How can a brand create IP if it wants to break through?

A good corporate brand IP should be able to inherit and enhance the company's brand assets to the greatest extent, and be able to increase recognition, improve favorability, and enhance reputation between the corporate brand and consumers, customers, and their stakeholders.

1. What is IP?

IP is the abbreviation of Intellectual Property, which refers to "intellectual property", including music, literature and other artistic works, discoveries and inventions, as well as all words, phrases, symbols and designs that reflect the author's mind and are granted exclusive rights by law. IP can also be understood as content that can break free from the constraints of the platform and gain traffic and distribution on multiple platforms based on its own appeal. It is a "potential asset." This is IP in a broad sense.

IP marketing, or brand IP, means that the brand has formed its own unique values, continuously outputs high-quality "content", and influences "fans". For example, the previous Nut mobile phone used "emotion" to build its IP. Apple "creates" IP with "innovation".

Until now, many people still one-sidedly believe that IP is a cartoon character, a song or other specific cultural creativity. However, these are merely carriers of IP.

People understand the inner meaning of IP release through these “externalities”. If an IP has no story, then it is just a logo. Only a symbol that carries a story can be called an IP.

2. What is the core of IP?

The core of IP is content. Innovate in content to sustain its vitality. IP is constantly polished in content and constantly adapting to consumers, thus becoming a common topic in a community, a lifestyle, and the collective sentiment of a group of people.

Just like Steve Jobs created "Apple" and built it into a brand IP of hard content. With its leading technology and unique craftsmanship design, "Apple" has gathered a huge number of fans and audiences around the world and has become a legend of an era.

3. How to build brand IP

It can be said that in the IP era, a brand occupying an IP is equivalent to occupying a permanent consumer entrance, which can continuously provide traffic for the brand.

In a context where both online and offline traffic are extremely scarce and expensive, the significance of IP to a brand is self-evident. So how does a brand build an IP?

1. Accurately position and visualize IP

Positioning means that strategy and direction are the embodiment of the company's values ​​​​and vision. The essence of its positioning is to establish differentiated competition, that is, to make itself different and unique through differentiation, attract consumers' attention and win attention.

It is the starting point for establishing brand IP and also the guidance and navigation for subsequent links. The accuracy of positioning will fundamentally determine the fate of the IP. Good positioning is half of the success of the IP.

On the basis of brand positioning, combined with the company's cultural system, the personality and characteristics of the IP are explored so that it can carry the corporate culture while conforming to the distinctive personality traits of the brand's personality. It is not only a representative figure of the aggregate portrait of the "corporate group", but also has a clear and recognizable unique brand personality.

IP positioning includes role positioning, emotional positioning, value positioning and a unique image recognition system, so that the image has both a clear and recognizable appearance and an independent and interesting soul.

Donald Duck is a duck but doesn’t look like a duck, Hello Kitty is a cat but doesn’t look like a cat, and Peppa Pig is a pig but doesn’t look like a pig. But they all have their own characteristics and personalities. The most important thing about them is that they are contagious, have their own topics and potential. This potential energy is latent and will explode instantly once it is stimulated. Just like a bomb, the explosive power of an IP depends on the infectiousness of its personality. An IP without infectious personality will be useless even if it spends countless amounts of money on operation and promotion.

2. Content marketing, tell a good story

After the IP positioning is completed, the IP's image, personality and story should be processed in terms of video, audio, graphics and text according to the brand IP positioning, so that the IP image can be widely known through systematic dissemination and promotion.

For example, promote online on the company's official website, official WeChat account, and other self-media or other platforms; conduct offline pictorial promotions or hold events inside and outside the company area to allow employees and consumers to interact with the IP image to increase stickiness and interest, so that the IP can be deeply rooted in people's hearts and become everyone's friend rather than a carrier or symbol.

A good IP not only makes people fall in love at first sight, but also makes people feel like they have known each other for a long time. All great IP characters are projections of certain desires deep in the human heart, and a moving story can always touch people's hearts and souls. For example, Baymax represents the human desire for unconditional care; Superman represents the human desire for supernatural power; Crayon Shin-chan represents the wish that we can live without fear in childhood...

3. Protection of IP copyright

When the IP has been built and formed a certain system, we must pay attention to the protection of IP copyright, strengthen the intellectual property protection of the brand, and especially deal with the intellectual property issues of IP in derivative applications and cross-border cooperation.

4. Create peripheral products to maximize the value of IP.

After the successful operation of the brand IP, you can consider cross-border cooperation, derivative peripheral products and services to maximize the value of the IP.

However, we need to pay attention to this. The more IP derivatives there are, the better. Instead, they must be implemented in conjunction with brand strategic planning. Overdrawing on brand IP will weaken the influence of the IP to a certain extent.

Finally, successfully creating an IP is not the end of brand IPization, but the beginning of the brand IPization development path. With the continuous upgrading of corporate brands, IP must also be updated and iterated.

In fact, many companies want to use IP to transform their brands. In fact, there is a big ambition behind this, which is cross-border growth. The premise of IP cross-border is boundaries and having sufficiently strong content assets. There must first be explosive content, with super content as the engine, before there will be subsequent monetization behavior. In other words, IP has content first and then industry. Without a solid content foundation, all content industries will be castles in the air.

Methods for rapid brand IPization:

(1) Develop products into anthropomorphic and cute pet IPs

Highly combine product characteristics with IP image to directly enhance product appeal, such as the Michelin Tire Man and M&M chocolate beans.

(2) The brand name is the IP and can be visualized

These are highly integrated IP brands, such as Johnnie Walker, as well as China’s Three Squirrels snacks, Jiang Xiaobai Liquor, and Zhang Junya Little Sister Food.

(3) Acquire famous IPs and use them as long-term brand image endorsements

The advantage of this is that there is a ready-made popular IP soul and image to help the brand, such as Fido Dido to 7-Up. This situation is very common abroad and has initially appeared in China.

(4) Founders become IP

For example, Xiaomi, Lei Jun, Chu Cheng, etc.

Author: Gong Yi Essays

Source: Gong Yi's Essays