300,000+ notes, 68% gross profit margin, dismantling the business and brand logic behind Jellycat

This article breaks down Jellycat’s brand logic and answers the questions of how doll products can break through the current situation of having categories but no brands, and how to cross over from the children’s market to young people. I hope it will inspire everyone.

When the price range of hot-selling items under the keyword of plush toys on Taobao hovered around 20 yuan, one brand sold a total of 20,000 pieces of an 11-centimeter-tall plush penguin at a price of 129 yuan.

It is Jellycat.

Not only does it have impressive sales, but in the plush toy industry, which has long been in a state of having categories but no brands and where IP derivatives have a clear voice, Jellycat does not tell stories or tie itself to mature IPs, but has attracted loyal fans all over the world and established a unique brand awareness.

As a plush toy manufacturer, Jellycat has not only captured the hearts of children, but also adults, who account for half of its sales.

We consulted domestic and foreign information to find out why this British brand founded in 1999 is so different and what supports its 68% gross profit margin and £76 million in revenue in 2020. In the end, we came up with answers to two key questions:

How to break the current situation of having categories but no brands?

Break through limitations in product design to enhance brand presence and recognition; make dolls fashionable and anthropomorphic to attract loyal fans, and use celebrities to promote products and increase brand awareness.

How to cross over from the children's market to young people?

From toys to gifts, straightening out the positioning is the foundation; it can be soft and cute, funny and crazy, and the Internet promotes fission marketing.

1. Build a brand: Don’t make animal specimens, label your products as Jellycat

1. Product: Make watermelons smile, not be "another company producing teddy bears"

Plush toys have a long history. Since the beginning of the 20th century, Teddy bears have gradually become the focus of the market. The German company Stieff and the American company Ideal, which are famous for them, once became the largest plush toy manufacturers in the world and the United States respectively.

This reflects the most mainstream design idea in the past - making animals plush. In fact, this is still the core logic of the plush toy industry today - making the existing image as real as possible, and the same is true for IP peripherals.

Jellycat was born out of outsiders' rebellion against this logic. The founders, brothers William Gatacre and Thomas Gatacre, the former worked in an oil company and the latter was passionate about design. After working in the plush toy industry for a while, they found that the doll market in the 1990s was boring and lifeless because people always wanted to make toys look like animals, which was like making specimens.

In 1999, the brothers founded Jellycat in the UK. They were determined to break through limitations and not be "another teddy bear company". For example, when designing rabbits, they used different shapes, colors, feel, size, and materials to develop different styles. Looking at a Jellycat plush puppy produced in 2003 on eBay, the limbs have become particularly slender and the hair has been weakened. The design goal is obviously not to restore a real puppy.

If traditional plush toy manufacturers are more like middlemen who "give consumers who like puppies a plush puppy", Jellycat is not satisfied with being an unknown middleman and uses design to add its own mark and expression to the products.

This "sense of creation" is even more vividly demonstrated in the Amuseable series launched in 2018. Jellycat has painted smiley faces and added limbs to green plants, sports equipment, food, and drinks, which originally have no life or facial features. Today, it has become one of the brand's most popular series and is classified as a first-level category on the official website along with animals.

More importantly, the smiling face with beady eyes, as the iconic design language of the fun series, has gradually become part of the brand recognition due to its simplicity and recognition. Consumers may not be able to tell whether a cute white plush puppy is from Jellycat , but adding a smiling face with beady eyes to any object will make it feel "very Jellycat" , which is crucial to establishing a clear brand image.

In addition to design, another important feature of Jellycat products is safety and softness. As soothing toys for children, all Jellycat products have passed the European toy safety standards and the US material testing standards. They are also suitable for newborns and are considered super soft, super rubbing and super healing by adult consumers.

2. Marketing: Release dolls like fashion items and treat them like people

High-quality materials and novel designs together support the uniqueness of the product. In terms of marketing, Jellycat has three points worth analyzing.

First of all, in terms of product release, Jellycat adopted a routine similar to that of the fashion circle, which was once fixed in January and July every year (it has changed in recent years), and new products are released in the form of series, accompanied by beautifully photographed product brochures with different themes. The dolls sometimes appear on magazine covers and classic albums, and are sometimes integrated into movie posters and world famous paintings.

