Generation Z and late millennials are the first generation in human history raised by algorithms that predict and control every aspect of their digital experience. Spotify knows your mood. Netflix knows what movie they will want to watch this weekend. Instagram predicts what will hook and Amazon, what they are going to buy. Therefore, this same generation is willing to pay to experience something that previous generations were for granted when opening a box with a product: the surprise. It is not a passenger fad: hyperpreddicting has led us to value the unpredictable as a treasure.
How one works BLIND BOX. Perhaps the clearest and popular example of armor boxes today are the Labubus. A lot of these are talking about these Mart dolls mart both for His extraordinary success as for the impact on the world of collecting and social networks. None of this would have happened if buyers could choose their dolls: but since the boxes are blind, there is a shortage of certain models, which multiplies their value. An addictive strategy for buyers and very profitable for manufacturers.
Some figures. The figures also carry surprises: the global market of Blind Boxes generated more than 10,000 million dollars in 2023 And it is projected an annual growth rate of 5.4%advanceing more seated sectors such as textile or electronic. We are talking about buyers oriented between 18 and 35 years, the aforementioned generations, and that exhibit a rate of Repetition for buying nothing less than 73%superior to traditional products in the same price category.
Not only Labubus. Pop Mart is the greatest case of success and the most media, but they have not been the only brands that have achieved it. One of the most recent peculiar cases is that of Kodak, which came to control 90% of the photographic film market, but He saw bankruptcy in 2012 with a crisis of mass layoffs and the arrival of the digital. However, Kodak has revalued physical photography with Blind Boxes Where you can find retro instantaneous cameras, Polaroid movie, photographic accessories and random products of different Kodak.
Another success case: Minisothat arrived in Spain with a certain reputation of being a Chinese copy of Japanese products with greater prestige, thanks to collaborations with brands such as Disney, Pixar, Sanrio They have joined To all this Subculture of Blind Boxes. Result: Miniso sold more than 20 million Blind Boxes globally in 2023 and in countries like Spain they have opened stores exclusively to the phenomenon.
Some reasons that explain this success. The rise of armor boxes occurs in a very specific cultural moment. It coincides with several cultural phenomena that converge. On the one hand there is nostalgia for the lost surprise, and that the first millennials took for granted: open packages of collectible chromes, buy discs without knowing at all if they would like, find treasures in second -hand stores … the armor boxes recreate that lost feeling. On the other hand is the search for authenticity in the artificial: in a world where everything can be simulated or predicted, a genuine surprise feels like a rare moment of authenticity.
Passenger fashion or something else? At the moment, it is soon to determine if the Labubus have arrived to stay or the fashion will be as fleeting as The Sonny Angel. But beyond, what will happen to the surprise boxes? Brands like LEGO lead to the selling collection dolls pocketed in packages whose interior is not seen, but they had not finished curdling in the collecting market as Pop has achieved mart. In social networks, accounts are multiplied as @ASMRBLINDBAGS21 (more than three million followers), who systematically open all kinds of Blind Boxes. A fever around the apparently contradictory business of counting anything.
Image | Alpha
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