Tencent Business Case
Tencent Business Case
ELIE OFEK
BILLY CHAN
DAWN H. LAU
To Cheng, the multifarious characters and plots in Gu’s novels presented a unique opportunity to
create an epic franchise, like the U.S.-based Marvel Cinematic Universe. Success in achieving this
objective would be a giant step forward in augmenting the cultural side of the tech company’s brand.
But he faced a dilemma: what format and which Tencent platform should be the first to take advantage
of Gu’s masterpieces en route to creating this epic franchise? While launching the franchise with a big-
budget movie was considered a natural choice, especially since Cheng was head of Tencent’s film
division, the option of starting with an interactive mobile game—an area that Tencent had been very
successful in—or even a streaming video series were also appealing options. In fact, his team produced
a book-to-TV adaptation called Joy of Life that became a megahit in 2019 with 13 billion views online.
Given that ultimately Tencent would want to leverage more than one platform, should he
recommend taking an even bolder approach and develop this project simultaneously for different
media or was it better to follow a sequential, one-media-at-a-time path? Cheng also wrestled with
authenticity in adapting and re-making the original work; could Tencent turn these classic, beloved
novels into a blockbuster franchise that had the ability to resonate across multiple platforms, while
concomitantly staying true to the author’s intent?
While the 57 kung-fu fictions presented a promising opportunity, the source for them was external.
Yet for many at the company, a more ambitious goal was for Tencent to incubate (or co-create) with
partners its own cultural icons “with Chinese characteristics” that could exert global influence, such as
Professor Elie Ofek and Researcher Billy Chan and Associate Director Dawn H. Lau (Asia-Pacific Research Center) prepared this case. It was
reviewed and approved before publication by a company designate. Funding for the development of this case was provided by Harvard Business
School and not by the company. HBS cases are developed solely as the basis for class discussion. Cases are not intended to serve as endorsements,
sources of primary data, or illustrations of effective or ineffective management.
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521-066 Tencent: Combining Technology and Culture
Disney’s “Mickey Mouse” and Nintendo’s “Pokémon.” It had taken those companies decades to
develop their now huge stock of icons that had both cultural and commercial value. But Cheng believed
that with today’s pace of innovation and digital transformation, there were many more possibilities
and this timeline could be considerably shortened. Could Tencent invent an accelerated business model
to produce cultural icons faster by leveraging its technologies? Also not lost on his mind was that
outside of China, particularly in the West, very few people had a clear idea of what Chinese culture
was about. Among the world’s top 100 media franchises, none came from China. 3 (See Exhibit 1 for
top grossing IPs) Could Tencent’s “tech+culture” initiative help change that? Could this new direction
transcend just influencing the domestic market and create “soft power” for the country as a whole?
Company Overview
The origins of Tencent coincided with the Internet boom in China in the 1990s, when the number of
web users surged from a mere 1,600 in 1994 to over 2 million in 1998. 4 Ma, who was 27 when he
founded the company with Zhang Zhidong in 1998, seized the opportunity to make the first instant
messaging software for Chinese users known as QQ. The desktop-only free messenger service attracted
1 million users in its first year and 50 million in its second. 5 After listing on the Hong Kong stock
exchange in 2004, Tencent further expanded into social networking and in 2005 launched Qzone, a
multimedia portal where users could write blogs, post photos, listen to music, and purchase virtual
items such as wallpaper decorations and profile customization. As of the fourth quarter of 2010,
monthly active user accounts of QQ and Qzone reached 648 million and 510 million, respectively. 6
In 2011, Tencent introduced Weixin, a communication and social app for smartphones (known as
“WeChat” outside of China). Although it was a newcomer in the mobile instant messaging market after
WhatsApp and Kik Messenger, Weixin had many innovative features that were absent among its
competitors. For example, users could record a voice message by holding down a button instead of
typing out a text message; they could start conversations with strangers nearby by shaking their
smartphones; from 2012 they could update friends and contacts with their personal status or share
photos on Weixin Moments, an in-app feature similar to Facebook’s timeline; and from 2013 they could
make electronic payments with each other through Weixin Pay. The app garnered 100 million users in
its first 12 months. 9 As of the third quarter of 2020, with over 1.2 billion monthly active user accounts,
Weixin had grown into a “super app” 10 to encompass almost every part of life in China—from ordering
food to applying for a marriage certificate. (See Exhibit 2 for mobile time spent on different Internet
platforms in China.)
Another cornerstone of Tencent’s business was online games. In 2002, the company was exploring
other revenue streams and took interest in the exponential growth of the domestic online game market.
After a trip by Ma to the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in the U.S., 11 Tencent ventured into China’s
online game market in 2003. To increase market share, it allowed purchases using its in-game prepaid
credits called “Q Coin,” which had already been popular among QQ users to buy value-added services.
With a new QQ function showing what other people were playing, it also turned the messenger into a
gateway for users to visit its games portal and join their friends to play cards, chess, and the like using
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Tencent: Combining Technology and Culture 521-066
their QQ logins. By developing in-house games embedded with social features, such as QQ Speed and
QQ Dancer, and simultaneously distributing successful foreign games, such as Dungeon and Fighter and
CrossFire, Tencent became China’s biggest online game company in 2009 with a 20% market share. 12
(See 2019 market shares in Exhibit 3). Dungeon and Fighter and CrossFire—both introduced from
Korea—allowed Tencent to learn how to unlock the commercial value of foreign-made games by
tailoring the gameplay for Chinese consumers (e.g., lowering the difficulty level). 13 For the fourth
quarter of 2010, Tencent’s online game business accounted for 50% of its total revenue. 14 (See Exhibit
4 for Tencent’s selected business segment revenue, Exhibit 5 for cost of revenue, Exhibit 6 for market
shares in digital advertisements in China.)
Mars Hou, general manager of Tencent eSports, reflected on the company’s success in games: “Ever
since we launched QQ we have been collecting user feedback from community forums and using this
input to produce new versions of QQ very quickly. This has set a solid foundation for us, not just in
games, but in other business areas as well.”
In March 2018, the Chinese government suspended granting licenses for monetizing online games,
while the industry underwent regulatory reforms brought on by concerns about violent content,
causing nearsightedness, and game addiction among children. For the full year of 2018, Tencent
reported its slowest profit growth in 13 years. 15 After 10 months, the government lifted the freeze,
announcing new regulations regarding the content of online games and controls on the number of
games allowed onto the market, as well as encouraging game publishers to produce content that
promoted China’s core social values and traditional culture. 16
Corporate Value
In 2003, Tencent vowed to be “a reliable friend to users” and aspired to “build a top Internet
enterprise.” 17 In 2005, the company restated the mission to “enhance the quality of human life through
Internet services” and become “the most respected Internet company.” 18
In 2019, Ma and his executives wrote in an email to employees that “value for users, tech for good”
would be the new mission, and the company’s core values would be encapsulated in four keywords:
“integrity,” “proactivity,” “collaboration,” and “creativity.” 19 “Technology is a tool,” management
wrote, “but the use of technology for good is a conscious choice. To us, the choice is to provide better
products and services to users, in order to continually enhance their productivity and quality of life.
