Shake the big tail, the memory of the Beaver is a always wearing white underwear, a little cheap red fox ... ...
It used to be a national-level Internet red, accompanied by the growth of a generation, last year, the dream city of the parent company has also been recognized by the capital market, successfully landed the new board, but today, you hardly feel the kind of grandfather that year.
Performance loss, the company strategy is not clear and other issues plagued this little fox.
Looking at the dream city financial data will find that, even after boarding the new board, the performance loss has not stopped the momentum in 2016, City of Dreams attributable to shareholders of the parent company's net loss of 10,323,800 yuan; in 2015, this figure is 18.244 million yuan; 2014, a net loss of 14.663 million yuan.
For many people, Dream City is experiencing an unprecedented crisis in finance and corporate governance.
In contrast, Japan's Kumamoto bear only derivatives sales of 100.7 billion yen in 2015; while Japan's Sanrio 2014 fiscal year shows that the company revenue of 74.562 billion yen, mostly from the IP brand Hello Kitty's authorization.
Everyone is curious to know that as a IP that has not been forgotten by people for ten years, it is undoubtedly a success, but national IP, with license as the main revenue, The difference is so big?
Among these, the life cycle of this IP and its development opportunities are also related to the development strategy of Dream City, the parent company.
Hello Kitty is a gift company started Sanrio, take the industrial chain of physical sales to the development of IP image of the road. On the contrary, after the founding of the dream city is the content with fire IP, and then authorized by the IP into the industrial chain sales .
Perhaps such a strategy itself is not wrong, but in order to lay the offline channels, really make Dream City stalls paved too much, consuming a lot of manpower, material resources and financial resources, leading to company funds, the main authorized business suffered.
Just at the company's crucial moment, the creator of Beaver and the founder of Dream City Hans (Xu Han) resurfaced and served as CEO of the company.He retreated to the behind, only to be the company's artistic director, comic image creator, And preparing a self-directed Beaver movie, do not get involved in corporate management decisions.
'Dream City really encountered some problems, including revenue, but also the strategic.I do not shy away from these issues, but the company's management and IPR is the IP address is two different things, I personally think that a raccoon is successful. 'Two weeks ago, Hans at Starbucks Cafe in Sanlitun talked about entertainment capital.
Beaver creator Hans
After Hans resumed the management of the company, he not only completed a series of decisive decisions such as divestiture of the company's loss-making business, layoff of staff by 40% and adjustment of the company's development strategy within two months, but also discussed with the shareholders to increase revenue and reduce expenditure and improve the management of authorization.
Hans admitted that the pressure is great.But, there is confidence to get the company back again.Over two months since he became the company's CEO, the company's book profit and loss has been flattened.
We all look forward to seeing Hans be able to be a great company after Hans comes back.
1 boldly face the past, a transfer of the gun head, where can shoot
Last Friday, Little Entertainment met Hans in Sanlitun, where he was more mature than before. With a pair of elegant black-rimmed glasses, it seemed a bit tense. Before we met, we agreed that we should 'face the problem' .
This meeting, just as his dream city CEO from just over two months time.After that, he once retreated behind the scenes, only to do the company's artistic director, comic book creator, and prepare their own directed Beaver movie, Do not get involved in company management decisions.
But comeback, is not a very worthwhile celebration of things more precisely, be regarded as an imminent death for the simple reason that the company's dream city aunt's annual loss, with an average annual loss of about 14 million. 'As a beaver creator , I now need to stand up and say, "Hans said.
He did not deal with the media very often and he did not like to show his face in the public eye because he had to face the media once again in the next four years because he wanted to save the Beaver and save the Dream City. Hans is back.
Hard to imagine, at this very moment, Hans, who was shy, speaks of the sanity and calm that he has seen in his line-finishing, company strategy reprogramming, layoffs, etc. He generalizes his business alignment largely in two Aspects, one is the addition, one is subtraction, the company as a whole cut costs.
Subtraction is layoffs and line-of-business adjustments. "The first is layoffs," Hans said.
Dream City, originally about 120 people, has now been reduced to 80 or so, mainly cut the sales force, the internal R & D department of the game sector also suspended.In addition to design, authorize such core department, the other parts of the company have gone through Slimming.
This downsizing also includes the divestiture of some unprofitable businesses and subsidiaries The original internal incubator Longsheng Animation has been independently financed in March 2017. It has won nearly RMB 40 million Series A round of financing including Fosun Rui Positive capital, heart-capital and Tencent industry win-win fund.
