The blue word cultural industry reviews above the point pay attention to and star the standard.
Chinese’s pursuit of eating this thing has no end. Bilibili launched a food documentary film "A String of Life" to dig deep into the barbecue category, showing the unique barbecue culture all over the country, which greatly stimulated the online audience to meet the demand of taste buds. At the same time, the charm of online food documentaries has also extended to the offline. IP-themed restaurants have broken the secondary wall and landed offline stores, and business has exploded. With the arrival of the new wave of consumption, more popular online IP content began to land in offline theme brand restaurants. This "IP+ catering" model once again aroused the author’s thinking. What is the cultural password of the operation mode of theme restaurants? Does emotion play a key role in the transformation of brand sales under the "IP+" mode? Let’s follow the author’s writing, make a thoughtful foodie together, and embrace the warm fireworks in this world.
author | Blackcurrant
edit | Min Lu
source | parity school
The text is 4690 words in total | Estimated reading time is 12 minutes.

Roadside barbecue shops, a small table, dozens of strings of fragrant meat tendons, feeling such a fireworks atmosphere, often sigh that "life is so pleasant."
Recently, the first offline experience store of "A String of Life" in Central China landed in Wuhan, setting off a wave of fireworks consumption.
Previously,Authorized cross-border catering brand cooperation through IPStation B has launched a series of "peripheral" food and beverage outlets, such as the authorized barbecue restaurant of Life, the authorized hot pot restaurant of Life Like Boiling, and the authorized noodle shop of My Powder You.
With the arrival of the new consumption wave, more online content IP began to land as theme brand restaurants, and IP has begun to become a "golden signboard" in the hands of more catering brands..
What is the magic of this "rising star" who opened in Wuhan with a large number of students and rushed to the top of the public comment list during the trial operation? Behind its popularity, will IP-themed restaurants be a good business? Will the line of A String of Life be a solution?
With the curiosity of thousands of foodies, I turned on the computer and completed a "time and space experience" from online food documentary to offline food experience store.
When "Thank you for your hospitality" becomes a reality
Walking into the Wuhan store of "A String of Life", the signs of gourmet shops appearing in films such as "Ximen Barbecue" and "Gaolaozhuang Special Barbecue" all excited thousands of loyal fans of this documentary.

△ Signboard even-odd shooting with street flavor and sense of technology
From the poster wall of "Little TV" and "A String of Life" at the door to the interactive barrage screen on the ceiling, online elements can be seen everywhere in the store, creating a Cyberpunk-style immersion that is integrated with street culture.
"Gorgeous and rich elements without any sense of disobedience" is my first impression of this store.
In addition to the environment, the store almost restored the mouth-watering foods in the documentary one by one. Sanliqiao Roasted Heart Tube, Yibin Roasted Pig’s Nose Tendon and Baise Explosicum Roasted Pig’s Eye … all come from the delicious food recorded in the film, which reminds me of the long-lost intimacy from the documentary again. At the moment when the delicious food is served,The "dimensional wall" was completely broken..

△ The dimensional wall was broken. Even-odd shooting.
Besides satisfying my picky taste buds, this place is also an entertainment planet for our young people. There are three or two old-fashioned game consoles on display in the corner of the store, which instantly brings my thoughts back to my schooldays.
The entertainment area on the second floor is full of e-sports fans watching League of Legends S11. In addition to continuing to enjoy drinks and snacks, anime lovers can also take photos with their favorite two-dimensional image and buy directly around bilibili.
In my eyes, the combination of rich online elements and fireworks in the market makes it not only a barbecue shop, but also a collection of popular food, trend culture and circle interests.
The root of all this has to start from the online.The documentary "A String of Life" was born in 2018, deeply cultivating barbecue categories and showing the unique barbecue culture all over the country.
In the last two seasons,"A String of Life" not only has a broadcast volume of up to 200 million and nearly 2.5 million barrage interactions, but also has a score far above average in bilibili and Douban..

