Domestic animation, how to achieve branding (deep focus)

Today, no one will question the powerful role of animation in cross-cultural communication under the background of globalization. As an important part of the whole animation industry chain, animated film is the key with the most spreading power, influence and brand building power. Starting with animated films, opening up the surrounding and upstream and downstream industrial chains has become an important starting point for many countries and regions to develop animation industry.

The just-concluded 12th China International Cartoon & Animation Festival attracted more than 2,500 enterprises and 4,000 professionals from 80 countries and regions, setting a new record. Participants pointed out that in the next few years, China's animation industry will take big IP as the core and big movies as the leader, and expand and develop into animation games, related derivatives, copyright licensing, theme parks, international markets and other fields.

Branding of big IP is becoming a trend.

According to the China Animation Film Development Report (20 15), in 20 15, 57 animated films were released in China film market, including the domestic animation movie 43 department, with a movie attendance of 610.2 million, achieving a box office of 2.054 billion yuan, an increase of 6 1% respectively over the previous year.

Animation film can be said to be a barometer of the development level of a country's animation industry. The production level and market appeal of domestic animated films have been improved, especially "100,000 Cold Jokes" and "The Return of the Great Sage" have broken the insurmountable ice of domestic animated films for many years, making the future development space of the animation industry generally optimistic, with the intervention of capital inside and outside the industry, capital mergers and acquisitions and securitization began to surface in the domestic animation industry. ? Huang Qunfei, executive deputy general manager of Huaxia Film Company, said.

In the past year, IP was regarded as the connection and link of cross-form operation of works, cross-border cooperation of enterprises and cross-industry operation of capital in the domestic cultural field, and this phenomenon also appeared in the animation industry.

Domestic animation is extending from the initial single product model to the whole industry chain. In the future, animation products with IP advantages will pay more attention to the prospect of pan-entertainment development. ? Zhu Yuqing, director of the Industrial Research Center of China Film Critics Society, said that in practice, IP may be a story, an image, a work of art and a popular culture, and IP has become a craze because it has a market effect with others? Intellectual property? In contrast, an IP accepted by the market can increase marketing costs, avoid market risks more easily and achieve large-scale success.

20 15 light pictures acquired a number of animation creation teams and enterprises, Tencent set up several studios to enter the animation industry in a big way, and Orpheus Animation acquired the original comic platform company at a high price of 900 million yuan? Is there a demon? 100% equity, and set the theme of the conference as? IP Big Bang? , announced that its IP products will be packaged and operated in pan-entertainment fields such as games and movies. It is generally believed in the industry that the driving force behind these actions of enterprises and capital comes from the preemption of dominant IP. Series movies, brand products and classic images have become the main starting points for the animation industry to build brands.

Non-box office income is still the weakness.

It is the key to enlarge IP, extend industrial chain, realize branding and get through all links of animation industrial chain. However, in 20 15 years, domestic animated films still relied too much on box office revenue. As the core of non-box office revenue, copyright trading and brand management are still the soft spots of China animation industry, which seriously restricts the overall development of the industry.

According to "China Animation Film Development Report (20 15)", the proportion of domestic animation films' non-box-office revenue in total revenue in 20 15 was not much higher than that in 20 14. According to reports, the non-box office revenue of China animated films mainly comes from film and television copyright, derivatives, books, games, product placement and brand authorization. In 20 15, the top three sales of animated film derivatives in China were toys, stationery and trinkets, and the main consumers of animated film derivatives were still young people. At the same time, the proportion of book revenue shows an obvious downward trend, accounting for 65,438+00% of the children's book market in China every year? The increment of 15% varies greatly.

This phenomenon shows that the means of expanding the non-box office income of animation enterprises in China are still limited, the operation and management ability of animation brands is still insufficient, and the information resources of education, service industry and other related industries that can borrow from animation brands are not mastered enough. ? Zhu Yuqing said.

Similarly, in 20 15, the derivative products of several major film and television companies in North America generally remained closed, and traditional derivatives such as Mattel, Tongbao and Lego from Denmark remained the market leaders. It is understood that the American Disney Company has more than 3,000 franchisees around the world and sells more than 65,438+10,000 kinds of products related to Disney cartoon images. Among them, there are more than 100 authorized dealers in China alone. In 20 15, Disney's revenue from consumer goods reached USD 4.5 billion, up by 13% year-on-year, which was largely due to the continued hot sales of frozen derivatives.

Huang Qunfei said that the main factors affecting the non-box office revenue of domestic animated films include: less content products with high awareness, popularity and reputation, low quality of original animated films, unscientific investment structure, brand planning and publicity strategy of animated film projects, lack of professionals and professional institutions, and poor implementation of intellectual property laws and related protection policies.

20 16 what will be the key words of China animation industry? Brand? Performance? Namely IP branding and brand value. ? Zhu Yuqing said that the core value of the animation industry is to create one or a series of animation stars with stories, images and images, and create maximum value through brand management and management of various intellectual property rights of animation images and their creative wealth. ? How to identify the brand value area of an original or mature IP, how to build an animation brand, shape an animation star, and carry out brand packaging, management and operation are the problems that all animation enterprises must face. ?

Improving quality is the foundation of brand.

Back to the animated film itself, although the production and box office of domestic animated films have made great growth, the hidden problems behind the figures are still outstanding.

Although only 14 imported animated films were released in 2065, in 438+05, the number of people watching movies reached 68.5 million, and the cumulative box office was 2.354 billion yuan, which was higher than the release of 43 domestic animated films. The average box office output of domestic animated films is 47.77 million yuan, and the average single film output of imported animated films is as high as 65.438+68 billion yuan, which makes domestic animated films flinch. All this shows that although the macro indicators of domestic animated films are growing at a high speed, the individual creation is quite different and the maturity of the single-chip market is still low.

20 15 domestic animated films have a total income of 2.054 billion yuan, and one film "The Return of the Great Sage" accounts for more than 900 million yuan. Relying too much on a movie is not good for the audience, the industry and the market. ? Huang Qunfei pointed out that in 20 15 years, the number of domestic animated films accounted for about 10% of the whole domestic film market, but the box office it created only accounted for about 4% of the total box office revenue in China, which shows that the gap between domestic animated films and domestic feature films is also huge.

Some insiders also pointed out that in fact, the market appeal of some domestic animation brands that have been operating for many years is also declining, including Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf, Sail, Finding Nemo and so on. At the same time, most domestic cartoons are still not out of the young market positioning, with a single theme, outdated ideas such as creativity, story structure and character modeling, and even some cottage films have appeared.

Some people say that the film and television industry in China has been chased by two dogs in recent years, one is capital and the other is technology. In fact, the same is true in the animation industry. There is a general impetuous mentality in the industry, and there is a general lack of patience in building fine products and brands. ? Yuan Mei, general manager of Beijing Qixinran Film and Television Culture Communication Co., Ltd. said that in countries with developed animation industry, especially the United States, the production cycle of an excellent animated film is generally four years, while in China, it is not surprising that there is one movie a year, or even several movies a year, driven by the influx of hot money in recent years.

Zhu Yuqing emphasized that domestic animated films must build their own brands in order to truly realize the IP of the whole industry chain. Taking Disney as an example, he pointed out that although its income includes movies, television, theme parks, derivatives and so on. The most important and basic product is animated film. Without this leader, there will be no follow-up copyright income, which is also the first step of the branding strategy of China animation industry.