How to build an IP brand in the protracted fight against the epidemic?

First of all, we must be prepared to coexist with the damn virus for a long time. We will have to live and work, fall in love, develop the economy, and develop brands under the shadow of the virus.

Perhaps some people cannot accept this and are still hoping to wait until the epidemic is basically over, just like the SARS epidemic, before they can resume normal life and work.

I think this is unrealistic. It may just be wishful thinking to expect to completely defeat and eliminate the new coronavirus and then have everyone return to their carefree, prosperous lives of the past.

Because the COVID-19 virus is so cunning, so strange, and so difficult to get rid of. Not only does it have a long incubation period, there are many asymptomatic infections, and there are various phenomena of evading detection and presenting false negatives. Its whereabouts are unpredictable, and it is difficult to distinguish the true from the false. It has appeared mysteriously all over the world, including Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Iran, Italy... Therefore, the virus is really difficult to eradicate completely, and it is likely to become a global epidemic that will occur one after another and will be difficult to stop.

This will be a protracted battle, but life must go on. You have to balance making money, falling in love, and preventing viruses.

I don't believe there is a perfect virus in the world. Since COVID-19 is extremely good at lurking and spreading, it must have other weaknesses. For example, it may be easier to develop specific drugs and vaccines for treatment. That will be our moment of victory in conquering the virus, but this will take quite some time.

Now, the most important thing is: in the protracted war against the epidemic, how to find a balance between restarting economic prosperity and continuing to fight the epidemic?

In the coming months or even longer, Chinese society will need a very sophisticated and ingenious balance management to coordinate the needs of epidemic prevention and economic development. A completely one-sided one-size-fits-all approach is not feasible.

This requires the collaborative efforts of the entire society. From every enterprise to every individual, everyone must act independently and cooperate with each other, rather than just rely on commands from above. Only then will it be possible to successfully fight the epidemic while restoring people's livelihood and the economy.

I am engaged in IP development and IP-based brand research. The macro-economy and people's livelihood are beyond my capabilities. What I am thinking about is: what can IP do? How can we help businesses and individuals live better in the era of the epidemic?

In short,

1. Enterprises need to build IP to enhance their own value in order to cope with more brutal market competition;

In the protracted battle against the epidemic, companies will face the dual dilemmas of fierce competition in domestic demand and a sharp decline in external demand. How to guide people's consumption needs towards themselves will be the top priority, and IPization can enhance the brand's emotional power and establish a deep emotional connection with consumers.

2. Individuals need to IPize themselves to enhance their energy and cope with career crises.

In the era of fighting the epidemic, large-scale layoffs and unemployment are likely to be unavoidable. As a result, individuals not only need to have a skill, but it is also best for them to become IPs, from ordinary workers to unique conveners. Only in this way can they survive in troubled times and live better and better.

In my past articles, I have talked about many tactical methods such as techniques for building IP (for details, please refer to the list of past articles at the end of this article).

In this article, I would like to explore the deeper level of IP rather than just the IP techniques.

During the one-month-long quarantine period due to the epidemic, I thought deeply and for a long time about the nature of IP. I found that in the past, I paid too much attention to commercial methods and lacked sufficient understanding of the non-commercial demands and ultimate value of IP.

In fact, the essence of IP is human nature. Without the in-depth understanding and shaping of human nature, there is no real IP.

Only by living well,

We can truly live,

IP is about doing something meaningful.

It is the way to live a good life.

Below, I will share six insights into the essence of IP. Only by transcending commercialism and utilitarianism can we truly create an IP brand in the era of fighting the epidemic.

1. Conscience

Years ago, when I wrote the book "The Incubation Principles of Super IP", I was thinking: "What is the ultimate value, or common mission, of all great IPs?"

This issue becomes more prominent when thinking about IP-based brands, because IP-based brands are different from pure IP content. The essence of IP-based brands is still brands, and they must reflect the social value of the enterprise. Therefore, the ultimate value is very important.

This is a very important proposition, but it was not figured out at the time and had to be put aside until the outbreak of this epidemic.

“This new coronavirus outbreak is the public health event with the fastest spread, the widest scope of infection, and the greatest difficulty in prevention and control that has occurred in my country since the founding of the People’s Republic of China” (evaluation by the highest authorities).

