bilibili Finally Acquiring Luo Tianyi，Why does a Virtual Idol Arouse Competition from Masters?

In the next two weeks, the virtual idol representative, Hatsune Miku, who has 600 million fans around the world, is about to open a half-month 2018 China tour concert.

Retaining a young appearance, upgrading the soul without negative news, the behavior completely controllable and easy to manage, able to accompany fans all the time without feeling tired. Such is the magic of virtual idols, and the customizable image can always inspire fans’ pure and passionate love.

▲ Hatsune Miku Japanese Concert Photo Source: Guan Bo

According to the “Chinese Two-Dimension Users’ Report” released by iResearch, in 2017, the number of China’s core Two-Dimension users was about 80 million, and the average number of Pan Two-Dimension users was expected to reach 230 million. Sealand Securities also pointed out in the analysis report that the two-dimension industry is expected to usher in a market scale of 100 billion US dollars. The mainstream audience of virtual idols – the two-dimension users have finally grown from a niche group that adheres to specific sites to a cultural phenomenon with enormous potential.

Behind the exhilarating 100 billion market is a personalized business model that has been tried and tested after being localized. Objective limitations, such as the high cost of operation, large investment in the cold starting phase, the large cycle of regaining the capital as well as technical barriers have challenged the entire domestic virtual IP industry.

Part.1

Two Dimensions Enters the Mainstream Market

The Unlimited Potential of Virtual Idol

It seems that since last year, many of ACGN’s content expressions and works have appeared in people’s various life scenes.

“I Love Two Dimensions”, “The Awakening”, “Super Dimensional Idol”, “Dimensional Formula” and other variety shows attract the attention of the audience, And2girls Anzhen women’s team member Xia Xingmei and other virtual idol live broadcast PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS to win live-broadcast and game users. Luo Tianyi has made endorsements for many brands – KFC, pizzahut, Changan Automobile “Benni”; MOMO wins the favor of students and white-collar workers through sharing relaxing and funny things on TikTok.

In the past two years, virtual idols have become a target for capital competition, with Giants, traditional enterprises and cutting-edge companies competing for them.

On September 21st, the B station increased its holding of the virtual idol “Luotianyi” parent company into a controlling shareholder. On July 26th, Microsoft announced the launch of the National Air AI Virtual Idol Portfolio with Beijing Liding Jiashi Culture Media – “A’COMES 24 Hours”. Time goes forward. In March of this year, the first virtual idol “MOMO Sauce” was introduced, and in the case of a cold start, only 1 million fans were harvested in 43 days. According to incomplete statistics, there are currently 26 virtual idols in China, of which 14 were born in 2017 alone.

Behind the enthusiasm is the impetus from the two-dimensional market with a value of 100 billion yuan. The consumption values of the youngsters have changed. They are willing to spend time and money on things they love without asking for rewards. Although the mainstream users arePost-90s, but their spending power can not be underestimated, the “inverted triangle” of the social family structure makes young people have higher indirect purchasing power. The second element of the past is gradually becoming an indispensable cultural factor in the three-dimensional world with the growth of the younger generation. As the economic strength of the post-90s grew up from a young age, the size of the pan-secondary market will expand exponentially. .

Regardless of whether people like this trend, content consumption behavior and social relationships have irreversibly shifted from the real world to the “virtual” network. “Indulging in the illusory online world” is no longer a sensational young man’s headache. It has gradually become the norm of people’s life, and the definition of “reality” is undergoing a revolutionary transformation. Then, since people have a need to seek spiritual support from a beautiful individual, why can’t this object be a virtual object created by people?

Back to the source of idol culture in Japan, we can see that even the big-name star-making institutions like Janis and 48group can’t avoid the negative news of their artists. Signing idols needs to be based on personality traits and be responsible for the amount of fans. Under this mechanism, idols have very strict restrictions on public order and private life, and the cost of maintaining the artist’s image is extremely high. The rapidly evolving technology environment provides a solution to risk avoidance, and virtual idols emerge under the guise of the binary.

Japan’s virtual idol business is quite mature, and has already ran a full-scale business model. The income in 2016 even surpassed the real idol. (According to the Oricon data of the Japanese public trust list, Idol plans LoveLive! In 2016, the income of more than 8 billion yen is 1.04 billion more than AKB48, while the income of LoveLive! in 2015 is 6.8 billion yen, and the AKB48 is 11.291 billion. .)

