Where is the "Second Spring" of Tide?

In this cold winter, Tide Play seems to be experiencing a pain.

On July 15, Bubble Mart issued a profit early warning announcement. The announcement shows that it is expected that the revenue of Bubble Mart in the first half of this year will increase by not less than 30%year -on -year, and the decline in net profit will not exceed 35%.

Since July, the stock price of Bubble Mart has begun to decline, and this announcement is like a strong wind that the building will lean, which has helped the fall of Bubble Mart's stock price -compared with July 15, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7 On the 18th, Mart's stock price fell 12.8%.

Bubble Mart's board of directors attributed profit early warning to two points: the closure of store closes and consumer shopping willingness caused by the epidemic, as well as the cost of business expansion.

As a non -rigid demand product, it is normal for the background of the total social zero total (total retail sales of social consumer goods) in the first half of the year, and it is normal for tide to play.

But the fact that it is difficult to deny is that the tide play bubble created by capital, leading players and consumers is disillusioned. This highlights in the secondary market of Tide.

Most of the players in the blind box circle have heard such a story: a Beijing guy spent more than 100,000 to buy a blind box, two years later, he retreated to the baby, sold 300,000, two years of net profit of 200,000.

Today, the masses of the blind box, such legends are almost unable to copy, and even many retired people have said that without talking about the price, the blind boxes on the selling of their hands have become difficult.

But the disillusionment of foam does not mean the decline of the entire market or a single company:

During 618 this year, Bubble Mart ranked second in the first "finding unicorn" in the tide. The first series of products were launched in seconds, and there were multiple items. The maximum sales value exceeded 20 million, and the total sales increased by more than ten new products with a sales volume of more than 20,000 yuan year -on -year. The sales volume of the total store increased by nearly 100%year -on -year and half of the flames. Half of the sea was seawater. After years of high -speed development, the blind box and the tide game have entered a period of reflection: how can we get rid of pain and foam and usher in long -term steady growth? After this round of high growth, what will it look like the next spring?

1. Those who have achieved tide playing are trapped in the tide

One scene has made Wang Ning, the founder of Bubble Matt very proud: 6 am on December 21, 2018. Although the weather in Beijing is very cold, there is still a team of nearly 2,000 people at the gate of Xidan Yuecheng City. They are waiting for a new product for sale for Bubble Mart.

Whether it is an investor or or a consumer, how many people can understand such a spectacular scene?

Some people say that behind the listing of 100 billion yuan in market value Bubble Mart, it is the collective loss of the Chinese big fund; Sidd, co -founder of Bubble Mart, also said that what Bubble Mart is doing. The niche market, put it in a mass market for commercialization.

From the niche to the public, Bubble Mart must have made some efforts and used some "tricks".

According to Wang Ning's summary, he believes that, in addition to the "great trend" of the changes in the consumer group and the rise of spiritual consumption, and with the original channel advantages, there are two reasons for the breaking circle:

First, industrial transformation and commercialization reform of Tide Play. Specifically, it is to adjust the appearance, sales methods, and prices of tide to make it standardized, which is suitable for more people.

The "sales method" here is actually a blind box form.

Although Bubble Mate avoids calling himself a blind box company or even weakening the concept of a blind box, it cannot be denied that the blind box is indeed an important product form that Bubble Mate In the year, the proportion of blind box revenue accounted for the company's total revenue, from 57.8%to 84.2%. (Author's note: Since 2021, in the financial report, Bubble Mart will no longer list the income of the blind box separately)

Wang Ning said that the blind box can increase the entertainment of retail and double the happiness. It is "a form of icing on the cake" and has become part of the Bubble Mate gene.

Compared with the remaining conventional tide game sales models, the blind box enlarges the spiritual satisfaction and topic of the tide game, accelerate the formation of the circle culture and the secondary market, and the expansion of the influence of the tide game has been made. Outstanding Contribution.

Blind box forms a unique circle culture | Picture source MOB Research Institute

In terms of price, the price of the original hand -made and BJD dolls is higher. For example, the price of BJD dolls is at least 200 yuan, and the entry threshold is higher.

However, the price of most of the single blind boxes of Mart is controlled within 100 yuan, which also provides conditions for breaking the circle.

Second, aiming at the female group, highlighting the cute style of the tide, rather than follow the original male directional play ideas, produce male favorite mechs and monsters.

According to statistics, the proportion of men in the portrait of the hand -made consumer accounted for 64.2%, and according to the official statement of Bubble Mart in 2021, 75%of the consumer group of Matt Matt were female — the bubble Mate dug out A new but huge space that was originally ignored.

