As Chinese publishers gear up for their biggest ever year at the London Book Fair, Jo Lusby looks at the market for content in China, and a box office race that tells a bigger story about book, film and TV businesses in the world’s largest IP market.

The race was on: Who would grab the lion’s share of the RMB 5.83 billion (£665.9 million) 2019 Spring Festival box office? Would it be Chinese space crews battling to save Planet Earth from a direct collision with Jupiter? Or the first full-length feature film from that plucky porcine British export, Peppa Celebrates Chinese New Year?

At first, it seemed that the Year of the Pig was already in the bag for Peppa in January, when the utterly charming What is Peppa? the promotional trailer went viral, scoring more than a billion hits on social media. In a ground-breaking move, the short film targeted mobile video sharing adults rather than the core pre-school audience and employed production values usually saved for art house films. The film shows a baffled grandfather in a remote village on a mission to secure “a Peppa” for his urban grandson. Heart-warming and affectionate, it looked like UK franchise owners eOne had a guaranteed hit on their hands.

Peppa Pig and friends in the Chinese New Year movie

Meanwhile, the promotional machine for a very different box office rival was gearing up. The Wandering Earth has been billed as China’s first entirely home-grown sci-fi feature. Directed by Frant Gwo and based on a novella by Hugo Award-winning sci-fi writer Liu Cixin, the production was praised for its special effects, garnering reviews that compared it favourably with major US vehicles like The Martian. This was sufficient for it to rocket to the top spot, taking almost 50 percent of the holiday audience share. Peppa Pig, meanwhile, had to settle for 12^th place, reportedly grossing RMB 111 million, just under 2 percent of the holiday audience. Critics and parents online complained that the Alibaba Pictures-backed ‘feature film’ was little more than a selection of episodes cobbled together with live-action sequences.

This story is about more than two duelling blockbusters though. Creativity in China today is big business, with books, films, and television shows gathering big audiences and even bigger paydays for the platforms and companies that distribute them. And yet, as studios, producers, and publishers continue to attest, the control over what content reaches the eyes and ears of Chinese people is as tight as at any other time during the 40-year reform and opening period.

British children’s brand owners – a key strength of the UK creative economy – have come to depend on earnings from the Chinese market, hiring in specialist expertise to help manage complex and lucrative commercial relationships. Meanwhile, parental enthusiasm for wholesome creativity from abroad among Chinese parents is metered by government anxiety over foreign influences in children’s lives.

Ongoing government clampdowns has left businesses in the creative sector struggling to find stories that will simultaneously appeal to the masses and government censors

Ongoing government clampdowns on adult and children’s content perceived too edgy, too commercial, too foreign, or too opulent has left businesses in the creative sector on the back foot, struggling to find stories that will simultaneously appeal to the masses and government censors. There are formal and informal restrictions on TV streaming slots and print approvals related to foreign children’s properties, and Chinese publishers are thinking carefully before investing in new foreign book brands.

Undeniably, the commercial market is still healthy for Chinese and foreign authors alike. In 2018, children’s books continued to be the largest single category in the RMB 89 billion (£10 billion) book market, accounting for 25 percent of the total. Foreign authors lay significant claim to that bounty, with half of the top ten children’s bestsellers from overseas. Yet it is evergreen classics that benefit most, with Charlotte’s Web at number 1, and The Little Prince and Fantastic Mister Fox at numbers 7 and 10 respectively.

The Three Body Problem broke the dominance of contemporary classic novels

In adult fiction, it’s a similar story of long-tail classics, with eight of the top ten titles published at least ten years ago. Three were first published more than 30 years ago. Authors and publishers in China blame a combination of censorship and conservatism among publishers for the absence of new voices. There are rumours that the number of new ISBNs issued in 2018 fell by 25 percent, encouraging publishers to stick with what they know and look for a sure-fire hit.

