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Labubu, the bug-eyed elves from Beijing, might just be the unlikeliest face of global brand disruption. But the viral figurines, sold in blind boxes across Asia, Europe, and the Americas, are helping rewrite the rules of consumer engagement and revealing what the future of global brands might look like. Their success isnt really about toys; its about building a new kind of consumer community. Pop Mart, the brand behind Labubu, has built a business on orchestrating demand, emotion, and engagement at scale. In the first half of 2024, the company posted RMB 6.65 billion in revenue (roughly $920 million), tripled its profits year-on-year, and reached a $40 billion market capitalization, more than double that of U.S. toy giants Hasbro and Mattel combined. It recently told investors to expect a 350% year-on-year profit surge for the first half of 2025. What makes Labubu exceptional is that it represents one of Chinas first truly organic cultural exports. Its a phenomenon driven by its community of fans, rather than top-down orchestration. A TikTok moment Born from the imagination of Hong Kong-based illustrator Kasing Lung, the ugly-cute dolls were catapulted into the spotlight after Blackpinks Lisa was spotted carrying a plush version. That moment triggered a viral TikTok surge and helped drive a 726.6% increase in Labubu-related revenue, now accounting for 25% of Pop Marts total. What were seeing isnt a one-off success, its a structural shift in how cultural IP is created, scaled, and consumed globally. Chinese consumer innovation is entering a new phase, moving from platforms and hardware to emotionally resonant, creator-led IP. These fandom-driven communities bypass traditional media gatekeepers entirely. Other Chinese firms are accelerating this shift. Xiaomi, Miniso, and Heytea are part of a new generation of brands not competing on price or scale, but by building fan communities, embedding emotion, and turning cultural resonance into business strategy. The orchestration of desire Labubus rise is no accident. Sold in blind boxessealed packaging that hides the variant insideits more than clever merchandising. Its behavioral design. The randomized reward system mirrors gaming mechanics, tapping into dopamine loops and repeat engagement. Over 1.7 million TikTok videos tagged #Labubu feature unboxings. Limited editions, like the Rainbow Labubu, have fetched over $150,000 at auction. Instead of relying on loyalty programs or sales funnels, the brand creates micro-moments of surprise that make shopping feel like play. Its 66.8% gross margin reflects not just operational efficiency, but emotional value. The retail strategyvending machines, roboshops, and immersive flagshipsis designed for experience, not efficiency. In New York, teens queue outside Pop Marts SoHo flagship not to shop, but to swap figurines, livestream unboxings, or hunt for rare Labubu variantsmimicking sneaker culture. From product to platform This emotional engagement mirrors moves by other Chinese innovators. Xiaomi, once a low-cost smartphone player, has evolved into a lifestyle platform spanning wearables, TVs, EVs, and smart home devices. Its loyal Mi Fan community is central to its success by participating in product development. This two-way relationship cuts marketing costs and builds loyalty. Online forums, feedback channels, and fan events make Xiaomi feel less like a company and more like a community. Miniso, too, has leaned into aesthetic curation and scarcity. Its co-branded collections with Sanrio, Marvel, and Coca-Cola go viral on social platforms, while its treasure-hunt store layout fuels impulse discovery. Despite affordable price points, it achieves performance that rivals luxury retailersproving emotional design can scale. At the center of this shift is aesthetic fluency. Pop Marts roboshops now span 25 countries, including the U.S., France, and Australia. Flagship stores in New York and Los Angeles draw Gen Z crowds reminiscent of Supreme drops. The design of Labubuquirky, ironic, expressivetaps directly into Gen Zs appetite for memeable, imperfect symbols of self-expression. This isnt imitation. China is exporting design-native communities that speak to youth culture through visual language. Monetizing emotion at scale Chinese brands are also redefining how emotion scales. While legacy Western players rely on storytelling and identity marketing, their Chinese counterparts are building infrastructure for emotional engagement. Heytea treats each product launchwhether a limited-edition cheese tea or a regional collaborationas an event, amplified through influencers, teaser campaigns, and fan buzz. Its minimalist, Instagrammable stores are designed for social interaction, turning queues into part of the experience. Co-branded drops with luxury names like Fendi and seasonal exclusives fuel emotional attachment. This isnt just clever marketingits a system that turns a beverage into a lifestyle, and a brand into a community. That same emotional infrastructure powers Labubus rise into fandom. Rare figurines flip for 5 to 30 times their retail value on Xianyu, Alibabas resale platform, some with blockchain verification. Police raids on counterfeit Lafufu dolls signal Labubus ascent to luxury-like status, making it a new asset class: IP with emotional and economic value, validated in real time. What Western brands can learn Some Western executives may dismiss blind boxes and roboshops as quirky or culturally niche. But under the surface lies a global truth: Consumers crave emotion, novelty, and community. Labubus rise shows how brands can scale through visual culture that travels without translation. No slogan, no storyline, just design. It spreads like a physical meme, interpreted across cultures from Seoul to Paris. The core question is no longer Whats the story? Its Whats the emotion were scaling? Chinese brands are showing that strategy today is built from small, orchestrated moments that add up to immersive communities. Theyre blurring the lines between product and platform, commerce and culture. The old playbookposition, promote, pushwas built for mass marketing and one-way messaging. Todays leading brands thrive on feedback loops, cocreation, and community-driven agility. The next wave of global brands? Its tempting to view Pop Mart as a regional curiosity. That would be a mistake. Labubu may look like a viral toy, but its also a case study in how design, emotion, and communities converge into strategic advantage. What ties these brands together is not just design or digital presenceits the way they build and sustain fan communities. Labubu isnt a preview, its proof. And for global brands still running on legacy logic, its time to catch up.
