Is IP marketing a powerful tool for brands to break through?

The summer of 2017 may become a turning point in the history of Chinese cultural creation and even marketing .

In July, iQiyi unexpectedly launched the hottest variety show of the year, "The Rap of China", which created a lot of stars and made a lot of money. Not only did it get sponsors such as McDonald's , Nongfu Spring, and Xiaomi to freestyle, it also led all brands to sing hip-hop overnight.

"Wolf Warrior 2", which was released in August, had a box office of 100 million yuan a day, and the cumulative box office in two months was nearly 6 billion yuan, proving two things to the world: China's cultural and creative market is really big enough; and the productivity of the word "heart" is really big enough.

In September, the web drama "Day and Night Chase" was exclusively launched on Youku. Not only is the plot gripping, but its operating model is also novel: it is updated every Wednesday, with 5 episodes updated at a time for members, and non-members can get one episode updated for free per day starting from Wednesday. The plot is comparable to that of American dramas, which made countless people recharge their Youku membership for the first time for domestic dramas.

An online variety show, a movie , or an online drama, although their forms of expression and platforms are very different, they are essentially the same: they are all "the results of intellectual labor with exclusive rights", namely IP (Intellectual Property, definition of intellectual property).

In addition to monetizing through copyright, whether it is "The Rap of China", "Wolf Warrior 2", or "Day and Night Chase", they all have more flexible and varied ways to make profits.

Not to mention the sponsorship and advertising fees for this and next seasons of "The Rap of China", there are so many ways to monetize the hip-hop artists that it has made famous; "Wolf Warrior 2", which was crazy about Moutai and Beijing Auto , and the introduction to "Wolf Warrior 3" it reserved at the end, I wonder how much imagination space it gave to the capital circle.

The membership fees collected through hunger marketing of "White Night" are very gimmicky, but the native advertisement of "White Night Live" in the middle of each episode is even more impressive. Are you sure that it updates once a week because it imitates American dramas? You are so naive! That was the crew filming a live-insert commercial.

According to people familiar with the matter, this half-minute-long advertisement that is highly integrated with the plot has already earned as much as 5 million yuan, and the client has to beg Youku, the second party, to get it. Therefore, updating one episode a day for non-members is not a charity benefit, the deeper reason is to attract fans and gather traffic ~

Such a high-end routine is far superior to the weekly update model of American TV series! And this is exactly what we want to talk about with you, " IP marketing ".

1. IP and Pan-IP "IP Marketing"

From the above three big IPs that are popular this summer, it can be clearly seen that the semantic scope of "IP" in the "IP marketing" we are talking about today is much broader than its literal meaning (copyright).

To be precise, it means more that content or individuals that can break free from the constraints of a single platform and gain traffic and distribution on multiple platforms based on their own appeal are "potential assets." In terms of the content form that is popular at the moment, it can be a sentence, a concept, a person, a public account , a name, an emoticon package , or an internet celebrity like Papi Jiang or Mimi Meng .

It is not difficult to understand that a person, a public account, or an internet celebrity can become an IP. However, how can "IP marketing be achieved with just one sentence"? In fact, there is no need to feel mysterious. Real examples are right in front of us, and they are produced by Youku.

2. A sentence with content and extension is a big IP

The drama "Nothing Good Can Match You" is very popular recently. You can see it everywhere, even in the advertisements on the bodies of buses, right? But speaking of popularity, the phrase "Ten miles of spring breeze is not as good as you" is actually more popular than this hit drama.

This sentence first came from Feng Tang's poem "Spring" and was originally a line of poetry. Later, because it was so heartfelt, it became a popular internet slang. Later, Youku made it into a youth romance drama, starring popular actors and actresses; and when singer Li Jian sang the song of the same name for the TV series, it became a song again.

From a sentence, a song and a play were derived, and from text form it became film, television and music form, spanning books, the Internet and radio. It has long since broken through the conventional perception that copyright is mainly reflected in the form and extension of IP through publishing. Netizens can even watch TV series on Youku without spending a penny.

