Museum cultural and creative products are focusing on live streaming e-commerce, but are the things that sell well the “ugly things”?

This article explores in depth how museum cultural and creative products can be reborn through live e-commerce, revealing young people's unique consumption attitude towards museum culture. From the in-depth exploration of history and cultural heritage, to the unique integration of creativity and design, to the innovative marketing of live e-commerce, this article will take you to appreciate the new charm of museum cultural and creative products. I hope it will help you understand this field.

Following the "20-minute park effect", the equally economical and practical "one-day museum trip effect" has also become popular among young people.

Ctrip and Tongcheng Travel, two major domestic travel platforms, have released travel forecast reports for the Dragon Boat Festival holiday. In the last holiday of the first half of this year, new Chinese-style tourism represented by historical museums has become a popular choice. According to incomplete statistics from the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, during the just-concluded May Day holiday, more than 6,000 museums across the country received more than 50 million visitors, reaching the highest level in the same period in history.

While young people are being baptized by history and culture in the museum, they also do not forget to "go crazy shopping" in the museum's cultural and creative hall.

“Museum tickets 0 yuan, cultural and creative products 1000 yuan”

“I went to a museum and brought back 9 fridge magnets”

“I have to go to the museum to stock up every holiday.”

…

The data can more directly show the popularity of museum cultural creation. During the summer vacation last year, 7,555 pieces of the "King Fuchai Plush Sword of Wu" cultural creation product created by Suzhou Museum were sold, with sales of more than 580,000 yuan for the single product.

Young people who love museum cultural creations never have a "consumption bottleneck period". The mammoth coffee cups at the National Museum of Natural History, the lotus stone panchi ear cover stove at the Nanjing Museum, the hairpin ornaments at the Liaoning Museum... From categories to styles, from colors to materials, more than 6,000 museums across the country can fully and completely cover the consumption needs of young people.

The museum's cultural creations full of history and culture and the young people's awakened blood seem to be a one-way emotional outpouring, but in fact it is a grand two-way rush.

"Under the new development concept, young people have higher pursuits for material life, and the design ideas of museum cultural and creative products are also actively responding to this demand." Chen Jiao, general manager of Chongqing Cultural and Exhibition Co., Ltd., directly pointed out a major trend in the current museum cultural and creative products. The Four Gods Woodcarving Necklace of Chongqing China Three Gorges Museum is a popular cultural and creative product operated by its team, which is very popular among young people. "Not only the Four Gods Woodcarving Necklace, but also the cultural and creative products of the same industry are aimed at meeting the life concepts and fashion needs of young people for self-expression, and strive to design and produce more diversified and fashionable items."

As museum cultural and creative products move online, the influence of museum cultural and creative IP is also multiplied.

According to statistics from Doujiao, dozens of museum cultural and creative centers, including the Gansu Provincial Museum Cultural and Creative Center, Shanxi Museum Cultural and Creative Center, Dunhuang Museum Cultural and Creative Center, and Anhui Museum Cultural and Creative Center, have successively opened Douyin and Xiaohongshu accounts.

Among them, @Gansu Provincial Museum Cultural and Creative Center has repeatedly broken the circle on Douyin. As of press time, the Douyin store of Gansu Museum Cultural and Creative "Oriental Secret Creative Gifts" has sold 47,000 copies, and the popular single product "Green Horse" doll has sold more than 8,000 orders.

Museum cultural and creative products are moving from "going out of the circle" to "exploding".

1. How do museum cultural creations capture the hearts of contemporary young people?

In the past, the style of museum cultural creation was "reproduction". Now, the style of museum cultural creation is "re-creation".

Sanxingdui, with its huge eyes and strange appearance, has to learn to adapt to local customs in Sichuan and Chongqing, sitting casually on the ground and playing mahjong. The thousand-year-old bronze galloping horse has transformed into a cute and ugly doll, with a crooked mouth and bared teeth, just like a "genius comedy horse". The Jinhou Bird Zunjing from the Spring and Autumn Period is cleverly designed and transformed into a plump and cute bird pendant with a lively and vivid expression.

Museums have changed their previous serious and high-end "old cadre" style and started to play with popular culture . It has to be admitted that the collision of pop and classic has produced a significant chemical reaction in the development of museum cultural and creative products: strong contrast, novelty, and fashion, thus creating a series of popular cultural and creative products that are both eye-catching and profitable.

