How much does it cost to promote an IP? Ye Guofu's practice shows that it costs tens of millions.
Text | Lan Jie
Editor | Qiao Qian
In the past two months, Ye Guofu, the founder, chairman of the board, and CEO of Miniso, has said more than once that in the next two years, Miniso will close and reopen 80% of its stores nationwide and transform from a retail company into a cultural and creative company. The trendy toy IP YOYO (also known as "Youyou Jiang") under Miniso may be the first answer to this transformation.
On January 30th, the MINISO LAND Guangzhou No. 1 Store (a super large store of Miniso covering an area of over 1,100 square meters) officially opened. There were two traffic stars on the scene. One was the singer Xu Mengjie, and the other was YOYO. In the videos taken by netizens on that day, consumers holding whole sets of YOYO blind box products crowded in front of the cash register, making it difficult for the staff maintaining order to move forward. There was hardly any space between the crowded heads.
Since the second half of last year, the popularity of YOYO has been rising continuously. The "sold out" labels have finally been pasted from the stores of Pop Mart to Miniso's stores.
Image source: Photo by the author
A clerk at a Miniso store in Chaoyang District said that the number of relevant products received each time is about 100, and they will be sold out in about half an hour at the fastest. During this period, the restocking time is uncertain, and there isn't even a store group to notify the arrival information. That is to say, these more than 100 YOYOs were completely bought by passing consumers.
Consumers who couldn't buy YOYO flocked from offline to online. There have been many YOYO blind boxes with doubled prices on the Xianyu platform, and there are also scalpers who professionally sell YOYO. Many posts asking "how to buy YOYO Jiang" have also emerged on social platforms.
In the hot - selling list and the good - review list of trendy toy blind boxes on Tmall in mid - February, YOYO's blind boxes ranked first, surpassing SKULLPANDA under Pop Mart.
Image source: Screenshot of the Tmall page
In terms of popularity and premium, there is still a significant gap between YOYO and LABUBU, the top - tier trendy toy IP. However, compared with Miniso's lackluster state in IP in the past few years, it is already a quite eye - catching answer.
At the Miniso Global Partners Conference on January 30th, Ye Guofu claimed that "since YOYO was launched in June 2025, it has grown rapidly. Many of us think that YOYO has the potential to become a world - class IP." He also announced that Miniso is developing a YOYO humanoid robot. "How to integrate AI (artificial intelligence) and IP is our next - step strategy."
According to a person close to Miniso, this IP is a strategy of the Miniso Group. "YOYO will be the highlight of the company in 2026 and will also be strongly promoted overseas."
The Birth of YOYO
Ye Guofu advocates the "Four - Step IP Operation Method": the first step is to sign exclusive IPs or incubate self - owned IPs; the second step is to develop products; the third step is to put the products on the shelves in stores and collect data at the same time; the fourth step is to promote the IPs with good data through word - of - mouth marketing.
YOYO is an IP that emerged during this trial - sales process. It has two characteristics: the sales volume is high enough to support the e - commerce channel and is included in the purchase list of distributors. Bosses on the front line of consumption care most about sales efficiency, and they will never choose unsalable products. This also shows that Miniso is willing to supply goods to non - brand channels in order to expand the scale of YOYO and make this IP penetrate the market and reach consumers as much as possible.
In this regard, the popularity of YOYO is completely different from that of Nuomi'er, a self - owned IP under TOPTOY. The latter also had a hot - selling period in mid - 2025, but Nuomi'er was acquired as a package, including the IP and its R & D and operation teams. A person close to TOPTOY said that the latter is very independent, and its office location is not the same as that of TOPTOY. In other words, the hot - selling of this IP is not strongly related to the operation ability of Miniso or even TOPTOY.
YOYO, on the other hand, is an IP operated by Miniso's capabilities. Like LABUBU, YOYO is not a new IP. It is because of the support of Miniso's channels and operation capabilities that it has achieved today's popularity.
After confirming the sales efficiency of YOYO, Miniso began to vigorously create a star, just like Pop Mart.
According to official information, Miniso currently has 180 internationally licensed IPs and only 16 self - owned IPs. There are only two or three popular ones, including YOYO. In contrast, according to Pop Mart's financial report, in the first half of 2025, there were 13 artist IPs with revenues exceeding 100 million yuan and 5 IPs with revenues exceeding 1 billion yuan under its brand.
Therefore, Miniso, whose IP reserves and popularity are difficult to compare with Pop Mart, regards YOYO as "the hope of the whole village" and irrigates it with a large amount of pan - entertainment traffic, hoping that it can grow into "Miniso's LABUBU".
In the past few months, YOYO has almost been seen at all important occasions and nodes of Miniso.
