In the photo studio, there is also a "big business", why is the hippocampus out of the circle? Second, the root cause of the high premium of the hippocampus Third, the "futuristic" of the camera

Editor's Introduction: Why can the hippocampus be a "phenomenon-level" existence in a group of photo studio brands? Why is it more than 10 times more expensive than a normal photo studio, or is there a large number of consumers willing to pay for it? The author of this article has reviewed and disassembled the rise path of the hippocampus, let's take a look at it together.

Among the many photo studio brands, the hippocampus is a "phenomenon-level" existence.

Generally speaking, photo studios are typical of "non-standard" fields, and photographers have very different styles and different finished films. Chain store operation is relatively rare, more is the brand differentiation, which causes that the photo studio is just needed, but it is difficult to form a large-scale brand effect.

Before the birth of the hippocampus, "traditional and exquisite" ID photos once swept the portrait photography industry. With the advent of the "Photography 3.0" model (light, fast, simple), the hippocampus has quickly gained a foothold in the field of ID photographs, and has opened about 350 stores in more than 70 cities across the country.

In the public's impression, "the price of a 1-inch ID photo in the photo studio is about 15-20 yuan, and the price of 2 inches is not more than 30 yuan." "But the hippocampus photo studio alone is 189 yuan, the price is more than 10 times that of the ordinary photo studio, and, under such a high premium, there are still a large number of consumers to pay for it, which means that the hippocampus is a worthy of study in the new consumer field."

Based on this, this article will focus on the analysis:

Review the rise path of the hippocampus;

Dismantling the high premium logic of the hippocampus;

The underlying logic of the next generation of photo studios.

<h1 toutiao-origin="h2" > First, why is the hippocampus out of the circle? </h1>

First, let's review the growth path of the hippocampus:

In 2014, the hippocampal brand was established and the first stores were opened in Xiasha and Dacheng, Hangzhou;

In 2015, the hippocampus photo studio officially entered the shopping center, opened an offline store in Hangzhou Hubin Yintai in77, breaking the traditional model of the street store of the photo studio in the past, moving the photo studio into the shopping center, the photo studio became a new gathering place for weekend hipsters, and the "light and simple" photography mode became a new trend of consumption;

In 2016, the hippocampal photo studio opened in Harbin, and with this as a sign, the hippocampus opened a new way of playing the national chain operation;

In 2018, the brand public welfare IP "Happiness Photo Gallery" landed at Hangzhou Railway Station, and the hippocampus took photos in the form of images for tens of thousands of passengers for free, which further expanded the brand's exposure.

In the eyes of the new eyes, the hippocampus can expand rapidly, mainly for two reasons: first, accurately lock the crowd; second, the new operating model of "light, fast and simple".

Before 2014, the photo studio market has long been a red sea, a variety of photo photos emerge in an endless stream, portrait photography has not been taken seriously, the hippocampus keenly captured: there are many people who take ID photos, but none of them can achieve chain branding. As a result, the hippocampus targets young people born after 80 years. In the past, idiosyncrasies lacked boutiques, and when taking photos, they also lacked a sense of ceremony, and the pursuit of beauty became the new needs of the younger generation, and under the new consumption trend, the emergence of hippocampus just fits the consumption motivation of this generation.

Unlike other brands, the hippocampus initially focused only on the segment of ID photographs.

"Starting from small pain points, making it super professional, it can also be one of the best in the country and expand to a large scale." In the view of Huang Yihan, the founder of the hippocampus, the main reason for the success of the hippocampus is to solve the pain point of the user's ID photo is not beautiful, and few brands really solve this problem, even if someone solves it, but does not optimize this model to be quickly copied.

In general, the operation of the hippocampus is mainly divided into "three steps":

Take ID photos as a starting point to create a photo studio in the context of the new era. In April 2015, the hippocampus independently developed an online reservation system, becoming the first photo studio in the subdivision industry to adopt the "online reservation + offline experience" model.

Diversified marketing ideas, limited IP caused by self-dissemination: Hippocampus Photo Studio cooperates with specific festivals such as Christmas and New Year to launch seasonal limited products. In the study, Xinyan found that in 2020, the #Hippocampus Christmas Photo #Weibo topic was read more than 430 million times, and there were many netizens sharing content under the topic: selfies in the store, pictures of the results, video clips of the shooting process, etc. In the Little Red Book, the Notes related to the Hippocampus Christmas Photos reached more than 30,000, and the hottest likes reached 40,000.

Good use of new media tools.

On the one hand, the hippocampus accumulates users through WeChat and Weibo, using tweets and message lottery, and then attracts users through explosive products and converts them into consumers. Similar to Perfect Diary, little red book is a key step in the layout of the hippocampus, and the little red book is amassed with a large number of fashionable and discerning young users and mid-rise KOLs.

