容来补充这一主要部分。可能是我们有的顶级韩国IP，也可能来自东南亚。无论它来自泰国，还是马来西亚、菲律宾，再加上动画内容，这些都能使我们真正成为深受喜爱的亚洲内容权威。而这就是内容策略。而这项服务提供给外国的东西，也是我们希望带给全球观众的。

Kristian Kender  

What is iQIYI's service in territories outside of China? How is it structured? Do you operate independently in certain territories and partner with other platforms and others?
爱奇艺在中国境外的服务是怎样的？它的结构是怎样的？你们是否在某些地区独立运营，并与其他平台、公司合作？

Kuek

You know, we pride ourselves as being part of and being very collaborative, within the ecosystem. Basically, anywhere in the world, if you go to the App Store and look for iQIYI,  you'll be able to find us. And if you look at iQIYI.com anywhere in the world, it brings you straight into the service. And you can come straight to us or we have a great partner network. In places like Singapore we work with, you know, well known names like Singtel, with in Thailand we work with True Visions. So all sorts of collaborative models there, which really puts us with the ecosystem. Outside of China, we do something really fun as well, which is we white label our technology so that production houses, or broadcasters who might not yet be in the streaming space, can be able to use iQIYI services as a SAS product, or software as a service, so that they can be a streamer as well. And we've had a successful case with Rev Media (formerlly known as Media Prima) in Malaysia.
你知道，能够在企业生态系统中互相协作，我们感到非常自豪。大体上，在世界任何地方，如果你去应用商店找爱奇艺，都能找到我们。无论你在哪里看到爱奇艺网站，它都能直接为你提供服务。你可以直接找到我们，或者通过主要合作伙伴网找到我们。在新加坡，我们和新加坡电信这样的知名公司合作，在泰国，我们和True visions有线电视台也有合作。所以，各种各样的合作模式，将我们和企业生态系统联系在一起。在中国之外，我们也做了一些非常有趣的事情，那就是给我们的技术提供“白标签”，这样的话，还没有进入流媒体领域的制作公司或广播公司，可以将它作为SAS产品或软件服务使用，于是，它们也可以成为流媒体提供商。我们在马来西亚的Rev Media(原名Media Prima)就是一个成功案例。

Kristian Kender  

Can you talk a little bit about that partnership? What was the impetus for that?
你能谈谈这种合作吗？这背后的动力是什么？

Kuek

Absolutely. For us, we are both an entertainment company, and media company. But we are also a technology company. And I think we really understand how much engineering resource is required to bring a world class streaming platform to audiences. So whether it's making your things available on multiple devices, whether you're making sure that the curation of content appeals to the customer, that you're recommending the right content to the customer, to encoding and decoding and making sure that it's an efficient use of bandwidth. We make that engineering r&d that we have here available to ecosystem partners outside of China. So for example, if I'm an FTA (free-to-air) channel, in Southeast Asia, and I've never gone into the streaming space or I find it very daunting to put in the engineering resources or the capital investment to do that, to reach a streaming audience, then you know, a partner like that could work with iQIYI and iQIYI white labels the technology for such a player to be made available to a local audience.
当然。对我们来说，我们既是娱乐公司，也是媒体公司。但我们也是技术公司。我认为，我们真正需要明白的是，为观众提供世界级流媒体平台需要多少工程资源。所以，无论你的产品是否支持多终端，是否确保内容对客户有吸引力，你是在向客户推荐合适内容，编码、解码，并确保带宽的高效利用。 我们将这儿的工程研发提供给国外的企业生态系统合作伙伴。例如，如果一个东南亚的FTA(免费电视)频道，从来没有进入过流媒体领域，或者我发现投入工程资源或资本投资来是非常困难的，为了吸引到流媒体观众，那么，他们可能会与爱奇艺合作，爱奇艺为这样的频道向中国观众提供的技术贴上“白标签”。 

Kristian Kender  

That's an interesting segue into my next question actually. The OTT space is quite crowded globally and becoming even more so in Asia. So what do you see as some of the key differences between other streaming companies versus iQIYI?
实际上，这将延伸到我下一个问题。全球OTT（通过互联网直接向观众提供的流媒体服务）空间非常拥挤，在亚洲更是如此。那么你认为爱奇艺与其他流媒体公司的主要区别是什么？