With the subtraction, the City of Dreams is a lot lighter, and now the company turns its gun head and focuses the next few years on lighter licenses and brand operations. "The offline focus is empowerment and future directions include And some real estate developers to do the theme park 'Hans repeatedly stressed the content to create, authorize and light assets.
Authorized business was originally Dream City's most important source of revenue, but also has been growing business over the years, but it was once the pain point of the dream city due to the lack of authorization experience, intervention in derivative products and services is relatively small, Hans bluntly : 'For some time after 2013, I did not even want to see the derivatives of the Beaver myself.'
Hans now places a lot of emphasis on licensing, in-depth cooperation and after-sales management. On the one hand, Hans is required to authorize the manufacturer to qualify products that are suitable for toning. For example, we do not authorize cigarettes Intelligent companionship being developed robot , Is a blank category that fits in with the Beaver new slogan 'Beaver forever with you'.
Authorization areas also continue to expand, opened up, including the theme of the cake, the theme of the hotel, the theme of the hotel, the theme of the city's card ... ... partners include Bank of China, McDonald's, Mayflower, Yue poetry, Chow Tai Fook, affordable herbal, Watson, derived Plush doll covers categories, clothing, luggage, home life, stationery and other mass consumer goods.
On the other hand, after-sales management is strengthened, the contracted partners are provided with content packaging, design guidance and interventions, and in-depth cooperation so that they can provide added value to their products and increase the renewal rate.
In January 2016, 'Beaver' won the highest award in Asia Licensing Award for best Asian Licensing Award in the Asian Licensing Industry. It is by far the first cartoon character in the Mainland to win this award.
Subtraction after the addition is mainly reflected in the content in the Hans view, compared to other anime IP, Beaver should be a story and a unified view of the world.
In 2016, Dream City announced the launching of major movies, theme parks, animation, etc. In March 2016, Hans announced the launch of the animated film "A This is a story about dreaming. "Hans revealed to Xiao-wei that the expression was full of mystery.
May 2017, Dream City owns 80% of the establishment of catering subsidiaries, the first Beaver theme cafe opened in Haidian, cup dishes are all Beaver Beans. This offline display window is operating well, 51 to now Only opened more than six months already basically flat.
However, when it comes to the future expansion, Hans said later or will join the use of this light asset .Seeing that A Beaver want to quickly grasp the trend of commercial real estate theme park outlet .Currently Dream City is actively exploring theme parks, museums And so on, but also to authorize the way.
For example, the Beaver Children's Discovery Experience Center, opened in Shenzhen in the second half of 2017, is a scene-setting attempt to off-line science and technology museums, playgrounds and gourmet retailers, as well as setting scenes in the Beaver World setting such as the Xuan Mu Garden , In the form of cultural real estate to expand the story of its story.The data show that the museum opened a short period of time had sold 4,200 tickets.
After more than two months of adjustment, Dream City has actually reached a state of revenue balance.
2. Main business IP authorization year after year income, the loss of Dream City out where?
People may find the point of surprise lies in the fact that the strong city of IPhone has a strong profitability and profitability is not a problem. What are the huge losses come from?
Looked at the financial statements, the city has just landed a new board when the city has a lower debt ratio and higher liquidity ratio, more robust business operations. Dream City, the vast majority of operating income comes from the IP image Of the authorized and sales service, has maintained a good financial ability.
This shows that the brand influence of Beaver is recognized by the market.But in the consolidated profit statement, management fees and sales costs have increased dramatically, directly to the net profit dragged down.According to the management fees and sales costs of two, almost every year With the main business costs hit.
Costs in the final analysis reflects the cost of making plates .Driving the downstream sales, providing quality content to increase product adhesion, this work itself requires a lot of capital injection to support the early .But as a start-up company, Dream City and Unlike Sanrio, and have the Pleasant, Bar la la magic Fairy, Armor Warriors and other Olympic IP entertainment as inherent advantages.
'Austrian flying to the toy factory started, there is a natural supply chain and sales channels improve the city of dreams and the largest asset is a beaver this IP, you need to expand a little bit up and down, the competition is fierce.' Small entertainment said Road.
As a result, the company began to raise sales team, expand downstream channel attempts, animation and gamification exploration ...... After several years of development, A Beaver has put up a more complete and large enough plate, including the contents of book animation and other original And operations, brand licensing, derivatives development and sales, offline theme space operations and other services.
However, in order to put this large plate, Dream City at the same time need to pay a high management cost.In theory, the volume of the plate should match a scale of 100 million in the brand.But at that time, the dream city of the camp Reimbursement of less than so high, and even this is also higher than the current size of Dream City.
