Where does the trend go: "China-Chic" cultural and creative market status, development trend and innovation path Cultural and creative | Chinese goods | China-Chic
In recent years, "China-Chic" has become a hot word. Especially in the Internet era, the country has given great support to cultural and creative undertakings. "China-Chic" has also emerged in the exploration and innovation of Chinese people, becoming a trend that young people are eager to pursue. However, what is the connotation of China-Chic, what is the status quo of the "China-Chic" cultural and creative market, what are the problems, and what is the future development trend? These are the major issues that need to be faced and solved urgently at the moment when China-Chic is surging.
1、 Connotation of "China-Chic" Cultural Creation
In November 2019, in the "Boao Forum for Cultural and Creative Frontier Dialogue" activity, the Institute of Cultural and Creative Development of Tsinghua University released the "China-Chic Research Report", pointing out that the "country" of "China-Chic" is China, which is the rejuvenation of China's excellent traditional culture; "China-Chic" generally refers to Chinese goods with Chinese characteristics, in line with the aesthetic and technological trends of the forefront of the times, with an international perspective, and showing China's self-confidence. Thus, the connotation of China-Chic includes three aspects: having Chinese elements; Having innovation; Has trendiness. This trend has become popular throughout China, both in the north and south, as well as internationally. It embodies the mission of bringing profound Chinese culture, Chinese brands, and Chinese products to the world.
The cultural and creative industry refers to the industry that relies on the wisdom, skills, and talents of creators to reshape and enhance cultural resources. Through the development and application of intellectual property rights, it produces high value-added products to create social wealth, promote economic development, and increase social employment. The cultural and creative industry has important characteristics that other economic industries cannot match: firstly, it is knowledge intensive. Cultural and creative products are based on the concept of "culture+creativity" and are built on human knowledge, wisdom, and inspiration. The second is the high value-added feature. If cultural and creative products and their derivatives are recognized by the market, they can gain global market value. The third is a highly integrated feature. The cultural and creative industry is a product of the integration of economy, culture, technology, and other factors. It can not only drive related industries and promote regional economic development, but also radiate to various aspects of society, enhancing people's cultural literacy.
To trace back to the source, before 2017, the term "China-Chic" mostly referred to China Chaopai, which was a niche concept, and consumers were mainly young people. With the deepening of the public's understanding of China-Chic, the standards of "Guochao" are becoming more and more strict and advanced. Basically, a qualified China-Chic brand should have a unique design with Chinese cultural connotation, rigorous and exquisite workmanship, and a friendly and reasonable price. These factors have become the focus of consumers' reference when purchasing China-Chic products. Since 2017, the State Council has designated May 10th as "China Brand Day", undoubtedly empowering the enhancement of the influence and popularity of Chinese brands and products.
2、 Advantages of "China-Chic" Cultural Innovation
The prevalence of China-Chic makes new Chinese goods enter the daily life of young people. At present, more and more young people are willing to pay for their feelings, regardless of their love for New Oriental Aesthetics or their love for the originality of intangible cultural heritage. Therefore, China-Chic products are going further and further on the road of cultural creation. So what are the advantages of new domestic cultural and creative products?
1. Product design is beginning to inject new ideas. As today's increasingly rich material and cultural needs and consumption capabilities overlap, people are more eager to express their cultural heritage, life philosophy, and aesthetic value in the industry. Therefore, conveying the understanding of "beauty" and life to consumers has become the path for the transformation of domestic brands. "Cultural and creative" injects new ideas of "New Oriental aesthetics" into the new transformation of domestic products based on the long-standing classical aesthetics, redefining the concept of "fashion", and making the design and manufacturing of cultural and creative products more in line with market demand.
2. The product elements are gradually aligning with new trends. The quintessence of Chinese culture is the essence of China's inherent culture, which is often expressed as a traditional culture or art activity, and is welcomed by people in different times because of its representativeness and unique connotation. The new domestic products that integrate cultural connotations and align with world trends give people a new feeling. In the global fashion circle, the leaders of trends are not only European and American fashion, but New Oriental aesthetics are also gradually becoming the masters of trends.
3. Product consumption channels are becoming increasingly diversified. Experiential consumption, which was totally unexpected a few years ago, and Internet marketing modes such as short video transmission are rapidly promoting Chinese products into young people's lives. In the domestic products that ignite the market, its creative focus is on seeking innovation from cross-border, constantly expanding and extending around its main business, aiming to attract consumers, establish brand awareness, and expand and strengthen its business.
