With the popularity of the cartoon "Four-wheel Drive Heroes", it has triggered a boom in mini four-wheel drive...... The mini 4x4 competition, which has only been born for two years, has become a worldwide event, and hundreds of cities around the world can see mini 4x4 enthusiasts, holding their modified cars and participating in different levels of competition. Prizes vary depending on the level of the competition, with the lowest being sponsored by a local retailer and only a symbolic toy car, motor or merchandise as prizes, but also attracting a large number of enthusiasts. In some big cities, regional events held by agents will provide prize money. The champion of Japan, the United States, China and other national competitions has a prize fund of no less than 200,000 US dollars. As for the World Finals held in Hong Kong in '83, the prize for the champion has been raised to US$300,000...... By promoting the mini 4x4 culture, Xindian Toys has become a world-class toy company......"

Before the 3rd New Electric Cup Mini 4WD World Finals was held, a bunch of advertorials had appeared in the media in Hong Kong.

Of course, these advertorials are not completely false advertisements, but just sponsors promote the content they want the audience to see.

Third-rate advertising, desperately boasting about the product itself.

But first-class advertising is to promote products by promoting various pop culture activities. In itself, culture and product are already almost synonymous.

The mini 4WD product and the competition, in essence, are two sides of the same coin. Promoting the contest is not only to promote the product itself.

……

In May 1983, the animation of "Four-wheel Drive Heroes" of Xindian Toy Company has been broadcast in a weekly mode on Shanghai TV and Hong Kong TVB in China, and the plot is entering a climax, and the reputation is gradually getting higher and higher.

At the same time, "4WD Heroes" has been translated into more than 30 languages, and it is cheaply marketed to television media around the world.

For Xindian Toys Company, if it can be broadcast on the TV station with the highest ratings in the local area, then the copyright can be given away for free. After all, the main purpose of this animation production is nothing more than to promote the mini 4WD of Xindian and promote the 4WD competition.

However, the promotion process of this animation was not all smooth sailing. Although we are trying to sell to countries around the world, we have encountered invisible walls in many markets. For example, in the process of promotion in Japan, although "4WD Heroes" was purchased by TV Tokyo, which mainly broadcasts anime programs, it was not scheduled to be broadcast between 6 p.m. ~ 10 p.m. when the audience was watching a large number of viewers, but the animation was broadcast late at night after the early hours of the morning.

Generally, the schedule of Japanese TV stations, 6 o'clock ~ 10 o'clock, can be regarded as prime time, whether it is a TV series, animation, variety show, arranged to be broadcast in this schedule, the number of viewers must be higher than other schedules. Some of the hottest anime, such as "Doraemon", "Slam Dunk", "Chess Soul", "One Piece", "Saint Seiya", etc., are broadcast during prime time.

Relatively speaking, after 24 o'clock in the evening, late-night programs can also be regarded as the broadcast time period of unpopular programs and niche programs. For example, young people and adults in animation programs are generally arranged in this schedule, of course, most of the animations that are not valued are also arranged to test the water in the worthless late-night schedule. Moreover,There are also high and low late-night schedules,For example,Before one o'clock in the morning,Animations played,The ratings are often higher,Because,Viewers who watch late-night files,I didn't sleep during this time period.,Sleep after watching the new episode.。 After one o'clock in the morning, the number of people dropped sharply, and after all, there were very few people who stayed up all night to watch.

And the exclusive rights to "4WD Heroes" sold to TV Tokyo are very cheap, only 500,000 yen per episode.

This is a far cry from the price of Tokyo TV entrusting a local Japanese animation company to produce a new one. In general, non-exclusive animations broadcast by Japanese television media in late-night files rarely fall below 1 million yen per episode, and the higher quality can reach more than 3 million. As for the exclusive broadcast of the animation copyright, it will not be less than 5 million yen, and it is not too difficult to sell the exclusive copyright of excellent quality for 10 or 20 million yen per episode.

And the fact that "4WD Heroes" only sold for 500,000 yen per episode does not mean that its quality is far lower than that of Japanese animation. Otherwise, the other party will not ask for it if it is given to TV Tokyo. Since I bought the exclusive rights to this anime and broadcast it, it also shows that Tokyo TV thinks it is worth broadcasting, but it is subconsciously discriminatory against this "large commercial", so I chose to broadcast it after 2 o'clock in the morning.

Even so, after a few episodes of "4WD Heroes" aired, word of mouth gradually spread. Due to the strong feedback from many viewers, TV Tokyo also adjusted its broadcast time to 0:30.

In fact, this kind of "large-scale advertising film" can be sold for money has been calculated, during the 80s ~ 90s, four-wheel drive, Transformers, Gundam and a series of "large-scale commercials" were broadcast, so that all kinds of advertising heroes made a lot of money.

As a result, since the 90s, animation investors, mainly toy manufacturers, began to fight a price war in the animation industry, and the market once deteriorated to the point that cartoons did not cost a penny when they were broadcast, but investors paid money to buy prime time from TV stations.

Everyone is ready to promote toys with animation, ignoring the innovation of the toys themselves, and in addition, popular animation IPs are not so easy to make. Therefore, after the bankruptcy of batch after batch of "large-scale advertising film investors", the market gradually calmed down.

With the gradual ebb of animation investors dominated by toy manufacturers, it was the later "EVA" that became a hit, changing the unpopular convention of late-night files, and many high-quality animations have also shifted their schedules to late-night files. In addition, in the 90s, disc distributors replaced toy manufacturers as an emerging investment force in the animation industry. Disc distributors, the profit is not simply based on the animation broadcast on TV so much copyright fee, because, as the cost of animation is getting higher and higher, the price increase of the copyright fee of the TV station is lagging behind, which makes it difficult to recover the cost by relying on the TV copyright alone. Of course, "EVA" and other animations were TV hits, and the sales of videos and CDs of the animations were popular, and the entire "EVA" peripheral IP has endured for more than 20 years.

The big hit of "EVA" has also pitted a lot of late-night animations. The TV station said confidently - you broadcast in the late night file, the main purpose is to advertise, sell CDs and sell peripherals, why do you want me to bear all your production costs?

Later, as the video market gradually declined, the animation ecosystem changed again. It is necessary to make profits through diversified methods, and it is possible to obtain benefits through the simultaneous operation of TV copyrights, film adaptations, optical discs, peripherals, overseas, and online platforms.

All in all, the industry will continue to "pill" in the future, but it is not over, because, in fact, the adaptability of the animation industry is still stronger than imagined, and the traditional profit model and market are constantly challenged with the passage of time. However, after the traditional market shrinks, it is often not to rush to exterminate, but to carefully discover new market opportunities.

Relatively speaking, the 80s are still the most nourishing era of "large-scale advertising films". After all, in order to compete for the animation broadcast schedule, the strange thing of toy peripheral manufacturers posting money to TV stations happened in the 90s.

Wait until the toy manufacturers see the results of the big sales of four-wheel drive cars and Transformers, and they are dizzy, and they engage in marketing regardless of the cost.

In the end, the vast majority of manufacturers ignore the most fundamental and core problem - toys must be sold well, first of all, toys must have selling points. For an animation to be a big seller, first of all, the animation should be interesting.

Doing both well is the only way to create a business miracle like Transformers and mini 4WDs. [.]