45° Angle Law: The unspoken rules of brand, platform and IP

There are always various unspoken rules in the world, such as you have to try hard to make yourself vomit when drinking with your boss, you have to say good things about others when you say bad things about them, most of your time in life is wasted on courtesy, etc.

Unwritten rules are often related to human weaknesses, so they are not convenient to write on paper, and become unwritten rules rather than explicit rules. Only a very few unspoken rules are particularly bad, and most of the others are just not suitable to be said openly.

The interesting unspoken rule I want to talk about today has always been very useful, and people in the marketing industry have always been aware of it.

Let’s start with brand marketing . The unspoken rule is:

The user portraits that most brands publicly describe are not actually true and are not the main buyers; the people who will really pay for this brand are those who look up at the user portrait at a 45° angle.

I call it the 45° elevation law

This is something I discovered when I was doing brand marketing. I couldn’t say it publicly at the time because it would expose the hypocritical nature of most brand marketing cases. It would make the brands, advertising, marketing, and public relations companies embarrassed, so everyone knew it. Now that I’m working on IP, I can say it boldly - the vast majority of users publicly claimed by brands are basically not the main paying users, this is the truth.

The real main users of a brand must be hidden below the public users, looking up at the sky at a 45-degree angle to complete the task of supporting the brand, but they are rarely mentioned, silently dedicating themselves and living forever.

For example, the protagonist of a certain brand’s advertisement is a successful boss, and it claims to be the choice of successful people. Then this brand must know very well that what it really wants to impress are ordinary people who want to become successful bosses, a group of losers who are impressed by the symbols of success.

It has always been quite effective...

This is a typical 45° upward look, which is very common in brand marketing: from fast-moving consumer goods to durable goods, from beauty products to skin care products, from personalized fashion brands to local brands.

If a brand really wants to impress successful bosses, it must design characters that they can look up to at a 45-degree angle: wise men who ponder the meaning of life, saints who are open-minded and elegant, because these are what the bosses are pursuing and are out of reach now.

Fashionable people often look down upon this kind of advertisements and think they are too vulgar, but wait, fashionistas themselves cannot escape the 45° elevation angle law.

Behind the image of fashionable beauties, there is a clear chain of fashion contempt.

In the fashion world, there is a clear cultural fashion psychological contempt chain, which is similar to the food chain in the animal world: people in third- and fourth-tier towns prefer brand characters from first-tier cities and pay for them; people in first-tier cities prefer brand characters from foreign big cities and pay for them; fashionable young people in foreign big cities prefer anti-urban culture and anti-mainstream brand characters and pay for them.

I have been curious about what would impress the top fashion trendsetters at the top of this cultural fashion psychology contempt line, such as those in Manhattan, New York or the Champs-Elysées in Paris? It turns out that they favor Mother Theresa, because they cannot devote their whole life to the poor; and they also cannot live in a simple and natural state like the primitive tribesmen, which are what they lack the most, so they also form a 45-degree upward gaze.

Therefore, looking up at a 45-degree angle is not unique to China, but is the case all over the world, because people all over the world have the same basic weaknesses in human nature, and everyone has deficiencies in life, and they all hope to make up for them through consumption.

To put it bluntly, it means replenishing what you lack, which is similar to the Chinese health care principle, that like replenishes like. Life needs YY, no matter how much practical effect it has.

Because life is short and most of the time it is difficult or unsatisfactory, no matter how realistic consumers are, deep down they all desire to become the life characters of their dreams, even if they are buying the most essential daily necessities. Brands that make people look up to them and satisfy their YY are the ones that will sell better in the long run.

The change from a foreign image to a national trend image represents a 45-degree upward change in the Chinese people's concept.

For decades, one of the most effective images for Chinese brands was to use foreigners as the protagonists in advertisements and emphasize internationalization, because Chinese people looked up to international images at a 45-degree angle. But now the situation has changed, and the most effective brand images often emphasize national trend elements, because people are beginning to look up to traditional Chinese style at a 45-degree angle.

01

The basic rule of the 45° elevation angle law is that making consumers look up at a 45° angle rather than looking straight ahead will make them more likely to buy.

