36Kr learned that the Xiaomi ecological chain enterprise "Rice Sugar" completed tens of millions of yuan A round of financing, and the capital was Anhui Chuanggu Capital. The funds will be used for the system construction and product development and operation testing of the scene IP "lazy convenience store".
"Rice Sugar" is the only cultural and creative enterprise in the Xiaomi ecological chain, which was jointly invested and established by Xiaomi and Shunwei Capital in 2014, and is one of the top ten ecological chain enterprises invested by Xiaomi, and the company's business is mainly IP value-added services such as IP creation, product development, and IP scene operation.
Zhang Xiaoyin, founder and CEO of "Rice Candy", told 36Kr that the company's early business was mainly for toB companies to do enterprise IP development, representing cases such as the development and derivative design of xiaomi's "mi rabbit" full range of IP, and the "big devil" IP development of redmi mobile phones. In addition to the millet system, there are also cases including the "black xiaoyou" IP of New Hope Dairy and the development of king glory derivatives.
Zhang Xiaoyin said that the company has honed the ability to quickly create IP and land products in the cooperation with the toB side, as well as the supply chain solution ability based on a variety of SKUs. According to him, at present, the company has accumulated more than 500 SKUs that have been launched on the Xiaomi Mall, and the high-quality supply chain resources have exceeded 200.
Xiaomi Mi Rabbit around
Since 2019, "Rice Candy" has also explored its own IP brand, and previously launched a scenario-based IP "Lazy Convenience Store" based on the "Generation Z" lazy scene.
According to him, in order to shorten the communication distance between users and users, "lazy convenience stores" incorporate many young people's daily elements in the design. For example, the characters in the IP do not have specific names, and the design inspiration is from the contemporary image of young people, integrating the worldview that young people can accept.
Lazy convenience store IP
However, Zhang Xiaoyin said that the "lazy convenience store" is only a part of this virtual world, next to the "Life Hotel", "Spring Wind Car Line", etc., the 10 modules of the entire IP can be abstracted separately, and different content and character libraries are the basis for external authorization.
Prior to this, the "Lazy Convenience Store" IP has been released with "Detective Chinatown Series 3" and "Assassination of a Novelist" to release a blind box, and will soon release a theme exhibition with Bilibili and Wandering Earth Comics.
All along, the main monetization model of traditional IP is licensing, and this is also a process of racing against the IP life cycle, which tests the team's subsequent creativity. The dividend of the licensing industry has also led to a sharp increase in the number of IP in the industry, and the roles of platforms, FMCG brands, business entities, etc. are creating their own IP images.
However, the licensed monetization model itself has a lower ceiling. Zhang Xiaoyin told 36Kr that for this reason, "Rice Sugar" chose a heavier business model, not only to do IP licensing, but also to do its own offline retail stores and product incubation.
The traditional IP offline gameplay cannot escape derivatives and membership points, but "rice candy" has added more forms of expression. The IP of the "Lazy Convenience Store" divides the 24-hour period of young people into six content parts such as work, party, and entertainment, and these six content sections can also be used as the experience link of offline stores to divert traffic and customers for stores.
Brick-and-mortar stores
According to Zhang Xiaoyin, the products provided by the offline retail stores of the "Lazy Convenience Store" include FMCG products (sparkling water, coffee), relaxation products (steam eye masks, etc.) and products with trend elements (tide play, clothing, etc.), and have been cooperating with Semir, Adidas, and some brands within the Xiaomi ecological chain.
In terms of offline retail stores, "Lazy Convenience Store" has held more than 20 offline pop-up activities in Guangzhou, Shanghai and other places since its launch in 2019.
In terms of team, Zhang Xiaoyin, founder and CEO of "Rice Sugar", has 15 years of experience in original IP and product system development, and founded the original toy brand Chen Fuxing in 2004. The other core members of the team are from the early members of the former "Chen Happiness", and the retail brand operation management has rich experience in product development and operation management.
Editor 丨 Zhang Ting