Text/Li Guangdou
Li Ziqi finally returned after disappearing for three months, but the most concerned thing is her brand dispute with Hangzhou Weinian, which is regarded as a duel between the Internet celebrity brand and capital. Although the current Hangzhou Wei Nian Company has been rejected for applying for the Li Ziqi trademark, and one of the investors today's headlines to withdraw from Wei Nian is pushed to the cusp of the storm, it is still difficult to determine how the final situation will develop and whether the pastoral fire of both defeats will spread to the extent of jade burning.
So, what does the Li Ziqi brand battle give us? Let's first take a look at the origin of the matter, Li Ziqi' original name is Li Jiajia, who began to shoot short videos of food in 2015, and accumulated a certain number of fans on some short video platforms in the early days, with a certain influence. At the end of 2016 began to contact Hangzhou Weinian, 17 years of formal cooperation, Li Jiajia is responsible for shooting video, production of content, Weinian is responsible for brand incubation, e-commerce operations, etc., and now Li Ziqi's jitter, fast, Weibo, b station and other accounts, including a treasure flagship store, overseas account Youtube are registered by this company, operated, the resulting revenue, Li Jiajia according to the agreed proportion of share. Note that Li Jiajia does not have any shares in wei nian this company, which means that Li Jiajia is just a migrant girl in a sense. The two sides also jointly established Sichuan Ziqi Culture Communication Co., Ltd., With Weinian holding 51% of the shares, Li Jiajia accounting for 49%, and the brand trademarks of "Li Ziqi" and "Ziqi" are registered and held by Sichuan Ziqi Culture.
It is easy to share hardships and hardships. At the beginning, when there was no huge income generated, this distribution did not seem to be a big problem, anyway, when the money was made, it was then divided according to the proportion. But no one expected that the speed of this IP development is too fast, in 2017, Li Ziqi released a "fragrant little roast chicken" video in the whole network played 3 billion times, her fans also soared from 100,000 to tens of millions, and soon had more than 100 million fans on the whole network, the popularity is very high at home and abroad, and has become a symbol of spreading Chinese culture. Because Li Ziqi's video style has a strong Chinese style characteristics, ancient style and ancient rhyme, the content is based on the traditional Chinese cultural festivals, festivals, folk customs to determine the topic, with food as the main line, covering the whole process from picking to production, the video does not have too much narration, the soundtrack is intertwined with natural soundtracks and traditional music styles, the video as a whole presents a simple, fresh pastoral life, many netizens said: After watching Li Ziqi, their hearts have been healed. Not only that, in the video, under Li Ziqi's delicate body, he is omnipotent: cutting rice, ploughing the ground, cutting bamboo, doing handicrafts, riding horses and other heavy tasks. On February 2, 2021, Li Ziqi refreshed the Guinness World Record of "the most subscriptions of YouTube Chinese channels" set by li Ziqi with 14.1 million YouTube subscriptions, and the connotation of heaven and man in Chinese culture, the change of seasons, the timely eating, and the connotation of doing your own food and clothing through Li Ziqi won the praise of "mysterious power from the East" overseas, which caused people to imagine a beautiful paradise. Many foreign netizens said: Because of Li Ziqi, I fell in love with Chinese culture. Official media, including the People's Daily and the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League of Xinhuanet, directly praised her, and CCTV praised her video: "There is not a word to praise China, but she has told Chinese culture well and told Chinese stories well." "Li Ziqi has become a symbol of Chinese cultural export.
Relying on the big IP of Plum Ziqi derived from the snail powder, lotus powder and other products have become explosive, it is estimated that the annual sales of the Plum Ziqi brand is as high as 1.5-3 billion, of which only the annual sales of Plum Ziqi snail powder exceeded 500 million yuan. Li Ziqi Tmall store currently has 6.41 million fans. According to the data of noinfluencer, an overseas influencer marketing service platform, Li Ziqi only has about $500,000 per month of advertising alliance revenue on YouTube, and has $6 million a year, nearly 40 million yuan of advertising revenue.
