Wen | Li Xiaoxia Editor| Qiao Qian
In addition to Lingna Belle, which makes people queue up for six or seven hours in the morning, it can also be an ice pier.
With the opening of the Winter Olympics, a panda wearing a transparent ice crystal shell, a colorful halo around its head, and an astronaut-like panda swept the network and became the new top stream in China. It is the mascot of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, with a name with its own temperament - Bing Dwen (Bing Dwen), debuted for more than 2 years, but in recent days unexpectedly became popular.
In just a few days, it has frequently appeared on Weibo's hot search, and its every move can trigger heated discussions. Since February 4, there have been nearly 100 hot searches related to ice piers on Weibo, of which the topic of #ice piers has reached 3.42 billion, triggering 1.07 million discussions. In addition, the ice pier also has its own super talk, which has long ranked no.1 in sports super talk.
In order to buy an ice pier, people waited in line for six or seven hours from one or two o'clock in the morning to the cold of minus a few degrees. According to media reports, almost all offline Winter Olympic licensed merchandise stores in Beijing are overcrowded. Like the Wangfujing store, since February 3, it has received nearly 10,000 customers every day, and has adopted measures to limit the flow and purchase of the store. Even if you survive the terrifying dragon, whether you can buy it is still like opening a blind box depends on luck.
The surrounding products of the ice pier mainly include blind boxes, plush toys, ornaments, key pendants, badges, commemorative medals, satchels, etc. Among them, blind boxes, plush toys, ornaments are the most popular, ice pier blind box includes 1 hidden model and 6 ordinary models, the hidden ratio is 120/1, the official price is 118 yuan each. There are two types of ice pier ornaments, 10cm and 12cm, and the price is 88 yuan and 128 yuan respectively. Ice pier plush toys 12cm, 20cm, 22cm corresponding prices of 118 yuan, 192 yuan, 198 yuan. The relevant products of the Tmall Olympic official flagship store have long been sold out, and now there are limited pre-sales every day, and there are very few lucky ones who have grabbed it.
A "pier" is difficult to find led to the ice pier price continues to push up, taking the 20cm plush toy spot as an example, the price of scalpers has risen to 1500 yuan, a premium of nearly 8 times; non-spot price of 800 yuan, the delivery period of nearly 20 days. In order to realize the freedom of the ice pier, too many people are willing to spend money for it, and even the gold pier, which costs 33950 yuan, has been booked.
The heat of the ice piers has also been transmitted to the secondary market. Ice Pier IP authorized Fang Wentou Holdings and Yuanlong Yatu to harvest three consecutive stop-and-go boards from February 7 to February 9, and yen Longyatu rose and fell again on February 10.
Turning the clock back to a week ago is a different story. Some netizens said that last summer, they saw many places in Beijing that sold ice piers, which basically could not be sold, and even fell to ashes. Many people sighed: "There was once a large wave of ice piers in front of me, I did not cherish it, until I lost it and regretted it." ”
According to Baidu's "Baidu Hot Search Beijing Winter Olympics Big Data", the search popularity of the Beijing Winter Olympics far exceeds the same period of the previous two Winter Olympic Games, 1372% and 558% higher than the Sochi Winter Olympics and the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics respectively, and also exceeds the previous Summer Olympic Games after the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, 68% higher than the postponed Tokyo Olympic Games in 2021.
The explosion of the ice pier is undoubtedly brought about by the opening of the Winter Olympics, but it is not only that.
A counterattack by a rock candy panda
No one could resist the ice piers, presumably starting with a shaking snow GIF.
The ice piers shake the snow
The picture is from the symphony performance "Ice and Snow Shining Chinese Year" in the special design session of the 2022 CCTV Spring Festival Gala Winter Olympics, and the ice piers shake snow, the ice piers are high-fived, the ice piers are more than the heart, and the snow rong winks are all from here.
However, the ice pier in the show did not attract much attention at that time, until the day before the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics, the GIF expression of the ice pier trembling snow began to brush the screen on Weibo. This GIF injects the soul into the static panda image, so that the ice pier that originally looked dazed and stupid instantly became clever and cute, people were hit and gradually fell, many netizens said, "Across the screen can be cute, who can refuse a shivering snow ice pier, the heart will be melted." ”
However, the first impression of the ice pier is not "cute".
On September 17, 2019, the ice pier was officially announced to the public, and the evaluation it received on platforms such as Tiger Punch and Zhihu was "ugly". Netizens complained that he did not have a neck, his arms were long on his cheeks, the structure was strange, and the proportions were out of proportion. Many people feel that as a sports mascot, the action expression is humble, lack of vitality, and not flexible enough.
In the more than two years from the debut to the explosion, more people have no feeling for the ice pier, do not hate, and do not like it. Even many people did not know its existence until the ice pier fire spread all over the network.
Based on this, the popularity of the ice pier seems to have become a life-changing story of "a panda without passers-by, suddenly achieving word-of-mouth reversal".
Behind this, the frequently mentioned Japanese television reporter Yoshido Tsujioka.
On February 2, when he was preparing for the game, he was asked by the host if there was any update on figure skating in Japan, and he replied that there was only the latest information on the ice pier, and then opened his clothes to show the ice pier badge. Because of his obsession with ice piers, Tsujioka Yoshido people called "Yoshidunduns" and exploded on Chinese social media, as of now, #Japanese journalists buy too many ice pier badges to be spat on #Topic has been read by 540 million.