4. Consumers are increasingly recognizing domestic products. No matter the development of the country or the development of the brand, there is a gradual process. Undoubtedly, the improvement of the market environment of China-Chic also needs a process. In fact, in this fashion circle, we can really feel the gradual growth of China-Chic consumer groups every day, which is inseparable from the efforts of Chinese fashion brands. Data shows that in the first hour of the "Double 11" sales in 2022, 102 brands had a transaction volume of over 100 million yuan, of which more than half were domestic brands.
3、 The Problem of Cultural Creation of "China-Chic"
At present, as far as the current situation of China-Chic's market is concerned, China's cultural and creative brands are still in the growth period, and the development environment of China-Chic's cultural and creative industry is also at a critical moment of a historical turning point. The main problems it faces include:
1. Cultural and creative products lack clear creative design, resulting in severe product homogenization. At present, the design of China-Chic's cultural and creative products has not deeply explored the profound meaning of Chinese style. The overall extraction of cultural elements is relatively simple, and the design stays at a low level, resulting in obvious homogenization of cultural and creative products and lack of characteristics and individuality.
2. The overall development level of cultural and creative industries is uneven, with a limited number of categories and a focus on small and low-end prices. The brand is not well-known, and the marketing model needs to be diversified and upgraded.
3. There is a mismatch in the design, pricing, and market alignment of cultural and creative products. One issue is the lack of clear thinking in the research and development design of cultural and creative products, slow updates, and a lack of research on modern aesthetics and the spiritual and cultural needs of the public, resulting in a mismatch between cultural and creative products and market demand. Secondly, there is no effective product feedback mechanism established. Thirdly, although cultural and creative brands have developed many sales channels, they still rely too much on website platforms. The fourth is that the same product is sold on different platforms, and fierce price competition is also an important drawback that cannot be ignored.
4. The cultivation of cultural and creative talents cannot keep up with the pace of development. The lack of composite talents with high expertise in culture, design, and market is the fundamental reason that hinders the current design and market development of cultural and creative products. Especially in the lack of high-end professional design talents, the core cultural elements of Chinese style and local characteristics have not been reflected in the development process of cultural and creative products, and there is no sufficient professional research and development force corresponding to the cultural characteristics of the region. The market research and development momentum is insufficient, the business management force is limited, and the development of related derivatives lacks long-term planning. The awareness of product innovation and market development ability need to be improved.
5. China-Chic Cultural Innovation still has the problem of establishing a normal market order. If pirated design leads to the expulsion of "good currency" by "bad currency", it is not conducive to the long-term development of the cultural and creative industry; IP authorization brings about disorderly competition among different companies, and also increases the difficulty for consumers to distinguish between authenticity.
In general, China-Chic Cultural and Creative is still in the process of learning and accumulating experience in the construction of the whole system of talent training, product design, production quality, market development, and there is still a long way to go.
4、 The future of "China-Chic" cultural creativity
At present, China-Chic Cultural and Creative Industry is stepping into a stage of high quality, high investment and high influence. Many cultural industries are looking for blockbusters and production blockbusters, but blockbusters need to be constantly driven by innovation, including not only theme innovation and skill innovation, but also all-round innovation of the whole system, such as marketing innovation and derivative business model innovation.
1. Emphasize the cultural needs of young "latecomers"
In recent years, the China-Chic is surging, and the Chinese wind is pervasive. The people, especially the young "Houlang", have a growing sense of identity with the country and the nation, demonstrating cultural self-confidence, improving support for domestic brands and commodities, and creating a good social environment for China-Chic's economic development. As the Hanfu market develops, young people have played an irreplaceable role in the formation and dissemination of their consumption trend. In the future, as the post-95's and post-00's gradually move towards the center of the economic and social stage, they will be more receptive to new things, have strong self-expression demands, be more culturally rational, pursue the quality of cultural and creative products, and be enthusiastic about cultural creativity. They will be the main group of China-Chic consumers in the future, and their market potential will be further released.
