The author | Guo Ji'an
This year, the Alipay Collection of Five Blessings activities included 21 museums NFTs, the first batch of 5,000 copies of the Year of the Tiger calendar jointly signed by the Nanjing Museum and the Suzhou Museum quickly sold out, and the news that the "Why China" National Treasures and Cultural Relics Special Exhibition sponsored by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage and sponsored by CCTV and the Palace Museum was about to be launched has just come out and triggered netizens to pursue...
These are the cut corners of the museum IP take-off.
Live broadcasting, joint branding, offline exhibitions... In the past year, archaeological blind boxes have sold 30 million yuan, business brand linkage is frequent, and museum IP is rapidly becoming a sought after fragrance in the commercial market, which is no longer simply a place of historical and cultural learning, but also a trend language and social symbol pursued by the young generation.
At present, the exploration of new media and new business in China has also made rapid progress, shotguns for cannons, in addition to traditional curation, variety shows, cultural and creative communication, and new entertainment products joint, the operation of new social media have become a new way for them to communicate with users.
To this end, the marketing entertainment sauce (ID: marketingyuzijiang) talked to the Henan Museum, the Hunan Provincial Museum and the Shaanxi History Museum to try to find out what is behind these changes.
What surprised Xiao Yu was that during the chat, when it came to the new products and new media favored by young people such as Hanfu fever, immersive script killing, digital collections, IP industry chain, short video live broadcast, etc., the curators were all treasures.
Obviously, it is no accident that the museum IP is commercially selected. The change of the media and the rise of the national tide are like a good wind, and the determination of the museum to dialogue with young users and the active attempts to embrace digitalization and commercialization are the forces of "Qingyun".
01 New heritage of the museum: to create a digital person, B station small red book grass cover
Tracing the road of museum IP in China, the variety show "National Treasure" can be called a milestone. In 2017, the first season of "National Treasure" was launched, which was rapidly fermented on platforms such as B station and Weibo, and also blew the charm of museums and cultural relics to young users on a large scale.
At the end of 2021, the latest derivative program of the National Treasure IP, "National Treasure Exhibition Season", was broadcast. This season of the program uses the idea of "TV exhibition" to create works for national treasures, which not only shows the different aspects of cultural relics and culture, but also promotes the birth of large-scale offline cultural relics special exhibitions.
During the dialogue, the first season of "National Treasure" was regarded by many museum leaders as an important node for museums to taste the sweetness of "new communication channels".
Especially in the view of Duan Xiaoming, director of the Hunan Provincial Museum, who participated in the first season catalog system, Ma Xiaolin, director of the Henan Museum, and Hou Ningbin, director of the Shaanxi History Museum, participating in the recording has brought a very practical blessing to the sound volume of the museum.
"At the end of 2017, the first season of "National Treasure" was broadcast, coinciding with the completion of the new Hunan Provincial Museum, which was also reopened after five years of closure. The program has brought us a lot of tourists on the TV side and the Network side. In 2018 and 2019, our visitors reached 3.14 million and 3.62 million respectively, which can be said to be the highest level of provincial museums. Duan Xiaoming said.
Ma Xiaolin, president of the Henan Museum, also remembers the strong drainage effect of the program. At that time, the main exhibition hall of the Henan Museum was still closed, and only some cultural relics were exhibited in the West Annex Building. But a large number of spectators lined up to see the three national treasures on display in the show. Innovative expression of television media is very important, and the program allows the audience to more intuitively understand the story behind the national treasure through celebrity interpretation and expert interviews, and will also appreciate the cultural relics more. ”
This is precisely the empowerment of variety shows to the cultural dissemination of national treasures and museums: with the help of celebrities interpreting stories, cultural relics bearing a heavy history can be recognized by the audience in a more simple and understandable way, and increase the attributes of social communication.
"Before, when we were doing the cultural dissemination of The Shaanxi Museum, the means were relatively simple, not attractive enough, and the people did not buy it." But the show will actually lower the threshold. For example, the Du Hu Charm we sent in the first season talked about the origin of the word 'conformity'. So a large number of people on the Internet leave messages that they have learned new knowledge, are very excited, and will spontaneously spread this information, so that the effect is very good. Director Hou Ningbin said frankly.
This deductive approach to making "national treasures come alive" has also inspired a large number of museums. "After that, we will do some online virtual exhibitions and ask experts to tell stories, which is a big change from the original way of dissemination." Hou Ningbin said.
At the same time, the strong enthusiasm of a large number of young people after watching the program also made the museum aware of the interactivity of a new generation of users, and more and more museums have also launched more diversified self-channel communication such as official micro, public accounts, and short video official accounts.