Of course, the popularity of museum cultural and creative products is by no means accidental. There are also a set of unwritten rules behind them.

Yan Zhidao, a worker in the cultural and museum industry, told Doujiao that the current exploration, design and operation of museum cultural and creative products are mostly carried out in cooperation with external professional teams, and a complete and standardized development process has been formed. "This model pays more attention to and is more adaptable to changing and complex market demands."

When entering the development stage, the first choice is naturally the museum's "top stream" - the most popular and popular treasures in the museum. The bronze galloping horse, the prototype of the little green horse, is not only the treasure of the Gansu Provincial Museum, but also has appeared in elementary school textbooks many times. It has already accumulated a considerable national popularity, and the subsequent development of cultural and creative IP is also easier to take advantage of the trend.

In terms of more detailed design concepts, museum cultural creation has also shifted. "Many people buy cultural and creative products, no longer just focusing on cultural connotations, but also using them as a way to express themselves and spiritual sustenance." Based on this insight, Chen Jiao revealed the design ideas of Chongqing Museum Cultural Creation: In terms of design concepts, cultural and creative products actively move closer to the discourse system, consumption needs and spiritual world of young people.

The popularity of the Chongbo Four Gods wood-carved necklace is in line with the "metaphysics" that was popular among young people before. "The Four Gods wood-carved necklace is carved with four mythical beasts: Azure Dragon, White Tiger, Vermillion Bird and Black Tortoise, which means seeking good fortune and avoiding disaster. Many young users will choose different patterns according to their zodiac signs and the corresponding constellations of their birth years and months, to express their personalized expectations."

Chen Jiao believes that the Four Gods Woodcarving Necklace provides young users with a precious emotional value. "Everyone knows that wearing this necklace may not really work, but young people get psychological comfort."

"Psychological healing" has become a major genre of museum cultural creation, and has spawned branches such as calming anxiety, lying down, and going crazy. The plush toys of Na Nie Fat Hands, which are based on the stone statue of Guanyin Bodhisattva, and the series of dolls of Youwozeling, soothe anxious young people with a mysterious power of thought. The hanging cat bronze spear stand launched by the Yunnan Provincial Museum and the super-vivid ladies' daily ornaments launched by the Shaanxi History Museum interpret the mental state of workers from a 360-degree angle.

The museum's cultural and creative products have completed a "dialysis" of the spiritual world of young people through contrasting, interesting and cute design expressions. These exquisite and gorgeous historical relics, combined with youthful symbols, culture and language, have become one of the ways for contemporary young people to express themselves and vent their emotions.

In addition to being able to create something new, "wide variety" has become another label for museum cultural and creative products.

In the past, when people talked about cultural and creative products in museums, they only mentioned the same old three things: refrigerator magnets, fans, and stationery. Now, the wide variety of cultural and creative products in museums are refreshing young people's cognition time and time again.

AI Drawing by Entertainment Capital

"With the rise of IPs of local museums such as Gansu Provincial Museum, Dunhuang and Sanxingdui, museums are also accelerating the process of cultural and creative development." Yanzhidao further explained, "Museums no longer authorize only one cultural and creative company, but cooperate with many cultural and creative companies at the same time, and encourage the emergence of more high-quality cultural and creative products in the form of parallel development of multiple IPs. In this way, we can witness a flourishing cultural and creative landscape of museums."

It is no exaggeration to say that being exquisite and sophisticated is just the "basic skills" of museum cultural creation. The Liaoning Provincial Museum's series of handmade hairpins inspired by "Ladies with Hairpins" are small and elegant, and add a bit of antique flavor. The bamboo bracelets of the Nanjing Museum are fresh and gentle, with simplicity and elegance complementing each other. In this race, no museum cultural creation is an absolute winner.

Unable to seize a seat in the beauty race, some cultural and creative products try to surpass others by emphasizing practicality and increasing added value. The Yutian Ancient Jade Museum uses the image of a sitting person in gold and jade from the Shang Dynasty as a mobile phone holder. The slightly emo little jade figure coincides with the state of workers clocking in for work. Cultural relics spanning thousands of years have also entered daily life in a lightweight form.

