How much has "Ice Pier" sold so far? What stories have you experienced from "one trick is hard to find" to "one trick is free"? Will "Ice Pier" reappear in a new form in the future?

Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, September 30 (Reporter: Ji Ye, Li Chunyu) According to the franchise agreement, September 30 is the last day for offline retail stores of licensed commodities for the 2022 Winter Olympics and Winter Paralympics in Beijing to open. Although the "official Olympic flagship store" on Tmall platform will continue to be sold until December 31 this year, the sadness of departure has spread.

"This time, I really want to say goodbye to 'Ice Pier' and 'Snow Rongrong'." Standing in front of the nearly vacant counter in the flagship franchise store located in Gongmei Building in Wangfujing, Beijing, the shop assistant did not hesitate to introduce.

During the Beijing Winter Olympic Games and the Winter Paralympic Games, the mascots "Bingdundun" and "Xuerong Rongrong", by virtue of their honest and lovely appearance, have driven the public's mood and enthusiasm for consumption. There are long queues at the entrance of offline flagship stores, and online goods are rapidly sold out. The souvenirs of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games, once "hard to find", have become an unforgettable memory. How much has "Ice Pier" sold so far? What stories have you experienced from "one trick is hard to find" to "one trick is free"? Will "Ice Pier" reappear in a new form in the future? How does the market development of the Beijing Winter Olympics create a historical record?

 Unexpected franchise

Influenced by the epidemic situation and other factors, about two years before the opening of the Winter Olympics, only the mascot plush toys were taken as an example (at that time, "Bingdundun" and "Xuerong Rongrong" could be jointly packaged and sold), and only about 90000 pairs were sold. Up to now, the total sales volume of "Bingdundun" plush toys has exceeded 5.5 million. As for this geometric growth, Park Xuedong, head of the Marketing Department of the Beijing Winter Olympic Organizing Committee, said that the popularity of licensed goods was unexpected.

He recalled that the market development team had produced 85000 "ice piers" before the Winter Olympics, which was basically equivalent to the total sales volume of the past two years. However, they soon found that the dazzling array of licensed goods before the opening of the Winter Olympic Games were suddenly swept away with the popularity of "Ice Pier".

The data shows that after the opening of the Winter Olympics on February 4, the sales volume of licensed retail stores and the visits to the "Olympic official flagship store" on the Tmall platform almost doubled every day. Then, there was a phenomenon of queuing up in various retail stores. For the market development team, the pressure at that time was greater than the surprise. Everyone worked overtime and had only one goal, which was to make up the goods as soon as possible.

The first challenge was that the workers had a holiday during the Spring Festival holiday. For this reason, the market development team asked the franchised manufacturers to invite the workers back to the factory at any cost. Some manufacturers also bought return tickets for the workers at their own expense. With the recovery of the production line, another misfortune followed. At that time, there was a temporary shortage of safe and environment-friendly food grade silica gel used for the production of the "ice pier" shell.

The market development team was very anxious to see the rapid increase in visits to online flagship stores every day and the long queue of retail stores, so they discussed with the Cultural Activities Department of the Winter Olympic Organizing Committee and hoped to develop an "ice pier" that not only has a lovely image of "ice pier", but also does not need a silicone shell. With unremitting efforts, the Spring Festival version of "Ice Pier" (later known as "Tiger Pier") appeared at once. The "Tiger Dun Dun", who wears festive clothes for the Spring Festival and wears tiger shoes, is also popular. At this time, everyone's heart was hanging down. With the addition of silica gel raw materials, the ordinary version of "Ice Pier" also entered the market in large quantities. At the time when "Bingdundun" was the most popular, the market development team also needed to deal with scalper scalping and some fake and inferior commodities.

Speaking of why "Ice Pier Pier" suddenly became the top stream, Park Xuedong jokingly said that it could be said that "no move wins, there are moves". There are displays of national culture, recommendations from people from all walks of life, especially media reporters, and the charmingly naive mascot itself. More importantly, everyone's concern and enthusiasm for the Winter Olympics. The licensed commodities of large-scale events need professionals to participate in design, production, distribution and emergency response, and integrate their wisdom.

❑ More loving company

In the last few days of business, many offline retail stores of licensed goods carried out promotions. As the "Buy one, get one free" promotion activity of Gome franchise stores was limited to the same type of goods, many consumers chose to shop on site. "Unconsciously, 'Bingdundun' and 'Xuerong Rongrong' have been with us for so long. Today, I want to come to pick up some souvenirs for friends from other places." The customer, Ms. Yin, told the reporter.

Li Ying, head of the Marketing Department of Beijing Gongmei Group and deputy general manager of the Winter Olympics Project Department, has been engaged in franchise since the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. These days, many regular customers have come to say goodbye to Li Ying and his team members, and we all recall the journey of collecting licensed goods for the Winter Olympics.