For more than a month, I, like all Chinese people, was in a state of self-reflection with my life back to zero. This allowed me to calm down and think more transcendentally about the nature of IP.

I suddenly realized that this ultimate value is——【To Conscience】

These three words "to conscience" cover a lot of content -

"Zhi" means action, achievement, and fulfilling promises through practice;

"Liang" means kindness, beauty, and natural goodwill;

"Heart" is the home of human nature, which is what I have always emphasized. IP positioning is based on emotions and human hearts, not just on reason and logic.

If during IP development, one only talks about it but fails to implement it or even deviates from it in actual actions, this IP is hypocritical, will be despised and disliked by the public, and will never be truly successful.

For example, during this epidemic, which people and things are spontaneously loved by the people? Zhong Nanshan, Li Wenliang, Huoshenshan and Leishenshan are all representatives of "conscience"...

In the anti-epidemic creations spontaneously created online,

Zhong Nanshan and other three mountains are the ones that people actively create the most.

Mr. Zhong Nanshan is the only representative figure who has survived two major epidemics. He has always fought against the epidemic with actions and faced the truth with a sincere heart. He does not conceal, do evil or speak in official language. Naturally, he has become the person that the people trust the most and who they can place the most hope on.

Dr. Li Wenliang is an ordinary person like us, so his kindness and perseverance, the same pressure and helplessness as us, and the injustice of fate aroused great empathy in us. Li Wenliang was just making normal, well-intentioned reminders based on his work, just as we would remind our family and friends, but he was reprimanded and then infected. It was this tragedy of an ordinary person that, along with his sudden death, triggered a great inner storm among people.

Huoshenshan and Leishenshan not only represent the thunderous action to fight the epidemic, but also carry the hope of hundreds of millions of Chinese people that the epidemic will be defeated. At the same time, there is a powerful cultural matrix behind the names of these two hospitals, which is closely connected with the collective cultural subconscious of the Chinese people.

Hubei is the land of ancient Chu. The Chu people are believed to be descendants of Zhurong, the god of fire. The human lungs belong to the element of gold, and fire overcomes gold. The new coronavirus that is poisoning human lungs is afraid of high temperatures, and the God of Fire can drive away the God of Plague, so the name "Huoshenshan" has a very clear meaning. Leishen Mountain also corresponds to the legend of Chinese folk culture: Leishen is the god who punishes sins.

Huoshenshan was built first, and Leishenshan was built later. This is the "Fire and Thunder" in the 64 hexagrams of the Book of Changes. The meaning of "Shi Ke" originally means that all things in the world, big or small, cannot go smoothly because there are many difficulties blocking them. If they are bitten together like the upper and lower jaws, and they are chewed into pieces, everything will be smooth. Therefore, the "Huoshenshan" and "Leishenshan" hospitals symbolize the Chinese people's strong determination to defeat the epidemic.

The naming of Huoshenshan and Leishenshan is itself an attempt to create an IP cultural symbol that combines traditional cultural beliefs with reality.

Let’s take a look at how more classic super IPs were created——

The Romance of the Three Kingdoms has been popular for thousands of years, with thousands of vivid characters with flesh and blood and hundreds of heroes. But why is it that the two people who have truly become the Chinese folk beliefs, and even have ancestral temples dedicated to them, are only Guan Yu and Zhuge Liang?

This is because, only Guan Yu and Zhuge Liang truly lived up to their conscience throughout their entire lives. Guan Yu was a man of great righteousness, who died tragically, and practiced righteousness, courage and loyalty throughout his life; Zhuge Liang was both loyal and wise, and ultimately devoted his life to his work until his death. This is the power of conscience.

There are also Jie Zitui, Zhou Gong, Confucius, Wu Zixu, Qu Yuan, the Yang family generals, Yue Fei, Wen Tianxiang, etc., all of whom became the folk beliefs and deified by the people because of their conscientious lives.

Modern super IPs also rely on the spirit of conscience, but with more humane everyday emotions.

The heart of Doraemon is to let Nobita survive the humiliation and hardship and enjoy a happy childhood where all his dreams come true, which makes people feel great empathy.