For example, as mentioned at the beginning of the article, when the MINISO LAND Guangzhou No. 1 Store opened, YOYO's image was everywhere inside and outside the store. There was also an 11 - meter - high giant YOYO sculpture next to the local landmark, the Canton Tower.
At the Global Partners Conference at the end of January, YOYO was also the focus of the topic. Miniso even promoted YOYO to the stage of the Spring Festival Gala.
On February 4th, China Media Group officially announced a cooperation on IP - co - branded derivatives for the "2026 Spring Festival Gala" with Miniso. In the relevant poster, the festively - dressed YOYO stood prominently in the center. The official customer service said that the Spring Festival Gala version of YOYO would be launched soon.
Image source: China Media Group official
The Spring Festival Gala has always been a battleground for Internet giants to compete for users. This year, major trendy toy brands are also not to be outdone. Behind this is the desire for traffic that transcends class, age, and gender. YOYO, which has been planted in this fertile traffic soil, undoubtedly bears high expectations.
A senior practitioner in the trendy toy industry told 36Kr that Miniso's phased comprehensive investment in YOYO may have reached tens of millions or even a higher scale. At the mid - year performance meeting in 2025, Ye Guofu also said that the expected sales scale of YOYO in 2025 was 40 million yuan, and it would exceed 100 million yuan in 2026.
Due to different corporate genes, the fates of YOYO and LABUBU are also different.
Super Stores and Self - Owned IPs Need Each Other
As early as February 2023, Miniso announced the launch of a global brand upgrade strategy. Since brand value needs to be expressed through space, the main way for Miniso to implement this strategy is to open large stores.
In addition to shaping the brand image, super stores also have higher store efficiency. According to the statistics of Galaxy Securities, super stores can use twice the investment of ordinary stores to drive three times the single - store sales volume. The customer unit price is 7% higher, and both the inventory turnover and the return period are faster and shorter than those of ordinary stores.
This strategy first achieved successful results overseas. Relying on the brand recognition gap and a retail environment with much less competition than in China, Miniso has successively opened large direct - operated stores in areas such as Times Square in New York and the Champs - Élysées in Paris in the past three years. The products sold are not much different from those in China, but the price units directly become US dollars and euros, achieving an increase in gross profit.
The same method will not work in China. Trendy toy IPs have become the new solution. Trendy toy IPs with emotional value naturally have the characteristic of high premium, which matches the logic of large stores. IPs are non - essential products, and the display density cannot be too high. They need to win consumers' "first - sight love" and also need large stores that can provide scenarios and experiences.
Therefore, trendy toy IPs have become the key word for Miniso in 2024 and frequently appear in the brand's external statements.
In October 2024, the Miniso Land Global No. 1 Store opened on Nanjing East Road in Shanghai. The three - story shop covers an area of nearly 2,000 square meters, and nearly 80% of the sales volume is contributed by IP - series products. This feature is also reflected in other large stores of Miniso.
However, having IPs alone is not enough. The brand's demand for self - owned IPs is becoming more and more urgent.
Relying on the authorizations of top - tier IPs such as Sanrio and CHIIKAWA, Miniso did have a comfortable period. However, it is obvious that the authorization fees are rising year by year. In the fiscal years of 2023, 2024, and the first half of 2025, Miniso's IP authorization fees were 249 million yuan, 420 million yuan, and 241 million yuan respectively, all with double - digit growth. In addition, obtaining authorizations also requires facing the dilemma of homogeneous competition in the market and the difficulty of precipitating brand assets.
Miniso has finally embarked on the path of signing exclusive IPs and trendy toy artists. According to Ye Guofu's plan, half of the products in Miniso stores will be its own IPs in the future.
In this direction, Miniso has finally welcomed YOYO. However, it is as difficult to predict the hit trendy toy IPs as it is to predict the hit movies in the film industry. Money and traffic may not necessarily create "the next LABUBU".
In this regard, the above - mentioned senior practitioner in the trendy toy industry said that Miniso has a profound retail gene and follows the simplest logic - continuously testing different IPs, keeping the good ones and removing the bad ones, and then strongly promoting the retained ones. This will ultimately be a probability game. With this method, an IP can be quickly promoted in the short term, and an IP can also be quickly iterated.
In contrast, Pop Mart is more like a South Korean entertainment company. It will accompany an idol from the trainee stage instead of just screening. This tests the judgment ability of the founder and the decision - making team. Just like Pop Mart signed the The Monsters series as early as 2019 and launched the LABUBU series of trendy toys, but it was not until Lisa's love in 2024 that LABUBU became what it is today.
Therefore, for Miniso, the vitality of its IPs will be less than that of Pop Mart, but it can always promote "another YOYO".