From the National Day to double eleven, from offline to online, the refrigerator stickers of major museums, has been hard to control the young people for more than a month.

Some people for it every day at six o'clock in a long queue, some people for it specifically from the field thousands of miles to go, the second-hand price soared still in short supply ...... recently, the National Museum of China to Ming Xiaoduan Empress nine dragons and nine phoenix crowns as the inspiration for the design of the refrigerator stickers, ‘a crown is hard to find’. The already lively museum culture and creativity, and the major platforms on the hot list of hot searches.

For young people nowadays, taking pictures, stamps, buy cultural creations have been included in the ‘city card three sets’, and even some people in order to buy cultural creations specifically to go to a city. A small refrigerator sticker, how can ‘hard control’ young people? Museum of cultural creativity, why can always pluck people's heartstrings?

Museum refrigerator sticker ‘hard control’ young people

It is understood that the museum of the creative circle of the new ‘top stream’ National Museum of Phoenix Crown refrigerator stickers since the shelves, three months sold nearly 80,000, badges, bookmarks, keychains and other series of creative sales exceeded 10 million yuan.

Once, the refrigerator stickers or the size of the scenic spots in the inconspicuous souvenirs. Now, with the younger generation of cultural consumption awareness, museums around the initiative to pursue innovation, a small refrigerator stickers track has become ‘crowded’: Beijing Museum of Ancient Architecture of the Tiangong Algae wells refrigerator stickers can be disassembled into five layers, the Temple of Heaven 24 seasons refrigerator stickers with the effect of falling snow ... ... ...There are netizens have studied the refrigerator stickers each other ‘stacked’ new ways to play, such as to the samsung heap bronze mask refrigerator stickers wearing a phoenix crown refrigerator stickers.

In a social platform, refrigerator stickers related notes have been released more than 2.6 million. Netizens sunshine Wenbo refrigerator sticker complex and exquisite detail pictures, said its workmanship and design better restore the style and temperament of cultural relics. ‘The physical object is exquisite and has a classical beauty that will be hard-controlled just by looking at it!’

Some netizens shared their own refrigerator sticker collection, just like a small ‘heritage museum’. ‘It's simply a visualisation of ‘visit here’!’ ‘Compact and portable, reasonably priced, very heartfelt travelling companion.’ Netizens give comments.

Visitors to the National Museum of China, Beijing, 3 November 2024, who have purchased a refrigerator sticker of the phoenix crown, come to the exhibition hall to take a photo with the ‘original’. Image source: Visual China

More young people are willing to go into museums to learn about local culture in an immersive way. At the same time, cultural creation also has the opportunity to go out of the museum and scenic spots, and become a part of life. Cultural and creative products that are both ‘heartfelt’ and ‘new’ have not only brought museums closer to their audiences, but also achieved double growth in social and economic benefits.

According to a report released by Wisdom Research Consulting, the market size of China's cultural and creative products will reach USD 16.38 billion in 2023, a year-on-year growth of 13.09%.

According to incomplete statistics, as of 2023, the Samsungdui Museum, the Palace Museum, the Shanghai Museum, the National Museum of China, the Suzhou Museum annual operating water flow is more than 100 million yuan, and some of the large museums of the development of cultural and creative industries is mature, cultural and creative revenue accounted for two thirds of the total revenue of the museum or even more.

This year, the sales of cultural and creative products in museums have even shown explosive growth. In Shaanxi History Museum, for example, as of July, this year's sales outside the museum and online sales have significantly exceeded the previous year's annual total, and the total annual sales growth rate is expected to be 234%.

Explosive cultural creation how to be born

The reporter learnt that at present, the museum's cultural creation has formed a set of mature development mode. Museums through the cycle of independent research and development, cooperative research and development, sales, procurement, IP authorisation and other ways to develop the project, looking for suitable manufacturers or craftsmen to produce, and finally through the museum offline shop, online shops and other channels of sales.

How does a museum select an element as its main cultural and creative product among many exhibits?

Still to the hot sales of the National Museum of the phoenix crown refrigerator stickers, for example, seems to be a sudden ‘traffic’ surprise, but in fact is the National Museum of cultural and creative team countless days and nights of creative collision, the crystallisation of the inspiration of careful planning.

In the series of refrigerator stickers before the launch of creative products, nine dragons and nine phoenix crowns in front of the display cabinet is always crowded. The audience would like to wait in the exhibition hall around the field half a week queuing, just to have a few seconds to see the details up close, and then take a picture with it the opportunity to take a picture. It is aware of the attention and love of cultural relics, the cultural and creative design team of the National Museum of China immediately started the development of the phoenix crown refrigerator stickers, and successively uploaded a variety of refrigerator sticker works.

‘Cultural and creative product development needs to be combined with the museum's exhibition, which is actually a cultural carrier as an extended exhibition line of the second exhibition hall.’ Xue Jian, director of the Museum of Ancient Architecture in Beijing, said that the audience can not only treasure an experience of enjoying the collection in the museum, but also remember the cultural connotation of the collection and the story carried behind it when they see the cultural creation.

‘When choosing a heritage material for cultural creation transformation, I will pay more attention to the cultural expression behind the heritage.’ Jiang Han, director of the Suzhou Museum's Department of Cultural Creation, said that it is about conveying the multiple values of the cultural relics themselves, such as aesthetics, history, scientific research or beautiful symbolism, in the form of cultural and creative products. ‘The creation of a pop-up can feed specific cultural relics or even the whole museum.’