Pikachu's conscience is to help his owner overcome difficulties and grow into a brave and outstanding young hero.

The conscience of superheroes such as Superman and Spiderman is to promote good and eliminate evil; the conscience of Harry Potter is to defeat Voldemort and return the wizard world to goodness; the conscience of Star Wars is to defeat the evil empire, and the force is with me...

Let’s look at the companies that can become IP brands. The same is true.

Apple THINK DIFFERENT practices conscience by changing the world with outstanding innovative products; NIKE practices conscience with individuality and self-promotion with the belief of JUST DO IT; Coca-Cola aims to bring happiness and even created the IP image of Santa Claus that is not private to itself, but shared by the world; Disney also takes creating happiness and joy as its mission, and always launches family-friendly, positive energy content where goodness triumphs over evil...

I often think of Nokia. Although Nokia phones are now in decline, people still miss this company that believes in "technology is people-oriented" and those products that were once very easy to use.

As long as brands uphold morality and bring a better life through real and powerful actions, people will truly remember them.

Therefore, serving conscience should really be the common ultimate mission of all IP brands.

In the era of fighting the epidemic, only by being kind-hearted, practicing what we preach, and being united in mind can we defeat the epidemic and establish an IP brand.

2. Socialized Enterprise = IP-based Enterprise

As mentioned in the previous article: "Overcoming the epidemic is a protracted battle that requires the collaborative efforts of the whole society. Only when every individual enterprise and every person takes independent action and cooperates with each other can we fight the epidemic while reviving economic prosperity."

In the era of fighting the epidemic, companies cannot just be profit-driven, but must also have a true sense of social enterprise.

Every company, regardless of its size, should be aware of its role as a "social public welfare" company. To this end, companies should take on more social responsibilities and clarify their position in the social cooperation system. Only in this way can they cope with the challenges of the ecological environment in the long term and help society complete its tasks in the era of long-term anti-epidemic efforts. This is also part of core competitiveness.

Socialized enterprises need to have a good original intention and establish an open spirit and a mechanism for full cooperation with society. We cannot just consider our own interests, as this will lead to many troubles. Open social enterprises can respond to social needs more efficiently and agilely.

During this epidemic, countless large and small companies are contributing to society, and these social welfare activities are also helping the advancement of technology and the progress of a smart society.

For example, a group of Internet companies such as Tencent, Alibaba, Baidu, Toutiao, JD.com, Bilibili, Kuaishou, and Dingxiang Doctor have made a lot of new technological developments in order to enable people to learn about the epidemic and avoid the epidemic more quickly and conveniently. Many of them have never been done before, and they have all been realized at the fastest speed through this crisis.

For example, in order to transport supplies to Hubei, and to enable people who are confined in their homes to obtain various protective supplies faster and more conveniently, the entire supply chain system of production, transportation, and distribution has been more efficiently integrated and configured, and directly connected with individual consumers at the end. A new social collaborative purchasing and consumption mode is also being born.

The establishment of social enterprises is very helpful in the development of IP characters.

An enterprise's IP character should not only be entertaining, but also responsible. I have said in previous articles that the key to the success of IP characters is empathy and resonance with consumers' emotions. In the era of fighting the epidemic, the requirements for such empathy will be even higher.

When a company encourages itself to become a socialized enterprise, it is naturally more likely to become an enterprise with cultural value and an IP-based enterprise.

Every time an enterprise does something beneficial to society and the people, it will contribute to its cultural charm. If an enterprise can go a step further, clearly define its social role, implement it in its corporate actions over the long term, and express it through IP content and roles, this is to show its conscience.

From the unity of knowledge and action to the unity of heart and soul, we can better and truly become an IP brand.

3. IP content should no longer be entertainment to death

This epidemic will surely become the strongest collective memory of all Chinese people in the past forty years, and to a large extent, it will change the future direction of popular entertainment content.

For a long time, as China's economy has been booming, the SARS in 2003 and the Wenchuan earthquake in 2008 were only very short-term and local impacts. Therefore, it is natural that a tendency of "entertainment to death" content has emerged, and shallow, heartless, and irresponsible content has become popular.

