Chinese toymaker Pop Mart targets wider audience with Playground magazine, grow IP

The company, which sells toys in blind boxes, started selling the Playground magazine for 39.9 yuan (US$5.7), with the theme of exploring the future.

“The magazine embodies emotional value and aligns with the younger generation’s desire for self expression,” Vicson Guevara, Pop Mart’s executive creative director and co-creator of the magazine, said during a launch event in Shanghai on Friday. “We hope it can eventually evolve into a new IP.”

The biannual publication, featuring Oscar-winning Malaysian actress Michelle Yeoh on the cover, looks at the future through “the reality of being young in an uncertain world”, Pop Mart said in a statement. It focuses on people’s anxieties, hopes and doubts, it added.

The company did not disclose a circulation target for the magazine, which can be bought on Pop Mart’s online platform, select offline locations, as well as bookstores like Jetlag Books in Beijing and Casa Magazines in New York.

Founded by entrepreneur Wang Ning in 2010, Pop Mart popularised the blind box concept, in which the contents are concealed in opaque wrappings.