Talking about IP operation from the perspective of Perfect Diary’s marketing

Nowadays, with the continuous development of brands, consumers' impression of brands is gradually changing. Some brands will establish their own IP image or concept to attract consumers' identification with the brand. The author of this article shares his thoughts on IP operation from the perspective of Perfect Diary 's marketing. Let's take a look.

1. What is IP operation?

IP (Intellectual Property) operation refers to continuously trying more operational methods based on the type, characteristics and user attributes of the work, so that the IP has a large number of loyal fans during the creation stage.

When the IP matures to a certain stage, commercial explorations such as licensing can begin. Through animation, games, stage plays, online dramas, peripherals and other forms, more and wider paying users can be developed to verify the value of the IP while further attracting fans from more fields.

When IP is converted into film and television works, it has been verified through market means in the early stage and has cultivated a large number of loyal fans. At the same time, the investment risk will be very low. All the data and attributes of users' early consumption of IP can be analyzed, accurately positioned and marketed. Simply put, the film and television works become the product of public anticipation before they go online.

And what is IP operation now?

It includes Internet applications that can attract traffic on their own, personalized content images, and self-media accounts in a narrow sense; from Internet celebrities to Taobao anchors with strong ability to bring goods, they have a certain popularity and topic in the mobile Internet era; they not only gain a lot of traffic, but also create a lot of commercial value.

2. Thoughts on brand IP operations

Brand ≠ IP? So what kind of relationship should they have?

Through the understanding of the concepts of brand and IP, it is not difficult to find that brand ≠ IP, and the difference between the two is very obvious. We cannot simply distinguish a thing from its concept and appearance, but we must try to understand the thinking logic behind it.

In a narrow sense, we usually understand IP as "Internet Protocol", which is actually a collection of domains and a link channel. It represents the flow logic so that more people can visit and pay attention to it.

So, if we understand it from this perspective, a brand's exclusive IP can bring a lot of traffic to its own brand. We can say that IP = traffic collection. From this perspective, IP carries information, and information is a virtual thing, so it can change anytime and anywhere.

The difference between a brand and an IP is that a brand can be understood more as a trust mechanism. From the user's perspective, it can reduce the user's selection cost and, of course, the user's trial and error rate. When purchasing products, more users will choose to trust their favorite brands.

Of course, the more positive interactions there are between a brand and its users, the greater the intangible asset value that the brand accumulates; therefore, a brand carries the product, which is a positive interaction between users and product parties.

Fundamentally speaking, the reason why companies build brands is to achieve product sales. A good brand can achieve sustainable sales goals that bring excess profits.

IP is a boost for enterprises, promoting the sales of a series of products derived from this IP, and it is also a leader in such products. In essence, IP is also a product, which means it has functional attributes. For users, what IP provides to consumers is not the functional attributes of the product, but an emotional sustenance, which can achieve interaction and value recognition with users.

It can be said that when users like a brand, it is an emotional transfer of empathy based on a rational choice, while liking an IP is simply a "heartfelt" decision, an emotional investment.

In real life, brands are often the ones who "spend money". Brands need to constantly attract new users and please users; and IP is like "treasure". By continuously outputting content, it attracts many sponsors to pay and cooperate, thereby attracting more and more fans.

It can also be said that IP essentially maintains its dissemination and influence by continuously outputting personalized and relevant content.

3. IP Operation with Examples

Taking Perfect Diary, a recently emerging domestic beauty brand, as an example, let’s talk about the IP operation of this brand.

Perfect Diary was founded in 2016. It is a brand of Guangzhou Yatsen E-Commerce Co., Ltd. "Perfect Diary/Perfect Diary Cosmetics" was founded in 2016. The brand founder from Harvard University and the British fashion designer met in London. With their keen sense of business and fashion, they hope to have the opportunity to bring European and American cosmetics back to Asia and make a breakthrough in visual image creation.

Perfect Diary’s brand concept: The brand meaning of Perfect Diary is Unlimited beauty, beauty has no limits.

The first time the brand Perfect Diary was involved in IP operation was in October 2019. The Perfect Diary x Chao Meng IR "No Duck" joint air cushion special edition was launched before Double Eleven and participated in the pre-sale event of Tmall Double Eleven in 2019. The design expresses youthful vitality in a trendy and cute way, retains a pure and humorous attitude towards life, says "no duck" to troubles, and faces life with a relaxed and cute "makeup" attitude.

When Perfect Diary started building "private domain traffic" in 2019, it created its first brand IP - "Xiao Wanzi", which took a warm and professional approach.

This IP has played a big role in the private domain traffic marketing created by Perfect Diary. It is active in many private domains such as WeChat groups and Perfect Diary's Choice. It not only launches activities at the right time, but also studies the value of the product from the customer's perspective, creating an image that truly considers the users, saves every penny, and implements every product, and does not miss every opportunity to interact closely with users.

Later, when the brand "Fatty White Makeup Remover Water" was launched, the cute IP "Fatty White" was separated from the product and became its own emoticon package, thus achieving the purpose of entertainment.

While Perfect Diary is collaborating with various types of existing external IPs, it is also creating its own IPs of different styles, such as: Xiao Wanzi, Xiao Meizi, and Bai Pangzi; what's more, in November 2019, Bai Pangzi opened an independent Weibo account, and frequently interacted with the official Weibo and fans.

Later, after the Sanrio co-branded loose powder was put on the shelves, he posted a message to "compete for favor", hoping that he could also be printed on the loose powder. This kind of interaction made more consumers "buy it", and each IP image has a sufficiently differentiated personality image.

Not only that, we can see that on the road to building IP, Perfect Diary not only focuses on integrating corporate culture into it, but also gives the product a friendly, cute, story-telling, interactive, youthful and energetic tone; and from many aspects, it creates a brand that is high-end yet friendly enough, meaningful yet extremely cute, in line with the aesthetics of today's public, especially young women.

Brands have also invested a lot of money to operate these IPs over time, so that these IPs can be strong enough to achieve the purpose of feeding back to the brand. It has to be said that Perfect Diary has been very successful in marketing and building IP.

IV. Conclusion

The creation of IP involves multiple dimensions such as corporate culture, product tone, and brand temperament. In addition to requiring a large amount of financial investment, it also takes time. Only a very few can succeed, so there are those rare and high-value IPs.

The IPization of a brand seems simple, including personalization, storytelling, entertainment, and interaction... There are indeed some brands that have boldly IPized (such as Perfect Diary) and achieved good results; but this is easier said than done, so most brands only try it out briefly and give up halfway.

Author: Mango Fruit

Source: Mango Fruit