Editor's note: This article is the original work of Cool Company, the columnist of Entrepreneur State, author Tian Yunchang, reprinted by Entrepreneur State with permission.
"Quick, rush, rush, the four-wheel drive brothers are in action..."
"Audi double diamond, my partner!"
These two sentences "four-wheel drive brothers" lyrics to many post-90s and even post-80s I believe the degree of brainwashing is no less than that of the phrase "light yellow dress and fluffy hair" in "Youth With You 2" now. This also made Aofei Entertainment, which introduced "Four-wheel Drive Brothers", jumped up. In 2009, it went public with the aura of the leading anime and has now crossed the capital market for nearly 11 years.
However, in the past two years, Aofei Entertainment's development road has been quite bumpy. Last week, Aofei Entertainment’s 2019 financial report showed that the net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company was 120 million yuan, a year-on-year turnaround; however, operating income was 2.727 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 3.97%, and the first consecutive year of revenue decline Case.
Looking back on 2015, Aofei Entertainment stated that it would imitate Disney to build an "IP+ industry" model and create an "Oriental Disney", so it started a merger and expansion trend. Since 2013, its total assets have expanded four times in just five years. , Operating income has also expanded by nearly three times. However, with the huge impairment loss in 2018 and the continuous reduction of the watch to stop bleeding in 2019, Aofei Entertainment now looks depressed, and the ambition of the entire industry chain is obviously no longer.
Looking at Aofei Entertainment's expansion path along the way, it is not a lack of funds to learn from Disney and even want to follow Huaqiang Fangte. The real obstacle is that the nature of Aofei Entertainment remains unchanged in 2019, and manufacturing genes are still leading content creation. , It can be seen that no matter how Aofei acquires and expands, it is expected that it will not be able to touch the doorway of Disney.
's core competitiveness business is declining
Although it is known as the transformation of "Oriental Disney", the K12 field of stationery is still the core income source of Aofei Entertainment, rather than content and theme parks, which is the opposite of Disney.
In 2019, Aofei Entertainment’s toy sales accounted for 46% of the annual revenue, and baby products accounted for 31%. From the perspective of the amount, the toy operating income was 1.262 billion yuan, and 2018 was 1.377 billion yuan. The sales of children's products rose from 688 million yuan to 838 million yuan. The
toy is a product of Aofei Entertainment relying on its own IP and authorized IP. It is also the product with the highest gross profit among all of Aofei Entertainment's businesses, reflecting the IP value and creativity of Aofei Entertainment. Aofei Entertainment’s core IP is " Super Flying Man ", Peppa Pig and SpongeBob SquarePants series. Among them, "Super Flying Man" has launched its seventh season in 2019 and has been broadcast in 130 countries. The decrease in Aofei Entertainment’s toy sales revenue in 2019 can only show that Aofei’s animation IP is less attractive to consumers. In addition, the sales volume also reflects this situation. In 2018, the sales volume of Aofei toys was 66.73 million, but the sales volume in 2019 was only 55.01 million, which was a reduction of nearly 17%.
Although the sales of baby products rose year-on-year, it did not reflect the market appeal of Aofei Entertainment’s core IP, nor did it reflect the increase in the market awareness of the Aofei brand. The so-called baby products refer to baby dining chairs, strollers, car seats, strollers, study tables, crawling and toddler products, etc., which are mainly sold under the "Ao Bay" brand. What
Aofei Entertainment owns is the North American baby travel and durable goods company babytrend and its major domestic product suppliers. They are mainly sold to North America through the babytrend sales network. The core advantage of babytrend is the channel. With the occurrence of international public health incidents in 2020, Aofei Entertainment's baby products business is bound to face tremendous pressure to shrink this year. The content of
has always been the core of Disney. Aofei Entertainment President Cai Xiaodong has repeatedly emphasized that seizing the content and turning high-quality content into the top IP is also the core strategy of Aofei Entertainment.