We prioritize the needs of our users and incorporate the consideration of social responsibility in our
products and services. We strive to innovate technologies while honoring our culture and traditions.” 20
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521-066 Tencent: Combining Technology and Culture
other products or services, such as news, comics, animations or videos on the Internet in addition to
their game time, “but since most of these industries developed independently, no one had connected
the dots of these demands.” 23
Establishing Theory
Given these observations, in 2011 Cheng came up with the Pan Entertainment model that focused
on intellectual properties (IP) for Internet-based, multi-format productions. In the context of the
Chinese digital content economy, IP had a different meaning from its legal definition. According to
David Dai, general manager for publicity of Tencent’s IEG and executive director of the Neo-Culture
Creativity Research Institute, “we believe that IP is a cultural symbol that has been proven by the
market and bears human emotions.” By “market-proven,” the IP had to be generally accepted by the
public with a sufficient user base; “bearing human emotions” meant that the IP would resonate with
people; and “symbol” implied that the IP could evoke emotions as soon as people saw it. 24 For Dai, a
“cultural symbol” in many ways represented the strength of a nation’s soft power: “When we think of
France, we think of literary works like The Red And The Black, The Human Comedy, Notre-Dame de Paris;
for Italy, Leonardo da Vinci, the Colosseum and Divine Comedy by Dante…The reason for these great
cultural symbols to survive different ages is that they can fulfill people’s shared emotional needs.” 25
For Tencent, an IP did not have to be popular but it should possess four elements: (1) “Values”
determined how much influence an IP could have on people and whether the influence would be
enduring; Dai said, “A strong and influential IP must embody a certain kind of universal value, like
freedom, justice or pursuit of aesthetics.” (2) “Personality” reflected a character’s physical appearance
and character traits that people could emotionally connect with; (3) “worldview” was the setting of the
narrative; and (4) “story” was the vessel that carried and revealed the IP’s values and personality. 26
According to Cheng, not all IPs were equally strong in all four elements. For example, “Hello Kitty”
was an IP with a weak story but distinctive visual features that made it easily recognizable; by contrast,
the fantasy drama series Game of Thrones was an IP that gave viewers a panoramic worldview with
many different storylines. 27 Cheng believed that human emotions were measurable from a number of
perspectives:
In China, there is a range of data metrics for us to systematically interpret how users
interact with different content on the Internet. With these data indicators, we are able to
evaluate how communities react to a certain piece of work, a certain character, or an IP
factor on broader dimensions. Similar to the “like” button on Facebook and Twitter, many
Chinese and international Internet products have features of this kind as parameters,
including number of views, visits, retweets and likes. Fan-created works inspired by the
original IP also have followers, which helps measure users’ stickiness, depth and level of
emotions for an IP from a different perspective.
Decisions that Cheng and his team had to make included matching the IP with the right media
format—whether it be a game, e-book, movie, drama series, or comics and animation.
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Tencent: Combining Technology and Culture 521-066
parties. In Marvel, Cheng took note of two watershed moments in its history: the early 1960s when
legendary comic book writer Stan Lee introduced titles featuring multiple superheroes, such as The
Fantastic Four and The Avengers; and the year 2008 when the movie Iron Man opened in theaters. Iron
Man was the first in the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise and the first movie produced by Marvel
Studios, which had pivoted from granting licenses to self-producing films in 2004—a move taken to
address quality issues in superhero movies when produced by other companies. (See Exhibit 8 for box
office performance of MCU movies) Both the ACG model and Marvel’s experience underscored the
importance of cultural asset ownership, as Cheng reflected: “We believed that if we wanted to gain a
foothold in the cultural content sector and achieve sustainable success, the key was to accumulate our
own cultural assets that we could develop; in other words, the quantity and quality of those story
characters and icons would determine the value and health of a company—this had been our pain
point in the past.” 28
Cheng found the Japanese and the U.S. exemplars illuminating, but worried that trying to fit the
company into a foreign model might not be a good approach given that the industrial foundation and
cultural background in China vastly differed from other countries, and it was impractical for Tencent
to repeat the steps taken by Marvel in the past 80 years to create a new fictional universe from scratch.
Eventually, Ma and Lau greenlighted the proposal to set up the new division “Tencent Animation
and Comics” (Tencent A&C) to provide reading and viewing services to users through its online portal,
which also let individuals and independent workshops upload their comics. To Cheng, it was “proof
that Tencent was a company tirelessly pursuing innovation and supporting its employees to conduct
new experiments.” 31 The company also had to cultivate internal talent and integrate them with the
existing team to carry out the needed design work. It took 3-5 years before a concept designer became
competent enough to take charge of a project, according to Ken Zou, general manager of Tencent A&C.
In the early days of the division, a small team was tasked to bring in high-quality content from
foreign publishers; the reading and viewing services were free of charge to Tencent users as Cheng
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521-066 Tencent: Combining Technology and Culture
wanted them to get access to authentic materials instead of pirated copies, in the hopes of helping them
develop proper consumption habits. 32 In early 2013, Tencent reached a large-scale copyright deal with
Japanese publisher Shueisha Inc., and acquired the online electronic rights to 11 classic comics
including Naruto, One Piece, Dragon Ball, Dr. Slump, Saint Seiya, Gin Tama, Yu-Gi-Oh!, The Prince of Tennis,
Hitman Reborn!, Bleach, and Bakuman.
The team was also tasked with incubating local original IP. It started with a review process by an
in-house editorial team to select titles that could meet a set of criteria from the works uploaded by
registered artists. According to Zou, they would look for three qualities in a potential IP: (1) a
distinctive style easily recognizable to viewers, such as the art style and cultural connotation; (2) solid
characters who could attract a large fan base; (3) great narrative with intriguing story plots by an author
who developed each chapter in good rhythm and published regular issues in a stable, efficient manner.
Once the team identified a candidate, Tencent A&C would engage the author and offer a remuneration
for the preliminary comic creation. After the work was launched, the animation team would pay close
attention to various data and word-of-mouth performance. They would consider costs and then
analyze the potential for more expensive formats, such as animation, video, and gamification to
“further help with IP cultivation and value-added, and release more possibilities,” Zou said. (See
Exhibit 9 for resource efficiency of various media.)
In the four years since 2012, over 50,000 people had published their works on the Tencent platform
and the number of local comics by contracted authors exceeded 20,000; more than 40 comic series
attracted page views of over 100 million (for each series); and the annual individual income of the most
popular local authors surpassed RMB 1 million ($150,000). 33
In 2015, Tencent collaborated with Japanese animation company Studio DEEN to produce an
animated series based on the Chinese serial fiction, Once Upon a Time in Lingjian Mountain, published
on Tencent’s online reading platform. Zou recalled, “As a fiction, it had a relatively small reader base,
but our editors were intrigued by its gripping content.” It debuted in Japan in 2016, with some critics
calling it “a surprise hit full of Chinese traditions.” 34 In China, page views of the comic adaptation of
Once had reached over 600 million. 35 According to Alfred Chen, whose Hangzhou-based Comicloft
Studio developed the comic, the Tencent platform gave his team instant connection with readers on
the Internet with a feature called “dan mu” in Chinese (which literally meant “bullet curtain”): As soon
as a new comic issue came out online, live reader comments visible to everyone would start popping
up on top of the artwork. The real-time feedback helped artists develop characters and storylines. 36
China Literature
In 2013, Tencent formed a new division “Tencent Literature” by consolidating two existing online
reading units within the company. Cheng believed that the Internet had lowered the barrier to entry
for fiction publishing, and Tencent could capitalize on the online literary business to create a pool of
potential IP for further development and adaptation. In 2015, Tencent Literature merged with
Cloudary Corp. to become China Literature Group, 37 which owned the most popular online literature
platform. Paid readers accounted for 5% out of all subscribers. 38 According to China Literature’s
financial report, 44.5% of the company’s revenues in 2019 came from its online business, and the
remaining 55.5% from IP operations and others. In terms of IP operations, in 2019, about 160 titles were
licensed and adapted into movies, TV series, web series, games and other forms. The ecosystem of
China Literature now housed 8.9 million writers, with the total number of works reaching 13.4 million.