Kuek

I think for us, we really want to make sure that we have a very clear value proposition to our customers. And that is, we focus on Asian content, and we are the authoritative home of the best Asian content.
我认为，对我们来说，我们真的希望确保对客户有非常明确的价值主张。也就是说，我们专注于亚洲，我们也是亚洲最佳内容权威。

So when we're looking at IP coming from China, you have your big budget productions that people are very familiar with, you have the wonderful "Light On" franchise and "The Bad Kids” which was the first Chinese production to win Best creative at Busan. We bring that to an international audience that without streaming might have missed such contents. And together with that, I'm very proud of our first Korean original, "So my Roommate is a Gumiho”. So again, bringing top quality Korean IP two complement the the Chinese IP that we have. And this year, we are very proud to be home to one of the most anticipated titles coming out from Korea, "G Zone". We are very excited for that q3 q4 launch for that title. But also, we want to be home for a lot of stories coming out from the Southeast Asian region as well.
所以当我们看到中国的知识产权时，你们有人们非常熟悉的大预算制作，精彩的《迷雾剧场》，还有《隐秘的角落》，这也是中国第一部在釜山国际电影节获得最佳创意奖的作品。我们把它带给国际观众，如果没有流媒体，他们便可能会错过这样的内容。与此同时，我为爱奇艺首部韩剧《我的室友是九尾狐》感到非常自豪。所以，我们再次将高质量的韩国知识产权作为对中国知识产权的补充。今年，我们非常开心能够拥有韩国备受期待的《殷志》，我们非常期待第三季度和第四季度的发布。同时，我们也想成为东南亚地区许多故事的发源地。

Kuek  

So I'm really thinking about titles like "Daughters" coming out from Thailand, which is really about like the stories of high school protagonists, and how they deal with the challenges of urban life. Together with anime we have really great performing titles like "Attack on Titan"on the service as well. In terms of coming up with something that is a holistic package, we think differentiates us from a crowded space. And that's the content piece. And of course, we are really very proud of the technology that we have,
所以，我真的在思考泰国电影《女儿》，一部关于高中生，以及他们如何应对城市生活挑战的故事。至于动漫，我们的《进击的巨人》也很受欢迎。就提出整体方案而言，我们认为我们能够从拥挤的空间中脱颖而出。这就是内容部分。当然，我们由衷地为现有技术感到自豪，

Kristian Kender  

Which is very different from a lot of the other platforms.
这是与许多其他平台不同的。

Kuek  

Exactly. For us to be leveraging of a technology that has a track record of delivering more than 350 million hours daily watch time, the that is is what we feel helps with the retention and the user experience. As a collection, and as a combination. We think that this is what is going to differentiate us in the marketplace.
没错。对于我们来说，利用一项拥有超过3.5亿小时日常观看时间的记录技术，这有助于留住用户和提高用户体验。 这是一项收集，也是一种组合，将帮助我们在市场上脱颖而出。

Kristian Kender  

Turning a little bit more to the the content side of it. You talked a little bit about some of the titles that have been quite popular for you around the region already. But do you see a difference between content that's popular in China on iQIYI and popular content outside China on the platform?
更多转向内容方面。你谈到了一些你们在该地区很受欢迎的内容。但是，你认为爱奇艺上中国流行的内容和国外流行的有区别吗？

