Dubbed the master of new cooperation strategies, Minino continues to cause a stir when returning with a new collection with the legendary childhood character of the 8X, 9X generation – Harry Potter. Previously, this brand also had many successful collaborations with iconic IP (Intellectual Property) such as Barbie, Marvel, Disney or Hello Kitty, helping the brand’s sales grow strongly in recent years. So, what is the form of IP cooperation that Miniso always emphasizes in their development strategy? And what is the secret that helps this brand grow so rapidly in recent times?
Miniso is a famous retail brand known for its wide range of products in daily life from cosmetics to household appliances. This brand is also a familiar name in the Vietnamese market with many large and small stores in major cities.
In the past two years, after repositioning itself as a “Lifestyle Consumption Chain Store”, Miniso’s business performance has improved significantly despite the economic downturn. In the first half of 2024, the company achieved revenue of 7.759 billion yuan, up 25%, and net profit increased by 17.8% year-on-year. Excluding the impact of exchange rate depreciation, adjusted profit increased by 25.5% year-on-year.
And one of the most important reasons for Miniso’s impressive growth in recent times is the cooperation strategy with IP (Intellectual Property) – called Super IP by the brand.
*IP – Intellectual Property: is a concept used to refer to products created by the mind and protected by law.
Super IP & Super Store – Miniso’s Core Strategy
In 2023, Miniso began to transform its brand positioning from a conventional retailer to a “super lifestyle brand” with the goal of bringing joy to consumers through collaborative activities and uniquely designed products. The Super IP and Super Store models are among the core strategies of this new positioning.
The essence of Miniso’s Super IP model is a strategy of cooperating with IPs to create co-branded products with intellectual property rights protected by law. Since the beginning of this strategy, Miniso has continuously launched more than 100 collections combining many legendary characters from Marvel Studios, Coca-Cola, Minions, Disney, Barbie and Hello Kitty, or most recently the Harry Potter collection, which is receiving a huge response globally. The characters appearing in Miniso’s collections are all childhood icons associated with many generations of 8x, 9x and early 2000s around the world, making these collections easily accessible to millions of consumers worldwide.
Combined with the Super IP strategy is the Super Store model, transforming the entire store into an impressive experiential space, filled with images of IPs. From there, allowing shoppers to immerse themselves in a world of their own IPs, not just a simple shopping experience.
Some outstanding Super IPs of Miniso:
#1. Collection with IP Barbie
The Barbie collection was launched by MINISO in early 2024 and quickly created a fever all over the world. In addition to the series of new Barbie-style design products launched, Miniso also redecorated a series of stores around the world, including large stores in Vietnam. A series of hot products such as handbags, water bottles, accessories, makeup tools, etc. are all inspired by Barbie, displayed inside a shopping space filled with pink. Immediately, the collection caused a fever on both online and offline channels, making passersby unable to take their eyes off the series of prominently decorated stores in the middle of the street.
The Barbie Collection has helped Miniso achieve impressive revenue growth in many markets, including Vietnam. For example, at Van Hanh Mall, Barbie Collection sales contributed up to 42% of store sales during major promotional events.
#2. Collection with Harry Potter IP
Recently, Miniso continued to create a fever when launching a new collection with the legend of the 8X, 9X generation – Harry Potter. The collection includes up to 500 products designed with the Harry Potter theme, from stationery, bags and accessories, … helping fans bring the magical world of Harry into life.
Since its announcement, the Harry Potter IP has quickly attracted the attention of Potterheads around the world. For example, in California, the Miniso store at the Irvine Spectrum Center after being decorated according to the new IP has become a gathering place for thousands of Harry Potter fans. Customers not only love the products, but also check in and share the impressive space at the Store on social networks, helping the brand quickly receive a huge amount of UGC.
Unexpected benefits from MINISO’s Smart Cooperation Strategies
Not only has Miniso’s sales growth been positive, but its IP cooperation strategies have really helped the brand turn a new page, far surpassing the rather obscure Miniso name with its previous affordable positioning:
#1. Received support from a large number of young users
Miniso’s customers are mainly young people, especially Gen-Z. Although Miniso was previously a name known to many Gen Z, the brand has not really had a deep influence and connection with this generation. This makes the level of customer loyalty to Miniso not really sustainable.
However, the IP strategy seems to have helped Miniso change this situation. It is not difficult to see the image of Gen Z young people waiting in long lines in front of Miniso stores to wait for new collections.
#2. Breakthrough revenue growth and profit margins
The IP collections make Miniso’s positioning more high-end, which has significantly increased the ASP (average selling price) of the product without making users feel uncomfortable. They are willing to pay for higher quality, more unique and legitimate products, leading to increased sales profits for the brand. For example, a regular Miniso eye mask costs 15 yuan, but such a product when produced under the IP “Barbie” costs 49.9 yuan, an increase of more than 30%.
In addition, IP stores are also showing a clear ability to boost sales. American Dream Mall store – Miniso’s first IP store in the US, immediately after opening, helped the brand achieve sales 8 times higher than Miniso’s normal stores in the US.
