Forbidden City cultural and creative IP

A successful cultural and creative IP can not only enrich the tourism experience, extend the tourism industry chain, but also effectively promote the transmission and inheritance of local culture, and open up new growth points for the cultural and tourism industry.

According to official data, the added value of China’s cultural creativity and design service industry was 697.5 billion yuan in 2017, with a growth rate of 19.4 percent.
According to statistics, in 2016, the Palace Museum cultural and creative products reached more than 9,000 kinds, and the total number exceeded 10,000 by the end of 2017.  The annual sales revenue of the Palace Museum also increased from 150 million yuan in 2012 to 1.5 billion yuan in 2017, which exceeded 1,500 A-share listed companies in that year.
As a pioneer of cultural and creative IP, the Palace Museum has been an important representative of the first echelon of cultural and creative IP over the years.  Although Dunhuang culture and creativity came out of the circle late, it has gradually developed into an influential benchmark culture and creativity brand based on the rich heritage and creative management.  The success of the Palace Museum not only opens up a new path for the inheritance and development of traditional culture, but also provides us with many valuable inspirations.

The historical and cultural precipitation of more than 600 years has endowed the palace with a mysterious and solemn temperament.  Before 2012, the Palace Museum continued its lofty and inviolable image style for thousands of years in both scenic spot publicity and brand building.  Although this “old-fashioned” approach will not affect the number of tourists, it has caused a breakthrough in IP building and depressed sales of cultural and creative products.  In the face of such difficulties, after experiencing multiple pains, the Palace Museum chose to break through the shackles, break the traditional stereotype, and open the road to “youth”.  The cultural creation of the Forbidden City has gone through many stages from enlightenment to breaking the circle, and on this long “road to fame”, it has gone just right every step.  In 2012, the public account was launched, and new media began to emerge.  The Palace Museum sensed the opportunity at the beginning of the change and began to seize the opportunity to enter the major social media platforms and establish its own communication network.

Those famous historical celebrities and valuable cultural relics are no longer out of reach and out of reach, but everyone can make fun of and close to the elements, and the dissemination of related cultural and creative IP and the hot sales of cultural and creative products have become logical. After Yongzheng’s “autobiography storm”, the cultural creation of the Forbidden City has finally completely integrated into the young group, relying on the “cute” and “funny” people, and opened a grand “super IP journey”.

In December 2019, at the special exhibition of “A Thousand Miles of the Star – The Forbidden City and the Maritime Silk Road” held in the Palace Museum, the digital art exhibition “A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains 3.0”, with a large high-definition dynamic digital scroll and rich interaction as the core highlight, was officially unveiled. The exhibition combines the advantages of traditional art and digital technology, vividly recreating the magnificence of the peak of the green landscape in the Song Dynasty. Let the audience as if in “A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains”, bring a new artistic experience.

The classic green color of “A Thousand Li Rivers and Mountains” is very suitable for the development of cultural and creative products. Through independent research and development and IP authorization, the Palace Museum has applied the famous painting “A Thousand Li Rivers and Mountains” to various kinds of jewelry, daily necessities and consumer goods. It has developed and launched jewelry series such as necklaces, earrings and rings, and stationery series such as ruler, paperweight, pen holder and notepaper brick. Daily necessities such as handmade soap, tote bags and non-fire aromatherapy make the green landscape walk into daily life.

In April 2022, Suzang China released the digital collection “A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains”, which was loved by people from all walks of life. In the past two years, the most familiar cultural and creative IP is the Forbidden City, which is very popular, and various cultural and creative products launched are loved by young groups such as the post-90s and post-00s, which also makes many cultures see more possibilities as authorized parties.

Summarizing the cultural and creative development path of the Palace Museum, it is found that the Internet + commercialization growth history of the “net red” Palace Museum is the birth process of a new super brand or IP.