Plants vs Zombies Online achieved a breakthrough from online to offline in the blink of an eye. The speed was so fast that it shocked the world once again.
Ever since the birth of cartoons and online games, there had never been a cartoon product that could take the world by storm so quickly, and with such a strong vitality.
What was even more interesting was the collaboration between Li Mu and Coca-Cola and McDonald's. When the western media received confirmation that Li Mu only charged one US dollar for the copyright fees, they were all shocked.
In this day and age, the business model of the internet and intellectual property was still very simple. Even online games relied on paying for game time as the key to making money. Copyright holders around the world were the same. They were all thinking about one thing, which was how to maximize the profits from the copyright. Even if Coca-Cola wanted to collaborate with Marvel, Marvel would put a hefty price on each of their cartoon characters, waiting to rip off the buyers. There would never be a situation where Marvel would license their characters to offline companies for free.
However, Li Mu gave up on the copyright fees. His only requirement was that the user had to maximize the usage of the characters he licensed. In other words, the more they used it, the more money they would make, while the more Li Mu used it, the less money he would make.
A few days later, McDonald's, who had been advertising in their stores for many days, officially released the Plants vs Zombies set and toys in their stores around the world!
The impact this time was even bigger than Coca-Cola!
On the day of the launch, almost all McDonald's stores around the world had queues. Even in Hua Xia, which was still under the shadow of SARS, there were a lot of gamers and enthusiasts wearing masks lining up to buy the set. The enthusiasm was extremely high.
Coca-Cola only printed the image of Plants vs Zombies on the packaging, but McDonald's didn't just print it on the packaging, they also released a large number of physical toys, which greatly increased their appeal to the consumers.
In Japan, Korea, and the western countries, since there were no pirated copies, there weren't any Plants vs Zombies merchandise on the market. Even if it was extremely popular, and even if the merchandise manufacturers in these countries were envious of it, no one dared to make an unauthorized product. Therefore, McDonald's licensed toys were the only Plants vs Zombies merchandise that could be bought on the market.
This was also the reason why consumers crazily pursued them.
Consumers lined up at McDonald's stores to buy game-related packages, or to buy toys after ordering the packages. According to the regulations, these toys could not be sold directly. They would only be given away if they bought a specific package, or they could buy any package and add a certain amount of cash.
Many collectors would buy multiple sets in order to get as many toys as possible. McDonald's had no choice but to consider more consumers, and come up with a new sales policy at the last minute. A person could only buy one Plants vs Zombies set at a time. If they bought other sets, they could only buy one Plants vs Zombies toy no matter how many they bought.
But even so, the number of dolls was far from enough.
Therefore, McDonald's began to urgently order new dolls and greatly increased the order volume.
For the next one year, Li Mu wouldn't charge McDonald's a share of the profits from these products. McDonald's was aware of the influence these products had on their users, so they wanted to take advantage of this opportunity and continue to invest more resources into McDonald's and Plants vs Zombies.
What Li Mu didn't expect was that McDonald's went to Makino Technology, hoping that Makino Technology would authorize them to add elements of Plants vs Zombies to McDonald's advertisements around the world!
Although Makino Technology had authorized McDonald's to use Plants vs Zombies, the direction of the authorization was very clear. It could only be used as a display element in their stores, as well as to produce derivative products for their stores. All other rights would belong to Makino Technology, and McDonald's would not be allowed to infringe on the rights in any way. Therefore, if McDonald's wanted to use elements of Plants vs Zombies on their TV and print advertisements, they would need to get another authorization from Makino Technology.
When Li Mu heard this, he agreed to McDonald's request without hesitation. McDonald's was thinking of using their own advertising to let more people know about their collaboration with Plants vs Zombies. Therefore, to them, adding elements of Plants vs Zombies into their TV advertisements would greatly increase the conversion rate.
What Li Mu was thinking was that this was the effect he was looking forward to the most. He wanted these companies to go all out to help him promote Plants vs Zombies, and he didn't even need to spend any money on it, because McDonald's was using its own advertising budget to promote itself and Plants vs Zombies.
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Therefore, Li Mu told his subordinate to convey his attitude to McDonald's: I can authorize them. Not only can Makino Technology authorize them, but they can also authorize them for free. However, McDonald's must guarantee that elements of Plants vs Zombies in the video advertisement must be at least eighty percent of the advertisement's duration, and that elements of Plants vs Zombies in the print advertisement must be at least twenty percent of the advertisement's surface area.
In other words, if McDonald's wanted to do a thirty second advertisement, then there must be twenty-four seconds of footage that included elements of Plants vs Zombies. They didn't need to only have elements of Plants vs Zombies in the footage, but the footage couldn't be less than twenty-four seconds.
