Source of this article: Time Weekly Author: Deng Yuchen
The ice pier debuted at its peak, surpassing a number of star athletes and becoming the "most beautiful boy" of the Beijing Winter Olympics.
Since the opening of the Winter Olympics, this cool-looking cute panda circle has countless fans. Ice piers are highly sought after by the market, "a pier is difficult to find". Whether it is the "second light" of online stores or the long queues of offline licensed goods stores, they all show consumers' love for this mascot.
This surprised the design team of the ice pier. On February 7, Ye Ziqi, one of the main creative designers of the ice pier and a teacher at the School of Visual Arts and Design of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, said in an interview with the Times Weekly reporter that "one pier is difficult to find" was unexpected, "the most unexpected thing is that there are so many athletes and spectators abroad who also like it so much." ”
Ye Ziqi said that he received more than ten phone calls from relatives and friends, all of whom asked him for ice piers, "A few years ago, our design team had sent out a batch, and now we don't have it in our hands, and I am also grabbing goods." Ye Ziqi replied with a smile.
Since the appearance of the first Olympic mascot Schuss in 1968, the Olympic mascot has become an important carrier of Olympic culture, reflecting the historical culture and humanistic spirit of the host city. The "mascot economy" also came into being.
Peripheral derivatives from the 2008 Beijing Olympics generated a record economic value of US$160 million ( about 1.1 billion yuan ) . The research report of Shanxi Securities predicts that throughout the Winter Olympics cycle, the revenue of licensed commodities will exceed 2.5 billion yuan.
The ice piers are more minimalistic
The explosion of the ice pier is unexpected but reasonable.
In Ye Ziqi's view, compared with the mascots of the previous Olympic Games, the design of the ice pier is more simple, "the mascot is designed and created based on the panda, combining the image of the panda with the super energy ice crystal shell, reflecting the characteristics of winter ice and snow sports and modern science and technology." ”
The design scheme of the Mascot of the Winter Olympics evolves
At the same time, the design team took inspiration from the "Ice Ribbon" of the National Speed Skating Hall and designed the "Ice Ribbon" on the face of the ice pier, also known as the "Energy Ring". Combined with the ice crystal shell, it is also like a spacesuit, symbolizing the progress of Chinese science and technology. "We use very small elements to represent a big meaning," Ms. Ye said.
According to Ye Ziqi, the ice pier is also quite popular with children, "In the middle and late stages of the design, the organizing committee invited about 200 primary and secondary school students to paste all the candidate programs on the wall, and the ice pier scored the highest, which also indirectly affected the organizing committee's recognition of the ice pier plan." Ye Ziqi said.
Recently, many friends contacted Ye Ziqi and asked him if he could buy an "ice pier". Ye Ziqi contacted the staff of the franchise store she had known in Beijing before, and the other party replied: "Teacher Ye, don't ask any more, the store counters are all empty." ”
Ye Ziqi, one of the main creators of the ice pier
How to have an "ice pier" has become a problem for many netizens.
On the afternoon of February 7, the ice pier hand office opened online pre-sale, and more than 1,000 handmade were "instantaneously empty". In the official flagship store of Tmall Olympics, derivatives such as handmade and keychains related to ice piers are not in stock.
In order to prevent scalpers from scalping, keywords such as "Winter Olympics" and "Ice Pier" cannot be retrieved on the second-hand item resale platform. However, many netizens still said that there are still many "scalpers" in the circle of friends who are selling the peripheral products of the ice pier at a higher price.
Some scalpers even said that due to the continuous popularity of the ice pier market, consumers who have bought the ice pier from him can "sell it to me at a higher price", "wait until a few days of mass production and then buy one at a low price", and "back and forth can still make money in vain".
A "scalper" showed the "price list" of the resale to the Times Weekly reporter, and the official price of the "ice pier" keychain of 68 yuan was priced at 270,708 yuan, and the blind box of the "ice pier" was opened at 3100 yuan. On the "Idle Fish" App, the original price of 328 yuan of "ice pier" and "snow Rongrong" dolls asked for 1888 yuan after changing hands, and the price doubled nearly 6 times.
On February 6, at a regular press conference at the Beijing Winter Olympics, a press spokesman said that it was attaching great importance to the problem of "one pier is difficult to find" because the factory was on vacation during the Spring Festival holiday and was vigorously coordinating to increase the supply of ice piers.
Find out Fuwa and cheer up
The explosion of the ice pier has turned over a new boom in Fuwa, the mascot of the Beijing Olympic Games 14 years ago.
In 1968, the skier "Shuss", the mascot of the Winter Olympics in Grenoble, France, was the first mascot in the history of the Olympic Games.
But it is the Americans who really make the mascot a "cash cow". During the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, organizers produced and publicly sold more than 10 million copies of sam the eagle.
In 2004, the design of the Athens Olympic mascot took a different approach, creating two mascots based on ancient Greek myths and legends——— "Athena" and "Favors", and the organizers also earned a huge fortune of 200 million US dollars.
During the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, derivatives around the Olympic Games achieved an economic value of 160 million US dollars (about 1.1 billion yuan) during the Olympic Games, setting a record for the Olympic Games, and "Beibei", "Jingjing", "Huanhuan", "Welcome" and "Nini" also entered thousands of households in China.
The Times Weekly reporter noted that in recent days, with the explosion of the ice pier, the number of users who shot the peripheral products of "Fuwa" on the Idle Fish App has increased significantly. Many Fuwa dolls are even "brand new and unopened".
One seller said: "Although there is no ice pier, I got Fuwa back to cheer for China." Another seller, Li Bing (pseudonym), told the Times Weekly reporter that it is precisely because of the popularity of the "ice pier" that she has the idea of selling the Fuwa doll, the original price of 498 yuan doll suit, Li Bing's psychological expected price is 200 yuan, "also want to try it, it doesn't matter if you can't sell it."
Li Bing said the 25-centimeter Fuwa doll was a souvenir brought back to her by her parents when they traveled to Beijing in 2008 and has not been unsealed. "At that time, I was young, my parents thought of playing with me when I was older, so I put it up, and then we all forgot about it", until a few days before the Winter Olympics, Li Bing saw the news of "a pier is difficult to find", and then remembered this set of Fuwa dolls.