Showcasing the enormous potential of this consumption, the culture behind the hot releases such as "Three Thousand Miles in Chang'an" | China | Potential
Since the first half of this year, although China's economy has generally rebounded and improved after a stable transition in epidemic prevention and control, the foundation for economic recovery growth is not yet solid due to the impact of the international economic environment and structural adjustments after the impact of the epidemic. In the future, China's economic growth urgently needs to seek more driving forces. The Political Bureau meeting of the Communist Party of China Central Committee held on July 24th emphasized the need to actively expand domestic demand, play the fundamental role of consumption in driving economic growth, expand consumption by increasing household income, drive effective supply through terminal demand, and organically combine the implementation of the strategy of expanding domestic demand with deepening supply side structural reform.
To achieve effective linkage between supply and demand, relevant industries should not only meet the requirements of large market space, high audience recognition, and less affected by international environmental changes, but also have inclusiveness, which can attract more employment and allow more people to share the achievements of economic and industrial development on a broader scale. Thanks to the long-term historical accumulation, traditional Chinese culture has characteristics such as a wide range of exploitable content, wide geographical distribution, strong regional differences, and abundant industrialization. Therefore, developing the cultural industry and promoting cultural consumption have become important paths to expand domestic demand and drive economic growth.
Culture is not only about setting up a stage, but also about singing plays
For a long time, "culture sets the stage, economy plays" seems to have become a normalized definition of the relationship between culture and economy. This definition separates culture and economy, implying that culture itself does not have output benefits, but is only one of the business environment contents that attract production factors such as capital and talent to settle in. In this context, culture, as one of the supporting role of local economic development, is not fully reflected in its importance, and it is more difficult to integrate it with other factors of production, so as to give full play to the contribution of cultural industry to local economic growth. On the other hand, economically developed countries, whether it is the entertainment culture of Hollywood and Disney in the United States, the fashion culture of Italy and France, or the anime culture of Japan, have achieved full commercialization and marketization, becoming leaders in related industries. In addition to creating huge economic benefits, they have also become part of national culture, and have produced sustained and strong cultural exports to several generations globally, with a profound impact.
However, it should also be noted that in recent years, the dominance of foreign cultural and entertainment fashion industries in the Chinese market seems to be quietly changing. This is reflected in the decline in the performance of foreign cultural and entertainment products in the domestic market, and some brands have made adjustments to meet the needs of domestic consumers; On the other hand, domestic enterprises and brands are catching up and trying to capture changes in consumer preferences among young people by exploring Chinese local culture to compete for market share. This trend undoubtedly provides a good opportunity for the development and growth of Chinese local culture, especially traditional cultural undertakings.
A prominent manifestation of the declining attractiveness of the foreign entertainment industry to domestic consumers is the continuous decline in the Chinese box office of Hollywood movies in recent years. Since the first introduction of "Destiny" in China in 1994, Hollywood movies have become synonymous with "blockbusters" among the Chinese population, and their overall box office in China has been unparalleled, far ahead of domestic films. In the top ten box office rankings in China in 1996, Hollywood movies accounted for 8 spots alone. In 2019, only two Hollywood films ranked among the top in Chinese box office, while the rest were domestic films. This has been the case in subsequent years, and even the top ten Chinese box office films in 2021 were all domestic films. It is worth noting that among the top grossing domestic films in China, in addition to patriotic and sci-fi themes such as the "Changjin Lake" series and the "Wandering Earth" series, Chinese style films such as the "Nezha" series, "White Snake" series, and "Chinese Fantasy Tales" have also gained popularity in the market. The recently popular works "Three Thousand Miles in Chang'an" with the theme of Chinese Tang Dynasty poets and "The First Book of Fengshen" based on traditional Chinese mythology allow people to appreciate the unique charm of Chinese traditional culture.
