Dai Bin and Zhao Yijing | History seen and the world traveled through - the cultural significance and market logic of the hot sales of refrigerator magnet cultural and creative products

On March 13, our institute's Dai Bin and Zhao Yijing wrote an article titled "History Seen and the World Traveled Through - The Cultural Significance and Market Logic of the Hot Sales of Fridge Magnet Cultural and Creative Products" and published it on the front page of China Tourism News. The full article is shared below:

Starting from the summer of 2024, the Palace Museum, National Museum, Sanxingdui and other cultural IPs have innovated their licensing models, transforming refrigerator magnets into cultural carriers of "the history and the world that tourists have seen", and then leaping into phenomenal cultural and creative products. Studies have found that the demand of mass tourists for high-quality cultural and creative products is becoming increasingly strong, requiring tourism products to pay more attention to cultural connotations and creative expressions. Therefore, it is necessary to take advantage of the situation, stimulate market demand, standardize IP licensing, and cultivate R&D, design, production and distribution companies that deeply integrate culture and tourism.

Since the summer of 2024, popular museums and tourist attractions have frequently seen the rush to buy refrigerator magnets with "limited sales, appointment numbers, and difficulty in getting one." A special survey by the China Tourism Research Institute shows that nearly 50% of tourists buy refrigerator magnets at a unit price of 20-40 yuan, and more than 30% at a unit price of 40-60 yuan. At present, the unit price of cultural and creative refrigerator magnets that are popular in offline sales in museums and tourist attractions is mostly above 40 yuan. The Tiangong Caijing refrigerator magnets at the Beijing Ancient Architecture Museum are limited to 400 per day, with a unit price of up to 168 yuan, which still cannot stop tourists' enthusiasm for buying.

More and more young people are keen on making a small exhibition of refrigerator magnets at home, which not only pleases themselves, but also provides emotional value to more people through sharing on social platforms. The topic "Show off my refrigerator magnets" on Xiaohongshu has been viewed more than 440 million times, and the number of views on the Douyin platform has exceeded 3.09 billion times. The "visual planting" of short video platforms effectively triggers users' secondary creation and social communication, further enhancing tourists' purchasing enthusiasm and offline sales. The refrigerator magnet designed by the National Museum of China based on the "Nine Dragons and Nine Phoenix Crowns of Empress Xiaoduan of the Ming Dynasty" sold more than 530,000 pieces within 5 months of its launch, becoming the museum's cultural and creative "top seller" in the past 20 years. The Nanjing Museum's Qing Qianlong Furong Stone Panchi Ear Cover Stove Refrigerator Magnet ("Little Pink Stove") sold 490,000 pieces in one year after its launch.

The survey shows that the top ten best-selling refrigerator magnets are: Nanjing Museum, National Museum of China, Shaanxi History Museum, Suzhou Museum, Zhejiang Provincial Museum, Guangdong Provincial Museum, Yangzhou China Grand Canal Museum, Sanxingdui Museum, Chengdu Museum, Yinxu Museum. Cultural and creative products launched by museums and cultural institutions such as the Palace Museum, Henan Museum, and the National Peking Opera Theater also performed well.

The top ten best-selling refrigerator magnet series products and their affiliated institutions are (including ties): the bronze human head mask series of Sanxingdui Museum, the hibiscus stone coiled dragon ear cover furnace of Qing Dynasty Qianlong period of Nanjing Museum, the Taoyezhizhen small flower vase of Suzhou Museum, the "Wukong" quicksand of Shanxi Hanging Temple, the Tiangong caisson of Beijing Ancient Architecture Museum, the flying lotus caisson paper carving lamp series of Dunhuang Academy, the Phoenix Crown of Empress Xiaoduan (also known as the "Nine Dragons and Nine Phoenixes Crown") of National Museum of China, the Jingdezhen kiln shadow blue underglaze red high-footed cup (also known as the "Horse Cup") of Hangzhou Museum, the bronze galloping horse (also known as the "Horse Stepping on Flying Swallow") of Gansu Provincial Museum, the gold bowl with mandarin duck and lotus petal pattern "Golden Rice Bowl" of Shaanxi History Museum, and the Duling square tripod and Fuhao owl zun series of Henan Museum.

