W
inshang
Introduction
Those who win IP may not win the world.
source | Pearl River Delta commercial real estate (ID: szwinshang)
author | Chen Hua
According to Yingshang big data monitoring, in the first three quarters of 2019, 47907 shopping mall brands with a commercial area of ≥50,000 square meters in 21 cities closed new stores. , including many online celebrity stores. Shenzhen is no exception. Internet celebrity brands in the commercial market change frequently. For example, Lujiao Alley, which was popular earlier, has now disappeared, and tea from Heytea and Nayuki has taken over the city.
Yingshang.com learned that LINE FRIENDS, which once detonated in Shenzhen, has disappeared. It is reported that the LINE FRIENDS Coast City store has been closed in 2019, and now Naixue Dream Factory has opened in the area. According to people close to LINE FRIENDS, LINE FRIENDS’s customer flow has declined in the past two years.
LINE FRIENDS Coast City store opened on December 29, 2016. It is the first store of in Shenzhen and the only LINE FRIENDS CAFÉ STORE in the world.. At the beginning of the opening, the business in the store was extremely booming. In addition to queuing to enter the store, the number of people entering the store was limited and admission was conducted in batches.
has withdrawn from in less than three years. The closure of this store also means that LINE FRIENDS has officially withdrawn from Shenzhen .
Coincidentally, after the store in Guangzhou Zhengjia Plaza experienced a reduction in area, officially announced its closure in April of the same year. Other stores also experienced bleak customer flow. Taking the Chongqing Cathay Plaza store as an example, many netizens on Dianping said there was no need to queue up to enter the store, and the store was relatively deserted. There were many seats in the dining area but almost no one was there. The same is true for the Beijing Yintai store.
01
Once "one store became popular"
Now there are only 7 flagship stores left in the country
LINE FRIENDS was born on the Line chat software platform. Relying on online chat emoticons, the LINE FRIENDS family was born and developed a diversified development path. Currently, LINE FRIENDS has developed three major product lines, including retail business, licensing business and content business. In terms of retail, LINE FRIENDS has various stores such as specialty stores, cafes, and theme parks, selling peripheral products covering daily life, stationery, toys, accessories, fashion, electronic products, etc.
LINE FRIENDS is popular among young people with its cute and unique comic sticker image designs such as Brown Bear, Coni Rabbit, James, and Steamed Bun Man.
In 2015, it opened its first regular store in mainland China in Xintiandi, Shanghai, selling peripheral products and also opened a LINE CAFé. In 2016, it accelerated its expansion into the Chinese market and opened 6 stores in Guangzhou, Nanjing, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Beijing and other cities in just one year. In 2017 and 2018, LINE FRIENDS opened five more stores one after another. With the opening of the store in Chongqing Cathay Plaza, LINE FRIENDS has no new stores in mainland China. So far, LINE FRIENDS has opened a total of 312 stores in China. .
At that time, LINE FRIENDS “opened one store and became popular”. For example, Guangzhou Zhengjia Plaza store once achieved a single-day passenger flow of more than 100,000 people at its peak. The store in Nanjing Catherine Plaza received nearly 20,000 customers within a few hours of its opening. Many fans who queued up were "persuaded" to leave by the store staff, which shows how popular it is.
According to the information released by LINE FRIENDS official Weibo on November 18, 2019, LINE FRIENDS currently has 7 flagship stores across the country, including Shanghai Huaihai Road store, Chengdu Yintai store, Chengdu Sino-Ocean Taikoo Li store, and Chongqing Cathay store. , Beijing Yintai store, Hangzhou Yintai store, Nanjing Catherine store .
Therefore, in addition to Coastal City and Guangzhou Zhengjia Plaza , LINE FRIENDS has also closed three offline stores in various cities.
01
Insufficient innovation
LINE FRIENDS Offline has become a passing Internet celebrity
"It comes quickly and goes quickly". What is the reason that caused the former Internet celebrity IP store to go from a popular one to a deserted store in three years? Close the store? According to the analysis of Yingshang.com, there are three main reasons for : "changes in consumer entities, increased competition in the IP market, and insufficient innovation of its own products" . The latter is the key factor that prompted it to shrink the market.
✦Insufficient innovation
In the new era of rapid attention changes, only by constantly innovating and changing, and deeply cultivating new IP ideas, can we sustain consumers for a long time. In three years of operation, LINE FRIENDS still maintains its traditional business methods.
● still only insists on selling peripheral products, and the products in each store are similar, including stationery, toys, accessories, etc. co-branded by the LINE FRIENDS family. The prices are on the high side, such as 28 yuan for a ballpoint pen and as much as 28 yuan for an ordinary printed T-shirt. 500 yuan, is not cost-effective, resulting in a low repurchase rate.
