Chinese original cultural IP is slowly rising.
Not long ago, LABUBU became a hot search regular on social media platforms both domestically and internationally. The offline store queue craze swept across Europe and America, with some co branded and limited edition products selling for thousands or even tens of thousands of yuan. Similar cases are happening to more IPs.
The explosive growth of this batch of Chinese native original IP is basically incubated by the Internet, and has become the “social currency” of young people because of the image of high recognition and emotional value.
The fundamental reason for the transition from traditional IP dominance to the flourishing stage of original IP lies in the qualitative change in content innovation and cultural value accumulation of IP, which cannot be separated from new quality productivity and efficient market operation mechanisms.
The trend of consumers being willing to pay for emotional value is becoming increasingly evident, especially among the new generation of young people, “said Lu Jie, the head of iFlytek’s” Love Skin Universe “, referring to a key data point: the proportion of young users of iFlytek’s input method is continuing to grow, with users under the age of 30 accounting for 68.16%.
Every day, billions of users express themselves in the digital world through personalized ecological content such as skins, fonts, wallpapers, avatars, etc. This means that digital IP has become an important part of people’s comfortable and enjoyable daily lives.
Behind this trend is the growing power of domestic IP players in China. Can we use cutting-edge AI technology and perfect ecological capabilities to “pull” the emerging creators? IFlytek wants to do a good job in this “enabler” role.
The newly incubated “Aipi Universe” this year is a key focus of iFlytek’s IP strategic layout and implementation of one of its three core AI entertainment businesses. Aipi Universe “is positioned as the” connector “and” accelerator “of the IP industry ecosystem. It plans to use platform capabilities to gather the wisdom of creators and empower every participant.
On November 6th, iFlytek officially announced its strategic cooperation with Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts, and one of the core carriers to undertake its cooperation is the “Aipi Universe”, reflecting the layout of this new business and quietly accelerating.
The cross-border and internal growth of AI giants is breaking through barriers; Externally, it involves multiple forms of empowerment.
The multiple driving forces behind the new era of original IP
Why has iFlytek, a representative player in the AI industry, set its sights on the IP race?
Lu Jie told 36Kr that iFlytek’s entry into the market was actually a natural progression.
This is because the team has noticed that the mass consumer market has shifted from “functional consumption” to “emotional consumption”, and has become an important driving force for consumption. This is an inevitable result of the progress of the times, economic growth, and the upgrading of consumer demand.
Young people, especially Generation Z, pursue personal expression and self-identity, seeking emotional values such as companionship and understanding through consumption behavior, driving the reconstruction of consumption scenarios. IP has become a key carrier for them to pay for their emotions.
The dazzling variety of blind boxes, whether cute or funny, sold out as soon as they were put on the shelves; Coffee shops are busy collaborating with popular IPs, resulting in a significant increase in sales; In order to increase foot traffic, various IP images and IP themed activities can be seen everywhere in shopping malls. These phenomena all point to one point: IP has become the new trend consumption password.
In terms of purchasing power of IP, there is still a lot of room for improvement in China’s per capita consumption level. ”Lu Jie mentioned,
This also confirms that the original IP market still has great potential, and at the same time, artificial intelligence, as a new quality productivity driving industrial intelligence, can help it open up new imaginative spaces.
The Lu Jie team observed that there is a characteristic of IP consumption, which is the deepening interaction between users, products, and the IP content carried by the products. This interaction is strongly linked to daily scenarios.
For example, in recent years, more and more young people have started hanging small dolls and badges on their bags, and these unique “bag hangers” have become a fashion symbol among the younger generation.
This actually indicates that IP products are no longer something that appears during a specific entertainment time period, but have penetrated into every aspect of people’s lives, possessing dual attributes of collection and socialization. This provides a good entry point for empowering AI technology, which is to effectively enhance user demand insight and analysis capabilities through large models, respond quickly to market changes, and then use AI to accelerate creative output and accurately meet user needs. ”Lu Jie said.
To some extent, the entry of iFlytek, a technology oriented company, into the IP industry is essentially an extension of its own capabilities, placing the intersection of its goals on “AI X IP” and amplifying the multiplication effect of AI and IP.
Looking at the trendy toy market, AI technology is integrating into the entire process, from the birth of IP creativity, to intelligent management of the supply chain, and to personalized experiences on the consumer side. AI is reshaping every aspect of the trendy toy industry. AI technology injects interaction, growth, and emotional value into trendy games. A trendy game product that can respond to user emotions and perceive companionship needs will open up a unique incremental market and inevitably amplify the added value of IP and AI.
Inspire IP vitality through productivity innovation
The creation and operation of IP is a delicate task.
In Lu Jie’s view, as the IP industry enters a new stage, the pivot behind it has changed.
Traditional IPs are mostly ‘long’ in film and television, requiring users to go to the cinema to watch movies or turn on the TV to watch two episodes. After the arrival of the fast-moving consumer era in the past two years, the forms of media consumption have become diversified, such as through new forms such as short videos and live e-commerce, which can also drive an IP to become popular in a relatively short period of time. At the same time, due to the weakening of dependence on long-term large-scale productions, the speed of IP propagation and fission is much faster than before, for example, some IPs even become popular purely through emoticons. ”She said.