The innovation of cultural IP business model is the direct driving force behind the hot sales of refrigerator magnets. Through the cultural IP licensing model, museums have made cultural relics no longer out-of-reach exhibits, but "cultural chips" that the public can touch and interact with. The designs of this round of hot-selling refrigerator magnets pay more attention to cultural connotations, incorporating elements such as traditional crafts, folk art, and historical stories, making the "Bronze Human Head Mask" and "Small Powder Stove" works of art with rich cultural connotations.

Demand upgrade and market innovation are the market driving forces for the hot sales of refrigerator magnets. The hot sales of refrigerator magnets are strongly related to the rapid recovery of the tourism industry in the past two years. The recovery of the number of tourists has driven the growth of demand for cultural and creative products. Products such as Xi'an's "dialect magnets", Chengdu's "panda 3D relief", and Zhenjiang's "vinegar jars" condense regional identities through symbols to meet tourists' sense of ritual and identity label needs of "visiting here". Fridge magnets are not only a carrier of travel memories, but also a manifestation of "self-pleasing consumption", with multiple emotional values ​​such as cultural healing and instant satisfaction. Fridge magnets transform travel experiences into displayable "cultural resumes", becoming a new member of the family's "cultural corner" and a new "social currency" for office interpersonal relationships. Low-priced and light luxury cultural and creative refrigerator magnets have stimulated the "light collection" enthusiasm of young groups. In this process, refrigerator magnets have achieved a role transformation from decorations to tourist souvenirs, art collections, and new social carriers.

The explosive growth of refrigerator magnet consumption reflects the public's willingness to pay for the symbolic value of cultural symbols. A special survey shows that unique creativity and exquisite design (29.6%), rich cultural connotations (27.1%), scenic spot check-in souvenirs (25%), new souvenirs for interpersonal relationships (23.3%), and physical representations of Chinese aesthetics (22.3%) are important reasons that motivate tourists to buy refrigerator magnets. Only 2% of the respondents said they would buy them because they are moderately priced and of good quality at a low price.

Fridge magnets are moving towards a high degree of refinement, integrating traditional culture with modern home functions, integrating practical functions such as bottle openers, night lights, vases, and incense burners, effectively broadening daily use scenarios. In terms of tourist experience and service innovation, combined with AR technology, users can enjoy virtual interaction by scanning the code, watching animations, listening to explanations, and booking tickets and hotels, which increases the fun and sense of technology. The industry's attention to refrigerator magnets cannot be limited to top IPs. It is also necessary to see that most scenic area refrigerator magnets are still in the public mold production stage of place name scenery photos, and most cultural and creative products still rely on "OEM". Compared with market demand, public expectations and the scale of cultural resources, new cultural and creative products represented by refrigerator magnets still have a lot of room for improvement.

Cultural and museum units should be encouraged to establish an open and shared "cultural and cultural relics resource library", clarify the scope of development and innovate the authorization model. A hierarchical "cultural and creative resource library data open sharing platform" should be established, and national cultural and museum units should be encouraged to take the lead in demonstration and lead the innovative practice of local and social cultural and museum institutions. At the same time, the IP authorization mechanism should be improved, flexible, classified and graded IP authorization management should be implemented, and the authorization period should be appropriately extended.

We should respond to the needs of market development and the expectations of mass consumption, and guide the high-quality research and development of cultural and creative products in museums and tourist attractions. We should carry out special research on the quality upgrade of cultural and creative tourism products, focusing on solving the current core bottlenecks, such as insufficient cultural resources for creation, the mechanism constraints of cultural and museum institutions, the authorization barriers of private market players, and the need to strengthen policy guarantees and demonstration guidance.

We need to foster a group of innovative cultural and creative research, production and distribution market players. We will encourage cultural and cultural relics institutions that have difficulty developing themselves to divest their cultural and creative business operations within the scope of their licenses, or to use intellectual property rights as equity investment models to establish joint ventures with local cultural and tourism enterprises. We will strengthen market supervision, intensify efforts to combat piracy, and prevent cultural elements from becoming overly entertaining.

Author | Dai Bin, Zhao Yijing Source | China Tourism News Editor | Liu Xin Please indicate the author and source for reprinting