Labubu’s Business Strategies Unboxed

500 orders a month was manageable. 5,000 is my place. Embrace intelligent, order fulfillment with ShipStation. The only platform combined in order management, where-house workflows, inventory, returns and analytics in one place. What used to take five separate tools, ShipStation does in one. Go to shipstation.com and use code Start to try ShipStation free for 60 days. Welcome to We Fixed. You're welcome. The show where we take over companies, you come along for the ride. We try to put them back better than we found them. Think about the last time you bought something. Did you know what you were getting? If you opened the package and it was totally different from what you expected, did you scream with joy? Welcome to today's topic, La Boo Boo. If you don't know what La Boo Boo's are, pause real quick and ask a kid. Or go to YouTube. Or look on Reddit where people are still trying to make sense of this phenomenon. My favorite thread with 482 comments is called, What the F is La Boo Boo and why the F are grown women my age actually sporting these things. Fair question. We're going to get to that. Now collectibles aren't anything new, but La Boo Boo has taken the concept to a crazy new level. There are personal fortunes being made to the tune of $27 billion. There's a thriving knockoff enterprise that's eating into sales. Things are getting swept up in the whole thing. There's a lot to cover. We're going to get into scarcity tactics, how to market responsibly to kids, how to keep your companies bubble from bursting and a lot more. But first, here's a surprise for you. Joining us as our featured guest is Manuel Torres, who has been at the helm of global consumer products and licensing with companies like Mattel, Nickelodeon, NBC Universal and Pocketwatch. He's now a consultant in high demand. If there's anyone who knows how to launch a toy brand into the stratosphere and how to do it the right way, it's him. Manuel, we are excited to have you here. Tell us all a little bit about yourself. Thank you so much, Sharon. Kadira, Melissa, pleasure to meet you guys. Thank you for having me in this space. Super, super excited. Yeah, so I originally from Mexico City. So started my career as an accountant and then I moved into marketing and sales with various companies like Unilever. As I was walking stores in Mexico, well, much specifically, I realized the massive presence of the toy category in the mass merchant's over there. So I wasn't like, pardon me, in the wrong industry. So soon after I noticed that kind of situation in stores, I got a call from a head hunter offering me a job at Mattel as a trade marketing manager. So I started my career transition from, I would say, package goods into the world of toys and the world of kits and families through Mattel, back in 1994. From there I transitioned to the US 97 with Mattel and then I got exposed to the world of storytelling, you know, the unbelievable kind of the world of character creation in the cross of the different studios, the major studios which were licensed source for Mattel. Back then, every single studio you can imagine from this name Warner Brothers Universal Nickelodeon. So then I started realizing soon after that, you know, sometimes it's better to the inventory risk in the hand of someone else than yourself. If you own the IP and the IP, you know, can live longer than usually the manufacturing aspect of it. So I decided to the people tend to the licensing world or the IP kind of franchise world, starting with Warner Brothers, then transition with Nickelodeon where I spent almost a decade, DC Universal as they were acquiring DreamWorks animation. And then some smaller studios like Zag Animation, French Animation Studio, the most beautiful work. And then, you know, I have two younger daughters. So I realized that the way they consume content and the type of content they consume was far away from kind of a micraft in the film and TV kind of world where I was trained. And I realized that YouTube, you know, the impact that he was having in kids and gaming. And I was like something that, you know, I need to learn about. So that's when I was fortunate to join Pocket Watch as head of consumer products and have the opportunity to work with a lot of creators, you know, some of the top 60 creators in the Fits and Family space. And right after I started consulting, so I'm here. Thanks, Manila. That's quite a background. I'm not going to say you're overqualified to be here, but you're definitely will call you very qualified to be here. And we're going to talk. We'll put it all into one brand, one product. We'll talk LaBubu today. And then you can tell us a little bit more about what you're doing now. Melissa, go ahead for those of us who can't tell by LaBubu's from their LaFoufus. Just fill everyone in on what the heck we're talking about today. Manila, you're the best guest panelist for today's topic. Oh, thank you. So for our listeners, imagine a bug-eyed fore sprite with fangs. That's LaBubu. But he's not just a toy. He's the breakout star from a whole universe of characters called the monsters, dreamed up by this incredibly talented artist from Hong Kong, casing long long. Now the genius who turned this art into a global empire and is a company called Pupmart. Their weapon of choice, the blind box. It's a $12 mystery. You don't know if you're getting a common figure or a rare chase version that can flip 4,000 online. And this is where everyone's mind goes to the 90s, beanie babies, right? And yes, the playbook feels a little familiar, scarcity, collectibility, that frantic secondary market on eBay. Remember, that's where everybody was going for those tie-warner beanie babies. But they're both masters of frenzy. But here's why this is a different. It's a modern business case study. First the medium, beanie babies spread through the playground and the early days of eBay. LaBubu exploded on TikTok and YouTube. The marketing is a firestorm of user generated unboxing videos. So you see those a lot on TikTok. Gasps, screams, the sheer drama of the reveal. It's free, authentic, utterly viral. We've talked about a lot of viral moments here on this podcast and just one of them. Second the product itself, beanie babies were simple plush toys. LaBubu is a high design art. It has that really authentic artistic cred that gives it a serious cultural cache. I mean, did you see the custom crystal LaBubu's that tennis star Naomi Osaka had at the US open? And she had little cute names for each of them. And for every match that she won, she had a LaBubu. It's a bad example. And finally, the business model. Guinea babies were sold everywhere from gift shops to grocery stores, many stores. Popmart built a world. They control everything through their own dazzling experiential stores and vending machines. And for somebody who's in CX that means a lot to me. They're not just selling a product. They're selling entry into kind of an exclusive club. So while the psychological hooks of scarcity and