Secondly, Jellycat strives to make consumers fall in love with dolls. For example, they have set up a separate page on their official website, which includes dolls that have been delisted every year since 2010, calling them "old friends who don't want to say goodbye." For example, they will select monthly stars among dolls, and create sleeping partners and other personalities for dolls. This attitude of treating dolls as partners is passed on to consumers. Children treat dolls as friends and are reluctant to fall asleep without them. Adults also inject love into them and constantly share their stories with them in the comment area, driving love for the brand through products.

Finally, celebrities always bring products to consumers. Jellycat's most classic series, Bunny Rabbit, first became popular through street photos of Tom Cruise's daughter Suri. In addition, Beckham's daughter Harper, British Princess Kate and Prince William's daughter Charlotte are also users. The same is true in China. TFBOYS Wang Yuan, Liu Yifei, Zhao Lusi and other names have been associated with Jellycat.

2. Winning over young people: Cuteness and "craziness" go hand in hand

1. Positioning: From toys to gifts, a double leap in categories and prices

The story of Jellycat conquering young people was foreshadowed in 2014. What is less known is that they were once a multi-brand operating company. For example, Catseye is its cosmetics and travel accessories brand, and its products include cosmetic bags, etc. The target audience covers all age groups. Correspondingly, Jellycat is positioned as a toy and gift brand mainly for children.

The turning point occurred in the 2014 annual report, when the British company for the first time clearly defined Jellycat as a gift brand for all age groups, pointed out that gifts were its core market, and announced the closure of Catseye a few years later.

This positioning has continued to this day. When you open Jellycat’s official WeChat account in China, you will find that it now describes itself as a high-end British gift brand. The shift in positioning from a toy to a gift is of great significance to Jellycat.

On the product side, this means unlimited possibilities for horizontal category expansion. For example, the products that are being promoted domestically this year include cross-body bags and children's books.

On the user side, it means the possibility of expanding the population. Toys are highly tied to the children's group, but gifts are not.

In terms of price, gifts undoubtedly have a higher premium. What you would not be willing to spend on yourself becomes affordable when you give it to others. Because gifts represent the thought behind them, the high price can even turn a disadvantage into an advantage.

In other words, Jellycat is not a plush toy brand, which set the tone for them to completely break away from animal-based design ideas and launch a fun series in 2018. This series helps the brand get one step closer to adults.

For example, the presence of green plants in the home decoration scene has been strengthened. The green plant series is called "plants that can be raised even by plant killers" and "plants that can be raised even by families with cats" on Xiaohongshu, and the Christmas series is regarded as an important component for building a Christmas corner. The purchase decision makers in this scene are often adults.

Secondly, it meets the needs of young people to express their individuality. What kind of green plants do you like the most, what kind of beverages do you like to drink, and what kind of sports do you love are all part of your personal characteristics. You can easily express your personality through Jellycat by placing corresponding dolls at home and hanging corresponding ornaments on your bags.

This is why when Jellycat launches a tennis series, there will be comments asking if there is badminton. In essence, consumers do not love the long-legged, smiling tennis doll, but themselves who love tennis.

2. Social platforms: What young people need to be healed is not only cuteness, but also "going crazy"

Products alone cannot conquer young people. Jellycat's business growth is inseparable from the booster of social platforms. Abroad, TikTok is the representative position. In China, WeChat and Xiaohongshu play an important role. According to a report by "Play Generation" in October last year, the number of Jellycat's Xiaohongshu notes soared from 70,000 to 130,000 in half a year. As of now, this number has exceeded 300,000.

One of the main features of social platforms is fission-like viral transmission. For brands, the difficulty in publicity and promotion often lies in decentralization. The key is to get consumers to actively share, which is exactly what Jellycat users are most enthusiastic about. Telling stories about yourself and your dolls, showing a full bed of collections, and sharing the latest or funniest products you have recently purchased are all excellent social materials.

