With the rise of Generation Z, trendy toys have gradually entered the public eye from niche consumption.
Among them, building block toys are a classic trend toy, which creates a variety of creative shapes and structures by combining and building parts. Because of its product attributes of diversified value, wide age coverage and strong playability, it is widely welcomed by young players, and building blocks are becoming an eye-catching new outlet for the trendy track.
Strong social attributes, collectible value, Chinese building block players are growing rapidly
The global toy market has a broad space and steady growth, and the "Building Block Toy Industry White Paper" shows that the Chinese market has exceeded 10 billion US dollars, ranking among the top three in the world. In the past decade, Chinese's per capita toy consumption has grown rapidly, but it is still far lower than developed markets such as United States, and China's toy industry still has huge room for growth.
Building block toys can be divided into a variety of material types, such as wood, plastic, etc. Among them, plastic building blocks are more popular because of their excellent texture and conducive to scene performance. According to the gameplay, building block toys can be further divided into stacking blocks, assembled blocks, building blocks and active building blocks. According to the different particle sizes, it can be divided into large particles, medium particles, small particles, mini particles and micro block particles.
Due to the diversified value of building block toys and covering a wide range of age groups, the global and Chinese building block toy market is growing, and the growth rate far exceeds the overall level of toys.
Brick players aren't just kids. With the rapid social and economic development of China, the concept of parenting has gradually changed, and the willingness to spend on children's products has been increasing. As a consumer product that accompanies children's leisure and entertainment, the market demand for toys is growing. At the same time, China's toy audience has expanded rapidly, from children and teenagers to people of all ages, and the market scale has developed steadily.
Why do building block toys appeal to people of all ages? According to the white paper, with the continuous development of social economy and culture, the demand for cultural and entertainment products and services that are creative, personalized, strong social attributes, emotional resonance, cultural value and collection value is increasing.
At the same time, with the continuous evolution of consumption concepts, there have been structural changes in Chinese residents' consumption, and cultural and entertainment spending has been increasing. At the same time, compared with the per capita cultural and entertainment expenditure of United States, China's cultural and entertainment expenditure still has a lot of room for development, and the global market is even more imaginative, and entertainment is a golden track full of opportunities.
With the further development and maturity of the IP derivatives market, China's toy and amusement consumption has benefited the most, and its IP-based penetration rate is expected to further increase. As one of the most important toy subcategories, building blocks have taken the lead in showing a gratifying level of IP, and IP and building blocks are expected to further promote each other.
Science and technology intelligence "empowers" Chinese building blocks to create rich scenes and more interesting gameplay
China's assembly building block market is relatively young, since the eighties of the last century, the building block market has undergone savage development to a hundred flowers, becoming more and more mature, and constantly towards the general direction of branding to explore, change and reorganize.
Nowadays, the core needs of players for toys continue to change with age and cognitive improvement. Due to their category nature, building block toys can bring multiple values, and at the same time, they can naturally adapt to the needs of users of all ages, and the diversification of expandable scenarios makes the product life cycle longer.
In recent years, with the rise of short videos, short video platforms have become a new "battleground", the traffic of e-commerce channels has skyrocketed, and offline channels have also established a new "moat", and the distribution of channels has become more and more diversified.
Humanoid building blocks that can move joints, bionic building blocks with high-precision parts, home appliance building blocks with motor optical fibers, gachapon building blocks for mechanical devices, ...... The opportunity to break the circle of Chinese building block brands is inseparable from innovation and the differentiated development of scientific and technological intelligence, not only in the way of playing, compressing and reorganizing a variety of functions into the building blocks, but also in R&D and manufacturing, integrating many intelligent hardware technology elements. For example, by assembling building blocks and writing corresponding programs, you can create movable robots, interactive installations, etc. The programming feature is aimed at children and adult players with different levels of difficulty, which can not only develop children's logical thinking and problem-solving skills, but also meet the more complex creative needs of adults.
Pet bowls in the shape of building blocks, bouquets built with blocks - the modular design realizes the multi-scene reshaping of the building blocks, the building blocks are more relevant to real life, provide more interesting gameplay, and the compatible building blocks can create larger and more complex structures.
The development of 3D printing technology has also enriched the playability of building block toys. Integrating with digital design software, players can create custom shapes and structures and materialize them using 3D printing technology. Children can design their own brick shapes and learn the basics of 3D modeling and printing, while adults can design and create unique artwork or functional pieces.
