How many sets of LINE stickers do you have? Even if you don't buy stickers often, you may have seen your friends using Taiwanese original IP works such as White Rotten Cat, Cat Claw, Cat and Bug Kapo, and Idle Seal. The main operator who launched these stickers is Lu Taijun, deputy general manager of the Sticker and Creator Business Department of Taiwan LINE.
2024 is the 10th year since the launch of LINE Original Market (a platform that allows users to list stickers for sale). The number of creators in Taiwan has exceeded 1 million, and the number of sticker sets listed in Taiwan has exceeded 10 million.
According to LINE's announcement of the average cumulative sales of creators in the Taiwan market in 2024 in early December 2024, the sales of the top 10 alone reached 1.52 billion yen (approximately NT$323 million), an increase from 1.45 billion yen the previous year. Nearly 5%; if a set of stickers costs 35 yuan (equivalent to LINE 50 tokens), Taiwanese consumers have purchased nearly 9.23 million sets of stickers just by purchasing the works of the top 10 Taiwanese creators, which is an astonishing amount.
"Taiwan and Japan are the biggest key markets for LINE stickers," Lu Taijun said with a smile. "Taiwanese people can already play with stickers to a proficient level." For example, in May 2024, LINE launched the sticker collage function, which can be freely combined. 6. When posting pictures were initially only open to 10% of users for fear of overburdening the server, they became a sensation on the social platform. Users of stickers went online one after another, hoping to create interesting sticker messages on their own. (such as bento dishes).
How to make Taiwan one of the largest markets for LINE stickers? Lu Taijun pointed out that the key is to invest in local creators in Taiwan.
Interesting stickers can spread in chat rooms! The first priority in communication is "localization"
The main profit model of LINE stickers is the profit sharing from the sales of stickers on the platform. First, 30% of the official app store's commission will be deducted, and the remaining 70% will be split in half to the creators and LINE.
Lu Taijun, who joined the LINE team in 2015, believes that in order for the profit model to take shape, first of all, creators must earn income. "Only then can the sticker service be sustainable and the market will be healthy." Therefore, helping to develop the IP industry becomes It is very important. When the number of creators and the number of sticker sets continues to increase, it will better promote the sales of LINE stickers.
The second is localization. Lu Taijun pointed out that some memes are understood by Taiwanese people and are difficult to explain to foreigners. When the stickers of overseas creators are translated, it will be difficult to authentically present the context, such as homophonic memes. She realized that in order for everyone to use stickers, the key is to fit the local context.
Expand IP and licensing cooperation, and gradually expand the creator ecosystem
However, this road is long and difficult for two major reasons. First, Taiwan's creator ecosystem was not yet mature at the time, and there was not a large amount of input from creators in the market. Second, in order to promote its own services, LINE mostly had free stickers on the platform, and consumers were generally not willing to buy stickers.
In order to solve the above two problems, Lu Taijun discovered creators, reformed the sticker sales rankings, held physical event promotions, assisted creators to build their own IP, successfully promoted peripheral products and licensing cooperation, and made them become "stars" in front of the public. , step by step to shape the concept of creating value.
She contacted the creators on the LINE sticker rankings one by one. Lu Taijun said that originally, the interaction between the platform and the creators was very simple. Stickers were put on the shelves and income was collected, and they hardly ever met each other. "But I think that in order to be easily found by them, I can understand their background and personality on the one hand, and on the other hand Only then will we have the opportunity to do more follow-up cooperation."
Lu Taijun said that LINE sticker creation sometimes reflects a person's story, personality, and characteristics, and it is her ability to make them visible and recognized by the outside world.
She found that sticker creators come from all walks of life, and half of them are not from the art field. Their creative inspirations are diverse, and most of them come from daily life or the workplace, including healing, world-weary, ugly, and cute stickers. "What kind of stickers are there?" People will like any content, so creating diversity of content is what we need to do."