Even in the traditional field of refrigerator magnets, the competition among museum cultural and creative products is still very fierce . The Shencang 3D refrigerator magnets created by the Museum of Ancient Chinese Architecture were the first to become famous for their interactivity and meaning, and the small powder stove refrigerator magnets created by the Chongqing Museum of Cultural and Creative Products later became popular for their high appearance.

However, Yanzhidao said that after the epidemic, the design ideas of museum cultural and creative products have been broadened a lot. "Everyone has discovered that exquisite small commodities are not the only form. Audio, food, courses, books, etc. can all be derived into cultural and creative products."

There have long been museums that have been creative and have successfully attracted fans with their exquisite designs. Wen Zhengming Wisteria Seeds are the treasure of Suzhou Museum. This wisteria seed is taken from the wisteria planted by the Ming Dynasty painter and writer Wen Zhengming. The inheritance of cultural heritage and the beautiful wish for endless life make this wisteria tree seed stand out in the involutionary cultural and creative market.

2. Social media activities, museums’ cultural creation efforts go online

For a long time, the marketing of museum cultural and creative products has been stuck offline, closely tied to real-time, immersive viewing scenes. In the past two years, as social media such as Douyin and Xiaohongshu have gained popularity, museum cultural and creative products have also been intensively preparing for online migration.

For museums and cultural creation, the first step in online operations should be to learn to jump out of the museum account system centered on cultural relics and walk upright. Doujiao observed that since 2022, more and more museums and cultural creation centers have begun to establish their own IPs and open social media accounts such as Douyin and Xiaohongshu.

However, the platform has different tones and different operating logics. Short, fast, and interesting videos can often spark topics on Douyin. According to the Douyin Museum Ecological Data Report released by Douyin in 2024, the number of views of museum "#endwords" related videos exceeded 10 million in the past year. At the same time, pictures with sophisticated composition and exquisiteness are more likely to establish a grass-planting mentality on Xiaohongshu.

According to the current operation status of museum cultural and creative centers, cultural and creative centers are obviously more comfortable on the Xiaohongshu platform, which has lower operating costs and faster update frequency. Taking Suzhou Museum's cultural and creative products as an example, in May, Suzhou Museum updated 16 short videos on Douyin and published 29 Xiaohongshu notes.

However, some museums’ cultural and creative centers have successfully explored the rules of short video operations and gained fans on Douyin. The Gansu Provincial Museum Cultural and Creative Center, a prominent example in the cultural and creative industry, is one of them.

In the early stage of volume growth, following hot topics and using popular soundtracks became a "compulsory course" for museum cultural and creative operations . After Tianshui became popular at the beginning of this year, the sensitive Gansu Provincial Museum Cultural and Creative Center took advantage of the opportunity to follow up and took the Ganbo "F5" group composed of dolls such as Little Green Horse, Happy Dragon, and Big Face Meng to the streets, harvesting traffic in Tianshui, a popular city on the Internet.

Regular operation after the volume is increased is also a problem. Most cultural and creative centers are not good at shooting short videos that tell stories or are interesting, so they can only use graphic and text operation thinking.

Without a story, the museum's cultural and creative department needs to create one. The Cultural and Creative Center of Gansu Provincial Museum has added a protagonist to the short video content - a three-dimensional image of a little green horse. Each episode features an IP, and with the first-person perspective shooting format, it brings young users closer with a more intuitive and immersive content experience.

Professor Lin Wei from the School of Philosophy at Zhejiang University pointed out that algorithms have helped small and unpopular museums transform into popular check-in spots. Short videos truly demonstrate the aesthetic value and cultural heritage of cultural museums, and recommendation algorithms accurately distribute these short video contents to potential audiences, helping museums attract consumers more efficiently. More and more people are beginning to pay attention to, understand and love these museums, allowing the charm of traditional culture to be widely spread.

After accumulating a certain amount of voice on the short video platform, the operational focus of museum cultural and creative products has shifted from young people's attention to their purchasing power.

For museums and cultural creation, the transformation of live e-commerce is a must. In 2023, the Chongqing China Three Gorges Museum conducted a questionnaire survey on more than 2,300 online and offline users. The results showed that young people under the age of 30 accounted for 55.25%. In short, young users have a strong interest in and identification with traditional culture. As one of the most popular channels for young users, live e-commerce is naturally worthy of the layout and in-depth cultivation of museum cultural creation.