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Tencent: Combining Technology and Culture 521-066
Tencent Pictures
Ever since the planning stage of the Pan Entertainment strategy Cheng had always dreamed of
having a foothold in the film and TV industry. He firmly believed that movies and drama series were
“an amplifier of IP value.” 39 In the development lifecycle of an IP, turning it into a game was one way
to achieve monetization, and turning it into a web fiction, comics, or animated series was cost-effective
for storytelling, character creation, as well as gauging customer reactions. But it was only through a
movie or drama series that the IP could wield “explosive social influence.” 40
Back in 2011, Cheng did not think the time was ripe because “watching movies and shows on the
Internet was not yet a norm” in China. 41 In fact, a Tencent online video portal for streaming local TV
stations and video-on-demand called “QQLive” (later renamed “Tencent Video”) had existed since
2005, but it had not been a business priority for Ma because the bandwidth requirement for streaming
video was considered too big prior to broadband and the prevalence of 4G networks. 42 Cheng also
analyzed the revenues of Hollywood movies and noted that 30%–35% came from box office sales and
65%–70% from extended businesses, such as paid TV and brand licensing—whereas in China 90% came
from ticket sales and only 10% from extended businesses. 43 Moreover, the glamor of the industry
masked the actual low commercial success rate of movies. Cheng said, “There’s a saying in Hollywood
that 70% of the projects will end up in failure, 20% will break even, and only 10% will make a profit; in
China, the chances for a movie project to be successful and profitable were even less than 10%.”
In 2012, China became the world’s second-biggest movie market after the U.S. Between 2011 and
2013, annual box office revenues in China had more than tripled from $918 million to $3.3 billion. 44
Meanwhile, the domestic online video market was also booming in size to reach RMB 14 billion ($2
billion) in 2013, 45 with advertising—the most important source of revenue—totaling RMB 9.6 billion
($1.6 billion) and projected to triple in four years. 46 Tencent’s two main local competitors both tried to
boost their presence in the entertainment sector: Baidu bought more streaming assets for its online
video platform iQiyi in 2013, 47 while Alibaba invested in the country’s biggest online video platform
Youku Tudou as well as a film and TV production company in 2014. 48 At the time, Tencent Video had
an 11% share of China’s online video market, behind Youku Tudou’s 23% and iQiyi’s 19%. 49 (See
Exhibit 10 for growth in the number of Tencent Video users.)
In the fall of 2014, Tencent formed a film division called “Tencent Movies+.” 50 With the plus symbol,
Cheng wanted to highlight the goal of connecting movies with literature, comics and animation, and
games under the Pan Entertainment model to create a “content ecosystem.” 51 Broadly, a content
ecosystem would have three parts: web fictions and comics/animations formed the upstream for IP
incubation, movies and TV shows formed the midstream for market creation and expansion, and
games and merchandise formed the downstream for monetization. 52 The economics of the ecosystem
would be primarily supported by the sheer number of Internet users in different entertainment markets
who would not only consume contents but actively promote them by sharing their experience and
inviting friends to join on social platforms such as QQ and Weixin—a business model Cheng called the
“fan economy.” In 2015, the total Chinese market user base reached 297 million in online reading, 200
million in online comics/animation, 504 million in online videos, and 391 million in online games. 53
Tencent Movies+ was the precursor of “Tencent Pictures,” a film and TV subsidiary established in
2015 with Ren as the chairman and Cheng as the CEO. 54 The introduction of Tencent Pictures came
with the announcement of 11 film and TV projects that would be adapted from games, comics,
animations, and e-books released on Tencent’s platforms. 55 Leading in the pipeline was a TV drama
series based on a Tencent original web fiction called Fighters of the Destiny, the story of a fantasy world
where humans co-existed with spirits and demons. Since its debut on the company’s online reading
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521-066 Tencent: Combining Technology and Culture
platform in 2014, the series had 18 million views. 56 The 56-episode TV drama was broadcast on a local
Chinese TV channel and streamed online in 2017, attracting a total of over 30 billion views for all the
episodes—the fifth-highest among all Chinese TV series ever made.
Despite its popularity, critics’ reviews of Fighters were mixed and the TV viewer score on China’s
biggest movie rating website hovered below 5 on a 10-point scale. 57 For Cheng, Fighters was a
commercial success but fell short in terms of IP development. He commented, “The adaptation didn’t
live up to the quality expectations, thus it wasn’t a successful attempt in my opinion. It failed to bring
out the best of the original creation that embodies a deeper and more profound fictional world. In order
to cater to the palate of the mass online audience at that time, it opted for a celebrity-centric cast which
didn’t pan out as well as hoped in terms of acting and character arrangements.”
Neo-Culture Creativity
The Dawn of a New Strategy
In China, Tencent had been hailed as “the best product manager” by industry watchers because of
its strength in creating products with a user experience orientation. Ma himself said that he spent much
of his personal time using the company’s products to discover ways for “iterative improvement.” 58 To
the company, the value of a product or even an industry hinged on the user experience it could offer,
but this concept began evolving for Cheng when his team worked on a project in 2016 with the Palace
Museum. Both Tencent and the curators felt that traditional art and culture should not remain on walls
for display but should instead find ways to connect with younger generations, so they came up with
the idea of organizing a competition for people to design digital products under the theme of the
Forbidden City. Cheng said, “In the past, the creation and production of cultural pieces were limited
to people with special skills and resources, and it was not easy for them to distribute and promote their
works. But nowadays, the Internet and mobile devices enable everyone to create, disseminate, and
share content. This is revolutionary for the entire cultural industry.”
The first product was a mobile website featuring a rap-singing Chinese emperor from the Ming
Dynasty (which ruled more than 350 years ago), and it went viral among Weixin users with about 3.5
million views. Later, the company introduced a museum-themed version of one of its popular mobile
games and logged 20 million plays. 59
Other teams within the company also began to insert Chinese cultural elements into their products.
For example, in 2017 developers of Tencent’s marquee game Honor of Kings (also known as King of Glory)
added a player appearance option—or “skin” in game language—with the design based on the ancient
Chinese Kunqu opera The Peony Pavilion. The game also rolled out a collaboration with the Great Wall
in 2017 to raise the awareness of preservation and restoration efforts of the Chinese historical
structure. 60 These additions won applause from many game reviewers for Tencent.
