What Labubu’s success can teach small businesses about building a desirable brand
Why is everyone suddenly carrying a Labubu?
At some point, Labubu seemed to move from collectable toy shelves onto celebrity handbags and social feeds everywhere. People queued for releases, filmed their unboxings and searched for rare designs, while everyone else tried to work out why a small creature with pointed ears and sharp teeth had become such a big deal.
Labubu’s success has a much more useful explanation than people simply liking cute things. Its rise brings together social proof, distinctive design, personal expression and a developed story that customers can enter.
So, why do people buy Labubu?
People buy Labubu because it gives them a collectable product, an entertaining experience and a visible way to express their taste. Celebrity visibility gave the character status, while blind boxes, limited availability and existing brand lore made each purchase feel more valuable.
Labubu also gives people access to a recognisable group. Owning one can show that somebody understands the trend, shares the references and belongs within the culture around it.
Where did Labubu actually come from?
Artist Kasing Lung created Labubu in 2015 as part of The Monsters, a story world inspired by Nordic folklore. Labubu appeared alongside other characters including Zimomo and King Mon, giving it an identity and history before it became a widely recognised product.
Pop Mart began selling Labubu collectables in 2019, often using its blind box format. Buyers knew which collection they were purchasing, although the individual character remained a surprise until the box was opened.
Labubu already had a following among collectors before its wider rise. Attention grew rapidly after BLACKPINK member Lisa shared the character, followed by appearances with celebrities including Rihanna and Dua Lipa. The Labubu bag charm then moved from collectable toy culture into fashion and wider popular culture.
The history matters because the wider success had creative foundations behind it. Labubu arrived with a recognisable design, an established world and a product format that encouraged people to keep buying.
What are people buying beyond the character?
It shows that you belong
Carrying a Labubu places someone within a recognisable group. Other collectors understand the characters, releases and excitement surrounding each new design.
Once celebrities and fashion led creators adopted Labubu, ownership also began to communicate cultural awareness. People could show that they knew what was becoming desirable and had managed to obtain one.
The price and limited availability add to this feeling. A product that requires some effort or expense to obtain can feel more significant, so the buyer gains the object along with the status attached to finding it.
It gives people a way to express themselves
Labubus can be attached to bags, dressed in different outfits and displayed in ways that reflect the owner. People can participate in the same trend while choosing a character or style that feels personal.
The charm becomes part of an outfit rather than something left on a shelf, while every person carrying one gives the product further visibility.
This reflects a wider shift towards highly personal identity signals, where clothing and accessories communicate somebody’s humour, values or niche interests. Current coverage of Gen Z style describes this as hyperpersonal expression.
Opening it is part of the fun
A blind box makes opening the product part of the purchase. The customer experiences suspense before seeing which character they have received, while rare versions create another reason to keep looking.
Someone might receive their favourite character, discover something unexpected or decide to try again. Unboxing also gives people a natural reason to create content because the purchase has a beginning, a reveal and a reaction already built into it.
The story gives people more to explore
Labubu existed within a fictional world before the character appeared across handbags. That existing lore gives collectors names, relationships and stories to discover.
Brand lore means the stories, details and meanings that build a world around a brand. For Labubu, this came through Kasing Lung’s characters and Nordic folklore influences. Vogue’s coverage of Labubu’s tenth anniversary also places storytelling at the centre of its development.
The product therefore feels more developed than a generic character made to follow an existing trend.
How did Labubu end up everywhere?
Celebrities made Labubu feel culturally important
Celebrity attention introduced Labubu to people outside collectable toy communities. When Lisa from BLACKPINK shared the character, her audience saw it through somebody whose taste and influence they already recognised.
Further celebrity appearances created repetition. Labubu began to appear across different outfits, bags and social feeds, which made the product feel culturally established.
The celebrity association also affected how people interpreted it. Labubu could be viewed as a fashion accessory, status symbol and collectable rather than a toy alone.
The product was made to travel
Bag charms are carried through public spaces and included in photographs, so every appearance creates another opportunity for somebody to see the product.
This gives the brand free advertising because customers display the item as part of their own style. A small business can aim for the same effect through products, packaging or resources that people genuinely want to carry, display or share.
This is where plenty of branded merchandise falls apart. Putting a logo on the first available water bottle creates an object that may spend the rest of its natural life in a kitchen cupboard.
Useful merchandise needs an appealing design, phrase or purpose. People will carry something when they like what it says to them or what it says about them.
Unboxing created repeatable content
Blind boxes give creators an easy content format. They can show the purchase, open the box and share their reaction, while new collections allow the same format to continue without every video feeling identical.
