After years of development, the Chinese animation industry has developed a number of well-known characters, such as the goat and the wolf from the cartoon series Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf, as intellectual properties.
Images of the goat and the wolf can be seen in toy stores, theme parks and on clothing. However, few of them have yet to become as influential overseas as many animation productions from Japan and the United States.
After the surprise success of the Chinese animation movie Ne Zha at the domestic box office, the issue of developing premium cartoon and animation intellectual property has arisen.
Luo Xiaoxing, assistant to the president of Alpha Animation, a leading Chinese animation and toy company, thinks the key to producing more commercial value from an intellectual property is to aim for a wider market, rather than merely a work's target audience.
"For animation intellectual property, the key is to take it from being a niche IP to one known by a mass audience," Luo said, adding that failure to do so will restrict growth. For example, the intellectual property of many games has remained within gamer circles, failing to reach a wider demographic.
Luo said Mickey Mouse from Disney, or Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf (produced by Creative Power Entertaining), are typical examples of IP that has reached a wider audience.
By 2008, the Pleasant Goat character was already well-known among children, but had not made an impact with adults.
It was not until the following year that the first movie in the series - which targeted a wider audience - was released that such IP reached the mass domestic market. The movie's estimated value rose from a few million Yuan to hundreds of millions.
Huang Weiming, chief director of Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf, said that when it comes to the development of intellectual properties, the domestic animation industry should not copy the model adopted by foreign counterparts such as Disney.
"Disney has its own theme parks and movies to present its IPs, therefore its collaboration with other companies can be simply done through authorization," Huang said.
"However, Chinese IPs need deeper business cooperation, other than simple authorization. They still have to join forces with other companies to expand their market presence."
Source:China Daily
