Alpha’s tale of two cities in Guangzhou and Los Angeles

2017-Nov-8       Source: Newsgd.com

11575 kilometers, or a 14.5 hour flight, now it is very easy to travel from Guangzhou to Los Angeles. And for Alpha Group, the cities have gotten even closer, after the launch of its Feature Animation

11575 kilometers, or a 14.5 hour flight, now it is very easy to travel from Guangzhou to Los Angeles. And for Alpha Group, the cities have gotten even closer, after the launch of its Feature Animation Unit in Los Angeles.

As a Guangdong-based animation and toy company, Alpha strives to spread its brand of animation and IP such as Super Wings, Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf worldwide. Now Alpha’s global expansion and cooperation with worldwide organizations is underway across a range of TV broadcasts, toys sales, IP authorization and so on in over 100 countries and regions across the world including the US and New Zealand, showcasing its ambition to go global while still being local, just like trans-national giants manage to do.

Alpha’s booth attracts a large number of overseas exhibitors in the American International Toy Fair held in New York. [Photo provided to Newsgd.com]

Benefiting from the Auckland - Guangzhou - Los Angeles Tripartite Economic Summit, Alpha is pursuing aggressive pacing in its globalization and localization strategies. “Participating in the summit, enables Alpha to understand the market and the industry deeper, while providing Alpha with more cooperation opportunities. We really welcome those opportunities and also desperately need them.” said Seven Wang, Executive Assistant to President and PR Director, when expressing her expectations of the coming 2017 Tripartite Economic Summit which will be held between November 9-11 in Guangzhou.


Based in Guangzhou, with an eye on global expansion

As the largest animation group and a leading pan-entertainment platform in China; after it transformed itself from a toy-oriented company, Alpha has worked tirelessly toward global expansion since the establishment of an exclusive department of overseas affairs in 2000. Over the past few decades, it has developed dozens of popular animations that are popular among children and also adults worldwide, including Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf, Balala the Fairies, Super Wings and Rakshasa Street.

According to a recent estimation, Super Wings, an animated television series catering for children in pre-school education, has been broadcast in over 90 countries and regions synchronously and has received over 11 trillion online viewers since its debut at the end of 2015. Jett and Donnie, who are main characters in the TV series have become idols for children all over the world.

A poster of the Super Wings [Photo provided to Newsgd.com]

According to Wang, what Alpha is now particularly focusing on is its “IP+Industry” strategy, taking advantage of company-owned IP such as from Alpha Group’s U17 Chinese comic website, in addition to developing original ideas. The company is scheduled to leverage those IPs by developing related animation, TV series, films, toys and other products.

When introducing this, Wang said gratefully that they have strongly felt Guangzhou’s awareness of the importance of protection of innovation and copyright, and also felt the benefits of it. Since its start-up, Alpha has witnessed the city’s increasing endeavors in IP protection which enables Alpha to build and optimize its own platform for IP protection and copyright export.

Wang introduced that Guangzhou has provided a suitable environment for Alpha to concentrate on content innovation, since abundant preferential policies are in place in Guangzhou for companies aiming to build themselves a platform or hub in order to explore and develop new ideas.

A staff is designing a side-product for animation in Alpha’s office located in the Zhujiang New Town. [Photo provided to Newsgd.com]

Wang also emphasized the opportunities for international exchange that have been offered by Guangzhou’s Government, especially the coming Tripartite Economic Summit. She confirmed the opportunities Alpha has seen from the summit, and that its Feature Animation Unit in Los Angeles was partly due to the summit.


Relying on LA, exploring localization in international market

Last June, Alpha announced the launch of a LA-based animation division, the aim to develop and produce animated feature films for a global audience and the decision to hire of industry vet Bob Bacon as its CEO. This counts as a milestone for Alpha’s global expansion, demonstrating its greater ambition of exploring an international industry standard for animation and filming.

Through its LA division, the company is looking for talent, not just within animation but also with live-action backgrounds, in a move to diversify its business. Plans are to have pre-production, including design and editing, in LA. It is reported that the unit also is expected to take advantage of synergy with other parts of the company, and aims to produce world-class animation.

Much has already been achieved, by Alpha. Alpha Pictures, the unit in LA, has recruited enormous world-class talents including Alex Schwartz, former head of development at DreamWorks Animation.

Super Wings is screening on the time square.[Photo provided to Newsgd.com]

Alpha has also started tailoring its production in the US to the local audience. Wang indicated the one key function of the LA division is to localize Alpha’s products in the US. Before the division was established, they knew little about the market and US consumers’ needs. Now they can make full use of the division to study the US market and optimize their products to target a US consumer base.

Wang took the yo-yo as an example. It is very popular worldwide. Since people in different countries may have different preference in colors, the LA division is responsible to evaluate the color preferences of American children, helping localize the yo-yo for the US and European markets.

Furthermore, Alpha Picture financed some Hollywood-produced films and TV series including Assassin's Creed and The Revenant, the latter winning three Golden Globe Awards, five BAFTA Awards and at the 88th Academy Awards won the awards for Best Director, Best Actor and Best Cinematography.

When talking about a future plan, Wang said excitedly that under the framework of the Tripartite Economic Summit, Alpha will place increased emphasis on the New Zealand market in 2018, and that its LA division will play an important role in this.

 

Author: Hu Nan

Editor: Simon Haywood & Olivia Yang

Editor: Jasmine

Scan to share on WeChat

Scan to follow us on WeChat

Related News

Home|About us|Contact us|Southcn.com

WWW.NEWSGD.COM. All rights reserved.

WWW.NEWSGD.COM. All rights reserved.|Registered number 020074| 粤公网安备 44010402000511号|ICP备案号粤B-20050235