Labubu in the showcase, NFT on the screen, unlock the magic of IP emotional marketing.

One is tangible and real, while the other exists only on the screen. Labubu and NFT, these two forms of IP, seem to straddle the realms of reality and the virtual world, yet in this era of emotion-driven consumption, they grow, explode, and recreate myths with astonishingly similar logic.

Written by: Nancy, PANews

A cute little monster Labubu quietly stands in the display window, with fans outside lining up to buy, all for the surprise that might release a hidden version. Similarly, a series of digital images are minted as NFTs on the chain, not visible in physical form, yet sold out in just a few minutes.

One is tangible and real, while the other exists only on screens. These two forms of IP seem to exist in both the real and virtual worlds, yet in the era of emotion-driven consumption, they grow, explode, and recreate myths with astonishingly similar logic. Behind this is the medium of community interaction, a projection of individual identities, and a cultural and emotional container birthed by the IP era.

Emotional Resonance: It's Not Just About Products

The charm of Labubu goes far beyond its furry appearance and unique design; it is an extension of the user's inner world, or perhaps the hidden monster image from a childhood doodle book, reflecting the complex yet lonely self deep within. This seemingly simple doll actually creates a genuine emotional companionship for users, filling the void of people's yearning for belonging and love—just as psychologist Maslow pointed out the "need for belonging and love."

At the same time, Labubu satisfies the psychological phenomenon of collecting. Collecting behavior is seen in psychology as a manifestation of a sense of control. When users accumulate and display Labubu dolls, gaining a sense of achievement, this sense of possession in turn enhances self-identity and inner satisfaction. Each doll carries a unique story behind it: whether it’s the excitement of queuing up late at night to buy it, or the emotional resonance when sharing the collection with friends, these moments become precious emotional treasures.

NFTs also inspire a deep sense of community belonging, fulfilling the social need for acceptance and recognition. What players collect is no longer just a string of cold codes, or a symbol of faith for those first touching the crypto world, nor just memories forged together with like-minded individuals.

The emotional resonance based on a sense of ownership and belonging not only satisfies the intrinsic needs of users, but also serves as an invisible link between users and brands. At the same time, this emotional stimulation has opened up a new growth path for brands and creators, and by deeply cultivating the emotional experience of users, building a multi-dimensional cultural identity and community belonging, it can achieve long-term loyalty and continuous participation of users.

IP Narrative: Not Just Assets, But Story Containers

In the current wave of cultural consumption, a character is never just an image. The essence of a truly vibrant IP lies in its ability to construct a narrative universe that people are willing to immerse themselves in.

Labubu is a case in point. As a core member of The Monsters series, Labubu may have started out as a big-eyed monster with pointed ears, but as it developed a personality, a companion, and a growth trajectory, it grew from a doll to a character, weaving a diverse and rich virtual network with other characters from the same series, such as ZIMOMO and SkullPanda. The construction of this universe relies on continuous content output, scene-based immersive experience layout, and deep participation mechanism of user emotions, which also enables Labubu's image to be extended to various physical carriers such as offline theme parks, limited plush toys, blind boxes, and assembled building blocks.

This idea of narrative IP construction is also evident in the NFT space. NFT projects have long realized that what can really impress users and maintain the community is not a single scarcity, but the story behind the characters. For example, BAYC continues to expand the boundaries of its "ape universe" by launching diversified products such as the metaverse, fashion clothing, games, and music. Azuki enriches the user's touchpoint experience with physical comics and trendy peripherals; Pudgy Penguins has broken through the Web3 circle and entered the traditional retail scene with children's books and offline toys, emphasizing the cute and healing attributes of penguin characters and the emotional narrative of accompanying growth. What these cases have in common is that they have all made the leap from visual symbols to cultural roles, making NFTs a role-driven narrative medium rather than just an on-chain asset.

From this perspective, those IP universes with long narrative structures and the ability to produce continuous content truly possess the cultural potential to transcend time and reach a broader audience.

Blind Box Gameplay: The Gamble of Scarcity and Surprise

The blind box mechanism is a psychological game built on probability, creating uncertainty through artificial means, allowing products to detach from simple functional attributes and instead be endowed with emotional value and trading potential. Scarcity is created through probability, which stimulates emotions, and emotions ultimately drive the formation of market value. The core of this mechanism is to make players obsess over the "next time" through repeated attempts, a psychological state referred to in psychology as "intermittent reinforcement."

Labubu combines an innovative gameplay of blind box mechanisms, providing consumers with a sense of surprise and challenge. The hidden variants push ordinary products into the realm of collectibles and even assets. Each time a box is opened, it is not just an emotional consumption but a tangible probability game experience. The NFT field has also introduced similar gameplay, encoding randomness and scarcity into the blockchain in the form of smart contracts. Each Mint process essentially represents a digital card draw, with algorithms determining the combinations of images, backgrounds, and features, while the rarity almost replicates the hidden variant logic found in physical blind boxes.

More importantly, when a hidden Labubu is unsealed or a rare NFT is revealed, the propagation and emotional amplification mechanism on social networks is activated, from sharing pictures in friend circles to bidding in the secondary market, rarity is quickly priced by the market and transformed into a form of hard currency.

Premium: Market Pricing of FOMO Sentiment

A limited edition Labubu soared to over ten thousand yuan, while an NFT with rare attributes skyrocketed to millions or even tens of millions of dollars. Behind these astonishing figures, they are not just simple price movements, but the marketization of emotional value.

