Behind the comics, it’s a bubble that has nothing to do with comics.

After completing the 250 million yuan C round of financing in January 2017, it was established only three years ago, but the fast-rising comics that have risen rapidly in the past two years have received a lot of attention, and the valuation has also risen. Some people think that it will become a small giant in the vertical field; some people think that its superficial content and more "edge ball" are overrated.

In addition, there are also views that when a market penetration rate enters the integrated top 100 anime app, it will provide a possibility for the country to rise.

In this way, it is necessary to carefully observe it - look at the content of the comics, development process and marketing model, etc. - to examine some aspects of the current cultural industry. As far as Quick Look itself is concerned, it is hoped that several questions can be answered by combing its business model:

First, what is the essence of watching comics? What is its comparative advantage over other comic platforms?

Second, what is the core value of watching comics? Can this value last?

Third, what is its commercialization?

In order to meet the characteristics of mobile reading, before the text, let me conclude that from a commercial perspective, the fast-looking comics that look good now have obvious pattern defects. It actually had the opportunity to become China's WebToon, but did not follow this path. In fact, the quick look is not an animation content platform in the usual sense, but also faces policy risks due to the particularity of the content.

The essence of "entertainment": fast can not see the animation content platform

Different from the general animation content platform, the comics are born to cater to the audience's "entertainment" preferences. Some of the written statements are: From the perspective of women, a large number of entertaining and light-weight themes based on popular online gossip, star lace, etc., are created.

Therefore, looking at comics does not require professionals in animation.

In the eyes of the fast-seeing founder Chen Anni, this can be said to be a big selling point. In a press release, she admitted that 90% of the team is not from the comics industry. “Many of us don’t understand the comic industry, but we know the preferences of young people today.”

This "entertainment" strategy is largely related to Chen Anni's previous experience - when she became a big V net red on Sina Weibo, she already understood what kind of content and marketing methods can win the public. The heart of the heart. Looking at comics is an upgraded version of her Weibo strategy.

The promotion marketing strategy of watching comics is also carried out. According to reports, it has a scale of 30-40 million in Guangdetong, and it has become the fulcrum of value growth. Its marketing strategy is based on "Quickly watching comics no longer focus on the core two-dimensional crowd, but on the Weibo and QQ space for more popular promotion."

The marketing strategy proves that the quick look is actually not an animation in the usual sense, and the core anime users have little meaning for it.

Financing - pulling new (expanding) - refinancing, this is the growth logic of quick-seeing.

Rapid growth followed: DAU (daily active users) increased from 3 million to 9 million. Whether or not the data is packaged through marketing, it is very impressive and has triggered financing.

Through the quick-seeing marketing strategy, the rising logic and the main content, it can be seen that Quick Look is a platform that uses comics as a medium to display adult popular entertainment content to attract traffic.

In the usual sense, the core of the animation content platform is to focus on the content itself and create a boutique; while the core of the traffic platform in the form of entertainment (manga) is to cater to the audience's preferences, and even chase the custom.

Open the comic book, there are a lot of works by Mary Su. These works that cater to the needs of young women are very similar to the "sweet texts" in "Internet literature" - the logic is simple, the plot is rude, and the content "edges the ball." Let the user have a good time, or say, "cool".

In this way, its satisfaction with the needs of users is almost the same as “Calling Mai”. A comic as a medium is also equivalent to a "microphone."

“Shuang” will bring traffic, but the commercial value is a lot of question marks.

From the experience of developed countries such as the US and Japan, it is the core of the development of the content industry, including animation, to build valuable IP and license.

To this end, the United States's Marvel, Disney, etc., have gone through nearly a hundred years of accumulation. The Japanese "Dragon Ball" has been serialized for more than 10 years, and "Naruto" has been serialized for more than 15 years. It is precisely because of the deep accumulation of this content and the pursuit of quality that the United States and Japan have produced a large number of global-level super anime IP, and the huge economic value generated makes animation become the main member of the content industry and also the national economy. The important composition.

The flaw in content is the root of all the problems in comics.

Traffic advantages also face bottlenecks

If you refuse to talk about content and only talk about traffic, there are two problems: First, what kind of scale will the traffic of comics go to, and second, how to realize it.

A common logic is that no matter how fast the content of the comic is, as long as the platform has enough user traffic, it is of great value.

According to public data, there are already 9 million DAUs looking at comics. If this data is reached, it means that its share of young women is close to saturation. That is to say, the cost of getting a comic to get users will be higher and higher – its marketing bonus period in 2015 and 2016, I am afraid it will never return.

At the same time, a very obvious trend is that Tencent Animation, Netease comics and other big companies have paid attention to the female content market and increased investment, including the introduction of authors from the fast-view comics - this is the most direct counter-measure of large companies. . The consequences of this competition are likely to be: users on the comics are moving to other platforms with the author.

After all, from the perspective of the comics model, its moat is shallow and narrow, and it can be filled with money – the money is obviously not huge.

There is a similar problem around the live broadcast platform of “Calling Mai”: the anchor is dug to dig, and the platform can only rely on burning money to save them and save traffic.

The other is the problem of "stain". If you enter "Quick Look + Space" in Baidu search, after "Look at comics", "Fast read novels", "Fast watch movies", the fourth result of Lenovo's results is "Look at the comics in the comics."

In a variety of push channels, "Look at comic comics super, look at the dirty in the comics, look at the comics let you experience super good comic artifacts." Such promotional words abound.

"Stain" does bring huge traffic to the look. But what must be paid attention to is: In China, "adult entertainment" is a sensitive word after all. A small platform may hit the "edge ball", but regulation is inevitable.

