Tmall IPmart Behind the Huge Success Of A Sock Brand During 618
Have you heard of Tmall IPmart? It is a powerful tool that small brands can be leveraging to help their brands stand out. And it works. On June 12, Austin Li sold over 40k pairs of socks from Chinese designer sock brand Primeet. The socks sold out within seconds.
Those socks on Austin’s livestream were a collaboration with an IP called Wen Zang (纹藏). Wen Zang is an online platform that gathers traditional patterns and designs from different regions in China, aiming to protect intangible cultural heritage. Primeet collaborated with Wen Zang through IPmart.
Primeet finds IPs to work with through Tmall’s IPmart
Primeet is 8 years old. When the brand was first founded, at that time Chinese consumers were not open to socks with different patterns and colors, so founder of Primeet, Chen Cai (陈才), chose to sell his socks to the international market. It was not until 4-5 years ago that Chinese consumers, especially post-95s and post-00s started embracing the fun socks trend. Now the brand has over 940k followers on its Tmall flagship store.
Chen also spotted the trend of working with IPs. According to statistics provided by Tmall (2021天猫服饰白皮书), in the apparel industry, the growth rate of jointly-designed clothes reached 60%, which was far more than non jointly-designed ones in 2020. This has greatly encouraged Chen to seek suitable IPs for Primeet to collaborate with.
But this troubled him. On one hand, big IPs require a way higher minimum guarantee and packaging fees, which might not be affordable for small retailers. Small IPs, on the other hand, tend to have the history of not being trusted.
What also troubled Chen was the fact that he was not presented with many IPs to choose from, that he lacked a proper channel to learn more details about IPs in the China market. The situation didn’t last long until he learned about Tmall IPmart.
What is Tmall IPmart?
IPmart is a platform introduced by Tmall in March, 2021. The purpose of the platform is to be a bridge connecting IP designers and brands. It features more than 150 domestic and international IPs, allowing new designers to present their works and provide multiple choices for brands. IPmart is planning to introduce over 300 new IPs by the end of June.
What cheered up Chen was also the fee. Traditionally, IP owners charge high guarantee fee at the beginning all at once. The following sales are not their business and won’t affect their revenue for this collaboration. But on IPmart, things are different. Brands don’t have to pay for access to the entire IP, instead, they can only pay for a few designs that they like. This will greatly lower the cost for brands. IPs that the platform has included are B.Duck (a yellow duck that goes viral both online and offline), National Treasure (国家宝藏, a TV channel that dedicates to introduce treasures in the country), National Museum of China etc.
Why did Tmall create IPmart?
Just like Chen’s case, there are many other brands that having trouble finding the proper IPs to work with. On the other hand, there are many talented designers finding it hard to generate exposure for IPs that they’ve created.
Besides, IP is such a lucrative business that in 2019, the IP delegation business reached 99.2 billion RMB and it was anticipated to break 100 billion RMB in 2020. IP is a new and promising growing point in the China market.
The future of IPmart
In terms of scale, IPmart is planning to introduce more than 300 additional IPs by the end of June 2021. And in terms of depth, IPmart hopes to incubate Chinese traditional culture into its IPs. It is working towards the goal of creating over 500 domestic IPs and have them available at price points that are suitable even for small to medium enterprises (SMEs).
Our thoughts
At the moment, the IP business is booming. However, too many marketing campaigns and cross-collaborations will tire out consumers. In the end it may be hard for them to recognize your brand because you’re over-collaborating making it hard for them to capture the essence of your brand. Therefore, even though IPs are becoming more accessible, brands still need to consider which IPs are best suited for the brand and audience, as well as how they can leverage this cross collaboration to make them stand out.
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Read more: 一款袜子在天猫618爆红，背后是一个千亿新市场
