Chao News client reporter Fang Tao.
How long has it been since you ripped off a calendar?
In the first month of 2024, the old yellow calendar has become the latest "wealth management product". Because it is exactly the same date as the 2024 Gregorian calendar, the 1996 calendar magically rushed to the hot search on Weibo, setting off a wave of nostalgia.
On the second-hand trading platform Xianyu, the search volume of the old calendar in 1996 soared by 600%, and the transaction volume also increased significantly, with the average price of goods at about 94 yuan, a 30-fold increase.
The 1996 calendar that exploded on the second-hand trading platform "Xianyu". Screenshot of the app.
Behind the 28 years of "memory killing", many netizens suddenly realized that unconsciously, smartphones have gradually become a tool for people to manage their time. In the age of the Internet, do we still need a calendar? With the questions of many netizens, the reporter took an in-depth look at this industry that records time and is gradually forgotten by time.
A calendar, a history of China's advertising flow
The main road of Sunshine Community in Yiwu City, the color of the shops along the street is red, and most of them are named after a certain calendar and monthly calendar firm. Locally, this humble inner road of the neighborhood has a well-known name: "Calendar Street".
Yiwu "calendar street".
Not long ago, when the reporter came to the store of Wang Ruiqing, vice president of the Yiwu Cultural Gift Industry Association, the enthusiastic middle-aged man immediately put down his work and brought a cup of hot tea.
Last year, several customers asked me to customize this product (1996 calendar), but I felt like it was a gust of wind on the Internet, and it didn't last long. I asked them, how many orders can you pack? If the production line is started, the amount of work will be large. ”
In Wang Ruiqing's view, the 1996 calendar is a bit inexplicably popular in the second-hand market. With more than 20 years of experience, he did not blindly follow the trend. He told reporters that don't look at a small calendar, but the production process is very complicated. First of all, more than 300 pages of different date layout design, and then go through machine printing, manual sorting, paper cutting, processing head, punching, binding and packaging ......There are more than 20 processes.
A traditional hand-torn calendar in Wang Ruiqing's store.
More than 10 years ago was the first era of our industry. At that time, Yiwu calendar accounted for the largest market share in the country. On this street, at its most glorious time, there were more than 380 businesses engaged in calendars, desk calendars, and wall calendars, and all the cars were parked, and people couldn't squeeze in during the peak season. ”
As the first generation of practitioners in Yiwu's traditional calendar industry, Wang Ruiqing has a lot of knowledge about the development process of the industry. In the era when the Internet was not yet widespread, calendars were a must-have daily necessities for every household. It is precisely because of the unique attributes of entering thousands of households that it also made it the darling of the advertising industry at that time.
Once upon a time, at the end of the year, the company customized calendars, desk calendars and printed corporate product announcements, which became a fashion of the times. Major government agencies, banks, and Xinhua bookstores are all big customers in the traditional calendar industry.
Olympic Calendar". **Provided by respondents.
What impressed Wang Ruiqing the most was that at the end of 2007, he obtained the exclusive authorization to produce the Beijing Olympic calendar production. That year, the "Olympic Calendar" was reprinted more than 10 times, selling hundreds of thousands of copies, and at its busiest time, the two machines in the factory were running 24 hours a day, and fifty or sixty workers were too busy to ......
Walking on the "calendar street", the reporter saw a passionate slogan on the wall - "the best publicity platform for corporate publicity and brand promotion." Telling the glory of the industry in the past, this slogan has a mottled feeling.
Yiwu "calendar street".
Wang Ruiqing told reporters that in a sense, the development of the traditional calendar industry is a history of changes in Chinese advertising. With the development of the times, the diversion of the advertising industry has become a trend, and industries such as umbrellas, T-shirts, notebooks, napkin boxes and other industries have become the positions of advertising competition. The traditional calendar industry has long since lost its edge.
On October 31, 2013, the Commission for Discipline Inspection issued the "Notice on Strictly Prohibiting the Purchase, Printing and Sending of New Year's Cards and Other Items", which strictly prohibits the purchase, printing, mailing, and giving of New Year's cards, postcards, calendars and other items. After the regulations were introduced, the orders for the procurement calendar and annual calendar decreased rapidly.
The audience is decreasing, the profits are getting thinner, and the industrial structure is relatively backward......A series of industry pain points have caused many traditional calendar operators to transform to industries such as New Year's pictures and couplets. Today, there are only more than 20 traditional calendar merchants left on the "Calendar Street".
The reporter learned from Ding Hongbing, secretary general of the Yiwu Cultural Gifts Industry Association, that taking the wall calendar in the traditional calendar industry as an example, the annual sales volume of paper wall calendars in the Yiwu market in 2023 will reach more than 20 million copies, with a turnover of about 40 or 50 million yuan. Taking into account factors such as labor and prices, compared with more than 10 years ago, the sales volume easily reached 10 million yuan, and the market shrinkage is an indisputable fact.
Embracing big IP, "cultural creativity + calendar" is the next outlet?
Almost at the same time that the traditional calendar industry is in a difficult situation, the publishing industry has unexpectedly opened up a new track in the cultural consumption market.
In fact, the fusion of calendar and culture is not new.
