How ice piers became top streams

Compared with the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games mascot Fuwa combination, the ice pier of the Winter Olympic mascot is now spreading across the country in a way that exceeds people's imagination.

In the digital world, the ice pier "dominates" many hot search entries, and countless short videos are about this cute red panda. As can be seen from various content distribution platforms, as long as the content involves ice piers, it can often harvest huge traffic.

On the morning of February 4, only 15 minutes after the official flagship store of Tmall Olympic was launched, 5,000 "ice piers" were sold out. The previous day, the number of visitors to the flagship store had exceeded one million.

Offline, in the early morning at the entrance of the Beijing Gongmei Building, there began to queue up to buy ice piers, so that the workers and artists who had seen the world all sighed in the circle of friends: "It's really on fire."

Of course, there are many factors that have attracted attention to the ice pier, such as it is the mascot of the Winter Olympics that attracted worldwide attention after the epidemic, such as its design is really cute and pleasing. But objectively speaking, the various mascots on many other occasions have not been able to enjoy the "top stream" treatment of today's ice piers.

The ice pier can enter the "legal eye" of the discerning young people, and there is also a factor of "favorable time and place" that has been overlooked.

You know, even Bubble Mart, which just experienced a stock price plunge in early February, has a market value of more than 50 billion Hong Kong dollars today, and its most iconic product is the Molly doll handmade. If we put the ice pier in this perspective, it is not difficult to understand why it has gained the favor of young people: its panda-shaped doll design fully meets all the definitions of toys that are currently trendy.

In addition, with the blessing of the national tide heat, compared with The Molly of Bubble Mart, the ice pier will only be more than enough. According to the "Research Report on the Consumption Trend of China's Generation Z Handmade" released by Station B and iResearch Consulting, as a generation that grew up under the influence of Guochao culture, more than 50% of the respondents purchased Guochuang Animation Handmade in 2020, and with the continuous innovation and expansion of Guochuang IP Handmade in design, process and sales platform, it is foreseeable that the Guochuang IP Handmade Market has great potential.

Another heavy driving force is that, according to previous media reports, the transparency requirements of the ice pier product itself are extremely high, and it is very difficult in the silicone process, and the structural design of the mold, mold opening, mold trial, debugging, production, ice ribbon production, and raw material materials are a challenge. As a result, there are currently only 20 employees in a production plant producing ice piers, and according to the existing molds, it can only produce 800 a day.

Handmade shape, sophisticated craftsmanship, limited edition production... A mixture of factors has made the ice pier go beyond the simple Setting of the Olympic mascot and become a phenomenon-level IP product that captures young people.

In fact, it is not just the ice pier, on February 8, the "genius girl" Gu Airing, who played in the Winter Olympics for the first time, won the gold on the day, the handmade designed by her image, and the collection commemorative value also soared. Migu Sports's official website Weibo said that Gu Ailing's peripheral handmade products sold out in seconds.

When China's per capita GDP has reached the threshold of high-income countries, for the post-00s who grew up in the era of extreme material abundance, they are not only redefining the connotation of toys, but also shaping a new consumer market of 100 billion. According to report data, in 2020, more than 200,000 consumers spent more than 20,000 yuan on the blind box of the trendy toy, and even some people spent millions of dollars to buy. The "hard to find" of the ice pier is one of the waves at the peak of this boom.

Whether the "front wave" is willing to admit it or not, the commercial influence of Generation Z, including the post-95s and post-00s, is growing day by day, and a consumer blue ocean that needs to be "customized" according to their needs is gradually appearing above the horizon. This is a new opportunity and a greater challenge for decision makers in consumer brands and businesses.