Do you know JELLYCAT? It's a toy brand that sells a lot of toys with no physical performances. Because of its ‘play house’ style performance is too abstract, in the social media fire, and even triggered a lot of domestic cultural and creative brands to follow suit, and behind the ‘emotional consumption’ of the huge potential has also attracted widespread attention.

Plush toy brand JELLYCAT was founded in London in 1999, the initial positioning of the brand is a soothing toy for infants and children and sleep toys, and later found that the effect of this ‘soothing’ in the adult body also plays an important role. In recent years, the brand has rapidly gained popularity globally and has become a mental comfort for adults. The company's revenue and gross profit will further grow rapidly from 2021 onwards, with JELLYCAT's revenue reaching approximately RMB 1.329 billion and gross profit approximately RMB 800 million in 2022, both of which represent year-on-year growth of more than 70 per cent. JELLYCAT's popularity has nothing to do with its affordability and value for money, according to Taobao's flagship shop, where the lowest-priced toys sell for RMB 129 and the highest can cost up to RMB 7,999, with one of the toys costing as much as RMB 1,000. The price can be up to 7,999 yuan, one of the price tag of 399 yuan Barcelo bear in the flagship shop sales volume of more than 200,000 single.

Many people know JELLYCAT brand from the major social platforms in China, in the jittery voice, small red book, douban and other platforms to share a variety of ‘baby’ experience. For example, the popular social platform popular video recorded a consumer in Shanghai JELLYCAT entity shop to buy a cake plush toy experience: the waiter throughout the cooking this ‘cake’, first took out a squeeze cream toy, according to the consumer's needs, squeezed the high layers of cream, and then while packing the side! Remind consumers: ‘Our cakes are made on the spot on the day, so if you go back to eat do not remember to put in the refrigerator fresh Oh ......’ Of course, the whole process is no real cream or cake, are no physical performance, but consumers are quite a bill, willing to wait in line for a few hours for this show. Willing to queue up for hours for this show.

For JELLYCAT's target audience, this ‘play house’ style, immersive shopping process is not only a consumer behaviour, but also a soothing remedy. The dolls are brought to life and become friends who can listen to their hearts, and consumers are transported back to their carefree childhood, enjoying pure happiness and peace of mind. JELLYCAT's ‘play house’ has successfully struck a chord with consumers' deepest emotional needs. This novel consumer experience combines life scenes, toys and retail experience - shop staff simulate waiters to make and pack, allowing consumers to immerse themselves in the process of purchasing ‘food’, constantly refreshing the public's sense of freshness for the brand, and further deepening user bonding. It further deepens the user adhesion.

The ‘goodness’ of plush toys is not only captured by consumers, but also by more businesses. After JELLYCAT, this year, Gansu Provincial Museum launched the hot and spicy hot pot creation fire, followed by the Shanxi Provincial Museum also launched the same type of meat sandwich creation, some time ago, Shanghai Auntie launched the Shanghai plush desserts around, and these to provide emotional value and not just sell plush business are ‘fire’.

It is understood that the Gansu Provincial Museum during the National Day received a total of nearly 100,000 visitors, the launch of the ‘Horse Fei Yan’ ‘spicy hot’ series of cultural and creative peripheral sales of nearly 1.5 million yuan.

Not coincidentally, Qingdao, a number of restaurants have launched jELLYCAT aubergine, carrot shape of the beverage package, in the small red book countless fans, and even some of the iron pot stew merchants also replaced the steamed buns with JELLYCAT doll shape of the pasta, and the consumer is also very much to buy this behaviour, have sunshine out of their own card these packages of photos.

So it seems that giving emotional value to plush toys for sale has become a verifiable good business. For cultural and creative products and businesses, it is also not a clever way to convey local history and culture. However, how to avoid situations such as homogenisation and inappropriate expression is also an important factor in determining how far a product will go. It's just that very few products or IPs are able to maintain the same level of popularity they had at their peak. Whether it's JELLYCAT or cultural and creative brands and businesses, they need to grasp the real needs of consumers and constantly adjust their product strategies in order to maintain a long-lasting popularity.

Source: Peninsula Metropolis Daily News