△ The end of each episode of the documentary was screened by "Thank you for your hospitality"
It is not difficult to understand why the documentary "A String of Life" became an explosion. It is enough to attract people’s attention from barbecue stalls all over the world to local specialties such as plum meat, silkworm chrysalis, scallops, oysters, beef and mutton, and the narrative method of documentary interspersed with interviews from the perspective of exploring shops gives the audience an immersive experience, coupled with the humanistic feelings of copywriting and barrage interaction, which makes the viewing atmosphere full.
The audience’s love for content greatly stimulated the online audience to meet the needs of taste buds, and also extended the charm of online food documentaries to offline.
In August 2019, the first barbecue experience store named "A String of Life" in China was opened in Yangpu District, Shanghai. Since its opening one and a half years ago, it has received more than 400,000 customers’ traffic and jumped into the forefront of new catering brands with their own traffic.
In 2020, the first branch of "A String of Life" landed in Shanghai Daning Music Plaza, and held in-store watching activities in combination with the League of Legends Finals S10, which was popular in this season, and once again made countless circles.
This year, the IP license of the documentary "A String of Life" has been extended to the whole country, and the opening of Wuhan store is a further exploration of this model. And bilibili food documentary "Life is like Boiling" authorized hot pot restaurant and "I Fen You" authorized Suo Fen Store also opened one after another.
From the enthusiastic response of online audiences and offline consumers, it is composed of food culture.IP+ catering "With a wide and huge audience, it has a very high growth potential.
However, a new model still needs to be honed by the market to see its final color, so it is extremely necessary to analyze its landing operation plan and the feasibility of long-term survival from the perspective of commercial operation.
"XX theme restaurant"
For the catering industry, the "IP+ catering" model is not a new thing. In recent years, star and animation restaurants have blossomed everywhere. But it is not easy to do it well.
Previously,Operation mode of "star+catering"Once popular. Many stars have opened food and beverage outlets. With the help of behind-the-scenes catering management companies, their profits have been greatly improved in the short term by using their own fan base and influence to expand their stores quickly and earn franchise fees.
For example, Xianhezhuang, which was endorsed by Michael Chen, expanded almost one store a day after its opening, and set up a new store of 700+ in less than two years.
At the same time, the huge franchise fee also makes the star’s own traffic have a faster short-term liquidity. According to incomplete statistics, franchisees who want to enter Xianhezhuang, which is endorsed by Michael Chen, need to pay 1.5 million yuan, including the joining fee, while the joining fee of 250,000 yuan for the hot pot brand Zaomenkan, which is endorsed by Sean, and 125,000 yuan for natural to stay, which is endorsed by Guan Xiaotong, is far higher than the joining level of ordinary brands in the market.
However, although the star IP has huge traffic potential, the IP itself is too low in connection with catering, and it cannot form a series connection with the food at the catering end and the storefront environment in terms of content.
At the same time, the frequent red light events in food safety, capital chain operation and management also show the uncertainty of this model.

△ Xianhezhuang, once popular
Then, why can bilibili’s "documentary IP+ catering" mode work?
First of all, the combination of food documentary IP and catering is consistent with its own categories and products from the content theme.Compared with IP such as stars, documentaries that use real life as creative material and resonate with users also make landing more natural and skillful. After the food documentary "China on the Tip of the Tongue" was broadcast, it led a large number of restaurants to play the name of "the same tip of the tongue". The popularity of the documentary "A String of Life" has also brought goods to many shops in the film.
According to the consumers on the opening day in Wuhan, more than 70% of the customers know about the documentary "A String of Life", and many young people are attracted by the food in the documentary, so they have the need to go offline for personal verification.
It can be seen that the cultural IP of food documentaries is rich, the drainage method is more natural and reasonable, and the inheritance of online elements also ensures the customer experience.
In the context of the continuous production of bilibili food documentaries, the online content is constantly updated and accepted, and the connotation of IP is constantly extended, which also ensures that the corresponding offline brands can maintain a high degree of attention. This summer, bilibili released the "Inevitable bilibili Food History" plan, and launched five food documentaries, including "Come for a Snack", including "A String of Life 3".
At the same time, the professional catering management company is responsible for the daily operation to ensure the excellent quality of offline stores and the continuation of online content reputation.At present, the comprehensive scores of the three offline stores of A String of Life in Shanghai are all above 4.6.
Good quality and the continuous output of food culture IP are the biggest guarantee for the high repurchase rate of catering stores.
In addition, bilibili’s "IP+ catering" also means multi-dimensional integration.The offline store of "A String of Life" provides consumers with a complex experience through its unique decoration style, plus the setting of game entertainment area and animation culture display area. Building a business derivative of League of Legends World Tournament has become the crowning touch to meet the diversified needs of consumers.
"Watching the League of Legends game in the barbecue restaurant is really an unprecedented wonderful experience." A Wuhan college student told me this on the opening day.
Bilibili has a complete IP development industrial chain and different forms of cooperation, and the future cooperation with catering brands will also have a broader space. Bilibili’s own image 22, 33 and small TV jointly launched a theme coffee shop, while Guochuang animation "heavenly god blesses the people" and KFC Dream jointly created a theme store, launched limited products and theme surrounding.
Behind the bursting of many bubbles, a more mature "IP+ catering" model is showing its growth potential.
Key words behind IP+: emotion
Tracing back to the source, "A String of Life" offline experience store"Food Documentary IP+ Catering"The success of the model is not a model innovation in the traditional sense of catering, and it is not novel even in the broader IP industry.
Therefore, it seems novel to make a food documentary into a restaurant. In fact, it is not an isolated case that pops out of a crack in the stone, but a typical case that puts people’s love and emotion into the actual scene.
In fact, the past“IP+”The successful case of this project is enough to illustrate the feasibility of moving forward in this direction.
CLE’s White Paper on China’s Brand Licensing Industry shows that in 2020, the retail sales of brand-licensed consumer goods in China has reached 110.6 billion yuan. At the same time, in 2019, the global sales revenue of licensed goods and services reached US$ 292.8 billion, up by 4.5% year-on-year, showing the great potential for the development of the licensed industry market.