The research and development expenditures for management expenses were RMB13.637 million and RMB13.017 million respectively for 2015 to 2016 while the bulk of the sales expenses were labor costs. The labor costs for 2016 sales expenses were RMB10.991 million, compared with 916.7 in 2015 Million, together with executives and other overhead expenses, human resources, Dream City will pay higher.
'At that time, Dream City had also tried to open up the game team within the company ... Certain pre-game inputs led to higher expenditures, which were then included in the scope of research and development costs.' Dream City stakeholders so interpreted, however The source also revealed that the company has suspended the game project.
In terms of IP development, A Beaver is indeed one of the earliest anime characters in China, and sometimes it is normal to walk detours and dig a lot of plans for development and try to go beyond what was then. In 2013, Tried to do their own clothing.Of course, clothing is a good brand display and advertising carrier, but its requirements for the digestion of stock and high SKU is undoubtedly the test of the dream city.
As a result, Dream City's investment in luggage and apparel was one-to-one. In November 2013, Dream City held an 80% interest in Ningbo Dream City Culture Communication Co., Ltd., which is mainly responsible for derivative products Product sales business in January 2016, Dream City holds a 40% stake, an additional investment of 500,000 yuan, the remaining part of IP rights to use price, the establishment of Dongguan City, Meng City Culture Co., engaged in 'peach' luggage products Design and sales, a small loss.
In the first half of 2017, Dream City and Shanghai Hongfang Yuanmeng Culture Development Co., Ltd., a joint venture with Shanghai Hongfang Yuanyi Cultural Development Co., Ltd., chose to invest in intangible assets of A-Beaver. This more compact way involves produce.
Try, adjust, try again, and then adjust ... But now the dream city, the financial situation has not allowed it to be longer and more attempts. Channel this road, obstacles and hardships .Business management began backtracking, return to A Beaver initial expression package and a picture book, and then wake up: Dream City should be the first to seriously do the IP itself.
Thus, in the city of dreams need to demonstrate the determination of brand transformation, the founder and shareholder of Dream City company, A Beaver creator Hans is undoubtedly the most justifiably spokesman.
3. The two partners, concerted action agreement is one behind the two sides
In fact, a few years ago, Hans was still the one behind the decision-making floor, and at that time, Renyoung was the one who took over all the foreign affairs for the Beaver.
Relevant practitioners also told Little Entertainment: 'In those few years, the major events about Dream City are all handled by Figo (the English name of Yu Renguang), but we have not seen Hans come out. In fact, very good with one responsible for creation, one responsible for business.
Hans made up 65% of the time when Hans founded Dream City in 2006. In September 2010, Yu Ren-kuo, a Tsinghua alumnus who also worked for GGV, was invited to join the team. , Quit his job in Ren country, entrepreneurial attitude into the Dream City team.
Hans acknowledged that he had had an escape mentality in previous years and was not interested in corporate governance.So after several share transfers, even though Hans became the de facto controller of the company, the shareholding ratio reached 97.34 at the end of 2009 %, He chose to quit.
Since then, Dream City has made a number of replenishment, Hans gradually retreated behind the scenes after the stock was diluted again and again to become a focus on creative, do not care about the art director.He and RenRenGuo signed a "Concerted Action Agreement" , Xu Han and Yu Ren Guo became one of the two sides, only made the same voice.
As a result, Yu Renuo became the sole representative of the Dream City Company, he served as the controlling shareholder, legal person and CEO.With Hans20.25% of the shares, directly and indirectly holds 13.85% stake in the total share of Renren Guo The proportion of voting rights is 34.10% in total.
At that time, the idea of Renhe country was to make use of the brand effect of A-Beaver and open up all aspects of the supply chain from the perspective of traditional industries.
'At that time, Figo's idea of producing himself was a more' heavy 'one. "A few years later, in the interview with Little Entertainment, Hans understood this strategy for the few years in Renren and now he actually turned back You will find that such an image as a beaver is actually not suitable for 'heavy reliance' and should be operated in a more 'light' mindset. '
But it was too early that nobody knew it would work, "Hans added.
Having the hottest IP in the country at that time, Yu Ren-kuo at that time was like a strict father who sincerely hoped that his child would blossom in full blossom. And Hans, behind the scenes, was in line with Yu Ren-kuo, And governance.
In the idea of widening channel of Renguo, Aoxiao's authorization began to spread all over the various commodities, trying hard to achieve the full visual occupation of the image for the consumers. This little fox began to bring goods to various kinds of bags, Games, costumes, anime App, many but the lack of complete story line animation ... big plate, but did not usher in the imagination of the outbreak.
