In recent years, with the "everything can be blind box" craze, fashion toys gradually come into the public eye. Fashion toys, also known as art toys or designer toys, integrate the concept of art, design, trend, painting, sculpture and other elements, and are mainly for adults. The data show that there is a huge space for the development of the gaming market. The market size has increased from 6.3 billion yuan in 2015 to 22.9 billion yuan in 2020, with a five-year CAGR of 29.45%. According to the report of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Forst Sulivan forward-looking Industry Research Institute, China's tide play industry is still in the growth period, with Chinese tide play more and more popular and loved by consumers, the whole market is expected to exceed 76 billion yuan in 2024, 2027 China tide play market scale will break through 160 billion yuan.
Many fashion toy companies have begun to enter overseas markets, and some Chinese designs have also won the favor of overseas consumers, showing strong innovative vitality and cultural influence. Fashion toys are no longer a hobby of a few people, but have risen to a spiritual consumption and cultural phenomenon.
What do trendy toys mean to young people? How to create an IP image with Chinese values and international influence?
Offline, the prominent positions of many large shopping malls are occupied by fashion stores and vending machines, and people are happy to spend tens of yuan to buy a "little Choxing". Online, domestic fashion toy brand POP Mart surpassed Lego and Bandai for the second year in a row to become the top seller in the toy category on Tmall's Singles' Day. In addition, some museums are trying to launch cultural and creative products in the form of blind boxes, traditional stationery companies are testing the waters, and many Internet companies are also pouring into this industry...
This is a young people's spending spree, but also an attempt to bring art into People's Daily life at an affordable price. Behind the blind box, a larger cultural consumption market is emerging, and more people can not help but wonder - what is the trend toy? Why is it so popular? Is the heat sustainable?
1.Fashion toys: A new form of business connecting art and commerce
What are the trendy toys? The prevailing consensus in the industry is that fashion toys, narrowly defined, originated in Hong Kong and Japan in the late 20th century and were created by independent designers and artists, also known as art toys or designer toys.
Often designed with a bit of street, rebellious and counter-mainstream style, and produced in limited quantities and at relatively high prices, the consumption of fashion toys has initially been limited to a small circle.
In the early 21st century, the concept of hip-play was integrated with the local animation and television industry in Europe, America and Japan, and a number of world-famous hip-play brands and images emerged, such as KAWS, BE@RBRICK and so on.
When fashion toys enter the mainland of China, they become more diversified in forms, and their positioning shifts from art toys or designer toys to a larger market -- the art surrounding market.
In addition to the most popular blind box, hand, BJD toys (joint movable toys) are also included in the category of trend toys, the price range from tens of yuan to tens of thousands of yuan.
More and more toy-related companies have entered the industrial chain, and a trend toy ecosystem has initially formed from design, production and sales to second-hand trading markets and offline large-scale exhibitions.
2.Why do young people like fashion toys?
"If there's a doll I really want to buy, there's something about it that speaks to me, and that emotion and feeling is actually very subjective." One veteran gamer explained his motivation. A fashion toy without a thick story as the background, but easier to produce emotional connection with consumers, its personality is completed by consumers to project their own emotions.
3.Fostering a trend culture with enduring vitality remains to be solved
At present, many fashion toy enterprises have formed a "blind box" language by adopting unified packaging, size, selling method and hidden proportion. But this form is not the first of its kind in the fashion toy industry, and is just a sales model. The core of the gaming industry is still the form of content, and China's gaming industry needs to continue to explore more models and incorporate more Chinese cultural elements and imagery than the language and systems created by companies like Lego and Disney.
If the future trend of fashion toys is to develop to art, then the artistic thickness of fashion play design needs to be increased, to truly cultivate artists who can reflect the voice of The Times. "Today, many of the images we see are probably Westernized. In the future, will we see more popular games inspired by characters like Chinese swordsmen who walk the world?" "It depends a lot on the Chinese culture of the designer."
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Post time: Nov-23-2022
