Thug Life Army

China's leading Internet television company, announced that it will kick off the Year of the Dragon with new seasons of the popular Youku Original web serials "Hip-Hop Office Quartet" and "Miss Puff" starting this month.

"Hip-Hop Office Quartet," which starts its fourth season this Valentine's Day, debuted in November 2008 as Youku's first foray into longer-form in-house production. A sharp send-up of contemporary Chinese office culture, it received an average of more than 3.6 million views per episode, and was China's first web series to reach 100 million views. The most-viewed episode of the series was watched nearly 20 million times.

The animated series "Miss Puff," scheduled to return on March 12 for its third season, follows a material girl as she negotiates the twists and turns of Chinese urban life. The serial's first season, which debuted in April 2011, was viewed more than 38 million times -- an average of 2.9 million views per episode, with a single-episode record of 4.3 million views.

"We envisioned our Youku Original strategy as a way to combine Youku's understanding of our viewership with the creative talents of the young artists and directors we work with," said Youku Senior Vice President Frank Ming Wei. "The continued popularity of 'Hip-Hop Office Quartet' and 'Miss Puff' shows that Youku is unparalleled in its ability to create refreshing and engaging content that resonates with our over 300 million viewers."

Youku Original is a key part of the company's content strategy, which covers a combination of licensed professionally produced content, in-house productions from Youku Original, and user-generated content (UGC). Youku Original has released 15 productions, 13 of which placed in the monthly Top 20 most-viewed rankings and 11 in the monthly Top 10 most-viewed rankings on Youku Index during the period in which they were aired.

The "11 Degrees New Media" project, a Youku Original-produced campaign for Chevy Cruze that included the animated short that introduced the character of Miss Puff, was named "Best Contribution to a Campaign by a Media Owner" by the Festival of Media Asia Awards in November 2011. "Father," a web film produced for Youku by the makers of the popular "Old Boys" and "The Ultimate Winner," received over 2 million views within 24 hours of its debut, and was named "Audience Favorite" at last month's Harbin Film Festival.