Tech Planet (WeChat ID: tech618)
Wen | Qiao Xue
Cover source | Tech Planet
Disney has mastered the new traffic password, and Shanghai Disney released the IP image "Lingna Belle" on September 29, 2021. As soon as this new IP was launched, it became the top stream, some people lined up for her at three o'clock in the morning, some people proposed to her, and some people held back blood and knelt down in order to grab the peripheral products of "Ling Na Belle".
And it all starts with the magical power of IP.
This force is also constantly prompting players to enter the market, Bubble Mart relies on becoming the successful listing of China's Disney and becoming the first stock of tide play, TOPTOY opened 80 stores in 1 year, and positioned itself as a "global tide play collection store".
Internet manufacturers also can't stand it, youku, which has been silent for a long time, launched the national IP "Country Love" blind box, Station B acquired the tide play derivative company ACTOYS, and placed high hopes on it as the second growth curve, Tencent cooperated with the Hong Kong listed company Dream World to jointly enter the tide play blind box market, and strive to carry forward the "QQfamily" IP.
For IP, now is perhaps the best time to enter. According to the Frost & Sullivan report, the compound annual growth rate of China's tide play retail is 34.6%. By 2024, the market size is expected to reach 76.3 billion, a huge market, so that more and more people began to try IP business experience, Lingna Belle is not only "traffic", but also "mind".
Today's eager IP market is more like the "dark jungle" depicted in "The Three-Body Problem", and the winner has shown magic, which has attracted lurkers in the shadows to "shoot" and fight.
Short flat and fast on the new, Internet celebrities are better than stars to sell
"The update speed of the seven sons of stealing money is getting faster and faster," a veteran Disney player lamented about the planet Tech.
"Seven sons of money" refers to the Disney Duffy family, and the birth of Duffy also originated from a story of IP brawl, the United States has a popular bear doll teddy bear swept the hearts of thousands of girls, Disney in order to gain a place in the "bear world", but also created a "Mickey's Bear" role, but after the launch of the U.S. market response is flat, not even the name, so this IP can only be temporarily shelved.
In 2005, this IP was noticed by Tokyo Disney, and changed its new name and redesigned the sailor suit, chaoshan saying it well, "changing the name is equal to changing the life", and Duffy's fate was reversed. But at first, Duffy was not recognized by Disney headquarters in the United States, and stipulated that no information about Duffy was allowed to appear in any place except Tokyo Disneyland.
Sailor suit, bear, soft cute, these elements set together to make Duffy become the signature big IP of Tokyo Disney, its peripheral product sales even exceeded Mickey, Duffy's popularity awakened Disney, in 2005, Tokyo Disney per capita consumption was only 9178 yen, the lowest level in the past 20 years; in 2010, the per capita consumption exceeded 10,000 yen, an increase of 10 times in 5 years. This forced Disney to bow its head, and since 2010, disney headquarters in the United States has removed restrictions, and Duffy has begun to spread disney all over the world, of course, the most popular is East Asia.
In 2010, Duffy got his girlfriend Shirley Rose, in 2014, the talented painter Geraldoni in a beret was launched; the ballerina Star Delu was born in 2017, and in 2018, Hong Kong Disney created the baker puppy Kochian, and in the same year, the little turtle Olmila who can play the ukulele appeared.
And the day that "Ling Na Belle" landed in Shanghai Disneyland, it happened to be the day of the opening of Universal Studios Beijing, in order to block the north of consumer traffic, Disney located in Shanghai Chuansha needed a new magical IP to fight against the magic of Beijing Tongzhou Magic Castle, the confrontation between magic and magic, the short-term contest is difficult to say who wins, more like an IP declaration of silence on IP.
A senior Disney player told Tech Planet that the resources are indeed given priority to the Da fei family, and the Disney movie "Jungle Strange Voyage" released this year is a film and television adaptation of a river ride under Taishan in Disneyland, California, USA, this project has been there since 1955, and the 2021 adaptation of the movie has just been released, and the domestic not only has not been on the theater line, but even the online screening has been abandoned.
Unlike Disney's previous IP, the Duffy family is an uncompromising "Made in East Asia" (5 of which were first released in Tokyo, 1 first published in Hong Kong, and 1 first published in Shanghai), and the Duffy family only has a face value, no "soul", and all the characters have not yet film and television works, including Duffy, who has appeared for 17 years.
Disney's business model of selling stories, can not work in China and Asia, and the short and fast IP creation ability has received unprecedented pursuit, senior Disney fans found that Disney has changed, once Disney is good at storytelling, in order to tell a story well, it often takes decades to make a classic, and now Disney, choose to go out of the circle first, and then start selling goods.