There is a premise here: the 45° elevation angle law applies to businesses that make money through direct sales, and is most suitable for brands that make profits through direct sales, where consumers directly purchase the products with money.

But if it is a large platform or a new IP, the 45° upward view is not applicable, and it has to be done just the opposite, using a 45° downward view.

This article actually talks about two sets of unspoken rules, one is looking up at 45 degrees, and the other is looking down at 45 degrees. The former is applicable to paid product brands, and the latter is applicable to platforms and new IPs.

Why is the creation of large platforms or new IPs more suitable for people to look down at it at a 45° angle?

Because in the early stages of development of large platforms, they often offer paid services for free and sell at a loss in order to attract as many users as possible as quickly as possible, so they will definitely make consumers feel superior as much as possible, thus forming a 45-degree overlooking situation.

Large and successful platforms are often particularly humble in the early stages of development: for example, in the first 10 years of Tencent’s growth, it was looked down upon by other large Internet companies, who considered it to be low-class. While Zhang Chaoyang was talking about the value of the eyeball economy on the stage, Ma Huateng was quietly listening to the lecture and quietly increasing the number of QQ users rapidly. In the first five years of its growth, Baidu was also the most low-key company in Zhongguancun.

There is also the rise of Taobao, which was also caused by a group of grassroots fighters who used free and various humble services to completely defeat EBAY, which had an international brand pedigree, within a few years.

Outside of BAT, JD.com, Meituan, Toutiao, Douyin, Pinduoduo, Didi, Bilibili, etc., all started from low-key and grassroots groups, either selling at a loss or targeting a niche group that was not valued by big brands, such as Bilibili, and built up step by step.

When creating a new IP, especially a new IP with no historical background, it must make readers look down on it and feel close, involved, and empathetic, so that it can rise.

The 45-degree bird’s-eye view makes it more approachable and easier for new IPs to become popular.

I’m not just talking about the new IPs that are popular on the Internet, but also the most powerful IP in the world - Disney’s Mickey Mouse.

The original meaning of MickyMouse is "insignificant little thing".

Perhaps few Chinese people know that the original meaning of Mickey Mouse in English is not just a mouse named Mickey. In American slang, Micky Mouse means "an insignificant little thing", a little guy that ordinary Americans can look down at at 45 degrees and feel friendly and comfortable. That is why Disney's cultural empire was built step by step.

02

The basic rule of the 45° Angle of Depression Law is that it makes people look down at a 45° angle rather than looking up, which makes it easier for people to accept, like, and spread spontaneously.

There are some unspoken rules behind this, for example, being humble is more useful than being high-handed, so the big platforms that have risen rarely talk about what they did in the beginning.

There is also an unspoken rule related to IP content. New content that can become popular often caters to human weaknesses. It is something that mainstream content is disdainful of or unable to do. The content often has non-mainstream attributes and is not so worthy of being presented in high-end publications.

This is my own personal experience: when I was doing brand marketing, it was very useful to use a 45° upward view to come up with advertising ideas. However, when I entered the IP industry and continued to develop IP, I found that I must use a 45° downward view of creative thinking.

This requires a 180-degree change in approach, one looking up and the other looking down, and the mindset change is huge. This is also the reason why it is difficult for most advertising/marketing/public relations companies to help companies build IP. This is because it is difficult for an organization that is used to looking up at a 45-degree angle to change and do things that look down at a 45-degree angle.

However, I also found that individuals who are good at IP often come from the advertising/marketing/public relations industry, because the underlying logic is still the same, they just need to change their attitude. For example, the founders of Mengyaxiong IP, Feirenzai IP, and Bubaichi IP have all done advertising and marketing.

03

We have discussed both the 45° elevation angle and the 45° depression angle. In short, letting consumers look up at a 45° angle makes it easier for them to pay, pay a premium, and build a brand.

Allowing people to look down at the picture at a 45-degree angle makes it easier to develop a platform with massive users or create an IP that is loved and spreads spontaneously.

