Chapter 274 The Brand Universe of Hong Kong Films

Since the 1980s, Hong Kong's film and entertainment industry has entered a period of rapid growth. Box office revenue has begun to rise steadily, and it has also continued to expand into markets such as Southeast Asia.

A movie with a million-level investment can earn tens of millions in box office and copyright channel revenue in just a few months.

This rate of return and speed of making money are enough to drive many people crazy.

In just a few months, with a return on investment of more than ten times, even if there is a chance of it being a hit, capital is attracted and poured in crazily.

This also contributed to the glory of Hong Kong's films in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s.

However, this is not what Li Changhe really values.

No matter how popular the film industry is, to put it bluntly, the amount of capital is there. In the Hong Kong market, the box office has capped at 20 to 30 million. Even if the Southeast Asian market is added, it will be difficult to exceed 100 million.

For Li Changhe, these profits are nothing.

What Li Changhe really values ​​is the advertising brand effect brought by the Hong Kong film market.

Especially the brand effect brought by the mainland.

Most of the people born in the 1980s and 1990s started out by watching pirated Hong Kong films.

Many people’s modern knowledge actually comes from Hong Kong movies.

For example, Rolex!

Before they had a deep understanding of the brand of the watch, many people born in the 1980s and 1990s thought that Rolex was the world's top watch and that Rolex gold watches were the choice of the rich.

The formation of this consciousness and idea largely comes from the promotion of Hong Kong films.

For example, Li Changhe himself liked to eat beef balls when eating hot pot in his previous life. Essentially, it was because he watched Stephen Chow’s movie "The God of Cookery" and was influenced by this movie.

Rather than being interested in the film market in Hong Kong Island, Li Changhe is more concerned about the impact of the future piracy market for Hong Kong films on the mainland.

It will take more than ten years for the mainland to reform and thoroughly clarify the advertising industry.

The first advertising law in the country was not promulgated until 94. In the same year, CCTV began to launch advertising investment promotion, thus opening the mythical era of CCTV's bidding champion.

Before that, it was very difficult to run brand advertising in China, especially brand advertising targeting private capital.

In Li Changhe's view, pirated Hong Kong films have been the best advertising resource over the past decade.

There is no doubt that in the next decade or so, in the mainland market, a huge amount of pirated Hong Kong films will spread to major cities on the mainland, and then become an indispensable entertainment lifestyle supplement for many people born in the 70s, 80s, and 90s.

The goddesses of the Hong Kong circle actually magnified their fame through these pirated film sources and became the white moonlight in the hearts of many people born in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.

What Li Changhe actually needs to do is to use the brand implantation model of the film industry to slowly establish the brand effect of his future company before the domestic advertising industry is fully developed.

Especially the high-end brand effect.

When the first wave of wealthy people in China buy products, in addition to being superstitious about foreign brands, another superstition is movie products.

For many people in that era, being able to buy the same products as in the movie was a great honor.

The Hong Kong film market is not very attractive to Li Changhe, but as the source of piracy of mainland films, their impact on raising brand awareness among mainland Chinese people is what Li Changhe values ​​most.

Most importantly, in this era, almost no one realizes the impact of this brand placement model.

The film market in Europe and the United States has actually begun to experiment with advertising placement.

But in Hong Kong, Li Changhe remembers that the first person to do movie brand placement was Dickson Pan.

That’s right, he is the founder of the famous D&B Film Company in the 1980s.

Many people's impression of him may be that he created a film company for Yang Ziqiong to pursue girls.

But in fact, this guy was working as an agent for brand-name clothing and watches, which were all suitable for movie placement.

He was one of the earliest businessmen to engage in movie product placement. He used D&B Films to continuously promote his fashion and watches, which resulted in a huge increase in sales.

However, although Pan Disheng operated this model, he did not conduct in-depth research and did not consider expanding the brand effect.

This may be related to the fact that he is just an agent rather than a completely original brand.

But Li Changhe is different.

Even though Li Changhe doesn’t have any brands now, he is only involved in suitcases and clothing.

But in fact, Li Changhe will soon have a large number of brands in his hands, including supermarkets, hotels, real estate plazas, retail stores and so on.

And all of this is thanks to Jardine Matheson.

Today, Hong Kong Land Development is a behemoth in itself. In addition to owning a large number of high-quality properties, it also has many other companies under its umbrella.

For example, the dairy company it previously acquired has a large number of retail stores and half of the shares of Maxim's Group.

Maxim's Group is currently the largest restaurant chain brand in Hong Kong Island. The first joint venture company to be established in China this year is a food company established by Maxim's and Air China, which will be responsible for food preparation for newly opened international routes.

In other words, in essence, AVIC is cooperating with Jardine Matheson or Hong Kong Land.