timeless popmart has upgraded the entire system for the digital age. They didn't just create a collectible. They built an ecosystem. So we have a lot to cover and it's super exciting because manual, I'm sure you have a lot of thoughts on this and I always want to give a nod to Kadira and her playbooks because I'd be really interested in understanding is there a playbook for this? I don't know. So what can other businesses learn from it? Absolutely. Manual, do you want to go first? I absolutely have thoughts, especially from like just the workplace, Melissa business perspective as you said, but I definitely will let our guests go first. Oh, thank you so much. Yeah, I mean, I think the one thing that I keep learning throughout all these years in the I would say in this kind of space around licensing and IP and IP creation and storytelling is that element of surprise, right? That keeps truly taking everyone completely by surprise. I mean, there's trends, there's things that happen in the side guys, right? That happen in the world that there is so hard to predict and so hard to follow kind of a pattern or a formula. I mean, that's our intent as executives in the space. We're trying to find that commonality. Hopefully with the, you know, with the advent of AI, we're going to be able to have more tools available to understand consumer behavior and being able to anticipate. What anticipation in this type of space around what becomes or truly has the potential of becoming a trend is still truly unpredictable. I think there's no such thing as being able to tell this thing will be the next greatest fit or this thing will trust them from this space to the other or this type of consumer will end up connecting with this story better than the other ones. We do our best, right? And people do the best as marketers, as you know, story crafters, as you know. But when reality, you know, hits is extraordinarily difficult to predict, you know, the audience, which hopefully they will convert into consumer kind of behavior. So that element of surprise, I think lens itself very well to this type of phenomenon where it's truly difficult to explain. Well, I think what makes them interesting too, so tie a Warner and Bini babies went, they, you could they were got them at, you got them at Hallmark stores and you got them at retailers and maybe I, Ebaby came a secondhand. It was pretty new, I think at the time, but became a secondhand channel for them. But you went, you knew what you were getting. You looked at the, what was on the shelf and maybe you stood in line for the rare ones or whatever. But this is, they, this is more like the Tesla model, right? They handled the manufacturing, the distribution, and then these popmart stores. I first, when I first saw them, it was in a Japanese collectible shop. It was far away and out of the box and someone said, that's a little boo boo. And I was like, oh, interesting. But then I went to a popmart store in which they have them nearby. And it's an experience, you know, they let like limited number of people in at a time. It's a lot of kids, but adults too. And you go, and you, you know, you're there to be very actionable and be excited about what you're about to get. There's even an event machine. So the fact that this is, that it's a fully from a brand or marketing perspective, it's a fully controlled experience. I think that's part of what makes them a game changer. Yeah, I love it. And I think that that, oh, sorry. Going online without express VPN is like driving without a seatbelt. You might be careful. But if something risky happens, wouldn't you want to feel more secure? Well, every time you connect to public Wi-Fi, it's like you're not wearing a seatbelt because your data is vulnerable and valuable, like your logins and credit cards, people want them and learning how to steal your data is easy. But guess what? So is protecting it. Express VPN creates a secure encrypted tunnel between your device and the internet. Whether you're on a phone, a laptop, or tablet, you can rest easy wherever you go. And when I say easy, I mean easy. You open the app, click a button, and that's it. Look, hackers got a hack, but it's important to me that you don't fall victim to them. This one's obvious. If you could protect your data anywhere you go for about 12 cents a day, why wouldn't you? So buckle up and secure your online data today by visiting expressvpn.com-slash-fixed. That's expr-es-vpn.com-slash-fixed to find out how you can get up to four extra months. Expressvpn.com-slash-fixed. Because I think it is that it's all encompassing. The transaction is the finale. But the main event is the experience that you just shared Aaron. Right? So there's kind of the sensory overload. The stores are bright, clean, filled with all these life-sized statues of the characters. It's immersive. People really love that immersive experience. So you're not just buying the product, you're stepping into the Momo planet, so to speak. And then there's that social ritual that we've talked about, the FOMO, the people seeing the boxes and trying to figure out what's in it. And it's the whole anticipation of this. And people I heard you know, I'd seen this on TikTok, but people bringing in like scales to try to wake boxes to see if they can tell what it is. And you can't really replicate that kind of communal community excitement online and all of the clicks that everybody's looking and watching and kind of feeling in that moment. And then I think the vending machines is an interesting thing because the standalone vending machines are also kind of genius marketing perspective. Because they're 24-7, right? And it's impulse convenience. It's like that hit a dopamine. You get right now because people always want these things. And it's, you know, it's kind of their, the retail stores answer to one click buy, right? Just do it. Totally. And it's interesting that, you know, I think back to other products that are for lack of a better word, but finish fetishistic. Great. So you had like the tickle me Elmo or cabbage patch kids or something where there is a scarcity to it. But in this case, the true value or the consumer value or the moment of enjoyment happens after the purchase, right? So I'm a manual like that. Do you create that type of momentum for something that it's not just that I, okay, I got it. I own it. Now the real experience happens. How do you create that for a consumer? Well, that to that element of surprise, which is so powerful, you know, in humans, right? I mean, I think that we all in some way love to be surprised and that that brings that, I would say like some sort of, I kind of adrenaline rush in terms of the expectation. That moment that you're expecting when you're open something, right? Opening something. So thing when we were kids, right? And you were waiting for Christmas and expecting to see what was under the tree, right? What would Santa at Roppos? And what's ultimately inside of it, right? We had at least but what's truly in it? So that element of