The influence of traditional Chinese culture is being reflected
In fact, besides the film industry, another important highlight industry in recent years is the Hanfu industry. Nowadays, it is not uncommon to see people wearing Hanfu for sightseeing on the streets and tourist attractions during holidays. Some historical cities such as Xi'an and Luoyang are striving to create and cultivate a strong Hanfu atmosphere. During this year's May Day holiday, Luoyang devoted all its efforts to organizing a Hanfu Carnival, which attracted widespread attention from tourists from all over the country, especially Hanfu enthusiasts, and sparked a wave of Hanfu experience fever. Hanfu fever did not suddenly become popular, it has been formed for several years. From 2015 to 2021, the size of the Chinese Hanfu market surged from 190 million yuan to 10.16 billion yuan, and is expected to reach 19.11 billion yuan by 2025. It can be imagined that with the further penetration of Hanfu culture into people's hearts and the entry of more market entities, there is still huge room for its market share to grow.
In addition to the field of mass consumption, the trend of emphasizing the influence of traditional Chinese culture is also being reflected in the exhibition industry, which is more prominent. In a recent exhibition titled "The Painting of the Origin - Surrealism and the East", the Shanghai West Coast Art Museum attempted to interpret the important influence of traditional Eastern calligraphy and painting art on the formation of Western Surrealism art schools after the 1920s. The curator organized the painting works of surrealist and abstractionist artists such as Juan Miro, Andrei Masson, Henry Michaut, and Zhao Wuji collected at the Pompidou Center in France. With unique craftsmanship, some of these works were exhibited together with the calligraphy and painting works of Chinese Ming and Qing masters collected by Shanghai Museum, such as Wang Duo, Fu Shan, Dong Qichang, Ba Dashan Ren, and Gong Xian, opening a dialogue between Eastern and Western aesthetics. Visitors can vividly see the influence of Chinese calligraphy and painting on European artists in terms of artistic conception, brushstrokes, rhythm, and even creative forms through a close comparison of their works. The important signal conveyed by this exhibition is that China's poverty and weakness in the 1920s and 1940s lacked the market capability to commercialize traditional art on a large scale, as well as the global influence to actively export culture to other countries. However, even in such a state, traditional Chinese calligraphy and painting art still provides nourishment and innovation for global art development with its unique connotations and expressive techniques.
Revitalizing the stock of traditional culture and better integrating it into local economic development
At present, China has become the world's second largest economy, but as a cultural power with over 5000 years of civilization, the influence of its traditional culture has not been fully demonstrated. Even domestically, the cultural and market values of Chinese civilization have not been fully explored and disseminated.These "five prominent characteristics" accurately summarize the core content of Chinese civilization, and are also the basic and starting point for integrating traditional cultural connotations with industrial development through marketization and commercialization, especially in the current economic situation of China.
In order to revitalize the stock of traditional culture in our country and better integrate it into local economic development, we can try to start from the following aspects in terms of commercialization and industrialization development ideas and measures:
Firstly, explore and precipitate new IPs in traditional Chinese culture that have a contemporary atmosphere and can be integrated with the preferences of the current young consumer group. Museum cute pet exhibits that have been popular among netizens in recent years belong to this category.
Secondly, maintain the old IP and achieve cross generational inheritance of cultural elements and symbols. For old IPs that once enjoyed high reputation among one or even several generations, they should be protected through branding and trademark protection, and given new connotations based on the characteristics of the current era.
Third, make full use of emerging Internet technology, platform market players and big data business model to find and cultivate market blockbusters. Big data technology and platform based business models help identify various consumer preferences, and platform based promotion models can leverage network externalities and create explosive sales effects in the short term.
Fourthly, increase research and development efforts, integrate high-tech elements into traditional cultural content, improve product quality, and enhance and maintain product competitiveness. Traditional cultural content ultimately needs to be presented in the form of commodities, and the market vitality of commodities comes from the competitiveness supported by technology.
Fifth, promote the progress of China's cultural undertakings and industries with an open attitude. On the one hand, drawing on the successful IP shaping experience of developed countries, and on the other hand, exporting and expanding the influence of Chinese culture, promoting global cultural development with a posture of "you have me, I have you".
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