At the same time, up to the virtual idol, down to the virtual up main (VTuber), Japan’s application rate and acceptance of the virtual form of the character is very high. According to Sina’s game report, from the end of last year to half a year in the middle of this year, Japan’s virtual anchors soared to more than 4,000, and they produced a total of about 12.7 million fans and 720 million video views.

▲ VTuber at a glance (partial)

The successful development of virtual idols in Japan undoubtedly gives domestic capital a strong self-confidence, but the localization of the virtual idol industry may still have many challenges. The scale of the professional P master (producer, the producer of the virtual singer creator music), the sales environment of the genuine derivative, etc. are all practical issues to be considered.

It is understood that at present, only Luo Tianyi has achieved profitability in a virtual idol, but this is also the case after he debuted seven years later. How to adjust the strategic direction according to the actual situation is particularly important.

Part.2

How to find the entry point for local development?

The virtual idols we refer to generally have two development paths:

One is a virtual singer based on the vocaloid life synthesis software. Each vocaloid has a different image. The Hatsune Miku, Luo Tianyi and so on belong to this category.

The other is the second-character figure of the idol, the Japanese idol plan LoveLive mentioned above and the domestic And.II ampoule are typical representatives. However, with the development of the industry, the career of characters is no longer limited to “idol”. For example, Shanghai Chuancheng’s “Chuchu” was initially set up as a fashion designer, while MOMO’s MOMO sauce was just an alien girl who accidentally landed on the Earth.

The virtual singer’s operation method is mainly UGC. The user creates a unique connection with the idol, and this emotional connection prompts them to customize the idol image that suits their needs. Fans are also self-expression while maintaining idols. It is not difficult to understand the global frenzy caused by “the Hatsune Miku”, because “fans are aiding Hatsune, but they are also helping themselves.”

But from another point of view, the Vocaloid singer’s singing can’t reach the emotional revealing, and the moving people are the emotional lyrics and arranger. If the works are taken away, the fans will not be able to get human touch from the singer. The different forms of personality make the fans unable to assemble into a camp with strict discipline and bound by belonging. After all, self-identification is part of people’s growth. When this behavior can no longer bring people’s encouragement, the connection between the singer and the fans becomes very fragile.

To prevent the virtual singer from spending a lot of money in China, there are leading technical means, generous capital investment and professional P-master. In general, the virtual singer is a very long-lasting project, and the process of popularization alone is enough to test many teams. Holographic projection, hardware cooperation, etc. are not small expenses. This year, Luo Tianyi’s concert cost is only 20 million yuan. The box office can’t break even with it. In 2018, Luo Tianyi began to make profits. One year, and this is already six years after Luo Tianyi was born.

Based on this, works such as idol planning and other pre-determined worldviews complement the market well.

Personality + story is the core competitiveness of this type of idol. It is a multi-faceted three-dimensional display of the personality charm of its virtual idols in the form of a series of dramas, mini-drama, music albums, games, etc., which has an advantage in stimulating the audience. Their difficulty lies in the creation and operation of the work. The professional and compound talents are the basics to ensure the healthy operation of the team. The operation method is the second half of the Internet. After the dividends disappeared, the problems of all practitioners were tested.

Part.3

Deep development of the second dimension, 2.5 yuan alone

The changes brought by capital to the second element are obvious. The interaction between the audience and the encouragement of capital will open up a relatively closed second-yuan circle, and the digital content will form a deep cooperation with the digital economy and the offline real economy. Form a 2.5-dimensional industrial chain.

Such changes are accidental but more inevitable. Any industry and cultural form will undergo a process of starting, breaking out, going to rough, and forming a fixed mechanism. If the second element five years ago was “the land is self-emerging”, then the target market of the second element + the pan-quaternary element now makes the capital meet the needs of more anime fans.

In addition to the communication tools and the symbol of identity, language can say that each circle has its own label that distinguishes it from others. You may have discovered that the threshold of the “secondary language system” used to be very high, often leaving the outsiders in the fog. The member of the former Sakura Moon Animation Society “user is missing” tells Cass data (ID: caasdata6), “I think the second element sometimes artificially creates a kind of split, animation is just an expression of content, it is with movies, music, dance. There is no essential difference.” And very few radical players will let the second element as a whole suffer some prejudice and attack, making some users who love animation works consider choosing three.

It is capital that allows the second element to satisfy the consumption needs of more people with a more inclusive mentality. Expressions such as “salt can be sweet, expand, shake S&M, zqsg” and other original small circles have become the daily language of the public.

