Three keys to IP operation - taking "Tina Tony" as an example

Taking "Tina Tony" as an example, this article analyzes how to establish an IP operation system and how to truly realize the long-term realization of IP value. It is suitable for those who are currently operating IP.

2023 is really a year of struggle. Everyone is trying their best to make money:) The same is true for the IP circle. We all want to make up for the past few years and keep moving forward towards money...

We will look for some outstanding IP operation cases, share them with you, and analyze the monetization value behind them, so as to help you find out - how can IP operation be better?

The first case we found was the children's animation "Tina Tony", a very representative new force in children's animation in recent years. The reason for choosing it is that in "Tina Tony", we can easily see the value foundation of IP operation and how to establish an IP operation system...

Let’s get started.

Let me first introduce "Tina Tony", which is a cognitive enlightenment animation for preschool children aged 2-6 years old. It belongs to the same field as "Peppa Pig" and "Teletubbies".

Since its launch, 3 seasons of long dramas and 1 season of short dramas have been launched, with a total online broadcast volume of over 5 billion, which makes it a strong camp of children's animation IP. At the same time, "Tina Tony" was rated as one of the top ten commercial licensing projects of China IP BANK in 2022, and obtained cooperation from many brands such as Yili New Food Machine, Licheng IQ Cod, Dr. Cheese Cheese Sticks, and ZUO Yikou Jelly . The IP operation ecosystem is being fully launched.

As an international cooperation case produced by Youku Kids and the well-known Russian animation company Richie Group, "Tina Tony" has also been distributed to more than 30 overseas countries and regions around the world and has been widely popular.

Therefore, in the content of "Tina Tony", it is easy to see the operational characteristics of global children's animation, which is why we chose it .

Below, we take the "Tina Tony" animation IP as an example and analyze the three key points of IP operation one by one.

1. Unique IP value positioning

In fact, IP is also a kind of brand. The value of IP is the same as that of brand. It also needs to have unique mental positioning value . However, in the field of IP, this mental positioning is more content-based + visual, and has a stronger sense of culture.

This kind of mental positioning is the foundation for IP/brand to win people's hearts and develop in the long run, and becomes the guiding center for IP in subsequent operations and monetization.

For example, the mental positioning of Peppa Pig is the comprehensive growth of children at home, and it has won the hearts of countless children with its naive and unique image and character. Therefore, all the derivatives and operations of Peppa Pig are centered around the family.

Teletubbies' mental positioning is the most basic self-cognition growth of children, and it hits the subconscious psychology of children with extremely simple stories and minimalist image design. Therefore, the various derivatives and operations of Teletubbies are naturally carried out around the cognitive individual of children.

The uniqueness of the mental positioning of "Tina Tony" lies in its focus on "children's social interaction", that is, how children make friends outside the family and learn social growth outside of family life.

In terms of content, it helps children establish the concept and methods of "healthy social interaction" by telling touching stories about Tina the elephant and Tony the hippopotamus and their friends and neighbors who live in the Sugar Pie Village.

From the perspective of positioning, the content positioning of "Tina Tony" is CP , that is, the CP of the little elephant and the little hippo forms a dual protagonist. This is significantly different from the single protagonist + the whole family of "Peppa Pig", or other group-style protagonists that talk about kindergarten life.

We studied a lot of children's animation content and found that there are very few contents that are completely centered on two protagonists and emphasize social interaction. This may be one of the key reasons why "Tina Tony" stood out.

I specifically talked to the team behind the scenes. They believe that there is a key stage in the development of preschool children, from internal family to external social interaction. That is, children do not only live with their relatives at home, but will have new interactions with other children in other spaces such as kindergartens and children's playgrounds, and have various new experiences. This is exactly the scene that the content and image of "Tina Tony" are closely linked to.

In short, "children's healthy social interaction" is the core IP value of "Tina Tony" and the core theme of IP operation, laying the foundation for the branding of IP.

2. Long-term theme of IP operation

Creating good content for IP is only the first step. Good operations are also needed to achieve long-term development and monetization.

Before operating an IP, you must first think clearly about what the cultural theme of the IP's long-term operation is? In addition to providing entertainment through the content itself, what else can the operation actually do for people?

Because IP operation is not just commercial, it also requires constantly doing various practical and beneficial things for people in order to realize the value of IP.

Based on the unique value positioning of "healthy social interaction", "Tina Tony" puts forward a cultural theme slogan that is significantly different from other children's animations: "Health, Safety, and Sharing".

From animation content to product development, to offline activities and charity actions, long-term operations all revolve around this unique theme slogan.

For example, in terms of content, the newly launched "Tina Tony Knows Everything" is a short drama, which is an important supplement to the long series. It is lighter in form and focuses more on social skills in content. The most popular short video social interaction is also integrated into the series.

Will we discuss whether children also have social phobia? In view of various problems that children often encounter in social interaction, we will continue to present new social scenes for children to stimulate their social skills, inspire them to learn to divide the work and cooperate, and guide them to help their good friends realize their wishes and strengthen friendship. In other words, the brand mission is to "awaken children's social superpowers."

