Like a spring breeze overnight, Peppa Pig has become a sensation. Yes, today we start with a pink cartoon pig named "Peppa," who looks like a hairdryer, loves playing games, jumping in muddy puddles, and eating spaghetti. Now many celebrities have started wearing T-shirts with Peppa Pig images, leading a fashion trend. This Peppa Pig craze has also swept the food industry. A distributor from Chongqing, who last year represented food products featuring the Peppa Pig animation, earned a net profit of one million yuan in a year. Peppa Pig is no longer just an animated character but a super IP that brings its own traffic and money-making ability. Today, "IP" (Intellectual Property) is becoming more widely known. An IP can originate from a book, a song, a film or TV work, or even a celebrity or an animated character. This distributor is just the tip of the iceberg in IP marketing. An animation IP has such great power, showing that its energy has reached a terrifying level. So what is the secret behind it? What implications does it have for distributors selecting products?

  1. Behind the Crazy Money-Making is the "Fire" of New Media I visited several primary schools and truly felt that children are now crazy about Peppa Pig, Paw Patrol, etc. The top three animated characters mentioned by children are Peppa Pig, Paw Patrol, and Octonauts. Moreover, their way of watching cartoons has shifted from TV to mobile phones. I saw many children laughing heartily while watching "Peppa Pig" on their parents' phones. It is understood that "Peppa Pig" was first broadcast by UK-based Entertainment One (eOne) on May 31, 2004, and has since been broadcast in 180 regions worldwide. It is also currently airing on China Central Television's Children's Channel. Thanks to the popularity of the cartoon, in 2016, "Peppa Pig" brought the company retail sales of $1.1 billion (approximately RMB 7 billion) globally. With the global popularity of the "Peppa Pig" animation, its operators have made a fortune from the hit IP. Peppa Pig's rise to fame has been strongly boosted by social media platforms such as Weibo, WeChat, and Douyin. According to statistics, there are over 30,000 videos under the #PeppaPig hashtag on Douyin. On Weibo, the "Peppa Pig" topic has over 200 million reads and thousands of posts.
  2. IP Becomes a Scarce Resource Choice Today It is understood that companies successfully using animation IP licensing are mostly concentrated in the southern candy and biscuit industries. "Peppa Pig" is sought after by distributors, who are confident in products with IP licensing, and licensed companies have achieved rapid growth. In today's world where attention resources are severely scarce, why have IP-licensed products become a "hot commodity" in the eyes of distributors? Analysis shows three main reasons: (1) Young parents recognize IP, leading to widespread awareness. Now, more and more post-85s and post-90s are becoming parents and are the main force in the consumer market. Products that add fun and personality on top of health are more favored. Moreover, they grew up under the influence of anime and have a natural affinity for animation IPs. When these young parents see products with anime IPs, they feel a sense of familiarity, and children are even more so. Therefore, IP products first make the buyers, who are young parents, feel less unfamiliar. (2) Good IPs bring their own traffic, automatically spreading and multiplying. Animation IPs have the function of bringing their own traffic and automatically spreading. In today's pan-entertainment industry ecosystem, IP sits at the top of the industry chain. IP operations now show a multi-format trend, developing from multiple dimensions such as film and TV, games, music, stage plays, derivatives, and IP licensing. For example, "Peppa Pig" has over 200 stage plays offline a year, and next year, during the Year of the Pig Spring Festival, "Peppa Pig: The Movie" will be released. So the natural superpower of animation IPs to bring their own traffic and spread automatically keeps them at the forefront of public attention. Good IPs are not only recognized and spread online; in offline large-scale promotional activities, IPs allow consumers to experience them up close. People share through photos, WeChat, and Weibo, and this sharing is automatic, leading to widespread dissemination of IP products and promoting sales awareness at the terminal. (3) Animation IPs make products sell themselves. The cute images, positive energy, and fun knowledge spread by animation IPs are naturally attractive to children. Children are in a critical period of discovering and exploring the world, full of curiosity, and cartoons are the best window for them to understand the world. Children's love for cartoons is no less than adults' pursuit of celebrities. For children, anime IPs are the world they know in their minds, so as long as they see the IP, they will actively buy. This is the automatic sales promotion brought by IP, making children take the initiative to ask their parents to buy. In contrast, many similar products without IP, once placed at the terminal, cannot solve the problem of sales. This distributor had the foresight to choose Peppa Pig food products and earn a million in a year. He must have understood IP early, been prepared, seized the IP trend, and realized his dream of making money. According to research, most southern companies focus on candy and leisure snacks, with cartoon IPs like Hello Kitty, Disney, and GG Bond. Now, they are partnering with Peppa Pig to operate leisure snacks, allowing companies to develop rapidly. Distributors are fighting for agency rights, achieving a million in a year easily. Looking at northern companies, they are relatively slow to adopt children's IPs, but they are good at operating beverages. The entire Chinese children's beverage market is worth tens of billions. With the relaxation of the one-child policy and even the potential rise of a three-child market in the future, the children's beverage market will reach 100 billion. It is understood that northern companies are now starting to focus on the children's IP market. Whether it's the hot Peppa Pig, Paw Patrol, Octonauts, or Super Wings, they will all occupy high ground in the children's beverage market. The IP trend has arrived. Whether companies or distributors, as long as they seize the hot IP, they will definitely make a fortune, because IP products solve the core problem of sales.
  3. Those Who Win Children's Hearts Win the World; Those Who Win IP Win Children's Hearts At the 2018 Wanda Group annual meeting, Wanda Kids was mentioned multiple times by Wang Jianlin as Wanda Group's "new treasure," and it left a mark at the annual meeting. Wang Jianlin said he believes Wanda Kids could become another core enterprise of Wanda Group. As the saying goes, "Those who win children's hearts win the world." The children's cultural industry has the potential to grow big. China has a large number of children, 300 million, and this number will continue to expand after the two-child policy. Chinese parents are willing to spend money on their children, especially on food and education. Nielsen data shows that with the increase in newborns in the future, the Chinese market has a huge potential of 3 trillion yuan in the children's food market... The overall market environment indicates that existing products cannot meet consumer demand, and the era of "winning children's hearts to win the world" has arrived! Whoever catches the fast train of the children's market will firmly grasp the next supreme dominance of the children's market! The children's beverage market has always been a golden market favored by distributors, but in recent years, with the increasing homogenization of product concepts, distributors have become aesthetically fatigued. Now, IP has undoubtedly opened a new world for the entire children's beverage market, because "those who win IP win children's hearts." In summary, we believe that the Peppa Pig IP enabling distributors to earn a million a year will not be an isolated phenomenon but a major trend in the future. The development of new media maximizes the function of IPs bringing their own traffic and spreading automatically. Those who win IP win children's hearts, and those who win children's hearts win the world. It is not hard to see that super IPs have become the current business trend. Whether companies or distributors, whoever seizes it first will become a millionaire, billionaire, or even trillionaire! Scan the QR code to learn more about anime IP (Peppa Pig, Paw Patrol, Octonauts) products