*Period: "Forbidden City Calendar". Source: Palace Museum WeChat***
In 1932, in order to publicize the Palace Museum's collection to the public, the Palace Museum launched the Palace Museum Calendar, which was published in one volume per year, bound in loose-leaf binding, and distributed by merchants in Beijing and Shanghai. At that time, a trend of gift-giving was formed among literati and scholars. After the prose master Liang Shiqiu won it, he praised it as "the best work in the calendar." ”
Unfortunately, due to the turbulent situation during the ** period, the "Forbidden City Calendar" at that time disappeared after only five years of printing.
In 2009, the Forbidden City Publishing House (renamed the Palace Museum Publishing House in 2011) refocused its attention on this dusty "cultural and creative calendar", and took the lead in making an attempt of "IP + calendar", redesigning the binding based on the "Forbidden City Calendar" of the ** period, and launching the 2010 edition of the "Palace Museum Calendar".
The 2024 calligraphy and painting edition of the "Palace Museum Calendar" will be published by the Palace Museum Publishing House. Source: Palace Museum WeChat***
This "Forbidden City Calendar" with the "palace wall red" of the Forbidden City as the background color is more like a pocket edition of the art album, which was popular as soon as it was released, and was affectionately called "red bricks" by the majority of enthusiasts.
Today, the Palace Museum Calendar, which has been published for 14 consecutive years and has sold more than 500,000 copies, has become a cultural business card of the Palace Museum and a well-deserved phenomenal product of the "Cultural and Creative Calendar".
Inspired by this, in recent years, poetry, calligraphy, comics, health knowledge, and popular science of animals and plants have all become popular themes in the calendar. Buying a "cultural and creative calendar" has become a unique ritual for many young people in the New Year.
The "cultural and creative calendar" loved by young people
Major museums and publishing houses have also embraced IP and come up with new ideas. The People's Medical Publishing House (hereinafter referred to as the People's Health Publishing House) is one of them. Since 2018, the Human Health Society has launched the "Materia Medica" series of calendars for 7 consecutive years, featuring hand-painted Materia Medica, and sales have been good.
It is worth noting that this year, the Human Health Club also aimed at young people and launched the "Family Interactive Game Rong ** Desk Calendar" and "Chinese Year Hidden in the 24 Solar Terms". Feng Li, the head of children's publishing at the Human Health Society, is the planner of this calendar.
Many of the young people who love cultural and creative products have become parents of their children. Combining books with desk calendars, so that culture, art and popular science knowledge can enter family parent-child activities in a national style and fashion way, may be more impressive to them. ”
Family interactive game "Desk Calendar" "Chinese Year Hidden in the 24 Solar Terms" published by the People's Medical Publishing House. Photo courtesy of the People's Medical Publishing House.
Feng Li told reporters that when she planned this calendar, on the basis of solar terms knowledge and traditional Chinese medicine elements, she incorporated more novel board games, handmade, knowledge explanations and other new functions, and the stand of the desk calendar can also be fully adapted to mobile phones and ipads. Although it has not been on the market for a long time, the sales volume has not yet been fully counted, but the feedback from users who have got this desk calendar is very good.
Strive for young people to innovate their needs in cultural inheritance
Nowadays, the practical function of the calendar seems to be gradually weakened, why do we need a calendar in our lives?
They are in different corners of the industry and give their own reasons.
No matter how the form of the calendar changes, our plans for life will not change. Isn't there a lot of emphasis on 'time management' these days? For children, the calendar is actually a good medium to form the concept of time from the change of solar terms and the alternation of the four seasons. ”
Feng Li is not pessimistic about the future of the calendar industry, in her opinion, as Chinese culture is gradually gaining attention and recognition around the world, more and more young people are also realizing the beauty of traditional culture and the importance of cultural inheritance. At present, the "cultural and creative calendar" has gradually become a consumer product that combines aesthetic value and cultural value, as long as it can continue to win the hearts of young people with culture and creativity, this industry will always be full of vitality.
In the eyes of adherents of the traditional calendar industry such as Wang Ruiqing and Ding Hongbing, it has long become a consensus to strive for young consumers.
In recent years, Wang Ruiqing's calendar brand "Ruimantang" has successively settled in **, Pinduoduo, Jingdong and other commercial platforms, in addition to the fixed sales channels for many years, online sales have become the main business.
At the same time, the traditional calendar industry has also launched a series of products such as European calendars, imitation calendars, and memorization calendars, and there are more and more private customized orders that meet the preferences of young people.
Private customized products that meet the preferences of young people. Photographed in Wang Ruiqing's store.
In real life, there is an intriguing phenomenon: it is difficult for us to see the shadow of the calendar in the rental house, but we always find the yellowed calendar in our ancestral house and old house. Perhaps this is the meaning of the existence of the calendar, the taste of home and the taste of the year. ”
Ding Hongbing told reporters that when the New Year is pasted with a prosperous and festive calendar, when encountering life events such as weddings, funerals, and weddings, he flips through the hand-tossed calendar, picks a good day, and chooses a good time, which is still an indispensable living habit among the majority of middle-aged and elderly groups, and it is their expectation of a better life. Keeping a traditional calendar is also a cultural heritage.
In the past, in Yiwu market, it was a very proud thing to talk about making calendars. I think maybe the market will shrink, but the calendar industry will certainly not go away. As long as there are people who need them, there must be people who will continue to do it. In his words, Ding Hongbing was quite emotional, I don't know whether he missed his youth of hard work and entrepreneurship, or the era of tearing up his days.
*Please indicate the source".