In the future, many people will sigh that Hong Kong Island is the city of the Li family. The reason is that the Li family’s industries are spread across all aspects of Hong Kong Island, from supermarkets to real estate to retail to various industries.

In fact, Li Ka-shing was able to achieve that by relying on the various companies left by Hutchison Whampoa, such as Watsons. Nowadays, the companies that really touch all aspects of Hong Kong people in Hong Kong Island are still Hong Kong Land, such as the famous Mandarin Oriental Hotel, which is under Hong Kong Land.

This is also the reason why Li Ka-shing and many Chinese tycoons have always coveted the fat piece of meat of Swire Properties.

It not only controls the best land in Central, Hong Kong Island, but more importantly, it also owns high-quality industry companies in all aspects of Hong Kong Island.

Jardine Matheson is not called the King of Foreign Firms for nothing.

After Jardine Matheson withdrew its main business from Hong Kong Island, the two remaining arms were Hong Kong Holdings and Wharf Holdings, and among them, Hong Kong Holdings was the real essence.

Li Changhe acquired Hutchison Whampoa not only because Jardine Matheson had bitten off the biggest piece of fat on Hong Kong Island, but more importantly, he could use the brand under Hutchison Whampoa to directly expand into various industries.

Especially in China, as the world's largest emerging market in the next forty years, it is also where Li Changhe's roots are.

Domestic reforms take time and the market will open up gradually.

But Li Changhe can plan ahead. Movie placement plus brand building is the business plan Li Changhe has in mind.

The most important thing is that Li Changhe knows that for at least many years, no one would think of influencing the mainland people in this way.

Including Li Jiacheng and others, no one would consider using the promotion of pirated movies to implant brand awareness in the unformed market in mainland China.

So in a sense, Li Changhe has a disguised monopoly on this propaganda model.

And all of this, back to the present, requires a film company to do this.

This is actually the real purpose of Li Changhe asking Weiers to establish a film company, and it is also the business model portrayed in his novels in his previous life.

In this life, he intends to try this model himself.

Of course, this is Li Changhe’s most important plan. For now, he will not tell Weiers.

After all, he hasn't even acquired the property yet.

"Just take advantage of the situation?"

“You’re planning on making a movie?”

"I'm not going to film it, but didn't I tell you that my wife is actually a director?"

"In fact, the film companies in Hong Kong were originally prepared for her."

"But since you've signed someone here, I think we can do it while we're at it!"

"It's not difficult for me to write a script casually. I'm actually quite optimistic about the film market in Hong Kong Island."

Apart from anything else, cinema real estate can also be a good supplement to commercial real estate.

Wanda Cinema is one of the important attractive brands of Wanda Shopping Mall. Li Changhe can completely set up a similar cinema chain brand first.

"Yes, I had forgotten that you were a writer in the mainland."

"Wait a minute, do you want me to take you to the movie studio to watch it?"

"Come to think of it, that little girl named Guan Jiahui seems to still be obsessed with you. She has asked you about it several times."

Wei Er Si said to Li Changhe with a smile at this time.

Li Changhe shook his head: "Don't worry, let's get the gold first."

There is no rush to plan the layout of the film industry in the next few days. Li Changhe plans to secure the funds first and then make arrangements slowly.

In the film industry, there is actually a lot of room for maneuver.

For example, planning an IP universe in advance is a concept that has been played out in later generations.

But in this era, it seems that only Star Wars has been successful in developing IP.

Hong Kong's film companies actually have many prototypes of the IP world, such as the "Summer Lucky Stars" series, the "Happy Ghost" series, the "Super Cop" series, and Lin Zhengying's "Zombie" series.

However, the film producers did not consciously expand the so-called "universe", but instead relied on the success of the previous work to continuously shoot sequels until the potential of the series was exhausted.

Of course, this is also related to the fact that there is currently no market for multi-element copyright development.

Even in the United States, there is only one IP, "Star Wars".

The future Marvel, DC, etc. are now comic book companies on the verge of bankruptcy, and are constantly selling the copyrights of superheroes all over the world in order to survive.

However, Li Changhe felt that his film company could be developed and gradually built into several series, such as Lin Zhengying's zombie universe, and then integrated with films like Happy Ghost.

Li Changhe thinks that Wang Pangzi’s future signature “God of Gamblers” series can also be produced in advance.

If it were combined with some of the movies directed by Jet Li, we could create a killer universe.

The God of Gamblers series plus the Hitman series, and if possible, even Jackie Chan's Super Cop series can be incorporated into it.

In that way, we can also create an interconnected urban universe and then sell brands in it. It seems quite reliable.

Afterwards, time passed as Li Changhe and Wei Ersi chatted idly, and it was five o'clock in the afternoon.

The London gold market has also officially opened!
(End of this chapter)