With a cost of less than 1 cent and a harvest of billions, Ultraman Card has become a hard currency for primary school students to socialize with.

I remember that many years ago, Ultraman Card was used by primary school students. It was all the rage in the industry, and every little boy in every household had dozens of Ultraman cards, and the cards in his hands were the talk of the town whenever he went out.

Now Ultraman Card is back and more exquisite, becoming a social currency in the student circle.

It is nothing new for elementary school students to spend thousands of dollars on Ultraman cards.

Since 2019, domestic news has continued to break out that elementary school students have bought valuable Ultraman cards at canteens without telling their parents, ranging from ordinary to rare versions. Their nature is like drawing a blind box. The rarer the card, the harder it is to buy it, so you need to buy a lot of cards to "try your luck".

What is the magic power of Ultraman cards that makes students dream about them?

｜01｜

The top IP among primary school students

Ultraman’s status in the minds of primary school students may not be imagined by many people.

Occupy the C position in the largest display window of major stationery stores; offline Ultraman activities are packed with seats; the boxing game where you become Ultraman in the game hall is very popular among primary school students... …

In fact, card games have never ceased to be popular among primary school students. Card game products are available in more than 100,000 terminal stores, occupying more than 90% of the market share.

Those born in the 80s and 90s will definitely be familiar with Water Margin cards, Three Kingdoms cards or Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh cards. Over the years, the cards have changed. I found the top IP Ultraman, which is the most popular among primary school students, and started printing and selling it.

Near kindergartens and primary schools, whether it is supermarket chains such as Wal-Mart or Yonghui, maternal and child stores, commissaries in communities, or even print shops... In short, you can see it in various offline stores. To Ultraman Cards.

In an environment where online games on the Internet are strictly controlled, the gaming battlefield for primary school students has shifted to offline card games. According to Ms. Li from Hangzhou, her 7-year-old son carries the Ultraman Card with him because he can quickly meet new friends - just like a lady in a big city making friends in a bird's nest circle, the Ultraman Card is no longer a card. It has been given more value and has become a hard currency for primary school students to socialize.

What is even more unexpected is that many parents have also joined the card collecting bandwagon and called for the purchase of genuine Ultraman cards. The main reason is that instead of letting their children spend more money on random purchases, it is better to study the rules themselves. Help your children collect them and save unnecessary losses.

｜02｜

Reaping billions with a cost of less than 1 cent

Bubble Mart, which was once active in the public eye, last year had sales of 2.513 billion yuan. Excluding advertising, marketing, costs, etc., the net profit was 591 million yuan.

The sales volume of card games has maintained a growth rate of 100% in the past two or three years. It is estimated that it may achieve revenue of 3 billion yuan and a net profit of 1.5 billion yuan in 2021.

Manufacturers of laser cards and embossed cards said that if the demand is large, the price can be as low as 0.07 yuan per card. If there are five or six thousand cards, the price per card is 0.1 yuan.

If you want to compare Bubble Mart’s marketing, content design, IP shaping and other operations, it takes much less time, energy and money to make a card game and buy IP to print on the card.

However, in terms of sales routine, it does confuse elementary school students: there is always a new card that cannot be bought.

First of all, Ultraman cards are divided into levels such as R, SR, SSR, PR, UR, HR, CP, LGR, and SP. The rarity level is generally UP>SSR>SR>R. If you only spend 2 yuan, you can only get 7 R cards and one SR or SSR.

But if you spend 10 yuan, you can easily get SSR or UR cards, and there are only 3-4 R-level cards in a pack.

In terms of appearance, there are flash cards, signature cards signed by Ultraman or monsters, transparent cards... There are also puzzle cards that test "economic" strength, and anniversary cards. Commemorative cards, commemorative cards for various events, etc. Once primary school students have the mentality to collect all the matching cards, they will lose. The speed at which they collect cards will never be as fast as the speed at which merchants introduce new cards. Therefore, by using this mentality, merchants can continue to make money.

Secondly, the sales of card games are similar to blind box draws, but the methods are more sophisticated.

Each pack of cards is randomly placed. Before opening it, you never know whether there is a rare card you desire in it. Moreover, the threshold for buying card games is much lower than that of blind boxes. You can buy a pack for as little as 2 yuan. Many primary school students first enter the game by buying a pack of card games for 2 yuan, but this is only the ordinary version, and the "rareness" comes soon. "Goods" cost 5 yuan, 10 yuan, 20 yuan, 50 yuan, hundreds of yuan... In order to play with classmates and to compare, I couldn't stop at all.

Many parents acquiesce in allowing their children to play card games, and this is also because businesses instill in parents that playing card games is good for children, mainly for puzzles and making friends.

Kayou will hold special formal events offline, including novice competitions, monthly competitions, SP competitions, city tours, etc., and finally compete to determine the national champion and runner-up.

As soon as they heard that there was a competition to get rankings, many parents supported it: "Because of the cards, children in first grade can do more than 10,000 addition operations, and a hero duel lasts 15 minutes, which is completely It can train children’s thinking, endurance and attention.”

Without extracurricular tutoring, parents’ attention has also been diverted to other places.

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In the adult world, there are also "Ultraman Cards"

There are still a small number of parents who support their children playing card games. Parents are devastated and hate their children playing cards.

Some parents just tear up the cards that their children have painstakingly collected, and some parents do the opposite and buy the entire set of cards directly on Taobao to let their children feel "how lonely it is to be invincible." , naturally interest wanes.

But is this the child’s fault? In fact, it’s not surprising. In the adult world, you can’t escape all kinds of marketing.

The popular "star cards" in the United States, some rare cards can fetch millions of dollars. For example, a star card from James' rookie period sold for $5.2 million.

In China, although it is rarely known to the public, there is also an undercurrent in the adult card industry. A "Blue Eyes White Dragon" card that was auctioned online this year fetched a sky-high price of 87 million yuan within half an hour, and the court urgently suspended the auction.

In the final analysis, card games targeting different groups of people are just marketing operations. As long as the user psychology is grasped, there will be a market regardless of age group. What merchants have done is to understand human nature and use it to open up the market.