Small businesses can recreate continuity through a signature content series, regular reveal or recognisable launch format. A service business could publish a recurring brand diagnosis, while a maker could reveal a collection gradually. A consultant could examine why people are buying a different product or trend each month.
What made people believe the hype?
Social proof made the popularity visible
Social proof is evidence from other people that something is trusted, valued or popular. Reviews are social proof, as are recommendations, awards, press coverage and visible customer demand.
One celebrity appearance can attract attention, while repeated appearances from celebrities, creators and customers show that interest extends beyond one person. People could see Labubu being chosen by others whose taste they respected, which transferred some of the person’s authority to the product.
Pop Mart gave buyers an established experience
Pop Mart already understood collectable products and blind box releases. Its stores, packaging and existing customer base gave Labubu a developed commercial setting.
Customers were purchasing through a company known for this type of product, which reduced the sense that Labubu was an unexplained object appearing from nowhere.
Seeing it sell out made more people want one
When a product sells out, people see evidence that others want it. Limited availability can then increase urgency because waiting could mean missing the release.
Scarcity only helps when desire already exists. Reducing the number of products or appointments available cannot rescue an offer that people barely understand.
A small business can use genuine limits where capacity exists. A consultant may only accept a fixed number of projects, while a workshop may have limited places because each person receives individual support. A maker may only be able to produce a certain number of items.
The reason needs to be real. A permanent final space that reappears every week starts to raise questions.
Why did people want Labubu specifically?
The design is unusual but still appealing
Labubu is visually distinctive. The pointed ears, wide eyes and sharp grin make the character easy to recognise.
A safer design could have pleased more people during the first concept review, although it would also have been much easier to ignore.
Successful brands often make creative decisions that their competitors would feel nervous using. The choice could involve colour, language, photography or illustration. The purpose is to become recognisable rather than strange for the sake of it.
See also: Why does my business look unprofessional? Honest branding advice for small businesses
Creative risk = luxury
Creative risk can communicate confidence. Premium brands often establish their own visual rules because they have a clear view of how they want to be seen.
Labubu looks unusual without appearing accidental. The character has been designed carefully enough for the oddness to feel intentional.
Small businesses can apply this by making one strong creative choice that supports their positioning. An unexpected colour palette could work, distinctive photography might make the business easier to recognise, or a more human tone could separate it from competitors writing like a committee approved every sentence.
Random choices create confusion, while a deliberate creative risk gives the audience something specific to remember.
Customisation makes it personal
People can select different Labubus, choose outfits and decide how each character will be displayed. The customer becomes involved in the final result.
Service businesses may have fewer opportunities for physical customisation, although they can still help customers discover something about themselves.
A quiz could identify someone’s brand personality. A workbook could help a founder understand why their marketing feels unclear. A guide could help a business owner recognise the stage their business has reached.
These tools give the customer a personal result, which makes them more likely to remember or share the experience.
The price makes ownership feel significant
Labubus sit at a price where buying one feels more deliberate than picking up a basic toy. Limited designs and resale interest can make some versions feel particularly valuable.
The price becomes part of the status attached to ownership. People are paying for the character, the experience and what carrying one communicates.
A small business can protect its pricing by supporting it with strong presentation, clear value and evidence of quality. Repeated discounts train customers to wait for the next offer, which makes a premium position harder to maintain.
What gets missed when people explain its success?
The wider success had years of groundwork
Labubu’s cultural rise felt sudden to many people because they first encountered the character through celebrity bags or social media.
Kasing Lung had already created the character, world and visual identity. Pop Mart had already developed the product format and collector experience.
Celebrity attention accelerated something that people could understand and purchase immediately.
Celebrity attention only opened the door
A celebrity can introduce a product to a large audience, although continued interest depends on what people find after that introduction.
Labubu gave new buyers a distinctive character, existing lore and the suspense of blind boxes. The product had enough substance for the attention to continue.
Small businesses should look beyond fame and consider relevance.
A microinfluencer, meaning a creator with a smaller focused audience, may hold more influence with the right customers than a famous person with little connection to the product.
A respected podcast host, award organisation or professional partner can create the same authority transfer on a smaller scale.
Scarcity strengthened existing desire
Limited availability contributed to Labubu’s appeal because people already wanted the product.
Artificial urgency becomes obvious when a business uses it constantly. Genuine scarcity should come from production limits, personal capacity or a fixed event size.
The clever part goes deeper than Gen Z slang
Social media language helped people discuss Labubu and place themselves within the trend. Phrases such as “in my Labubu era” turn an interest into a small identity.
The deeper lesson comes from how Gen Z language names highly specific people, habits and experiences. Someone can recognise herself as a book girl, a clean girl or a founder in her rebrand era.