Tina even has a social account where she collects questions from children, and then answers one question in each episode based on her own understanding in a humorous and interesting way.

For example, just in February 2023, "Tina Tony" carried out a series of activities called "Coloring Friendship Together", using "color" as a visual symbol of social expression and "coloring" as a way of healthy social interaction to guide children to establish correct, positive and warm social concepts.

This event was jointly initiated by WABC Art Path Charity Foundation and UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, inviting artists and young illustrators from the Central Academy of Fine Arts to work with "Star Children" (autistic children) to create Tina Tony-themed paintings and color a 2-meter giant Tina model together. It will also be exhibited long-term at the Beijing Yintai Dahongmen store.

Tina Tony also continues to enter kindergartens and shopping malls, and guides preschool children's social development through interactive forms such as Tina Tony nursery rhymes and physical exercises with richer and more diversified content.

In short, the long-term operating theme of "Tina Tony" is " health, safety, and sharing ", which embodies children's social attributes, growth attributes, and emotional attributes, and then organically combines charity, art, and business in specific activities.

3. Establish an ecological field for IP operation

If IP is to be operated well, it cannot be fragmented, nor is it as simple as just licensing.

Behind outstanding IP operations, an IP ecosystem must be established so that every component and every link can echo each other and form an organic ecological field together.

How to build an IP ecosystem? Big platforms have their own practices, and small IPs have their own ways of playing.

Today’s article will first introduce the practices of large platforms. In subsequent articles, we will continue to introduce some innovative ways to play with small IPs...

As a product of Youku, "Tina Tony" can naturally rely on the industrial ecological layout of Youku Children.

In this ecological layout, "Little Youku" is very important. According to the introduction of its behind-the-scenes team, it will create an IP chain for the entire children's industry that integrates content production, promotion, marketing services, and sales.

In this full industry chain, there are not only content and promotion, but also channels for selling goods, forming a ternary matrix of goods + promotion + sales.

"Little Youku" has built 8 direct-operated stores online and has set up more than 1,200 sales outlets offline. It has also achieved the connection from content to consumption and realized service sharing from online to offline and in multiple scenarios through cooperation with sister platforms such as Tmall, Taobao, and Juhuasuan.

Therefore, the IP operation of "Little Youku" is essentially the ecological operation of "content + industry". Take the cooperation between "Tina Tony" and Yili New Food Machine as an example. This is not a simple authorization, but a long-term ecological combination development, launching a rich series of products, from yogurt beans to Yixiaojun rice cakes and Yixiaojun cheese sticks.

At the same time, with the help of Youku and Alibaba's own ecosystem, it can also get the cooperation of top influencers such as Li Jiaqi. Among them, Yili Yogurt Dissolving Beans has a GMV of over one million across the entire network, and sold 60,000 pieces in a single session.

At the same time, Tina Tony also jointly created IQ cod sausage with Licheng Food, and will subsequently bring more healthy foods for children such as Dr. Cheese cheese sticks and ZUO jelly, always echoing the unique IP value of "healthy social interaction".

Now, the authorization of "Tina Tony" has just begun, and there is still a lot of room for development in the future. This IP ecosystem will continue to extend to various children's health homes, children's health travel, children's health clothing, and various daily lives.

In any case, just like the authorization in the field of children's food, it is an ecological chain model from the content core to the product form (safety, sharing) to marketing activities (children's exercises, entering kindergarten), so that the value of "healthy social interaction" runs through the whole situation.

This is the full-link IP operation of "Tina Tony" , which is divided into three parts: content operation, social operation and commercial operation of products and sales.

From creating healthy social animation content for children; to continuously creating various social activities to "cultivate children's social super powers", to incorporating the concept of "health, safety, and sharing" throughout the products, and continuously injecting it into product development, circulation, sales and subsequent services.

Having written this, I want to say: It is really not easy to create an IP. Unique value, popularity, and ecological operation are all indispensable to truly realize the long-term realization of IP. Among them, unique value positioning is the rudder, popularity and likeability are the waves, and ecological operation is the sailing route, which together will steer the IP ship towards the rich treasures...

Therefore, without the ecological operation of IP, the content will become an ownerless ship drifting with the waves.

IP Fried Rice once studied various contents from large videos to small videos, and found that many contents that seem to have a large amount of traffic cannot actually make money from the monetization of IP value, but can only make money from some traffic, and the traffic dividend is often short-lived .

The reason is that these contents with large amounts of traffic have not established a unique value positioning, nor can they be operated and built into an ecosystem based on unique value. As a result, these contents are merely traffic content, not IP.

Only with a truly unique value positioning and IP ecological operation can it become a truly valuable IP.

Finally, to summarize, the three key points of IP operation are:

1. Unique value positioning (brand power)
2. Thematic IP operation (cultural power)
3. Establishing and operating an ecological field (ecological force)

In this way, the IP's brand, culture, and ecology will be established one by one, allowing us to achieve fruitful results through IP operations in 2023!

Author: Chen Gelei (Lao Xiaoge) team

Source: WeChat public account "IP Fried Rice (ID: IPCOOK)"