This article comes from WeChat public account: fat whale headline (ID: pangjing-toutiao) , author: Institute of whale fat, title figure from: vision China
Luo Tianyi’s concert was full of people, and loved to have millions of fans on Youtube. Lil Miquela was named “The Most Influential Person on the Internet in 2018” by Time Magazine. Imma endorsed Menglong in SK-II In the commercial, Noonoouri Nunu and Yi Xuan Qianxi jointly appeared on the cover of Vogue me.
The brand ’s enthusiasm for virtual idols is not so difficult to understand. The avatar is an important exploration of brand anthropomorphism under the circumstances that “Push Marketing” is difficult to maintain. In essence, we hope that consumers’ emotions about virtual characters can be translated to the brand. However, only by figuring out what is the nature of virtual idols, why are people crazy, and why are virtual idols so hot, can brands release their value in a targeted manner.
Three kinds of virtual idols, one side of the virtual singer is a highly open source co-creation model of users, the other side of the virtual celebrity is a marketing product under the control of big data, and the middle virtual anchor is confirmed In the form of live broadcasting, people’s emotional needs for companionship and entertainment needs.
First, what is a virtual idol?
Virtual idol, in a narrow sense, refers to the role of idols in anime or manga works (such as “Lovelive!”) Broadly refers to the overhead form without real ontology that performs activities in virtual or real scenes such as the InternetLike, including virtual singer, virtual anchor, virtual blogger and other forms.
Essentially speaking, virtual idols are the things that technology has spawned-the development of Vocaloid speech synthesis software, VR virtual reality, AR augmented reality, holographic projection, AI artificial intelligence and other technologies has only existed in 2D anime / manga The paper man has rich forms and functions, so he is active in various entertainment media and scenes, and gradually squeezes out the living space of human beings in the race track of idols, anchors, and Internet celebrities.
Existing head virtual idols mainly include virtual singers, virtual anchors, and virtual influencers. Virtual singers are loved because users provide creative value and a sense of formation. The latter two provide entertainment and aesthetic value. This is not fundamentally different from human anchors and human internet celebrities, but technological advances allow people to create ideal images.
Second, how is a hot virtual idol made?
2.1 Virtual Song Ji
Virtual singers are, in essence, the application practice of open source co-creation of this participatory future model in the music industry.
Hatsune Miku is currently the most influential virtual singer, with a 2.5-dimensional anthropomorphic appearance Three-dimensional entity between real people, and is called 2.5-dimensional) Vocaloid electronic music production software.
Consumers input their own original songs on the software, and Hatsune will sing them. The operating company behind it, Crypton Future Media (hereafter referred to as C) vigorously funded and promoted Vocaloid related courses, which promoted the sales and creation of software The emergence of people and songs. The C society selects high-quality works from a large number of submissions to spread and expands the influence of Hatsune. At the same time, the company also increases Hatsune’s exposure through external commercial linkages such as authorization and endorsements.
The value of creators and Hatsune Miku to each other is mutual-for ordinary creators who are not well known, Hatsune is the platform on which their works can be spread; and the creators produce Excellent works help Hatsune to be known and liked by more people. For ordinary fans, the charm of Hatsune Miku is not only the lovely appearance, but also a song full of emotions, vivid and interesting.
In addition, the copyright of the image is open (Allow users to use Hatsune Miku image creation for non-commercial use) and rough The setting encourages Hatsune Miku ’s fan creation activities. A large number of fan illustrations, dances, and cover works about Hatsune Miku appear on the Internet. According to their own preferences, people imagine the story of Hatsune and “fabricate” it as their favorite during the production process.
Afterwards, the event of “The Disappearance of Hatsune Miku” made Hatsune out of the circle. The documentary produced and released by the mainstream Japanese media TBS portrayed Hatsune fans as a brainless fanatic image, which aroused fierce opposition and voices from its fan base. Afterwards, Hatsune was “blocked” on the Japanese network, and was considered by fans as “a joint action taken by mainstream media and artist idol companies for fear of virtual idols replacing real artists”, triggering broader social discussions. Instead, this accident caused Hatsune to be recognized and loved by the people outside the circle of the second dimensional circle-the breaking of the virtual idol requires an opportunity.
All in all, excellent original tracks and a large number of fan creations have injected soul into the “exquisite container” of virtual song Ji. The official promotion and active external business linkage have increased the exposure of virtual song JiThe incident intensified its outing. Among them, what brands should not ignore is that users have strengthened their feelings about virtual images through participation in creation-participation itself is emotion .
The development of China ’s virtual song Ji Luotianyi further proves the importance of user participation and external linkage. Vocaloid ’s agents in China initially did not respect the creators, so Luo Tianyi did not make big splashes, and then the new agents began to pay attention to the creators and their works, vigorously promote, and actively external linkage With today’s influence.
Luo Tianyi has broken through the circle through active external linkage.
2016 Luo Tianyi ✖️ Yang Yuying
2017 Luo Tianyi ✖️ Xu Song
2018 Luo Tianyi ✖️ Xue Zhiqian
Luo Tianyi 2020 ✖️ 张韶涵
2.2 Virtual anchor
If it is said that the virtual singer has created a precedent for the singer’s career by singing user-submitted tracks, then the virtual anchor and virtual blogger are the applications of the form of virtual characters in the two careers of anchor and blogger. In the spectrum of user participation, the virtual singer is at the left end of the highly involved fan creation, the virtual blogger is at the far right end of the one-way output of the team behind, and the virtual anchor is in the middle-the official dominates and the fan participates in the creation Auxiliary .
The core of the virtual anchor is the three-dimensional anthropomorphic appearance, the official design of the person and related projects, and the interpretation of the person in the three parts. Generally speaking, the principle is to use the techniques of motion capture, expression capture and sound processing to apply the performance of the person in the 3D animation model. Virtual