Since the epidemic, short video platforms such as Douyin, which were originally ignored by many museums, have become new deep ploughing areas, and a large number of museums have launched activities such as cloud live broadcast and cloud tour exhibitions with the help of Douyin. Recently, the Dunhuang Research Institute even launched a digital person Jia Yao, in the form of animation in the form of short video platform to promote to the public.
According to Director Duan Xiaoming, the official public account of Hunan Bo currently has about 2 million fans, and Weibo fans have reached 520,000. At the same time, Hunan Museum will also introduce and disseminate relevant content on Station B and Little Red Book, especially in the past two years, Hunan Provincial Museum has also launched Mawangdui digital courses, which are also loved by many young people.
"For museums, post-95s young people are the target audience to be gathered at present and in the future. Effective online interaction will become an important way to spread museum culture in the future. Duan Xiaoming said.
It is also with the help of such a comprehensive coverage play that in the past five years, the museum IP has "stepped off the altar" step by step, becoming a cultural social keyword that young users are keen on.
02 Museum new gameplay: digital collections, immersive script killing, scientific and technological digitalization is the key to the future
While the museum tries to communicate with new online media, young people's lifestyles and new entertainment products have gradually entered the eyes of major curators.
Typical examples of young people's preference for script killing have been increasingly combined with museums in the past two years. In 2019, the Shanghai Museum of Glass launched the offline live-action script of "The Mystery of the Disappearing Artist" at Christmas, and the Changsha Museum launched the immersive script of "Famen Dream Shadow" for the "Treasure of the Underground Palace: The Essence of Tang Dynasty Court Cultural Relics of Famen Temple", which was opened simultaneously with the special exhibition.
A large number of museums have also authorized the cultural relics in the museum to boxed script killing, puzzle books and other products. Shaanxi History Museum and Zoomlion Baiwen, Shaanxi Normal University Publishing House, box lightning four parties jointly launched the "Antiques Bureau Central Bureau: Endless Collection" puzzle book, last September, Luoyang Museum will be three collections of cultural relics "Jin Gui Yi Hu Wang" gold seal, through the carved dragon pattern agate bi and golden lion charm authorized Little Black Detective, Alipay jointly developed the "Luoyang East Wind When To Come" online script game works.
"The essence of this cooperation is to activate the heat of cultural relics in a novel form." For example, when we make the "Antiques Bureau Central Bureau" puzzle book, we actually want to superimpose cultural relics and IP, expand influence, and drain each other. Hou Ningbin introduced.
At the same time, the linkage with new entertainment products loved by young people such as games has also become a cross-border communication method that museums are keen on. Last year, dunhuang research institutes had in-depth cooperation with Tencent Games, and several hero skins in "Glory of kings" were linked to the Murals of Mogao Grottoes. In addition, Dunhuang Research Institute and Huawei mobile phones have also jointly developed more virtual exhibition and cloud exhibition projects.
The museum's IP digital collection has also become a new trend. The sales of digital collections launched by Hunan Provincial Museum, National Museum of China and Chengdu Jinsha Site Museum are all very hot.
"In September 2021, our Hunan Provincial Museum Mawangdui and AntChain jointly launched four digital collections, each with 8888 copies, which was robbed by everyone. Among them, the three-dimensional collection of dragon patterns was sold out within 28 seconds of going online. This actually shows that traditional culture needs to have contemporary expression. Without contemporary expression, it can only be called cultural resources, and with the new product model, it can become a cultural IP in the true sense. Duan Xiaoming sighed.
What is more valuable is that various museums are trying to extract the keywords of contemporary expression and apply them to the online and offline curation of museums. "In fact, looking at these new product forms, the core is hardcore high-tech, experiential interaction and digitalization." Duan Xiaoming concluded.
Previously, the Hunan Museum had introduced VR and AR technology into the Mawangdui Digital Experience Exhibition, where visitors could return to the ancient country of Changsha in the Western Han Dynasty with the help of equipment, armed with arrows, and assist the general in fighting the enemy. According to Duan Xiaoming, in July 2022, the Hunan Museum will also create an immersive exhibition of ancient music relics, which will also use a large number of digital interactive technologies that combine virtual and real.
Hou Ningbin, director of the Shaanxi History Museum, expressed his thoughts on the virtual exhibition: "With the help of digital means, VR and AR technology, visitors can see more realistic and three-dimensional cultural relics scenes. Take the murals as an example, in the virtual exhibition, they are no longer flat, but are really distributed in the southeast, southwest, and northwest of the tomb, completely restoring the real historical scene. He also believes that with the application of blockchain and meta-universe technology in the field of museums, it has a positive impact on the protection of cultural relics information and the prevention and control of piracy.
"Of course, these digitization processes need to be supported by special funds, which means more funds and museums to do their best to open source and reduce expenditure." Duan Xiaoming said.
