At 10:00 p.m. on February 10, the international creative studio LINE FRIENDS Chengdu Sino-Ocean Taikoo Li store closed, which also means that line friends closed its last offline store in the Chinese mainland market after Nanjing, Hangzhou, Shanghai and other places.
▲LINE FRIENDS Chengdu Sino-Ocean Taikoo Li store has been closed
It is understood that LINE FRIENDS was founded in 2011, originated from the mobile communication software "LINE" memes, was first born in South Korea as a sticker character, and consisted of 11 members including BROWN, CONY, and Sally Chicken. Among them, the most famous is the Brown Bear.
So why did LINE FRIENDS, which was once all the rage, close its stores? How can IP culture achieve long-term results? What kind of wind will the "Korean Wave" usher in? With questions in mind, Red Star News reporters conducted a visit to investigate.
Traceability:
Consumers: Slow peripheral updates, expensive prices, and decreased IP attractiveness
According to the data, line FRIENDS has opened stores in popular business districts such as Shanghai Huaihai Road, Chengdu Sino-Ocean Taikoo Li, hangzhou Hubin Yintai in77 and so on since it entered the Chinese market in 2015. According to statistics, the brand has 12 stores operated in China.
However, in the past two years, the popularity of this brand has begun to decline. At the beginning of 2020, the LINE FRIENDS store of Hangzhou Hubin Yintai was closed; in May last year, line FRIENDS on Huaihai Road in Shanghai was closed; in November last year, the Nanjing store LINE FRIENDS was closed... On February 28, the reporter came to LINE FRIENDS (Chengdu Ocean Taikoo Li Store) and found that the Brown Bear and Ke ni rabbits that were previously placed at the door had also been moved.
In the face of the wave of store closures at LINE FRIENDS, how do consumers feel? The reporter contacted some netizens in the Weibo super talk #LINE FRIENDS#. "The things in the offline store are really too expensive, and the small pendants are 49 yuan." In fact, I still like Brown Bears, but I won't buy any more. A design aesthetics blogger told reporters. And the surrounding update speed is slow, and the new product creativity is not strong. The feeling is to add a pattern, change a look, it is difficult to attract consumers. Another netizen said.
In addition to high commodity prices and slow updates, LINE FRIENDS' IP image also faces the problem of "breaking the circle". "When I was in high school, because I was chasing Korean groups, they were all using Line. I followed the trend of the software, using its memes, and at the time I especially liked Sally chicken and thought it was cute. A girl who studied in South Korea said. However, with more and more domestic IP, "there are too many soft and cute images like sari chicken, and gradually they are not so liked." Now the little blue man and the little Liu duck emoji are also very cute. ”
However, the competitive pressure facing LINE FRIENDS is not limited to the rise of the domestic market. "I prefer another Korean IP, kakao friends. His peripheral design is better than Line's, and kakao's IP is more popular than Line's. When I was in Korea before, I saw that Kakao's offline store was particularly crowded. Another girl who studied in South Korea said.
adjust:
In the future, online retail will be the mainstay, and offline stores will be more inclined to interactive experiences
In the face of these problems, what changes will line FRIENDS's business model change in the future? The reporter noted that although offline stores are no longer open, flagship stores on Taobao, Tmall and other platforms are still in normal business.
▲Screenshot of the product of the LINE FRIENDS flagship store on Taobao
When asked about the reason for the closure, Taobao store customer service said, "Due to the overall strategic layout of LINE FRIENDS, LINE FRIENDS will comprehensively carry out digital strategic layout and develop content-centric digital assets in the future." The customer service added that the offline experience model will no longer be dominated by offline stores, but will be developed into a pop-up store model authorized by theme spaces and cooperation with commercial real estate, and will continue to explore and innovate, and develop a variety of forms of offline interactive experience, presenting more surprises to fans.
▲Screenshot of Taobao customer service
As for when the offline experience store will start to use, will it be available in Chengdu? The customer service said that it has not received the notification yet. "But we're going to keep launching some new products online, and the recent mini collection is very popular." According to him, the consumer group of this product is mainly the Baoma group, and the sales volume has exceeded thousands.
It is understood that the key direction of LINE FRIENDS in the future will also involve the maternal and infant market. "Line Friends and Uniqlo's joint short sleeves are very good, 79 yuan a piece. I also bought two sets of parent-child suits. If there are new products later, we will also consider buying them. Bao Mama Ms. Huang told reporters.
unscramble:
The "cold" of the Korean Wave is closely related to the change of consumer culture ecology
LINE FRIENDS is completely closed in the Chinese mainland market, is it a signal that the Korean Wave is gradually fading? Other Tide brands in South Korea have also closed their stores before. According to reports, as of now, the stores of Korean makeup brand Innisfree in China have shrunk by nearly 80%, from more than 800 at the peak to about 140. Etude House, another beauty brand owned by Amorepacific Group, completely closed all offline stores in the Chinese market in March 2021. In response to this phenomenon, ren Xiang, a lecturer in the Korean Department of Beijing University of Foreign Chinese, believes that this is closely related to the change of domestic consumer culture ecology.
LINE FRIENDS, which "goes out of the loop" with memes, has difficulty reacting to the catch-up of trend culture. "First of all, the trend culture itself evolves too quickly, especially the 'trendy term' of memes, which has a short use cycle and is easily replaced. Secondly, the IP image of LINE FRIENDS cannot reach emotional resonance with domestic consumer groups for a long time. ”
In this regard, Ren Xiang explained, "The direction of culture is difficult to control. Line FRIENDS launched a cute culture, and then it can also evolve into silly, mournful, stupid and other images. And in these domestic IP designs, we have also seen a lot of similar competitors. He stressed that in this process of competition, if Korean companies cannot keenly capture the current fashion elements, consumers' choices may be more inclined to the national tide.
In addition, in his view, "actively breaking the circle" is also another path for the K-pop tide brand to seek development. "This requires developers to focus more on product iteration. That is to say, it is necessary to pay attention to the changes in cultural trends and to have the courage to introduce new designs. ”
Zhou Xiaolei, an associate professor of Korean at the University of Foreign Chinese in Beijing, added that the popular trend of Korean culture is actually difficult to predict, "but according to the data of the Beijing Trade Pavilion of the Korea Trade and Investment Promotion Corporation (Kotra), it is expected that food, beauty and other related products will become the mainstream of consumption this year." ”
Red Star News reporter Zheng Ran Huang Panpan photo report
Edited by Tan Wangyu
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