Cheng reflected that when Tencent first started the Palace Museum project “it was driven more by
a sense of corporate social responsibility.” 61 As summarized by Feng Naien, the former deputy director
of the Palace Museum, working with Tencent helped bring the non-profit cultural organization to more
people by “redefining the operating model of museums, removing the barriers to meaningful museum
visits, and advancing the means of heritage protection with digital applications.” 62 Cheng soon
realized that there was enormous potential behind traditional cultural content awaiting to be unlocked
with “sensible and innovative remakes.” 63 The challenge facing him now, he articulated, “was to turn
short-lived enjoyment into lasting appreciation and participation, and help traditional culture find its
way into the daily life of young people.” 64 Dai added his perspective, “People often have two
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Tencent: Combining Technology and Culture 521-066
impressions: one is that refined and highbrow art must be too abstruse for ordinary people to
understand and appreciate; the other is that if you want to achieve business success, your work must
cater to the public's taste and hence it might have little cultural value. But both impressions are
illusions.” 65
Tencent also wanted to provide a positive account of China, a rising superpower, to an international
audience who knew little about it. Cheng considered Marvel an example because the “superheroes not
only sold movie tickets but also represented American culture to the world audience.” 69 He mused,
What kind of beloved cultural icons does China have? A noted film director once said to
me “the world is full of curiosity about China: On the one hand, it is now the second-
biggest economy; on the other hand, on a cultural level, many people’s impression of
China is stuck in the image of pandas or kung-fu.” But quite frankly, China has offered
very few cultural icons to the world particularly to the younger generations… I firmly
believe that the improvements in cultural production under NCC could further our
narrative skills and allow us to tell a good story about China. 70
In May 2020, the company established the Neo-Culture Creativity Research Institute, to carry out
research on potential projects, document key NCC practices, as well as support future NCC programs.
For Hou and his team in Tencent Games and Tencent eSports, the first word “Neo” was the hardest
part of NCC to grasp and implement. After long discussions, they felt that in the context of NCC, a
new understanding for games was that they should be an inclusive and novel presentation of all art
forms, not just inheriting and putting traditional culture on display. Hou considered video games as
“the ninth art” (le neuvième art), after painting, music, architecture, poetry, sculpture, dancing, cinema,
and comics, and for him NCC meant leveraging as many of these as possible. In a broader sense, digital
technology would make a huge difference in recording, presenting, and carrying on cultural heritage
compared with the past, and user participation would be very active, resulting in what was known as
“user-generated content.” To Vincent Li, general manager for Tencent’s marketing and public relations
and executive director of the Neo-Culture Creativity Research Institute, “under NCC an IP can grow
rapidly after being released on different platforms in a variety of innovative interpretations, and soon
become a cultural icon winning the attention of hundreds of millions of fans.”
Opening Up to Partnerships
As part of NCC, Tencent also planned to form close partnerships with external IPs and co-create
content with them—an approach that was different from Pan Entertainment that emphasized IP
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521-066 Tencent: Combining Technology and Culture
licensing. Collaborations with the Palace Museum, Dunhuang Research Academy, the Great Wall and
later Qinshihuang Mausoleum, which together the four were dubbed “Super IPs” in China, were
considered pioneering examples. Li said, “Through the cooperation with these Super IPs, we’ve
enhanced the ‘culture’ part of our company’s brand image to something meaningful and contributing
to cultural innovation in China, which is also part of our social responsibility.” In another event in 2018,
the museum authorized the use of 10 painting masterpieces as the source of inspiration for young
participants in a Tencent songwriting contest called “Singing Paintings.” The 14 tracks created by
contestants had been played more than 65 million times since their introduction on Tencent’s streaming
platform QQ Music, and the project won an advertising award. 71 In Cheng’s opinion, Tencent’s
collaborations with traditional cultural organizations was a win-win proposition where the partners
could reach a younger audience and the company could generate content attractive to Internet users.
While it was important for an Internet company to monetize user traffic as much as possible,
Tencent was not after revenue with the Palace Museum projects, as Li said, “We don’t create such
digital content so that we can make money. Our purpose is to collaborate with Super IPs in Chinese
culture using our digital competence and creativity, and generate good content adapted to the modern
era for more people to enjoy. This is how we help pass on our traditional culture. We don’t necessarily
intend to sell more products or ads from these creations.” He added: “For Tencent, ‘tech for good’ is
an integral part of the company’s new mission. We believe that a company should push forward science
and technological innovation as well as cultural conservation. It is our responsibility as a tech company
to preserve our culture forever through digitization.”
In 2019, Tencent partnered with the France National Museums Union to bring Chinese relics that
were on exhibit overseas to the local population by building a digital museum online. 72 As part of the
collaboration, 25 Chinese relics were exhibited by the Guimet National Museum of Asian Arts, a
leading cultural institution renowned for its Asian collections. 73 While the international push of NCC
opened up more opportunities for Tencent, the company needed to figure out whether it had enough
capacity to seize them. Li pondered: “Given limited resources, should we concentrate on China's
famous cultural IP or collaborate with additional domestic museums? Should we join hands with
global museums in co-building a virtual space for relics worldwide? Broadly, these are the types of
initiatives we are thinking about.”
Li also acknowledged that there were times when Tencent worked on cultural projects that
presented lucrative commercial opportunities—yet if the business interest was in conflict with the
original intent to promote culture, the company would rely on the latter to guide its decision making.
Another challenge in the merging of technology and culture came from users who wondered if the
resulting NCC product or service was true to the spirit of the original piece. For example, according to
Dai, in a game project, Tencent had to sort out “how to respect the Chinese history and cultural
traditions, while at the same time retaining the characteristics of the game as an independent art form.”
Total user sentiment = (total number of books published * average reading time * average
number of readers) + (total time of TV shows on air * total number of viewers) + (movie
length * number of showings * average number of viewers in each showing) + other
10
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Tencent: Combining Technology and Culture 521-066
Dai believed that if a large-enough set of data was collected and the numbers were plugged into the
formula, it would be possible to compare the values of any two IPs, e.g., even between “Snow White”
and “The Monkey King.” 75 In 2018, a Chinese think tank put forward another formula to measure the
value of an IP, using user engagement, word-of-mouth evaluation, degree of development and cross-
cultural expansion as the key parameters. 76 (See Exhibit 11 for details) Using this methodology, the
think tank examined 274 local Chinese IPs and found that Tencent had participated in the development
of 110 of them compared with 24 by its competitor Alibaba, 77 and 7 of the top 10 IPs were from Tencent.
Most of the IPs studied first came out as web fictions, accounting for 32%; 19% originally from comics,
and 16% from games. The market size for IP exploitation in China was estimated at about RMB 54
billion ($8.1 billion) five years ago; and Tencent’s internal prediction was it would rise to RMB 200
billion ($30 billion). According to Li, “’Technology+Culture’ is a strategic differentiator for Tencent.
We found that Tencent has a wider digital content landscape than other global technology companies,
and few cultural enterprises are equipped with leading technology as we are. By combining technology
with culture, and having both be part of our core businesses, we believe we have succeeded in defining
a unique positioning for our brand.”
Cheng acknowledged that the company’s journey of developing IPs was not without road bumps.
In fact, the failures outnumbered the successes. But to him this was expected: “The way I see it, the
essence of the cultural industry is creativity. And the most important thing about creativity is the
relentless pursuit of novelty and change, which are inherently uncertain. That’s why innovation is most
often accompanied by failure. How many times did Thomas Edison fail before he invented the light
bulb? Similarly, what the cultural industry as an innovation industry sees most is failure.” For example,
despite the tens of millions of fictions published on China Literature’s platform, only a small portion
were widely circulated and recognized by the majority of readers; the success rate in the animation and
comic industry in China was also low.
— Edward Cheng 78
Since upgrading Pan Entertainment to NCC, Tencent had brought several projects to fruition, each
embodying, in its own unique way, the spirit of combining technology with culture.