In addition to standardized change and consumer positioning adjustment, the "de -storyization" of Bubble Matt IP also helped the product break.

Compared with Conan and Journey to the West, the IPs of Bubble Marts such as Molly and Pucky are image -type IPs, which are characterized by handing the definition of the tide image to consumers.

Molly | Screenshot from Tmall

In this regard, Wang Ning's explanation is that in this era of fragmentation of information, it is difficult for people to build a content IP in the impression of consumers. On the contrary, the image IP reduces the time threshold for consumers- "One minute, you know you like it or not." In addition, Wang Ning believes that after consumers buy home IP products, their interaction with IP is long enough to precipitate a more powerful IP in their hearts.

At this point, we can summarize the four major elements of tide plays or blind boxes in the past: low -priced, entertaining sales forms, women's cute style, and image IP.

These four major elements condensed together to form a joint force, and finally formed the explosive power of breaking.

In other words, Bubble Mart actually reduces the threshold through tide -playing products, so that it is concerned about the public's vision.

The problem follows: Tide play breaks due to the low threshold, but when the growth potential of this space gradually weakens and has to re -increase, will the original early adopters and fans buy it?

Second, the multi -style, price and sales form, can the collection toys set off the trend again?

One of the directions of the promotion is to collect toys.

According to the definition of an illusion think tank, the collection toys born overseas refer to toys that can be used to collect and collect them. They have the collection attributes in design, technology, materials and quality. At the same time Refers to a culture and lifestyle loved by more and more people.

Trendy toys, assembly building blocks, hand -made, deformation, BJD, assembly models, mech and some plush toys, in fact, belong to the collection toys.

Therefore, to a certain extent, the collection toys are more diverse in style, price belt and sales form.

Toy Value Map | Map Source Analysys Analysis

As mentioned above, Bubble Mart does not want to be called "blind box company".

Eager to get rid of this title, or the bubble Mart, who is anxious to find a larger space, also casts his eyes into a product series with stronger collection attributes.

In 2020, Bubble Mart released the MEGA collection series.

The MEGA collection series is positioned in high -end art collection toys. Compared with conventional blind boxes, its size is larger, such as 400 % (28 cm) and 1000 % (70 cm). %Of the MEGA products are priced at 799 yuan.

Bubble Mate is hard to hide this series of attention. In the semi -annual report of 2021, Bubble Matt deliberately took out MEGA to describe it alone: ​​"The MEGA collection series Space Molly × SpongeBob's joint model released in June will quickly detonate the market once it is launched. The purchase of the number of draws has attracted more than 1 million participation. "

According to statistics, in the second half of 2021, Bubble Mart also greatly improved the new frequency of Mega.

Mega treasure series yuki rainbow | Screenshot from Tmall

In fact, China's collection toy market has been silently developing for nearly thirty years. "China Collection Toy Industry Market Insight and Analysis 2021" shows that the Chinese collection toy consumer market has gone through the budding period and growth period in the past 20 years.

Therefore, from the perspective of the industry's development, it is by no means a collection of toys from the blind box, but a blind box as a subdivision category of collecting toys. It was earlier by the mainstream vision.

Wang Yin, born in 1974, is a senior product director of collecting toy brands 52TOYS. He is a loyal fan of collecting toys. In 2001, he also participated in the founding of the first domestic popular toy magazine "New Age of Toy".

Wang Yin's toy consumption behavior basically achieves the same frequency resonance with the development of the toy industry in China.

After the 1990s, IPs such as Transformers and Gundam woven the memory of a generation. During this period, the collection toy market developed slowly and began to sprout.

Wang Yin also started buying toys after having a good income foundation at the end of the 20th century. He mainly played for Transformers and Gundam.

"At the beginning of the new century, the domestic collection toy market has not yet taken shape, and the collection toys are still a very small circle. Just like the name of the magazine I founded," New Age of Toy ". At that time, everything was a whole new for collecting toys. The starting point. But at that time, it was too early, and the overall economic strength of the society had not yet erupted. Everyone still put more energy on the Internet virtual electronic entertainment. "Wang Yin said.

Until 2010, China's per capita GDP exceeded 4,000 US dollars. Overseas culture, film and television, animation and other contents were introduced to China. In addition to the popularization of mobile Internet, the culture of collecting toys was further fermented. Wang Yin said that in around 2010, there were many embryos of collecting toy brands in China.

Today, the collection toy industry has also ushered in new inflection points and opportunities.

Looking back at the United States and Japan, after the per capita GDP broke through the $ 10,000 US dollars, the collection toy market ushered in rapid development. At present, China's per capita GDP has entered the $ 10,000 mark, which means that collecting toys may usher in a comprehensive outbreak.

