Marketing Promotion: How was the Forbidden City’s super IP created?

As a cultural symbol with a history of nearly 600 years, the Forbidden City is not only a huge IP treasure, but also an IP complex with a large number of sub-IPs. Behind every historical figure and cultural relic, there are countless moving stories and huge commercial value.

After last year’s splashy news about the Forbidden City’s cultural and creative makeup and the first snow in the Forbidden City in the new year, we welcomed the first big day of the Forbidden City IP in the new year during the Lantern Festival - “The Night of Lantern Festival in the Forbidden City”. The Palace Museum lit up the Forbidden City complex in advance to build momentum, and this lantern festival was the first time the Forbidden City was open to the public at night in 94 years. Of course, the reservation tickets were sold out instantly once they were released. The reason for the popularity of the event is not only that the Forbidden City is a symbol of China's traditional history and culture, but more importantly, it is the successful creation of the Forbidden City's super IP over the years.

As a cultural symbol with a history of nearly 600 years, the Forbidden City has numerous imperial palace complexes, cultural relics and historical sites. It has become the most typical symbol of Chinese traditional culture and has witnessed the development of Chinese history and civilization. Therefore, the Forbidden City has been full of strong national and cultural identity in the hearts of the Chinese people since ancient times. This is an important foundation for the Forbidden City to become a super IP in the cultural field today.

2012-2015——The people who changed the Forbidden City, and the match that lit it up

Shan Jixiang, Director of the Palace Museum (Photo from the Internet)

When talking about the Forbidden City, one person that cannot be ignored is its director Shan Jixiang. As the person in charge of the management of the Forbidden City, if the Palace Museum is compared to a company, then he is the "CEO" of the company. After he took office in 2012, he began the transformation and creation of the Forbidden City's IP. Not only did he visit all 9,371 rooms in the Forbidden City, "use tricks" to obtain a 400 million yuan budget for cultural relics preservation from leaders, and became an Internet celebrity with his jokes, he also saw the light of fire at the National Palace Museum in Taipei, more than 1,700 kilometers away.

In 2013, the "I Got It" masking tape launched by the National Palace Museum in Taipei was well received by the market and became a hit on domestic social media. Dean Shan saw the huge potential of the Forbidden City IP in cultural and creative industries and started the Forbidden City Super IP Project. In 2013, the Palace Museum began to operate a WeChat public account. The early articles were plain in style and serious in content, and no one set a positioning for them, until the "style changed" in 2014.

The picture comes from the Internet

In 2014, the Palace Museum Taobao attracted widespread attention after publishing the official account article "Yongzheng: I feel so cute". In the article, Yongzheng changed the serious and solemn image of the ancient emperor and became the first IP spokesperson under the Forbidden City brand by showing cuteness through contrast. It can be said that the success of new media operations is a key factor in the popularity of the Forbidden City IP. Today, each of the WeChat tweets for "Forbidden City Taobao" has received over 100,000 views. It first seriously popularizes the traditional culture of the Forbidden City, and then sells cultural and creative products in a cute way.

The picture comes from the Internet

In addition, since its first trial development and launch of the APP "Yinzhen Beauties" in 2013, the Palace Museum has launched a total of 8 APPs, including "Forbidden City Auspiciousness", "A Day in the Life of the Emperor", "Night Revels of Han Xizai", "Daily Forbidden City", "Qing Dynasty Emperors' Costumes", "Forbidden City Ceramics Museum", and "Forbidden City on Your Palm". It has become a consensus in the industry that the Forbidden City apps are well-made, and many of them have won the "Annual Selection" award from the Apple Store.

Through the mobile APP application, the interaction between users and the Forbidden City culture is no longer limited to offline. The starting point is to help more people understand the Forbidden City culture and the stories behind it. Although it is not a profitable product, through the exploration of its own IP, it still brings considerable sales revenue through the sales of cultural and creative products.

Palace Museum Exhibition APP

2016 - Breaking down walls, online cross-border activities

In 2016, an H5 titled "Traveling through the Forbidden City to See You" went viral on WeChat Moments. It also used contrasting characters to sell cuteness, allowing the fresh and youthful Forbidden City IP to truly enter the public eye.

The picture comes from the Internet

This H5 is actually a cross-border cooperation between Tencent NEXT IDEA and the Palace Museum. Its purpose is to promote the QQ Expression Creation Competition, but it has since opened the prelude to the Palace Museum's cross-border IP gameplay. Cartier, Kindle, QQ Music, Douyin, Xiaomi, Pechoin and other big brands have rushed to extend olive branches of cooperation to the Palace Museum. The collaboration of numerous brands covers audiences of almost all age groups and is especially popular among young people. It successfully presents to everyone a new Forbidden City IP that is long in history but full of vitality.

