Chapter 18 The fourth part is about the economic principles of Andy Lau's star journey (excerpt)

Note: When this book talks about the star entertainment economy, it is analyzed from the macro perspective between countries. In order to let you better understand this kind of contemporary economic form, here is an article on the star economy from the micro perspective. , which was published in the 30th series of "The Economist's Cafe". One person——Andy Lau, a singer, movie star, and TV star all in one; the "sold hits" of the movies he starred in are far beyond the reach of all the stars; The long-term high popularity in the entertainment industry is unmatched by anyone.

An objective evaluation of Mr. Andy Lau's acting achievements is a premise of this article. Some terms and expressions in the following article are purely for the sake of learning, and there is no intention to offend Mr. Liu. A commodity—when people are used to discussing the worth of various celebrities, they have already tacitly accepted that it exists as a commodity—it is not a commodity, so how can it be priced? Admitting that star Andy Lau is a "commodity" is the premise of this article. Andy Lau is different from commodities in the general sense of economics. Its utility and sales methods are very special. For example, general commodities are competitive, that is, once they are purchased and used by someone, they cannot be consumed by another person at the same time. But Andy Lau does not have this attribute. Andy Lau can be consumed and "used" by countless people at the same time - tens of thousands of people can watch his concert together without conflicting with each other.

A conglomerate - from another perspective, Andy Lau is another conglomerate.This group "produces" many products: Andy Lau movies, Andy Lau songs, Andy Lau concerts, Andy Lau charity events, Andy Lau advertisements.A one-person enterprise group produces so many products, you can't help but marvel at this modern business model! Utility refers to the ability of commodities to satisfy certain human desires. To discuss the utility of Andy Lau's commodities, we must first discuss those needs that Andy Lau can satisfy consumers. The author believes that Andy Lau can meet the following needs (desires) of consumers:

Sexual instinct needs - this is mainly effective for female fans and homosexuals. Andy Lau's music fans account for a large proportion of women, which is not unrelated to Andy Lau's strong appearance of the opposite sex.Many female fans regard Andy Lau as the lover of their dreams, who can obtain "illusory" satisfaction. Aesthetic needs - Andy Lau has a handsome appearance and a beautiful singing voice. These are a high degree of beauty for fans and can highly satisfy their aesthetic needs. Sense of Belonging - The large number of Andy Lau's fans have in fact become a "cluster" with many commonalities. They gain a sense of belonging through such means as joining Andy Lau's fan club.There is a sense of "ethnic" identity among Andy Lau's fans. They communicate with each other heart-to-heart, they cry out for the same name, and they find the belonging of their lives.Andy Lau satisfied the social belonging needs of fans.

Fashion needs - Celebrities have always been fashion leaders, and Andy Lau has a strong fashion appeal and influence on his fans and the whole society.The "Yessir" phrase used by Andy Lau in Hong Kong movies once brought "Yessir" voices all over the country; Andy Lau's clothing is also the object of imitation by male fans; various clothing and mobile phones endorsed by Andy Lau are also all the rage, and many fans rush to buy Use it, be proud of it. Curiosity—In reality, we can find that people have a strong curiosity about celebrities, especially movie stars.All kinds of trifles about celebrities have become topics that people talk about, and people's curiosity about celebrities has given the entertainment media endless reporting resources.

Sense of honor—fans are all proud of their idols. When fans discuss the various honors that Andy Lau has won, their expressions are full of complacency, as if they or their relatives have won awards.The glory of Andy Lau is equal to the glory of the fans. It can be said that they coexist and co-prosper.Andy Lau, who has infinite scenery and numerous awards, brings great honor and satisfaction to fans. Vanity - As an expensive commodity, Andy Lau can naturally become the object of conspicuous consumption. Even if rich people don't like Andy Lau, they may buy expensive tickets to Andy Lau's concerts to show off their wealth and satisfy their vanity.

Romantic and dreamy needs - star songs and movies can evoke the romantic and dreamy feeling of chasers, and fans can easily get intoxicated by it.The theory of psychoanalytic film and television aesthetics reveals that the reason why movies are attractive is that the audience integrates themselves into the movie situation, imagines themselves as the characters in the movie, and obtains illusory satisfaction. To sum up, Andy Lau can satisfy the diverse desires of consumers. Described in the language of economics, Andy Lau has multiple commodity utilities such as aesthetic utility, social belonging utility, fashion utility, curiosity utility, honor utility, vanity utility, and romantic dream utility. Andy Lau is a brand-name product with multiple functions.

Let's discuss how the star's utility is generated and what the shape of its utility function is.The media often reports news about the "transformation" of various stars, so what is "type"? "Style" is a line, it shows what kind of posture the star shows to the world.Specifically, a specific "type" defines that a star must conform to a certain routine and style in terms of appearance, words and deeds, types of songs sung, and types of movies acted in. From an economic point of view, "type" is a kind of market positioning, and it is a development route tailor-made for stars in order to achieve the goal of maximizing profits by considering the characteristics of the stars themselves and market demand.For example, if a singer is positioned as a "rebellious type", he should act like Nicholas Tse and throw a "guitar" at a concert.

Different "types" can attract different consumer groups. The essential meaning is that different types have different commodity utility, and different commodity utility satisfies different types of consumers. From the perspective of economics, each "type" corresponds to a Utility Function. We found that when a star adopts a "type", after becoming popular, it will gradually cool down again.That is to say, with the passage of time, the star's utility decreases, so a utility function can be established with time as the independent variable and utility as the dependent variable, as shown in Figure 1.

