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Introduction

With the popularity of collectible toys and designer figures, blind box has gained popularity in consumer goods characterized by its surprise-based engagement and brand positioning from innovative communication.

From Molly to Labubu, and now to the newest launch of Pop Mart store in Vancouver, all of these lie in the enigmatic trend of the Blind Box. What made it so famous? Who is Pop Mart? And the final question: What made POP MART financially successful? Hopefully, this website will give you answers.

However, blind box is also different since it isn’t utterly arbitrary; you can infer the range of the product from the side of the cover; it lays out the series and the audience would be well aware of the series along with the choices before they open as there would be a demonstration on the side. Nonetheless, the variety of it is ceaseless, it could range from DIY kits to actual toys and to dolls( Iftikhar). In the case for Pop Mart however, it is often a toy figure.

Why Pop Mart？

There are several prominent companies in the market that have certain products expressed in forms of Blind box. In fact, many companies, such as Disney or Sanrio, also have their own blind box series. However, Pop Mart’s success is protruding, it had made blind box a huge commercial success especially in the recent 2 years. It had given rise to many famous series such as Labubu, crybaby and Molly. In the figure 2, and 3 below are some current evidences of its popularity:

Pop Mart Development & Strategy

Opportunity Recognition

The official debut of Popmart was in 2010, whereas its first offline store was in Beijing, the Capital of China. Its founder is Grant Wang (Wang Ning), who was merely 23 years old by the time of the first launch. Wang Ning’s inspiration for Popmart sparked from his trip to Hong Kong, where he observed retail stores populated with niche yet zen products; he later realized that, due to the paucity of these stores in China, it may be an opportunity (prestigeonline.com).

Grant Wang realized the demand for this sort of product, a toy that isn’t explicit on the outside and makes the user’s experiences unique. And since Sonny Angel wasn’t a character under Pop Mart, Grant Wang decided to create his own. After a small group of surveys, he officially began contacting designers and transforming Pop Mart to a closer one like today(hsgcap.com)

Blind Packaging Model

There are multiple reasons that led to Pop Mart’s success, rising from an unknown startup to a large company with billions of market cap today. One of the most prominent reasons is definitely the product itself, a blind box is another form of lottery; integrating unknown and thrill into conventional toys. Yulia Nevskaya, a consumer psychology expert at Queen’s University, claimed that the process of opening a blind box is similar to gambling, except the stakes are much lower, and the returning product of a toy is more approachable. She mentions that this eliminates the stigma of gambling while preserving a niche experience (Mbiamany). “ It created so many communities, offline and online. It sort of becomes a glue which brings people together in many ways.” Alisha Haridasani Gupta once told The Current’s Matt Galloway.

Marketing Strategy

Pop Marts uses a variety of diverse approaches in order to market itself, including advertising and strategic distribution of offline stores. However, we want to emphasize its specific strategies regarding co-branding.

Definition of Co-branding: When two or more brands form a strategic alliance and collaborate on making one product under both brands’ names (Kenton).

What is POPMART‘s ideology when it comes to co-branding?

According to Mr.Yang, under the copyright and collaboration branch under Popmart, there are 2 dimensions to this question.

1. When it comes to co-branding, Popmart looks at if the collaborating brand would firstly, leverage the product’s status, exemplifying the co-branding with YSL( Saint Laurent) in 2020. But secondarily, if the other brand is well woven into the audience’s life, for example, travelling and clothing, all of this contributes to more exposure( Miao). Which can be made reference to during Popmart’s co-branding with several worldwide companies, such as Disney and Häagen-Dazs.
2. Popmart adjusts the character they choose to fit the brand’s ideology. Every character under Popmart has their own background stories, traits, and unique underlying messages. It adds depth to the dynamic appeal they intend to portray to customers. Consequently, while co-branding a product, Popmart avoids simply putting two products together with a branded box, but selects meticulously regarding whether the character’s traits align with the other brand’s image or theme.

(See next page)

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