The picture comes from the Internet

2017 - 1.5 billion yuan sold by "selling cuteness"

Director Shan Jixiang once showed the report card of the Palace Museum's cultural and creative products in 2017. In 2017 alone, the sales revenue of the Palace Museum's cultural and creative products reached 1.5 billion yuan, and there were more than 10,000 types of cultural and creative products on sale. If you have no idea about the numbers, you can imagine that 1.5 billion yuan exceeds the revenue of 1,500 A-share listed companies.

The picture comes from the Internet

It is reported that the Palace Museum has more than 150 staff members specializing in cultural and creative industries, who are distributed in all aspects of planning, design, production and sales of cultural and creative products. So, why are the Forbidden City’s cultural and creative products so popular?

• First of all, the Palace Museum's cultural and creative products have achieved product creativity and entertainment, among which creativity is the most important, which is also the difference between cultural products and cultural and creative products. Through historical adaptation, the traditional solemn cultural relics and ancient images are added with cute and interesting elements and expressions, forming a contrasting creativity.
• Secondly, through user-driven, we communicate with users through emoticons and other means in new media channels to stimulate user creativity;
• Finally, through IP licensing, cross-border collaboration with multiple brands, and different brand combinations, we can create more creative products, cover more different groups, and continue to create hot topics and influence.

Forbidden City official hat umbrella

Forbidden City Makeup

2018 - Word-of-mouth TV shows and variety shows gain traffic

In addition to various online brand collaborations, the Palace Museum has certainly not neglected its investment in film and television, ranging from documentaries to variety shows. The Forbidden City has launched five highly rated documentaries on Douban, including "The Forbidden City", "The Forbidden City 100", "The Past of the Forbidden City", "I Repair Cultural Relics in the Forbidden City" and "New Things in the Forbidden City". In 2018, it also launched three variety shows: "National Treasure 1", "National Treasure 2" and "New Arrivals at the Forbidden City". All three variety shows have a Douban score of more than 8 points, and each one has a good reputation, which is rare.

I Repair Cultural Relics in the Forbidden City

The 2016 documentary "I Repair Cultural Relics in the Forbidden City" shows the many unknown life and secrets of the Forbidden City and its cultural relics through the perspective of a young cultural relic restorer, and became a hit documentary that year. The Forbidden City not only has ancient IPs like Yongzheng, but also down-to-earth craftsman "Internet celebrities."

The "National Treasure" series aired in 2018 received a Douban score of more than 9 points. With the dual support of celebrities and variety shows, it successfully unearthed more sub-IPs with huge potential under the Forbidden City IP. It is a priceless IP for cultural relics and antiques, and also the IP of the ancients behind the cultural relics.

"National Treasure" picture from the Internet

In addition, at the end of 2018, the two official institutions under the Palace Museum, "Palace Museum Cultural and Creative" and "Palace Museum Taobao", both launched lipstick cosmetics. After being flooded in the circle of friends, they were hard to find and became the latest representative of the "national trend" brand.

The picture comes from the Internet

Event marketing operation with its own scenery

The "Night of Lantern Festival in the Forbidden City" during this year's Lantern Festival is the best example of the Palace Museum's event marketing. The Palace Museum's official website first announced the event time and ticket reservation information, and then released the night view of the Palace Museum complex lit up in advance. This was both the first lantern festival event and the first time that public reservations were accepted at night. It hit the right time for the Lantern Festival and successfully swiped the screen for a wave of festival event marketing. Tickets were "hard to come by" in the circle of friends.

Events that take place in the Forbidden City are often marketing events that come with their own scenery and topics, whether it is the night view of the Lantern Festival or the first snow in the Forbidden City.

#The first snow in the Forbidden City#Pictures from the Internet

In addition to the "in-wall" event marketing that comes with its own scenery, the Forbidden City is also good at creating its own "personality", selling its "soft, cute and mean" personality on e-commerce platforms and new media platforms, and promoting cute emoticons after the H5 that goes viral. The Forbidden City almost never misses any hot event.

The picture comes from the Internet

The picture comes from the Internet

The picture comes from the Internet

The future of national IP

The Forbidden City is a huge IP treasure trove and also an IP complex with a large number of sub-IPs. Behind every historical figure and cultural relic, there are countless moving stories and huge commercial value. Compared to Disney, the world's largest IP player, there is so much more that can be explored in the Forbidden City.

What the Palace Museum should do next is to continue to innovate and expand in IP discovery and derivative product creation, while continuously outputting content. It needs both traditional cultural content and new content based on the changes of the times, so that this 600-year-old IP can continue to remain vibrant and go global.

Source: Spread Gymnastics (ID: chuanboticao)