In the past two days, “Egg Boy Party” has attracted another wave of attention.
On December 22, the “Egg Festival·Holy Egg Week” benefit was launched online, and “Egg Party” was linked with KFC, once again triggering heated discussions online and offline. In fact, before the event started, the linkage strategy had already begun to ferment on the Internet.
I have to say that even though I have witnessed “countless” collaborations of “Egg Boy Party” in the past, I am still attracted by every collaboration. As the “popular king” and “traffic-responsible” in the gaming industry in 2023, “Egg Boy Party” is like the “cool protagonist” in the gaming industry. Whether it is IP linkage or its own IP creation, major brands and audiences can’t stop.
“Egg Boy Party” turns IP linkage into a “cool article”
Looking back at the crazy collaboration planning of “Egg Boy Party” in the past year, people can’t help but say: It’s so cool! The IP linkage model of “Egg Boy Party” can be called a “cool” routine – linkage occurs once every 10 days on average, and the linkage targets are all top brands in various fields. With this exaggerated linkage frequency and high-quality linkage objects, the IP linkage path of “Egg Boy Party” can definitely be called “cheating all the way” and easy to upgrade.
In the luxurious linkage list, there are familiar names: Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf, Fruit Baby Attack, Red Bean, Pig Man, Chinese Tales, Ultraman, Michelle Ice City, NetEase Cloud Music, Minecraft, Goose and Duck, Fantasy Westward Journey, Identity V, Light Encounter, Alps, Baidu Navigation, Happy Valley… plus the recent brand spokesperson Wu Lei, KFC, and the Sanrio family that is ready to go. , China Post, etc., spanning multiple fields such as animation, games, music, food, entertainment, express delivery, celebrities, etc., with both domestic classic IPs and internationally renowned IPs; there are commercial linkages and public welfare linkages.
This long list continues to grow rapidly. According to official disclosures, in 2024, international leading IPs will also join the “Egg Boy Party” linkage family. We might as well make a bold guess, might it be one or more of Disney, Harry Potter, Tom and Jerry, Pokémon, etc.? After all, these super head IPs match the relaxed, joyful and cute tone of “Egg Boy Party” very well, and some IPs have overlap with NetEase games themselves. 2024 is coming, and we are waiting patiently for the official announcement.
Why is “Egg Boy Party” so loved by various brands as if it were a “cool” script?
The core reason why these brands proactively seek cooperation is that the linkage of “Egg Boy Party” can truly achieve two-way empowerment, infuse blood for the linked brands, achieve increased visibility, circle expansion, and even return of commercial value.
For example, “Egg Boy Party” directly turned Zeng Jin’s niche fashion toy brand Flying DongDong into a big fashion star, led to an increase in the ranking of “Light·Encounter”, and also organized a big event with Mixue Bingcheng , earning enough topics on various social media… These are already well-known cases in the industry.
In the author’s opinion, there are two main reasons why “Egg Boy Party” can bring such a significant effect to the joint brand:
First, the basic user base of “Egg Boy Party” ensures basic effects.“Egg Boy Party” has gathered a large number of young users with its cute, relaxing and interactive game atmosphere. Linking up with other brands can greatly expand the brand’s circle, especially penetrating into the younger generation of players, which can accumulate a good user base and word-of-mouth effect for the brand.
Second, “Egg Party”‘s “fresh” marketing plan customized based on brand characteristics can maximize the possibility of the brand getting out of the circle.The characteristics of young users are that they are creative, love to share, love to interact, and have a strong curiosity about new things. The joint marketing plan of “Egg Party” is always full of “cool points”, bringing users a sense of novelty, generating a large amount of second-generation content, and achieving a viral circle-breaking effect.
For example, it collaborated with Flying DongDong to create “DongDong Sheep” that combines the tonality of both parties. The milky white and round lamb has become the star appearance of Eggman Island with the popularity of “Eggman Party”. From “obscure” to “popularly sought after”, the commercial value of Flying DongDong’s IP has also skyrocketed. Under the voice of players, the two parties have reached an exclusive strategic cooperation for two years.
Another classic case is the linkage with “Mixue Ice City”. Their first collaboration came up with a surprising move – they debuted as a group with Eggman and Snow King, and their magical brainwashing song “You love me and I love you, Mixue Ice City Sweet Honey” was paired with Eggboy’s “eggy” and “Egg, Duck and Poached Egg” , “Hurry up” and other popular lines instantly broke the Internet. The first free linkage skin is launched in the game, linkage scenes and interactive content are set up in the main city, and players are guided to create maps using Mixue Ice City brand elements. The cumulative reach of users exceeds 10 million, bringing massive traffic to Mixue Ice City. exposure. In addition to in-game, this linkage also worked in offline scenarios. More than 20,000 offline stores played the magical linkage promotional song in a loop and launched linkage packages, which also attracted a large number of Danzi players to purchase, completing the online and offline communication and transformation.