"After entering Douyin, we tried live streaming to sell goods, and achieved gratifying results." Chen Jiao introduced that compared with the common live streaming rooms for selling goods, the live streaming time of Chongqing Museum Cultural and Creative is mostly controlled at about two to three hours, and the style is mainly based on the explanation of the origin, meaning and connotation of cultural relics, while spreading culture, it also stimulates the consumption enthusiasm of young users. Because of this, the live streaming of museum cultural and creative products requires very high ability of anchors.

For museums, live streaming e-commerce is a promising path to explore. Chen Jiao revealed to Doujiao that this year, Chongqing Museum will accelerate the pace of its layout of live streaming e-commerce. While steadily accelerating the pace of Douyin broadcasts, it will try to start Taobao live streaming and increase investment in live streaming e-commerce . "We will also transfer the live streaming scene from the traditional single live broadcast room to the museum's actual exhibition hall to achieve a more realistic and immersive viewing experience."

Museums are accelerating their exploration of the potential of live streaming e-commerce . Shanxi Museum explained the popularity of the Oriental Selection live streaming room, driving the growth of both sales and popularity. Taking advantage of the momentum of 618 this year, Suzhou Museum started broadcasting on Tmall to seize the bonus of the big promotion festival. Live streaming e-commerce may become the next marketing position for museums.

3. From going viral to becoming a long-lasting museum cultural creation: a greater challenge

The changes in communication media, the influx of young users, the return of the museum craze and the continued warming of cultural and tourism markets in various places are all external forces that are pushing museum cultural and creative industries to the eve of an explosion.

Strong self-driving force is the biggest driving force for the prosperity of museums' cultural and creative industries. "Since museums across the country opened to the public for free in 2008, cultural and creative products have become an important source of income for museums, accounting for a large proportion of museum operations." Yan Zhidao explained that driven by financial pressure, the pace of cultural and creative development of museums has been significantly accelerated.

At the same time, the booming cultural tourism market has also injected a catalyst into museum cultural creation. The combination of culture and tourism has become a prominent trend in recent years, and the combination of tourism and museums has become increasingly close. "Tourist routes in various places will set local museums as must-go points to drive cultural creation sales. Museum cultural creation products are also sold in various scenic spots."

The cultural and creative IPs of local museums are also on the rise. Yanzhidao listed, "There are two major IPs in Gansu alone, the Feitian IP of the Dunhuang Museum and the Bronze Galloping Horse IP of the Gansu Museum. Sanxingdui has also rapidly developed into a phenomenal IP."

Behind opportunities, there are also considerable challenges.

On the one hand, in the process of transformation to online, the lack of professional talents and the rigidity of operational thinking have also become common problems faced by museums in cultural and creative development.

Although more and more museums are consciously migrating to social platforms, a large number of museums' social media accounts have failed to maintain normal operations, and some accounts have even stopped updating. Without stable and continuous content output, it is difficult to establish IP awareness in the minds of users, and online transformation will inevitably end in vain.

The emergence of this phenomenon is the inevitable pain that must be faced on the road to transformation, and it also reflects the tight staffing of museums.

However, after the initial success of live streaming, Chongbo also began to accelerate cooperation with third-party teams . "Because our team's own energy is limited, the subsequent Douyin operation plan is mainly to cooperate with suppliers or enterprises to create three or four vertical and segmented matrix accounts to target segmented users."

On the other hand, as museums move faster and faster in developing cultural and creative products, how to avoid issues such as excessive entertainment becomes increasingly critical.

Museum cultural creation is a footnote to thousands of years of Chinese traditional culture. Its form can be varied and flexible, but it must always maintain the core of cultural confidence. In Chen Jiao's view, "whether it is short video marketing or the design of cultural and creative products, it must be rigorous and appropriate. Don't over-entertain, and avoid making low-level mistakes, and don't deviate from the original intention of the museum's historical heritage."

Only by knowing where you came from and thinking about where you are going can you know where you are going. The cultural relics that are everywhere in China have fostered the prosperity of museums and opened up the journey of museum cultural creation. Museum cultural creation perceives tradition in a modern way, realizes the revitalization and utilization of cultural relics through creative expression, and also interprets the rising cultural confidence and cultural identity of contemporary young people in a unique way.

How to make this wave last forever and keep the light of cultural heritage burning forever is the echo that the long river of history leaves for the present.

Author: Bukong

WeChat public account: chopped pepper spicy (ID: ylwanjia)