POP MART Through the Lens of Arts Management: Intellectual Property Development, Immersive Retail Experience and User Generated Content Brand Culture Accumulation

Abstract

This single-case study focuses on how POP MART creates a high-engagement business environment by utilizing three interconnected pillars: original intellectual property production, immersive sales experiences and online brand communities. First, analyze the narrative diversity and visual coherence of major characters like Molly to show how character merchandising encourages Intellectual Property (IP) development. Second, using the experience-economy framework, describe the offline IP exhibition and POP LAND theme park by turning them into paid physical experiences that generate discussion online. Third, examine how online brand community function. Through crowdsourcing approaches, user-generated content (UGC) contributes new ideas for collaboration between industries while adding authenticity and emotional resonance. Integrating these findings, there are two strategic recommendations. To prevent IP homogenization, POP MART should actively collaborate with designers and fans to continuously nurture unique intellectual property. To reduce the possibility that blind boxes can become categorized as gambling in various countries, the company must create an anticipatory compliance framework, including data governance and probability disclosure. The study presents a roadmap for the internationalization of Chinese cultural intellectual property in the designer toy market and helps deepen leaders’ understanding of the flywheel of “content–experience–community”.