Mark Ritson: The Labubu bubble is bursting but Pop Mart can still save the brand

Second, ship the products for the large FMCG firm that had flown me there. 

And third, discover two very particular Labubu dolls for a really particular nine-year-old.

Rising from the sketchbook of Hong Kong-born, Netherlands-raised artist Kasing Lung, Labubu dolls are a fusion of Nordic fairy tales and Asian cartoon artistry. It was Pop Mart, the Chinese language toy big, that reworked Labubu right into a industrial phenomenon in 2019, rolling the toys out throughout Asia and later the globe in blind-box codecs. This irresistible mix of fable and trendy merchandising fuelled a fever amongst collectors and, later, intimidating nine-year-olds.

Pop Mart’s masterstroke was to juxtapose shortage with movie star. Restricted releases, blind-box pleasure, and associations with the likes of Lisa from Blackpink and David Beckham drove Labubu costs to dizzying heights on secondary markets. Searches and gross sales spiked all through Asia, the US, and Europe, with some dolls fetching £1,000 or extra. Within the first half of 2025, Labubu accounted for greater than a 3rd of all Pop Mart income, producing an astonishing half a billion kilos in simply six months.

With my jet lag vanquished and a contented shopper behind me, the true mission was but to start. I had given myself 4 hours to hit the Pop Marts of Singapore (all 9 of them), plus a bunch of secondary sellers as backup.

Exactly 11 minutes later, each Labubu dolls had been grinning inanely from my bag, and I used to be understanding what number of hours of reflexology and heavy consuming I might match into the gaping alternative of a free Friday afternoon in Singapore in contrast with earlier adventures the place I had returned with the improper Labubu (Tokyo), a faux Labubu (New York Metropolis) or no Labubu (London), this was a cakewalk.

It had occurred in a flash. On the best way to the primary Pop Mart, I’d handed a small, innocuous toy store. After I confirmed the bored proprietor the images of the specified fashions, he barely seemed up from his noodles and signalled to an enormous glass show case in the back of the shop. There, of their lots of, was each creed and color of Labubu possible. They’d been pre-opened and coded, so that you knew what you had been getting. And the costs had been solely $5 above the Singaporean RRP of $40.

In fact, you’re now considering what I used to be considering as I checked out lots of of furry, grinning faces: Labubu is Lathroughthrough. In a improvement as outdated as advertising and marketing itself, the product has handed its apex simply as the corporate producing it’s ramping up. Pop Mart produced 30m dolls in October, a tenfold enhance on earlier demand-driven months. In the meantime, Google Traits confirms that on an innocuous day over the summer time, we reached, then handed, peak Labubu. And it’s been downhill ever since. The surfeit in manufacturing and decline in demand is turning into ever extra obvious. All of the black market gamers have change into gray market sellers. Resale costs have dropped from astonishing mark-ups to costs typically decrease than the unique retail value. The tip could be very fucking nigh.

We have now been right here earlier than. 

We might name it Cabbage Patch Dolls syndrome. Or the Von Dutch impact. How about Logan Paul’s Prime decline? Or Levi’s illness. The minute Nick Kamen slipped off these blue wonders in that faux-50s laundrette, we had been witnessing each the height of Levi’s demand and the beginning of its downfall. All too typically, the tragic actuality of brand name progress is that the height can be the beginning of the trough. 

And that prompts an vital advertising and marketing query: 

What ought to Labubu do-do?

Choice one is already inconceivable for Labubu: scale back manufacturing and stir up demand into some type of everlasting market obsession. This was the unique playbook of most nascent luxurious manufacturers. Regardless of experiencing its personal Labubu-like surge in consideration and want in centuries previous, most couldn’t ramp up manufacturing as a result of the availability of appropriate land, uncooked supplies and artisans made such issues inconceivable.

The lengthy ready lists of Louis Vuitton or the apology of Father Pierre Pérignon to Louis XIV for not having the ability to ship him any booze for his events aren’t simply legendary moments within the historical past of those nice manufacturers. They’re exemplars of how short-term provide restrictions assured long-term fortunes. Trendy luxurious manufacturers like Rolex and Hermès comply with an identical restrictive method to manufacturing today, regardless of manufacturing constraints being considerably much less restrictive. Ferrari famously estimates the demand for its newest mannequin after which makes precisely one much less. There’s advertising and marketing technique on this defeatist manufacturing ideology.

Choice two is extra fatalistic. Anticipate merchandise and types that rise on the whimsical tide of vogue to then fall. And after that fall, change into an professional in revitalising the model and restoring demand. It’s simple to overlook that present branding behemoths like Lego, Burberry and even Apple as soon as surged after which fell away solely to be resurrected to ten-fold ranges of their unique desirability

There are placing present examples to counsel this phoenix-like method can work wonders. I’ve by no means seen a greater model return than the one being marshalled by Fran Horowitz over at Abercrombie & Fitch. After the ridiculous, kinky highs of the noughties and scandal-hit fall from grace throughout the 2010s, the model is staging a blinding comeback. Final yr noticed revenues rise to $4.95bn, past something it achieved throughout its glory years. Along with not resembling a model catering solely to homo-erotic frat boys, Horowitz applied different modifications, together with streamlining operations, closing underperforming shops, and leveraging influencer-driven digital advertising and marketing.

She’s reinvigorated the model. And she or he’s a good distance from being performed but.

Manufacturers like Labubu can rebound. However as the sooner Levi’s instance illustrates, it’s a harmful recreation to play.

Choice three might be essentially the most relevant to Labubu as soon as it really works out that it’s dropping, not profitable, the demand struggle. Though its trajectory could be very a lot a declining one, reaching out to different manufacturers by co-branding might re-inject life, demand and a brand new cycle of gross sales.

When the as soon as uber-cool skate store Supreme grew to become too large and too common for its personal good and began its personal slippery decline, it was good sufficient to show to co-branding to arrest the slide and develop demand. The corporate had all the time organically partnered with manufacturers all through its historical past, however beginning with Louis Vuitton and shifting on to large gamers like Nike and North Face, Supreme has weaponised co-branding as a shortage amplifier and cultural legitimacy software. Every drop is a limited-edition occasion that prompts each the unique viewers and the collaborator’s followers, creating FOMO-driven shopping for frenzies and secondary market premiums.

Extra strategically, these partnerships function fixed validation of Supreme’s cultural centrality. When a serious luxurious model or coveted designer aligns with Supreme, it reinforces the model’s place as an arbiter of style relatively than merely a streetwear vendor. The model doesn’t co-brand to extend unit gross sales; it co-brands to keep up the notion that Supreme merchandise are scarce, fascinating commodities price queuing for or paying resale mark-ups on. Supreme’s genius is knowing that co-branding works as demand upkeep exactly as a result of the model stays selective and unapproachable sufficient to make every collaboration really feel like an earned privilege relatively than a industrial transaction.

It’s clear that the preliminary wonderful period of Labubu is over. By Christmas, it would change into clear that nobody needs the dolls any extra, and a large bout of discounting will start. Pop Mart might want to step again and overview its choices. And it’ll be taught, like numerous manufacturers earlier than it, that whereas the creation of preliminary white-hot market demand is one thing to rejoice, its upkeep past the same old cycle of issues is a talent solely the very most interesting advertising and marketing minds can handle.

My nine-year-old needs it “on report” that she vehemently disagrees with this analysis.