"Demon" Dong Zhiling: The characteristics of a good animation IP must be "growth and companionship"

"Growth means that it has gone through a long period of development. If some IPs on the market are mature, 5 years will be a basic unit, 10 years will just start, and 20-30 years will just mature. Many people who buy Transformers toys now are people who watched Transformers when they were young. This kind of companionship is very important for IP."

You Demon is the first case in China to successfully realize animation IP. In Dong Zhiling's view, animation IP must have the characteristics of "growth and companionship".

"Growth means that it has gone through a long period of development. If some IPs on the market are mature, 5 years is a basic unit, 10 years have just started, 20-30 years have just matured. Many people who buy Transformers toys now are people who watched Transformers when they were young. This kind of companionship is very important for IP."

How to realize it-this was the most troubling question that possessed evil spirits. They made a series of attempts and finally discovered diversified forms of IP monetization, including these four dimensions: there

are a large number of sponsors behind the video, which is the first attempt to monetize.

Crowdfunding attempts to make an animated movie.

Animation IP for game development.

Attempts to stage dramas, brand licensing cooperation, etc.

Dong Zhiling said at the end of his MIIC2015 speech that all new attempts are accompanied by commercialization. "Throughout the entire process of cooperation and exploration, although you don't know how to go, you can reach the next subway station if you find someone who can help you. In the end, I still like this sentence very much,'I still have dreams, in case they come true.'"

The following is the dry work of Dong Zhiling's speech, edited by Titanium Media:

New Explanation of Animation IP

What do I think of IP? In my heart, I am a person with a relatively traditional concept of IP. IP comes from intellectual property rights. What kind of standards and requirements do I have? We know that these works may have originated from some recent movies, but in fact they originated from comics.

The most important work in comics is "virtual fantasy". Virtualization means that it can be physical and abstract, and it has great extension advantages. If you like a work, you extend it to various genres. If it is a real person, there are many difficulties. Human beings are full of hope for the future and hope to see or feel something they hope for. People like "Transformers" will find it cool and cool, but it does not exist in reality.

Let me give you an example. Does anyone recognize this work? "We Are G.I. GOE" in 1970 and "Transformers" are also illusions in people's hearts. Fantasy things can be so real and deeply felt. It has attracted so much attention in China that its box office in mainland China was 280 million yuan in 2007 and 1.97 billion yuan in 2014. How old is Transformers? 2014 is its 30th birthday, which means that if it is a person, he has already entered the thirty-year-old age, it has entered a mature stage.

This is also the characteristic of IP in my mind,"growth and companionship". Growth means that it has gone through a long period of development. If some IPs on the market are mature, 5 years are a basic unit, 10 years are just starting, and 20-30 years have just matured. Many people who buy Transformers toys now are people who watched "Transformers" when they were young. This kind of companionship is very important for IP.

Although there are two products purchased for 300 yuan, one product is something you saw when you were young, and the other one is something you saw when you grew up. Which one would you choose? A friend said that he would choose this product that he saw since childhood, because it grew up with his youth. The author of the Japanese animation "One Piece" said that the story has been updated halfway, and there is still another work "Crayon Shin-shin". Although the author is dead, it is still being updated. The Japanese animation "Doraemon" has reached the top three in China's animated films.

What is the IP that we have known for the longest time? It is this mouse. If it can live from 1928 to 2015, it will be very shocking. So growth accompaniment + virtual fantasy = animation. So we founded the Evil website based on this concept. It was founded in 2009 and is now 6 years old. How do we view ourselves? We have more than 40,000 works, more than 50% of them in China, and 15000 comic authors. A large number of works are created every day. For example, Japan's Shieisha has produced many famous works such as "Slam Dunk".

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How to realize" diversified realization of IP? This is one of the most troubling issues for us. At the beginning, this project had the biggest difficulty. In 2012, there were micro-movies on the Internet. We wanted to make an animation that was not shown on TV, but on the Internet. So if you put it online, no one will give you money, so if you don't give you money, you can't realize it? After careful consideration, we found a solution.

There are a lot of sponsors behind the video, and this is the first attempt to monetize it. When we added advertisements to the website, we also encountered active resistance from online videos. We told the Internet,"You have to give us some space to survive," so the model of video placement advertising at the end of the game was retained, and the gratifying result was that we made a profit.

But we will encounter more problems next. After we finish the animation, we will think of one thing,"Can we make a movie?" At that time, it was still a whimsical thing. When we officially launched the movie, we found a very troublesome problem: "This is a domestically produced 2D animated film for teenagers."

Movies are a big market, animated films are one of the small markets, and 2D films are a small market among small markets. Youth animated films mean that they have not been successful and have not exceeded 100 million yuan. Basically, it is difficult to succeed. Then domestic youth 2D films mean death.

So let's try crowdfunding. We got 1 million yuan, but 1 million yuan is not enough to make a movie. At this time, we continued to look for funds. We met Chen Hongwei. We made a movie together. We made a poster. From this poster, you couldn't see the shadow of a domestic youth 2D animated movie at all. For movies, everyone only focuses on the box office of 120 million yuan, which is not a very attractive box office. Movies make us feel that you have good partners for many things, and you can try it bravely.

A very popular topic in the IP industry at present is making games. If A work is produced, and if A work is produced, A work is produced. We also made a game in "100,000 Cold Jokes" in the first half of 2013. At that time, we visited many game companies, and everyone said,"No, we are not interested and think it is worthless." After we finally made this game, the media gave us such a rating as "scarce qualified product." I was very excited to see this rating. Finally, we were qualified products.

Our single-day revenue from games is the last thing. Our operators also did a lot of marketing. We put in a lot of road signs, subways, advertisements, etc. At that time. First, we made the game seriously, and second, we made the promotion seriously. Third, we pushed the entire IP up instead of down. After nearly 4 months since our game was launched, we also gained the benefits we deserved.

Because the fantasy journey continues to move forward, people don't understand the road ahead, so we wonder if there are anything else we can do besides movies and animations? We put on a few small stage plays, and this was our first attempt. It was very interesting. After finishing the stage play, we wondered if it was possible to do some extensions, such as brand authorization. Can this thing be done? We are also trying.

This year, we have made some new breakthroughs and collaborations. This is a summer model of Metersbonwe. Several families came to play together, including "The Strange Talk" and "Cold Joke". The clothes are of good quality, so you can buy them and try them out.

The whole thing is going in the direction we hope for, but the design of clothing brand IP requires professional people to do it, and a lot of experience is accumulated throughout the cooperation process. Is it possible for animation IP to do advertising and endorsements?

Everyone found that our new attempts were all accompanied by commercialization: today we had a business cooperation with Sprite. They knew that we were relatively poor and specially invited Jay Chou over. You will find that throughout the process of cooperation and exploration, although you don't know the way ahead, you can reach the next subway station if you find someone who can help you.

So what can evil spirits do? We have many types in the whole work: every type of comedy, warmth, suspense, and reasoning, but we hope to make good works of different types. Although our works are different in various types, our age is still between the ages of 15 and 30. Some pictures are slightly younger, but the story is not younger at all.

The world is very big. When we are evil enough to do things at home, we hope to do things well in China. We also hope to take good works overseas and communicate with people outside. We hope to use our experience and ability to continuously improve in the hope of doing some exchanges with developed countries. In the end, I still like this sentence very much,"Dreams still have to be, in case they come true." (This article was first published by Titanium Media and compiled by commercial value reporter Liu Hongjun)

Editor: yvonne