The "Wukong" giant mecha, the magnificent city wall of the Three Kingdoms, and the large-scale building blocks full of Chinese cultural characteristics at the Shenzhen Toy Fair attracted Chinese and foreign businessmen to stop and consult. The exhibition area of the Chinese tide IP of domestic building blocks seems to be particularly conspicuous, with the well-known zodiac image, the sacred beast of the Mountains and Seas, the young generals of the Three Kingdoms who are full of walls, the Fulu Fortune Giant Wheel of the Spring Festival, and the heavy weapons of the big country, and the national tide IP is becoming more and more diverse.
On April 9, the second day of the Shenzhen Toy Fair, Silver Persimmon Finance visited a number of building block enterprise booths to explore whether the building block toy industry has found a new way out and a new growth point after being swept by the national tide.
The national tide is the beginning
Three building blocks with the image of the mythical beast of China's mountains and seas, the lucky koi, the lucky unicorn and the Nafu awakening lion attracted the attention of Silver Persimmon Finance. Guangdong New Jiaqi Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Jiaqi Building Blocks") of the red "national tide" exhibition area seems to be particularly eye-catching, the first row of the Shanhaijing Divine Beast series has just won the annual outstanding product of the toy fair. In addition, there are also national style architectural products that attract foreign merchants to take pictures and admire.
According to Manager Zheng of the Marketing Department of Jiaqi Building Blocks, the Chinese Shanhaijing Divine Beast IP is the first national tide product line launched in 2022, and the first to come out are the divine beast unicorn and koi, which are symbols of Chinese culture with the meaning of fortune. "It is very important to explore Chinese traditional culture, which is a kind of feeling for traditional Chinese culture", Manager Zheng said frankly to Silver Persimmon Finance, which is also one of the reasons why Jiaqi chose to deepen the direction of national tide.
And the national tide and feelings seem to be the open business secrets of this industry. In the remote location of Hall 17, Chen Hongying, marketing director of Guangdong Pinqi Culture Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Pinqi Building Blocks"), told Silver Persimmon Finance that the company was established in 2020 and decided to take the feelings of "post-80s" and "post-90s" as the direction of IP research and development, and tell the common love and classic connection of adults through the language of building blocks. After that, Pinqi building blocks became the first building block brand to win the genuine and exclusive authorization of Wulin Gaiden. According to the data provided by the official, the sales of Tmall single products in the month of the release of Wulin Gaiden building blocks exceeded 900W, and its popularity even extended overseas.
According to the observation of Silver Persimmon Finance, there are about 200 building block companies participating in the meeting, mainly concentrated in Hall 13, 15 and 17, of which the building block enterprises in Hall 17 can account for about half of the enterprises in the exhibition hall. Domestic building block brands such as Jiaqi Building Blocks, Double Eagle Kada Building Blocks, Unreached Building Blocks, Wonderful Building Blocks Keeply, Senbao Building Blocks, and Pinqi Building Blocks all brought their national tide IP products at this exhibition.
According to the "Guochao Brand Young Consumption Insight Report", the popularity of Guochao has increased fivefold in ten years, and eighty percent of consumers support the strength of Chinese brands, while the "post-90s" generation of Guochao consumption has contributed more than seventy percent. With the rise of a new consumer generation with a high degree of cultural self-confidence, there are more and more young people who resonate with Chinese stories. And the IP of Guochao has also become a key element in telling a good Chinese story.