△ Source: Prospective Economist APP Parity Mapping
be like"IP+ catering" modeJust like bringing huge offline traffic to the brand, the biggest role of IP itself is to use emotional transmission to bring sales conversion and popularity improvement to products and brands.
There are hundreds of millions of fans behind phenomenal IP such as The Avengers, the glory of the king and League of Legends.
Including animated images such as Peggy Piggy and Pleasant Goat, movie characters such as Marvel Comics and Harry Potter, and variety shows such as Everyday Up and Happy Camp, IP may be just a simple symbol or element, but the content behind it is the key to help this model.
A typical case is the rapid growth of children’s theme restaurants. According to the report of commercial real estate cloud think tank, there are more than 350 children’s theme restaurants operating in China by 2020, and the growth rate is still rising.
In foreign countries, the scale of this industry is even larger. Ginza Alice in Wonderland Restaurant in Tokyo, Japan, and Bear Theme Experience Hall in South Korea are well-known all over the world.
Especially after the introduction of the Bear Theme Experience Hall into China, the average daily passenger flow reached nearly 250, and the average daily turnover rate could reach as many as 10 times during the peak period.
Recently, Universal Studios, which has strong IPs such as Minions and Harry Potter, has also brought fire to a number of restaurants with the theme of "Minions" and "Butter Beer".
It can be said that children’s theme restaurants, which mainly focus on animation, animation and game IP, have great appeal to the vertical crowd, and also create a faster brand communication effect, and behind the booming is the greatest affirmation of the feasibility of the "IP+ catering" model.
Therefore, along this verified and feasible direction, bilibili has overcome the problem that the traditional "IP+ catering" dishes are difficult to blend with the decoration environment and theme, and has perfectly combined the street flavor with the online food culture, incorporating the complex elements such as personal design, emotion and culture.
Of course, historical experience tells us that,The winning magic weapon for catering industry to finally meet consumers’ demands is still taste and cost performance, which is also a topic that catering brands can not avoid for a long time.. At this point, the market and time may be needed to give more feedback.
Write it at the end
Under the new consumption wave, the combination with food culture IP has become a way for catering brands to stand out. With the emerging people who will love to become life, such as subculture and Eryuan, occupying the market, in the future, companies and brands with strong IP will play this model to the extreme.
This is the general trend under the background of the real economy returning to the main stage:Use online traffic to make up for the weakness of the real economy, and at the same time better present the online ecology offline.
On the other hand, as mentioned in the article, the catering industry’s emphasis on product quality will not change because of the diversification of operating models.
Any new idea of catering business model can’t violate this law. The model can raise the upper limit of the brand, and the quality determines the bottom line of the brand.
After all, in China, eating this thing is a trillion-dollar business, and it is also the skill of thousands of people.
References:
1. "Chemical Reaction of Wenchuang IP+ Catering" is billion euros.
2. "IP catering brand marketing will break out! The underlying logic behind it turns out to be like this … "Diners talk about catering for a long time.