expectation and surprise, I think makes crowds or makes group of people like rally around something and sharing that moment, I think is very, very powerful. So what we've seen through social, what we've seen with the advent of like YouTube is that once those moments start like becoming viral and start becoming, becoming shareable, we saw a whole industry changing, right? Because unboxing has been there for a long, long time and it has been manifested in many, many different ways. But now it's kind of like a cultural moment. And certain brands, they're starting to do it better than others, I would say. So making sure that that packaging, you know, in the past, it used to be just like a container, used to be, you know, just holding what was in it. But if you think about it now, even the creative mindset that it would be hand creating, you know, making those packaging, it's pretty, it's really unbelievable. If you walk into different categories of products, different kinds of stores, you will see that it's, you know, packaging is almost like staging, right? It's like, it's creating a stage for a brand. And that's, I think, one of the things that that companies are starting to realize that it's a very important investment. It's a very important kind of element that will dig in that journey of connection with a brand and a consumer. So yes, you know, if you think about brands like LOL, for example, or mini brands, you know, that kind of like building almost like an onion, and layer by layer, you're starting like discovering part of the product of elements. And you're not even inside of there, right? It's like a matushka, like those Russian dolls that you will one by one and you start, you know, opening one and then realizing there's even more inside. So I guess, you know, what what Pobmart, I think when they took over the license of Laboo, what they did very, very well was bringing that excitement, you know, that experience to retail. Well, some people call it like retail payment, right? Which is, it's truly like making something special out of an armoring the time you're spending as a consumer walking into their stores, right? So from the moment you walk in, right? To the moment you take the product, you bring it home and then you start, you know, building that that exciting moment of what could it be there? And having some elements, some clues that what might be in there might be something that you are exposed to or something completely surprising, something that only you might have. So element of scarcity, the element of surprise, you know, the staging of a really good like housing for that product, it becomes like a 360 experience, right? Yeah. Yeah. But I think when you talk about packaging and intentionality behind it and making the unboxing part of the experience, apples always kind of the gold standard for things like that where it's very minimalistic, but you also get an excitement as you look like with a LOL surprise, you were talking about you've started to peel back the layers, but the difference here is, you know, you open your iPhone box, you don't, you're not going into wondering, am I going to get a iPhone 15 limited edition? Or am I going to get a seven? You know, like, so how do you know, and you're going to get maybe some relative duds or repeats or things like, it's how do you keep forpele the consumer excitement on something that where scarcity is so baked into the tactics behind all this? Yes, I think, you know, oh, sorry, go ahead, make sure you're. No, go ahead, Manuel, please finish your thought and then I'll jump in. No, to your point about scarcity, I think scarcity and keeping the things going, I think it's, you know, you almost like create a puzzle in the consumer mind and you leave some of those pieces like not so obvious and always like knowing that there's something they're like missing, that you're not always completing that puzzle and the puzzle is like an ongoing experience, right? So once you start like putting out certain things that are cues to the life kind of, you know, the moment of the brand, what it's having, I think you start like communicating or sending a message that this is just a moment in time and there's more to the expected in the future. And that's where, you know, like a, you know, collaboration drops might come to work, right? Where you see like a Coca-Cola or a brand collaboration with, you know, that might be just like, you know, certain Alini Tedition, it might be just a few items that you might find in certain stores. So the element of, you know, of almost like providing certain cues and on-resolved mysteries keeps I think the storytelling going and that fandom like always waiting to see what's coming next. And, you know, in the hopes of definitely that extending or expanding the life cycle of the brand. So it's always very, very important to keep your, I would say your events somewhat like limited. Like always leave. If the market's once X, I think you have to provide, you know, some sort of scarcity element attached to it. Never go with the, with the instinct of overfloating the market, over satisfying a consumer or retail demand, or they're asking you to give, always keeping it short. So I think that's, that's part of the secret of, of, you know, keeping brands going for longer period of time, rather than just being an explosive tarot moment. And then from there, like doing going down. So you can do that. You wouldn't know. No, this is great. I'm taking this thought in. You probably, you know, see me nodding here on camera. I think the thing that I'm hearing is I'm listening to, to all of you talking. And as I've been thinking about LaBouboo is this theme of like the longing, right? And Melissa talked about, you know, a case study. I think I would tack on like it's also this case study in identity and community and psychology, right? Because from day one, you know, the Bouboo fans have felt part of this like global tribe, if you will. And there's like something really powerful happening there. And yes, Melissa and Aaron, you hear me talk a lot about playbooks. And I would say like from a company perspective, you know, there, there's a playbook here to, to create a row culture. And I think that the takeaway is don't just build teams or team structures, which we hear a lot of just in the court, like that's the corporate speak, because I think the team team structure still has a little bit of us versus them, even internally, right? And like when we look at LaBouboo again, even from a global perspective, a remote perspective, we're not all in this physical geographical space together. The focus there is really on building this community. It's building this tribe. It's building, as you all have talked about, like this emotional reward. And so again, I think from like a from a company standpoint of other companies are kind of watching and looking and listening, you know, there's some themes here to kind of integrate if you're looking at how do we kind of leverage what LaBouboo has done, leverage that either