From Personal Account to Brand IP: Visual Asset Accumulation and Monetization in China's Creator Economy

Against the backdrop of declining organic reach and intensifying content homogenization on China's WeChat ecosystem, "Walk On My Heart" is a WeChat public account run by a single operator. It has about 3,000 followers, yet since June 2019, readers have tipped more than RMB 30,000, six times the account's advertising income. This case study examines how a small-scale account converts a coherent visual identity into direct revenue, and why that identity remains structurally under-recognized as a licensable brand asset. Drawing on brand-equity theory and recent research on the creator economy, the paper reconstructs the account's visual system (handwritten titles, film-grain illustrations, white-space layouts) and weighs its strengths against its weaknesses. These visual assets enhance brand recall, foster parasocial trust, and stimulate voluntary monetary contributions, thereby demonstrating measurable brand equity. The weaknesses are structural: the style is unregistered, production depends entirely on one person's hand, and expansion to Douyin and Xiaohongshu has diluted the look without bringing followers. The paper proposes registering and licensing the visual assets, tiering the use of handwritten elements, and publishing the style guide so that imitation works for the brand rather than against it.