How the British soft toy Jellycat conquered China

Thanks Tsoi,BBC World Service, Hong KongAnd

Gemini Cheng,BBC Chinese News, Hong Kong

Stella Huang bought her first Jellycat plush toy when she lost her job during the pandemic.

A school friend was a fan of British-designed toys and told her about them. But she only fell in love with the brand when she saw a gingerbread house plush toy on Chinese social media app RedNote.

Christmas is not widely celebrated in China and is more of a commercial event than anything more traditional. “The festival doesn’t mean much to me… But I still like seeing the gingerbread houses,” she says. That’s when she asked her friend from Guangzhou, their hometown, to buy it for her.

It was 2021, just when Jellycat was on the cusp of success in China and around the world.

“Everyone was nervous and no one knew what was going to happen,” says Stella, who has taken to stroking and squeezing her stuffed animals since Covid. She had to spend a lot of time at home in Beijing, where containment measures were among the strictest in China, if not the world.

Now 32, Stella has a new job as a sales manager in the tourism industry, but she still buys Jellycats. His collection now numbers 120 toys, costing a total of around 36,000 yuan ($5,145; £3,815).

“At my age, there are a lot of things you can’t share with others…and the problems we face are much more complicated than before,” she says with a sigh. “Stuffed animals help me regulate my emotions.”

Initially intended for children, squishy toys have become a worldwide success, particularly in China where disenchanted young people are turning to them for comfort.

Stella’s gingerbread house plush is an “Amuseable” line, a line of toys with tiny faces modeled on inanimate objects, from toilet paper rolls to hard-boiled eggs. Soft toys are “hot products” that “appeal to a large Gen Z and millennial audience” across the world, says Kasia Davies of global analytics firm Statista.

The popularity of these toys “may have something to do with the desire for companionship,” says Isabel Galleymore of the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom.

It’s hard to say for sure whether Jellycat launched the now-iconic Amuseable line, launched in 2018, to tap into the young adult market. But toy makers need to find a new market given falling birth rates in much of the world, Ms Davies adds.

And in 2015, Jellycat entered the Chinese market.

After doing the “groundwork,” the toymaker was able to capture “the tone of the pandemic” — when people sought comfort amid heightened uncertainty — and built on its success in China, says Kathryn Read, a business consultant with 15 years of experience in China.

Jellycat’s popularity has been boosted by its pop-up experiences. In-store events feature a limited edition “food” menu. Many fans film themselves being served and post the clips on social media.

Localization was also a central strategy for the Jellycat experience. Fans could buy plush versions of items like fish, chips and mushy peas from a temporary store at Selfridges department store in London.

Meanwhile, teapot and teacup plush toys were among the items sold at special outlets in Beijing and Shanghai last year.

In 2024, the UK-based company’s revenue will increase by two-thirds to £333 million ($459 million). according to its most recent Companies House accounts. During the same period, it sold about $117 million worth of toys to Chinese consumers on major e-commerce platforms, according to estimates by Beijing-based Moojing Market Intelligence.

The company’s growing popularity reflects a larger boom in China’s collectible toy market among young adults seeking emotional comfort and connection.

Overall sales of collectible toys in China are expected to exceed 110 billion yuan this year, according to a 2024 report from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the China Animation Association.

The runaway success of Labubu, the elf-like dolls created by Chinese toymaker Pop Mart, highlights the country’s growing appetite for collectible toys, particularly among young people.

This “kidult” trend This is not unique to China, as young adults around the world are challenging “outdated conceptions of adulthood”, says Professor Erica Kanesaka, a cultural expert at Emory University in the United States.

Global toy sales fell in 2024 – albeit by less than 1% – but sales of collectible toys increased by almost 5%, to a record high, according to market research firm Circana.

The funny items, particularly the eggplant, which Chinese fans call “the boss”, have also spawned memes, with many sharing their frustrations about adult life.

“Eggplant boss” is a hashtag on RedNote, where fans draw different expressions on the plush. In these memes, eggplant appears in different moods, ranging from drinking to fake smiling.

For example, Wendy Hui from Hong Kong modified her eggplant Amuseable by drawing dark circles around her eyes and putting a pair of glasses over them. She then posted a photo of it on Threads with the caption: “Mental state of workers on Monday.”

“I continued to work from home even when I was supposed to be on leave,” explains this marketing professional in his thirties. “I just wanted to express how exhausted I was.”

Jellycat has become an unexpected and light-hearted way for young Chinese people to express their grievances about the slowing economy, where hard work does not guarantee comparable rewards. Despite heavy censorship, the Internet remains an important, if not the only, space for such conversations.

The brand also often launches limited edition products and retires models. This strategy, which many in China call “hunger marketing,” has also helped make Jellycat toys a favorite on the country’s social media.

Collecting can feel like a treasure hunt, with fans scouring department stores and independent stores for Jellycats when traveling abroad. Some use “daigou”, commercial agents based abroad. And rare Jellycats, a status symbol among some fans, change hands for more than $1,400.

But most are cheap pick-me-ups in a sluggish economy plagued by a housing crisis and high local government debt. China’s youth unemployment rate fell slightly after hitting a record high in August, but official figures show it remains above 17%.

“You have to think long and hard before buying a luxury bag,” says Jessie Chen, a 34-year-old medical representative. “But you don’t have to do that for a Jellycat.

“Jellycat also sells bags, which cost only a few hundred yuan [tens of US dollars]. They’re practical and can hold a lot of stuff, so you might change the way you think about luxury products. »

But China may have already reached Jellycat’s peak, with fans noticing less talk about the toys on social media.

Ms Hui turned to “blind boxes” of toys like Teletubbies – where customers only find out what they have bought by opening the packaging – as a more exciting and cheaper alternative. She even considered “leaving the pit” – a Chinese slang term for retiring from a hobby.

“It’s so hard to buy them,” Stella says. “Our daily lives are already not easy and why should we make things more difficult for ourselves?”