The economic downturn and rising anxiety in recent years have actually contributed to the development of entertainment-to-death content in a short period of time.

However, this epidemic is unprecedentedly tragic, comprehensive, and nationwide, and will certainly last much longer than any crisis in the past 40 years, including SARS and the Wenchuan earthquake.

It was like a train that had been constantly upgraded and running at high speed for forty years, and suddenly the pause button was pressed, causing the entire Chinese people to pause, face life and rethink during the pause.

"How can we live a good life?" When people are forced to think about this question seriously and hard, the direction of popular entertainment IP content will definitely change.

In the past few years, when many companies tried to develop IPs, their requirements were generally very superficial, requiring only that the products be cute and fun (which in fact they basically failed to achieve). In the new era of fighting the epidemic, this is not acceptable and will be ineffective.

Content marketing is certainly necessary, but "entertaining to death" content is of no use to businesses and brands.

This is because content without clear value orientation and deep empathy only appeals to the shallow pleasure of emotions and cannot take root in people's hearts.

This problem will become more obvious and serious in the anti-epidemic era and the post-epidemic era.

Therefore, I hope that many companies that want to create IP brands will not just focus on the flattery of an image, or the pleasingness of some emoticons. Doing so will not create a good IP, and it is impossible to create an IP brand at all.

Content that can truly help IP brands is meaningful and creates value for consumers, just like Xu Sanduo doing many meaningful things. The content can be a little clumsy, but it must touch people's hearts and, together with the company's behavior, be conscientious.

Opposing "entertainment to death" does not mean adopting empty slogans, because content that flatters the upper class is further away from the people than content that caters to vulgarity, and is also further away from the value of IP.

Only IP content that is truly humane, considerate and practical can be truly conscientious.

Just like the distributed computing of blockchain, it must be decentralized and recognized by many individuals before it can truly take root and achieve cultural IP.

4. Humanity is the basis

Human nature is the source of IP power, and the highest good is like water.

Recently, there was an incident where the Communist Youth League’s virtual idol IP was quickly revoked.

Here's what happened. A few days ago, the Communist Youth League suddenly released two virtual idols on Weibo and Bilibili: Hongqi Man and Jiang Shanjiao. These two images were completely designed based on the fan culture style of teenagers, hoping to communicate with teenagers in a new way.

The result was completely counterproductive. The two images were unanimously disliked and opposed by the vast majority of people, including young people from fan culture and fans of two-dimensional virtual idols. They were extremely disapproving and had to be hastily removed from the shelves just hours after they were released.

Why is this happening? The fundamental reason is that in order to please young people, these two virtual image IPs are too inconsistent with the history, culture and spirit of the Communist Youth League.

I have read a lot of replies, and this overly entertaining approach, which is totally inconsistent with the identity and mission of the Communist Youth League, is the focus of everyone's doubts.

"We can play some memes spontaneously and spread them in small circles, but they cannot be used as official expressions. How can the relationship between fans and idols be the relationship between the country and citizens?" said a fan girl. Another sentence, "I am your citizen friend, not a fan," received more than 50,000 likes.

In fact, this incident is the same as the one many years ago when Li Ning sportswear inexplicably launched the slogan "Post-90s Li Ning". Li Ning, who was afraid that people would think he was old-fashioned, wanted to use one sentence to change young people's impression of him. The result was only counterproductive and he failed to please both sides. This was one of the reasons for Li Ning's huge losses many years ago.

Until recently, Li Ning found the "national tide" route, which truly combined its own characteristics with fashion trends and achieved the coolest expression and communication in the most harmonious way.

The degree of matching with human nature is a prerequisite for the success of an IP brand. When developing IP, many brands often ignore the degree of matching, disregard their own attributes, follow trends for the sake of trends, and do things that are not suitable for themselves in order to please young people, which often leads to thankless work.

Therefore, the matching degree between IP content and human nature is the ethical principle that must be adhered to in all IP brand development.

5. Scenario change = new IP-based devices

This once-in-a-century disaster has made everyone fear returning to zero, because just when we were struggling to move forward on the economic downhill slope, it suddenly came down and pinned us to the ground, leaving us unable to move for a month.

Can we still survive after the epidemic? This is a serious problem facing many people and many companies.

