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The Foundation of LABUBU's Popularity
- Positioning as a Trendy Toy: Its core audience is adults, focusing on collection rather than practical use, with both artistic aesthetic value and collectible value. It meets the personalized expression and aesthetic demands of specific consumer groups with its light luxury characteristics.
- Construction of a Blockbuster IP: As a character from Hong Kong illustrator Long Jiasheng's picture book The Elf Trilogy, LABUBU has transformed from a picture book character to a trendy symbol through the development of story IP and image IP, becoming a veritable blockbuster IP.
- Story IP: LABUBU is mischievous and loves to play tricks but has a kind heart. Its story has a realistic foundation and an ideal height, conforming to Wang Guowei's "theory of realm", forming a unique artistic conception.
- Image IP: It has established high recognition with its "ugly-cute" appearance featuring big eyes, big fangs, and a grinning smile, which is different from mainstream aesthetics and caters to Generation Z's preference for non-mainstream aesthetics. It maintains the unity of its core shape in cross-border co-branding, enhancing brand recognition and fan loyalty.
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Cultural Background and Consumption Significance
- "Guyu Economy" and "Tong Culture"
- Guyu Economy: "Guyu" refers to cultural products such as trendy toys and cultural and creative products, giving birth to "Gumei" culture, where collectors gain satisfaction and recognition by arranging scenes to display their collections.
- LABUBU's Fitting Points: It has distinct images, diverse styles, limited releases, and narrative properties, meeting the key indicators of "Gumei" culture. It has become a spiritual symbol for Generation Z to express freedom and self-identity, helping enthusiasts form interest-based communities.
- Significance in Consumer Culture: LABUBU has transformed from a commodity to a cultural product, endowed with cultural significance and emotional value, becoming a symbol of expressing self-identity and cultural belonging, reflecting the mutual penetration of commodities and culture.
- "Guyu Economy" and "Tong Culture"
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Existing Structural Concerns
- From the Consumer Perspective
- The low probability of getting hidden blind box styles easily makes consumers fall into an emotional consumption cycle of "buying again and again", generating comparative anxiety, leading to the alienation of consumption psychology, and turning "love" into a burden of "spending money for recognition".
- The emotional attributes of IP are manipulated by capital, and consumers may fall into a vicious cycle of "consuming to seek comfort - consumption causing anxiety - anxiety prompting further consumption", losing their emotional judgment and consumption autonomy.
- From the Enterprise and Industry Perspective
- Pop Mart has a high reliance on the revenue of the series where LABUBU is located (accounting for 23.3% of total revenue in 2024), suffering from "blockbuster dependence". Once the popularity fades, it will impact operations.
- LABUBU relies on its appearance, celebrity promotion, and limited co-branding to drive its popularity, lacking the content ecosystem support like Disney, resulting in insufficient sustainable development capabilities.
- The industry as a whole has "blockbuster anxiety" and "brand anxiety", staying in the primary stage of visual design and social marketing, lacking a high-stickiness and sustainable content and value system, which may easily face market 断层.
- From the Consumer Perspective
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Development Directions and Suggestions
- IP Upgrade Path: To develop from a brand IP to a super IP, it needs to have a unique content system, topic value, new technology integration capabilities, and efficient traffic monetization capabilities. This requires enterprises to improve the content ecosystem, platforms to restore diverse aesthetics, and consumers to make rational choices.
- Specific Measures
- Story Creation: Integrate positive spiritual cores, natural elements, and idealized concepts, inject humanistic care through poetic narratives. Creators need to have a lofty artistic realm and keen insight into the times.
- Enterprise IP Construction: Continuously output story IP and image IP while maintaining artistic purity, becoming a bridge connecting creators and the public's emotions.
- Derivative Product Development: For example, Pop Mart's city parks enhance emotional connections, and plans to launch animated series and feature films, making derivative products cultural media carrying aesthetics, emotions, and ideals, forming a sustainable business closed loop.
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