"Having Hermès without Labubu is like not having Hermès."

From Korean singer Lisa posting a photo with the Labubu doll, to the Thai princess matching Labubu with Hermès bags, to Rihanna, Dua Lipa, and Kim Kardashian hanging Labubu on luxury bags, wealthy women around the world have begun to be crazy about this weird-looking ugly doll.

The latest Labubu series was launched at the end of April and quickly sold out in stores around the world. There were even fans fighting in British stores to buy it. A blind box retails for $27.99, but it can be sold for hundreds of dollars on websites such as eBay and StockX. The price of rare Labubu can even be as high as $9,500.

In Los Angeles, London, Milan, and other places, people began to queue up for the POP MART store opening ceremony or new product release from the early morning, just like they queued up for the iPhone release a few years ago.

"When the queue was the longest, we waited for 9 hours, starting at 12 o'clock in the morning and opening at around 9 to 9:30 in the morning. I saw the first 300 people come out with several bags of Labubu, and by the time the 500th person came out, everything was sold out. I waited for about 6 hours and bought nothing." A foreign netizen shared his experience of queuing for the opening ceremony of POP MART in Los Angeles on Reddit.

The popularity of Labubu has driven the market value of POP MART to soar.

In less than a year and a half since 2024, POP MART's stock price has soared from more than 20 Hong Kong dollars to more than 250 Hong Kong dollars, more than ten times, and its market value has exceeded the sum of classic IP manufacturers such as Barbie, Hello Kitty and Transformers.

On June 9, Forbes' real-time rich list showed that Wang Ning, the founder of POP MART, and his family had a net worth of US$20.8 billion, becoming the new richest man in Henan and ranking 10th on the Chinese rich list.

Many people don't understand why an ugly doll is so popular. Why can it harvest rich women all over the world? Can POP MART become the world's POP MART?

1. Crazy "Labubu"

Labubu was launched as early as 2018, but it didn't really become popular until last year, and it took the lead in causing a craze in Thailand.

Its popularity surge is inseparable from the promotion of Lisa, a member of the Korean girl group BlackPink. In 2024, Lisa carried Labubu pendants in public many times and posted photos of herself and Labubu on social media, driving Labubu to become popular in Thailand and even throughout Southeast Asia.

Last July, to celebrate the opening of POP MART's sixth store in Bangkok, Thai government officials even rolled out a red carpet at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport to welcome Labubu, who was dressed in traditional Thai costumes. Hundreds of fans warmly welcomed Labubu at the scene.

This craze has spread from Southeast Asia to Europe and the United States because European and American singers Rihanna, Dua Lipa and other stars have been frequently photographed wearing LABUBU pendants.

On Reddit, many European and American collectors will exchange buying tips and discuss how to increase the chances of grabbing a restock before the Labubu dolls are sold out. Someone left an excited message: "Thanks to this method, I finally got my first Labubu in my life!" Others reminded: "It's best to delete this post after a few hours." Some netizens even issued a warning - never leave Labubu in the car, someone once smashed the window and stole it.

Today, Labubu has set off a buying craze in Russia, the Middle East and other places. In Dubai and the UAE, there are also many Labubu fans who have formed communities and played unboxing videos.

Amid the global boom, Labubu has created a sales miracle for POP MART.

POP MART's financial report shows that in 2024, Labubu will drive the "The Monsters" series of dolls to soar from 368 million yuan last year to over 3 billion yuan, equivalent to a daily income of 8.2 million yuan, becoming POP MART's most profitable IP.

But the value of Labubu lies not only in its own popularity, but also in its driving effect on the entire brand.

A consumer goods analyst believes that Labubu can also promote the growth of other product lines. For example, many consumers originally came for Labubu, but if they encountered a shortage of stock, they often did not want to return empty-handed, so they turned to buy other product lines and look for "alternatives".

In addition to performance growth, Labubu also made POP MART one of the few Chinese brands that established an emotional connection with consumers in overseas markets.

Previously, Chinese brands were mostly accepted by users overseas by relying on technology and price advantages, such as BYD and DJI, but it was difficult for them to make consumption decisions based on "emotions". But in consumer goods such as toys, brands often rely on stronger cultural expressions and emotional resonance to enter the minds of users.

A European marketing agency commented: "The success of Labubu means that Chinese brands are beginning to have another way to compete - combining technology with brand stories to establish emotional links. This ability is essential in the fiercely competitive market of Western brands."

2. Why is it crazy

Many people don't understand why the weird-looking Labubu can make so many people obsessed.

From the image point of view, Labubu does not look cute, but a little fierce, even a little scary, but this may be precisely the reason why it can become popular. Joshua Dale, a professor of "cuteness" at Chuo University in Tokyo, Japan, believes that as the "cute culture" continues to grow, people are beginning to look for different forms of cuteness besides traditional Hello Kitty plush toys.

"The reason why characters like Labubu that are not so 'cute' is popular is that people are tired of the unchanging sweetness and cuteness and want something different," he said. "Labubu is more interesting because they look like they are thinking about something and may even want to attack you, but this feeling is actually like when you look at a puppy or a kitten, you will jokingly think that they are 'a little fierce'."

Rich women buy Labubu because it brings emotional value and social value. Wang Ning, founder of POP MART, believes that consumption actually solves two problems: one is satisfaction and the other is a sense of existence. Satisfaction is basic, perhaps material satisfaction, perhaps spiritual satisfaction. A sense of existence belongs to you need to tell others who you are.

