The number of views has exceeded 60 billion, and Douyin has a new top streamer

Undoubtedly, the hottest stars recently are Hehua, Menglan, Fubao and other top giant pandas. In fact, this is not the first time that non-real-life IPs have become popular. Before them, there were Lingna Belle and Bing Dwen Dwen. So, what is the business model behind the popularity of these non-real-life IPs? How do ordinary creators gain traffic through this? Let's take a look at the author's interpretation and analysis.

In the past two months, the national treasure "giant panda" has once again captured the attention of Douyin users. Official data shows that Douyin's #大熊猫# topic has been played 29.5 billion times, and the #熊猫# topic has been played more than 29.8 billion times. Other exclusive topics such as #大熊猫和花#, #大熊猫萌兰#, and #大熊猫福宝# have also exceeded 1 billion views.

The current "panda fever" originated from netizens' attention to the giant pandas "Ya Ya" and "Le Le" in the United States. Le Le and Ya Ya, who were loaned to the Memphis Zoo in the United States in 2003, were supposed to return to China in April this year. Unfortunately, on the eve of their return, news came from across the ocean that Le Le had passed away.

What made netizens even more worried was that Yaya, who was still living in the Memphis Zoo, looked dry and skinny, and in very bad condition. Some tourists even revealed that Yaya had no fresh bamboo to eat in the zoo and could only eat ice cubes to fill her stomach, which further aroused the anger and concern of domestic netizens, who spontaneously spoke out for Yaya on various social platforms.

Currently, Yaya has been officially taken over by Chinese representatives, and netizens' "support" for Yaya has temporarily come to an end. However, the "panda fever" caused by Yaya Lele is getting more and more lively, and more and more people are looking at the cute national treasure giant pandas. These cute black and white balls have become the most popular "top stream" on Douyin this spring.

Image source: Screenshot from @People's Video Weibo

According to Kas’s incomplete statistics, the celebrity giant pandas on Douyin now include: Hehua, Menglan, Fubao, Chen Yuanrun, Feiyun, Leshui, Mangchenchen…

If we extend the timeline, we can also see more non-real top-tier stars active on Douyin: in 2021, the little fox Lina Belle came out of nowhere and became Disney's new top-tier star, while also winning the love of countless Douyin netizens; in 2022, the Winter Olympics was held in Beijing, and the mascot Bing Dwen Dwen became the talk of the town. "One household, one Dwen Dwen" became the demand of many people, and videos related to it also became the traffic code on Douyin.

Why do these non-real-person IPs become popular again and again on Douyin? How long can their popularity last? Is it really meaningful to the creators?

1. The latest top streamers on TikTok

"We are spring, the flowers of spring, we are the flowers of spring."

"Finally, everyone turned their eyes to me and asked me what role I played. I looked at my identity and said that I was a sunny and cheerful boy, a sunny and cheerful boy."

"We are simply the representatives of cute girls. We are cute girls, cute girls, cute girls, cute girls."

…

The above songs have recently become the exclusive BGM of giant pandas on Douyin. Most fans can identify which bear is the "protagonist" of the video just by listening to the first sentence.

Although there are many giant pandas that have become popular, the one that became famous the earliest and has the highest traffic is a female giant panda named "Hehua" at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in Sichuan.

Hehua's nickname is "Huahua". With its short, fat, frizzy fur, triangular rice ball-like appearance, slow-paced and non-competitive personality, as well as recognizable physical characteristics such as wide ear distance and short legs, it has captured the hearts of many "wild mothers".

Image source: @熊猫滚滚TikTok screenshot

At the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, tourists who wanted to see Huahua surrounded the panda villa where she lived, and the staff had to constantly remind her of basic tour requirements, such as not making loud noises and not feeding her at will. In order to "divert" the tourists, the security guard in charge of this area would use a loudspeaker to "talk" to the tourists:

Those who haven't eaten yet should go eat or have a rest. You have worked too hard. What is more important, flowers or your health?

You guys love it (Hua Hua) too much, please share some of your love with other pandas;

Let's go see Huahua's dad first. Grandpa and grandma are also there.

There are also small, white and tender red pandas in the delivery room...

Even though the security guard was so humble, it couldn't dampen everyone's enthusiasm for seeing Huahua. Some fans came from afar to Chengdu, carrying their SLR cameras and standing in front of Huahua's sports field for a whole day. Even if Huahua just stood up and took a few steps in the field, it could cause tourists to exclaim.