Kuek  

I think an interesting trend that we see is the growing acceptance of Chinese content. So when we look at our social listening channels, for example, we are very excited to hear a lot of of our fans mention Chinese and Korean titles interchangeably, for example. Or mentioning Chinese and Korean stars interchangeably. And also saying things like, "Chinese IP looks like the it's the new Korean." These are things that that we hear. So in terms of the similarities and differences, I would say that Chinese content is something that is new to some of our international audiences, but we see an increasing acceptance and people really embracing that content as a genre. Other than that, we also see that a strategy on focus and deliver in delivering the best in class for verticals really work well for us. For us, the romantic franchise that we have with "Sweet On” which is a franchise that we've come up with, really resonates with our our important demographic for us so so urban romance stories, we think that performs well. We think that horror is a title that is interestingly popular in in Southeast Asia that we might see less of as a genre in China when you talk about differences. And "The Ferryman," is something that we're pushing out in August. It's something we're super excited about. Because we see horror as, as a genre that can really pop and perform well.
我想，我们能看到一个有趣的趋势，越来越多的人能接受中文内容。例如，当我们把目光投向我们的反馈渠道，我们很高兴能听到很多粉丝更多地提到中国内容。 或者提到中国明星。还有人说，“中国知识产权看起来像是一种新的类型。”这些都是我们听到的。因此，我想说的是，中国内容对一些国际观众来说是新鲜事物，我们看到越来越多的人能接受，并且真的将它看作一种类型。除此之外，我们还发现，在我们为垂直领域提供一流服务时，专注和交付的策略非常有效。对我们来说，独家浪漫系列《恋恋剧场》，也是我们创作的首部剧场，它确实与我们重要用户产生共鸣，所以我们认为，都市爱情故事反响不错。恐怖主题是在东南亚很受欢迎，但在中国可能该类型可能并非如此，这也是不同之处。我们将在8月推出《摆渡人》，对此，我们很是激动。因为我们觉得恐怖片能够真正流行并且有良好表现效果。

Kristian Kender  

When you talk about delivering best in class for different verticals, what's the process that you go through in deciding which content you're going to bring into different markets in those verticals?
当您谈到为不同的垂直市场提供一流产品时，您是如何决定将哪些内容带入这些垂直市场的？

Kuek  

I think we're definitely looking at things like whether we can articulate what audience is going to speak to, and what audience it is going to perform well with. So that is what we're definitely thinking about when we make our content decisions. We are also thinking about contents that would fit with our strategy and the brand promise. When a customer walks in through the it door and is expecting this Asian Content Collection, we want to make sure that there's a consistency with with what their expectation might be when they come to our service. So I think these two things go hand in hand, whether it's consistent with our content strategy, and whether or not there is an audience that we anticipate that the title would resonate well with.
我认为，我们肯定要考虑，我们是否能清楚地阐明它的主要受众，以及它更适合哪些观众的口味。 这就是我们在做内容决策时所考虑的。我们也在思考这些内容符合我们战略和品牌承诺。当一位顾客来使用爱奇艺，期待着亚洲系列时，我们要确保为他们提供的服务与其预期是一致的。 所以，我认为这两件事是密切相关的，既要符合我们的内容策略，也要符合观众的口味。

Kristian Kender 

Well, and earlier, you had listed a number of the programs that you found were real hits for you, you know, in the Asian market? If you look at them, is there something that ties them all together? Like what do you think made these things break out and be hits in those markets?
早些时候，你是不是列出了一些你认为在亚洲市场很受欢迎的节目？你认为它们之间有什么联系吗？比如，你认为是什么让它们从市场脱颖而出并大受欢迎？

Kuek  

I think a lot of it is really making sure that the authenticity of the storytelling comes through. I think there is something that really makes our business both a combination of art and science. If you look at the way we think about the metrics that we have, and how we perform and how we deliver the technology, a lot of science goes into that. But our business is interestingly a combination of art and science. And I think it really is that that authenticity and storytelling, and also as a company, I think we're known to make big bets. Like with the "Light On" franchise , with "The Bad Kids," "The Long Night," are examples of bets that we take.  In China, they might not have the commercial mass market appeal that one what might first think about, but I think because the authenticity comes through, that becomes a winning combination.
我认为，很大程度上是因为它们确保了故事的真实。在我看来，的确有一些东西能使我们的业务结合艺术和科学。如果你知道我们看待现有标准的方式，我们如何执行和交付技术，其中蕴藏着许多科学。 但有趣的是，我们的业务是艺术和科学的结合。我认为正是它们的真实和故事叙述，而作为一家公司，我们也会下注。像《迷雾剧场》、《隐秘的角落》、《沉默的真相》就是我们下的注。在中国，他们可能没有人们可能首先想到的商业大众市场吸引力，但因为它们具备真实，于是能成为一个双赢组合。