Observatory analysis believes that in the future, collecting toys will be rapidly expanded in three aspects: the number of consumers, age, and regional layers, and more and more pan -collecting toys consumers will be added to the ranks of toys collection.

Favorite toy player development trend | Tap source analysis

Third, content type IP vs image IP, how can the long -term debate in the tide play industry make the value of collecting toys continuously increased with the disappearance of time?

The more exquisite design, craftsmanship, materials and quality may make these toys have a long -term value, but the key to really making it "more and more fragrant" is probably the IP.

Takitoys, the head of China's original trendy toy label, said that compared with the traditional classic IP such as Pokémon, there are two new types of IP types today:

One is from IP to TOYS, such as Luo Xiaohei, which have their own classic IP and animation stories, and then from IP to TOYS; and the other is from TOYS to IP, that is, people are doing tide playing Time turns it into a spiritual and cultural symbol. In fact, the two path relationships mentioned by potatoes correspond to the two types of IP types of content IP and image IP, respectively. Their respective advantages and disadvantages are very obvious: the life cycle of content IP is long, but the cultivation cycle is also long, and the cultivation cost is high; the image IP does not need to create the content of the matching, but the life cycle is short and the ductility is weak.

In early January 2022, Bubble Mart officials and cooperated with Beijing Chaoyang Park. According to public reports, Chaoyang Park will authorize the bubble Mart to use the area inside the park to build the first offline park of Bubble Mart, and the bubble Mate will be committed to making the project into a tide -to -play IP and cultural dissemination. , The trend cultural park that integrates immersive experience and leisure and entertainment.

A senior tide player industry told the Hedgehog that he was not optimistic about this project. "The life cycle of a image IP is about 3-5 years, but a amusement park is obviously to be put into use for a longer time. If this IP is out of date, is it necessary to disassemble the amusement park? The advantage of the type IP is reflected. "

So, how to create a stronger IP with stronger vitality?

Wang Yin, senior product director of 52TOYS, said that the approach of 52TOYS is "step by step."

"If you want to imitate Japan and Europe and the United States, you must use animation, comics and movies, but for us, it is indeed a big investment in directly to the movie. So our approach is to make the toys first, and then then Use comics and novels to reach core users with high creative costs and low production costs. At the same time, communicate with animation and movies in the process. "Wang Yin said.

52TOYS BeastBox's mecha image in IP IP

Interviewee

TakiToYS Tudou said that the image -type IP and content type IP are not contradictory. They are essentially a kind of attention economy. Competitors are platforms such as Douyin and WeChat mainly occupy the attention of consumers.

He believes that IP cross -border and diversified cooperation will be the mainstream of the next stage of tide development, such as script killing, NFT, wearing jewelry and consumer goods.

For example, in 2021, Funko, a US listing company, acquired a majority equity of a NFT company tokenwave and issued its own NFT virtual currency; TAKITOYS's own IP semi -sugar girl Sugar also appeared at the Takiplay script art museum. Feel the personality of the semi -sugar girl Sugar when experiencing offline script killing.

Fourth, conclusion: Tide play, how to build the spiritual world of players?

Chaowan is the carrier of culture. In the end, the player's spirit and emotional demands are placed. This means that carrying the spiritual world of players has become the "root -rooted" of Tide Playing products.

An observer of the Internet industry said that the popularity and listing of Matt in the early years actually reflected a hidden trend in the Chinese pan -entertainment market: it is true.

He believes that most of the young people in generations Zer belong to the indigenous people of the Internet. They have lived on the Internet since they were young, which made their proportion of online life and online entertainment far exceeded the previous generations, which eventually led to their desire for offline entities. Essence

According to this idea, the media environment has changed further, the social platform of the Yuan universe has risen, and the mechanism of NFT blind boxes has gradually matured. "Realing into reality" seems to have further evolved into the momentum. The big framework of "attention economy" brings challenges to tide play.

Whether it is more form and style, or more content IP, they will eventually fall into "psychological projection" -Many people buy different products, which is essentially exploring their own needs and creating exclusive people.

Then, in order to always grasp the consumer's heart, Tide Play still has to understand people's spiritual needs more, and then find the appropriate material carrier to achieve perfect projection.

Author: Zhang Zhan; Edit: Shi Can

Source public account: hedgehog commune (ID: CiweiGongshe), observation and research on the Internet content industry.

This article is authorized by the product manager cooperation media@Hedgehogy Commune. It is prohibited from reprinting without permission.

The question map is from UNSPLASH, based on the CC0 protocol.

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