The IP Factory: Wang Ning's Grand Ambition to Build a 'Disney for Adults'
Key Takeaways
- Building an enduring creative business requires a systematic and scalable process for identifying and nurturing talent.
- A successful platform can create a powerful ecosystem, where the success of the platform and the success of its creative partners are mutually reinforcing.
- Thinking in terms of long-term, multi-generational intellectual property is the key to moving beyond short-term trends.
Prologue: The Disney Dream
Wang Ning has often been asked about his ultimate ambition for Pop Mart. His answer has been consistent and audacious: "I want Pop Mart to become the Disney of the future."
To many, this sounds like hyperbole. Disney is a century-old, global entertainment behemoth with a market capitalization of hundreds of billions of dollars. Pop Mart is a young company that sells collectible toys.
But Wang Ning is not talking about theme parks and blockbuster movies, at least not yet. He is talking about the fundamental engine of Disney's success: its mastery of intellectual property (IP). Disney's empire is not built on its parks or its movies, but on its portfolio of timeless, beloved characters, from Mickey Mouse to Elsa.
Wang Ning believed that the core of his business was not the plastic toys, but the characters themselves. He saw each art toy as a potential Mickey Mouse in miniature. His grand vision was to build a modern, systematic "IP factory" that could discover, develop, and commercialize the next generation of iconic characters for a new generation of consumers.
Act I: The Artist Ecosystem
After the initial success of Molly, Wang Ning did not rest on his laurels. He began to systematically build out Pop Mart's IP portfolio. He created a multi-pronged strategy to feed his new IP factory.
First, he and his team became talent scouts, constantly scouring art school exhibitions, design blogs, and social media to find the next generation of talented toy artists. He signed dozens of promising young artists, offering them a deal that was unheard of in the industry: Pop Mart would handle all the "boring" stuff—manufacturing, marketing, and sales—allowing the artist to focus purely on the creative work. In return, Pop Mart would get the exclusive commercial rights to their characters.
Second, he licensed existing, well-known characters from other companies, such as the characters from Disney and Warner Bros., and re-imagined them as Pop Mart-style art toys.
Third, he established an in-house design and creation studio, PDS (Pop Design Center), to develop original characters from scratch.
This created a powerful and diversified pipeline of new IP, ensuring that the company was not overly reliant on the success of any single character.
Act II: More Than Just a Toy
Wang Ning understood that for a character to become a true, Disney-level IP, it had to exist beyond the toy. He began to expand the universe of his most popular characters.
Pop Mart started creating rich backstories and personalities for its characters. They launched animated shorts, social media campaigns, and elaborate real-world exhibitions that brought the worlds of Molly, Dimoo, and The Monsters to life.
The goal was to forge a deeper, emotional connection between the consumer and the character. A customer was not just buying a piece of plastic; they were buying a friend, a companion, a piece of a larger story. This emotional connection was the "magic" that would transform a popular toy into a piece of enduring IP.
Epilogue: The Flywheel of IP
Wang Ning's IP factory created a powerful flywheel effect. The success of a new character would drive sales, which would generate revenue that could be reinvested into signing more artists and developing more IP. The growing portfolio of characters would draw more customers to the Pop Mart brand, creating a larger platform for the launch of the next new character.
This systematic, ecosystem-based approach to creativity is what truly sets Pop Mart apart. Wang Ning is not just a retailer or a toy-maker. He is an architect of a modern entertainment company.
His Disney ambition is still in its early days. But he has successfully built the foundational engine of that dream. He has created a factory that does not churn out widgets, but stories, characters, and emotions. He has created a platform that has the potential to produce the iconic, multi-generational IP that will be the Mickey Mouses of the 21st century.