The popularity of the Duffy family hurt the heart of a Disney friend, Zhang Chen has been to all the Disney parks in the world, she likes Disney's soul characters Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, on the Halloween day of Shanghai Disney, The seven sons of Duffy have exquisite holiday costumes, but Donald Duck does not have his own Halloween costume, which makes her angry and sad.
After a performance, in order to facilitate visitors to take pictures, Disney's new IP Duffy Seven Sons stood in the middle, and the C position of the picture was left to Lingna Belle, Mickey and Minnie could only give way to the far side, Zhang Chen was very unhappy in his heart, "Did Disney forget that all the stories are because of a mouse." ”
"Everyone knows Princess Elsa because of her bravery and strength, she has the whole Frozen story system to support this IP, what does Lingna Belle have, cute alone is not enough, she is like a love bean without works, only traffic, Disney put the rice circle that set is clear." 」
Is creating the next Lingna Belle a metaphysics?
Ling Na Belle's popularity has once again ignited the enthusiasm of China's IP dreamworks, to be China Disney's bubble mart, in the road to star-making is also struggling to catch up, before the listing, bubble mart only Molly a pawn Flower Dan, listed 1 year later, has hatched 6 revenue of more than 100 million IP.
Bubble Mart once took the business model of IP without content, and this time it has also become a place where Bubble Mart has been criticized. In order to quickly expand the number of IP, Bubble Mart signed more than 80 IP at the most, and the speed is also quite aggressive, and the star IP will launch 6-7 series a year, with an average of a new series in February.
And now, when Disney, the originator of IP, has also begun to play a business with IP without content, Bubble Mart has begun to go another way. The Bubble Mart account has also gradually shaped some content on social networking sites to support its IP. Dimoo, Skullpanda, the two late-up IPs, when entering the bubble Mart system, the designer has written a lot of story settings for them.
Bubble Mart told Tech Planet that there will be trade-offs in the blessing of the story, like Molly, the IP has a history of more than 10 years, has a very strong and fixed fan base, everyone has their own Molly in their hearts, at this time it is very inappropriate to define the content, and it is easy to cause fans to resent. And some newly born IPs, when the inherent impression has not yet been formed in the minds of fans, it is more appropriate to add some creative ideas and stories.
When every IP begins to operate, whether it can become a blockbuster has been predicted in advance. In Bubble Mart, when the IP model is initially formed, it will be divided into S, A, B and other different grades, according to the different levels will tilt different resources, like S resources will be placed in a very core position in the store, giving a large enough area, in the exposure, publicity, operation will also be enough tilt.
As a new force in the retail industry, the tide play platform TOPTOY, which is incubated by Mingchuang Premium, is positioned as a tide play collection platform, but it is slowly evolving towards the Disney IP road, and has released 5 original IPs such as RollIng Sheep, BUZZ, twinkle and so on.
Ding Ding, the designer of the rolling sheep, told Tech Planet that the IP of the rolling sheep was originally created to join Chinese culture, set as a small lamb boy living in the Liwan District of Guangzhou, focusing on the direction of warm heart healing, because the element of food is the public's natural intimacy and difficult to resist, which will drive sales.
Tintin also introduced that at present, they will develop what they like in the direction of public preference, and then study the niche groups. From the current point of view, the tide play blind box market female customer group is the majority, so "cute" and "cute" is the current preferred direction, but it is difficult to say which one will become a hit, the entire tide play has no standard.
And in the tide play session, generally use the big baby to test the water, see the effect and sales, if it is good, it will continue to launch blind box batch sales, but waiting for feedback is also a cycle, 52 weeks, is a "baby" is not good to sell the life cycle, the fate of bad selling may be permanent snow and suspension.
Trends don't have a fixed formula, and it's not a simple addition that can create a blockbuster. For example, Skullpanda, which has become the new traffic star of Bubble Mart, has been precipitated in the circle of tide play enthusiasts for several years before being signed by Bubble Mart, and it is a good product that has been verified by the market, and Bubble Mart only uses the power of channels and marketing to make it sell out again.
With strong marketing and offline channel capabilities, does not represent IP capabilities, Lingna Belle is Disney once launched on the phenomenon of the phenomenon-level IP, although there is no content of pure IP, but the real-time interaction of the dolls themselves, the atmosphere created by the park let Lingna Belle "live" up, to achieve another dynamic effect, the value of the dolls themselves is greatly amplified, and the pure dolls of the tide play, so that the IP is always static, is the bubble Mart and such latecomers need to make up the place.
But ambitions to become China's Disney remain, after Bubble Mart announced that it had reached a partnership with Beijing to set up a theme park inside Chaoyang Park. Tech Planet is uniquely aware of the recent progress, and the project will start within the year.
Moreover, Disney also did not take players like Bubble Mart as an opponent, many of bubble Mart's IP is also authorized by Disney production, a former Bubble Mart investor told Tech Planet, "The problem is that Tide Play is Disney's derivative business, but it is the main business of POP MART", at present, it is too early to become China's Disney, "Ling Na Belle" can not be copied.