Into that environment steps the once marginal subculture of sci-fi. The Wandering Earth was given an official endorsement of sorts when Chinese space crews were shown enjoying a private screening ahead of its official release. With Chinese sci-fi comedy Crazy Alien in second place, the genre jointly accounted for almost 70 percent of the total holiday box office.

The 55-year old science fiction writer Liu Cixin may be an unlikely beneficiary of the state-sponsored space programme. In print, his 2008 trilogy The Three Body Problem broke the dominance of contemporary classic novels in the 2018 top ten, taking third, fourth, and fifth places. Sci-fi has become a new safe haven for creatives, although as yet, Liu seems to be the only author who has benefited.

Lacking the wherewithal to go out on a limb for a new risky proposition, Chinese publishers are increasingly looking to hitch themselves to small and large screen success, whether it be a futuristic juggernaut or a mainstream TV animation series. As the largest ever cohort of Chinese publishers head to Olympia for the annual London Book Fair, the interplay between books, animations, and live features in China’s complex IP market has never been more relevant.

Jo Lusby is the co-founder of creative industries consultancy and agency, Pixie B Ltd. Until 2017, she was the head of Penguin Random House North Asia. She can be contacted at jo@pixieb.com.

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Peppa Pig, the children’s show that follows the life of an animated British piglet, is incredibly popular in China. It has racked up over 18 billion online views since its launch, whilst a recent viral video is poised to whisk five-year-old twins Mi Ni and Mi Ai from rural China to the gates of Buckingham Palace – creating a major win for Brand Britain along the way.

After watching an episode of Peppa Pig online in which Peppa visits the Queen at Buckingham Palace to go ‘splashing in puddles’, the twins made a video for the Queen, asking her if they could visit her in Buckingham Palace and splash in puddles together. The video went viral after the twins’ mother shared it on social media platform Weibo and in a matter of days it had caught the attention of the British Ambassador Barbara Woodward.

“Hello Mi Ni and Mi Ai,” said Dame Woodward. “I’m the British ambassador, so I’m the Queen’s representative in China. I’d like you to come and visit me in my house in Beijing, and we can perhaps have tea and scones in a British style.”

Peppa Pig visits the Queen

The ambassador’s video created a viral sensation of its own, with over 10 million views received in the first week but the biggest surprise was still to come. Video streaming platform Youku (who own the distribution Chinese rights to Peppa Pig) and the British Embassy have arranged for the twins – along with a pair of competition winners – to travel to London to visit Buckingham Palace. It isn’t clear at this time if the Queen is willing to go puddle jumping with the girls but it certainly has put Britain in a great light with a new generation of Chinese youngsters.

It’s incredible what soft power benefits this little piggy brings to market”

The willingness for Britain to engage in a little silliness and to help some dreams comes true will do wonders for a nation whose image has taken some blows on the international stage over the long drawn out process of Brexit. But some self-deprecating humour, the Royal family and further promotion of the great British export that is Peppa Pig are clearly adding cultural brownie points.

And not only has the Royal edition of Peppa Pig sparked a social media phenomenon but a trailer for a new Peppa Pig film (made specifically for the Chinese market by China’s Alibaba Pictures and Canada’s Entertainment One) has already attracted an astonishing 1.5 billion views on Weibo.

The trailer follows an elderly sheep farmer who, after his grandson asks for the pig as his Chinese New Year present, is trying to work out what Peppa Pig is. The video plays on the gulf between the older and younger generations as well as China’s rural and urban divide. “It hits the heart strings. China has modernised so fast and these old people have been left behind both technologically and by cultural trends, but the love is still here,” Shaun Rein, managing director of China Market Research Group in Shanghai, told the Financial Times.

The film, titled “Peppa Celebrates Chinese New Year” is released on February 5^th, in time for the Chinese New Year holiday break – a time when most of China’s major films are released.

After a series of poor marketing decisions by other major European brands, it’s incredible to see the soft power benefits that this little piggy brings to market.

