World online merchant Yang Yuexin
Edited by Wang Shiqi
The Year of the Rabbit is coming, and innocent and cute rabbits have become an excellent theme for the development of Chinese zodiac culture IP. In this PK competition of the "Year of the Rabbit", the "national team" performed brilliantly. Rabbit tuantuan, jade rabbit, rabbit star, rabbit dun dun... Recently, all kinds of "cute" Rabbit Year peripheral products have stood in the "C position".
This year, China Central Radio and Television Station launched the Spring Festival Gala mascot "Rabbit Yuanyuan" and the cultural and creative rabbit zodiac image "Rabbit Tuantuan". The video number broadcast of the Spring Festival Gala also hung up the link of two rabbits, and the sales volume exceeded 10,000 pieces.
On January 22, Lunar New Year's Day, "Rabbit Tuantuan" appeared on Taobao's hot search list, and its popularity soared by 611%. There are netizens in Xiaohongshu who excitedly posted screenshots of the order: "I also have a rabbit tuantuan, it's really good-looking."
On the second night of the Lunar New Year, the "Jade Little Rabbit" cultural and creative gift box launched by China Aerospace Cultural and Creative (CASCI) appeared in the live broadcast room of Lie'er Baby. Sharp-eyed netizens found: "Isn't this the little rabbit who showed one ear in the Spring Festival Gala space New Year's greeting??" That night, 200 jade rabbit gift boxes were sold out as soon as they were launched, and aerospace cultural creativity temporarily communicated with the factory to push an additional 300.
Wang Junyi, head of the content department of the China Aerospace Cultural and Creative (CASCI) Center, told Tianxia Netizen that "it is the result of accumulation that there will be so many rabbit cultural and creative products this year." Traditional culture and "high cold" scientific and technological elements, through the little rabbit to win the love of young people, behind the hidden design of cultural and creative products and the promotion of innovation.
The "rabbit content" of cultural and creative products soared
On December 17, 2022, Chang'e-5 successfully returned to Earth with lunar samples. But people don't know that a space rabbit also took the opportunity to follow the returner to Earth - this is the "origin" created by China Aerospace Culture and Creative (CASCI) for the "jade rabbit".
As an "alien creature", Jade Rabbit wears a white spacesuit, with a serious expression and a sense of technology. Wang Junyi introduced, "In the past, cultural and creative products in the aerospace field were mainly models such as space rockets and air defense missiles, which were relatively cold, and there were many restrictions on national heavy weapons, so I wanted to create an original IP that could reflect aerospace elements and be cute and vivid." A few days ago, the first batch of more than 20,000 "jade rabbits" just walked out of the factory, and it is expected that the annual sales can reach 100,000.
China Aerospace Culture and Creative (CASCI) once considered using space experimental animals such as puppies or monkeys as IP prototypes, "Later, we thought that China's lunar exploration project was the 'Chang'e Project', and the traditional allusions of Chang'e Moon, Guanghan Palace and Jade Rabbit were also well-known, so we decided to design around the image of 'Jade Rabbit'." ”
Also based on the jade rabbit, connecting traditional and future aerospace technology IP, there is also the space rabbit "Rabbit Star" launched by China Lunar Exploration Aerospace. Guo Zhihao, head of the operator of China's lunar exploration aerospace IP system, introduced that the image of the rabbit star combines the traditional moon palace jade rabbit with modern astronauts, integrating national engineering, hardcore science and technology with trend culture. Rabbit star means "jade rabbit patrol the moon, sail the starry river", and its English name "To star" means the journey of aerospace science and technology, the sea of stars, and the dream of the Chinese nation for thousands of years to explore the moon.
Wang Junyi mentioned that IP images previously developed around traditional culture often encountered difficulties in the commercialization process of not being able to register trademarks. Therefore, Yu Xiaotu draws on the mature experience of the Western IP industry when designing, and does not "copy" characters or animal images from history, but designs new original characters and integrates them into familiar scenes.
Cultural associations about rabbits are not just moon rabbits. "Rui Ying Tu" records: "Red Rabbit Da Rui, White Rabbit Zhong Rui". Since ancient times, rabbits have been regarded as beasts because of their strong vitality, and the ancients often incorporated the image of rabbits into living utensils.