It is necessary to explain the meaning of choosing time as the horizontal axis. It does not simply refer to the passage of time itself. Its implicit meaning is that with the passage of time, various factors of a specific "type" "produce" the utility. The ability is getting weaker and weaker. In layman's terms, as time goes by, people like the new and dislike the old, and the previous stars are less and less able to attract consumers. Figure 1 Utility Function Diagram Andy Lau's long-term popular economic explanation transformation utility function As mentioned above, under the effect of the law of diminishing utility, there are countless short-lived stars: Zhang Mingmin was overwhelmed by newcomers soon after he became popular with "My Chinese Heart"; Never sang a second well-known song...

The law of diminishing utility is so relentless, so are there any strategies for resisting it? The answer is yes. "Transformation" is a method that can effectively restrain the diminishing utility and delay the decline of stars.As the name suggests, "transformation" refers to the transformation of a star from one "type" to another "type", for example, from "idolism" to "strength". The beauty of "transformation" is that it can move the utility curve. When the utility of a star is continuously decreasing on the curve determined by the initial "type", through "transformation", it can "jump" to another curve to achieve a kind of A new high utility begins a new decline. Transformation is a double-edged sword. Successful transformation can maintain stable and high utility. As shown in Figure 2, from curve 1 to curve 2 is a successful transformation; failed transformation will accelerate the "death" of stars, as shown in Figure 2. The transformation from the second to the third curve is a failed transformation. There are countless failed transformations in reality. For example, Little Swallow Zhao Wei changed to a sexy route, which did not conform to her appearance and inner quality at all.Figure 2 Transformation Utility Function Among the "Four Heavenly Kings" of the year, Andy Lau was once evaluated as the person who was least likely to become popular. However, after more than 20 years, Andy Lau is still walking all the way amidst the screams of fans. What factors caused Andy Lau, who has "average qualifications", to be popular for decades? Let us use the scalpel of economics to uncover the mystery!After reading a lot of literature about Andy Lau, the author summarizes his "Star Journey" into "Table 1". At the same time, based on Table 1, we draw the utility curve of Andy Lau's transformation (as shown in Figure 3). Let’s explain Figure 3 in conjunction with Andy Lau’s “Star Journey”: 1982-1990 Andy Lau’s fledgling period, the characteristics of Andy Lau in this period were not clear, and all aspects were in the experimental stage. The main achievements were TV series (such as), songs and movies were by-product.Under the effect of diminishing utility, Andy Lau's popularity declined in the late 1980s, which required him to transform, otherwise he would be eliminated.Figure 3 Andy Lau’s Transformation Utility Function Around 1990, Andy Lau began to transform, took the route of romantic love songs, and published several sensational albums of love songs. "Water of Forgetfulness" album. In 1992, he was named one of the "Four Heavenly Kings".It can be seen from our graph that Andy Lau's successful transformation made the utility move to the right curve, and Andy Lau returned to high utility. After the popularity of "Forgetting Love" in 1994, Andy Lau began to decline, and entered the trough around 1996. In 1997, Andy Lau relied on the classic look in "The Chinese" MTV, took advantage of the patriotic enthusiasm of Hong Kong's return, and established a traditional Chinese image in the hearts of Chinese people all over the world with little effort, which was enough to support Andy Lau to continue to be popular for a period of time.The good times didn't last long, and around 1999, "Chinese" Andy Lau had lost most of his appeal.Andy Lau turned to the powerful line. In 2000, Andy Lau became the best actor of the Hong Kong Film Awards with "Dark War".This successful transformation has allowed Andy Lau's utility curve to shift to the right, and the utility that was about to wither has risen again.After all, the aura brought by a movie star cannot last for too long. Starting from "Infernal Affairs" in 2001, Andy Lau explored a sustainable development path: the path of a mature man full of charm. In 2002, "Infernal Affairs" was released and achieved great success. Since then, his image of a mature man has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people and has been maintained until now. Judging from the market response, Andy Lau's popularity has been relatively stable in recent years, and there has been no obvious downward trend , so Andy Lau's utility curve since 2001 is relatively flat. It is foreseeable that Andy Lau will continue to be popular with a mature man and an acting film route. This paper analyzes the problem of diminishing utility of celebrities, which seems to be expounding the law of diminishing marginal utility in economics, but it is not. The latter means that a consumer who consumes a commodity continuously, and the satisfaction he gets for each additional consumption is Decreasing, and the author’s so-called diminishing star utility is not due to the weakening of the subjective feeling produced by a certain consumer’s continuous consumption, it has a certain objectivity, and the utility of the star decreases with the change of the "taste" of the whole society. As time goes by, a certain "type" gradually becomes obsolete and eliminated. The analysis in this article has also simplified many problems. For example, this article only analyzes Andy Lau’s relatively large transformation, and there are many small transformations. For example, Andy Lau held a concert with dyed yellow hair in 1999. Didn't pay attention to Andy Lau's unchanging things, such as handsome appearance, hard work, enthusiasm for public welfare, etc. These stable factors may constitute the basis of Andy Lau's utility transformation, and may also be the basis of his long-term popularity. In fact, American scholar Sherwin Rosen published the article "The Economics of Superstars (Superstar Economics)" in the world-class academic journal AER as early as 1982, analyzing the utility function of "superstars". Superstars" (including sports stars, medical stars, etc.), but this article only analyzes entertainment stars, so this article does not use the utility function established by it, but "creates" a special utility function.Demand function and supply function, and finally establish a simple equilibrium model. Today, the export value of products from the American entertainment star industry has accounted for more than 1/3 of the total export value, and Sherwin Rosen has already had a group of followers. If it hadn’t been for his death from cancer in 2001, he would most likely have won the Nobel Prize in Economics.It can be predicted that the research on economic theory in this area will have broad prospects, and we have a long way to go.