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The raid in the city of Yangzhou, an hour outside of Shanghai, has led to 24 arrests so far and took place in the run up to China’s ‘Singles’ Day’ shopping bonanza on 11^th November. The Singles’ Day event was created by Alibaba – China’s largest online shopping platform – and is now the biggest single sales day globally. Alibaba took in excess of £19 billion on Singles’ Day this year, and celebrities including Pharrell Williams and Nicole Kidman performed at the launch ceremony hosted by Alibaba founder Jack Ma.

“We timed the raid to be just before Singles’ Day as we knew they would be stockpiling and preparing for a busy day,” said Niall Trainor, in-house counsel of Entertainment One, the company that owns the Peppa Pig brand. “We’ve done raids before but to seize so many goods in one morning is exceptionally rare.”

The counterfeiters were stockpiling fake products in the run-up to Singles Day

Counterfeits products are estimated to cost British brands over £17 billion pounds a year and many of these fakes originate from China. Alibaba have come under criticism for not doing enough to stop the sale of counterfeit goods on its site and this year, the US added Alibaba’s consumer to consumer website Taobao to its ‘Notorious Markets’ list – a list that identifies companies known to sell fake goods.

Counterfeits products are estimated to cost British brands over £17 billion pounds a year

In 2014, Alibaba signed an intellectual property protection agreement with CBBC to help combat the sale of fakes online and offline.

“CBBC and Alibaba have dedicated contact points, and have been able to communicate on particular problems, for British businesses, large and small,” said CBBC’s Executive Director Jeff Astle. “This has solved issues for dozens of rights owners, and very importantly, there have been a series of large-scale cooperation projects on offline criminal enforcement,” he said.

In 2014, Alibaba signed an intellectual property protection agreement with CBBC to help combat the sale of fakes online and offline.

The day before the raid Tim Moss, Chief Executive of the UK Intellectual Property Office, was at Alibaba’s head office in Hangzhou to witness the signing of an extension of the agreement.

“People are really concerned about IP protection and in particular about IP protection online,” said Moss. “This means that a lot of responsibilities falls on big platforms like Alibaba, and that’s understandable. Globalisation and the digitisation of the retail and commerce sector has had a profound impact of companies, their employees and their customers,” he said. “It is critical that users of online platforms are confident that their IP is protected and it is great to hear of the good work that Alibaba are doing in this space.”

Moss said that the development of big data and artificial intelligence will help identify where things go wrong and also emphasised the importance of targeting illegal offline activity. “For every illegitimate online sale there will be a physical transaction at some point, either as a payment or as a distribution of goods.  They shouldn’t be able to hide behind internet platforms,” he said.

It was the sharing of intelligence between the CBBC, Alibaba and Entertainment One, alongside the involvement of law enforcement agencies that led to the successful Peppa Pig raid.

Over 600,000 fake Peppa Pig products were captured in the raid

Increased cooperation and communication between both government organisations, trade bodies and online platforms will help create better practise and policy, Moss argues. “We’ve moved from looking at individual issues to more of a holistic approach and looking at the whole industry,” said Moss.

“Collaboration has come into its own, we’ve achieved synergy and see eye to eye,” said Richard Sun of Alibaba. “I see the MOU [Memorandum of Understanding] as a tangible expression of a meeting of the minds and the sharing of values”.

The partnership with the CBBC has seen Alibaba actively stepping up their counterfeiting operations with automated systems that sweep their sales sites in order to flag dubious posting. They are also now working with companies to not only remove counterfeit products from their site but to utilise users’ registered data in order to locate and target factories and warehouses and the individuals responsible for them. Earlier this year Alibaba successfully sued sellers of fake Swarovski watches and their partnership with the CBBC saw them take down an illegal organisation selling fake Castrol and Shell lubricants last summer.

However, the demand for cheap goods still outweighs the demand for authentic merchandise among China’s rapidly growing middle class. “We not only want to disrupt the supply but we want to stop the demand. If we could remove the demand that would be ideal,” said Moss. “We are on a journey. The more you do the more you realise what you have to do.”

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