The avatar is also blooming in many fields, such as a Zen monk borrowing an animation to create a vivid and lovely IP image. The multi-domain and cross-industry use of the ACGN element is also a manifestation of the increase in public acceptance. The second-dimensional depth user “Xilver” also felt this change, and had high expectations for popularization. “The coverage of the second element is getting wider and wider, and everyone has their own understanding is normal. This is of course a good thing. More people understand that it is also good to reduce the prejudice against the house after the second element.”

▲ Wang Feng sang “Ordinary Disco” by P Main Ilem in “Singer 2018”, breaking through the “Dimensional Wall”

Under the joint promotion of user demand, supply chain and consumption form, the domestic secondary industry has gradually separated from the development of niche, low-speed and closed, and has become a consumption form that people like to see and run through life scenes.

As one of the important branches, virtual idol also needs to be combined with special circumstances to achieve self-realization. The IP authorization, game advertisement, to C-side derivatives, and offline ticket sales to the B-end are very promising profit models. But before this, upstream technology companies, midstream content companies (P main, ACG music production, record companies, comic magazines, two-dimensional websites, etc.), downstream games, performance markets and secondary live broadcasts will all join the fierce battle.

Part.4

Virtual idol meets the second half of the Internet

Breakthrough still needs sharp data smell + open mind

As of June 2018, the number of Chinese informants reached 802 million, the traffic dividends gradually disappeared, and the Internet entered the second half. This means that depending on the behavior patterns of existing users, planning strategy direction and operating mode are significant in the expansion of content products. If you use data as a radar to search for your users, the results may be immediate.

Always guarding the cautious Luo Tianyi, even the “formula” of the height, age, constellation and other official formulas are drawn from numerous research data. However, the use of data is far from simple and simple. The IP pipelines such as the communication pipeline, the main push platform, and content output and iconic statements all need data to be revised. Who can quickly grasp the user’s whereabouts and who can get from many competitors? Stand out from the crowd.

“Our core operating platform has 2, B station and vibrato, B station is the gathering place of domestic secondary users, and it matches the core fan composition of MOMO sauce. The vibrato is the most popular application scene and the most occupied time. Platform, where young people like and gather, we all hope that MOMO sauce can appear there.” In the interview with Cass data, Li Hao, chairman of MOMO Sauce Company’s photosynthetic rice company, analyzed.

With the help of Cass Business Intelligence Analysis System, MOMO sauce has found out the preferences of users on various platforms and mastered their respective explosion rules. “Online for more than 1 million fans in 43 days, Angelababy praised and paid attention to the week.” It is the debut transcript of MOMO sauce.

Observing the red-hot road of MOMO sauce, you will find that this kind of achievement is not accidental. The MOMO sauce’s vibrato content matches all the elements of the small video in 1 minute in the theme style, overall tonality, and even the character mantra. The content structure of the plot, the development of conflicts, the ending of memory points, and so on, are all in line with the law of audiovisual.

The rapid growth of virtual idols hit the second half of the Internet. In addition to being armed with data, it also needs to maintain an open mind, embrace the public, and create virtual IP that is more in line with popular aesthetics. The media revolution lowered the technical threshold, and decentralization brought the thinking inertia of affirmative action. People no longer need high-rise, unmoving idols, but need to interact with them and emphasize self-expression.

On the basis of UGC, there are more official guides. It is a new idea to open up some space on the basis of PGC to invite fans to idol.

Taking MOMO sauce as an example, the official establishment and the user fill the personality of the virtual idol that assists MOMO sauce. What the official needs to do is to display themselves in as many areas as possible and in multiple dimensions, and to attract the target audience through personal charm through forms like young people like games, games, and mini-drama. When users are familiar enough with virtual idols, they can naturally produce stable and high-quality companion content, which serves as a very good bridge between idols and fans.

▲ MOMO sauce and sister MOUMOU sauce

It is also the persistence of personalization, the creation and interpretation of life scenes, making MOMO sauce a natural brand universality. According to Li Hao, chairman of Guanghe Rice, when MOMO sauce has only 500,000 fans, he has received several brand consultations and advertising cooperation.

On the whole, all the questions end up pointing to the emotional patterns and life integration of both idols and fans. The former determines the appeal and appeal of the idol, the latter determines the market value and longevity of the idol, and the road to localization of virtual idols still has a long way to go.

Source: Cass Data