FOMO sentiment is one of the core emotions driving premiums. When buyers see others closing deals at high prices, it often triggers their impulse to jump in quickly. At this point, many buyers no longer make judgments solely based on the intrinsic value of the work, but rather based on the psychological expectation of seizing the opportunity or not being left behind by the market, creating a positive feedback loop in pricing that further drives up the premium. This behavior is essentially a psychological bet on potential future value. Moreover, market consensus is also strengthened by continuously rising transaction prices, discussions on social media, and other factors, further driving prices higher.

Some speculators / resellers, and even officials, are well aware of the FOMO psychology and will deliberately create market hotspots, such as manipulating prices, buybacks or limited releases, hype and promotion, and creating scarcity to stimulate purchasing desire, resulting in a bubble phenomenon where prices soar in a short period.

Although emotion-driven trading brings huge premiums and market activity, it is also accompanied by extremely high volatility risks. Once sentiment reverses, prices can collapse rapidly, leading to panic selling in the market.

Celebrity Effect and Social Identity Symbols

In this era where emotional value is commodified, entities like Labubu and NFTs exist not only as collectibles but also as a brand new social language and medium for identity projection. The endorsement of celebrities and the emotional resonance with the public together construct the symbolic status of trendy toys and NFTs in contemporary culture, allowing them to transcend their original aesthetic, functional, and collectible attributes, further evolving into cultural symbols that highlight individuality, interests, and social capital.

Whether it's Labubu becoming a symbol of global pop culture under the frequent "planting grass" influence of stars like Rihanna, Dua Lipa, and BLACKPINK's Lisa and Rosé, or NFTs gradually moving from the crypto subculture to the mainstream discourse system due to the involvement of celebrities like Takashi Murakami, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Justin Bieber, and Jay Chou, these phenomena indicate that celebrities serve as super nodes in the dissemination of these IP cultures. Their actions naturally have an aesthetic guiding and consumption demonstration role, often rapidly enhancing the cultural value of a particular trendy toy or NFT project.

In the era of social media, these collectibles have also become cultural masks that are visible. Showcasing a hidden or celebrity version of Labubu, or setting a rare NFT as a Twitter/X avatar, users are not only displaying their collections but also conveying their tastes, values, and even economic strength. In a sense, this is a social behavior and identity declaration where consumption behavior is conducted through images, assets, and symbols.

Community as Productivity: The Narrative Engine and Cultural Flywheel of IP

The growth path of brands is undergoing a fundamental transformation. In the past, advertising was the main battlefield for brand expansion, where high-frequency exposure and budget stacking almost equated to a monopoly over user attention. Today, this formula is losing its effectiveness, and the real power to penetrate the noise and resonate with people often comes from the community.

The breaking of the circle for Labubu does not rely on overwhelming commercial investments, but rather on a group of ordinary users who love doll culture. They continuously produce UGC content through daily activities such as "showing off their dolls", handmade modifications, creating memes, and photography check-ins. This authentic and warm content spreads on social media, not only lowering the barriers to communication but also easily evoking emotional resonance, allowing the IP to grow organically within social networks.

PANews Second Creation Labubu

The NFT world is no different. NFT projects like CryptoPunks, BAYC, Pudgy Penguins, and Azuki have achieved mainstream recognition largely through the spontaneous creations of their holders, which lead to cultural spillover. If the scarcity of NFTs gives participants symbolic capital, then community creation provides these IPs with enduring vitality.

This is not only an innovation in the logic of dissemination but also a transfer of narrative power. In such a system, ownership is not just about the physical possession of assets, but also about participation and shaping the brand narrative. Every piece of copy and every shared image is adding new semantic layers to the brand. Furthermore, the community itself has become a productive force, serving as the source of IP narratives, an incubator for creativity, and an amplifier of cultural resonance.

Aesthetic Driven: From Visual Style to Emotional Conveyance

The popularity of trendy toys is inseparable from their "cute yet grotesque" and "rebellious yet healing" visual language. This seemingly contradictory yet highly integrated aesthetic characteristic injects a strong personality into the works, precisely resonating with the emotional pulse and inner world of contemporary youth.

With a contrasting aesthetic of grotesque and cuteness, Labubu brings a strong visual impact and emotional freshness, and has become a cultural symbol of Gen Z's self-identity. This visual style is not only an aesthetic choice, but also a narrative strategy. Labubu's image is at once alienated and intimate, borderline and warm, and this contradictory and complex aesthetic expression aptly reflects the true portrayal of Gen Z's identity anxiety, emotional friction, and social alienation. At the same time, Labubu breaks the previous kawaii-style sweetness dominated by the aesthetic system of trendy toys, and injects a more angular dimension of expression into pop culture.

This aesthetic logic is also played out in the NFT world. As a new visual species in crypto culture, the aesthetic language of NFT has also evolved into a cultural resonance beyond simply being good-looking or cool. Like what. CryptoPunks pioneered a minimalist pixel style, representing geek spirit and digital fundamentalism; Azuki blends Japanese grammar with street trends to construct a new generation of identities in the context of Asian culture and globalization. Bored Ape Yacht Club, on the other hand, satirizes elite culture and traditional authority with a cartoonish and absurdist street visuals. Pudgy Penguins, on the other hand, conveys a healing emotion through the mellow and cute character image...... These styles are not random accumulations, but condensed expressions around identity, emotional projection, and cultural belonging.

Images become the gateway to the spiritual space, and aesthetic style is the social language. Ultimately, whether it's tangible trendy toys like Labubu or NFT works on the chain, what truly moves people is not just the shape and style, but the ability to embed emotional resonance in the visual through color, texture, and style, thereby establishing a deep connection that transcends the attributes of a commodity.