● scene, only uses LINE FRIENDS image IP as scene decoration and provides photo check-in, resulting in limited second store visits for consumers. Although has different themes in different stores, the internal check-in scenes are similar, and the in-store decoration is updated slowly, which can easily cause aesthetic fatigue. And because product prices are on the high side, consumers tend to check in more instead of shopping.
In an interview with Yingshang.com, some customers said: "LINE FRIENDS has already checked in, there is no need to go there again!"
Zhou Jie, senior assistant director of Cushman & Wakefield's Guangzhou Commercial Real Estate Department, once analyzed: "LINE FRIENDS has a single experience format and only provides The IP cartoon image scene for taking photos and checking in lacks interactivity; while the peripheral products are simple in style, slow to update and lack innovation, resulting in a weak repurchase rate and low user stickiness. "Jian Bo, Planning and Promotion Director of Coast City, also believes that LINE FRIENDS. Insufficient innovation.
✦ Internet celebrity IPs appear frequently and competitive advantages disappear
In addition, the increasing diversity of IPs in also makes LINE FRIENDS’ advantages disappear. When LINE FRIENDS emerged in 2016, IP gameplay was still rare in China. Du Bin, general manager of the leasing service department of RET, a commercial real estate service provider, once said, "This style of play currently has no competitors in the market."
In today's era, distinctive "Internet celebrity IPs" emerge in endlessly. IPs with cultural and emotional attributes, such as the Forbidden City and White Rabbit, know how to use their advantages to enhance consumer stickiness.
On the other hand, the rise of well-known mature IPs such as film and television works, animation, literature, and online games not only brings its own traffic advantages, but also can evoke fans' emotional memories and resonance to attract consumers.
Therefore, the IP attributes of LINE FRIENDS Internet celebrities no longer have their own competitiveness, and a single product model and experience model cannot satisfy the "taste" of consumers.
✦ Iteration of consumer groups Good IP needs to "tell culture or tell stories"
Nowadays, Generation Z has gradually become the current consumer responsibility, and when choosing products, they focus more on the value of the product itself, such as "emotion and appearance". That is to say, the brand must not only meet their needs for pursuing self-expression and cultural attitudes, but also have good appearance to meet their needs for taking photos and socializing. A typical example of
is the century-old Forbidden City IP, which spreads history and culture among young people, and is favored by consumers for its fashionable cross-border focus on the "appearance economy". As a traditional time-honored brand, White Rabbit can arouse consumers' nostalgia and has a certain consumer group base.
While LINE FRIENDS has emerged as an Internet emoticon package, firstly does not have much cultural support, and secondly, it does not have a story to rely on. It simply impresses people with images and lacks a certain emotional foundation. The rigid IP scene layout of without content and the accumulation of too many IP elements can easily cause aesthetic fatigue. It only provides photo-taking and check-in without interactive experience, which reduces the experience of the younger generation of consumer groups. Because of this, LINE FRIENDS failed to successfully maintain its consumer customer base.
But over the years, LINE FRIENDS has also carried out various marketing activities. For example: online cross-border marketing with , JD.com, , Joyoung, KEPP and other multi-field brands, and offline various limited-time experience exhibitions to have immersive interactions with fans.
Its emoticons and peripheral derivatives currently provide the company with considerable revenue. It is reported that in 2018, emoticons and peripheral derivatives achieved annual revenue of nearly 4 billion yuan (accounting for more than 30% of the company's total revenue).
Despite this, LINE FRIENDS has become increasingly cautious about the layout of offline stores.However, in the face of changes in market trends and consumers' pursuit of new things, LINE FRIENDS is also actively seeking changes. It is reported that LINE FRIENDS will launch 1-2 new IP images every year in the future, and at the same time expand existing IP Fresh content is also a key development direction in the future. Whether LINE FRIENDS will become popular again in the future still needs to be tested by the market.
03
Conclusion
"He who wins the IP does not necessarily win the world" , and how can IP that has been accepted by the market expand new physical stores? Improving the conversion rate by overdrafting the IP image for a long time is obviously not a long-term solution. In this regard, Zhou Jie summarized from the brand perspective: "Online cultivation, offline consumption; innovation; original Internet celebrity IP will be the main direction of brand development in the future."
How should physical businesses choose such brands? Control, Coast City said that mainly values the ability to continuously update products and its means of communicating with young consumers.
This article is reprinted with authorization. The copyright of the text and pictures belongs to the original author.
Reprint, contribute, break news, discuss cooperation