Therefore, she improved the existing MVP system (the one with the highest sales in each list each month is the MVP of that month). In addition to additional bonuses and marketing promotions, she removed newcomers (referring to creators who launched less than 5 sets of stickers) from the sales list. This will make it easier for new creators to stand out and be seen, thereby expanding the LINE creator ecosystem.
The first physical event to promote the event was well attended and helped creators become corporate partners.
Originally, the LINE sticker department was still small and was not inclined to organize physical marketing activities that cost time, money and manpower. It almost only had online promotional activities. Lu Taijun began to organize offline physical activities in 2016. The purpose is to allow creators and fans to have substantial interaction, break away from the frame of "people drawing in front of the computer", and establish connections with the audience. Therefore, she recommends that creators participate together. "Taiwan Cultural and Creative Industry Expo" is a well-known exhibition in Taiwan's cultural and creative industry.
Since this is the first time to participate in a physical exhibition, I don't know whether the online rankings can translate into actual crowds. Lu Taijun and his team tried their best to assemble the most popular lineup, including 12 creators such as Elementary School Textbook Counterattack and Wasteful Girlfriend. She told the creator that as long as the pictures were good and people were present, she would take care of the rest. The result was beyond the team's expectations. On the first day of playing, the crowd was full.
Back and forth, Lu Taijun led the team to the cultural fair 4 times, including the cultural fair that will be held in Kaohsiung in 2022, to help prepare for the smash hit Love River Giant Creation. In order to create buzz for the event, she launched a team of original IPs. These IPs have a good chance of boosting the buzz, including 6 IP groups including PP mini Penguin, Ma Rabbit, and Douka Channel.
Lu Taijun said with a smile that when it was still in the trial charging and supervision stage, because the entity was too huge and conspicuous, fans passing by took pictures and uploaded it, and later it became a holy place to check in during the event. "Looking back ten years ago, I would never have imagined that this day would come to pass," she said. Taiwanese creators are like "diamonds in the sand" and need to be discovered. The popularity brought by its huge size has led many companies to negotiate licensing cooperation. Gradually allowing creators to gain attention and even form an industry is the greatest source of achievement for Lu Taijun.
Promote new features, innovate marketing plans, and maintain sales of stickers
In addition to supporting sticker creators, Lu Taijun is also responsible for providing back-up support, including event marketing and promoting new features or services, in order to maintain the popularity of LINE users purchasing stickers.
She mentioned that Taiwanese users' demand for stickers now sometimes includes features that even Japan has never thought of, such as the pinning service in LINE's sticker premium plan (the all-you-can-eat plan with a minimum price of 60 yuan per month). , you can pin commonly used stickers to the user's sticker list without spending time looking for stickers. After being launched in the Taiwan market, it immediately became a favorite feature of value plan users.
However, functional updates cannot be achieved in a short period of time. It may take several months to complete the process of cross-border team communication, user surveys, development, etc. Lu Taijun said that content has a relatively good chance of being achieved, such as left-handed (or non-dominant) people. The hand-painted sticker series and the homophone series are successful examples of finding corners that Taiwanese users will like and launching a new series of stickers. What the team learned from this is that it does not necessarily have to be functional innovation to attract people. If people feel "this is interesting", the market will be willing to pay for it.
When the creator economy is established, IP will have more and more opportunities to obtain commercial cooperation. At this time, community management is a relatively important indicator of influence, because customers will care about whether cooperation can achieve the desired publicity effect. However, creators who started out as LINE stickers and become popular do not necessarily have the same level of influence on social platforms, and may even have to start from scratch. "This is an opportunity for us to start promoting creators' LINE social accounts in 2024. "After purchasing stickers, you can join the creator's official LINE account to ensure that his fans can see new stickers as soon as they are released.
Lu Taijun has been promoting the creation of LINE stickers in Taiwan for nearly 10 years, but her vision has never been limited to the LINE stickers themselves. She will not only talk about how creators can sell more stickers, but focus on "what can be done next." Such as commercial licensing cooperation, peripheral products, etc. She believes that if their goal is to only be at the top of the sticker rankings, their development will be limited. The diversified development of IP can make the sticker service last longer.
