BlueFocus further forays into metaverse by releasing “meta-sis” K on International Women’s Day
On the International Women’s Day, BlueFocus’s subsidiary, UniBlue, released a new virtual human named K. This is the second virtual human released by BlueFocus, after “Su Xiaomei”, a traditional Chinese-styled character, inspired by its namesake — renowned poet Su Dongpo’s sister.
According to BlueFocus’s post on its official Weibo account, “K” is a metaversal virtual musician, and was created to pay tribute to the “pioneering women who have pushed the progress of humanity”. K advocates that “Every girl can be her own King” (according to the metabverse company, King refers to a symbol of absolute power rather than gender identity, hence King is reduced to K to remove the gender connotation), and that every woman can take the helm of her life. In the future, K will use music to express her opinions and become the “meta sister” of human women.
BlueFocus posted a black and white photo of K on March 8, 2022. Photo Credit: BlueFocus
Branded as an independent, progressive woman, K’s launch will possibly be more successful than its predecessor Suxiaomei, who only has approximately 426,000 followers on Douyin even after performing in Beijing TV’s Spring Festival Gala. Suxiaomei’s followers pale in comparison to Liuyexi, one of the most popular virtual humans in China, who currently has 8.64 million followers on Douyin. Liuyexi’s success can be attributed to its realistic appearance and unique identity — a demon catcher in modern society.
In a concept video yet to be released, K will pay tribute to China’s first space teacher Wang Yaping, Asia’s first UFC women’s world champion Zhang Weili, Bikini Kill lead singer Kathleen Hanna and other powerful human women in different fields, according to BlueFocus. K’s identity mirrors that of Eileen Gu, one of the most popular and most loved sports stars in China, for competing for China and winning two gold medals in the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games.
According to a research report by QbitAI, it is estimated that the overall market size of China’s virtual humans will reach 270 billion yuan by 2030. BlueFocus founded UniBlue in November 2021, banking on the possibilities of the hyped concept “metaverse”, especially the realms of e-commerce, cultural entertainment, brand marketing involving virtual humans.
Since two years prior to founding its subsidiary UniBlue, BlueFocus has already worked with popular consumer brands such as Yili Satine Milk, Tencent’s mobile game Honor of Kings, and Tencent’s PC game QQ Dancer, to design and release virtual human avatars for each company.
In December last year, BlueFocus announced a strategic partnership with Baidu’s newly launched metaverse product, Xirang, at an AI Conference hosted by Baidu. Xirang will build an exclusive building for BlueFocus as a benchmark demonstration for metaverse marketing, bringing metaverse technology application and innovative experience to all BlueFocus customers. Meanwhile, BlueFocus will become the “industry-wide marketing scenario agent” in the virtual space of Xirang, and the exclusive marketing agent in the automotive industry.
In February this year, UniBlue announced the launch of the “Fenshenyoushu” digital human driven platform, a SaaS product providing low-cost, efficient, and realistic “doppelganger” solutions for key people in various industries and fields. For example, the platform can generate a virtual human based on the appearances of real humans and compile video and audio content, freeing up time and energy of real humans. The Fenshenyoushu platform was developed amid UniBlue’s strategic partnership with XiaoIce, a Microsoft subsidiary focusing on AI technology.