Text | Wu Yiyi, author | Ear East Chen
Human beings cannot escape the true fragrance.
In the year when the ice pier came out, the voice of disgusting the panda with no neck and no novelty when the mascot came and went.
According to conventional thinking, it debuted in the Winter Olympics, fat to Carmen, and should be ridiculed by the group. As a result, in the one-sided "so cute" sound, the ice pier became a top stream.
Red for half a month, causing more than 10,000 people to empty the alley, there was a suspected collapse of the house controversy, was used to benchmark Ling Na Bell (are the top stream without works), and became the protagonist of the first mascot animation movie in the history of the Olympic Games, "Our Winter Olympics"...
The trajectory of the pier, the ups and downs.
Different from the Fuwa of that year, the ice pier as the Olympic mascot IP, in addition to promoting the Olympic Games and the Olympic knowledge function, the image is not simply an Olympic cartoon.
The Winter Olympics will finally come to an end, but the dividends eaten by the ice piers and the overturned cars are still used in China's IP operations.
01 Behind the "collapsed house" accident, IP operations have to make up lessons
I still remember when the Beijing Olympic mascot Fuwa was first born (2005), this elementary school student discussed whether the five Fuwa were male or female at the front and back tables.
At that time, it was only known that Fuwa's name was taken from the "Beijing Welcome you" harmonic sound, and then according to the color harmony, the brain supplemented the gender.
Later, the cartoon "Fuwa" (2007) came out, making it clear that Babe and Nini were girls, and Jingjing, Huanhuan, and Yingying were boys, and this speculation was over.
At that time, I didn't think it was outrageous to find out the gender of the Olympic mascot, nor did I realize that this was a manifestation of excessive voyeurism for virtual IP, but I just thought it was a rich conversation between classes.
It wasn't until this year that the ice pier under the head cover made an adult man's voice that I realized that curiosity could not only kill cats, but also make the cuteness of the mascot disappear.
Looking through the relevant information, I found that the Olympic Charter had long stipulated that mascots were genderless and could not speak.
The underlying logic of this provision is in line with the Olympic spirit that "everyone should have the possibility to play sports without discrimination of any kind, and embody mutual understanding, friendship, solidarity and fair competition".
As for why the mascot can't open his mouth, it is because once he speaks, he will expose his gender.
"Fuwa" animation is a joint production of CCTV Animation Co., Ltd. and Shenzhen Phoenix Star Film and Television Media Co., Ltd., which was completed before the 08 Olympic Games, and the main purpose is to popularize the century-old Olympic history and Olympic spirit to the public.
Although the mascot in the cartoon has a gender, after the opening of the Olympic Games, Fuwa in the main venue will not speak and has no gender.
However, as the Olympic Games kicked off in full swing, the public's eyes were attracted by various events, and Beibei Jingjing welcomed Nini at the scene.
Therefore, the small-scale knowledge of the mascot IP genderless has become a hidden thunder in the operation of virtual IP.
The reporter who wore an ice pier hood to interview freestyle skier Yang Shuorui stepped on the thunder.
This incident exposes two levels of problems:
First, during the Olympic Games, in addition to specific puppet players, who else has the right to use mascot dolls, and what kind of basic training to go through before using them, is missing in China.
Second, jumping out of the context of the Winter Olympics, the collapse of the ice piers exposes China's virtual IP operation road, and has not yet formed a clear general knowledge environment.
The puppet actor can not open his mouth, in China's virtual IP operation, is not widely recognized concept.
Although there is no shortage of posts on the Little Red Book about the weight of the Popular Science Disney doll hood, calling on the public to treat the dolls well, and not attacking the dolls with their hands, what can not be done under the hood is vague.
Following the opening of the ice pier, the male reporter took off his hood in the show, and the serial collapse began.
A host asked the audience, "Aren't you curious about the handsome guys in the ice mound?" On the Little Red Book, there are ice pier puppets who play "complete the task"...
It is not difficult to find that the purpose of these actions is to have further interaction with the audience.
But a very important reason why dolls are sought after by the masses is that they are containers for people's "fantasy cuteness".
The real person appears, breaking people's imagination of cuteness.
The regular operation of Chinese-style virtual IP still stays on animation characters such as Sun Wukong Nezha Happy Sheep and Bear, and it is the mainstream operation idea that people who are real, concrete, and cloaked in animal skins are the mainstream operation ideas.
But in fact, the environment has changed.
02 Rollover highlights, turn over the three-dimensional image
In fact, whether a virtual character can speak is not directly attractive to the audience.
From the 2014 Nanjing Youth Olympic Games mascot "Silicon" because it is too ugly to be created by netizens out of the circle, to Kumamoto Bear's hot China, Lingna Bell Chengchuan sand female star, and then to today's ice pier, all the way down to show one thing - when the influence of virtual IP is no longer bound by time and space, the audience can interact through symbols, its appeal depends on the audience's application of IP symbols.
To put it simply, in the overall context of today's Internet breakthrough time and space, the more three-dimensional the personality of an IP, the more it can stimulate the enthusiasm of the audience to interact, the more the audience's deconstruction and secondary creation of its image, the more supplements to the humanization of IP.
