Traditional festivals have become an important market for cultural and creative consumption. Creative ideas such as national museums and national paintings have been launched, and Mid-Autumn cultural and creative gifts have become popular.

As the Mid-Autumn Festival approaches, two cultural and creative mooncakes, "Why the Mid-Autumn Festival" and "Moon Full Qionglou", have been put on separate shelves at the Forbidden City Cultural and Creative Store on Qianmen Street in Beijing. Its exquisite floating window painting, unique treasure box design, and dense hollow patterns frequently attract consumers to stop and buy.

In addition to cultural and creative mooncakes, reporters noticed that during the Mid-Autumn Festival this year, cultural and cultural institutions such as museums and libraries also launched a variety of cultural and creative gifts such as handicrafts, tableware, decorations, and clothing. Some categories were so popular that they were sold out. The Mid-Autumn Festival is becoming one of the most important markets for cultural and creative consumption.

The Mid-Autumn Festival is a traditional festival rooted in Chinese culture. For thousands of years, ancient Chinese people who yearned for a happy reunion have left cultural symbols related to the Mid-Autumn Festival in many cultural relics and classics. This also provides an inexhaustible creative source for the creation of cultural and creative products.

Take the National Museum of China’s Tea Set with Good Flowers and Full Moon as an example. Its design elements are taken from a Tang Dynasty “Daji” diamond-shaped bronze mirror with Chang’e’s Moon Palace pattern in the collection of the National Museum. In the moon palace scene on the back of the mirror, Fairy Chang'e, wearing a tight skirt and fluttering silk, rises into the sky. What makes people understand is that she holds a fruit plate in her left hand and holds up a nameplate with the word "Daji" in her right hand. She expresses the ancients' yearning for a better life in a simple and straightforward way. In the bronze mirror, images such as the jade rabbit pounding medicine, jumping toads, and broken osmanthus leaves are also integrated into the design of tea cups and tea pets, giving the Mid-Autumn Festival full of ancient charm.

This year, the National Library launched two Mid-Autumn Aromatherapy gift boxes, "Autumn Eve Moon Ceremony" and "Moon Crossing the Mountains and Seas". The image designs are taken from different collections of classics. The image of the osmanthus tree comes from the illustration of "Playing the Flute and Osmanthus Yin Fu" in the Qing Dynasty's "Ode to a Dream of Red Mansions". The "Moon Crossing the Mountains and Seas" book and shadow screen is designed by the second creation and design of the classic book and shadow of "The Classic of Mountains and Seas", echoing the story of the Moon Mother Chang Xi bathing the 12 moons in the "Classic of Mountains and Seas".

The "Moon Viewing Central Axis" mooncake gift box launched by the Capital Museum this year is based on six ancient buildings located on the central axis, including Yongding Gate, Temple of Heaven, Zhengyang Gate, Hall of Supreme Harmony, Jingd Street Archway and Drum Tower. If you open the gift box left and right along the central axis, Beijing's central axis, which symbolizes the "masterpiece of the oriental ideal capital order", seems to be slowly unfolding in front of your eyes.

Industry insiders say that the high added value of cultural and creative products makes it difficult for them to become daily consumer goods for the people. However, during traditional festivals such as the Spring Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, and Mid-Autumn Festival, when consumers purchase gifts for relatives and friends, cultural and creative products that combine practicality and added value have become an excellent option to express their feelings.

Data show that China's gift economy market size will reach 1.23 trillion yuan in 2022, a year-on-year increase of 6%, and China's per capita annual gift spending will reach 2,340.4 yuan.

For enterprises, traditional festivals are naturally compatible with many Chinese cultural symbols and have become an important sales window for cultural and creative products. The ritualization of cultural and creative products is the design idea of ​​more and more companies.

Zhang Lichao, general manager of Beijing National Library Innovation and Cultural Services Co., Ltd., revealed that since this year, the National Library has fully explored the connotation of its collection of classics and developed various cultural and creative products with the theme of "Rituals from the East", so that traditional etiquette culture can be found. . Specifically, Guotu Cultural and Creative Group divides gifts into three categories: life node categories such as birth ceremonies, coming-of-age ceremonies, weddings, and birthday gifts; time node categories such as Spring Festival ceremonies, Dragon Boat Festival ceremonies, and Mid-Autumn Festival ceremonies; and traditional etiquette categories such as wine Ceremony, tea ceremony.

Entering the holiday gift market has transformed cultural and creative products from niche consumer goods that can be bought or not to become a necessity.

In recent years, cultural and creative holiday gifts have become increasingly recognized by consumers.

As Chinese consumers’ spiritual needs and cultural confidence continue to increase, the demand for cultural and creative products will continue to increase in the future. People are paying more and more attention to the satisfaction of spiritual and cultural needs, and their demand for products that are experiential, personalized and have cultural connotations is getting higher and higher.

A "2023 China Cultural Creative and Gift Economy Industry Development Research Report" released by iiMedia Industrial Upgrading Research Institute pointed out that more than 70% of consumers are optimistic about the development prospects of the cultural and creative product industry and will continue to purchase cultural and creative products in the future. As many as 31.02% of Chinese consumers of cultural and creative products purchase once a month, and 23.69% of consumers purchase once every 2-3 months. The overall consumption of cultural and creative products is in the medium range, and the acceptable unit price of 32.3% of consumers is 51-100 yuan.

The report also pointed out that some cultural and creative products have problems such as lack of practicality, serious price premiums, and lack of innovation. Many cultural and creative products adopt traditional design ideas, and homogeneous designs lead to aesthetic fatigue among consumers. Zhang Yi, CEO and chief analyst of iiMedia Consulting, suggested that cultural relics units should carefully select partners and strive to ensure the high quality of cultural and creative products. Only by combining aesthetics, functionality, and connotation can we design cultural and creative products that meet consumer expectations.