Kristian Kender 

And so for our audience here at the MIPChina series, there's a lot of distributors. And there's also a lot of producers. And one of the key messages that we look at in our markets is how do you make content that travels outside China? So if you were to think about some of the key points to make content that tends to do well, in both the Chinese and the Pan-Asian markets, what are the things that might tie those together, or things that you would recommend that producers think about?
所以，对于我们高峰论坛的观众来说，尤其在场有很多发行和制作人。在我们的市场中，一个值得关注的关键信息是，如何制作在中国境外传播的内容？那么，你想一想，如果要让它们在中国和泛亚市场上得到良好反响，有哪些关键？有哪些因素可能将它们联系在一起？或者，你会建议制片人考虑什么？

Kuek  

I would say that, at least from my point of view, when we are marketing content, if there is a very specific audience that you know you're reaching out to, that makes our job easier in finding that audience, I think the luxury that we have as being a streaming platform is that we can cater to, we have unlimited shelf space, so there's no competition there. And because of that, we can reach out to the long tail of the internet and really seek out those audiences. But having someone very specific that we are designing this for makes our job that much easier and helping you find that audience and it's something that at least when we're looking at contents or marketing that contents can be very helpful.
我想说，至少在我看来，当我们营销内容时，如果你接触到的观众分类非常具体，这会使我们更容易找到该群体，我们作为流媒体平台所拥有的奢侈之处是，我们可以去迎合他们，我们有无限的空间，所以，不存在竞争。 正因为如此，我们可以利用互联网，真正找到那些受众。但是，如果观众群体更加具体时，更容易帮助你找到受众，至少，这对我们我们在观看内容或营销的时候是非常有用的。 

Kristian Kender

So you're saying it's useful for the producers to understand that if they're targeting a specific market to be able to communicate that to you and communicate it in a way that's that that's useful. As a follow up to that, are there some key genres or some key kinds of content that actually do really well in China, but that don't travel so well?
所以你是说，制片人应该明白，如果他们能够瞄准特定市场，就能够有效地传达信息。在此之后，是否有一些关键题材或内容在中国做得很好，但却传播得不太好？ 

Kuek

I don't know if I have enough data points for that because we are in a process of experiment. And looking at IP that is successful in China and trying to make sure that we're one of the best channels or conduits for for that going out. If I answer the question in the reverse, I would say that what we have seen very successful at is with the talent shows and variety show formats where just the scale and the talent that we see that the Chinese market caters for really impresses audiences out of China. So that is one thing that we see as a theme that that has done well. Another thing that we think works well, and is sometimes an interesting juxtaposition of very contemporary romance lines,  with period settings that really has that contrast and point of interest for our audiences. So a title like 'My Heroic Husband’, for example, is something that was a real hit for the service.
我不知道对此我是否有足够的数据点，因为我们正在进行实验。着眼于中国成功的知识产权，并努力确保我们是走出去的最佳渠道。  如果我反过来回答这个问题，我会说，我们已经有非常成功的选秀和综艺节目，中国市场的规模和人才确实给国外观众留下了深刻的印象。因此，这是我们做得很好的一点。另一件我觉得很不错的事情是，有时，我们将非常现代的浪漫情节与我们的观众真正感兴趣的时代背景进行有趣的结合。 比如，像《赘婿》这样的剧，是非常受欢迎的。

Kristian Kender

And then as you're expanding into different territories, around Asia, and perhaps other parts later, do you produce with local partners in those territories? Or only for those territories?
当你向不同的地区拓展业务时，比如亚洲，之后可能还有其他地区，你会和这些地区的当地合作伙伴一起制作吗? 还是只针对某些地方？

Kuek 

Absolutely, I think we are really very flexible in terms of our formats. As we are starting off working with Media Prima in Malaysia, for example really allowed us to bring mega hits, like "7 Hari Mencintaiku" to a streaming audience. So that is an example of collaboration. In the Philippines, we're very proud of a new relationship that we have with GMA, so that we're making GMA content available on the iQIYI platform. And as we go forward, we're looking forward to doing original productions with with partners out there.
当然，我们在形式上非常灵活。例如，当我们开始与马来西亚的Media Prima合作时，它确实让我们能够为流媒体观众带去大受欢迎的《7 Hari Mencintaiku》。在菲律宾，我们非常荣幸与GMA建立了合作，我们将在平台上提供GMA内容。随着不断进步，我们期待着与合作伙伴一起制作原创作品。

