36Kr learned that Jason Animation "Jika Club" (hereinafter referred to as Jika Club), which focuses on the adult trading card market, recently obtained its first round of financing, led by bilibili.
Under the trend of consumption upgrades, China's card market is growing rapidly, and Generation Z users are constantly forming their own card culture, which is why Jason, founder and CEO of the brand of Jika, chose the card track.
Press conference of the truck agency
Since the first product came out, the annual revenue growth of the truck company has exceeded 100%, and it has preemptively signed more than 100 well-known IP authorizations at home and abroad, such as Douluo Continent, Dou Shao Sky, Ghost Slayer Blade, Disney, Pixar, etc., and built an online and offline omni-channel sales system.
Products of the trucking agency
The Chinese market dividend for trading cards
Trading cards have a mature industrial chain and sustained and stable market growth in North America and Japan. Abroad it is called "Trading Card" and has a history of more than 100 years.
With the popularity of baseball in the United States, more and more tobacco companies and candy companies Kashgar issued baseball player cards, the most famous is the T206 set issued by the American tobacco company in 1909, the "Honus Wagner" star card in the set was only released 50~200 copies at that time, but in August 2022 it sold for a sky-high price of 7.25 million US dollars.
In 1951, the chewing gum company Topps innovatively added player photos, height and weight, number of shots and other information to the deck, and monopolized the American star card distribution market through innovative game design. As a result, the star card has developed a series of cards such as autograph cards, limited number cards, precious metal cards, material cards, exchange cards, and video cards from Puka.
Later, the pyramid of card levels was built, the value of cards was determined by their scarcity, personal preferences, and card collections had many combinations and ways to play.
The evolution of Trading Card cards is the emergence of trading card games in the 90s, and the addition of Magic: Magic: Magic, Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh, which are the top IPs of the anime industry, so that card content is no longer limited to sports, but also adds new entertainment value in addition to collection. The IP and fan base of the card are constantly breaking the circle, carrying more and more diverse cultures.
According to Huajing Industry Research Institute, the global trading card game market reached US$11.13 billion in 2020 and is expected to expand to US$31.26 billion in 2027, with a CAGR of 15.9%. In 2020, the market size of card games and trading cards in Japan's local market reached 122.24 billion yen (about 7.171 billion yuan), which is the top 3 in all toy categories, and the compound annual growth rate of 2014~2020 is 5.80%, which still maintains a stable growth trend today.
Specific to China, many of the memories of cards after the 80s and 90s mainly come from the Water Margin character card launched by the unified little raccoon, known as the "originator of the blind box", and after years of market baptism, the consumer awareness of cards is also developing.
According to Caitong Securities data, trading card games are an important track for consumption and entertainment upgrades in the future Z era. China's card market is expected to exceed 30 billion yuan in the next three years, and there is still huge room for improvement in penetration.
How to eat the dividends of the times and the industry
Jason Animation was founded at the end of 2019 and began to launch the card brand card collection the following year.
The reason for choosing the card track is that on the one hand, the category is in the wind, and the Chinese market has a huge penetration dividend; On the other hand, Lin Jun (Jason) has been a card player since he was a child, and he is very obsessed with domestic and foreign card products and gameplay. "In the 90s of the 20th century, the conditions for the development of cards in China were not mature enough. With the popularity of trendy games and blind boxes, consumption upgrades and card consumption explodes. "Taking genuine licensed animation cards as the starting point, the card collection company has built relatively stable commercial barriers in terms of IP licensing capabilities, product production capabilities, gameplay design capabilities, and channel sales capabilities for well-known IPs at home and abroad. In particular, domestic animation IP has a large fan base and has become a good development path.
China's Generation Z young people's recognition of high-quality national comic IP even exceeds that of many overseas IPs, and the "Douluo Continent" product of the card agency has become a hit as soon as it is launched. Up to now, the market share of many products of the truck company ranks first in the industry.
Cards from the Collectible Society
The success of Douluo Continent has enabled the company to gain more recognition and authorization from domestic and foreign IP parties, including domestic and foreign animation IPs such as "Breaking the Sky", "Spirit Cage", "Ghost Slayer", "Disney", "Pixar", film and television IPs such as "Lord of the Rings" and "Deep Sea", as well as game IPs such as "Sword Network 3" and "Fantasy Westward Journey", the number of which exceeds 100, and it is now the first brand in the field of domestic adult trading cards.
Based on the scarcity of trading cards, the cards of the card collection club are divided into ordinary cards and rare cards of different levels, and the more scarce the cards, the more exquisite and special the card face design and the more sophisticated the production technology. In addition, depending on the characters, scenes, and storylines, users will be able to experience the content and cultural attributes carried by the cards.
Taking the "People's Navy Ship Legendary Edition Collector's Card" launched by the card agency as an example, this set of cards is made according to the star card process, using the method of right-angle thick card, and each box must have a metal card with weight and texture. The product includes naval warships since the founding of the mainland, and the card back is the scientific knowledge and historical introduction of the warship, which is both collectible and scientific. Once launched during the National Day in 2022, sales are booming, and a box is hard to find.
Get high-quality IP, take the lead in developing products, and the business model of the card agency is half successful: cards are cultural products, strong collection attributes, strong social attributes, and strong circulation attributes. In terms of cost, cards are a consumer product category with good profits; In terms of sales, the truck collector has achieved omni-channel coverage offline and online.
"Card products have high gross margins and friendly channels, which are loved by distributors. And cards have a good repurchase attribute, convenience stores, supermarkets, will put such products in a conspicuous position to attract traffic", retail industry insiders told 36Kr, "card products, enough to benefit the entire channel and drive the development of the industrial chain." ”
In addition to the traditional Tmall and Jingdong channels, the fastest growing card agency is the Douyin live broadcast e-commerce channel, which has formed a strong standardized and service-oriented transaction model through the anchor card removal.
Trucking products
During the epidemic, a well-known entertainment and game anchor opened the card gift box for users under the gaze of tens of thousands of people in the live broadcast room, and when a rare card appeared, the live broadcast room would be filled with cheers one after another. According to Lin Jun (Jason), 40%~60% of the retail sales of live broadcast channels come from the repurchase of old users, and the card collection agency is already building a VIP user system, giving different rights and interests according to the user level, and promoting repurchase to drive long-term operation.
In just 2 years, the company has become the leading trading card brand in China, with revenue maintaining a year-on-year growth of more than 100%, and the market share of the company's many IP series card products is industry-leading.
Market View:
Two years ago, physical cards were in the "underwater" track category at that time, and Jason's truck collection is undoubtedly one of the fastest growing companies in the card category.
Cards are loved by users under the category of "big toys", and have social attributes of collection and exchange, and because the collection is active, the cards are almost not subject to physical space restrictions and affect the continuous repurchase rate (different from the traditional trendy blind box and medium and large toys).
Cards and IP content are highly bound, and when derivative physical cards exert a certain influence through market sales, they can also feed back and maintain the popularity of IP works to a certain extent. In addition, cards are also a good means of commercialization that can recover the cost of early IP development.
In the future, Station B and the truck team can have continuous cooperation space and business extension opportunities, which will help Station B and the truck team explore more monetization potential and cooperation opportunities in the direction of IP commercialization.