In 2019, Aofei Entertainment launched two new titles, "Super Pan 6" and "Super Pan 7". There are also two new titles in the "Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf" series, as well as "Burst Speed 3-Beast God Combination" and "Fei Meng" "Girl", "Bacon Bear 4" and "Smart Pet Car" were broadcast.
but 2In 019, Aofei Entertainment’s revenue from animation, film and television was only 390 million yuan, while the previous year was 530 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 26%. Aofei Entertainment’s explanation for 2018 confirmed film projects and drama industry revenue. From another perspective, it shows that Aofei Entertainment has reduced the release of new animations in 2019, so that the income of animation film and television works has dropped sharply.
may also be based on the desire to turn losses in 2019. In 2019, Aofei Entertainment reduced its investment in animation, film and television works. After Aofei Entertainment cancelled 6 subsidiaries in 2018, it once again cancelled 4 subsidiaries including Beijing Aofei in 2019. From 1,046 technicians at the beginning of 2018 to 666 at the end of 2019.
In 2019, Aofei Entertainment's research and development expenses were reduced by 109 million yuan, a decrease of 36.48%. Combined with the four cost reductions, it seems that there are certain tactical and strategic factors.
In addition, compared with Disney’s major media profit, Aofei Entertainment’s TV media revenue is small, only 95.87 million yuan, with a gross profit margin of 3.74%, and it has been relatively stable in recent years. It can basically be determined that Aofei Entertainment and Guangdong Satellite TV are operating together Jiajia Cartoon Satellite TV, facing the severe impact of Internet TV, has been greatly challenged in its influence and spread, and it has become a tasteless effect on profit growth. Other businesses of
refer to specific businesses such as direct management and franchising of indoor parks, theme curation and events, and are also in the heart of Aofei Entertainment. They hope to compare the businesses developed by Disney and Fantawild, but the revenue scale in 2019 is only RMB 30.08 million, with a gross profit margin. It is still negative.
Generally speaking, in order to turn around in 2019, Aofei Entertainment has hardly any outstanding performance. Almost all kinds of business have bottlenecks. In addition, the forecast loss for the first quarter of 2020 is 35 million to 40 million yuan. It may still be in 2020. Struggling online at a loss.
There are three problems with the so-called self-made IP:
Aofei Entertainment is well aware of the importance of content output, and focuses more on content, but in the final analysis, these content has three characteristics.
1. Lack of control over the content, publicity in the name of national comics, playing ethnic and domestic cards, and the actual output and dissemination of the content lacks Chinese stories. Although
Aofei Entertainment has mastered IPs such as "Super Flying Man" and "Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf" through acquisitions, and these two IPs have entered the top ten children’s rankings, it is certain that Aofei Entertainment has not mastered the "Super Flying". The creative essence of "Xia" is still dominated by the Korean team. The so-called domestic high-quality animation is just "Korean bone and Chinese skin".
Aofei Entertainment defined the "Super Flying Man" as a national comic in its external publicity, and even said that the Super Flying Man was a domestic IP and went to the world, bringing Chinese culture to 130 countries through Super Flying Man.
However, according to the actual viewing of Cool Company, the pronunciation of the characters in the plot is English, not Mandarin. Secondly, there is a serious tendency to express in British Chinese in dubbing.
is even more obvious in cultural conflicts, not relying on the output of Chinese culture. For example, one of the episodes talked about Super Flying Man delivering express delivery to South Korea, and then a little Korean girl wanted to send muffins to her mother at the Antarctic expedition station, celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival with her mother, and invite people from other expedition stations on the island to spend it with her. , And even there is no Chinese expedition team among the guests. If
is normally a Chinese screenwriter team, this kind of low-level cultural error is absolutely impossible. The only reasonable explanation is that the Korean team is creating the script. Therefore, it can be clearly seen from this point that Aofei Entertainment just bought the copyright with the rich and powerful, but the actual creation and production are still firmly in the hands of the Korean team. The export is by no means Chinese stories and Chinese culture. The so-called Guoman is just "self-deception and deception". ".
Aofei Entertainment has always promoted its own IP, "The Cute Chicken Squad", which has 10 billion views. In fact, it also comes from the creation of the super flying man creative team Fannyflux. The creative prototype comes from the Korean animation "Mother Pheasant" released in 2005. , The composition of the plot did not reveal Chinese creative thinking at all. In addition, "Moe Chicken Squad" does not go global like "Super Flying Man", and the current distribution area is almost limited to the Chinese and Korean markets.
2. Excessive development of the IP sequel and squeezing the value of the IP, resulting in audience fatigue, reduced freshness, and difficulty in promoting toy sales.
As mentioned, in 2019, Aofei Entertainment launched "Super Pan 6" and "Super Pan 7", as well as two series of Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf, titled "Guardians of Yangcun" and "Hip Hop into the World-Rescue the Soldiers" , And even the world-renowned "Bacon Bear 4", each has achieved good ratings.