After all, its transformation capabilities are so broad, because like water, it has the ability to adapt to the container - if it is put into a cup, it becomes the shape of the cup; if it is put into a bowl, it becomes the shape of a bowl. If an adult product is attached to it, it will use literary style to tease and provoke.

Just as "Nothing But Love" was becoming popular, Durex, a condom seller, acquired the rights to use the handwritten copy of the drama's author, Feng Tang. Compared with the hard-line advertising tactics, Durex played it very tactfully and used some tricks in IP marketing.

First of all, during the period when the drama was popular, it continued to release three "derivative plot" short videos that were literary, fresh, and provocative, breaking through the content and attracting traffic with stories. Taking advantage of IP and then deeply rebuilding the structural IP is indeed a very advanced method.

What’s even more clever is that, following closely, it made the environment in which the product is exposed beautiful enough. Instead of rigidly linking the product, it packaged the condoms in a "youth limited edition gift box" with a strong sense of IP!

In addition to condoms, this "Nothing Good Can Match You" co-branded gift box also contains "Nothing Good Can Match You" series bookmarks, postcards from the original author Feng Tang, as well as youth series lucky bags, literary canvas bags and other youth peripherals.

With these three heart-wrenching scenes with natural transitions, and the joint endorsement of "Durex X Feng Tang", you will no longer feel out of place when you look at this "Youth Limited Edition Condom". It is not surprising that young men and women, who have urgent needs, would have a strong desire to purchase these so-called limited edition youth peripherals.

It has connotation and extensions that can adapt to multiple platforms. In one sentence, it can become an IP with strong marketing power! This is why the marketing circle has been chasing after IP marketing this year.

3. Two major standards for examining IP

The inevitable impact of the ubiquity of IP is that the entire concept of IP seems to be able to include everything that seems to be strong in essence and broad in extension, which inevitably makes people criticize it as a panacea. But in fact, in essence, no matter how generalized the term IP is in IP marketing, its core is still "the result of intellectual labor", and it cannot escape the necessary elements of "content".

Therefore, Qin Yang pointed out in his book "How to Create a Super IP" that we must adhere to two standards for IP marketing:

1. Whether it is an original content source with diversified development capabilities;
2. Whether it has influence on a specific group of people.

These two standards limit IP marketing at the macro and essential levels.

The emphasis on "originality with diverse development capabilities" refers to whether the IP can be adapted to multiple platforms and multiple forms of expression. The easier it is to change an IP, the greater its commercial value. As for “originality”, it goes without saying that this is the original meaning of IP as “intellectual property”.

Of course, not all original works will be paid for, but IPs that are worth marketing must be paid for, even if the payers are not the general public but a vertical niche. This is the fundamental reason that determines whether an original content has IP development value.

In the final analysis, whether it is "The Rap of China", "Wolf Warrior 2", "Day and Night Chase" or "Spring Breeze", they are able to attract both attention and money, and they have done a good job in this regard.

For an IP, it is really important to be supported by people crazily.

4. 4 dimensions to judge the quality of IP

At the beginning of the article, I talked about the hip-hop marketing style brought by "The Rap of China". Let's take a look at a hip-hop style H5 recently launched by the Forbidden City.

( Scan the QR code to start freestyle mode)

This magical H5 "I received a WeChat message from your mother" can be said to be very hip-hop, with a very high standard, and perfectly demonstrates the Palace Museum Taobao 's usual serious and funny IP style.

The IPization of the Forbidden City first came from the National Palace Museum in Taipei. Five years ago, a series of "I know" sealing tapes overturned people's cognition with a proud tone, and also awakened the operation team of the Forbidden City in Beijing.

They began to subvert their original dignified and otherworldly royal attitude and instead strengthened their communication with young users through a consistent and original approach of humor combined with a serious temperament.

The secret of the Forbidden City Taobao is to embrace today's young people with subculture.

Through the use of Internet slang, jokes, cuteness, the second dimension and other cultural elements based on the modern context, and through the mouths of emperors, concubines and officials of the Ming and Qing dynasties, the rich culture of the Forbidden City is deconstructed in a younger and more fashionable way. The Forbidden City Taobao has suddenly become a cute and interesting friend that happily interacts with fans and users.