At the same time, cooperation with popular IPs is also essential. IP licensing is not only one of the main ways to earn IP services, but also the key core to expand IP influence and expand the boundaries of IP ecosystem. The IP licensing market is growing rapidly, IP licensing has a significant effect on product sales, and many leading building block brands have begun cross-border marketing to seek brand synergies between strong alliances, and the building block field is expected to gradually build a rich IP world in the future.
In terms of domestic manufacturers, such as Senbao building blocks have cooperated with SpongeBob SquarePants, Shandong Ship, The Wandering Earth, aerospace cultural creativity, aviation cultural creativity, weapons cultural creativity, Forbidden City cultural creativity, etc., and Enlightenment Keepley building blocks have "held hands" with animation and game IPs such as the Forbidden City, Onmyoji, Detective Conan, Pokémon, Doraemon, and Crayon Xiaoxin; Jiaqi building blocks have also had cross-border co-branding with brands in the catering industry such as Three Squirrels and Mixue Bingcheng.
In addition, following the development of the industry and the trend of pan-entertainment, many Chinese companies have acquired overseas IP rights, or leveraged the opportunity to expand their operations in the Chinese market, or enter the global market. For example, ByteDance acquired Korea comic IP Kidari in 2022, and the investment funds will be used to open content production studios in China and Japan, as well as distribute webtoon-based NFTs, and Kidari has also reached a content cooperation with ByteDance to license about 1,300 comics to ByteDance's platform.
The design of women's building blocks is exquisite, and the mortise and tenon building blocks are very "Chinese style"
With the continuous enhancement of China's comprehensive strength in the past 30 years, China's cultural industry has risen to the east wind, and China's cultural enterprises are expected to become a new generation of cultural giants.
Compared with the development status of overseas markets, the European and American markets are large, the United States market has the fastest growth rate, has almost completed market education, and urgently needs differentiated products; The Asian market is relatively fragmented and has low barriers to entry; The growth rate of the Latin American, Middle East and African markets is higher than that of Asia, but the current scale is not as large as that of Asia, and the growth is expected and there is a lot of room for expansion.
What are the innovations and characteristics of domestic building block brands? Maruko's home, Zhen Huan's biography series of scenes, building block paintings from the art museum series, building block mini bags...... A building block brand cut into the blank market with women's products, quickly opened the market with exquisite design and fun, and then gradually enriched the IP in line with the brand tonality, and improved the product line, so as to cover groups with different consumer needs. In the end, it gradually accumulated the popularity of the building block brand and established a differentiated brand image.
With its unique product design system, the building block brand has created a number of popular product IPs: Han Meimei and Li Lei are the protagonists to design the theme of the 8090s, which stimulates players' childhood memories and retro feelings; A highly restored handbag shape, which opens to hide a small scene ornament, turning the bag into a candy store. In addition, the brand vigorously expanded its online channels, stabilized the fan base with different preferences through the "collection line" and "trendy toy line", and at the same time promoted it through offline cooperation channels, planted grass to "potential players", and promoted the brand's sales to continue to rise through ultra-high user stickiness.
Mortise and tenon building blocks are a kind of building blocks with Chinese characteristics. While other mortise and tenon building block brands are still focusing on the restoration of ancient Chinese buildings, a brand has found another way, emphasizing the use of building blocks to tell stories, breaking the product form restrictions of mortise and tenon building blocks, and launching Ming-style official hat chairs, tanks, go-karts and other forms. Through the ultimate standardization of parts, the building block achieves less particles and high reusability; At the same time, high-precision parts further enhance the product strength of the building block brand. In addition, the brand has reached cooperation with a number of authoritative museums to give the building blocks the background of Chinese stories, such as cooperating with the Forbidden City and the National Museum to cut into the scene of Chinese classical culture, and launching mortise and tenon decorative paintings, ancient Chinese terracotta warriors series, etc. Based on the attributes of cultural and creative achievements, the products are endowed with different values such as "edutainment" and "emotional collection".
At present, IP combination, big children, multi-brand development and innovative gameplay to broaden product boundaries have become a fixed development trend in the building block industry. More and more domestic brands have the courage to innovate, pay attention to original design, improve technology research and development, and boldly create new ways to play, which has promoted the innovation and development of the entire industry. At present, classic IP collectible building blocks, retro-themed building blocks, cool style building blocks, mecha style building blocks, etc. are all types of building blocks that young people prefer. Industry insiders believe that the unique brand positioning and continuous innovation are the "moat" that constitutes the competitiveness of the original brand in the domestic building block toy industry.