Labubu at Macy’s: how a weird little monster became global IP

On Thanksgiving morning this year, between the familiar sight of Snoopy, Lego and shimmering candy-colored floats, a sharp-toothed, rabbit-eared creature from China is joining one of America’s most traditional TV rituals.

Labubu, the viral Pop Mart character that sits somewhere between forest spirit and gremlin, is getting a full float at the 99th Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. The float, titled “Friendsgiving in POP CITY,” features two 16-foot fuzzy sculptures of Labubu and fellow character Mokoko, surrounded by Pop Mart favourites like Skullpanda, Peach Riot, Dimoo, Molly and Duckoo. 

For most people watching at home, it will be their first contact with Labubu. For marketers, it is something else entirely: a case study in how a once-niche designer toy has been built into a billion-dollar IP that now marches down Sixth Avenue alongside the icons of American pop culture.

This is what is actually happening, and why it matters for anyone thinking about brand, fandom and soft power in 2025.

What Pop Mart is doing at the parade

Pop Mart is using the parade as the centrepiece of a much larger New York takeover.

From official announcements and parade previews, the plan looks like this:

• The “Friendsgiving in POP CITY” float debuts at the 99th parade with 16-foot fuzzy inflatables of Labubu and Mokoko, the first time Macy’s has used this kind of texture and construction on a float. 

• The float joins a refreshed line-up of new units from brands like Lego, Lindt and others, in a broadcast that reaches tens of millions of viewers and draws massive street crowds along the route from the Upper West Side to Herald Square. 

• Pop Mart is pairing the float with an exclusive holiday pop-up at Macy’s Herald Square and an immersive installation at 1 Penn Plaza, where fans can shop, take photos and walk through the world of IPs like Skullpanda. 

This is not a “logo on a float” sponsorship. It is a full funnel strategy:

• The float seeds top-of-funnel awareness in a context filled with nostalgia and family viewing.

• The pop-ups and installations capture intent a few blocks away, converting curiosity into merch, selfies and sign-ups.

Layer on the timing, and it gets sharper. Pop Mart is celebrating its 15th anniversary, and the float lines up with a push to grow its US footprint, from mall stores to a planned Times Square flagship. 

In other words, the Macy’s appearance is the “we are here now” moment for Pop Mart in North America.

Who or what is Labubu?

To understand why this float exists at all, you have to zoom out from New York to the world Pop Mart built.

Labubu started life in a series called “The Monsters” by Hong Kong-born illustrator Kasing Lung, inspired by Nordic folklore and drawn in a slightly unsettling, storybook style. 

Pop Mart turned those illustrations into collectables:

• Labubu appears as a mischievous, wide-eyed creature with rabbit ears and tiny fangs.

• It first spread through blind box vinyl figures and later plushies, keychains and art pieces.

• Scarcity, surprise and limited runs created a loop of repeat purchases and trading culture. 

Then the numbers kicked in.

By 2024, the Monsters series, led by Labubu, generated around RMB 3 billion in revenue, roughly 23 per cent of Pop Mart’s total for the year, with growth above 700 per cent year on year. 

Pop Mart’s overall revenue more than doubled to about 13 billion yuan in 2024, helped heavily by Labubu’s plush category, which alone grew over 1,200 per cent and contributed more than a fifth of the company’s sales. 

In the first half of 2025:

• Revenue jumped again, and profits surged nearly 400 per cent as Labubu dolls sold out across markets. 

• The Monsters became Pop Mart’s top IP and nearly a third of total revenue, with analysts openly comparing Labubu’s influence to that of Hello Kitty or Mickey Mouse for earlier eras. 

That growth is not just about a cute character. It is about how Pop Mart treats Labubu as IP, not a product.

From blind box to soft power

The Macy’s float sits at the intersection of three forces: IP strategy, fandom economics and national soft power.

IP strategy

Labubu is managed like a long-term character universe, not a one-off hit.

• It appears across formats: vinyl figures, plush, apparel, collabs with brands like Vans and Coca-Cola, art sculptures and now giant inflatables. 

• Its design language is consistent enough that it reads instantly, even from far away on a TV broadcast.