The follow-up of "Yidun Dun" is also constantly updated on the Internet, such as mailing the surrounding area of the ice pier back to Tokyo, hitting the ice pier to leave work, the success of star chasing and the ice pier "sticking" The latest news is that he already has 100 ice piers.
At first, netizens may still be out of curiosity to chase "'Yidun Pier' chasing stars", who knows that under his enthusiasm Amway, he found that the ice pier around the mound is indeed very cute - badges, ornaments have skiing, skating and other different sports styles, blind boxes have a variety of colors to dress, plush toys are not dull. Before that, everyone saw only a "ID photo" that was not so good-looking. As a result, these people, together with the fan leader "Yidundun", became the first core fans of the ice dundun fan circle.
Ice Pier New Year Special Edition
The various star-chasing live collections of Japanese journalists are like an idol talent show, and the people watching the show have gone crazy about the ice pier, but many people outside the show are still not familiar with it. The appearance of the shaking snow GIF makes the ice pier really break the circle.
For example, people's daily commented that with the popularity of videos such as "ice pier carmen" and "ice pier trembling snow", the "ice pier" as a mascot has gradually become static, no longer a simple cartoon image, but to capture interesting scenes, the use of animation film and television and other ways to present products that are more in line with the audience's concerns, and become an interactive anthropomorphic expression, highlighting creativity of the Olympic IP.
The suddenness of overnight fame was unexpected by the factory. Because "I didn't expect it to sell so well, I didn't dare to produce too much before", the scarcity of the ice pier further exacerbated its heat. The public began to participate in the creation of topics, creating memes, playing with stems, creating ice piers, and drying ice piers. Everything can be ice piers, everything is rubbing ice piers, ice piers hot search soaring, exposure effect further strengthens the cute people of ice piers, enhance people's good feelings about ice piers.
Since February 4, the hot search of the ice pier Weibo has been more than 10. On February 9, the number of hot search topics on the Weibo of The Ice Pier reached 25. Traffic stars live up to their name.
How long does the fire last?
Compared with live stars, the virtual animation image will not collapse, the human set can never collapse, there will be no out-of-line behavior, and it will not get tired of fans.
Disneyland has very strict requirements for the height and appearance of the actor, and stipulates that the faceless puppet character cannot speak, cannot take off the hood, and is not allowed to make actions that are contrary to the image of the animated character, even if they are pushed and beaten.
Recently, a video of the ice pier talking on the Internet, in the video, the ice pier doll made the voice of a middle-aged man, causing fans to resent. Subsequently, the official response of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics to the ice pier was false, and public opinion gradually subsided.
A similar thing also happened at the star chasing scene of "Yidundun", where he once bumped into the ice pier actor after work and looked desperate. On Douyin, there has also been a discussion of "how high the appearance of the ice pier actor is". In the eyes of fans, these practices will cause harm to the cute characters of the ice piers.
In addition to guarding the human design, how to maintain the heat of the long tail is also the next problem that the ice pier needs to solve.
The design of the mascot for the Winter Olympics began in 1968 at the 10th Winter Olympics in Grenoble. Designing a mascot for the Summer Olympics began at the Munich Olympics in 1972. Since then, the mascot has become the main component of the image characteristics of the Olympic Games.
The unveiling of the mascot of each Olympic Games has attracted the attention of the world and become the highlight of the current Olympic Games. As an important element of the olympic publicity, the mascot can be said to be one of the most exposed, attention and disseminated IP in the world. Relying on a world sports event, an IP image can quickly be known to the world. Like the ice pier on foreign social media has also aroused super high attention.
Moreover, the Olympic mascot has great economic value and can account for about 10% of the entire Olympic revenue. It is reported that the mascot of each Summer Olympic Games since the 21st century has brought at least $200 million in revenue to the organizers. Mascot licensed merchandise sales for the 2000 Sydney Olympics and the 2004 Athens Olympics reached $213 million and $201 million. Previously, Shanxi Securities had predicted that the revenue of licensed commodities represented by the surrounding area of the ice pier at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics would exceed 2.5 billion yuan.
However, looking back at the previous Olympic Games, all the mascots can hardly escape the fate of the Olympic Games, most of which are the result of the subsequent IP development not keeping up.
Will ice piers be an exception?
At least for now, the Beijing Winter Olympics Organizing Committee is already working hard to diversify its IP operations. On February 10, the Beijing Winter Olympics Organizing Committee licensed animation film "Our Winter Olympics" released the poster and trailer of the "Ice and Snow Rose" chapter, and the ice pier, snow Rongrong and Xiong Da, Xiong Er, and Bald Head Qiang were surprised in the same frame. It is reported that the film tells the story of many Chinese animation characters and the Winter Olympic mascot Ice Pier and the Winter Paralympic mascot Xue Rongrong around the Winter Olympic Village opening ceremony because of the encounter, which produced a multi-chapter story about unity, dreams, courage and hard work, and will be officially released on February 19. On February 18-20, the National Centre for the Performing Arts Theater will be the official licensed children's musical of the Beijing Winter Olympics Organizing Committee, "Ice and Snow Dream of Melting Snow on the Ice Pier".
Professor Cao Xue, head of the design team of "Ice Pier", said in an exclusive interview with the media that the target consumers of ice piers are all children around 9 years old. It turns out that this cute fat man is capturing people of all ages, which sends a signal to IP operators that the development of ice piers can have many possibilities.
At present, the top priority is to achieve "one person and one pier" as soon as possible.