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E-Commerce
Its summer, and its been hot, even in northern cities such as Boston. But not everyone is hit with the heat in the same way, even within the same neighborhood. Take two streets in Boston at 4:30 p.m. on a recent day, as an example. Standing in the sun on Lewis Place, the temperature was 94 degrees Fahrenheit (34.6 degrees Celsius). On Dudley Common, it was 103 F. Both streets were hot, but the temperature on one was much more dangerous for peoples health and well-being. The kicker is that those two streets are only a few blocks apart. The difference epitomizes the urban heat island effect, created as pavement and buildings absorb and trap heat, making some parts of the city hotter. A closer look at the two streets shows some key differences: Dudley Common is public open space sandwiched between two thoroughfares that create a wide expanse of pavement lined with storefronts. There arent many trees to be found. Lewis Place is a residential cul-de-sac with two-story homes accompanied by lots of trees. This comparison of two places within a few minutes walk of each other puts the urban heat island effect under a microscope. It also shows the limits of todays strategies for managing and responding to heat and its effects on public health, which are generally attuned to neighborhood or citywide conditions. Even within the same neighborhood, some places are much hotter than others owing to their design and infrastructure. You could think of these as urban heat islets in the broader landscape of a community. Sensing urban heat islets Emerging technologies are making it easier to find urban heat islets, opening the door to new strategies for improving health in our communities. While the idea of reducing heat across an entire city or neighborhood is daunting, targeting specific blocks that need assistance the most can be faster and a much more efficient use of resources. Doing that starts with making urban heat islets visible. In Boston, Im part of a team that has installed more than three dozen sensors across the Roxbury neighborhood to measure temperature every minute for a better picture of the communitys heat risks, and were in the process of installing 25 more. The Common SENSES project is a collaboration of community-based organizations, including the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative and Project Right Inc.; university researchers like me who are affiliated with Northeastern Universitys Boston Area Research Initiative; and Boston city officials. It was created to pursue data-driven, community-led solutions for improving the local environment. Data from those sensors generate a real-time map of the conditions in the neighborhood, from urban heat islets like Dudley Common to cooler urban oases, such as Lewis Place. These technologies are becoming increasingly affordable and are being deployed in communities around the world to pinpoint heat risks, including Miami, Baltimore, Singapore, and Barcelona. There are also alternatives when long-term installations prove too expensive, such as the U.S.s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration volunteer science campaign, which has used mobile sensors to generate onetime heat maps for more than 50 cities. Making cooler communities, block by block Although detailed knowledge of urban heat islets is becoming more available, we have barely scratched the surface of how they can be used to enhance peoples health and well-being. The sources of urban heat islets are rooted in developmentmore buildings, more pavement, and fewer trees result in hotter spaces. Many projects using community-based sensors aspire to use the data to counteract these effects by identifying places where it would be most helpful to plant trees for shade or install cool roofs or cool pavement that reflect the heat. However, these current efforts do not fully capitalize on the precision of sensors. For example, Los Angeless massive investment in cool pavement has focused on the city broadly rather than overheated neighborhoods. New York Citys tree planting efforts in some areas failed to anticipate where trees could be successfully planted. Most other efforts compare neighborhood to neighborhood, as if every street within a neighborhood experiences the same temperature. London, for example, uses satellite data to locate heat islands, but the resolution isnt precise enough to see differences block by block. In contrast, data pinpointing the highest-risk areas enables urban planners to strategically place small pocket parks, cool roofs, and street trees to help cool the hottest spaces. Cities could incentivize or require developers to incorporate greenery into their plans to mitigate existing urban heat islets or prevent new ones. These targeted interventions are cost-effective and have the greatest potential to help the most people. But this could go further by using the data to create more sophisticated alert systems. For example, the National Weather Services Boston office released a heat advisory for July 25, 2025, the day I measured the heat in Dudley Common and Lewis Place, but the advisory showed nearly the entirety of the state of Massachusetts at the same warning level. What if warnings were more locally precise? On certain days, some streets cross a crucial thresholdsay, 90 Fwhereas others do not. Sensor data capturing these hyperlocal variations could be communicated directly to residents or through local organizations. Advisories could share maps of the hottest streets r suggest cool paths through neighborhoods. There