In 2018, the developers of Honor introduced a new skin within the game based on an image from
the cave paintings in the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang, a historical Chinese city known as the gateway
to the old Silk Road in Gansu province. The image, called “Feitian,” was a portrayal of the flying
apsaras in Buddhist culture. The skin was the result of a strategic partnership between Tencent and
11
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521-066 Tencent: Combining Technology and Culture
Dunhuang Research Academy, a government-supported organization set up to protect the historic site
since 1944. In 2017, more than 9 million visitors toured the Grottoes and the number was reaching the
site’s maximum capacity, so it was necessary to work around the physical limitation creatively using
technology so that more people could get to know the unique cave art. 79 Contrary to its local popularity,
Dunhuang was little known to people outside China and a survey in 2015 put it as one of the least
recognizable Chinese cultural symbols among foreigners. 80 The same survey found that over 70% of
respondents from the U.S., U.K., France, Japan, South Korea, and Australia lacked basic understanding
of Chinese culture and that “panda” was the most recognizable Chinese symbol. 81
Tencent assembled 22 designers to work with the academy’s art experts for six months and came
up with 37 different designs. The company even flew the whole team to Dunhuang so they could see
the Grottoes for themselves. “After their visit, the programmers, graphic designers, communications
managers, and brand managers on the project all came to a deeper understanding of our collaboration
with Dunhuang,” said Dai. According to Cheng, “Every bit of the final design, from the posture, color,
outfit to body proportions can be traced back to the prototype in the Mogao Grottoes.” About 110
million game players downloaded the skin subsequent to its release, and about 40 million of them
actually used it for gameplay, making it the second most popular within that item category.
Unlike other paid skins in the game, Feitian was launched for free to celebrate the anniversary of
Honor. Li recalled that this was discussed internally: “The economic gains of commercializing the
Feitian skin would be considerable. But we wanted to let as many people as possible try out this skin,
so they could experience the beauty of traditional Chinese culture. The skin was used 40 million times
by game players on debut.”
The Dunhuang academy had spent a lot of funds on the preservation of artifacts, so Tencent thought
about how to help them increase monetization opportunities. In tandem with the skin, Tencent also
launched a song performed by a popular Chinese singer on its music streaming platform, and
additional interactive content was rolled out on Weixin, where users could make a small donation to
support the digital preservation of Mogao Grottoes or tailor-design and purchase silk scarves with
Dunhuang-inspired patterns. More than 10,000 scarves at RMB 199 ($30) apiece had been sold. There
was a total of 11 products and services stemming from the partnership between 2018 and 2019. 82 Dai
said, “These are daring explorations in the field of NCC, representing our fundamental idea that
although antiquities are static, culture should be dynamic… It's up to us to find an appropriate channel
to add new depth to its cultural value.” 83
The Peacock Dance edition of QQ Dancer was part of the Yunnan IP project. In the planning stage
Tencent surveyed 1,200 game players and found that over 90% of them were keen to see the peacock
12
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Tencent: Combining Technology and Culture 521-066
dance on QQ Dancer. Under the guidance of award-winning peacock dance performer Yang Liping
who was a household name, the game developers spent about six months creating and refining the
costume design in 16 prototypes and the dance moves in 20 prototypes. The 50-member team even
redid the whole game model so that it could support all the intricate finger movements that were the
dance’s signature. According to Dai, what motivated the company to commit to this project was the
aspiration “to co-create a pop culture version with the artist instead of a 100% replica, so that a wider
audience could learn and enjoy the distinctive folk culture.”
The marketing communication featured Yang herself, with a short video she made especially for
the game’s promotion. The new version of the game fueled an increase in monthly active users by 12%
year-on-year when it was launched in May 2020. More than 93% of players tried the peacock dance on
the first day and the participation rate remained at 77% on average during the game’s promotional
campaign period; it also helped lower QQ Dancer’s churn rate by 80%. These results were impressive
considering that the game had been around for 12 years. Topics related to the peacock dance trended
highly on social media, with more than 300 million reads on Chinese microblog platform Weibo. Dai
added, “Yang Liping was very pleased with the outcome because it met her goal of digitizing the
peacock dance and bringing it to young people.” On the other hand, the project also injected confidence
in Tencent to uphold a high standard in co-creating NCC products with partners.
Joy was written by the same author of Fighters of the Destiny. The seven-volume fiction series of Joy
ended in 2008 and Cheng recalled that at the time he spent months reading it “often after work until
midnight.” 86 In 2014, it eventually landed on Tencent’s online reading platform, and in 2017 Tencent
Pictures announced a plan to turn it into a TV drama. Unlike the experience with Fighters, this time
Tencent Pictures was deeply involved from the beginning, from screenwriting to directing and casting.
Cheng said, “Bearing in mind the lesson we learned from the previous attempt with Fighters, we have
patiently rewritten the Joy of Life IP to balance the authentic spirit of the novel and the principles of
standard scriptwriting.”
The first season of the 46-episode TV series a was released online in November 2019 and became one
of the most-watched series of the year with 5.1 billion views; 87 the view count grew to 13 billion into
2020. Critics’ score of the TV adaptation was 8.0, and it won the best adapted screenplay award at the
Shanghai TV Festival, a prestigious industry event in China. 88 Even the original literary fiction
regained the top spot in terms of readership on the China Literature platform, earning 3.5 million
reader recommendations and readers tipped b the web fiction over 600,000 times. 89 Building on the
success of the TV series, a mobile game and an animated series based on the story were in the pipeline
for production. Cheng said that Tencent had already obtained commercial returns after season one.
“Both fans and viewers spoke highly of this TV series, because it respected the greatness of the
original content and adapted it to fit TV re-creation. This was our first solid step in long-term IP
a Tencent did not disclose Joy’s production budget; some news reports gave an estimate of over RMB 100 million ($15 million).
b Online readers can send tips to their favorite writers. The minimum tip was RMB 1 (15 cents).
13
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521-066 Tencent: Combining Technology and Culture
development in China’s TV drama market. We're in the process of preparing for the next two seasons,
and the second season will start shooting soon,” Cheng said. Despite the success of the first season and
the keen interest from other streaming platforms and TV stations who wanted to co-invest in the future
seasons, Cheng knew that it was still a risky bet for Tencent because there were no successful
precedents of a multi-season TV series in China.
As of 2012, nearly 200 movies and TV dramas were based on Gu’s stories, and Legend of Dagger Lee,
one of his readers’ favorites, had been adapted 38 times. 92 Gu was widely known as the second-most
favorite wuxia novelist after Louis Cha, who died in 2018 and was dubbed the “J.R.R. Tolkien in
Chinese literature.” 93 Cha had written 15 novels with a total sales volume of 1.3 billion copies
worldwide. 94 His works had been adapted into 131 films and TV series, and over 100 games were based
on his stories with the highest revenue of a single game at RMB 30 billion ($4.5 billion). 95
Immediately after acquiring the rights, Tencent established an internal team to accomplish more
than a simple remake of Gu’s works. Cheng said: “What we want to do is create a Marvel-like system,
supported by the creation of modern characters and form a universe in which they operate with
Chinese characteristics. We want to take cue from Marvel’s experience to tell the original stories of Gu’s
characters and tell them well, and at the same time craft new stories by exploring crossovers between
the characters of the different novels—this is our dream.” 96
But in trying to make this dream a reality, dilemmas abounded. Should Tencent start with a film, a
TV series, a game, or something more creative under NCC, such as partnering with a city to develop a
wuxia-themed tourism experience? While a film or streaming series could amplify the social impact of
the IP, it would require a large budget and longer time to produce. On the other hand, a game or comic
series would be more cost-effective but perhaps not as impactful. In all, for each of these options, they
had to consider the varying levels of investments required in terms of time, money, people, and other
resources. Furthermore, how far-reaching should the company aim for with this franchise? Would
domestic success be enough or should Cheng turn these titles into an IP with global influence capable
of propagating Chinese culture to other parts of the world? To that end, while NCC had so far been
mostly based on China’s own culture and history, Dai intimated that Tencent would not “reject the
possibility of embracing global multiculturalism.” (See Exhibit 13 for a selection of the products,
platforms, and partner organizations under NCC.)