Small businesses can use the same precision without chasing every new phrase. Describe the founder who keeps changing her Instagram colours because she cannot work out what feels wrong. Speak to the expert whose business has outgrown its DIY website. Create something for the business owner who receives referrals but remains invisible online.
People share content that makes them think, “That is exactly me.” The fact that it may expose them slightly often seems to help.
What can a small business actually take from this?
Give people reasons to trust you
Consider whose opinion would matter to your ideal customer. This could be a microinfluencer, existing client or professional partner. It could also be an award organisation, podcast host or local publication.
You might offer a product or small service in return for an honest review, with the arrangement made clear. A collaborative giveaway could introduce two relevant audiences. An award can provide independent recognition of the quality behind your work.
Winning an award creates the evidence, although the business still needs to use it. Explain what you were recognised for, place it within proposals and connect the award to the results customers care about. Leaving the badge in the website footer wastes most of its value.
As a multi award winning Creative Strategist, I help brands use positioning and creative visibility to build authority. This includes helping businesses use awards as evidence across their wider marketing, rather than treating them as decorative stickers.
Give your creative choices a story
Brand lore can come from the reason you started, a belief that changed how you work or an industry convention you decided to challenge.
My own pink branding grew partly from criticism I received from a senior designer who was against girly brands. It also draws inspiration from Legally Blonde, where an underestimated visual identity sits beside intelligence and strategy.
That history gives the colour a clear reason. It reflects how I approach creative work and the assumptions I want the brand to challenge.
Look at your own business and ask why its important creative choices exist. If the answer ends with “because I liked it,” there may be more work to do.
This is also the kind of thinking that sits behind my Strategic Brand Identity, because the visual direction comes after working through what the business actually needs to communicate and what should make it distinctive. The aim is to give creative decisions a reason to exist, so the identity feels specific to the business rather than assembled from whatever currently looks popular.
See also: How to know if your brand is holding your business back
Describe your customer so accurately it feels personal
Broad audience labels lead to broad content. “Small business owners” includes too many people with completely different problems.
You could create content for the founders who built a brilliant business but still apologise for their website. You could speak to the expert who is entering her charging properly era, or the founder who has changed her Instagram colours six times instead of fixing her positioning.
The language should sound natural coming from your business. An accountant announcing that tax returns are giving main character energy may wish to step away from the caption.
Create content people can use
Shareable content helps somebody explain an opinion or describe themselves. People send it to a friend because it captures a habit they recognise, then that private exchange gives the business further reach.
Look through client calls, enquiries and reviews for phrases customers repeat. Notice the odd habits that appear before someone asks for help, then turn those details into content that names the experience clearly.
The same idea can guide useful resources. A quiz, checklist or workbook should help the customer reach a personal conclusion rather than giving them general information they could find anywhere.
The same principle applies to social content more broadly, because useful content becomes much stronger when it is built around specific customer behaviour rather than general advice. If a business is already posting but struggling to turn what it knows into a clearer content direction, that is something I can help with through my social media marketing services, particularly where the problem is figuring out what is actually worth talking about.
Give people a reason to keep coming back
A launch becomes easier to follow when the audience sees it developing. Share previews, explain decisions and reveal different parts over time.
A signature series can create the same effect between launches. Readers begin to recognise the title or format, which gives them a reason to return.
Continuity matters because most people need repeated contact before they remember a business. One post can gain attention, while a recognisable body of work builds familiarity.
FAQs
Why do people buy Labubu? People buy Labubu because it offers collectability, personal expression and the excitement of opening a blind box. Celebrity visibility and limited availability have also made owning one feel culturally valuable.
Why did Labubu become so popular? Labubu became widely popular after celebrity appearances introduced the character to a larger audience. Its recognisable design, existing story and shareable unboxing experience helped that attention continue.
What can small businesses learn from Labubu? Small businesses can build stronger social proof, make braver creative choices and create things customers genuinely want to share. Labubu also shows how brand lore and personal expression can make a product feel more desirable.
Should small businesses use Gen Z slang? Small businesses can use current language when it suits their audience and usual tone. The more useful lesson is learning to describe specific identities and experiences, because copied slang ages quickly and can make a business sound rather confused.
Can scarcity make a small business more desirable? Scarcity can increase urgency when customers already understand and value the offer. Any limit should be genuine and linked to availability, capacity or how many products the business can realistically produce.
Want to borrow some of the thinking behind Labubu’s success?
Labubu’s success shows how a distinctive brand becomes easier to notice, trust and choose. My free Business Visibility Playbook helps you find where your own branding, website, socials or authority may be weakening that journey, then turn those gaps into a clear priority plan.
