艺述事获第26届IAI传鉴国际广告奖金奖 加冕创意之夜

This article covers Yishi (Arts & Brands) winning four awards at the 26th IAI International Advertising Festival. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Core event update: The 2026 IAI International Creative Festival was held in Beijing. A total of 4,105 works competed in this edition, with only 3.1% winning gold, 4.3% silver, and 6.9% bronze awards, making competition extremely intense. Yishi stood out from all entries to take home four major awards, including the event’s only Gold Award for Culture & Art IP Cross-Over Marketing, a Bronze Award for Cross-Over Marketing, as well as two honors: Annual Cultural Tourism Marketing Agency and Annual Most Valuable System/Tool/Platform.

2. Latest industry trends: As the era of easy traffic growth ends, brand competition has evolved from product competition to competition over customer perception and cultural identity. IP has become a critical growth engine for companies to navigate economic cycles. The industry has jointly established the Chuanjian IP Development Center to aggregate high-quality global IP resources and drive long-term growth for brands.

This article provides reference cases and industry insights on IP marketing and brand global expansion for brand owners, as detailed below:

1. Industry and consumer trends: With fading traffic dividends, brand competition has upgraded to competition over cultural perception, and IP has become a core asset for brands to weather market cycles. Modern consumers respond more strongly to brand co-branding content that carries cultural depth and emotional resonance. Cross-border cultural IP global expansion has emerged as a new high-growth track.

2. Actionable marketing case reference: Chagee’s co-branding campaign with the British Library for its expansion into Singapore and Malaysia aligned perfectly with Chagee’s "gather over tea" brand core with the British Library’s "Mad Hatter Tea Party" friendship philosophy, enabling an in-depth dialogue between Eastern and Western cultures that promoted products while communicating the brand’s culture. This co-branding approach is highly valuable for brands to learn from.

3. Accessible partnership opportunities: The newly launched Chuanjian IP Development Center aggregates high-quality global IP resources, and Yishi holds end-to-end operational capabilities for culture and art IP. Brands can partner with these players to build out cultural marketing and global expansion initiatives.

This article summarizes growth opportunities in the saturated market and actionable insights for IP cross-over collaboration for sellers, with key takeaways below:

1. Industry opportunity outlook: After the end of easy traffic growth, cultural IP co-branding has become a new growth track for brands. There are substantial market opportunities in cultural outbound expansion, including both Chinese cultural IP going global and Chinese brands expanding overseas through partnerships with international IP. The two cases featured in this article validate the feasibility of this direction.

2. Actionable lessons to learn: IP co-branding should not stop at superficial logo placement. Brands need to align the spiritual core of an IP with their own brand identity to build culturally rooted immersive experiences. For example, Chagee matched its brand positioning with a Western fairy tale IP, and Dunhuang Culture Creative launched a campaign at a top-tier overseas shopping district centered on the theme of China-Thailand diplomatic relations — both projects earned strong recognition from local markets.

3. Partnerable resources: Yishi’s Li Huo IP Licensing Operation SaaS system already hosts more than 20 domestic and overseas cultural heritage institutions and over 40 brand owners. Combined with the newly launched Chuanjian IP Development Center’s aggregation of global high-quality IP resources, sellers can access these resources to launch their own IP co-branding projects.

This article outlines business opportunities and references for digital transformation for factories producing cultural merchandise and co-branded products, with key insights below:

1. Product design and development direction: The market increasingly favors products integrated with culture and art IP. Whether it is tea beverage merchandise or cultural creative products, customers now demand cultural depth. Designs that blend Eastern and Western cultures, or showcase Chinese traditional culture going global, resonate particularly well with consumers both at home and abroad. Factories can adjust their product design strategies to align with this trend.

2. Untapped business opportunities: As the IP licensing industry matures, more and more brands are launching IP co-branded products. Demand for cultural co-branded products is growing across both domestic and overseas markets — for example, the Dunhuang cultural creative outbound project to Thailand featured in the article earned widespread attention. Factories can partner with cultural heritage IP resources to develop co-branded products and unlock new revenue streams.

3. Insights for digital transformation: The IP licensing industry is shifting toward digitalized, standardized operations. Factories can cut communication costs and mitigate copyright risks by partnering through platform-based systems. Factories can also adopt this model to digitize their own order and supply chain management to improve operational efficiency.

This article shares the latest development trends and mature solutions for the IP licensing service industry, with key takeaways below:

1. Industry development trends: Following the end of traffic growth dividends, brand demand for IP licensing services has grown substantially. Culture and art IP, particularly cultural heritage and tourism IP, is the current industry hotspot, and supporting domestic cultural heritage IP to go global has emerged as a new growth driver. The industry as a whole needs digitalized, standardized operation tools to solve pain points in traditional licensing models.

2. Core customer pain points: Traditional IP licensing involves fragmented, cumbersome processes. Decentralized cultural IP assets are difficult to manage and trace, and risks during the licensing process are hard to control. Most small and medium IP owners and brands lack end-to-end IP operation capabilities. All these pain points represent entry points for service providers.

3. Reference for mature solutions: Yishi’s core methodology of "resource monetization, systematic branding, productization of assets, sustainable operation", paired with its self-developed Li Huo IP Licensing SaaS system, enables process visibility, asset traceability, and risk control. This solution model provides valuable reference for peer service providers.

This article offers insights on industry demand and replicable operational models for IP-related platform operators, as detailed below:

1. Core market demand for IP platforms: In the saturated market environment, both brand owners and IP owners need platforms that can aggregate high-quality global IP resources and provide full-process, standardized licensing operation services, to solve the pain points of traditional IP licensing: fragmented resources, non-standard processes, and uncontrollable risks.

2. Replicable operational practices: Yishi’s Li Huo IP Licensing Operation and Management SaaS system is China’s first independently intellectual property-owned IP licensing management system for cultural heritage and tourism IP. It has already attracted more than 20 domestic and overseas cultural heritage institutions and over 40 brand owners to join, and has supported more than 100 licensing partnerships. Its core model covers the entire IP business workflow and enables digitalized, standardized management, making it a valuable reference for peer platforms.

3. Industry trend and risk reminders: The Chuanjian IP Development Center has been launched to aggregate IP resources and empower the whole industry. Platforms can follow this trend to access resources and expand business, while prioritizing IP asset traceability and risk control to avoid operational risks such as copyright disputes.

This article presents the latest industry developments and innovative business models in the cultural IP licensing industry, with high reference value for research. Key insights are as follows:

1. Latest industry developments: Current brand competition has upgraded from product competition to competition over customer perception and cultural identity, and IP has become a core asset for companies to navigate market cycles. Digitalized operation of cultural heritage IP and cultural IP outbound expansion are the latest development directions of the industry. The industry has jointly established the Chuanjian IP Development Center to aggregate high-quality global IP resources and empower the whole industry, which is a new trend of industrial ecosystem development.

2. Reference for innovative business models: Yishi has developed an innovative full-stack IP operation business model. Offline, it builds "Yishi Museum Collection", an art curation-focused mixed-use commercial space that integrates exhibitions, retail and art education to build an immersive cultural community platform; online, it launched the Li Huo IP Licensing SaaS system to empower IP owners to realize digital asset operation, covering the full value chain from IP development to go-to-market marketing, making for a mature tested model.

3. Open questions for future industry exploration: In the age of AI, how to enhance the brand value of cultural IP, and how to help domestic cultural heritage IP develop contextually appropriate narratives for overseas markets to enable successful cultural outbound expansion, are new questions that the industry needs to explore moving forward. End-to-end digitalization is the core development direction for the IP industry.