03 Museum New Business: Blind box sold 30 million, anthropomorphic IP into the live broadcast room
From the perspective of the past year, the development of museum IP derivative industry chain, the creation of cultural and creative products, and the more diversified brand licensing cooperation have become important "open source" methods for major museums.
The current museum IP market is no longer a thriving palace museum, henan museum, Dunhuang research institute, Shaanxi history museum, Sanxingdui museum, etc. are all performing well in the field of cultural creativity.
Typical examples are the Henan Museum, which launched an archaeological blind box in 2020. This blind box comes with a Luoyang shovel, and the cultural relics are hidden in the soil and need to be excavated by the user himself. At the end of 2020, with the help of tap water unpacking video, graphic and text Amway, this product was on fire on Weibo, B station, Douban and other platforms. In the first half of last year, there was even a large number of user cards pointing into the official e-commerce platform to grab the "grand situation" of pre-sale.
According to Ma Xiaolin, president of the Henan Museum, this blind box single product alone has sold more than 30 million yuan from its launch to October 2021. "In 2019, our cultural and creative sales were more than one million, but in 2020, when we reopened the museum in September and reached the end of the year, the sales reached 8 million in four months. In the whole year of 2021, our cultural and creative sales will exceed 40 million. ”
Such a strong ability to absorb gold is not an accidental phenomenon. Data show that last year's Tmall double 11, a total of nearly 100 museums participated in the activities. On the first day of sale, the sales of museum cultural and creative products surged by more than 400% year-on-year, becoming this year's "big dark horse". Cultural and creative products such as jade pendant lollipops from Henan Museum, blind boxes from Sanxingdui Museum, twelve flower gods solid balm from the Palace Museum, grilled bread-shaped mouse pads from Xinjiang Museum, and flying bookmarks from Dunhuang Research Institute have all received high sales.
This also means that more and more brand merchants are cooperating spontaneously. It is reported that large cultural and creative households such as Henan Museum, Shaanxi History Museum, and Dunhuang Museum have teams dedicated to cooperating with external brands in cultural and creative derivatives, and the business is very "busy", which shows its popularity.
Xiaoyu also learned that the cooperation between museum IP and brand in the current industry mostly adopts the model of licensing + sales ratio, which makes the initial authorization fee of museum IP not too expensive, and some are even below 100,000 yuan, which also gives creative and thoughtful small and micro enterprises more opportunities.
"It's more of a nurturing mentality, focusing on the subsequent share of business benefits." We will require all online sales to be unified in our official flagship store. Offline in addition to the museum, will also cooperate with some store brands that purchase goods in batches. This may seem like a small licensing fee, but with the increase of cooperative brands, the benefits are considerable. For example, we are cooperating with a derivative stationery, and the monthly sales of a single product can reach more than 100,000. So what if there are more than a hundred such products? We value the back-end model more. Ma Xiaolin introduced.
On the other hand, the Shaanxi History Museum has explored the road of museum IP image development. The anthropomorphic IP "Tang Niu" in the museum was designed as a Q version of Tang Dress Lady, and diversified cultural and creative development was carried out. In the view of Director Hou Ningbin, such a line of thinking is also a necessary stage for the development of the cultural industry.
"The first stage of the cultural and creative industry is very primitive, it is an imitation of cultural relics, and the essence is still a tourist souvenir. In the second stage, we began to extract elements from cultural relics and superimpose them on daily necessities for sale, so that users could enhance emotional links through their use in reality. In the third phase of the current sustainable development, it is necessary to maximize the advantages of the cluster, which must develop IP. Unlike fragmented element refinement, IP is a highly condensed representative image. Just like our Tang Niu, you can use it flexibly in any field. Hou Ningbin said.
At the same time, on the side of cultural and creative promotion, major curators have also shown a high degree of embrace of new media. Henan Museum conducts normalized Taobao live broadcasting, daily promotion of various cultural and creative products in the live broadcast room; Shaanxi History Museum launched last year's sugar girl picture book, once stationed in the head anchor live broadcast room, more than 20,000 books were snatched up in 3 seconds; Hunan Museum values Weibo, Little Red Book, video number and other channels to plant grass, a variety of co-branded goods on the social platform spread effect is good...
These new marketing and new establishments, which are highly close to young users, have also opened up a smooth road for the commercial exploration of museum IP.
"In the final analysis, what we have always insisted on is one point, putting social benefits first, economic benefits in the second place, pursuing the unification of the two benefits, so that cultural and creative products become an extension of our museum exhibition, so that more audiences can understand cultural relics and culture while purchasing products, which is also the embodiment of the museum's social responsibility." Ma Xiaolin said.