is increasing evidence of urban heat islets in many urban communities and even suburban ones. With data showing these hyperlocal risks, policymakers and project coordinators can collaborate with communities to help address areas that many community members know from experience tend to be much hotter than surrounding areas in summer. As one of my colleagues, Nicole Flynt of Project Right Inc., likes to say, Data + Stories = Truth. If communities act upon both the temperature data and the stories their residents share, they can help their residents keep coolbecause its hot out there. Dan O’Brien is a professor of public policy and urban affairs and director of the Boston Area Research Initiative at Northeastern University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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E-Commerce
Each January, we set lofty resolutions for ourselves: increasing our output, landing that promotion, and negotiating a raise. Then progress stalls, motivation dips, and those big goals become distant dreams. Research from Headwaya book summary app designed to help people achieve their self-development goalsshows that 60% of people are embarrassed by how little progress theyve made this year, with 44% close to writing off their 2025 resolutions. As a productivity coach, I know how beneficial resolutions can bebut also how quickly they can sap morale and motivation when combined with the wrong mindset. But it doesnt have to be all or nothing. Theres no deadline, and you havent failed if you dont complete your resolutions by December 31st. So if youve hit a midyear slump, dont panic. These strategies can help you to reset, refocus, and rebuild momentum: 1. Reframe your setbacks Setback carries negative connotations, but its just another word for experience, and experience is essential for growth. Instead of brushing these moments asideor beating yourself up over themnote down each time youve tried and failed, then reflect on what these experiences taught you, shifting your mindset from self-criticism to self-awareness. Where did it go wrong, and what would you do differently next time? Setbacks arent roadblocks; theyre stepping stoneswith each one providing valuable insight that will aid your next attempt, making you more resilient and better prepared. In fact, research shows that a failure rate of around 15% is optimal for self-growth. 2. Utilize the Zeigarnik effect Many people recommend breaking your resolutions down into smaller, more achievable tasks. Yet, that constant sense of achievement can kill your productivity. You tick a small step off your to-do list and reward yourself with a break, hitting reset on your momentum. Instead, you need to use the Zeigarnik effect to your advantage. This is a phenomenon where our brains are hardwired to focus on unfinished tasks and quickly forget about the ones weve completed. Instead of wrapping up your day with your to-do list at 100% completed, end at 80%. The next day, youll be ready to pick up where you left off. But once you finish a task, move immediately on to the next to keep the momentum going. This approach will keep your goal front of mind, maintain a sense of urgency, and prevent that post-completion slump that too often derails our progress. 3. Cut yourself some slack Youre not the person you were six months ago. Life shifts and priorities change, so your January goals might be unrealistic today. Thats okay. Some 27% of people say simply surviving 2025 is commendableand theyre right. Close to half fear a global conflict is on the horizon, one in five find themselves worrying that a loved one could face deportation, and there has been a sharp rise in the number of people struggling to make ends meet. Tensions are high, and were all struggling with something, so go easy on yourself. If you need to scale back your resolutions or hit pause until 2026? Theres no shame in it. 4. Stop striving for perfection You dont have to navigate your goals aloneor stick rigidly to the resolutions you set in January. You simply need to stay connected to your intentions, especially when motivation starts to dip. That might mean scheduling regular check-ins with yourself where you can remind yourself why you set certain goals in the first place, take time to note whats working and what isnt, and adjust accordingly to match the current pace of life. Progress isnt about perfection. Its about staying in tune with what matters most to you and seeking to better yourself. By being too tough on yourselfdenying yourself the space, flexibility, and self-trust to get there in the endyoure not pushing yourself to achieve; youre pushing yourself to quit. 5. Focus on recovery With 61% of people having suffered a meltdown in 2025, its clear were demanding too much of ourselves, and another midyear resolution wont help. The problem is, we set ambitious goals on top of our already overloaded schedules, then sacrifice our sleep and downtime to pursue them. Its no surprise we burn out when our bodies and minds are running on empty. So instead of pushing yourself to do more, push yourself to rest more. Your midyear resolutions should be to sleep eight hours each night, stop checking your emails after hours, and use up all your vacation days. Theres a reason athletes take rest days and CEOs swear by meditation. Whats good for the body and mind is great for productivity, so if you set resolutions that help you rest, relax, and recover, your career will undoubtedly profit.
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E-Commerce
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