However, according to incomplete statistics, since the launch of "Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf" in 2005, 26 related works have been launched, with a total of close to 2500 episodes of animation, and 120 episodes were launched in 2019; "Super Flying Man" has been launched since 2015 South Korea’s EBS TV station has released 164 episodes so far, and more than 40 new episodes have been released in 2019.
, and Peppa Pig, which was established for 13 years, has only 7 seasons and a total of less than 200 episodes. The world-famous "Bacon Bear" launched by South Korea's EBS TV in 2002 has only released four parts, totaling 208 episodes; Even "Bear Infested" , which ranks the number one in the number of video sites for many years, has only 500 episodes in total. Compared with
, it is obvious that after the copyright of "Super Flying Man" was controlled by Aofei Entertainment, the launch of the sequel accelerated, and after the acquisition of "Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf", the sequel also saw a substantial increase.
Although Aofei Entertainment mentioned in its annual report that in 2019, "Super Pan 6" and "Super Pan 7" have long occupied the forefront of the ratings. The Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf series of animations have repeatedly set all-day ratings champions and "Beiken Bear" "4" has been broadcasted by TV stations for more than 22 rounds, and the total network-on-demand volume has exceeded 25 billion, but user love has not enabled the sales of these IP toys.
According to statistics, from 2017 to 2019, the revenue of Aofei Toys dropped from 1.95 billion yuan to 1.26 billion yuan, showing a declining trend year by year. The sales volume fell from 91.09 million to 55.01 million, which is also declining. This shows that watching users’ love of these IP animations is not synergistic with toy sales, and the role of driving sales is waning.
3. The thinking of animation development is "it is the result". Animation is made for the purpose of promoting toy sales, rather than the goal of making children's favorite animation. Aofei Entertainment's "content-centric" motivation is inherently impure. The original intention of
Aofei Entertainment to acquire a well-known animation IP is to promote toy sales, and is also based on the past experience of developing "Boyboy" to open yo-yo sales, instead of creating global popular content works like Marvel, and then indirectly Promote the production and sales of peripheral products.
Therefore, after acquiring the IP of Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf, Aofei Entertainment has clearly demonstrated this demand. Take the first season of "Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: Hip Hop into the World" newly launched by Aofei Entertainment in 2016 as an example. The plot of the drama is designed as a road film routine for a sheep and wolf driving a small train, so that 9 trains appear in the play, and the car is modeled. It is Aofei Entertainment's best category and a brand that has been in business for more than ten years. Therefore, one has to doubt that "Hip Hop into the World" is a plot designed deliberately to "sell cars."
In 2019, Aofei Entertainment’s so-called carefully produced brand-new IP animation "Smart Pet Car" further demonstrates the inference of "making animation for the purpose of selling toys".
In the plot of the drama, the shape of the car is made up, which obviously borrows the model of "Super Pan". At the same time, last year, Aofei launched a large number of car toys related to "Smart Pet Car".
However, since "Smart Pet Car" was broadcast in September last year, Douban still has no ratings and no Wikipedia, and a large number of comments show signs that the navy has swept the list. There is no data to prove that it has a high influence among children, and this The animation has not been broadcast on TV.
In summary, Cool Company judged that Aofei Entertainment is still a manufacturing mode of content production, rather than the current popular user-centered explosive content manufacturing ideas. This has also led to Aofei Entertainment's new animation content. , But toys are heading towards the dilemma of shrinking year by year. Compared with Huaqiang Fantawild and Disney,
is fading away.
Judging from the revenue of other businesses and the loss of investment games, Aofei Entertainment’s "IP+ industry" expansion model has stopped, and it is almost a return to "IP+ games" A retreat from a loss in 2020, Aofei Entertainment wants to reverse the momentum of toy sales, but it is difficultCan Tao only continue to acquire popular IP at high prices?
Obviously, in this era of specialization and refinement, Aofei Entertainment, which has a manufacturing gene, is successful in animation content and surroundings. The difficulty can be imagined.
takes the world's animation giant Disney as an example. It does not produce toys and peripherals by itself, but focuses on creating excellent IP film and television works. As of April 2019, there are 36 movies with a global box office of over 1 billion U.S. dollars in film history. , Half of them are Disney's works.
and Disney is good at packaging and reshaping classic IP. The stories of Snow White, Cinderella and Mulan have been circulated for hundreds of years. After Disney's reinterpretation, they have become the world's most popular box office blockbusters. At the same time, they have also created original IP. "Frozen", "Crazy Zoo", "Despicable Me" and many other roles.