Kristian Kender 

GMA has participated in MIPChina for for many years, I'm sure they'll be happy to hear that. For our MIPChina audience, we have our audience in China, but we also have a number of content makers from around the region. Is there something that you would like to say to them in order to kind of set like what's attractive about working with iQIYI? From a pan Asian content makers perspective?
GMA已经多次参加高峰论坛，我相信他们听到这个消息会很高兴。对于我们高峰论坛的观众来说，现场也有许多内容制作者。你有什么想对他们说的话吗，比如从泛亚洲内容内容制作者的角度来看，和爱奇艺一起合作有什么吸引力？

Kuek  

I think what's really interesting about us is that we probably have the most flexibility in thinking through collaboration models, how we work together. Because we see ourselves as part of the ecosystem, and we're very comfortable with different Win-Win situations when we come up with business models. So that's one. The other thing is that because we're focused on Asian content, I think there's less of a risk of like maybe contents being drowned out. We we treasure every piece of IP that we get, and the kind of marketing resources that we put behind the IP to make sure that whether you're opening the service in Miami or in Dubai, or in Bangkok, we try to give the contents that we have paid attention to  really good real estate on the service, and also the marketing dollars and also the KOLs. Reach that would get in our minds, really top class treatment, in terms of really pushing that content out to audiences.

我觉得有趣的是，我们可能极为灵活地通过协作模型进行思考，思考我们如何一起工作。因为我们把自己视为企业生态系统的一部分，当提出商业模式时，我们对不同的双赢局面感到非常满意。所以这是其中之一。还有，因为我们专注于亚洲，这样可以减少内容被淹没的风险。我们珍惜获得的每一个知识产权，以及我们在知识产权背后投入的营销资源，以确保无论您是在迈阿密、迪拜还是在曼谷开通服务，我们都努力提供我们关注的内容，即真正好的服务，以及营销资金和KOL。在真正将内容推向观众时，达到我们想要的效果，提供称得上一流的服务。 

Kristian Kender 

That's a really interesting point. Would you mind expanding a little bit on the marketing side of it? What would be a typical marketing push that you might provide to a content  that you were promoting in a certain market?
这是个非常有趣的观点。你介意在营销方面再扩展一点吗？ 你向某个特定市场推广内容时的典型营销推动力是什么？  

Kuek

Last year we had a good collaboration for this title called "Backstreet Rookie”, which did very well for us, which is a Korean IP. There there might not be that many players who would put marketing dollars in getting KOLs,  online influencers, to get excited about a title like this in the Americas, but this was something we did. Because our our service is available around the world. And regardless where you are in the world, Asian content is our brand. Asian content is our promise. Asian content is our offering. So regardless of which market, we are going to, we are going to push Asian content. So I think people working with us can know that being Asian is core to our strategy. And that marketing will go behind that. And "Backstreet Rookie," which was a great example last year, really started the trend for all the future titles that came along the way.
去年我们合作过《便利店新星》，合作得很好，尽管它是韩国的IP。可能没有多少公司会投入营销资金来争取KOL，比如网红人士，让观众对片子感兴趣，但这就是我们做的事情。因为我们的服务遍及全球。无论你在世界的哪个角落，亚洲内容都是我们的品牌，也是我们的承诺和产品。所以不管我们在哪儿，我们都要推广亚洲内容。所以，和我们一起工作的人可以明白，亚洲是我们战略的核心，也是营销的基础。去年的《便利店新星》是一个很好的例子，它真正开创了未来所有主题的趋势。

Kristian Kender

That's another very good key differentiator, I think, when you when you talk about working with iQIYI versus some of the other platforms.
我想，当你谈到爱奇艺与其他平台的合作时，这是另一个非常重要的区别。

Kuek

It's a very consistent strategy that doesn't waver regardless of where you are in the world. It's a kind of luxury that a streaming platform gives us.  In a pre streaming world where you are fighting for theatrical screens or programming space, you might not have the luxury of giving Asian content the airtime that it deserves. But when you are a dedicated Asian streaming platform with an Asian content offering, and as a differentiator, this is something that we provide.
这个策略是我们一直坚持的，无论在哪里，都不会改变。这是流媒体平台给我们的一种奢侈。在前流媒体世界里，你为荧幕或节目空间而战，可能没有机会给亚洲内容应有的播放时间。但如果你是一个专门提供亚洲内容的亚洲流媒体平台，作为区分，这就是我们所提供的。