The IP industry is in full bloom. Traditional upstream and downstream players, Internet companies, individual entrepreneurs and others have entered the industry, promoting the prosperity of the industry while also bringing new challenges.
IFlytek has found that new entrants often face three major challenges: difficulty in breaking through fan circles, short lifespan, and weak monetization ability.
Many individual creators are in a state of going it alone, holding their creativity, but without a team behind them to help them operate well, the resources they can leverage are limited. “Lu Jie mentioned that after some IPs were launched, they quickly gained popularity among the public, but due to weak subsequent operational capabilities, the decline period came very early.
How can we help these creators significantly improve the success rate and operational efficiency of IP incubation? Aipi Universe has decided to build a super bridge, connecting creativity on one end and billions of users on the other, in order to shape IP influence, extend IP lifecycle, and accelerate IP commercialization.
Lu Jie introduced that in accelerating the commercialization of IP, leveraging the advantages of iFlytek Group, “AiPi Universe” can provide one-stop services from market research, creative planning to design, production, sales, and after-sales.
For example, in the market research stage, iFlytek’s diverse product matrix can provide sufficient capability support, helping to conduct product research and testing through traffic scenarios such as input methods, mobile phone manufacturers, and music promotion.
In the factory production process, the platform can integrate upstream supply chain resources and collaborate with multi category factories to achieve efficient mass production; In the channel sales process, iFlytek already has a self built online and offline comprehensive multi scene sales pattern, with rich experience.
The resources linked to the ‘Aipi Universe’, including designers, supply chains, universities, and mature IPs, can be endowed with irreplaceable core values through AI technology.
For example, for designers, the big data insights and analysis provided by iFlytek and a series of AI tools will become their “creative amplifiers”, breaking the efficiency bottlenecks and boundaries of traditional creation. At the same time, AI can also undertake repetitive work such as material collection and parameter adjustment, allowing designers to focus on the output of professional abilities and accelerate content production.
The entire process of creating IP products can actually be cut into modular forms and accurately empowered with AI. ”Lu Jie stated.
In addition, AI can also play a huge role in efficient community operation and intelligent prediction of product sales.
Anchoring long-term value and synchronous growth
The “Aipi Universe”, which was only incubated in the second half of this year, is a “newcomer” in the IP field.
Its organizational capabilities are growing rapidly, and it has established four centers including IP operations, business, product design, and channels.
In terms of talent, we will not only attract internal forces and focus on allocating personnel with underlying technical capabilities that are compatible with the IP industry, but also continue to recruit outstanding industry talents externally.
This team of dozens of people holds a simple yet ambitious vision – to help more artists achieve their dreams and become a leading global IP operation company.
Although dreams are grand, the road still needs to be taken step by step. At present, Aipi Universe is striving to expand its “circle of friends”.
On the designer side, “Aipi Universe” focuses on recruiting students from universities and has aggregated hundreds of works. It has initially run down and has received good data feedback.
Its recently announced strategic cooperation with Chuanmei also plans to implement cooperation in multiple dimensions.
Firstly, in terms of talent cultivation, we will jointly establish courses for talent cultivation, including workshops on topics such as “Technology+Music” and “Technology+IP”, and open innovation camps on “Technology+Design” to cultivate cross-border talents from a cross disciplinary perspective; Deep collaboration between industry, academia, and research, creating a talent cultivation model of “three teachers”, providing students with opportunities for internships and participation in business projects through the tripartite guidance of “academic+industry+technology”.
Secondly, establish a joint laboratory for the integration of art and artificial intelligence innovation center, promote the establishment of industry standards and capability research, and explore the construction of a content library for AI design aesthetics.
Thirdly, explore the talent direct access mechanism for practical employment around the creation and development of IP content ecology.
More collaborative innovation plans are already being planned. In the future, what “Aipi Universe” wants to expand is a symbiotic landscape of “technology+humanities” – that is, using “Aipi Universe” as a carrier to promote new quality productivity represented by AI as the core support for the revitalization of the IP ecosystem, and help the IP industry complete the transformation from experience driven to data-driven.
This exploration is bound to feed back iFlytek’s own business matrix, especially its hardware products.
Lu Jie mentioned an interesting detail, that the AI learning machine from iFlytek, in collaboration with the top tier Chinese anime series “Nezha: The Mind of the Demon Child”, has attracted the attention of many children since its release. The combination of IP and hardware products can effectively respond to the needs of users in certain circles. Doing a good job in IP operation also has enormous value for the group’s own business. ”
Searching for long-term value between certainty and possibility, “Aipi Universe” aims to provide new solutions and ideas for the IP industry for aspiring partners. It points to a brand new future: AI empowers every ordinary person with high-end creative capabilities that were previously out of reach, reducing the high operating and production costs.
As a result, the rights of expression and creation have been further equalized, and all participants can stand at the beginning of the era of original IP in China.
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