2. Emphasize the integration of fashion and technology
Excellent cultural and creative work cannot be separated from profound humanistic history and brilliant modern wisdom. The brilliant modern wisdom among them includes fully utilizing traditional techniques and modern technology to enhance the technological and fashionable elements of cultural and creative products. On the one hand, it is necessary to deeply explore the traditional technology and craftsmanship behind cultural and cultural relics resources, and combine traditional craftsmanship with modern popular fashion. Combining modern craftsmanship and aesthetics, promoting the integration and transformation of traditional culture and modern fashion in design and creation. On the other hand, for classic cultural resources and their research achievements, a specialized department should be established to be responsible for the value excavation, creative design, authorized production, marketing and promotion of relevant thematic cultural or cultural relics collections, and to build a more professional and systematic cultural and creative industry system. At the same time, with technology as the backing, we continuously absorb new technologies and materials, especially combining modern sound and optical technology with artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud computing, big data and other technologies, to promote the perfect expression of creativity, improve product quality, reduce costs and resource consumption, provide technical support and technological guarantee for the artistic presentation of cultural and creative products, and endow cultural and creative products with technological content, fashionable elements, and cultural value.
3. Valuing Capital Assistance
Relevant cultural and creative organizations should go out from the cultural industry and cultural and museum institutions to explore the innovation driving force under the "Chinese cultural innovation model" from another perspective, that is, go to the broader social market to find capital assistance, attract more investment institutions and capital forces to pay attention to the innovation force and potential value of China-Chic's cultural and creative industries, realize the seamless connection between projects and capital, vigorously promote the development of cultural and creative industries, continue to make efforts in industry development, base construction, brand building, comprehensive strength and other aspects, form a distinctive business model for the development of Chinese cultural and creative industries, create a cultural and creative force with investment value, development space and promote China-Chic's economic development.
4. Valuing Cultural Creativity and Cultural Tourism to Fly Together
The integration of cultural and creative industries and cultural tourism is not a simple "1+1", they are a process of mutual empowerment. The integration of cultural and creative industries, as well as cultural and tourism, is a new form of business that constantly integrates across borders, giving rise to high-quality content and consumer hotspots. The attractiveness of IP to the tourism industry and its ability to drive consumption are important criteria for evaluating the success of IP. In recent years, theme parks, red tourism, and museum based historical and cultural tourism have gradually gained recognition from the public. Domestic IPs are based on the profound Chinese historical and cultural heritage, and there is great room for improvement in both manufacturing and development. A key to the integration of cultural and creative industries and cultural tourism is to create excellent cultural and tourism products, and create a brand and market with its own characteristics. Whether it is cultural and creative industries or cultural tourism, culture is the core of consumption. Cultural and creative industries empower secondary consumption, while cultural tourism provides a monetization platform for cultural and creative industries. The brands, industries, and formats of both will build consumer content around their own culture.
5. Emphasize the cultivation system of cultural and creative talents
Talents are the source of innovation power of China-Chic's cultural innovation. In view of the lack of high-quality talent training and the shortage of professional R&D and operation talents in the current China-Chic cultural and creative market, efforts should be made to build a team of compound professionals. Firstly, cultural and creative designers need to conduct systematic thematic cultural learning and regular business training, so that they can deeply understand the corresponding cultural connotations, not be bound by existing design styles, and explore and design more products that can reflect Chinese culture and thematic culture. Secondly, cultural and creative design universities should adjust their cultural and creative curriculum systems in a timely manner based on market big data and development trends, and cooperate with relevant cultural industry enterprises to combine self cultivation with cooperative cultivation, achieving complementary advantages in theory and practice. The third is to establish a scientific and efficient mechanism for talent introduction and training. Emphasize the introduction of expert resources, cultivate professional technical talents and planning and development teams, introduce business talents familiar with marketing, actively create platforms for talents, stimulate their internal driving forces, and build a composite professional talent team that understands culture, is skilled in design, and is familiar with the market.
In summary, taking into account factors such as national policies, market demand, and investment potential, the cultural and creative boom will persist for a long time. Creativity is the soul of the cultural industry. The era of cultural and creative industry 3.0 will be an era with more cultural content, more spiritual connotation and more cultural depth. Its core is "culture+connotation". Its development system cannot be separated from such forms as "culture+Internet", "culture+blockchain", "culture+artificial intelligence", "culture+technology", which will become the future development trend of China-Chic's cultural and creative industry.
