Quan’s Stickers Downloads reaches 2.6
By: Kazuhiro Mizuno
Tags: Startup, Anime, Character, Messaging, Japanese

The reasons Quan Characters became widespread Globally

The evolution of Internet.

Since 2010, Mainstream Internet has shifted from PC to Smartphone. One of the Applications with the highest growth, are Messaging Apps, such as LINE and WeChat.

Today in 2019, it is being said that around 4 Billion people around the Globe are Monthly Active Users of these Apps.

We managed to increase the Exposures of our Characters by serfing on the popularity waves and released the Contents at the right time.Conventionally, [To increase Character’s Exposure] has always been the first hurdle in Character Business.

Increase Exposure = Being known through Mass media (Movie, TV, Publication). And it’s been a really hard thing to do.

But the Stickers has become an extremely convenient method of achieving it.

Characters can now become widely known without the need to spend fortunes on the Mass Media Outlet.

They attracted fans globally, and products sold well even when they have never been shown on Mass Media before.

This, is how we do Character Business on the Internet.

2. Advantages as a Japanese Firm

Before Stickers and LINE were introduced, Japan already have a culture of sending Emoji and decorated Mails.

As LINE got introduced, sending Stickers via LINE feel natural to Japanese. (Many Creators are also already in the Business)

Emoji was introduced via I-Mode in 1999.

They are then introduced to Apple iOS and Google Gmail.

And in 2010, got globally supported in Unicode6.0.

Other Messaging Apps also introduced Stickers around 1–2 years after LINE.

Emoji started to become popular in America & Europe around 2010,

so their familiarity with Emoji (Non-verbal & Visual communication) is around 10 years late compared to Japan.

After Quan released Stickers on LINE, we had a direct negotiation with Facebook Messenger & WeChat Teams on the matter.

When they also started to provide Stickers, we became one of their initial Sticker providers. (Also the first Japanese Firm to do so on both Platforms.)

Personally, I was a producer for the Largest Decoration Mails Site in Japan.

And many of our Staffs are well versed in Emoji, Decoration Mails, and Stickers.As such, things turned out quite smoothly when we negotiated with Facebook and Tencent.

In Quan, we put our knowledges of Emoji, Decoration Mails, and Stickers into our Characters, and provide them to Messaging Apps around the Globe.

While many Japanese IT companies prefer to borrow proven Business Models from USA, we take our pride in daring to do the opposite.

3. The Power of Data

One of the differences between Stickers and conventional Character Business, is being verifyable via Data.

Quan had a really rough time when releasing our first Stickers in USA & China, because we have totally no ideas of what are popular there.

After the release, Characters that we didn’t expected became much more popular than the ones that we did.

After that, by analyzing the data provided via each Platform, we were able to pinpoint the reasons for the popularity.

And we became successful after adapting those data for the later products.

(Our Ranking became №1 in most Platforms that we released the Stickers on)To be precise, the following data were utilized for later production.

- Usage Frequency for each Sticker Expression & Situation (By Expression, and by Country)

- Popular Animals (By Country)

- Popular Colors, Design, Forms

- Target Users (Age, Gender)

Sticker is a very simple form of Content amongst all of the Character Contents.

Quan has created new Characters by studying the Data,

like Netflix and other Internet-Based Entertainment Companies,

which utilized Customer data in their Creativity.

And this style of Business is likely to be the trend from now on.

Character Business from now

1. Internet-Based Characters will become a new kind of Brand that is understood by people around the globe.

We had set up a theory on obtaining Recognition of Internet-based Characters,

and through the data obtained from verification via Stickers, we can say that we have obtained a great result.

On the other hand, Recognition is not the only process in the Character Business.

There are other things that we must consider, such as mid-to-long term development, Increase the number of Fan base, Licensing Products, Collaboration with other Contents,Business Promotions, etc.

And, Internet-based Company is quite weak when it came to these processes.

Quan is generally made up with Creative people and those who have experiences in B2C.

As such, we are not really adept when it came to BizDev kind of Business Development……

…… But we are no longer in the position of avoiding it.

Although the Characters are borned from the Internet,

from now on, being able to do both B2C & B2B, both Offine & Online,

and further develop things overall will be the most important thing that we have to consider.

The reason for this, is because Character Business is a Branding Business.

Like Luxury Brands, Characters are entities that are [Accumulation of people’s ideal in the long run].

Which is why doing Business by adding values to them is possible.

Characters from well known Companies, such as Sanrio and Nintendo, are Global Brands.

When Sanrio became most successful on developing oversea Market, they made Hello Kitty collaborate with other Western Brands.

In Quan, we are facing with the Challenge of whether it is possible to develop Internet-Based Characters as [Accumulation of people’s ideal in the long run].

For example, Character Stickers are used as substitutes of the User’s Emotion & Expression through Non-Verbal mean.

In Messaging, when more the User use the same Character & Stickers, then the Character will progressively become part of the User, thus increasing its value.

If we can utilize this value beyond the Stickers, such as on other Net Media (such as TikTok), or beyond the Internet, then it might be possible to turn those Characters into important entities for the Customers.

This, is where Quan should put our strength into.

If we failed, then Quan should be nothing more than just [A Company that distribute loads of Stickers].

2. Update on Character Industry (Creative Industry)

Many Japanese Business people treated Character Industry as being a derivation of Anime, Manga, and Game Industry.

But as stated as above, we can treat them as being a kind of Brand Business.

In practice, there are many Western companies that deal with both Apparel brand and Characters at the same time.

Both of them share the same principles, as they work by Licensing out their IP, or by developing Business relations with other companies.I think that Japanese Character Industry is more than capable of appealing themselves to the world,

by learning from the wisdom of personnels in the Internet, Branding, Advertizing, Financial, and various other Industries.

That’s because Japan has the highest number of Creators who are capable of creating Characters out from 0 to 1.

The problem lies within the lack of BizDev people who can optimize and deploy out the contents on the global scale.

By collaborating with people from other Industries, it would be possible to tip the balance,

and give a significant impact to the World.

One of Quan’s Mission, is to further the progression of Character Industry.

We aim to make this a proud industry, where Characters aren’t merely just made, but have further Business valued added to them.Finally,

This time, I wrote what I considered to be a surprisingly Objective view of Quan’s Character Business so far, as well as the possible future.

The reason for that, is because I wanted to explain the possibilities and values of Internet-based Character Business through Quan as an example.

Next time, I will write with more personal thoughts into it (If there’s a demand). Please press Like & Follow.

If you’re interested in Quan,

here’s my Twitter account. @mizunoq