in our products, leverage that in our storytelling, leverage that internally as a part of our corporate culture. I think, you know, there's things like rituals. There's things like shared language. There's things like digital hangout, right? We often hear about companies using Slack, for example, as, you know, a way to kind of communicate faster than email. But what if in kind of community, you know, creating this community, um, you know, you're using it for things like meme sharing inside appropriate, you know, corporate jokes, companies slaying, virtual events, right? You know, how do you create kind of maybe like even a digital clubhouse where people are kind of co-creating and celebrating together. Because I think right now more than ever, there's this conversation around how do we build community and there's, you know, kind of this, um, you know, we're seeing more companies kind of mandate and kind of return office. And one of the reasons you'll hear is like, you know, in-person collaboration and team building, but like I'll shout from the rooftops, like just because people sit in a physical space together doesn't mean you're building culture or community. And I think LaBoubo was a great example of that. Again, when you're focusing on the shared identity, shared community, shared experience, regardless of where we sit geographically, uh, you know, again, we can even be in different countries. There's some sort of belonging and identity in that experience. So I think there's something that other companies can be tapping into. Again, whether they're looking at that from a product service perspective or internal culture perspective. I think our flight looks to. I mean, I honestly do because I think and I'm kind of stepping into Aaron and maybe Maniol space a little bit here talking about, uh, branding and marketing. But we've talked about this a lot. So I love when we, when we talked about my favorite Taylor Swift, um, and we talked about the Easter eggs that she drops and she does that years ago, right? So like she just dropped some yesterday for her, you know, she has a week until her release and people are commenting that she's wearing a ring that she wore in a music video two years ago, right? And they're like, oh my god, this is what that meant when she in that video and blah, blah, blah, whatever. And I feel like there is somewhat of a playbook because it's a change in the way that we're marketing. So I would say that, you know, the old model was like a big and Aaron, you could speak to this more, but big quarterly marketing campaign, you know, huge build up big launch. Then kind of a law, kind of waiting for how did it work? How did it work? But like popmart strategy shows us that there's this constant need and manual touch touched upon this of cadence of drops, right? Because it's not about one big moment. It's about scarcity. It's about creating this pulse of limited opportunities. So FOMO, if I don't get in on it, right? You know, and so it's interesting going from like these bigger senses of campaigns to these rhythms of scarcity, these rhythms of consistency and experiences. And from an operational perspective, that is challenging because you're going to have to continue on top of these things and the distribution network and everything like that. But at the same time, having this cadence of drops as a strategy versus having big launches every 18 months or every every other quarter is actually, you know, keeps the consistency within the team and to to Kadeerit to your point, it all starts from the inside, right? So it starts from being proud of having this like artistic, viral moment and knowing that it's more than that. It's more than that. It's its entire experience. So I think there's a lot to be learned from how this is going versus how you know, in the comparison state of LaBoubou versus a beany baby, right? Where the secondary was really where everybody was getting frenzy that right going on eBay and trying to get them all right. But now I think this is more about like how do they continue to enhance that overall client experience? You know when you see people with phones with crack screens and you think whoops they weren't careful. Well, that's something you can see on the outside. But what you can't see is how careful they're being with their online data because whenever someone goes online without ExpressVPN, it could mean trouble like passwords and logins all out in the open. If a screen cracks, you can fix it. But once your personal data is out there, it's out there. You can protect your own data with ExpressVPN and feel great about it. ExpressVPN creates a secure encrypted tunnel between your device and the internet. You can use it on your phone, tablet and laptop at its lowest price ever with plans starting at around 12 cents a day. It matters to me that your data is protected. I love fixing problems and this one's easy to solve. And it's rated number one by top tech reviewers like CNET and the Verge. Secure your online data today by visiting ExpressVPN.com slash fixed. It's expresvpn.com slash fixed to find out how you can get up to four extra months. ExpressVPN.com slash fixed. Right. Well, in marketing, we have a term that we might all be familiar with, but it's UGC or user generated content. And for some brands, it's an afterthought or a hope like I hope when we put this out, we say things a certain way our consumers or target audience is going to start to reflect that back to us and say the things that we're saying and own it for themselves. And if we do, that's a win for Labuboo. That's the entirety of their strategy is letting users dictate the experience and play that out for other users. And you see Labuboo unboxing videos that have millions of views and that is it's it's perpetuating the demand and the excitement behind this product. Yeah, go ahead, man. And then I want to touch on something Katera said. Also to what Melissa mentioned now, you know, and you want to like set a difference between kind of like you want to call it a Bini baby model and kind of like Labuboo one. The fact that Labuboo, you know, it's basically a brand that it's licensed by Popmart and Popmart has their own stores, right? So that ecosystem that they created allows you to somewhat like plan better, plan better your drops. You have to somehow like plan your traffic. The traffic you're going to be getting at stores at a certain moment on time. So in a way, you have a little bit more of a control of the, you know, the supply at least hoping for a control as well as under the man, which is it's still a little bit unpredictable. But having that space, it's I think it gives you a different kind of a blueprint to work with when you're like, Dini babies, why, which was dependent on third party distribution. Basically, the majority of the of the product is placed in a third party stores, right? So there's less control over the output and almost like letting on leash kind of like the man to whatever, whatever retail is doing and each one of the different