The personalization immediately activated the Forbidden City Taobao. As it interacted with fans, the Forbidden City Taobao opened its pores to embrace the latest and hottest fashion elements. The more down-to-earth it is, the more it becomes a fan magnet.

In terms of influence , the Forbidden City Taobao can be said to be at the traffic level. This internet celebrity store, supported by a group of emperors, empress dowagers, etc., can be said to have its own traffic. Not only that, even its content output platforms Weibo and WeChat have many loyal "subjects". There are nearly one million followers on Weibo all year round, and every WeChat post is about selling goods, with each post receiving over 100,000 views.

Needless to say , the quality of the content is excellent. Basically, every once in a while there will be a hit item that goes viral. It continues to develop various internet-famous products that have attracted many trendsetters, such as court bead headphones, emperor folding fans, and "Travel by Imperial Order" luggage tags.

That’s right, subculture, content value, personalization, and influence , these four quadrants are the touchstones for testing the reliability index of each IP.

The book "How to Create a Super IP" provides more detailed parameter decomposition for these four dimensions. This table can be said to be very practical when examining the value of IP.

5. External factors driving the explosion of IP marketing

The rise of every new marketing technology and marketing trend must be due to new changes in the market environment. In terms of the market macro, brand marketing is currently facing five major challenges:

1. The media environment is decentralized and fragmented.

The "prime time" under the television mechanism originally dominated by CCTV is long gone. There are more and more platforms that integrate social networking and content distribution , such as Weibo, WeChat, Toutiao , and Yidian Zixun . The competition is becoming more and more fierce, and naturally the time spent by Digu users is becoming more and more segmented.

This means that there are many platforms where brands can express their opinions. This is both an opportunity and a crisis. The opportunity lies in finding new development points, while the crisis lies in the fact that the dispersion of energy caused by the numerous platforms means that the cost of trial and error will increase.

2. Diversified consumption scenarios and increasingly obvious consumption upgrades

From online to offline, although there are leading channels occupying the main entrance for people's consumption, such as Tmall and JD.com online, and Wanda Plaza and other offline giants, they have absorbed most of the traffic by leveraging their first-mover advantage and brand power.

However, in this era of individual awakening and consumption upgrading, both online and offline, there are always segmented, niche markets and consumer demands that the big guys have not taken into account. Segmented e-commerce platforms such as Yitiao, Mogujie , and Xiaohongshu are all consumption scenarios that users can choose.

3. Brand-independent marketing activities often lack continuity in strategy and content

Independent and fragmented single marketing consumes a lot of marketing resources, but it goes through the process from 0 to 1 again and again. This is the daily state of growth for most Chinese brands. There are three reasons for this:

• Lack of awareness of “cultivating content”;
• Cost constraints. "Minimum input and maximum output" is what many brands desire in the course of their operations. This speculative mentality makes operators fickle and changeable, and naturally they are unable to accumulate and cultivate high-quality content.
• We have developed the bad habit of chasing hot topics, but it is worse to chase them too much. The so-called "chasing" naturally means there is no time for detailed planning, which naturally leads to disconnection.

4. Insufficient originality, and the content lacks dissemination and cross-platform penetration

With the rise of new media , most brands have more or less acquired new media marketing ideas and are equipped with new media departments. However, now that there are already 20 million WeChat public accounts , it is still a question how good the creative ability of the operators behind them is.

5. Fragmented content makes it difficult to form a brand impression

In fact, the fundamental reason for this point lies in the above two points.

IP marketing, especially high-quality IP, as an "original content source with diversified development capabilities", can rely on continuous content output to break through platform barriers when facing the above five market challenges, thereby establishing links with users in diversified consumption scenarios.

Some people say that brand is IP and IP is brand. This makes sense! Building a brand through IP marketing seems simple to say, but it is actually quite difficult to do. After all, it is easy to be original once, but it is too challenging to be original every time. But we understand the theory, the key is how to do it? Stay tuned for the next episode to find out.