Take the ice pier, the Olympic mascot is its identity, fat is its physical characteristics, taking the elevator, walking is its anthropomorphic behavior, fat to the elevator is stuck by the door, is its difference.
"Carmen" embodies its fatness and forms a certain comedy, so fat as a basis point, there is a possibility of emitting more laughter.
When netizens queued up for hours to buy back the ice pier by hand, and then dismantled its ice sugar shell and saw a fatter ice pier, they formed an intertextual with the ice pier stuck by the door.
From a silent doll to a container for people's emotions, tracing back to the source is just a feature of the shape of the ice pier.
There are many funny scenes on the Internet, such as the ice pier Carmen, the ice pier 1A jump to turn yourself dizzy, the ice pier to spin off the shoes, the ice pier sneak attack to escape and be moved by the snow and many other funny scenes.
Even if you can't get the cute people on the ice pier, you will still be amused by this cute panda after watching the collection.
As the Mascot of the Olympic Games, it does not have a good body, people are addicted to food when exercising, some naughty and stupid from time to time, these specific and generalizable characteristics are put together to form a three-dimensional image of the ice pier.
Compared with fuwa, which has more "superhuman" attributes in the pre-Internet era, the ice pier, as the Olympic mascot, has a weaker sense of preaching and a stronger ability to empathize.
03 Managing children's hearts, the destination of the phenomenon is culture
After the Winter Olympics, will the heat of the ice pier continue?
The objective fact is that the heat dissipates.
Unlike Disney IP Lingna Bell, which can be operated for a long time, the Olympic mascot has a business period.
The Olympic Charter stipulates that the organizer of the Olympic Games shall have full right to use the mascot during the preparation and celebration of the Olympic Games, provided that after the completion of the Olympic Games, all rights in or in connection with all rights in or relating to the emblem, mascot and other emblems, motifs, emblems, posters, objects and documents shall be fully owned by the IOC and shall serve only the interests of the IOC in this regard.
This is also the reason why the mascots of the Olympic Games in various countries have finally become history.
Rao is so, the ice pier phenomenon still explores the way for China's virtual IP.
The design of the ice pier was originally beneficial to children aged 8-10, and eventually it can form a huge wave on social media and become the dream of young people, and it is not difficult to see the huge potential of the children's heart market.
For the fast-paced young people, the cute culture itself has its own healing properties, and the round-headed anthropomorphic small animals/dolls can stimulate protection and alleviate loneliness.
In the increasingly fragmented information age, for young people, it has become more and more luxurious to use a complete time to understand a grand IP with a world view, and being able to hit the fragmented output of emotions is the key point affecting young people.
Riding on the east wind of the Winter Olympics, the ice pier sprouts out of the circle, and then in a short and fast way, showing a variety of "cuteness", as long as the underlying logic of the output is unified, then it does not have to tell a complete story, and the audience will piece it together.
The consistent and different cuteness induces interactivity and the desire to buy.
The louder the discussion of the ice piers, the higher the attention to the Olympics. On the surface, it is a top-flow effect, but in fact, it is the Olympic culture that lays the foundation.
Imagine that without the weight of the Winter Olympics itself, how much can a cartoon panda pry up?
The same goes for Lingna Bell.
Chuansha Fox Essence superficially relies on its face to go out of the circle to charm everyone, endorsing its beauty and cuteness, or Disney's nearly hundred years of childlike management.
Wang Ning, the founder of Bubble Mart, defined the tide play attribute as, "It hollows out its own soul, you can put your soul into it, this is the tide play."
It is necessary to be vigilant that relying on designer inspiration and marketing methods, if there is no more universal and deep cultural foundation, once the design or marketing is not right, it will also have a fatal impact on IP.
Temporary, virtual IP with no specific story and only its own characteristics can form a phenomenon of a certain amount of sound.
Just as viewers and consumers invest their emotions in fragmented materials, the audience's attraction is also prone to disappear with the loss of emotions and imagination.
Therefore, if virtual IP wants to develop from a phenomenon to a culture, emotional stickiness is still the foundation.
Emotions fill in the fragments, marketing to a certain extent, still need story rescue.
As the first mascot movie protagonist in the history of the Olympic Games, the story of the ice pier is linked to a number of influential national comic IP, and it will be integrated into their own short films by the "Bear Haunting" team, the "Inhuman" team, the puppet animation team, and the Shanghai Fine Arts Film Studio.
At that time, the ice pier will no longer be the top stream without works, and he will use the AI imitation of the giant panda to play the first real sound greeting with the world.
Not to mention how watchable the film "Our Winter Olympics" is, this move is a peak of the mascot career of the ice pier, and it is also a prelude to the end of the Winter Olympics.
The ice pier is a popular IP phenomenon derived from the Olympic culture.
The development of IP in China not only needs one phenomenon after another, but also finds a way to develop into culture from the dividends that the phenomenon has enjoyed and the thunder that has been stepped on.