So here comes the interesting question -

The ultimate goal of a platform is to make money and profit. The biggest problem with relying solely on a 45-degree bird's-eye view is that it is difficult for people to pay voluntarily, especially profitable payment with premium value, which is not easy to achieve.

The solution is that when the platform enters the profit mode, it will return to the 45° elevation angle law and create new products that people look up to, which will make it easier to make money.

There is an unspoken rule here, which is "selling dog meat under the guise of selling mutton". After relying on destroying one or two traditional industries, most companies will definitely think about how to find other ways to make big money with massive traffic, either through value-added services or developing new products, such as Tencent collecting Q coins and developing games. On the contrary, the way of making money directly from traffic is criticized a lot, such as Baidu's use of bidding ranking... This is really interesting. "Selling mutton under the guise of selling mutton" is actually wrong.

For IP, when a new IP becomes an Internet celebrity, if it wants to make money to continue to support and grow the IP, it must find a way to develop from IP to brand, upgrade the traffic value to influence value, and gradually change from letting people look down to consumers looking up, because a 45° elevation angle will make it easier for people to pay.

It is easier to make money if IP becomes a brand and people look up at it at a 45-degree angle.

Disney will certainly not take the initiative to call Micky Mouse a "insignificant little thing" now. While maintaining people's love for it, it will always intentionally or unintentionally showcase its status as an international brand and the most powerful IP, making consumers look up at it at a 45-degree angle. Only in this way can it have enough premium value.

In short, in the development of IP, both the 45° overlooking and the 45° upward looking are indispensable. Different stages have different emphases. Only by gradual improvement and integration of the top and the bottom can great things be achieved.

Some people may think that for many IP contents produced by big stars, there is no looking down, only looking up? No, no matter how strong a big content is, people can only look up to it in terms of production and star lineup. If you delve deeper into the attributes of its content, you can still look down on it at a 45-degree angle. For example, the most impressive Disney animated blockbuster "Zootopia", its content is essentially still a grassroots story; the same is true for "The Eight Hundred", "My People, My Hometown", "Dying to Survive", "Nezha, the Devil Child Comes into the World", "The Wandering Earth", "Wolf Warriors", etc., which are still the efforts and counterattacks of the grassroots.

04

Let’s talk about brand aging.

What worries many old brands the most is that the essence of the brand aging problem is that the value that the brand originally established and made consumers look up to it at a 45-degree angle is no longer there as time goes by and the times change...

The essence of brand aging is the obsolescence of 45-degree value.

The key to solving the aging problem is actually how to maintain or find new energy that allows consumers to continue looking up at a 45-degree angle...

If you continue to use traditional brand image advertising, consumers will think that you are still using old routines and old media to solve problems, which is neither pleasing nor lacks new energy, making it difficult to succeed in the fragmented era.

It is difficult for old brands to truly solve the problem of brand aging by only using new traffic stars to organize activities.

Li Ning's "Post-90s Li Ning" was a huge failure back then. It was simply not feasible to try to solve the problem of youth appeal through pure advertising means. Now "China Li Ning" is following the national trend, adhering to tradition while embracing new trends. Making itself an IP is the right path. Li Ning has actually injected cultural energy that allows consumers to continue to look up at it at a 45-degree angle. This injection actually uses the IP method of looking down at a 45-degree angle, which is more likely to generate love and self-propagation.

Brand IP can better solve this problem. Old brands should make themselves IPs and then embrace new IPs, which is a good way to solve the problem of brand aging. IP is cultural energy + emotional energy. Empowering with IP makes it easier for old brands to be reborn.

To summarize:

What is an IP brand?

It is a brand that makes people feel comfortable looking down at it from a 45° angle, and also easy to look up at it from a 45° angle.

You can think about it, is it like this for brands like Haidilao, Three Squirrels, Yuanqi Forest, Heytea, Huaxizi, Perfect Diary, Super Wenheyou, Atour Hotel, Jiang Xiaobai, Xiaomi, Single Dog Food, Little Sister Zhang Junya, Wang Baobao, M&M Chocolate Beans, Kumamon, and snail noodles?

Author: Chen Gray

Source: IP Fried Rice (ID: IPCOOK)