Yinyuetai Zhang Dou: I want to make a China version of Billboard and earn 10% of the money from top artist fans

"Maybe only 10% of artists account for 90% of the resources and sales revenue in this market. So what artists nowadays lack is not traffic, but personalized services to satisfy fans." Yinyue TV's goal is to target these 10% of artists and provide them with commercial monetization plans, because fans will be willing to consume products with emotional premiums.

Original title Interview with Yinyuetai Zhang Dou: How to maximize the business of 10% of top artists?

If it weren't for my roommate who "idol is Li Yuchun", I would never have been able to understand the strength of the fan economy, and Zhang Dou, who also never stars, led Yinyuetai to persist in the fan economy for 7 years.

Before interviewing Zhang Dou, my impression of Yinyue TV was still in the MV era where it was constantly playing on TV. In fact, after seven years of exploration, this company, which started as a high-definition MV, has thoroughly studied the psychology of its young fans and used the method of "making the list" to find the lifeline for survival: everything around the fan economy. Derivative services.

Take the typical area around Lu Han planned by Yinyuetai as an example. During a recent concert, all 551 sets of Lu Han concert gift packages launched by Yinyuetai were sold out within 15 seconds, and the 80,000 Lu Han's new album was also sold out within 89 seconds. In addition, data shows that Lu Han's peripheral products on Taobao sold 120 million yuan a month.

"Future idols have a large number of fans. Fans are willing to spend for you, brush the charts for you, and buy your albums." Zhang Dou said that they helped Lu Han make albums, sell peripherals, plan concerts, develop advertisers, etc."You can earn tens of millions of revenue around Lu Han."

The most important thing is that Zhang Dou believes that this model is replicable. He said that based on the scale of manpower and resources they have invested in this regard,"there is no problem that several similar plans can be completed every year."

Brush the list and everyone around you can do it. What are the opportunities?

Yinyuetai wants to use the rankings as the starting point. After all, they have been doing this for several years. Fans can occupy a higher ranking for their idols, dozens or hundreds of times impatient to "brush the list" behavior, like, forward, brush the topic, which can cause users to stay on the platform for a long time, and ensure that the different channels shared can import new traffic.

Zhang Dou, who doesn't chase stars, doesn't understand fans_it doesn't matter_he understands the economic business methods of fans, and he is surrounded by live product managers. "Except for our colleagues in the technical department, the rest of our company is basically the chairman of the fan club of each star," Zhang Dou said.

His favorite example is about the popular group TFboys: On April 15,2014, TFboys surpassed Super Junior and won the first place in the V list of Yinyuetai. This day is also commemorated as the day when TFboys, the first Internet Star in China, debuted.

Zhang Dou believes that the popularity of TFboys is due to "the fairness of Yinyue TV's V list." The V chart pushed a small group that was originally unknown into the spotlight, and then gained the trust of countless TFboys fans. Therefore, fans naturally pay for all services provided around idols by surfing charts, albums, concerts and surrounding areas.

Zhang Dou has repeatedly emphasized the "fairness" of Yinyuetai's list products because he has always wanted to make them into a China version of Billboard.

Billboard, which originated in North America, has established an authoritative ecosystem and is considered to "represent the trend of music trends for the public." Some industry insiders told reporters that Billboard's ranking criteria are more diverse, including real sales, downloads, radio stations, streaming media views, etc., and not just rely on the power of fans. However, the domestic list culture, which is mainly driven by fans, is obviously far from "authority".

"Using the authoritative music V chart as the main benchmark in the industry to attract traffic, and then providing fans with all the surrounding derivative services around love beans (idols, homophonic for idol)." This is the industrial ecosystem that Zhang Dou wants to build, which is obviously not easy to do.

The market targeted by Qian Yinyue Terrace, which earns 10% of top artist fans

, is blank and relatively barren.

First of all, there has been no authoritative Billboard in China for so many years, and fans have a strong sense of identity and hope that by making the list, their favorite fans can gain a higher position; secondly, top artists in the country are leaving economic companies and forming independent studios.

In addition to creating better music works, a small group of people working in a studio also need stronger commercial monetization capabilities.

But it's difficult. People who understand music don't understand business. "Maybe only 10% of artists account for 90% of the resources and sales revenue in this market. So what artists nowadays lack is not traffic, but personalized services to satisfy fans." Zhang Dou told reporters that Yinyuetai's goal is to target these 10% of artists and provide them with commercial monetization plans, because fans will be willing to consume products with emotional premiums.

In Zhang Dou's view, this is a trend. In the future, everyone will be a fan. Under the trend of consumption upgrades, in addition to pursuing material quality of life, people will also pursue spiritual consumption, especially during puberty when hormones are bursting. This phenomenon will become more obvious.

Zhang Dou revealed that most of the audience at Yinyuetai are "Sansheng", that is, junior high school students, high school students, and college students.

China's music industry is a transition from idol to artist

."China's current music industry is a transition from idol to artist. For example, Lu Han is idol, and Jay Chou is idol+artist."

Among the 10% artists defined by Zhang Dou, in addition to Lu Han, there are also Wu Yifan, Li Yifeng, TFBoys, etc. Zhang Dou believes that the biggest difference between them and traditional artists is that they have basically received South Korea's trainee training system. Such artists are easy to replicate and more in line with the definition of idol.

Zhang Dou believes that only after the per capita GDP exceeds 10000 US dollars can the cultural and creative industries have the most basic development potential, which is true all over the world.

However, the current focus on loving beans is doomed to fall into a cycle, constantly attracting young idols to retain younger fan users.

For fans, hitting the list is more like a carnival for insiders, especially in the increasingly divided music market. The list has almost no reference significance for outsiders like me, and Billboard is based on the payment habits of the European and American music industries.

In addition, almost every music platform is doing it to attract fans by using lists. Weibo has finished playing QQ Music, Yinyue has finished playing Baidu Post Bar. Every player who understands the economics of fans has targeted the blank market of the list.

As for the logic of peripheral derivative services, there seems to be nothing wrong. Zhang Dou said that the strong market of surrounding industries can completely reduce the price of future concert tickets by 50%, such as launching preferential packages that include air tickets, hotel concert tickets, such as glow sticks with Aidou's face, hair bands, and water cups. etc.

It is not uncommon to use the power of love beans to "cultivate" fans 'consumption habits. At least among Lu Han's fans, there are not a few people who buy dozens of the same album in order to brush the charts or commemorate them, but idol will always come down the charts one day. The paradox of this business is that you are always looking for the next idol.

Editor: Nancy