Apart from that, if McDonald's wanted to put up a poster in Times Square with a red background and a McDonald's hamburger as the core, along with the McDonald's logo, the hamburger might only take up twenty-five percent of the advertisement's surface area, but the elements of Plants vs Zombies must take up twenty percent.
If McDonald's met these requirements, Makino Technology wouldn't charge a single cent. If they didn't meet the requirements during the promotion process, Makino Technology would demand a huge sum of money from them.
McDonald's agreed to Makino Technology's request almost immediately, and quickly came up with a global advertising proposal. In the proposal, the video advertisement would start with the interface of Plants vs Zombies. The zombies would rush through the garden, and the plants would fight back with all their might.
At this time, a cartoon image of McDonald's would suddenly appear between the zombies and the zombies. It would say to the zombies and plants in various languages, "Hey, are you still attacking each other day and night? Why don't you stop and try out McDonald's latest Plants vs Zombies themed set meal! There's even a huge amount of Plants vs Zombies toys waiting for you! "
Then, all the zombies on the screen stopped attacking the plants. Instead, each of them hugged a hamburger and gnawed on it. The plants swayed happily from side to side, each of them holding a large drink with the McDonald's logo on it …
According to the proposal, Plants vs Zombies would appear in the advertisement more than 90% of the time.
Li Mu was very satisfied with the proposal. Without another word, he waved his hand and said, "Okay, I'll give them the authorization right now, and get them to release the new version of the advertisement as soon as possible!"
McDonald's immediately spent money to hire a famous Hollywood animation team to produce the advertisement. The advertisement would use the game's original source material, and then make appropriate adaptations, so the design process could be completely skipped. It was said that a few dozen seconds of advertisement could be completed in a few days.
While Li Mu was waiting for the new version of McDonald's advertisement to be broadcast on various television stations around the world, Makino Technology received a large number of cooperation requests, including many world-renowned companies.
A large number of domestic and international manufacturers of peripheral products hoped to obtain the copyright for Plants vs Zombies. There were also many consumer products manufacturers who wanted to learn from Coca-Cola, and cooperate with Makino Technology. From their point of view, Makino Technology didn't need any copyright fees, and all it needed was a promise of exposure. If that was the case, they could just promise all of their products, and give Makino Technology as much exposure as possible, and use that to increase their sales.
However, Li Mu suddenly changed his approach.
Now he still wants to get the copyright for free? It was too late. Coca-Cola and McDonald's had a strategic need. Now that Plants vs Zombies had such a huge brand premium, it wouldn't be right to give it away for free.
Moreover, Li Mu didn't want Plants vs Zombies to become so popular overnight. If every product had Plants vs Zombies, it would be the same as overdrawing the life force of Plants vs Zombies.
Therefore, Makino Technology officially announced that from now on, Plants vs Zombies would be tightened up. In theory, only one partner would be chosen for each industry, and the criteria for choosing a partner would also change. From now on, not only would they have to consider exposure, but they would also have to consider the actual price. Makino Technology would choose to work with the one with the best value for money.
Interestingly, Microsoft's Xbox and Sony's PlayStation both approached Makino Technology to propose a partnership. They hoped to port Plants vs Zombies Online to their consoles, and both companies hoped that it would be an exclusive partnership.
As for the specifics of the partnership, both companies' proposals were similar. They would both charge for the game. Microsoft and Sony would sell the game to Makino Technology, and they would give Makino Technology a cut of the sales.
Li Mu rejected this partnership without any hesitation. They wanted to port his game to their platforms with a cut of the sales? And they wanted to exclude him? How was that possible? They must be dreaming!
These two consoles wanted to port their games. Their goal was to increase their content library, and at the same time, take advantage of the popularity, so that their players could play the most popular games on their platforms. If they could get an exclusive partnership, it would be a good chance to pull away from their competitors.
Under these circumstances, their demands were far greater than Li Mu's. Therefore, Li Mu asked his people to propose a partnership to both companies:
First, a cut of the profits was fine, but both companies had to pay a minimum amount. If it wasn't an exclusive partnership, each company had to pay a minimum of thirty million USD. If the cut was less than thirty million USD, Makino Technology wouldn't refund the money. If it was more than that, both companies would give the excess to Makino Technology.
Second, if it was an exclusive partnership, besides the minimum amount, Makino Technology would also require the partner to provide an exclusive subsidy. If they didn't provide a subsidy, why would they work exclusively with you? As for how much the exclusive subsidy was, Li Mu didn't specify, and let them bring their own price.
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