R&D is the way to break the game
Guangdong Senbao Culture Industry Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Senbao Building Blocks"), which holds the exclusive authorization of the film "The Wandering Earth", also participated in the exhibition. Ms. Hu, the public relations of Senbao building block brand, introduced that Senbao was able to obtain the support of Guochao IP, and the two sides joined forces to get a share of the market, but Ms. Hu said that this is precisely one of the difficulties in the development of Guochao IP. "For example, movie scenes and movie molds will have a high degree of restoration of the original product, and we have to combine the actual product with the licensor for one-to-one detail docking. In the process of developing the Shandong ship, due to the extremely high confidentiality requirements of the military theme, the whole process of design and development, modeling and construction, communication and transportation are very rigorous; we have specially set up a task force to be fully responsible for this project, in order to better restore it through the building block modeling. ”
Technology research and development is a hurdle that building block enterprises must overcome. Manager Zheng of Jiaqi building blocks also revealed to Silver Persimmon Finance that there are often technical difficulties in IP research and development, similar to the Chinese myths and stories of the Classic of Mountains and Seas, only basic small statues, how to present it with building blocks, there will be difficulties. Because of the structure of building blocks, some images need to be molded a lot before they can be reproduced. "It is necessary to have a deep understanding and excavation of Chinese culture. ”
Ms. Hu also said in the introduction of the Qinglong, White Tiger and Suzaku mecha that the difficulty of development lies in having a certain understanding of the cultural background, relying on everyone's imagination, and giving new ideas to some cultural content and making it easy for the public to accept and be more curious.
In addition, in Chen Hongying's view, the development and production of film and television IP into building block products is not always successful, it is necessary to do a good job of market research, consider the different expectations of the audience, and consider the restoration of scenes or characters. and the difficulty of starting this building block for ordinary fans of film and television dramas.
"In the research and development of the building block products of Wulin Gaiden, these were taken into account, and the semi-open scene was selected, and the first was to restore the open scene in the play. The second is that fans of this drama are not necessarily building block lovers, so it will be more difficult to complete a complete set, the threshold for entry will be higher, and the semi-open scene will be better to start. Chen Hongying explained.
Tell China's story well in the future
As one of the most important subcategories, building blocks have taken the lead in showing a gratifying level of IP, so creating a national tide IP has become a development path for domestic building blocks to break through the barriers of "Lego".
This year, for the Year of the Dragon, the Shan Hai Jing Nian Beast Gift Box has added a new product to absorb the golden auspicious dragon, and at the same time, combined with the popular mecha category, to create the first original mecha building block Red Flame Mecha Dragon with the theme of the zodiac.
Jiaqi Building Blocks Manager Zheng said that Jiaqi will continue to deepen the national tide series, will continue to dig Chinese mythology, present the image in the form of building blocks, and will also develop traditional Chinese festivals and nodes, such as the Mid-Autumn Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, Spring Festival and even the current idea of developing 24 solar terms products.
Puzzle blocks also expressed the same idea, "The way we do it will not be particularly radical, for example, we will make things that are remembered by our own people, based on some designs of festival models, every year we will produce building blocks of the zodiac, there are some holiday feelings, and we can use the traditional elements we know." There are also some retro series, we have memories of TVs, projectors and the like, these are the things we designed in the direction of the national trend, this is the things that our people feel, and we have our own style in the original.
Senbao building blocks are linked with the mecha category this year and play new tricks. "We want to make building blocks of model things, and our own philosophy is to bring building blocks to life. ”
According to Ms. Hu of Senbao building blocks, this year's robot minifigure sector is expected to be launched in the second and third quarters, hoping to make a good integration with mecha, minifigures, and Guochao IP. At the same time, there are also joint historical characters for mecha development, such as Lu Bu and Wukong, all of which have corresponding customized styles. In particular, it is worth mentioning that Senbao will continue to work in the land, sea and air sectors, researching the combination of tanks, fleets, rockets, aircraft and mechas.
In addition to the continuous innovation of products in the domestic market, the overseas market seems to be a topic of concern for Guochao IP building blocks.
According to Manager Zheng of Jiaqi Building Blocks, the national tide series of Jiaqi Building Blocks is very popular in Southeast Asia, where Chinese people live, and it has also been stationed in supermarkets and boutiques in Malaysia and Singapore, and it sells well according to the response.
"We believe that everything can be built with bricks. China's toy industry is a Chinese factory, hoping to change from "Made in China" to "Made in China". ”。 Ms. Hu also said that although the complexity of Guochao IP copyright and the lack of cognitive foundation of overseas audiences are the current problems, Senbao is also constantly developing overseas platforms, participating in cross-border trade exhibitions, striving for global licensing of IP products, and hoping to bring the essence of Guochao IP products to global consumers.