With the economic support of fans, the commercial value of virtual idols is equal to that of a-list stars
Virtual idol has a long history, but the domestic began to notice the commercial value of virtual idol from the Japanese virtual song concubine Hatsune Miku, this year is hatsune Miku was born in the tenth year, ten years of accumulation for countless honors and commercial value, has been the “darling” of various manufacturers. More than 10 billion yen (500 million yuan) has been spent on Hatsune Miku, according to Kazuhiro ITO, an analyst at Nomura Research Institute. Hatsune Miku’s success at home and abroad has made the virtual idol industry the focus of capital.
Domestic virtual idol industry thanks to the development of secondary yuan economic booming in recent years, the secondary yuan, pan secondary yuan user scale and the spending power of economic growth to make secondary yuan gradually attention and recognition by the mainstream, animation and comic industry rise, who has decline has also gradually restored to life, secondary yuan mobile game is have sprung up, and both at home and abroad. Virtual idols have gained a great deal of popularity by virtue of the rich soil of the two-yuan economy. Hatsuke Miku has more than 1.93 million fans on QQ Music alone, and lo Tianyi, another virtual singer, has more than 1.64 million fans, which is close to the number of domestic first-tier singers.
In fact, the virtual idol economy is also the fan economy, or the role economy. In the first half of the year, ye Xiu and Richard Zhou, two popular characters in the original work, were the endorsements of McDonald’s products, which is one of the forms of virtual idol business realization. But unlike fans economy, virtual idol economic achievement in virtual idol fans as well as achievements, many creators for virtual music idol creation or after submission for illustration to fame, received the olive branch, commercial companies pass to free musicians Poker is so popular, in addition to its for virtual income according to song song JiLuo day concert, I’ve also received offers to co-write music for games and commercials.
Virtual idols are more beneficial to both companies and fans than real idols. The ownership of virtual idols is in the hands of the enterprise, and they will not breach the contract for various reasons like real idols, nor will they collapse due to personal misdeeds, which will affect the reputation of themselves and the enterprise. Of course, there will not be the incident of singer X and little fresh meat L occupying the popular weibo recently. For fans, virtual idols have perfect looks, a wide vocal range and are eternally young and energetic, as well as a unique experience of idol cultivation. In addition, virtual idols can also derive new Settings based on the needs of fans or businesses, such as Hatsune, derived from Hatsune.
With the continuous development of science and technology, the content forms of virtual idols are becoming more and more abundant, and different categories such as animation, music and games are derived. Insiders predict that the virtual idol industry has a user scale of hundreds of millions.
Fictitious idol economy heat to attack, Tencent, migu etc. enter the bureau panning for gold
The commercial monetisation ability of virtual idols attracts many domestic enterprises to set their hands in this emerging industry, among which there are some well-known companies. Heian is the earliest company engaged in the development of virtual idols in China. It obtained the investment of Alfie Entertainment in 2015 and reached cooperation with Taihe Music Group in 2016.
He Nian used to be VOCALOID’s Agent in China. After independence, he retained the ownership of several virtual singers, such as Luo Tianyi and Le Zhengling, and changed the brand to Vsinger, while Luo Tianyi is the most famous virtual singer of the company. Hatsune Miku had already built up a lot of popularity in China before the emergence of Lotiki, which quickly gained a large following in China after being introduced as the missing Chinese sound source for VOCALOID.
Lotianyi follows hatsune’s UGC model, that is, the content of virtual idols is mainly supplemented by the creation of fans. He nian gave the basic set is very simple, and Luo Tianyi’s people set is gradually improved by fans contribute, in other words, by fans voted out of the most widely accepted set, so its fans cohesion is higher. Luo tianyi’s commercial ability to cash out is in the forefront of peers, whether last year’s Hunan Spring Festival Gala with Yang Yuying duet, or “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2” theme song, or this year’s hologram concert, the most expensive ticket 1,280 yuan sold out in three minutes, are very successful attempts.
There are various modes of operation of virtual idols, but most of them are from the perspective of music in China, so is whale Island Band. Different from He Nian, the band takes the PGC mode, that is, the route of independent creation. Whale island band was founded three years, influence, though less days in accordance with, but also achieved good results in the commercialization, not only for the last year than deer annual pop musician, also relies on a single “I Lost You” won the netease original music list eight outstanding achievement, also with the pancakes man “, “science says” and so on have had cooperation.
