Secondary virtual idols are expensive and difficult to recover costs and diversified development still needs to be explored

Compared with the maturity of the foreign virtual idol industry, the domestic virtual idol market is still in its early stages of development. Not only is the audience size relatively small, but a single profit model is also difficult to cover the cost of tens of millions of yuan.

Original title: The profit model is single, the cost is difficult to develop and the reward is high. Where is the road for virtual idols to dig gold

? At a time when secondary culture is popular, domestic virtual idols such as Yanhe, Le Zhengling, and Luo Tianyi have entered the public's eye, but they have also made virtual idols have gradually become a new hot spot in the market and have gained many fans from young groups. When the news broke that virtual singer Luo Tianyi held a concert in June this year, 500 limited SVIP tickets sold out in just three minutes; Japan's Crystal Future Media also plans to release the Hatsune Miku V4 Chinese version of the sound library in the spring of 2017, which makes the 2017 secondary market full of excitement. However, compared with the maturity of the foreign virtual idol industry, the domestic virtual idol market is still in its early stages of development. Not only is the audience scale relatively small, but a single profit model is also difficult to cover the cost of tens of millions of yuan. While the virtual idol market environment is not yet mature, how to maximize value through diversified development methods is a difficult problem faced by virtual idols on the road to gold mining.

Virtual idols that cost tens of millions of yuan and are hard to recover

have begun to enter the public eye with the popularity of secondary culture. The future success of Japanese virtual idol Hatsune has also led domestic companies such as Shanghai Horan, Migu, and Shanghai Wangyu to explore the field of virtual idols. However, according to industry insiders, the initial investment in virtual idols reaches one million yuan or even tens of millions of yuan, which not only involves hard costs, but also soft costs such as post-maintenance and promotion. Take domestic virtual singer Luo Tianyi as an example. In 2012, the domestic Shanghai Henian Company was authorized by Yamaha's Vocaloid technology. Based on the Vocaloid Text To Speech program, it sampled real sound sources and launched Luo Tianyi's voice library. Although the audience can create their own lyrics based on Luo Tianyi's voice library, the officially created songs are indispensable. In terms of song production, the creation, lyrics and adjustment of a song (Using software to synthesize electronic sounds), drawing, modeling, etc. require a lot of time and technical equipment, and the investment amounts to hundreds of thousands of yuan or even millions of yuan.

Later, as the company launched more virtual idols, more sound libraries and tracks were needed, which gradually increased the initial investment in virtual idols. Like traditional agency packaging artists, virtual idols also have to be designed through images, such as character personalities, hobbies, etc. Although the follow-up persona is built with the participation of fans, the initial image and basic persona of the virtual idol are provided by the official. As virtual idols gain market attention, later promotion is very important. Due to the immature domestic virtual idol market environment and small audience size, the commercial value and influence of virtual idols such as Luo Tianyi is limited. How to recover costs and achieve profits has become a virtual idol industry. Problems facing.

At present, Luo Tianyi's commercial value has been initially demonstrated, and cooperation has been reached with Hunan Satellite TV, fashion magazines, Hollywood, and game companies. Vsinger's 10,000-person concert in June this year was Luo Tianyi's largest commercial performance. However, for companies that are in the early stages of development, the holding of a virtual idol concert is also mixed. As a platform, the concert is of great significance to promoting the influence and popularity of the virtual idol brand Vsinger. However, the cost of the concert is also a huge expense. The concert relies entirely on 3D holographic projection technology. Among Vsinger members such as Luo Tianyi, Yan He, Le Zhengling, Le Zhenglongya, and Mo Qingxian, there are still many members who do not have mature sound libraries and tracks. These also require technical personnel to rush to produce, which increases investment in equipment and technology in the early stage. According to public information, Vsinger's current investment has exceeded tens of millions of yuan.

Business model to be developed

In addition to Japan's virtual singer Hatuno Miura, currently the more well-known virtual singers in China are Luo Tianyi and Chuchu. Based on the secondary image, the commercial development of Luo Tianyi and Chuchu has just begun. On the stage of the 2016 Hunan Satellite TV Spring Festival Gala, Luo Tianyi and singer Yang Yuying sang the song "Hua 'er Naji" to promote the second dimension to the mainstream market. Not only did Luo Tianyi's popularity increase, but the ratings of Hunan Satellite TV's Spring Festival Gala also increased. After that, Luo Tianyi also began to sing "Delicious Song" for three squirrels of the food brand and participated in a series of commercial activities such as game endorsements. Taihe Music Group has also reached a cooperation with Luo Tianyi's copyright party to create tailor-made songs for Luo Tianyi and launch them to the mass market. A concert for 10,000 people in June this year is also under preparation.

However, due to problems such as audience size and lack of experience, the commercial monetization model of virtual idols such as Luo Tianyi is still relatively simple. Except for a small number of commercial endorsements and live concerts, there is no stable profit model. In addition, the number of related concerts is handful, and the development of the industrial chain with virtual idols as the core is still in its early stages. Coupled with the lack of copyright protection, non-authentic peripherals and software of virtual idols such as Luo Tianyi are rampant on domestic shopping websites, which also makes the future promotion and commercial development of virtual idols more difficult.

Deng Lili, director of the Animation and Game Research Center of the Institute of Cultural Industry at Peking University, said that as the Internet payment model is gradually established, the domestic "post-85s","post-90s" and "post-00s" have become a new generation of consumer groups. They not only have certain consumption power and consumption awareness are also constantly increasing, which gives virtual idols greater room for development. However, due to the fact that the domestic virtual idol market is not yet mature and the commercial development model needs to be explored, this makes the future development of virtual idols very uncertain.

Profits need to rely on multiple channels.

The secondary market is already quite large in China, and a lot of capital has begun to pour in. As a hot spot nowadays, although the industry is not large, it has also attracted the attention of big capitals such as Songcheng Performing Arts and Aofei Entertainment. Songcheng Performing Arts previously invested in the virtual idol company Shanghai Wangcheng. The virtual idol women's group And. II, which its Liujianfang started building in 2015, will also be officially launched in July this year. Unlike virtual idols such as Luo Tianyi, And. II uses technologies such as Live AR to present the real women's group on the screen and stage in a second-dimensional image. Songcheng Performing Arts will also carry out a series of industrial chain development for And. II in comics, songs, games, peripherals, commercial endorsements, live broadcasts, etc.

Wang Yi, director of Evergrande's Music Marketing Department, believes that at present, the user group of virtual idols is still small, but this group will become the main consumer group of virtual idols in the next few years. Different from real idols, there are fixed channels for the early development of virtual idols. Currently, there are also many virtual idol combinations that develop models, which provides a lot of room for development for the business model of virtual idols.

"It is inevitable that virtual idols will become a popular trend. As an innovative product, the success of virtual idols depends on their own high-quality character design and song creation. In the marketing and promotion process, it is crucial to accurately locate the audience and form effective communication to expand the audience market. In addition, in terms of technology, virtual idols can also be combined with AR and VR technologies to develop online and offline concerts and realize diversified development of virtual idols in games, comics, peripherals, etc." Deng Lili emphasized.

Editor: Nancy