clients, each one of different chains might have a different way of promoting and setting up, you know, the product and the brand presentations. I think that those two models are differed from that in a way. But at the end of the day is, you know, how do you keep them regardless of what you have most control with? How do you have them continue to show up? Right? How do you have them continue to engage with the brand and how do you continue that conversation like going? Right? One of the elements that you're going to put out there that will help your brand almost almost like unleashing control of your brand is if I'm I'm allowed to say. So that way the fans, right, would become like at the beginning more of a spectator, maybe come like an active component of the of the of the lively group of your brand. And that's fine tuning, that pulling and releasing. I think that they come a little bit of the, you know, the marketing finesse on which you're going to keep them engaged, right? So the different type of activations, the type of drops, how to tell or how to let them know that something is going to happen, etc, etc. All these things around the anticipation and that by ready to moment, those become truly a little bit more or less controlled as you have a stronger, I would say, hand on your retail outlet possibilities. Yeah, and it's the challenge there, I think, is the underlying message is when you put something up and you open it for the camera and it's ultra rare. The underlying connotation is I have this and you don't look what I have and you don't have it, right? And there's privilege there and Kadeer, I wanted to go back to what you're saying. I wrote down and I could have loved it, identity, community, psychology, and building a tribe of people that have something centralized in common in this case. It's the lubu. I'm a price of entry to that tribe is a purchase, right? You buy one and you're in, but there's also a hierarchy. So you've got one, but it's what I call the fufu. What I learned is it's called the fufu a knockoff. So yeah, and kids can be cruel, right? Yeah, you have one, but it's a fake. You bought it at the gas station. Or you have one, but it's common. So yes, it's a tribe, but it's a tribe with rules and is it fair? Like let's be real or target market as kids. There's adult collectors too, but kids talk about the stuff and compare and I have this and you don't. Is that a fair to be doing these types of scarcity tactics and community hierarchies to an audience of kids? I think obviously there's you know, there's more, I would say there's much more control and scrutiny around what type of things are done in order to incentivize kind of a lower end of the demographic spectrum kind of interest around the brand. And you know, there's different provisions, you know, for digital marketing and different mediums where they're highly, highly regulated. But the one thing that it's really hard to control is kind of that virality, right? That as we are all exposed to different kinds of medium and the phone as we all know has become almost like an extension of our body and extension of our hand regardless of the age. There's so many ways of like sharing stories, sharing, you know, fandom, sharing, moments, sharing, exciting things that happen out there. That it's it's truly out of control. I mean, it's almost like something that it's been unleashed and now corralling all those forms of engaging, it's very, very hard for a brand. So almost you're assuming that as soon as you have something out there, you know, people are going to start talking about it. People are going to start socializing about it. People are going to start, you know, kind of coming closer, getting closer to people that have the same type of feelings around the brand or around an experience. And that's how communities are built. So, you know, what in the past, like in the 90s, back to the example of Dini babies, would take like really, really long for people to start realizing that there would be this elements, you know, these elements of in common that they would have with other people collecting that type of product, it would take longer to realize that that was the, that was what's happening. In this day and age, it's the media. It's almost the, if something's happening this weekend, you know, they come at rent, you know, probably the same day or a few hours after. So, that velocity in which things are happening and in which, you know, brands are connecting with audiences or consumers and how stories reveal. It's a very, very different pace, right? So, control and limitation and regulation, although, you know, obviously there's more and more concern about, you know, elements that could become addictions, close to addictions, et cetera. I think in reality and from a very pragmatic standpoint, having control of how an audience, how consumers, how people are going to react, it's truly, I would say, a huge enigma and we're far from really, you know, controlling it. I mean, for weight. But companies know that we, as consumers, can fall into addictive behavior. We swipe endlessly on social feeds to get to the next one and the next one, but they don't say you're done for the day. They just keep giving it to you. You know, the algorithm just gives you another one. When you play Candy Crush, you get those dopamine hits and then you're onto the next level and there's infinite levels. You can keep going. Pokemon, you have to catch all of them. You don't catch five and you're done. You win. You catch all of them and there's, you know, I would expect there's infinite push, you know, hundreds of thousands of Pokemon. So, is Pop Mart marketing these responsibly to children and people at collect with the scarcity tactics and the, the coveting user generated tactics of look what I got you got to, you got to get in on this. Is it being done responsibly or is there, are they playing into our fallacies as people or weaknesses and people as well? I think that the issue is the change up and manual you brought this up. I think this is really a true statement is that customers today, it's not just a niche trend for collectibles, it's a consumers expectation, whether it's a child or an adult, the demand for newness now, nowness, I would you can call it right, like immediate gratification is relentless. So, this is the new marketplace and so businesses that thrive aren't just reacting to it. They're trying to build the systems designed to thrive within it. So, manual to your point, there's a lot of uncontrollables out there, right? But the controllables are that you can create scarcity. You can create a very amazing experience. You can create these content drips and drops, right? And so, I agree with you, Erin, there is some corporate responsibility about what you're doing to the psyche of the individual, but at the same time, that is what is fuel for every business out there, not just businesses, but every experience that you have out there, it's not just about that transaction, like I said, it's the