Yang Ao, a staff member of the Cultural and Creative Department of the Shaanxi History Museum, said that the main cultural and creative products should not only have deep cultural connotations and representativeness, and be able to reflect the core values of the museum, but should also be both economically beneficial, and choose IPs that meet the consumption habits of the audience and have a wide range of attraction and market base for development.

The picture shows the Xiannongtan Cultural and Creative Space on 3 November 2024 Xinhua Yan Yuxin photo

When it comes to understanding the consumption habits of young people, small and medium-sized cultural and creative companies, which are also young, seem to be more knowledgeable.

According to Han Rui, a creative design blogger who focuses on regional characteristics, from the perspective of design and development, ‘product differentiation’ and ‘adherence to the regional theme’ are usually the necessary factors for explosive creativity.

In Han Rui's opinion, a good cultural creation needs to be differentiated from the common forms on the market. For example, a creative form of interaction, light and shadow, organs, splicing and building, etc., may make consumers happy to take photos and share them on social media, thus forming a secondary dissemination. In addition, the product should also be strongly bound to the region where it occurs, cleverly integrating local characteristics.

As a craftsman in Xinjiang, Na Dinghao designed the ‘Naan uncle’ series of cultural creativity will be the local traditional food naan given the image of ugly cute and nervous character state, a licensed product can be replaced with hand-held accessories, mobile eyebrow, etc., the appearance is very pleasing. He told reporters that ‘healing’ and ‘friendly’ are the most common feedback he gets from his fan base.

‘We now have a new frequency of two times a week in the peak season, once a week in the off-season, which is still being chased by customers to urge more.’ Na Dinghao said that he wants to use the soft image of ‘Naan uncle’ to make more people willing to understand and approach the scenery, speciality products and humanities of Xinjiang. At present, the ‘Naan uncle’ series is one of the most popular cultural and creative products in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Museum, and sometimes you need to queue up to buy them.

On 4 October 2024, the Samsungdui Café flash shop ‘Pile Pile Pile Pile’ at the Shanghai Tourism Festival in the Centennial Zhangyuan Park was popular during the National Day holiday. Image source: Visual China

‘Cold Thinking in the ‘Cultural Creation Fever’

While young people have shown great enthusiasm for ‘advanced’ cultural and creative products, at the same time, their aesthetics and the way of mass communication are also changing.

According to Jiang Mingwei, deputy director of the Collection and Collection Department of the China Arts and Crafts Museum and the China Intangible Cultural Heritage Museum, the young generation's preference for ‘Chinese’ aesthetics has provided a market impetus for the rise of cultural creations in museums.

They are also more willing to share on social platforms, and ‘sun museum’ cards have gradually formed a fashion among youth groups, which also promotes the development of the museum creative market.

Jiang Mingwei believes that the change in the way of mass communication has also given rise to ‘explosive’. In the past two years, with the rapid development of live broadcast, short video and related social platforms, may only be because of a ‘man’ sharing and forwarding, a ‘topic’ of the opening, and even ‘harmonic’! The rapid development of social media platforms may only be because of a ‘personality’ sharing and forwarding, the opening of a ‘topic’, or even a ‘harmonic sound’ can quickly spread fission into a hot search, giving rise to ‘explosive’ and ‘events’.

As for the pop-ups often ‘can not be grabbed’ behind, more from people on the pursuit of cultural and creative products boutique.

In fact, out of stock is not the museum's ‘marketing tools’. Beijing Ancient Architecture Museum curator Xue Jian said, Tiangong Algae well refrigerator stickers production process is relatively complex, in order to ensure its quality, each production is limited, so often out of stock.

He revealed that the museum in the original 3 production lines on the basis of an increase of 2, is currently in the sampling trial production stage, in order to ensure the quality of the premise to increase production, but also will be weekly shipments changed to multi-day shipments, and the opening of the online booking platform, limited to 400 per day, each person is limited to 1, to alleviate the problem of queuing offline.

The reporter also observed that, with the cultural and creative pop-up frequently, the market also has some practitioners because of the pursuit of commercial effects and towards the ‘heavy products, light culture’ circle, resulting in a number of product design homogenisation is serious, the lack of connotation of the depth of the excavation.

In this regard, the Suzhou Museum of Cultural Creation Department Director Jiang Han said that cultural dissemination is to do the original intention of cultural creation, creative products and then fancy new, but also can not be separated from the function of the carrier of cultural heritage. From the product development point of view, only better digging culture, design inspiration can be sustainable. For example, the series of cultural creations of the ‘Four Families of Wu Men’ conveys the biographies of the literati in Jiangnan, and ‘Mr Wen Hengshan's hand-planted rattan seeds’ is a symbol of the cultural lineage of the ancient city of Suzhou.

Speaking of the phenomenon of following the trend in the field of cultural creativity, Guo Wanchao, director of the Institute of Media and Public Opinion at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, said that the solution to this problem needs to go back to the roots. ‘On the one hand, strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights and weed out the sand in the development, so that excellent creative designs can stand out more smoothly. On the other hand, promote the improvement of the artistry of cultural and creative products, and enhance the level and ability of designers through multiple channels and means. In addition, it is also necessary to explore and make good use of all kinds of high-quality IP, improve the relevant industrial chain, and launch more cultural and creative derivatives.’ Guo Wanchao said.

Declaration: This article comes from the Xinhua Financial Observatory.If copyright issues are involved, please contact us to delete.