What's even more interesting is that in order to see Huahua "faster", many netizens summarized detailed routes to the villa and posted them on Douyin. Kas noticed that even though most of the shares had "harsh" requirements such as "depart at 6:30 in the morning" and "start running as soon as you enter the door", netizens still showed great interest, and the videos received hundreds to tens of thousands of likes.

Image source: @食肆君带你吃成都TikTok screenshot

Forming a "rivalry" against the "top female star" Huahua is the "male star" Menglan who lives in the Beijing Zoo.

If Huahua became popular because she fits the "cute and silly" image of giant pandas in the public's mind, then Menglan became popular for the completely opposite reason: the 8-year-old "Third Prince of Xizhimen" has shown extraordinary cleverness since childhood.

For example, when he was a few months old, he could converse fluently with his keeper "Hairband Daddy". In the video that is currently circulating, the man and the bear have a back-and-forth conversation, which makes fans call them adorable.

Image source: @潘哒哒TikTok screenshot

In addition, Menglan has always had a dream of "escaping from prison". In order to achieve his goal, he "planned" to dismantle the surveillance camera and used toys as stepping stones. He finally climbed over the glass wall and came "face to face" with the tourists, which immediately became a hot topic on Weibo. After this incident, the Beijing Zoo added a roof to the fence of Menglan's yard, and the keepers would test each toy before releasing it to prevent the prison break from happening again.

Seeing that "going up to the sky" didn't work, Menglan thought of "going underground" and secretly "digging a tunnel" in the corner. The figure of him working hard in the video is also very funny.

Image source: Douyin Menglan Collection

Compared to the "eating, living and traveling" that ordinary pandas show everyone, Menglan always has some extra "tricks" to bring more joy to fans. Although giant pandas are very smart animals, and the IQ of adult giant pandas is about the same as that of human children aged six or seven, Menglan's various behaviors are often unexpected, and many fans "suspect" whether there is a real person hidden under his bear skin.

As the demand for watching giant pandas online continues to rise, related accounts on short video platforms have sprung up like mushrooms after rain:

Official accounts such as @iPanda Panda Channel, @Panda Rolling, @Opening the Dinner Panda, and @Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding focus their cameras on the daily lives of giant pandas and provide explanations of professional knowledge, allowing fans to gain a deeper understanding of giant pandas.

There are also personal accounts like @黑白之境, which are old fans of the panda circle. The videos are from the perspective of ordinary fans, sharing interesting stories about the giant pandas' early years with new friends, making the account content look more friendly.

Image source: @黑白之境TikTok screenshot

In addition, the popularity of giant pandas has also given rise to a new type of work: following and live-streaming giant pandas . Kass observed that many accounts on Douyin have recently appeared that broadcast live from panda venues.

For example, @阿三看熊猫 is a "new account" that only started to release works at the end of March. Its videos mainly revolve around star pandas such as Menglan and Pangdahai. For half a month, the anchor insisted on live broadcasting twice a day, directly aiming the camera at Menglan's sports field. Although the account does not have many fans, the popularity of the live broadcast room is quite high. When Kasi entered the live broadcast room, Menglan did not show up, but the number of people online in the live broadcast room was stable at around 1,800.

Image source: Screenshot of the Douyin Giant Panda Live Room

2. Two or Three Ways to Make Non-Real Person IPs Popular

If you think back carefully, this is not the first time that a non-real person IP has become popular on Douyin. The last time it caused widespread discussion was also about a panda, the Winter Olympics mascot Bing Dwen Dwen.

During the Winter Olympics, Bing Dwen Dwen quickly became popular on short video platforms due to a series of interactive videos with tourists from various countries. For a time, the "Bing Dwen Dwen" craze swept every user on Douyin, and everyone began to spontaneously create topics around Bing Dwen Dwen, post emoticons, show off Bing Dwen Dwen peripherals, and participate in special effects challenges.

Image source: Screenshot of Bing Dwen Dwen’s video on Douyin

The "2022 Ice and Snow Sports Data Report" released by Douyin shows that the number of views of videos related to Bing Dwen Dwen on Douyin has exceeded 26.1 billion, and the number of followers has exceeded 500 million. The total number of views of the background music "I just want a Bing Dwen Dwen" made by the creator @涵不傻 has exceeded 1 billion and has been used by more than 1.2 million people on Douyin; the number of uses of the "Bing Dwen Dwen makeup" special effects designed by the creator @aky小同学 has exceeded 15 million.

