Sanrio, Snoopy, Miffy, Moomin, Totoro, Domokun, Monchhichi, Gloomy Bear, Pusheen, TokiDoki, Rilakkuma, Uglydoll, and now Labubu.
These are lifestyle character brands with millions of global fans.
Uamou, Rokimoto, Grape Brain, Punk Drunkers,
Bridge Ship House, Morris, Kiriko Arai, Seomiji, Pyoss, and dozens more…
…are lifestyle character brands of the next generation, each with a rapidly growing international base of passionate fans and consumers.
Lifestyle character brands primarily interact with an adult audience, with most of that audience being female, and at the center of the Beall curve, comprised of women from the post-university to 50+ age range, and slightly younger in the United States—for now. (Everything across the US is changing in regards to consumer behavior and lifestyle character brands.)
While there are certainly Hello Kitty collectors out there, 99% of the audience for all of the above brands are not considered collectors, having nothing to do with the term “kiddult,” nor do they “collect” anything at all.
Consumer products based on lifestyle character brands are not collectibles.
My wife’s childhood friend is not a collector, yet she owns more Snoopy consumer products than most Gundam collectors own toy robots.
Lifestyle character brands are not collected.
The above brands are drawn inwards by the consumer and made part of their daily life. These brands quite literally become a spiritual and physical part of their everyday.
If I were to explain to my wife’s friend that she has a “Snoopy collection,” she would passionately disagree. And yet, when I walk around her house, I see a Snoopy shower curtain, Snoopy and Charlie Brown flower vases, 12 different Snoopy and Peanuts ceramic mugs—with one being used to hold pens on her desk—a little Snoopy keychain of Snoopy’s plush head in corduroy hanging from her bag, a Snoopy apron and oven mitt, Snoopy and Woodstock earrings, and plush in four different sizes from noted plush toy maker Sekiguchi, and one from the high-end German plush toy brand, Steiff.
Snoopy and Peanuts were never a part of her childhood in Korea. She has no memory of the Snoopy Snow Cone Machine or the metallic lunchbox and thermos from the ’70s. She has never sat through the entire Peanuts Christmas or Halloween animated special like I did, and has no connection to Peanuts or Snoopy through nostalgia whatsoever.
Most who bring Snoopy into their lives around the world can say the same.
The core consumer of Peanuts goods is most certainly aware of Snoopy’s past, and that history adds cultural context, weight, and substance to the ethos surrounding that which she has made part of her life, but it does not drive the purchases or fuel the interest. This isn’t 50-year-old men at Comic-Con with perfect reproductions of Darth Vader action figures from 1977.
Her relationship with Snoopy began while traveling, during a visit to Mitsukoshi, a high-end department store in Ginza which already carried much meaning for her—as it does for so many.
All it took was interacting with a Snoopy program at Mitsukoshi, initiated by a giant Snoopy plush calling her over from across the store… and then once standing in front of the program of products, noticing the ceramic mugs, handbags, tote bags, and the little plush to hang from the tote bags.
At that moment, her subconscious made it clear that these were not little toys to line up on a shelf and organize by size or color, or some series of items to complete, but a brand to make part of her life.
She bought the tote bag, and the little Snoopy mini plush to hang from it… adding an item here and there for years on end.
Had she encountered those same items at Walmart, she’d very likely walk right past, as she’s there for detergent and a jar of pickles, and her kids wouldn’t lift an eyebrow. They want TMNT and Hot Wheels.
Uglydoll was first discovered by the first wave of fans at Giant Robot Store in Los Angeles, which had just opened in 2002 and was based on the Giant Robot magazine by the same owner. Giant Robot magazine had a very strong following of those who cared deeply about each and every issue, as “GR” was one of the first Asian American pop culture magazines to really resonate.
When you walked into the “GR” store in Los Angeles, it truly felt like you were walking straight into a physical manifestation of what Giant Robot magazine was all about.
Uglydoll plush was found sandwiched between Takashi Murakami watches and Yoshitomo Nara ashtrays, and upon entering, customers not only associated Uglydoll with the feelings they already had for Giant Robot, but then started to associate all discovered there as “belonging together.”
I don’t feel the same way when I walk into Michaels Arts and Crafts store as I do when I go to the MoMA store. When I spot a beautiful tin of colored pencils at the MoMA, I assign a completely different set of feelings and meaning to those pencils… and very well could’ve walked straight past that same tin package without a second thought had I crossed paths with it at Michaels.
The MoMA store gets me. It’s my stomping ground. Or I like to think so. All I discover there, I automatically assign that feeling toward.
This happens when some people walk into their favorite hardware store, their favorite design furniture shop, or their local neighborhood comic book retailer.
When I go down to the Dallas Museum of Art, I automatically feel a certain way when I walk into the gift shop, and I take note of the objects around me in a much different manner than if I’m doom-scrolling past them on a screen… especially now that we know, deep down, that if we see it on a screen, we are being sold.
When I set out for the day and head towards my first meeting in Tokyo, by the time I get to the train, I’ve interacted with hundreds of characters via print, signs, ads or screens. By the end of the day, it’s been thousands.
When I was a tourist on my first trip to Japan, I noticed every single character… wow, everywhere!… but 25 years later, after living in South Korea and spending half of my time in Japan on business, I don’t see it anymore. Neither does the person on the train next to me.
She can’t.
Her subconscious protects her from it just so she can get through her day.
But, when I walk into the Shibuya location of LOFT and go up to the sixth floor? Now my eyes are wide open and I most certainly notice everything I interface with up there.
The sixth floor of the Shibuya location of LOFT gets me,
it’s my stomping ground,
and to me, the store buyers there are not buyers at all, but curators.