theater of it all, right? So, I do think that Potmart and Labubu have a really, what they're trying to do is control the things they can control. Right? So, they're going to continue to fuel the hype engine and I don't know that they're, you know, that's not all them, right? That's actually the consumer there. But they're really going to have to acknowledge the complexity of the business. So, the business that they're in right now, this controlled randomization, right? So, like, you know, they've got to really have this really opaque production because like most companies, they do, you know, 10,000 widgets a day or whatever, you know, they're doing, you know, 144 special widgets and they have to put them, you know, and somebody's creating them and knows about them. So, the secrecy and the control of the information, you know, what kind of NDAs are they signing, right? And then distributing those to the Potmart, you know, stores because think about it like if all of the special ones were going to only three stores in the world, that would suck, right? Like, you're going it, it's, you know, so they've got to have a randomizer to really kind of control that. And like you said, consumers are smart, they're bringing in little scales and trying to weigh it and trying to shake the boxes and try to figure out if it's a special one. So, there's this whole thing around, you know, how do you do that? And how do you create like anti hoarding measures? Like, I'm sure that they're doing some of that because we've seen that when we have these viral things happen and we create a secondary market, you have people who go in, box, eat, go in and like, you know, Nike has this problem when they have a shoe drop that they'll be, you know, that people will, bots will, you know, start running it and they'll buy the whole thing. And then all of a sudden, you see these shoes that haven't even been released in stores available on this black market. So it is, it is a business problem. And I'm not denying that there's responsibility about how you market. But at the same time, you know, we as individuals have to take some responsibility that we create that hype. So, you know, I'm not denying that they have something to do with it. But at the same time, it's very hard to stop it when it's what scale. And I mean, manual, you've been in the toy industry for so long. I mean, they're creating these things and, you know, there's all different kinds of things that people could say about, you know, what doing and who they're, who they're, they're actually servicing. I think too, it's, you know, I think, you know, Melissa, you mentioned just around, you know, corporate responsibility. And I haven't peaked lately on like where LaBoubou is in terms of like their social impact efforts and things like this. But I absolutely think, you know, there is this responsibility around balancing kind of this joy and accomplishment that the consumer and, you know, kids or teens, for example, are experiencing with, you know, getting their hands on their favorite LaBoubou or, you know, that surprise element. And then balancing it with, you know, as you said, kind of that, that responsibility of like, you know, the hoarding or, you know, kind of this addictive behavior or, you know, when things kind of spiral out of control. I think, you know, there's a couple of things, right? Like, if I were LaBoubou, I would be thinking about, you know, if our social impact or social responsibility, there might be an opportunity for how we might reach kids that obviously otherwise might not have access. Is there a gamification component? Is there a component, you know, that's baked into, you know, social media that more folks might have opportunities to access? Is there something around responsible use, right? We hear that term a lot. We use responsible innovation. I think there's opportunities for them to continue to build this, you know, they're in business to make money. There's nothing wrong with that. And so I think there's an opportunity to continue to build out the LaBoubou brand and the craze and that surprise and delight. And there's an opportunity for them, especially as they think about being socially responsible or their social impact initiatives to think about what responsible use might be. And it could just be education, right? I don't want to say just like minimizing it, but it could be education for the person buying it. Maybe it's the parent who's giving them the dollars or, you know, whatever currency to make the purchase. So I think that they absolutely can balance like, again, this is a really good example of like how you're going to balance making money for the company, but also being responsible to the communities that you serve. And they, you know, again, the playbooks are out there, you know, absolutely for, you know, products that, you know, people have questioned, you know, is this really responsible? Are we showing up in a responsible way? Is there a negative component to it? And I always say when it comes to developing what that strategy or approach might be, the answer is in the product itself. So I'll stop there. So thank you, Kadir. And so, Manuel, let's, you know, for a product and a company that's built on the fickleness of consumers and young consumers in short attention spans. And I'm understanding the fourth wave that's out now isn't selling quite as well. So how do you keep the momentum going and how do you keep the bubble from bursting on something that's built on scarcity and user self-propeptuation by users? Are they going to be around in five, 10 years? Is this, you know, are they going to write it until it falls apart? Or are they just built to last? I think it's supply is truly unleashed. And the factory keeps like producing in millions and millions of items and skews and making it like super accessible around the world. I think that's when you start losing that element of scarcity and scarcity. That element is so powerful that keeps the brand like kind of going. So I think that's a very complicated question. So when you, when your company has turned into an IPO and you are, in the hands of public investors, think along the lines of what makes LEGO still a very relevant brand in the space? What makes it so, you know, being able to remain so strong throughout time? And I think part of it is that on the one hand, it's not a public company. So they don't have to make decisions on a quarterly basis that might compromise the strength or the health of the brand. And second, they are in absolute control of their supply. So there are certain things that they rather keep short. So the secondary market remains high, you know, the element of, you know, how could I miss this, you know, this product? Or, you know, I didn't buy it when I saw it for the first time and now it's gone and it will never come back. So those type of things are still like very, very powerful from a branding standpoint. And I think they're directly related to the, to the longevity of the brand and how much you can stretch