Fumihide Watanabe, 57, looked at his own reflection in the mirror in his house in Japan's Yamanashi Prefecture. He scratched his bald head, and out of instinct made funny and weird faces.
Suddenly he had a light bulb moment. He wanted to create a set of Line stickers, which the Japanese call "stamp", based on his own funny faces. He took pictures of his exaggerated facial expression, put them down in drawing and later launched the "Human Skin Head" stickers that feature 40 types of humorous expressions in the set.
And out of nowhere, the sticker is a hit -- not in Japan, but in Thailand.
Up to that time Watanabe had created a number of Line stickers for more than three years under the pseudonym Fumisan, but his work hardly sold.
"I was very glad when I learned from Line that the stamp set of Human Skin Head is one of the best-selling stickers. I wonder why Thai people like my stamp," he said.
The earnings from his Line stickers have likely made him a fortune. Line declined to give specific sale figures of each its best-selling stickers, but it reports total sales of stickers worldwide since 2014 as 14 billion baht. The average accumulated earnings for the Top 10 creators is about 155 million baht per person.
Like Watanabe, no one including Line staff can pinpoint the exact factors why some stickers are much more popular than others.
Fumihide Watanabe is the creator of the 'Human Skin Head' sticker. Karnjana Karnjanatawe
According to Kanop Supamanop, the Business to Consumer head of Line (Thailand), the success of those stickers seems to base on two factors. One is the creativity of people who can make stickers that catch the attention of mass users.
The other is less simple: a stroke of luck.
"Creating Line stickers is like making a business. You may not succeed on the first day. You can keep developing a new idea until your sticker becomes a hit," Kanop said, adding that Line has tools and an online market to support creators because it wants to have new stickers to serve demands of users as well as to promote Line sticker developers as a real career.
THE ORIGIN
About 41 million Thais use Line as their chat app, either for personal or business use, making Thailand one of the key markets in Asia along with Japan, Taiwan and Indonesia.
Line stickers have become a familiar mode of communication among Thais too. Besides the official stickers, the Tokyo-based cross-platform mobile messenger app launched the Line Creators Market, the platform allowing users to create and sell their cartoon stickers in May 2014.
The idea to have the creators market started when Naotomo Watanabe, senior manager of Line Sticker Business Department of Line Corp in Japan, received a comment from a Line user that he wanted to create a specific sticker theme for his wedding.
Watanabe did not just let the comment pass by, he saw an opportunity and opened the market for anyone to be Line creators.
According to Line, the number of creators is dramatically rising, jumping from 500,000 creators in 2015 to 600,000 in 2016. As of the end of September this year, a record shows 1 million registered creators worldwide, of which 230,000 are creators from Thailand.
One creator can produce as many stickers as they like. There is no up-front payment to join the creators market. When a sticker is sold, Line will split 50% of earnings with the creator after deducting 30% fee charges by Apple or Google. The copyright belongs to the creator.
There are about 600 million Line users worldwide. The company forecasts the total users will reach 700 million this year.
During the third quarter of this year, the average number of stickers sent per day was 413 million, up from 384 million during the same period as last year. The largest customer bases are in Japan, Taiwan, Thailand and Indonesia, where the total of monthly active users reach 168 million.
During the first nine months of this year, Line stickers generated about 8.9 billion baht, accounting for 25% of its total revenue of about 35.5 billion baht.
"I didn't think that the business would grow this big when we started," said Watanabe.
BEING A CREATOR
A range of merchandise is available at Line Friends Stores. Karnjana Karnjanatawe
To be a creator, one needs to have an idea and the drive to make it happen.
According to Ai-Chen Yung of Global Sticker Team at Line Corp, to be a successful creator, one should create a good product and have good marketing strategies.
The basic tips for having a good product is to create a sticker with a character or a theme that is "easy to see, easy to use and easy to remember", she said, adding that this includes using attention-grabbing and memorable colours or pictures.
Creators should also promote their own stickers through social media channels like Facebook or Instagram.
Furthermore, creators can develop merchandise based on their sticker characters, pretty much like the products available in Line Friends Store outlets including Line Village Bangkok in Siam Square One. The successful Line stickers can be used for books, mascots and exhibitions as well as a café or restaurant, she said.
Take Usamaru, the cute rabbit character, as an example. It is one of the best-selling stickers in Japan. Usamaru became a temporary themed café in Shibuya in Tokyo where food and drinks are served by Usamaru and friends. The café serves only three choices of main courses, three types of desserts and two kinds of hot drinks, but customers queue up for a table.
The opportunity seems to be unlimited and being a Line creator can be a successful career, said Yung.
THE BIG BREAK
Noppawat Wattanasuk, 33, is a freelance animator who wants to make a career out of being a Line creator.
The Thai man is one of 10 winners of the Line Creators Market Sticker Contest 2017 hosted last month. Under the theme of "Express Your Love Via Line", he created a team of five funny and colourful animated characters called Barbor Barbor. Each animated character is painted with bright colours on a solid colourful background.
"This work is totally different from my previous salaried animation job that I did for the past decade. During those years, I created animations based on provided stories, scripts and designs. But this Barbor character set, I have to use all of my creativity to create characters, think about the concept and the story," he said.
Although drawing is one of his hobbies, he didn't take it seriously until he faced redundancy this year and realised that he too can be a Line creator with hopes of success.
"When I learned about the contest, I knew this was an opportunity for me. Because if I win the contest, it means that Line will help promote my sticker. I want this opportunity," he said.
Sirisuk Arunrattananon, 29, another winner, said she plans to develop mascots based on her "Veggie Sexy" animated character. Based in Phitsanulok, she also wants to develop commercial products, cartoons over the internet and game apps in the future.
Being a Line creator isn't limited to those who can draw pictures or develop animation. In August, Line launched Line Creators Studio encouraging those who don't have drawing skills to create their own stickers from photos stored on their smartphones.
Tatsuki Yoshinaga, who has created more than a dozen characters so far, also jumped at the opportunity. He took pictures of raw sliced beef in different positions and inserted a written expression in each picture. He made a set of 40 stickers and called it "The Real Meat" and sold it under his creator's name called Bokuchitsu.
He thought the sticker was not his best. In fact he said it was lousy. But without any expectation, his sticker became a hit in Japan for the first time.
Line highlights him as one of its successful creators. For Yoshinaga, the achievement made him realise the importance of timing.
He said those who want to be successful creators have to keep updating themselves with new features Line provides like the Line Creators Studio. Another key factor is to keep creating.
"Do not give up. If a sticker you create doesn't sell well, leave it and create a new one. If you keep on making new stickers, who knows, one day you might hit the jackpot," he noted.
