The Strat · Episode 25 · Objects of Desire
23 July 2026 · 13 min
Labubu
License one artist's monster, hang it on a pop star's handbag, and let the resale market set the price.
From the show notes
The Rise of Labubu
Published as
Ep 25- The Rise of Labubu
§01 — What to listen for
Labubu was drawn by the Hong Kong-born artist Kasing Lung in 2015 and licensed to Pop Mart in 2019, where it sat quietly in blind boxes for years. Listen for the moment in 2024 when Lisa of Blackpink was photographed with one on her bag, and for how fast a character became a currency after that.
The strategy is in the supply. Pop Mart releases Labubu in series, some pieces are deliberately rare, and the resale market does the pricing the company would be embarrassed to do itself. The episode is the first in the run and it sets the template: an object nobody needed, made scarce on purpose, worn as a signal. Everything after it is a variation.
The episode tells the story. The written case does what twelve minutes cannot: the business model, the moat, the statements, the valuation, and a verdict. Read the Pop Mart teardown.
§02 — The strategy, named
The mechanisms this episode demonstrates, in the same vocabulary the case library uses. Where a pattern has been written up, the claim is here; otherwise the tag is still in the queue.
- scarcity engineering
Deliberately supplying less than the market demands can be worth more than the revenue it forfeits.
- cultural velocity
Tagged across the library; the write-up is in the queue.
- sell the meaning
The most durable consumer companies charge for what the product says about you, and treat the object itself as the delivery mechanism.
- artist founder
Tagged across the library; the write-up is in the queue.
§03 — Go deeper
Pop Mart
Contested moat · Watch it
Your turn
One shelf is carrying the shop. Do you make the shelf bigger, make the shelf the shop, or make yourself the shelf for everyone else's toys?
Wang Ning · 2016
Verdict
Watch it
If a character other than The Monsters passes RMB 3 billion in annual revenue while The Monsters is still shrinking, the platform has proved it can replace its own hit and I would pay for the machine rather than the toy. If instead revenue falls in step with Labubu's resale prices and no successor appears within two years, Pop Mart was a licensor that got lucky twice, and I should value it like a toy company.
§04 — More from Objects of Desire
How an ordinary object becomes a craze, and what the company does when the craze ends.
- 26Pop MartSell the box, not the toy. The customer is paying for the moment before they know what is inside.14 min
- 37JellycatRetire the designs, raise the prices, and turn a soft toy into something adults collect.8 min
- 38Victoria's SecretBuild the most valuable fantasy in retail, then watch the customer stop wanting it.8 min
- 39Bath & Body WorksSell a cheap thing that smells like a memory, and rotate the range so fast the customer has to come back.8 min
- 40Hydro FlaskLet a subculture adopt you, sell the surface it decorates, and know the wave will pass.8 min
- 41StanleyFind the customer your hundred-year-old brand never noticed, and let her sell the cup for you.8 min
- 42OwalaEnter a saturated market late with one genuinely better feature and a colour drop calendar.7 min
- 43CrocsStop apologising for the product. Make ugliness the point, and sell the customisation.7 min