• The broader Monsters world gives Pop Mart room to introduce new characters that still feel part of the same universe. 

The Macy’s float is simply another extension of this IP into a new medium and a new geography.

Fandom economics

The Labubu craze has been described as “plushie mania” for a reason.

• Blind box mechanics and rare “chase” figures turn each purchase into a gamble that rewards repetition. 

• Celebrity fans and influencers, including names in music and fashion, pushed Labubu into global feeds. 

• Secondary markets, auctions and limited drops created a sense of status around owning certain versions, with some pieces reselling for tens of thousands of dollars. 

By the time Macy’s locked the float, Labubu was less “new character” and more “existing fandom waiting to be activated in the US.”

Soft power

Analysts in China and abroad are already framing Labubu as part of a wider wave of Chinese cultural exports, alongside games, dramas and fashion.

Commentary around Pop Mart’s growth often highlights:

• A deliberate ambition to create a Chinese IP that can stand alongside Japan’s Sanrio characters or US entertainment franchises. 

• Rapid expansion into Europe and North America through stores, vending machines and flagship locations. 

Putting Labubu into a legacy American parade is a very visible way of saying: this IP belongs on the same stage as the global icons you already know.

The tension in the Labubu story

Of course, every wildly successful object brings complications.

The Labubu boom has triggered:

• A wave of counterfeits, sometimes nicknamed “Lafufu,” that mimic the look at lower quality and have sparked safety warnings from regulators. 

• Reports of crowding, fights and intense resale culture whenever new drops hit certain markets. 

• Debates about whether the character’s deliberately “ugly-cute” aesthetic is charming, creepy or inappropriate for kids, especially as it enters more mainstream family spaces. 

Seeing Labubu glide through a family broadcast like the Macy’s parade will be a live test of how far that aesthetic and fandom can stretch without backlash.

For marketers, it is a reminder that when you pursue intensity of fandom rather than broad mild approval, you are signing up for volatility as well as growth.

What marketers can take away from Labubu at Macy’s

If you strip away the parade glitter, there are some very practical lessons in this moment for brands and creators.

1. Build characters, not just campaigns

Labubu works in so many contexts because it is a character first, product second. It has a consistent silhouette, personality cues and universe that can live in toys, fashion, collaborations and experiences.

Most brands still treat mascots or characters as one-off campaign assets. Pop Mart is showing what happens when you manage them like long-term IP and keep feeding them with new expressions. 

2. Use big cultural stages as accelerators, not introductions

The Macy’s parade is not where Pop Mart starts telling its story. It is where the brand compresses years of groundwork into one high-visibility moment, backed by stores, pop-ups, communities and online fandom that already exist.

If you want to put something on a big stage, the smarter question is not “how do we make a cool float” but “do we have a world people can walk into after the float passes?”

3. Embrace a distinctive edge

Labubu is not safe or generic. It is polarising by design. That edge has helped it cut through in a crowded toy landscape and become instantly recognisable even to people who do not know the name yet.

A lot of brand mascots and visual identities die quietly because they are engineered to offend no one. Labubu is a reminder that in a saturated attention economy, a bit of weird can be a growth strategy.

4. Treat global expansion as cultural translation, not just distribution

Pop Mart is not just shipping boxes into new markets. It is staging experiences, partnering with local institutions like Macy’s and positioning its characters inside existing rituals.

If you are taking a local brand global, the question is not just “where can we sell” but “which cultural stages already have the audience we want, and how do we show up there in a way that feels native.”

The bigger story

On one side of this float, you have a nearly century-old American department store using its parade to stay relevant in an age of streaming and fragmented attention. On the other hand, you have a Chinese toy company that turned a strange little monster into a multi-billion yuan IP and is now rolling that presence down Sixth Avenue. 

The moment they meet is what makes this interesting for marketers.

It is not just about one more character joining the parade. It is about how brands turn design into IP, IP into fandom, and fandom into global soft power that can cross borders, languages and holidays.

And this Thanksgiving, that story just happens to look like a fuzzy, fanged bunny waving from a float called Friendsgiving in POP CITY.