the life cycle of excitement around the brand. So being able to manage that supply, being able to control somehow the flow of goods on somehow, you know, what consumers are going to be able to see. So you don't saturate that experience. I think it's critical for the health of, you know, any kind of brand, right? I'm glad you brought up Lego because I think that's a great example of something Aaron where they really focused on their customer persona as well. So Lego, a decade ago was going through some real bankruptcy discussions. They weren't doing well. And then there's been this resurgence of Lego and they've become an experience, right? Now it's an experience. You can go to Lego land. You can go to Lego's physical stores and buy just the yellow blocks if that's what you want. They have had these partnerships with, and this is something that Labubu could do as well with other artists. So they've had the partnerships with Harry Potter, with Star Wars, with those, those types of big types of cultural events and created products along that line. But most importantly, I think they realize that there's this nostalgia, right? So I used to use, I built Lego's and I'm very old. And, you know, my kids and all of those kinds of things. And so they brought that nostalgia back by focusing on the people that grew up with Lego's and saying, Oh, now we have adult Legos. So now they have, I mean, I don't know if you guys have seen it, but like all of the beautiful floral arrangements and hats and all, you know, the half die, you know, all those things. Like I love it. You know, and now my kids who are in their 30, you know, 20s and 30s are asking for Legos for Christmas because they want those in there to build them in their rent, you know, bonsai trees, whatever it might be. And so I feel like that kind of shift in thought is like now they're making it so it's not just, you know, when my kids, they like to build make like in their own mind things, create in their own minds. Lego also now has, you know, these really very expensive, massive, you know, you can buy the Millennium Falcon and it will take you weeks to put it together. And people display them, right? They have rooms for full of Legos, right? That art for display, not for plays, to speak. So I think that like that's the idea around collectibles and the idea around what Ken L'Aloubou would do. I think the partnerships, right? And finding other cultural intersections where they could make that somewhat defining, creating that sense of scarcity manual that you talked about, like that false sense of scarcity by not flooding the market with too much and continuing to do the drop. And actually embracing the secondary market, you know, which I think they're going to have to do, they probably already have done, but you know, allowing for that high-bench infuel just continue to go because they still know that the primary experience in the store with the community and the psyche is really the most important one. So they'll constantly try to feed into that. But like, I agree that if they flood the market with LeBoubou's, you're not going to see that last very long. Probably will go to the wayside. So. And I think too, I mean, you know, just building on that, I think the other thing that they should be doing, obviously, you know, casing lung is someone that I think fans have connected with as well, right? Like folks are connected to him as well behind the brand. And so obviously continuing to let him kind of go and do his thing, but I think beyond that as the company thinks about innovating and what's next, who else in that company, who else within that brand should be at that table innovating and helping to think up new ideas and helping to think up new angles and who's in touch and who might, you know, also be out there like make having this cultural connection with their fans and their audience. I think that absolutely is going to be something that the company can leverage to say, okay, who's going to take us take us from this was a cultural phenomenon that died within, you know, a couple of years to like, hey, we could actually be around for, you know, 10, 15, 20 years. I think Leggo is a great example of that because they continue to tap into their innovators and artists and creatives around the table. So, you know, providing that that visibility for folks within the company, providing that freedom for folks to kind of, you know, try and ideate and fail like that's where you're going to get those new and next ideas, I think and of course, I'm a champion for like culture and people, but you're only as strong as your people within the company. And so again, building off of what Long has been able to do, but again, who else is he mentoring, who else is he bringing up and who else is kind of coming up in the company that has your next best idea as well. Also, I hate to say it because I'm loving this conversation. Oh, go ahead, man. Oh, sorry, not just like wrapping up a little bit, but, you know, I think that, you know, keeping a brand aspirational is always like something. It sounds obvious, but I think it's it's still extraordinarily important. I think part of the magic of of Popmart and LaBoubou is that truly, you know, a doll start with that with that trend. It wasn't kids necessarily. So, it's still very relevant with the dolls. I think both collaborations and what has happened organically, like what happened with this stuff from Black Pink, you know, it was truly, it seems to be like an organic campaign. If you want to call it and what happened with Naomi, right? Osaka. So, all of those, I think, keep it aspirational for everyone for younger kids, you know, for even for other adults. So, keeping it aspirational, I think it's extraordinary and not important. And also, you know, part of the magic, I'm going back to some of the things we discussed earlier, but owning that reveal, right? If you own the reveal, you kind of are able to somewhat like own that demand curve, right? So, how do you reveal, you know, that brand? How do you put it out there? And how do you continue to pulse it? No, I think that Melissa mentioned earlier as well in terms of, you know, brands that need to do a better job, like pulsing, right? Rather than just having these moments these elicid moments that are, you know, very identifiable, you know, like bigger franchises that depend on movie releases or a new TV series or they depend on a very specific moment in time when this event will happen and that's where they rally the troops. So, I think being able for brands like these to pulse the brand throughout, you know, given year, by the way, when you own retail, you have to really take close attention to those, you know, that specific element because you want traffic in your stores, not only in the holiday season, but you want to, you know, 52 weeks of the year, right? So, you got a plan accordingly on how those drops will happen and pulsing it. And again, I would love to insist on the lines of like packaging. Packaging is, it's truly a stage