Li Ying was deeply impressed by many customers. Some time ago, a customer from Dalian, carrying a suitcase, had made a good purchase strategy early and soon caught all the goods he liked. During the summer vacation, a child came to the store just in time for the production suspension of "Bingdundun" products on June 30. Many reporters came to interview him and asked him if he was sad about the production suspension of "Bingdundun". The child said, "Not sad, because I have come here several times, and I have all kinds of products of" Bingdundun "."

Li Ying said that with the closure of the retail store, their team will not be disbanded, but continue to deepen cultural and creative work and pass on the experience of the Winter Olympics. Today, Gongmei Group has become a manufacturer and retailer of licensed goods for the Hangzhou Asian Games. Outside the office of Li Ying's team, there are already a lot of licensed goods for next year's Hangzhou Asian Games.

❑ "Ice Pier Pier" and "Fuwa" may jointly appear

After the official launch of the franchise plan in July 2018, BOCOG developed 16 categories of more than 5200 licensed products, solicited 58 licensed retail enterprises, opened 162 licensed retail stores, and set up franchise sales channels covering 31 provinces, regions and cities on more than 280 pairs of high-speed trains. In order to meet the needs of different consumers, they also take the key time point as the starting point. Innovation has designated the first Saturday of each month as the "special day" for the Winter Olympics.

From the perspective of sales, licensed products such as "24 Solar Terms", "Countdown to the Bird's Nest", "Countdown to the lighting of the Winter Olympics", and "Countdown to the Beijing Central Axis" continue to sell well. The "Bingdundun" series of licensed goods has become the "top stream" during the Games. The offline shopping queue is hundreds of meters long. On February 7, 2022, the daily number of visitors to the online shopping list reached 15.28 million.

From childhood friends, middle-aged and young people to "silver haired people", the "ice pier pier" with charming naivety can be said to be suitable for young and old people. According to Wang Ming, Deputy Director of the Franchise Management Office of the Marketing Department of BOCOG, after the offline retail stores are closed, the "Olympic Official Flagship Store" on the Tmall platform will continue to be sold until December 31 this year. From January 1, 2023, the "ice pier" element will become the intellectual property right of the Olympic history. BOCOG is also actively connecting with the Chinese Olympic Committee and the International Olympic Committee to continue to develop relevant licensed goods within the framework of the global franchise plan. Maybe next year, consumers will still see the licensed products of "Bingdundun" and "Fuwa", the mascot of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

❑ The revenue from market development sponsorship has set a record in previous Winter Olympics

Successful market development is an important guarantee for the success of the Winter Olympics, as well as the driving force and source for the healthy development of the Olympic movement. In February 2017, BOCOG officially launched the market development plan for the Winter Olympic Games and the Winter Paralympic Games, including sponsorship plan, franchise plan, ticketing plan and brand protection.

Despite the impact of the epidemic, the market development of the Winter Olympics has still delivered a brilliant report card. Park Xuedong said that it is estimated that the sponsorship revenue can meet the budget for preparation and holding work. According to the sponsorship income of previous Winter Olympic Games published on the IOC website, the achievable sponsorship income from the market development of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games has set a record for previous Winter Olympic Games. As far as the franchise plan is concerned, we have created a number of records, and it is expected that the franchise fee income can exceed the target.

The Report on the Economic Heritage of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and Paralympics (2022) pointed out that the innovation of the corporate sponsorship model of the Beijing Winter Olympics has yielded fruitful results. In the process of sponsorship solicitation, BOCOG coordinated with the IOC to create 11 new categories of Olympic sponsorship, including urban renewal services, automatic voice conversion and translation, on the basis of maintaining 25 traditional sponsorship categories, such as banking services and air passenger transport services. In order to reasonably respond to market demands, PetroChina and Sinopec have successively signed a contract to become official oil and gas partners, and Qingdao Beer and Yanjing Beer have signed a contract to become official beer sponsors at the same time.

The sports marketing model of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games sponsor enterprises has also changed from simple "sponsorship advertising" to vertical integration of internal resources. For example, as the first official partner of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games, the Bank of China, while providing reliable and high-quality financial services, has also provided credit support for ice and snow projects in more than ten provinces, regions and cities, and launched a series of ski preferential activities to reinvigorate the ice and snow sports market growth. While a single enterprise extends its industrial chain vertically, the trend of cross enterprise cooperation has gradually taken shape. Alibaba launched the "Tmall Ice and Snow Festival" in January 2018, joined hands with P&G, Panasonic, Coca Cola, Yili and other brands to launch a large number of restricted products with winter Olympics and ice and snow elements, and cooperated with ski resorts such as Chongli Fulong to provide free snow tickets for members.