IP fire "change baby" circle, manual fees of thousands of appointment queues
A fait accompli is that a designer's career may also be able to create an IP, and it is the mission of the company and the platform to run an IP as well as possible and extend its life.
The first step is to buy as many goods as possible, but the goods are often not controllable.
A person in the supply chain of the tide play industry told Tech Planet that the factory can not predict which IP will be on fire, after an IP fire, if you need a large amount of production in a short period of time, but the production capacity is limited, you know that you can make money, but the factory just can't get the goods, some also involve several factories to jointly produce, such as a factory can produce 1000 eyes, but another factory can only produce 500 noses, then it needs to cooperate with low production capacity, even if the IP has been operating for a hundred years disney, In the face of the lack of production capacity of the factory, we must wait, which is the reality that must be faced in the entire tide play industry chain.
The person also told Tech Planet that almost the entire tide play factory is in the Dongguan area of Guangdong, and the factory is not to say that money can be bought, supply chain management, workers and boss friendships for decades, not the manufacturing of IP companies can run over, and the purchase of factories also means that the model becomes heavier, downstream platforms and companies will not want to do this.
Secondly, in order to continue an IP life cycle, in addition to launching new models in festivals and seasons, manufacturing derivatives and co-branding is also an indispensable lesson.
For example, notice that Lingna Belle's plush material is on fire, TOPTOY designers will find a way to see if they can make similar plush models, if there is difficulty, they must also try to turn to materials such as fleece to capture fashion trends. Bubble Mart also revealed that it will continue to make a fuss about derivatives this year, and explore the possibility of derivatives in terms of charging lines and lamps.
But looking at the world, the IP that occupies the head often needs decades or even a hundred years of cultivation, in the top ten of the global IP value, Mi teacher was born in 1928, Hello Kitty was founded in 1974, the youngest Marvel series also has a history of 14 years, for large platforms and large companies, you can also take time to wait for the precipitation of time, and individual craftsmen, this is an opportunity to seize the wealth password, the opportunity can not be lost. Therefore, the "change of baby" circle ushered in a boom.
"Change baby", the first used in the toy originator Barbie doll, initially just makeup hair and clothes, and then the blind box tide to play the "change baby" fans will make it progress, first through the boiling baby, remove the glue, and then add clay, shaping, polishing, coloring and a series of operations, so that the "baby" in their hands become unique, becoming the focus of the circle and social media.
In the "change of baby" circle, there are also 1,000 Lingna Belle in the hands of 1,000 people.
Changing a seasonal costume is already a routine operation of the "baby circle", the more important is the "plastic surgery" and "medical beauty" project, the head is more rounded, the mouth is more prominent and more three-dimensional, the eye distance is adjusted, shortening the distance between people, the most complex is the eye change, a pair of eyeballs have dozens of patterns, you can also customize according to the demand, as well as the eyeballs with grievances, discharges, tears and other effects.
A player shows the Tech planet that the eyeballs of the original Lingna Belle doll are dark blue pupils and light blue eyeballs, and in order to make the eyeballs appear a more blingbling (sparkling) effect, the player replaces them with a purple, pink blue eyeball with a 22 mm black pupil edge, with a glittering pink, "looking more shining and innocent".
Due to the difference in the filling of the plush toy, in order to make the doll more three-dimensional, you can also plastic surgery, add a skeleton, add a foot pad, the doll can also stand up, take pictures better, and also make expressions such as spitting out the tongue and being surprised. But not everyone is a skilled craftsman, in order to make their dolls look more cute, can only ask for help from the doll circle of the baby changer, in the circle of good reputation "change of baby" to change the baby often thousands, and want to change the baby also have to make an appointment to queue.
Some handmade people win by quality, but some handmade people say that they can also undertake "Shanna Belle" (shanzhai non-genuine Lingna Belle), which has also spawned the popularity of the cottage circle, a Pinduoduo store sold a unit price of Yuan Lingna Belle, which has sold more than 100,000 yuan. Interestingly, this has led to the creation of related authenticity services.
Some players expressed heartache for this, "The current momentary popularity is consuming the value of Lingna Belle, how hot it is now, how paste it will be then, I hope That Lingna Belle will not be consumed all the time." ”
Bubble Mart has felt such consumption, the speed of pushing new ones is also slowing down, basically maintaining the rhythm of a season of launch, and the joint name also chooses to be more cautious, more inclined to international big names and high-end brands.
Before the powerful summoning power of IP gold, whether it is Disney or Bubble Mart and other players will not stop, but how to rectify black and gray production, increase production capacity, produce high-quality content to play the strong value of IP, and continue the hot cycle is the homework that every IP dream factory has to face.
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