14
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Tencent: Combining Technology and Culture 521-066
which to draw inspiration, whether it be a historical site, a dance, a piece of art, a literary piece, or a
province; or they could develop additional, entirely new, IPs of their own. The possibilities were
endless but resources were not. Cheng wondered what criteria he should use in deciding between these
two approaches and whether Tencent was currently applying the right parameters in selecting which
IPs to develop and who to partner with.
Dozens of NCC projects had been initiated since 2018. Yet as the world stood at the turn of mobile
technology from 4G to fifth-generation (5G) network, which could boost connection speeds by 10
times, 97 Cheng prepared to update Tencent’s senior management about the next phase of NCC and the
future of the company’s digital content ecosystem as a whole. They might also press him on whether
the past two years under NCC had helped change consumer perceptions about the Tencent brand; and
what inroads the company had made in the larger mission of “telling the world the story of China and
telling it well,” beyond kung fu and pandas. 98 As his smartphone lit up with multiple messages alerting
him that new content was available on his various Tencent mobile apps, Cheng wondered how the
group should continue to shape its tech+culture strategy.
15
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521-066 Tencent: Combining Technology and Culture
Commercial Value
IP (USD) Media Format at Launch Company
Pokémon 95 billion Game Nintendo
Hello Kitty 80 billion Cartoon Character Sanrio
Winnie the Pooh 75 billion Book Disney
Mickey Mouse & His 70 billion Animation Disney
Friends
Star Wars 65 billion Movie Lucas/Disney
Anpanman 60 billion Comic Froebel-kan
Disney Princesses 45 billion Comics and Animations Disney
Jump Comics 40 billion Comic Shueisha/Bandai Namco
Mario 36 billion Game Nintendo
Marvel Cinematic 34 billion Comic Marvel/Disney
Universe
Harry Potter 31 billion Book J.K. Rowling/Warner
Bros.
Spiderman 28 billion Comic Marvel/Sony
Gundam 26 billion Animation Bandai Namco
Batman 25 billion Comic DC
Dragon Ball 24.3 billion Comic Bandai Namco
Barbie 24 billion Animated Movie Mattel
16
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Tencent: Combining Technology and Culture 521-066
Exhibit 2 Platforms in China with the Largest Share of Mobile Time Spent, 2015 vs. 2019
Source: Adapted by casewriters from HSBC Global Research Report entitled “Tencent Holdings (700 HK)” coauthored by
Binnie Wong, Ritchie Sun, and Carson Lo, CFA, Nov. 13, 2020, p. 7. Data from Questmobile, HSBC.
Note: Data is from top 100 mobile apps in terms of total time spent in each month.
17
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521-066 Tencent: Combining Technology and Culture
Revenue Revenue
from VAS – from VAS – Revenue
Online Social from Online
Games YoY Change Network YoY Change Advertising YoY Change
2019 114.7 10% 85.3 17% 68.4 18%
2018 104.0 6% 72.7 30% 58.1 44%
2017 97.9 38% 56.1 52% 40.4 50%
2016 70.8 25% 37.0 54% 27.0 54%
2015 56.6 26% 24.1 30% 17.5 110%
2014 44.8 40% 18.6 43% 8.3 65%
Exhibit 5 Selected Tencent Cost of Revenue Data by Business (in billions RMB)
Online
VAS YoY Change Advertising YoY Change
2019 94.1 27% 34.9 -6%
2018 74.0 20% 37.3 46%
2017 61.4 63% 25.6 66%
2016 37.6 32% 15.4 72%
2015 28.4 38% 8.9 92%
2014 20.6 34% 4.7 66%
18
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Tencent: Combining Technology and Culture 521-066
Exhibit 6 Digital Advertisement Revenue Market Share in China (4th Quarter, 2019)
Source: Adapted by casewriters from HSBC Global Research Report entitled “Tencent Holdings (700 HK)” coauthored by
Binnie Wong, Carson Lo, CFA, and Ritchie Sun, June 2, 2020, p. 8. Data from company data, QuestMobile, HSBC.
19
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-20-
521-066
Company documents.
Exhibit 7
Source:
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Tencent: Combining Technology and Culture 521-066
Exhibit 8 Box Office Performance of Marvel Cinematic Universe Movies (in USD)
21
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521-066 -22-
Exhibit 9 Most Resource-Efficient Digital Media: Comic, Game, and Online Reading (Web Fiction)
This graph shows the relation between the number of products and the This graph shows the relation between the year in existence and popularity
Source: Adapted from Liaowang Institute’s report entitled “Seeking High Quality Development: Evaluation Report on Intellectual Properties from 2017 to 2018” and data from
Liaowang Data Media Lab, published in October 2018, https://xw.qq.com/partner/wps/20181025B1XA8X/20181025B1XA8X00?ADTAG=wps.mini&pgv_ref=wps.mini;
accessed Dec. 2020.
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521-066 -23-
Exhibit 10 Number of Users of Tencent’s Value-Added Service and Tencent Video (in million)
“User involvement” = total time spent by all users on the IP product during a specified time frame (i.e. number of users multiplied by average time);
“word-of-mouth coefficient” = user reviews in relation to the social impact, artistry, and quality of the IP;
“product development coefficient” = two factors: (1) number of adaptations of the IP, and (2) years of the IP in existence;
“cross-cultural development coefficient” = a gauge of the business performance of IP products in four regions: (1) East Asia and Southeast Asia, (2) North America, (3) Europe, and
(4) other areas
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521-066 Tencent: Combining Technology and Culture
Note: (From left to right and top to bottom) Death Duel, The Eleventh Son II, Full Moon Scimitar, The Magic Blade, The
Eleventh Son, The Sentimental Swordman II, A History of Martial Art, The Impeccable Twins, Legend of the Bat
24
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521-066 -25-
Exhibit 13 A Selection of the Products, Platforms, and Partner Organizations Under Neo-Culture Creativity
Note: (Left-hand side) Jiangxi Province Museum, Shanghai Museum, Shaanxi History Museum, Sichuan Museum, Shangdong Academy of Arts, Nanjing Museum, United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Dunhuang Academy, Jinsha Site Museum, The Palace Museum, Guangdong Museum, Emperor Qinshihuang’s
Mausoleum Site Museum
(Right-hand side) Tencent Games, Tencent Video, QQ Browser, Moonlight Blade, Weishi, Dungeon & Fighters, Tencent Music Entertainment Group, China Literature, QQ,
Tencent Pictures, QQ Zone, Honor of Kings, Tencent Animation & Comics, Tencent News, QQ Music, Tencent eSports
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521-066 Tencent: Combining Technology and Culture
Endnotes
1 Cai, Zhen, “2013, Gu Long ‘Return of the King’,” Yangtse Evening Post, originally in Chinese, March 27, 2013,
http://media.people.com.cn/BIG5/n/2013/0327/c40606-20928984.html.
2 Tencent, “Condensed Corporate Social Responsibility Report 2017,” p.25,
https://static.www.tencent.com/uploads/2019/12/18/775498e42e71f866396d99edfb77cbd9.pdf.