In fact, just being alive is not enough, which means that we have gone from lying in the mud to stumbling in the mud. Only by finding a better way to live can we truly leave the mud and seize the initiative in the future.

Where is a better way to live?

On the changes in scenarios and on new opportunities in new scenarios.

1. New online opportunities: Online digital life has expanded rapidly due to the epidemic, especially online education, online office, online medical care, etc. The development of IP has always been closely related to the digitalization process. Online education, online office, and online medical care may soon be deeply integrated with IP content and IP roles.

2. New opportunities for enterprises: The surviving enterprises will increase their efforts to embrace digitalization and culturalization, while conservative ones will be at risk of being eliminated. If entrepreneurs who fail to survive start a business again, they will also give priority to a more IP-based development method.

3. New cultural opportunities: The revival of cultural traditions and the development of new cultural content will not stop. Instead, they will find new explosive growth points in new media and new digital fields, especially in the fields of virtual characters, games, VR, etc., and will counterattack offline with the recovery of offline entertainment.

4. Changes in scenarios are the biggest opportunity: The world of expanded digital life after the epidemic will be more suitable for companies to create a new digital-based communication system centered on IP characters/IP scenarios, and to establish all-round connections with users and upstream and downstream partners.

The change of scenes is irreversible. Almost all the scene changes brought about by the epidemic are closely related to digital life and virtual communication, which are important opportunities for the development of IP scenes.

In particular, offline education, online medical care, online psychological counseling, etc. will definitely move closer to IP characters and scenarios. Now many online education platforms have done this, such as the cooperation between the children's education platform Pea Thinking and the Super Wings IP.

If you want to create an IP brand, you must seize the opportunity of scene change, which will be an important driving force for China's economic recovery and innovative development.

6. Personal self-help = personal IP

We have been talking about the IPization of enterprises, and here let’s talk about individuals.

The epidemic will definitely aggravate the crisis faced by businesses. Many businesses will go bankrupt, many industries will have to transform, and many individuals will have to find new ways out.

There are two major directions in the future. One is that strong companies will become stronger; the other is that many social work platforms will emerge to alleviate the pressure of small and medium-sized enterprises.

A socialized work platform means that you may not necessarily work as a long-term employee in a company, but instead you may continue to take on odd jobs on the online division of labor platform. Because, in order to reduce the pressure of survival, many small and medium-sized enterprises will cooperate with social work platforms to solve many types of work.

Therefore, for individuals, the most practical way out is to strengthen their personal energy and seize new scenarios and new opportunities.

How to strengthen personal energy? It’s personal IP.

Several anchor points of thinking about personal IP are:

• Clarify your core competitiveness, which must be able to withstand external changes and be continuously learned and strengthened;
• Think about a question: What is the most important value that your power brings to the world and others?
• Based on this value, it is like IP or brand, giving yourself a clear positioning;
• Based on the above value positioning, shape your own IP role;
• Develop your own course of action based on this IP character;
• Build your own small universe online according to your own course of action;
• It is not necessary to become a star or an internet celebrity, but to become a valuable person.

There is no savior in this world, and no one you can always rely on. The only thing you can rely on is your own growth and progress.

There are thousands of growth paths for personal IP. The core is to achieve value connection between you and the world and other people in the way that suits you best. This is a big world with many tools inside and outside. I am still thinking about it and will write a special article to explain it in the future.

Finally, in my opinion, the good thing that will most likely come from the war against the epidemic is that the economic downturn and market crisis that was originally scheduled to last for five or even ten years will be completely released ahead of time, allowing bad things to end ahead of time.

China has entered a period of revival of cultural traditions and growth of new culture. A large part of China's economic development in the 21st century has come from the promotion of new culture, especially IP culture. Especially in recent years, it has been an important driving force for consumption upgrading.

The development of new IP culture will not pause or slow down due to the epidemic. Looking at world history, major disasters are often the source of cultural creativity and produce more brilliant results after the disaster. IP is a symbol of culture, an imprint of people's hearts, and a process of self-exploration for individuals and enterprises. The process of exploration is a process of conscience.

Author: IP Fried Rice

Source: IP Fried Rice