On the other hand, the hippocampus also uses the star endorsement to attract the attention of consumers, and selects the new generation of post-95s small flower Jiang Zixin as the spokesperson, and in the following two years, the hippocampus has found a different star experience officer, Zhang Ruonan and Zhou are also among them. At the same time, the hippocampus body frequently launched topics on Weibo and Douyin positions, and successively invited topic figures such as Yoko Spicy and Chen Ming as experience officers or lucky ambassadors.

It can be seen that the use of traffic influencers and KOL content as the tipping point is the key to the marketing logic of the hippocampus.

< h1 toutiao-origin="h2" > second, the root cause of the high premium of the hippocampus</h1>

Making complex things light and making simple ones heavy is the main idea of the hippocampus.

Haima weight betting on aesthetics, sense of ceremony, from the beginning to invest a lot of cost and time to do brand building and cultural content value shaping, in the product category, store decoration, brand building and surrounding to achieve a unified pace, to ID photos as an example, the new eye found that the hippocampus body for customers to provide customized clothing, high quality, complete size, rich style, and regular cleaning of each piece of clothing, to ensure that the clothing is clean and tidy, with fragrance.

In terms of makeup styling, Hippocampus Photo Studio insists on using first-line brand-name cosmetics, lipstick is ysl and mac, eyeliner is mistine red tube, lotion is muji, foundation is make up forever, isolation is Ranji, lip balm is Ranji lip mask repair, and all makeup artists have been systematically trained.

This is also where the hippocampus differs the most from ordinary photo studios.

Through the hippocampus, it also explains the reason for the premium of the hippocampus. The question is, why do these costs of the hippocampus make users pay for it? The reasons are: First, it satisfies the consumer's "sense of life ritual"; second, it cleverly uses the marketing game of "being good to yourself".

In this regard, Huang Yihan, the founder of hippocampus, has publicly stated, "The previous photographic experience was not like this, but we hope that it is more lightweight and worthy of being cherished." Following Huang Yihan's logic, the key reason why consumers are willing to pay for the hippocampus is to do the "service" to the extreme.

This is easy to think of Haidilao, which is known for its service, as a TOP-level hot pot player, the price of Haidilao is also higher than that of the same type: according to the financial report, Haidilao's per capita 110 yuan is twice as expensive as ordinary hot pot, and the premium part lies in the service.

Similar to Haidilao, The Hippocampus adopts a full membership system "1 to 1" reception, helping customers to complete the connection and coordination of various processes in the shooting, providing brand promotion, art museum introduction, product introduction and other services, providing high-end professional and highly "humane" services for each customer, which is also the reason for the high premium of the hippocampus.

< h1 toutiao-origin="h2" > three, the "futuristic" of the camera</h1>

On the road to standardization, the hippocampus is not all smooth sailing.

When the chain has become a trend of exquisite idiosyncrasys, taking a delicate ID photo often requires makeup artists, stylists, photographers and retouchers to take turns, the requirements for professionalism are relatively high, and the mode of chain stores can solve the problem of unification of training and shooting standards with one click.

Shooting is from the online reservation to start, after entering the store is registration, clothing selection, makeup, shooting, film repair, filming, these processes have been standardized, the advantages are very obvious, on the other hand, the shortcomings are also exposed, "assembly line shooting" does not reflect personal characteristics, the film rate is not high.

This means that the hippocampus pattern is not inherently complex.

Xinyan found in the survey that on content sharing platforms such as Xiaohongshu, some consumers also expressed dissatisfaction with the hippocampus, "the hippocampus is particularly routine and stereotyped", "I like to round my face a little, but they habitually put the face P tip, the arm P thin, the shoulder P narrow, and finally I became a thinner head", "That day I went to the later stage, the retoucher told me that the hippocampus is to repair the atrium too long", "the hippocampus is grinning, feeling good and fake".

This is also a point for the new generation of photo studios to balance.

It is true that quantitative standards can ensure the uniformity and stability of store quality across the country, but at the same time, they will also weaken the care of customer characteristics and personalities. Relatively speaking, the Z era emphasizes quality, experience, service, and sharing in consumption, and also has its own pursuit in experience, design, and quality, and the same makeup and uniform action of the hippocampus are difficult to ensure the continuity of the circle.

In fact, The hippocampus also saw the drawbacks of the photo studio business, and in July last year, it was officially announced that "WINDCCI, a beauty brand under Mantu Photography, was officially listed." According to incomplete statistics (Taobao website), windcci foundation liquid in the three months after the launch, the monthly sales of only 455 people to pay, lipstick only less than 20 people to pay."

It can be seen that in the field of photographic derivation, the radiation capacity of hippocampus IP is limited. An awkward crossroads is what the hippocampus is facing at the moment: if it undergoes a drastic transformation, it deviates from its foundation of "standardized reproduction of beauty"; if it only relies on continuous shooting series to expand the market, the ceiling is not high.

Author:Wang Yun,Editor:Sang Mingqiang,WeChat public account:新绖(ID:xinmouls)

This article was originally published by @New Eye on Everyone is a Product Manager. Reproduction without permission is prohibited

The title image is from Unsplash, based on the CC0 protocol