for a brand, right? Packaging is so important. So, keeping and maintaining and investing on, you know, building the most exciting packaging, kind of like reveal moments and what is the next gen of bad, the next type of experience. I think it's all combined and it builds for the brand and with the brand. So, those are I think, you know, elements that keep it going. Like it a lot. All right. Well, like I said, we got to fix this. It's true to our show. We got to fix something. In this case, it's like the rules of engagement. So, for Laboubou, what I'm getting is if they use their platform, they obviously have a rabid fan base, but are they used to build a culture of inclusivity and not exclusivity? And that could involve just teaching people out of play within their ecosystem and teaching people that any form of cultural buy-in is acceptable. And maybe that's even if you don't buy one or maybe there's pathways to get one if you don't have one. And maybe there's more balanced access, but you don't want to compromise the scarcity because your company's built on scarcity. So, if you create an overabundance, insaturate the market and overflod, that's contrary to what your company's built on and you'll probably go away within the year. So, keep the scarcity tactic up. If you're going to be selling the experience as so much of your value proposition, make sure you make that experience the best it could possibly be. That includes the packaging, that includes the moment of unboxing and everything that goes around it. You're selling that addition to whatever's inside that package. Reach out to other artists or other brands and look at ways of meaningful collaboration and keep the pulse of your audience and make sure you keep checking in and make sure that what you're putting out is in line with what your audience wants from you. If you do that, then I think maybe LeBubu's built to last and we'll be seeing them for the you know, good foreseeable future. Kadeera, did we fix the situation? I think we've got a solid start here. I think we've got the solid start of a good playbook that companies absolutely should be picking up and we've given LeBubu some good next steps as well. You know, I would tack on again looking for those future innovators in the company to take you into the next five, 10 years of the product and I really like Aaron how you you know woven like again, just that responsible innovation, a responsible use again, even if it's if it's air quotes just education, which can go a long way. So yeah, absolutely. Come. Good, Melissa. I would agree. I think we're on the right path. I do think that greed is not good in this scenario because I think that greed could be their downfall if they wanted to more profits, more money, you know, more storage. I think that that controlled scarcity scarcity is the important factor of LeBubu. I think that if they can continue to embrace the viral aspect of the marketing, the branding, the experience, that will be wonderful. I love the idea of aligning with great partners and other artists and other, you know, for them to grow in that area. But I do think that they have this really unique model and that they're really kind of leaning into it right now. And I would say that they need to again, make sure that their operations are very controlled. Make sure that they are living and aligning with that culture and with that business strategy that they've started out with. And with that artist's vision, because, you know, I think this is what makes it so remarkable as well as so unique. Love it, Melissa. Manuel, did we fix this situation? I think we saw in web, you know, I think, you know, if you're a brand leader like listening to us, I would suggest not to copy the blind box model, right? It's kind of copying the system, right? Make a reveal like really honorable gift fans a world to live in, right? And a stage for your product to show. So that for me, I think it's extraordinarily important. And hopefully that will convert, you know, hype into something healthy from a PNL standpoint. Okay. So we've given a little booboo a lot to think about. Now, before we wrap up, I've got a surprise for all of us. I was able to work some connections and I have, I'll hold it up, but if you're listening, I've got a LaBouboo. I figure we should know what this feels like. You know, let's all do this together so that we, you know, I've never opened one of any of you open to LaBouboo. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, let's do this together so we can explain it what's happening. So it's a box. It's got a little tab across the top. This is from, if you're listening, it's from the big into energy collection, which probably means something to some people, a lot of people. I'm going to open the tab up. And then let's do this together. Let's unbox. So here comes the flap. And we're going to see what we get. They're okay. There's a bag inside. It's got a little, it says big and energy. It feels kind of nice. It's like a nice texture to it. It's got like a rainbow, rainbow-ish ribbon at the top or pole string. And it's got a picture of the outline of LaBouboo. And here we go. I guess this is the moment of truth. It's very cute. It's cute. Yeah. Some people, it's debatable. Some people say, you'd, some people say not, but if you're listening, it's so it's got this nice little ring on it. It's yellow. It's metal. It says it says pop-mart. It says pop-mart on the tag that it's attached to. And this one's kind of a, it's like a sherbert color. So it's a, it's called like a pink and orange. And that means it's a loyalty. We got a loyalty LaBouboo. Very cool. Very cool. All right. So we all, I believe it's from the third wave, right? I think that one up front. So when you're going to hang it from Aaron. I think you're right. We'll forget that part out later. So now we all got the dopamine rush from opening one. And you know, it's, is it a rare ultra rare you'll have to tell us we don't. All right. Well, thank you everyone. Thank you, Manuel. Do all at first off. Thanks, Melissa, for this great episode. And thank you for helping everyone navigate this crazy topic. And manual. Thank you. You're truly one of one. So thank you for joining us. My question. Tell us how, how can people find you? How can companies get more of you? They, they can DM me, you know, send me a message over LinkedIn at Manuel Tourist Board. I'll be going to answer and get back to you. Thank you so much. Fantastic. Thank you. And for those of you listening, make sure to go back and collect every episode of our podcast, even the rare early ones season two, which we're in now is on our roll. We're going to keep making more surprises for you. And we will see you next time. Thank you. We hope you enjoyed this episode of We Fixed. You're welcome. We go into every episode somewhat cold. And nothing we say should be construed as legal advice, financial advice, or anything that would get us in trouble. All trademarks, IP and brand elements remain property of their respective owners.