Then the problem comes, Li Ziqi himself in addition to the initial agreed share ratio, even a penny of the company's income can not be divided, because product development and sales are placed in the company, Li Ziqi does not have any shareholding in this company. And the financing is also Wei Nian, forming a very complex equity structure, but also pulled in many well-known institutions as investors, as of September 2021, Hangzhou Wei Nian has completed 7 rounds of financing. Investors include Huaying Capital, Sina Weibo, Mango Fund and Beijing Quantum Leap Technology Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of ByteDance that has now withdrawn, and under a series of capital operations, the valuation of Weinian was once as high as 10 billion yuan, and there was no interest relationship with Li Ziqi. This is the source of the contradiction between the two sides.
The two sides actually have deep grievances, hidden dangers have long been buried, as a content creator, Li Ziqi is outstanding, as a manager is really very tender, did not take any effective measures to protect themselves; and micro-thoughts, can only say that the pattern is too small, eating is too ugly, neither want to give Li Ziqi a cent of money, and did not cultivate other Internet celebrities, enough to support the operation of enterprises, Micro-thoughts in the financing, it has been asked many times, if one day Plum Ziqi is not red, what to do? Because that's where it's the biggest brand value and monetization. Although the shaping of the big IP of "Li Ziqi Brand" is not just relying on Li Jiajia alone. It has been circulated on the Internet that Wei Nian once allocated a team of up to 500 people for Li Ziqi, but Li Ziqi pointed out that these are the staff in the entire system of the "Li Ziqi brand". These include logistics, customer service, etc., and her content team is only assistants, photographers and herself, a total of only 4 people. It can be seen that Wei Nian does not have much real control over the "Li Ziqi brand".
According to the provisions of the Trademark Law, Sichuan Ziqi Cultural Communication Co., Ltd. holds the trademarks of Li Ziqi and Ziqi, and its trademarks are used legally and compliant within the prescribed scope, and the trademark categories include convenience food, wine, food, etc. According to the relevant data of China Trademark Network, there are about 100 trademark applications related to "Li Ziqi" and "Ziqi" applied for by Ziqi Culture, so there is a legal basis for rejecting the trademark related to "Li Ziqi" registered by Wei nian.
We also see that whether it is the law, the media or the people's voices are on the side of Li Ziqi herself, she was interviewed on CCTV, and some netizens said, "We like Li Ziqi with pyrotechnic gas, rather than simply wanting to pay for a cold trademark symbol called 'Li Ziqi'." Li Ziqi also said in an interview with CCTV: "Li Ziqi these three words, I really want to protect it, and even I don't want it to be too high in the future so-called commercial value." "But from a business point of view, the Li Ziqi brand battle tells us that the best business model is a win-win situation, a combination of two benefits, a fight is two injuries." The dispute between Li Jiajia and Wei Nian is definitely a lose-lose situation, the two sides have torn their faces, and there will inevitably be endless battles in account rights, trademark rights, and brand rights, and it is almost impossible to get back together, and Li Jiajia himself may not be able to recreate a better "Li Ziqi", and Wei Nian has lost the biggest hematopoietic machine. According to the latest news, on October 28, Hangzhou Wei Nian Brand Management Co., Ltd. registered a new company - Shanghai Wei Nian Trading Co., Ltd. in the form of 100% control, the business scope includes: Internet sales; professional design services.
Former Chairman of the Coca-Cola Company Robert. Shipu. Woodruff once said: Even if one day, the company is reduced to ashes in the fire, as long as the "Coca-Cola" brand is still there, then the next morning, the headline of the corporate news media is that major banks are competing for loans to "Coca-Cola", with the intangible assets of the brand, Coca-Cola can still restore its glory. Similarly, the Li Ziqi brand battle also reveals this truth, whether it is a company or an individual, the most valuable asset is the brand, a successful brand is often any tangible assets can not be replaced, the focus of the competition between the two sides is here, "Li Ziqi" brand battle may also go through a long and tragic process.
(Some of the pictures are from the Internet, the copyright belongs to the original author)