Disney has also mastered the magic weapon to create a hot-selling sequel. Its Marvel "Avengers" series of sequels are enduring. The reason is that there are no more than 2 single-player sequels of superheroes, and the characters will withdraw when the time comes. , Constantly creating surprises and freshness for the audience.
In this way, the classic characters created by Disney are increasing year by year. Relying on these IPs, it supports the income of Disney's movies, theme parks and peripheral products. Moreover, it is worth noting that Disney does not produce peripheral products, and only relying on character image authorization can generate billions of dollars in revenue.
Huaqiang Fantawild also presents this characteristic. The most famous animation produced by Huaqiang Fantawild is the "Bear Infested" series. The popularity of other series is not high, but the difference between Huaqiang Fantawild and Aofei Entertainment It is:
1, Huaqiang Fangte is an enterprise with technical personnel as the main personnel, technical personnel accounted for 50%, and Aofei Entertainment is an enterprise composed of production personnel as the core, and production personnel accounted for more than 60%. In terms of content concentration, Huaqiang Fangte far exceeds Aofei Entertainment in terms of staffing.
2, Huaqiang Fantawild's research and development focuses on the "Bears" series of animated series and animated films, especially the animated films produced on the big screen. In recent years, Huaqiang Fantawild has become an important income of Huaqiang Fantawild, while Aofei Entertainment is manufacturing animation The main series are series. Although Aofei Entertainment created the movie version of "Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf" earlier, the transcript is far inferior to Huaqiang Fangte's "Bear Infested". From 2014 to 2019, the "Bear Infested" movie box office was 2.6 billion yuan. The cumulative box office of the movie version of "Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf" is less than 1 billion yuan, indicating that the market popularity of Aofei's creative products is far less than that of Huaqiang Fangte.
These two factors also constitute that Huaqiang Fangte can push the leisure theme park into a fast track with just one "Bear Infestation". In 2018, the revenue of theme parks reached 3.6 billion yuan, and Aofei Entertainment has a world-wide broadcast "Super Flying Man", "Beckon Bear", and "Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf" can only include theme park revenue in the "other" category. The total revenue is only more than 30 million yuan, and it is still operating with negative gross profit margin.
Looking at the growth history of Aofei Entertainment, it may be more of an opportunity created by the times rather than a rise in creativity. Before 2010, the Chinese animation market was still a barren land, and supply could not keep up with demand, and Aofei Entertainment Grasping the differences between the domestic and foreign animation industries, introducing overseas products, and capturing business opportunities.
Actually, in 2010, the second year of Aofei Entertainment’s listing, China’s animation industry rose to the top of the world’s animation industry, but there were still no works that could be produced. The box office of "Dream Back to Sands City" was a powerful one. Only a mere over 1 million.
But cinnabar is not available. Red clay is more expensive. In the absence of many choices, the story of a group of teenagers playing yo-yo and a wolf and a group of sheep has become a hit.
However, after 2010, the mobile Internet has surged, 3G and 4G have been rapidly popularized, and consumption upgrades have gradually placed higher viewing requirements on animation film and television. A large number of professional animation companies have emerged in China. Turning to the "full-age economy", animation has higher requirements for screenwriters. Rough plots can fool children but can't fool adults. Manufacturing companies represented by Aofei Entertainment are gradually unable to do what they can do and can only support the stability of the toy industry through the acquisition of IP.
is just a high-premium acquisition model, how long will it last?
It is worth noting that at the end of 2019, Aofei Entertainment has interest-bearing liabilities as high as 1.834 billion yuan, accounting for 44% of net assets. The current ratio and quick ratio are respectively1.06 and 0.56, showing that the financial pressure and gap are relatively large, and the solvency is low.
Not only that, but Aofei Entertainment still has up to 2 billion goodwill on its books, and the danger of thunder still exists. The already fragile capital chain is under heavy pressure. It is obviously not so easy for Aofei Entertainment to increase its IP investment and acquire IP.
This article is published by Chuangyebang authorized by the columnist, and the copyright belongs to the original author. The article is the author's personal opinion and does not represent the position of the entrepreneurial state. Please contact the original author for reprinting. If you have any questions, please contact
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