Since the beginning of the previous year, the CCTV Spring Festival Gala will launch the zodiac mascot of that year every year. The year before last, "Xiao Ang Niu" emerged, and last year's "Hehe Hu" became a national tide original IP hit.
The mascot of this year's Spring Festival Gala, Rabbit Yuanyuan, is taken from the fossil ecological restoration image of "Anhui Model Pika", and has four incisors of the model pika's signature. In addition to rabbit yuanyuan, in the zodiac IP family originally launched by the main station, there is also a "rabbit tuan" derived from the traditional rabbit lamp, which synthesizes the meaning of "reunion circle" for the New Year.
Cultural creativity in the Year of the Rabbit has become popular, and major museums have also released cultural innovations one after another. For example, the Dunhuang Museum selected the nine-colored deer and other colorful patterns in the cave murals, redesigned them in a flat illustration style, and launched mobile phone cases for the Year of the Rabbit, prayer sachets and other supplies. The Palace Museum's jade rabbit night lights, rabbit piggy banks, and rabbit god ornaments are also hot sellers during the Spring Festival.
The development of Guochao's original IP is younger
According to the 2022 Gen Z IP Interest Report, 61% of Gen Z have spent on their favorite IP derivatives. From "Nezha" breaking the box office record of domestic cartoons, to dolls such as Bingdundun and Ling Nabel being "robbed", the huge influence and commercial value brought by successful original IP in recent years have provided new ideas for cultural communication.
How to create original IP to make traditional culture better reach young people and truly integrate into the lives of ordinary people? From IP image development, cultural and creative products, consumption forms, etc., cultural and creative institutions are making their own innovative attempts.
The popularity of a national chao original IP seems to be accidental, and the kung fu is behind it. For example, one of the most out-of-the-loop cultural and creative IP products in 2022, "Green Horse", is a group of post-90s-based design teams, inspired by the design and development of plush dolls from the copper galloping horse (that is, "Ma Tao Feiyan") in the collection of Gansu Museum, and the aesthetics of young people with an "ugly cute" image, the series of products sold more than 100,000 pieces a year. But before, the design team has launched more than 30 products for this IP, and "Green Horse" is just one of them.
The initial image of the mascot of the CCTV Spring Festival Gala "Rabbit Yuanyuan" is also derived from the analysis of Internet big data, with "lively", "cute" and "positive" as the theme words, which is quite in line with the positioning of the Spring Festival Gala as "family fun". Ren Daqing, deputy general manager of Zhongshi Industrial Group Co., Ltd., told Tianxia Netizen, "The IP development principle of Zongtai Cultural and Creative is 'do something and do nothing', taking the responsibility of guiding public opinion and taking into account the preferences of young people. ”
In the past, cultural and creative products were mostly limited to souvenirs, but now, they are gradually expanding to various aspects such as eating, wearing, housing, and traveling. The expansion of categories has liberated the shackles of IP product development, and may also provide new solutions for some "short-lived" seasonal IPs.
Guo Zhihao said that in the IP development of Rabbit Star, Lunar Exploration Aerospace emphasizes more functionality and life, and launches outdoor sports products such as sportswear. "The moon exploration is just an IP background, and the rabbit star also needs to be combined with a cooler style and richer scenes to let more young people know about it."
In the past few years, the cultural and creative road of Chinese museums has moved from revitalizing the cultural relics in the collection to making the cultural relics "revitalized". Internet celebrity items are only a milestone in stages, and new cultural consumption may be hidden in it.
For example, the Suzhou Museum Tmall flagship store will start a normalized store self-broadcast in early 2022, which means that Wen Zhengming's "Wen Vine Seeds" hand-planted wisteria, one of the four great talents in Jiangnan, once set a good result of selling out in one minute of broadcasting. The Suzhou Museum has developed a series of products such as jewelry, hand cream, digital collections, board games and other products around "Wenteng", creating a "Wenteng" cultural and creative system.
Suzhou Museum is constantly innovating. Previous data shows that in 2021, the sales of cultural and creative products of Suzhou Museum have exceeded 40 million yuan, ranking first among Chinese museums settled on Tmall.
"Good cultural creativity must touch the essence of culture and let people feel the temperature of culture." The head of e-commerce at the Suzhou Museum said.