In particular, comics involve a large number of student groups. Once triggered to a sensitive level, valuations plummet, which may be a matter of punishment.

The “edge ball” platform is not uncommon, but the transformation after large-scale growth is another concept. Because of the business model in the gene, it is easy to "wash white".

Look at the insurmountable barriers to realizing

If the user growth encounters a bottleneck, then the business value of considering the quick look should be put on the realization. In short, how can you let users or other businesses pay for content?

I am aware of this when I look at it. According to media reports, “Beginning at the end of 2016, the comics are widely recruited for employees in the market and commercial operations. The specific positions include paid operations, member operations, game operations, e-commerce operations directors, copyright development, film and television copyright owners, etc. As you can see from the position, Quick Look is trying all possible commercial means - including paid content, games, e-commerce, copyright development.

However, the commercialization potential of Quick Look has obstacles that are difficult to cross on both the C and B sides.

On the C side, the rise of the quick look is obtained through free content. Once charged, users are likely to migrate to other free platforms or read pirated works.

Charges, traffic will drop, directly hitting the core value of their business. No charge, the road to commercialization is impossible to talk about.

Look at the B end. In the development of copyright, because of the nature of the comic book, it greatly restricts its development value - this is the biggest weakness of the commercialization of comics.

As mentioned earlier, there is no traffic, no IP, it is the biggest flaw in the quick look - when it tries to absorb traffic with excessive "entertainment" or "edge ball" content, the content level and values ​​are greatly affected. His many works, such as "Revenge High School" and "Mission Lovers", have been criticized for their problems. In fact, in the top ten of the Baidu national rankings, almost no works from quick look.

Moreover, shortness of life is the biggest feature when content yields and flows. Most of the popular works on the platform are less than 50 words. Such a short cycle, not to mention IP, is very difficult to generate fan stickiness.

There have been media analysis of the types of comic book comics, and found that the top ranked types are the theme of "Chick Comics" such as beauty, love, and campus. In the specific plot, the routines of watching the core works are also very similar to the net text routines - "the overbearing president" ("innocent sizzling"), "female strong" ("Feng Qiu Huang"), "crossing" ( "Thousand Hearts" and "Reverse Attacks" ("Revenge High School") are common elements in their works.

Valuable IPs are generally based on deep narratives and independent worldviews, but the works on the comics are mostly fragmented and the update time is very short. This makes it difficult to become a publicly significant IP on the infrastructure.

And in the communication of values ​​and users, the problem of watching comics is even bigger. As mentioned above, the comics that are provided to readers are more of a sensory stimulus than the friendship, effort, and victory. Values, which make their work more like fast moving consumer goods.

Disney is famous for Mickey Mouse and "Frozen"; Jiying Society has been accomplished by "Naruto" and "One Piece"; in the field of the country, there are "100,000 cold jokes" and "Soul Street", Tencent Anime has "Under the One Man" and "Foxboy Little Matchmaker". These companies have created valuable content that is truly valuable and user-interested, and is therefore remembered by others.

The hollowing out of the content limits the commercial value of the comics to the greatest extent.

The foam brought by the seedlings

A few years ago, Lu Hengyu, the director of the film series of "100,000 Jokes", talked about the influx of many people into the animation industry. "This is a kind of seedling growth, but it has not effectively promoted the catch-up of Chinese animation, but it has been destroyed to some extent. Lost China's animation education."

Under the impetus of capital, this “small seedling encouragement” is intensifying in the comic industry.

The logic of the content industry is becoming distorted—user growth is the core and even the only measure.

In the past few years, Buka comics, demon, and Tencent anime have tried to take the road of accumulating original strength. However, if measured in the quick-view mode, these forces, these seeds are not as good as fast money, traffic, and then packaging marketing.

Compared with music, online literature, video and other industries, the Chinese comics industry is still relatively junior. In this market, if the concept of traffic is more important than the long-term vitality of the boutique content, then the comic platform will spend more energy to play. Instead of putting energy and money into content creation, “scratch the ball” and do it. In an industry that still does not produce a typical profit case, a platform is valued at $1.5 billion in the absence of a high-quality IP. One background is that when the demon was acquired by Aofei in 2015, the overall value was only 900 million yuan.

For the domestic comic industry, of course, you need to be alert.

Chinese anime, although often shouting the slogan "The rise of the country" has not risen, but was hailed as "the daily rise of the country." I feel a little better than Chinese football.

Both of them are highly concerned by capital. Money is pouring in. But just as the Chinese league can only buy high-priced foreign aid but can't produce world-class players who can consistently play the role of the European mainstream league, the Chinese animation industry has not yet produced image-level explosive content or IP – even if the big holy return "," is just a one-time highlight using the film channel.

When talking about Chinese football, should you burn money to hoard big foreign aid and acquire foreign clubs? Or do you pay attention to youth training and large-scale investment in infrastructure? The answer should be the latter.

Similarly, when talking about the Chinese animation industry, if we aim to create China's Huo Ying and Marvel in the future, we should cater to non-core users with various shallow and even “edge balls” to achieve short-term traffic growth. Or should we cultivate content in a solid manner, give the author time to brew good works, and let good content guide users to cultivate the market?

If you bend this road, perhaps the efforts of Guoman Industry for more than 10 years will be in vain. China’s Naruto pirates and Kishimoto’s handcuffs will also be a dream of Nanke.

For the industry, the tide is not terrible. The terrible thing is that when the tide fades, it is found that the saline-alkali beach has lost its growth power.

Text / Wang Ting