Labubu has done this. A senior foreign bag collector believes that women are increasingly looking to customize their items in a unique way to reflect and convey their personality. "When I see someone carrying a Hermès Birkin, I think, 'Wow, a tough guy.' But if I find a Labubu on her bag, I think, 'OK, she knows how to invest in famous bags and is also an interesting person.' It changes people's views on her."

Image is the basis for attracting wealthy women, but the fact that Labubu can now be associated with luxury goods is not "accidental", but "careful planning".

POP MART pays great attention to the layout of the core location of the core business district and focuses on the association with luxury goods.

Wang Ning may be the CEO who loves shopping malls the most. Every time he goes on a business trip abroad, he must go to the local core business district and encourage the team not to be afraid of high rents and not being able to recover costs. When opening stores in some core countries, core regions, and core cities, they should be able to be ambitious and have the courage to open stores in better locations and larger stores. "Be bolder and don't always calculate financial accounts." He often tells the local team.

POP MART almost only appears in the most core business districts in every city. The French stores are located in Galeries Lafayette and the Louvre. The former is the largest department store group in the country, and the latter is an art pilgrimage site for global tourists. The British stores are located in prime locations in London Oxford Street, Manchester Shopping Center and Cambridge City Center, all of which are landmark shopping malls. In Italy, POP MART chose Corso Buenos Aires in Milan. This commercial street is known as "the longest fashion corridor in Europe" and gathers the most stable local middle-class consumption power.

After entering the shopping mall, POP MART did not choose to be on the floor of affordable brands, but lived next to luxury brands.

When talking about going overseas, Wen Deyi, President of POP MART International Business, mentioned that the overseas retail format is different from that in China. For example, South Korea and Japan are dominated by department stores. The first floor is luxury goods and cosmetics, the second floor is women's clothing, the third floor is men's clothing, the fourth floor is sports brands, and the fifth floor is children's brands, playgrounds, and cinemas. "We can only enter the fifth floor because department stores will position us as toys. We don't even give us a place on the first floor even if we pay." In the end, POP MART started from the fifth floor and slowly moved to the first floor.

The store itself is located in the core business district, supplemented by limited edition, co-branded products, etc., so POP MART stores have become social check-in places for tourists and local trendsetters, naturally with high exposure and traffic conversion advantages.

Of course, it is also inseparable from the promotion of social media.

On TikTok, the #Labubu tag has accumulated more than 1.4 million posts, and the videos uploaded by users of unboxing, queuing, etc. can always quickly attract young fans.

For example, TikTok blogger Todd became popular by unboxing blind boxes. In January this year, she posted a video that took a week to buy a specific Labubu from a POP MART vending machine, which received more than 2 million views and more than 200,000 likes. The comments are all "I don't know what Labubu is, why am I still so devoted to it" or "Today I also started my own Labubu journey!"

Blind boxes are very suitable for unboxing videos. Unlike other social media shopping videos, bloggers don't know what they will get. Therefore, while showing the unboxing to the audience, it is also a game or gambling, and it may stimulate the audience to buy their own blind boxes and get the characters they want.

3. Can it cross the cycle

The popularity of Labubu is not just luck, but also the result of the screening of the POP MART IP development system.

Wang Ning compared the process of discovering IP to the process of discovering Internet celebrities on Douyin, and the core is resource matching. "Suddenly I found that everyone likes to watch this short video, forwarding a lot, likes a lot, and staying for a long time, so I will give it more traffic so that more people can see it." He said, "POP MART is the same, marketing resources, store display, how many stores to spread to, what kind of location to place, and supply chain resources, whether to give it to the core factory, etc., are also a lot of resource matching."

POP MART divides IP into four levels: S, A, B, and C, and will allocate resources according to the level. B-level IP may only develop one series a year, test the waters with a few thousand sets of goods, and once the market responds enthusiastically, the next series will be tens of thousands of sets, and it will open more stores, shoot better promotional videos, put more advertisements, and take artists to do more signings. Conversely, even if it is an S-level IP, if sales are found to be weak, it will be "demoted" in time to shrink resources.

This is an industrialized IP screening and operation method, and Labubu is one of the products of this mechanism.

But the essence of trends is change, and it is almost impossible to cross the cycle. The solution given by POP MART is to continue to invest and extend the life cycle of IP.

In Wang Ning's view, the number of IPs is not particularly important, and how to continue to do a good job of the value of the top IP may be more important. The life cycle of an IP depends on the company's investment in it and whether this investment is healthy and sustainable. "Just like "Star Wars", it has been filmed until now, and there are more than a dozen movies. Because the relevant companies have been investing, it can become a stable and long-term IP."

POP MART is trying this path: opening theme parks, making animations and making movies. Wang Ning said that he hopes there will be movies that POP MART will completely dominate, and hopes to have one of its own movies every year in the future. Recently, according to the Qichacha APP, KENNYSWORK COMPANY LIMITED has registered the copyright of the script V1 of the first season of the animated series "LABUBU and Friends".

This will continuously extend the life cycle of IP and expand the boundaries of monetization. Just like "Frozen" only made about 300 million yuan at the box office in China, but it made more than just money from the movie. The box office is only a small part of its commercial value. The real monetization is in derivative businesses such as skirts, toys, and theme parks.

Just like Disney has a systematic and comprehensive business framework, POP MART is also building its own comprehensive business framework.

Traditional IP companies usually "brainwash" with animation content first, and then monetize through licensing; while POP MART is just the opposite, first using products to lay a user base, and then feeding back content narratives. This is a longer and more difficult road, but if it works, POP MART may really become the world's POP MART.