#3. Rapid Expansion into International Markets
IP product collections are one of the most important driving forces for Miniso’s development in the international market. Famous IPs such as Barbie and Harry Potter help the brand easily penetrate cultures from Asia to Europe, reaching users more quickly. According to some information, these IP products account for up to 40% of Miniso’s overseas business.
#4. Create Momentum for Custom Products
In addition to IP cooperation, Miniso has established the trendy toy brand TOPTOY with IP products developed by the brand itself. Therefore, the IP cooperation strategy may be a perfect stepping stone for Miniso to initially approach consumers more deeply, helping them get acquainted with the product before promoting self-designed products. When consumers have a certain love and familiarity with Miniso products, the exclusive designs of this brand will also be easier to conquer consumers.
What can we learn from MINISO’s IP Cooperation Strategy?
In Miniso’s IP cooperation strategy, we can see very interesting lessons about taking advantage of nostalgia to enter the lives of consumers and localization strategy to reach international markets:
#1. Focus on the nostalgia factor first
It is not difficult to see that Miniso exploits most of the IP characters with nostalgic elements, associated with the childhood of 8X, 9X consumers such as Barbie, Harry Potter, Hello Kitty, etc. Not only in the products, but also the shopping experience of consumers from online to offline is unified according to the colors of those IPs.
These famous characters easily evoke a sense of nostalgia in consumers, making them feel familiar when recalling old memories and loving the product more. Therefore, this nostalgic strategy helps Miniso’s customers easily approach and get acquainted when the brand moves to a new model, new positioning. At the same time, it brings a more intimate feeling between the brand and young users, something that Miniso has not really done before.
#2. Localize products and communications by country
20-30% of Miniso’s products in the global market are localized by country. In addition, not all IPs are used by this brand globally. For each different market, Miniso will specifically research the influence of IPs on young people, to have a strategy to promote IPs suitable for the local culture of each country. For example:
In the US, Miniso launches special collections such as IP American Dream, and promotes IPs that are familiar to the people such as Barbie, Snoopy, Care Bears, or Harry Potter. However, for the Indonesian market, Sanrio IPs such as Hello Kitty and Kuromi. For the Vietnamese market, Miniso also promotes IPs that are familiar to the Vietnamese people such as Barbie.
The localization strategy helps Miniso to approach and become closer to consumers in each region. At the same time, it optimizes costs such as store design in each country, marketing costs for IP, etc. to focus on the most influential IPs.
#3. Flexible product strategy, suitable for young people’s tastes and hot trends
Along with exploiting IP, Miniso is also very flexible in developing products that suit the tastes of young people. When the Blind Box trend emerged in the market, this brand also quickly included Blind Box in its strategic product portfolio. And this has been really effective for Miniso. On Xiaohongshu, the hashtag “Miniso Blind Box” (#名创优品盲盒) has attracted 220 million views.
In addition, the brand also meets the diversity of product types. With hundreds of product models in a collection, Miniso’s products cover everything from cosmetics to household items, ensuring to go deep into every need and every aspect of the lifestyle of young people. From there, users can freely express their lifestyle and personality with the collections they love.
#4. The shopping experience is always impressive and new, encouraging users to actively create UGC
Offline experience at the store is one of the new favorite points of Miniso today. Not only a place to display products, Miniso creates a space filled with IPs with eye-catching decorative areas and extremely large decorative items, stimulating the vision, so that customers can comfortably check in and take selfies at the store. For example, a giant swimming pool right in the middle of the shopping mall. In some stores, the brand even designs a dedicated area for customers to record moments here.
This indirectly provides customers with a source of “material” so that they can proactively share images of the brand on social networks easily. On the other hand, this strategy also helps the brand consolidate its new positioning while creating a closer connection with customers, motivating them to come to the store to experience the product.
Not only does Miniso bring attractive visual effects, it also always strives to refresh the customer experience. Miniso uses a special strategy called “7-1-1”: Launching about 100 new products every 7 days, selected from a large library of 10,000 product ideas. By constantly changing products like this, Miniso makes every visit to the store a new and exciting experience for consumers, without getting bored.
Conclusion:
Collaboration strategies like Miniso are not too unfamiliar, especially in the toy and accessory markets. However, the highlight of Miniso’s strategy is the way it exploits nostalgia and localization by region, helping products easily penetrate deeper into consumers’ lives. On the other hand, the brand also understands very well the new trends and insights of young consumers to develop products in the most suitable way, creating an impressive shopping experience for them.
Comment Policy: We truly value your comments and appreciate the time you take to share your thoughts and feedback with us.
Note: Comments that are identified as spam or purely promotional will be removed.
To enhance your commenting experience, consider creating a Gravatar account. By adding an avatar and using the same e-mail here, your comments will feature a unique and recognizable avatar, making it easier for other members to identify you.
Please use a valid e-mail address so you can receive notifications when your comments receive replies.