3 Tencent’s PowerPoint slides.
4 Du, Xueping, “Internet Adoption and Usage in China,” paper for the 27th Annual Telecommunications Policy and Research
Conference, September 1999, https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Internet-Adoption-and-Usage-in-China-
Du/4881088c67ad919da32487c567341f8a0af7e47e.
5 Lam, Carrie, “QQ: The biggest digital platform you've never heard of,” ClickZ, October 9, 2017, https://www.clickz.com/qq-
the-biggest-digital-platform-youve-never-heard-of/.
6 Press release, “Tencent Announces 2010 Fourth Quarter and Annual Results,” March 16, 2011,
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/tencent-announces-2010-fourth-quarter-and-annual-results-118067979.html.
7 Philips, Shan, “Mobile Internet More Popular In China Than In U.S.,” The Nielsen Company, August 4, 2010,
https://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/article/2010/mobile-internet-more-popular-in-china-than-in-u-s/.
8 Wang, Xing, “China in race to launch 4G,” China Daily, January 28, http://europe.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2011-
01/28/content_11934816.htm.
9 Chiu, Karen, “Tencent, China’s social and entertainment giant,” South China Morning Post, October 2, 2018,
https://www.scmp.com/abacus/who-what/what/article/3028234/tencent-chinas-social-and-entertainment-giant.
10 Huang, Andrew, and Siegel, Mitch, “Super app or super disruption,” KPMG, 2019,
https://home.kpmg/xx/en/home/insights/2019/06/super-app-or-super-disruption.html.
11 Nie, Yun, “Chinese Game Industry Asks If Tencent Will Remain the ‘Big Brother’,” The Passage, May 4, 2018,
https://thepassage.cc/article/87/.
12 Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the People’s Republic of China, “First white paper of China’s online game market by
Cultural Ministry,” originally in Chinese, January 19, 2010,
http://big5.www.gov.cn/gate/big5/www.gov.cn/////gzdt/2010-01/19/content_1514798.htm.
13 Hui, Gui, “The story about the development of Crossfire,” 17173, originally in Chinese, June 17, 2020,
http://news.17173.com/content/06172020/071602439.shtml.
14 “Tencent Holdings Ltd. 4Q10: widening Market Share Gains,” Morgan Stanley, March 2011.
15 Jiang, Sijia, “Tencent to cut reliance on China gaming after profit hit,” Reuters, March 21, 2019,
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tencent-results-idUSKCN1R20SO.
16 Reuters staff, “China releases new rules on game approvals,” Reuters, April 20, 2019, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-
china-games/china-releases-new-rules-on-game-approvals-idUSKCN1RW07F.
17 Honestsun, “21-year-old Tencent iterates,” QQ Tech, originally in Chinese, November 11, 2019,
https://tech.qq.com/a/20191111/007014.htm.
18 Tencent, “Condensed Corporate Social Responsibility Report 2017,”
https://static.www.tencent.com/uploads/2019/12/18/775498e42e71f866396d99edfb77cbd9.pdf.
19 Tencent, “Value for Users, Tech for Good,” November 11, 2019, https://www.tencent.com/en-us/articles/2200913.html.
20 Ibid.
21 Wu, Xiaobo, Tencent: The extraordinary story of a Chinese internet enterprise (Chinese), p.231, Zhejiang University Press, 2017.
22 National Business Daily, “Tencent Pictures CEO Edward Cheng: Marching to Pan Entertainment,” originally in Chinese,
November 20, 2015, http://www.nbd.com.cn/articles/2015-11-20/963924.html.
26
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Tencent: Combining Technology and Culture 521-066
25 Dai, David, “Tencent’s David Dai: Creating Something More Interesting and Wonderful Using Neo-Culture Creativity,”
February 22, 2019, https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/Mk0UVnTXYNzGkCuxiIYzhg.
26 Edward Cheng’s speech at TencentX University, originally in Chinese, Nov. 2019,
http://news.iresearch.cn/yx/2019/11/307164.shtml.
27 Ibid.
28 Ibid.
29 Ibid.
30 Ibid.
31 Ibid.
32 Wu, Xiaobo, Tencent: The extraordinary story of a Chinese internet enterprise (Chinese), p.232, Zhejiang University Press, 2017.
33 Ibid.
34 Ibid.
35 Chen, Lulu Yilun, “Ninja Naruto Leads Tencent’s March into China’s $31 Billion Anime Market,” Bloomberg, March 16,
2016, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-15/ninja-naruto-leads-tencent-s-march-into-china-s-31-billion-
anime-market?sref=gzAxNo0s.
36 Ibid.
37 Wu, Xiaobo, Tencent: The extraordinary story of a Chinese internet enterprise (Chinese), p.234, Zhejiang University Press, 2017.
38 Liu, Qiong, “How Tencent Flips ‘Fan Economy,’” TechWeb, October, 15, 2014, originally in Chinese,
http://www.techweb.com.cn/news/2014-10-15/2083612.shtml.
39 Edward Cheng’s speech at TencentX University, originally in Chinese, Nov. 2019,
http://news.iresearch.cn/yx/2019/11/307164.shtml.
40 Wu, Xiaobo, Tencent: The extraordinary story of a Chinese internet enterprise (Chinese), p.234, Zhejiang University Press, 2017.
45 IP Key, “Report on the Development of China’s Online Copyright Industries (2018),” European Union Intellectual Property
Office, September 24, 2019, https://ipkey.eu/sites/default/files/ipkey-docs/2019/IPKey-CHINA_oct2019_Report-on-the-
Development-of-China-s-Online-Copyright-Industries.pdf.
46 Dou, Eva, and Lin, Lilian, “China's Tencent Wants to Make Movies (Just Like Everyone Else),” Wall Street Journal,
September 18, 2014, https://www.wsj.com/articles/BL-CJB-24116.
47 Baidu, “Baidu Acquires Online Video Business of PPS for US $370 Million to Create China's Largest Online Video Platform,”
PRNewswire, May 7, 2013, http://ir.baidu.com/news-releases/news-release-details/baidu-acquires-online-video-business-
pps-us-370-million-create.
48 Chu, Kathy, and Osawa, Juro, “Alibaba Pushes Further Into Entertainment,” Wall Street Journal, July 15, 2014,
https://www.wsj.com/articles/alibaba-pushes-further-into-entertainment-1405389902.
27
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521-066 Tencent: Combining Technology and Culture
49 Enfodesk, “Enfodesk: China’s Advertising Market in Video Streaming at RMB 4.67 Billion in Q3 2014,” originally in Chinese,
December 8, 2014, http://www.199it.com/archives/303182.html.
50 Dou, Eva, and Lin, Lilian, “China's Tencent Wants to Make Movies (Just Like Everyone Else),” Wall Street Journal,
September 18, 2014, https://www.wsj.com/articles/BL-CJB-24116.
51 Wu, Xiaobo, Tencent: The extraordinary story of a Chinese internet enterprise (Chinese), p.235, Zhejiang University Press, 2017.
52 Tencent Research Institute, “China Pan-Entertainment Report Development,” originally in Chinese, February 2, 2018,
https://cloud.tencent.com/developer/article/1035545.
53 Ibid.
54 Duan, Jingfang, “Birth of Tencent Pictures announced,” Xinhua, originally in Chinese, September 18, 2015,
http://www.xinhuanet.com/ent/2015-09/18/c_128240982.htm.
55 Ibid.
56 Hurun, “2017 Mopian-Hurun Original IP Value List,” originally in Chinese, July 12, 2017,
https://www.hurun.net/CN/Article/Details?num=9587051B210D
57 Xi, Wei, “New TV drama ‘Fighter of the Destiny’ looks to take advantage of ‘the Lu Han effect’,” Global Times, April 19,
2017, https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1043195.shtml.