In conjunction with “Light·Encounter”, “Egg Boy Party” is a blood transfusion. On the day of the linkage, a large number of Danzai players poured into “Light·Yu”, instantly boosting it to 195th on the total free list and 18th on the free game list. At present, the two parties are still in the linkage period, and the blessing benefits of “Egg Boy Party” are still showing.
It can be seen that “Egg Party” can continue to be popular. In addition to the product’s own characteristics and mature UGC ecology, linkage can be said to be a major contributor. The linkage not only greatly enhances the brand power and identity of “Egg Boy Party”, but also broadens the user circle. What’s important is that the continuous high-quality, high-level linkage planning output has created a flywheel effect for the linkage of “Egg Boy Party”, making linkage that originally had a certain high threshold seem “effortless.”
IP creation: turning on the furious “protagonist” mode
The ambition of “Egg Boy Party” is not limited to good IP linkage, but also wants to find its own path to create IP. From the group-like and matrix-style expansion of Danzi’s IP image, to high-frequency external IP linkage, and then to becoming the king of goods in cross-industry cooperation, “Danzai Party” has now gradually run through the process from IP incubation to value realization. Full link, truly become the “protagonist” who can control his own destiny.
First of all, “Egg Boy Party” has a huge user base and a mature UGC ecosystem.
In the past year, “Egg Party” has shown exponential growth: at the beginning of the year, it announced that the number of daily active users exceeded 30 million, becoming the first game in NetEase game history to achieve this achievement; in August, it announced that the number of active users exceeded 100 million, and the total number of maps exceeded 30 million. 100 million mark; on December 8, it was announced that it had reached the milestone of 500 million users; on December 15, it was announced that it had broken the previous record of 30 million daily active users, and the daily active data reached a new high.
These players socialize in a friendly and creative way, and enjoy the game. In the process of accompanying and witnessing the growth of the game, they also form an emotional bond with the game that is difficult to break away from. Looking at the global market, social games developed with UGC content (such as “Minecraft”) have all shown strong user stickiness.
In addition, “Eggman Party” brought a niche party track to the top track, seizing and consolidating the “first-mover advantage.”
How to conduct long-term operations on the basis of consolidating the “first-mover advantage” is not unfamiliar to NetEase Games. As we all know, old games such as “Fantasy Westward Journey” and “A Chinese Ghost Story” still maintain ample vitality, which is inseparable from NetEase’s long-term operations.
Therefore, when Ding Lei said that “Egg Boy will become an enduring game with a shelf life of at least 10 years,” many people would not doubt it. NetEase Games has always been able to firmly catch “unexpected traffic” and develop it. “Egg Party” is not a “flash in the pan” like other games that became popular overnight, which is also a strong proof.
Moreover, the IP creation path of “Egg Boy Party” is different from the conventional approach in the game industry. Instead, it breaks out of the game industry and achieves an online + offline multi-format breakthrough.
In 2023, “Egg Boy Party” became the “top topic king” on the entire Internet. Taking the Douyin platform as an example, there are countless topics related to Danzi Party, and the entry #danzaiparty# has exceeded 100 billion views, and there are many topic content with billions or even tens of billions of views, which shows the breadth of online communication. What an exaggeration.
In addition, “Egg Boy Party” has penetrated into every aspect of our lives. It has a wide range of IP derivatives, covering toys, home life products, outdoor products, cultural and creative stationery… Specifically, there are regular peripherals such as dolls, pendants, and badges, as well as popular products such as hair ties, sun umbrellas, and fisherman hats. User classes and so on.
Moreover, these IP derivatives occupy the C position of major fashion brand stores, such as Jiumu Grocery Store, LOFT, the green party, Wanding, Toys “R” Us, Coolle Fashion, etc. At the same time, the joint gift boxes launched with consumer brands such as Lawson, Alps, Green Arrow, etc. are also very popular offline, and the packages launched with Mixue Ice City, KFC, etc. are also highly sought after by users.
“Everything is possible for Danzi.” Surrounded by everything from online to offline, “Danzi Party” will become the top domestic product and IP in 2023, and its value may be inestimable. The ambition of “Egg Boy Party” does not stop there, it will move towards the goal of becoming an international super IP.
This goal seems to be “within reach”. The author believes that there are three reasons: first, party games have a strong user base abroad, such as “Among Us” and “Goose and Duck”, etc. have performed very well; second, party games have a strong user base abroad; It is the cute painting style of “Egg Boy Party” that ensures global adaptability; third, it is guaranteed by NetEase Games’ accumulated experience in party game operation and marketing in China and its strong overseas operation capabilities.
Today, on the international stage, domestic super IPs rarely appear, but in “Egg Boy Party”, I discovered this possibility and look forward to witnessing the moment it reaches the top!