Furthermore, users will create secondary creations based on the product, such as emoticons or memes. Ronnie the Rockhopper Penguin, which won the Star of the Month this year, is a good example. Jellycat officially called it a punk and trendy guy in the product description. Consumers directly called it the Afro Penguin because of its unique shape, and were keen to tinker with its afro, changing it into a variety of shapes such as sweet hairpins, well-behaved middle-parted hair, and domineering sky rockets.

Jellycat, which has conquered the WeChat emoticon package, may be a more well-known example. This eggplant with a smiley face is from the fun series. Its big belly has become a hot spot for netizens to create. Very sleepy, tired, and can't stand it are high-frequency words in creation, which also made many people open their wallets for Jellycat for the first time.

It's not the penguins that are angry, it's the people . Eggplants don't get sleepy or tired, people do. And what young people need to be healed, besides cuteness, is "going crazy". Empathy is still an unattainable ideal state in the relationship between people, let alone between brands and consumers.

So for Jellycat, the personality that the designer gives to the doll is ultimately just the background. What is ultimately needed is for consumers to incorporate imagination and love into the product so that the purple eggplant can be transformed into Mr. Eggplant, and so that the plush toy series without IP and story support can continue to be loved.

3. Marketing: Leverage the maternal and infant base to achieve crowd expansion

So what proactive work have brands done in marketing? Taking Xiaohongshu as an example, we reviewed Jellycat’s business notes over the past year through Qiangua and summarized its characteristics in content and blogger selection.

In terms of content, it is highly tied to gift-giving scenarios and healing emotions. Whether it is targeted at mother and baby bloggers, couple bloggers or beauty bloggers, the idea of ​​brand positioning as a gift has never changed, and the timing of the launch is also highly positively correlated with festivals.

But in terms of specific implementation, it is not limited to traditional scenarios. For example, you can give it to your girlfriend on Children's Day, and give a doll to your pet on May 20th. In terms of copywriting, the content of the tweet is highly tied to the word "healing", driving spiritual consumption and creating a mentality that owning a bunch of Jellycats = happiness, and giving Jellycats = love.

In terms of blogger selection, mothers and babies account for a large proportion, but the proportion of couples and pure female bloggers is increasing. The former is of course because children are still one of Jellycat's core consumer groups, but from another perspective, mother and baby bloggers are also creators and disseminators of healing content.

First of all, as a relatively mature category, maternal and infant bloggers have a large number of fans overall. Judging from the distribution of interactive effects of various types of maternal and infant business notes in the "2023 Maternal and Infant Industry Digital Marketing Report" by Xinbang, daily content has a wider audience due to the entertainment and emotional value it provides, and its communication effect is far ahead. The average number of likes is more than twice that of the second place. As a spiritual consumer product, this type of content is also Jellycat's core delivery type, which plays an important role in helping brands break the circle.

Secondly, the fan profiles of mid-level maternal and child bloggers are not limited to mothers. For example, two bloggers with 200,000 and 300,000 followers that Jellycat has worked with, their crowd labels are trendy men and women, makeup lovers, and light luxury white-collar workers, as well as trendy men and women, students, and makeup lovers.

Finally, putting the human cubs together with the Jellycat also invisibly reinforces the brand's labels of healing, cuteness, and warmth.

In terms of offline channels, Jellycat has also entered X11, Pufang and other age-neutral stores on the basis of maternal and child stores. This year, children's books entered the Chinese market for the first time and chose to start an exclusive sales period in Tsutaya Bookstore.

3. Analyst Comments

Plush toys have a certain counter-cyclical nature. William Gatacre once said that from the financial crisis, Brexit turmoil to the epidemic period, people always seek comfort and stability from Jellycat when life is full of uncertainty.

Jellycat is indeed a stable and low-key company. It has been established for more than 20 years, but there are only a few reports about it. The brand is still managed by the founders, brothers.

Behind Jellycat's success, there is the consistent adherence to the design concept and the constant breaking of restrictions. There is also the clever transformation of brand positioning and the liberation of self. But more importantly, it is to hand over the stage to consumers and make the product a container of the spirit and mood of the times.

Author: Dao Fa Xing Yan WeChat Official Account: Dao Fa Research Institute