China’s fascinating billion dollar+ emoji character industry

A Miniso x Chiikawa themed pop-up store made its debut at Jing'an Joy City in Shanghai on 29 March, marking its first stop on a national tour. Within 10-hours, ¥2.68 million ($380K) work of goods were sold, setting a historic record for IP events at the mall. The event also contributed to 96,000 people visiting the mall on 30 March, the highest ever single-day pedestrian count since the mall opened.

The popup, a Miniso collaboration with the "rising star of cute creatures," Chiikawa, was launched for the first time in China, featuring a variety of co-branded products including plush toys, daily necessities, and accessories - clearly striking a chord with a large number of consumers. Some consumers stayed up all night waiting at the mall entrance, while some queued for 7 or even 9 hours to buy the limited edition toys inside.

People queuing up for Chiikawa from outside of Joy City. Image: RED/Xiaohongsh

In recent years, Chinese youth have become increasingly enthusiastic about purchasing merchandise featuring cartoon IP characters. Initially, these characters were well known from various cute social media emoji packs. But as they became better known, the positive content of the comic behind these cartoon characters provided solace to these young people under immense life pressure, giving them spiritual energy and comfort.

Different cartoon IP character's emoji on WeChat. Image: WeChat

The popularity of these cartoon characters has made them a common inclusion for marketing strategies. Chiikawa, like other popular cartoon character IPs such as Maltese from a Korean illustrator, and Loopy from a Korean animated series, have all entered the market through the indispensable emojis in young people's daily social interactions.

By understanding the emotions of young people, they created various emojis close to life, such as "slacking off at work" and "keep smiling no matter what", providing users with a channel to vent their emotions and express dissatisfaction. At the same time, this relatable content attracts a large number of netizens to engage in secondary creation, triggering another wave of dissemination frenzy, expanding the influence of the IP, and extending its lifespan.

People use these IPs to engage in secondary creation. Image: Weibo & RED/Xiaohongshu

To maintain stable exposure, these IPs have also set up official accounts on various social media platforms such as Weibo, Douyin, Bilibili, and RED, enriching the storytelling content of the characters, continuously producing new content, and providing users with opportunities to interact with the IP online.

Different cartoon IP accounts on different social media channels. Image: Weibo, Bilibili, Douyin & RED/Xiaohongshu

As these IPs gain a certain user base online, they turn their attention to the production of offline IP merchandise, developing and launching some products that are relatively low-priced, but closely related to people's daily lives such as keychains, canvas bags, plush toys, umbrellas and mugs. Pop-up stores serve as a good choice for these IPs to interact with consumers offline. By opening pop-up stores in different cities and launching limited-time limited-edition products, they attract a large number of young users to queue up for purchase, while also gaining a significant amount of exposure and viral content on social media platforms.

Loppy & Maltese pop-up stores. Image: RED/Xiaohongshu

To ensure the cartoon IP maintains it freshness and novel-factor, it expands its reach to consumers through real world channels, extending to scenes such as restaurants, cafes, parks, etc., ensuring that people encounter IP-related stores more frequently in their daily lives. Through vibrant colours and colourful product displays, it provides visual impact for everyone passing by.

To achieve real monetization, cartoon IPs collaborate with many brands in high profile campaigns, bringing continuous brand exposure, while refreshing the collab brands and helping them maintain their relevance for consumers.

Chiikawa / Maltese co-branding events. Image: RED/Xiaohongshu

As Chinese consumers seek brands that they connect with emotionally, cartoon emojis provide an already-established path to do so, if they can dodge the collab fatigue.