Asiad's commercial success pinned on collectible items

The total market development revenue from the Hangzhou Asian Games and Asian Para Games has reached nearly 5.32 billion yuan ($728 million), the organizing committee's marketing department deputy director Du Mengfei said on Thursday.

Over 700 million yuan has come from the sales of licensed memorabilia, namely, 500 products belonging to 17 categories. Particularly popular are souvenirs featuring the mascots Congcong, Lianlian and Chenchen, which were designed to embody Hangzhou's cultural and technological prowess, and account for about 70 percent of sales, Du said.

"Mascots are always popular sports symbols," she said. "These sales figures show people really love these three."

The rarest treasures are the official Asiad pins. Their scarcity has made them a hot trading commodity among volunteers, journalists, athletes and staff. Most of the 200 pin designs were developed by Hangzhou Kayford Branding.

"Our mission is to tell stories about Hangzhou and China through design and to promote Asian Games culture. Our designers are from the younger generation. We not only did extensive cultural research, but also visited various sites for inspiration," the company's CEO Guo Zhihao said.

"It is a very fun thing for us to see that pin trading has become a tradition, and it's indispensable — almost a ritual — to facilitate cultural exchanges among different people from different countries and regions."

Hangzhou Wensli Silk Culture Co has used AI to develop over 100 products, including toys and scarves. They demonstrate local silk's unique charm, chairman Li Jianhua said.

He explained that new technology has enabled the company to cut down design and production times from days to minutes or hours.

"It's about breaking records," he said. "We've used this to produce customized scarves for gold medalists, who have loved them."

About 83 percent of total market spending has come from the roughly 4 billion yuan that 176 sponsoring enterprises have generated at the Games. Du pointed out that 107 of these companies are based in Zhejiang province.

"They have strong feelings toward their hometowns," she said. "They said: 'The Asian Games are on our doorstep. Why should we miss out?'"