The official also made a comparison chart between Bing Dwen Dwen's data and athlete Gu Ailing's data on Douyin, which shows that Bing Dwen Dwen was unprecedentedly popular at the time.

Image source: Douyin "2022 Ice and Snow Sports Data Report"

Many ordinary creators have benefited from this wave of "Dun Dun bonuses". For example, a large number of handicraft experts have achieved unprecedented results by posting videos of themselves making Bing Dwen Dun on Douyin.

Among them, @音乐人三号樵夫, thanks to his "feat" of buying materials from scratch to make Bing Dwen Dwen candy figures, saw his account followers grow from 0 to 1.5 million in 5 days, and was teased by netizens as "the fastest wild million-dollar blogger on Douyin."

Looking further back, when Lingna Belle was at the height of her popularity, the content about her on the TikTok platform was even more dizzying.

Lingna Belle makes a heart shape with her hands, Lingna Belle is proposed to, Lingna Belle is scared by tourists... every move of the little fox becomes the traffic code in the hands of some creators.

Accounts such as @鬼鬼迪士尼氛氣組, @迪士尼老玩家, and @大利游记 often post videos of dolls interacting with tourists in the park and live-streaming float parades, and achieve their monetization goals by selling Disney tickets, peripherals, and tour groups. Among them, videos related to Lingna Belle often have the best data, bringing a lot of traffic benefits to the creators.

Summarizing the paths that led to the popularity of non-real-person IPs such as the Giant Panda, Bing Dwen Dwen, and Lingna Belle on Douyin, it is not difficult to see some "business secrets".

First of all, in the early stage when the IP does not have enough influence, the official account will publish more high-quality videos to attract the attention and likes of ordinary users and mobilize everyone's enthusiasm for co-creation. After all, the popularity of each IP is inseparable from a large number of follow-up videos and secondary creations on the short video platform.

Secondly, through the editing of the story line, these non-human IPs are given human emotions to establish a deeper emotional connection with users. For example, Lingna Belle's official setting is an adventurous traveler with brave and clever characteristics. Therefore, in her interaction with tourists, we often see Belle posing a "confrontational" posture or doing playful behaviors such as "throwing hearts".

Many of the giant pandas that have become popular recently all have their own unique personalities.

The kind and peaceful Huahua, the smart and jailbreak-loving Menglan, the naughty and friendly Fubao... Netizens not only like the cute looking pandas, but are also fascinated by their interactive stories with keepers and tourists, as well as the emotions between humans and animals revealed in these stories.

Image source: Screenshot of Huahua and Grandpa Tan interacting

Finally, and most importantly, whether such IP can be popular for a long time depends on whether it can continue to produce new content. From the current actual situation, Lingna Belle is still quite popular, especially with the recent recovery of tourism, Shanghai Disney has resumed close contact between dolls and tourists such as hugging, and the popularity of female stars has rebounded significantly.

In comparison, after the Winter Olympics, Bing Dwen Dwen’s popularity has been difficult to maintain.

But for ordinary creators, it is always a problem to maintain and utilize the popularity gained by "riding IP" in the long term.

Previously, Kas had mentioned that this type of account is highly homogenized, and is not only extremely easy to fall into "involution", but the practice of binding the account to a certain IP fails to add clear labels to the account, nor does it increase fan stickiness. The account life cycle is strongly related to the IP, making it difficult to assist subsequent monetization.

In addition, the status of the IP itself also affects the normal development of the account. For example, there have been many negative news about Lingna Belle before, and many netizens said that they were a little "down". As for the recent top streamers Hehua and Menglan, due to too many visitors, the zoo has set a single-person play time to avoid disturbing the normal life of the two giant pandas. Not only do you have to queue up to enter the museum, but the single stay time cannot exceed 5 minutes. Under such a policy, many follow-up accounts have gone to the "end" .

From these perspectives, it may be easy to "start" with this type of top-tier IP, but it is not easy to maintain the popularity of the account for a long time. When the most popular top-tier IP gradually fades away, looking for the next "top-tier" may be the new direction for this type of creators.

Author: Jiangbei

Source: WeChat public account "CaasData (ID: caasdata6)"