As true with the Giant Robot store in Los Angeles.
You do the same thing with your stomping grounds and the places that “get you.” You just likely don’t really notice. It’s not something we proclaim out loud… it runs in the background.
And there’s the first mechanism of opportunity. Discovery.
But there’s something out there blocking you from success…
Likes. Views. Awareness.
This generation has been sold on the “attention economy,” and perhaps even raised on it. For those from the attention generation who hold the desire to enter the lifestyle character brand space, so much of what it takes to succeed in early stages may seem counterintuitive, as attention is the last thing you want—and in fact, attention is something to avoid.
If you are opening a hardware store next week, tools for getting eyeballs will work in your favor. If you have a movie coming out next month, you need brilliant marketing and advertising. You need eyeballs and attention. The attention economy is your friend.
In the lifestyle character brand realm, the attention economy does not apply.
In fact, it’s likely to hold you back or bring all you have built to a quick demise.
In the lifestyle character brand world, we are not in the business of accumulating eyeballs, but participate in the practice of reaching hearts. “Sounds cringe” until you see it in action—where no marketing is the marketing. It can’t come through outward broadcast from us, aimed at our audience. The whole process has to be your future customer’s doing. It has to be their idea. They have to discover you, and draw your brand inwards into their life by their own doing.
Not only does the attention economy not apply—above all else, and especially in early stages—you must avoid the association with the pursuit of attention.
The subconscious knows when it’s being sold. And the tricky thing about great marketing is… it works. As I doom scroll and stumble upon your IP via animated gifs or TikTok videos, I may think your character is cute and I may even click through and make a purchase via repeat recognition, but “collecting something” and drawing something into being part of my everyday life are not the same formula.
Not even close.
Snoopy doesn’t last for decades because it’s “huge” or because it’s a “mega brand.” It thrives for generations because at the core it has established a relationship with its customers. That’s not hyperbole… the relationship is everything.
When you visit the Snoopy museum in Japan or see the Snoopy balloon coming down the street during the Macy’s parade, those activations don’t exist because Snoopy is a “big mega brand”, and those mechanisms aren’t what brings “attention to the brand” at all. From museum and Happy Meal to parade balloon, those are investments in the existing relationship Snoopy already has with us.
The first time you are drawn over to the Snoopy section by that giant plush doll… that’s the moment of first impression… the first time you meet. When you pick up that plush, and you hold the brand in your hand, that’s when the connection is made. When you bring home the Snoopy bag and miniature keychain, the relationship begins—and every subsequent consumer product or museum or Macy’s parade balloon nurtures that relationship.
If that relationship is maintained properly, your brand can thrive for generations.
You are not in the awareness business. This is the falling-in-love industry.
If you have a brand in its infancy… if it’s day one and there’s no TV shows, there are no books or media: it’s just you, your character, and nothing else: A high-quality plush doll, a miniature plush doll we can hang from our bag, the bag to hang it from, and a ceramic mug is all you need.
Now you need a place for us to discover you.
I love Walmart and Target. Stay away from them. For now.
I’ve been studying mass retail, the buyers who decide what gets in, and the consumers who shop there since the early ’90s.
Why is there no Labubu at Target? Doesn’t Labubu want to widen awareness?
If you’re a toymaker and you come up with a competitor for Barbie, you can place that toy into Target and Walmart and compete against Barbie without any sort of pre-existing awareness or entertainment media at all… toys live or die through the combination of play patterns and design.
But if you are in the business of lifestyle character brands, while you may physically cross over into the “toy” realm through the necessary mechanism and function plush toys and some plastics serve, your brand is never a toy line, and you are not in the toy business. Kiddults have nothing to do with it.
Entering Target or Walmart—if you were so lucky to even get an order from them—is, for most, a dream. A simple order from Walmart and Target can change someone’s life, resulting in millions in revenue, as long as you don’t face massive returns.
But in general, Walmart and Target are where brands go when a certain percentage of the mass market big box consumer is already madly in love with a brand.
Toys are the exception, as they die or thrive through the design × play pattern dynamic with children.
Kiddults/adult collectors can stumble upon Star Wars at Target and it works. Once you get into anything more obscure than Thundercats, it gets shaky. SilverHawks? Perhaps the Target collector spot. Micronauts? Good luck.
Marvel is at Target because a high percentage of their consumers already love Marvel and, when they find it, they are already sold. There’s no catching eyeballs or raising awareness at Target. You are preaching to the choir.
To build for longevity in the lifestyle character brand business, you must first function as a source of discovery for the first few who will show everyone else, and everyone else will believe them, as nobody is being “sold” anything.
For those who prefer the digital realm, here comes the bad news: this must occur in a physical setting. It is what it is. The screen will help you someday, but not today.
There is a secret path out there, unexplored by most, misunderstood by those closest to it. Simply walking it won’t do. You have to bring your own voice to it and carve out your version of how to traverse across… but it is very real, and has never been put on paper. Unknown by the brightest at Jazwares, unexplored by the wisest from Zuru, and purposefully hidden by the competitors of Sanrio.
The Wall Street Journal calls it “Kawaii” and repeats terms like Kiddult, but all are misdirects fed to them to wave you off the true path. Once shown the road and what’s involved, many will scoff, calling it “the slow road” or misunderstanding it as “slow and steady.” It is far from any of these labels. It’s the insane roller coaster ride few dare line up for. Not everyone survives… simply knowing what to do will do nothing if what you bring fails to resonate, and merely knowing the steps to take alone will shipwreck most. But it’s real. We call it the right small.
And the right small is huge.
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