However, the virtual idol with the highest heat recently is also the protagonist of the “Xue Zhiqian dropped the microphone” event — Herz, who also takes the PGC route, and the competition works are all synthesized and released by the team in advance, which is blamed by many viewers for unfair competition. Tencent’s program “Children of Tomorrow” launched virtual idols not only in line with the program’s setting, but also in order to better attract the target audience — the post-1995 group with high acceptance of virtual idols, and it has been very effective. According to public data, Herz’s videos on Tencent Video have been played more than 90 million times and have more than 150,000 followers on Weibo. Herz has also won endorsement deals with many brands.
In addition to variety shows, game companies are also keen on virtual idols. Famous game company Xishanju launched its first virtual idol, Defile, this year, which makes sense. With the development of the two-dimension economy, the two-dimension mobile games of idol development have a large audience in China. No matter Love Live or Idol Fantasy Festival, they are very popular in China. Not long ago, Hatsune Miku’s legal music mobile game Hatsune Miku: Dreamgirl has also made a public appearance, which shows that the launch of IP games is also a way for virtual idols to cash in.
In addition, Migu has also entered the virtual idol project from the perspective of voice software, and the company owned by famous singer Jay Chou even has a good vision for the virtual idol industry.
However, not making ends meet becomes the biggest problem
Despite the attention, the development of domestic virtual idol is far from the glory of Hatsune Miku, even the most successful luo Tianyi is far behind, the domestic virtual idol industry has a long way to go to realize.
The virtual idol industry needs content support, but the original environment and training in China are not as good as that in Japan, so it is difficult for UGC model to make achievements in the domestic environment. On the one hand, although UGC mode has very high fan participation and stickiness, there are very few independent music producers in China. Creators by love, on the other hand, power generation, if lose economic support is also difficult to continue, even if the sound at the beginning of the future, there are also many big hot P later all no longer contribute, so read cannot only rely on UGC mode operation is designed, and with quite music group and other professional music production team cooperation, creating music for virtual idol, by light assets turned to heavy asset model.
PGC has more assets and higher output costs than other models. In addition, the PGC mode also needs to face the problem that enterprises may not understand the needs of users, and the setting and works of self-promotion not only fail to impress the target group, but also may cause antipathy of fans. While Herz is currently in the limelight, it is questionable how far she can go without quality content after the show ends.
Whether in PGC or UGC mode, the initial investment of virtual idol is very high. Herz, for example, has a 140-strong operation team that uses AR, real-time motion capture and 3D real-time rendering to present Herz. And he Nian public data shows that the cost of developing a sound library is up to millions, and the creation of a song for virtual idol needs to invest hundreds of thousands or even millions. At present, the most successful virtual idol luo Tian Yi has not realized profits, let alone other virtual idol enterprises.
In addition, although the virtual idol will not change, the audience’s dissatisfaction with the creators will be transferred to the characters, so it is more difficult for the enterprise to operate, after all, the virtual idol is scripted. Hatsune’s journey has taken a decade. China’s virtual idols may not have such a long time to accumulate, but they still have a long way to go, just like the cultivation of real idols.
Will AI help the virtual idol industry explode?
The domestic virtual idol industry is still in its infancy, and the rapid development of AI in recent years undoubtedly provides infinite possibilities for the future development of virtual idol. It can be said that AI and virtual idol undoubtedly complement each other. They can not only provide content and interactive support for virtual idol, but also make up for the regret that virtual idol cannot communicate with fans, making virtual idol no longer a set of interactive Settings. Virtual idols, as the carrier of AI, provide AI with visual images and promote the promotion of AI.
At present, some domestic enterprises have started to develop AI+ virtual idol projects. A few days ago, Dongfang Digital Intelligence released the “Artificial Intelligence Idol system platform”, with technical support from Microsoft Xiaoice.
Although the development of the domestic virtual idol industry is still relatively slow, it is undeniable that the domestic secondary market is gradually developing and growing. Looking abroad, SM Korea, one of the world’s two biggest idol training companies, is also creating virtual idols, which shows that the industry is very promising. Although the virtual idol industry is not improving at present, in the future with the help of AI, the virtual idol industry may usher in the explosion, hatsune Miku level of virtual idol will appear in the near future, and the virtual idol like Una in “Sword Dance · Sequence Battle” may also be visible in the near future.
Liu Kuang, meditation on the Internet, wechat official account: Liukuang110