58 Li, Quan-wei, “The Best-Performing CEOs in the World,” HBR China, originally in Chinese, November 2015,
http://www.199it.com/archives/406019.html.
59 Guangdong Animation & Comic Industry Association, “Palace Museum X Tencent Three-Year Collaboration,” originally in
Chinese, October 24, 2018, https://www.sohu.com/a/271024422_502894.
60 Tencent, “Tencent Started Repairing the Jiankou Great Wall in the Spirit of ‘Digital Workmanship’” July 30, 2018,
https://www.tencent.com/en-us/articles/2100003.html.
61 Edward Cheng’s speech at TencentX University, originally in Chinese, Nov. 2019,
http://news.iresearch.cn/yx/2019/11/307164.shtml.
62 Tencent, “Condensed Corporate Social Responsibility Report 2017,” p.24,
https://static.www.tencent.com/uploads/2019/12/18/775498e42e71f866396d99edfb77cbd9.pdf.
63 Edward Cheng’s speech at TencentX University, originally in Chinese, Nov. 2019,
http://news.iresearch.cn/yx/2019/11/307164.shtml.
64 Edward Cheng’s speech, “Cultural Collaboration in a Global Context,” Asia Society, November 12, 2018,
https://youtu.be/TMWzvlva8M8.
65 Dai, David, “Tencent’s David Dai: Creating Something More Interesting and Wonderful Using Neo-Culture Creativity,”
originally in Chinese, February 22, 2019, https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/Mk0UVnTXYNzGkCuxiIYzhg.
66 Edward Cheng’s speech at TencentX University, Nov. 2019.
67 Ibid.
68 Dai, David, “Tencent’s David Dai: Creating Something More Interesting and Wonderful Using Neo-Culture Creativity,”
Tengyun, originally in Chinese, February 22, 2019, https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/Mk0UVnTXYNzGkCuxiIYzhg.
69 Cheng, Edward, “Building Neo-Culture Creativity Ecosystem,” Tencent Games, originally in Chinese, August 2, 2018,
https://game.qq.com/webplat/info/news_version3/128/3294/3321/3322/m2614/201808/747049.shtml.
70 Ibid.
71 Web page, “QQ Music X Palace Museum ‘Singing Paintings’ Next Idea Contest,” International Advertising Awards 2019,
originally in Chinese, http://www.iaiad.com/cn/award-case/2019/grand-prize-19/1628.html.
72 Du, Mingming, and Hongyu, “Exhibitions in France promote cultural exchanges with China,” People’s Daily Online,
February 1, 2019, http://en.people.cn/n3/2019/0201/c90000-9543537.html.
73 Ibid.
28
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Tencent: Combining Technology and Culture 521-066
74 Dai, David, “Pluralistic interpretations can lift IP value,” Iyiou, originally in Chinese, September 22, 2016,
https://legacy.iyiou.com/p/32013.html.
75 “Tencent’s David Dai: A nation’s cultural history is the history of a nation’s IP evolution,” Gamelook, originally in Chinese,
February 24, 2018, http://www.gamelook.com.cn/2018/02/321404.
76 “Seeking High Quality Development: Evaluation Report on Intellectual Properties from 2017 to 2018,” Liaowang Institute,
October 2018,
https://xw.qq.com/partner/wps/20181025B1XA8X/20181025B1XA8X00?ADTAG=wps.mini&pgv_ref=wps.mini.
77 Ibid.
78 Edward Cheng’s speech, “Cultural Collaboration in a Global Context,” Asia Society, November 12, 2018,
https://youtu.be/TMWzvlva8M8.
79 Jiang, Bo, and Wu, Yaxiong, “Digital Cultural Preservation Assists Dunhuang, the Next 1,000 Years,” China News Service,
originally in Chinese, September 22, 2018, http://culture.people.com.cn/n1/2018/0922/c1013-30309263.html.
80 Luo, Wangshu, “Survey finds foreigners sketchy on China icons,” China Daily, June 8, 2015,
https://www.chinadailyasia.com/nation/2015-06/08/content_15273541.html.
81 Sun, Ye, “Foreigners lack basic understanding of Chinese culture – survey,” China Daily, June 7, 2015,
https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2015-06/07/content_20930317.htm.
82 Edward Cheng’s speech, “Cultural Collaboration in a Global Context,” Asia Society, November 12, 2018,
https://youtu.be/TMWzvlva8M8.
83 Dai, David, “Tencent’s David Dai: Creating Something More Interesting and Wonderful Using Neo-Culture Creativity,”
Tengyun, originally in Chinese, February 22, 2019, https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/Mk0UVnTXYNzGkCuxiIYzhg.
84 Dai, Piao, “Tencent announces ‘QQ Dancer Mobile’,” Youxiputao, originally in Chinese, December 8, 2017,
http://youxiputao.com/articles/13552.
85 Tencent Wen Lu, “Yunnan and Tencent announce ‘Yunnan Yun,’ first cultural tourism IP image on provincial level,”
originally in Chinese, June 17, 2020, https://cloud.tencent.com/developer/article/1646890.
86 Cheng, Edward, “To Online Literature Writer,” Sohu, originally in Chinese, April 30, 2020,
https://www.sohu.com/a/392269668_233830.
87 Jinri Zi Xun, “Joy of Life Season One Concluded, A 2019 Blockbuster Show,” Sohu, originally in Chinese, January 2, 2020,
https://www.sohu.com/a/364362992_120248784.
88 Ibid.
89 Tang, Yihong, “Joy of Life Fiction Regains Top 3 Spot After 10 Years,” Laodong Guancha, originally in Chinese, January 14,
2020, https://www.51ldb.com/shsldb/wt/content/0092955de92ac0018fdd6c92bf95ed90.html.
90 Edward Cheng’s speech at TencentX University, originally in Chinese, Nov. 2019,
http://news.iresearch.cn/yx/2019/11/307164.shtml.
91 Ibid.
92 Cai, Zhen, “2013, Gu Long ‘Return of the King’,” Yangtse Evening Post, originally in Chinese, March 27, 2013,
http://media.people.com.cn/BIG5/n/2013/0327/c40606-20928984.html.
93 Kuo, Lily, “'China's Tolkien': millions mourn death of martial arts novelist Jin Yong,” The Guardian, October 31, 2018,
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/31/jin-yong-dead-china-tolkein-martial-arts-novelist-louis-cha.
94 Wumiancaijing, “How much does Louis Cha’s IP worth?” Sina, originally in Chinese, November 2, 2018,
https://k.sina.cn/article_5571172458_14c11586a00100c6r5.html.
95 Ibid.
29
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521-066 Tencent: Combining Technology and Culture
97 Duffy, Clare, “What is 5G? Your questions answered,” CNN, March 6, 2020,
https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2020/03/business/what-is-
5g/index.html#:~:text=The%20fastest%205G%20networks%20are,around%207%20minutes%20with%204G.
98 Cheng, Edward, “Building Neo-Culture Creativity Ecosystem,” Tencent Games, originally in Chinese, August 2, 2018,
https://game.qq.com/webplat/info/news_version3/128/3294/3321/3322/m2614/201808/747049.shtml.
30
This document is authorized for use only by Junwoo Lee ([email protected]). Copying or posting is an infringement of copyright. Please contact [email protected]
or 800-988-0886 for additional copies.