Yu Ren-kuo also left a photo with 'Papa Beaver'
Make this series Soft toy , The earliest is due to benevolence proposed and implemented.He attaches great importance to channel and sales ideas, when the earliest take over the city of dreams there.
And over the years, the channel can not really break through, so Hans need to stand in front of the stage, back to the content, return to the initial state of doing picture books, to simplify the business to the lightest and most simple.
In September, Hans became the new CEO of Dream City, and behind this role replacement, Yu Ren-kuo opted for approval and shareholders backed the decision.
4. The king has not changed, I have grown up, A Beaver and the first generation of Internet youth itch of ten years
If you do not deliberately mentioned, we may have forgotten, from Beaver birth, it has been 10 years.
At that time, Hans was still in high school and wrote a textbook prototype for his first love. In 2006, Hans was still a graduate student at the Tsinghua Academy of Art when he published the story of 'Beast' in Mop.
After that, a beaver made a QQ expression, and released for free. This unintentional move willow, so that a beaver successfully catch the qq expression package east wind and make a big deal .On the web spread, gradually, netizens QQ chat window is dyed large blockbuster 'Beaver Red'.
Driven by the Expression Pack, more than 1 million copies of the Beaver Dream's first copybook were released in 2009, three months later, Hans and his friends set up the Dream City in Beijing Culture Co., Ltd. That year, Alibaba's first Double-11 Shopping Festival was just born in the BAT competition.
A beaver's anime figure really peaked around 2010. There are tens of millions of online and offline fans, "Beaver Forever Station" picture book published, the four books total sales of more than 300 million copies .Also launched the letter Yan 'series animated short films.
More importantly, just this year, Ali started brand licensing and started cooperation with the apparel brand to become the first batch of branded operations IP.
The image of A-Beaver was printed on the star series T-shirt of Vanke Eslite just after it was fire. It developed the exclusive series of T-shirt as McCawlin's first anime collaboration image. Its 'Dad' Hans joined Jeanswest in launching 2011 Dream Talent TEE series, and even real estate developers also had cooperation with it ...
In the meantime, the fast growing popularity of A-Beaver's image, Dream City, the parent company, is making quick money at a new round of financing each year. In 2011, the angel's round was millions; in 2012, round A was 10 million; in 2013, B round, tens of millions ......
Three years later, in May 2016, Dream City landed in the New Third Board, and the capitalization process continued to progress steadily, which should be good news, but not so successful on the board, as well as earnings reports from the top companies Disclosure requirements, let people see is the dream city in recent years the deficit.
A Beaver, in fact, is a microcosm of the current era.
As one of the earliest IP companies that started commercial operation, Azabu was going without a prior experience and hard-won experience.
Sanrio, the parent company of Hello Kitty, was originally a gift company and has a powerful natural channel. Kumamoto is a government activity that does not charge royalties for rapid promotion. Local finance relies on a large amount of tourism income brought by this bear to realize its profit. Line Even Need scientific Internet to use, but the expression package is booming, people love not only its Mo Meng and strong quality control, and may contain a more prohibited, people are more prone to eager secret craving ... ...
Ten generations, the widespread use of the Internet makes users faster replacement.
Hans admits: 'In fact, there was an illusion at that moment,' said Hans. 'Because the beaver is too hot, I have a picture book that is sold out as soon as it is launched, and then I steal the light.' The raccoon is so delightful that as long as the content is well done, the brand itself will be fine.
However, the content does not represent the brand, brand building is complex and in-depth, professional.No rival to the Sanrio, Disney and other foreign enemies, such as Austrian fly, Huaqiang and other industry rise rapidly; Changes in the aesthetic bias of the general public towards 'cheap adolescence' ... The external factors facing the beavers have undergone profound changes.
Fortunately, Dream City has embarked on enriching the spiritual core of Alipay IP through big movies, animations and short video clips to impress a new generation of 'grown-ups' and children. "Hans also talked to countries such as Japan and Germany Talk about the series of cooperation, continue to promote the international strategy of the Arab League.
And after ten years of development, the basic infrastructure required for the content innovation of A-Beaver has been basically completed.As the pioneer of the first batch of IP operations in China that has passed the detours in ten years, there is also the dream city and the consumer base and the market concerned can rely on .
For Dream City, which now has its own profits and losses, time may be more important than capital, and after adjusting its structure and direction, it is looking forward to a flashpoint for TV animation and film listings.
Dream City in the future to face the challenges will be more severe. Must break through to go farther.