In the courses I recently attended in Japan (Learning Overview >> While others raise prices, it doesn't; while others close stores, it expands. This trip to Japan left me stunned), one course on IP industry operation left a deep impression on us.

Coincidentally, Stephen Chow's "Kung Fu Hustle" has been released, with polarized reviews but soaring box office. To put it bluntly, what audiences are buying is not the theme of "women's football", but the name "Stephen Chow". (Push notification link>> Why are audiences flocking to the cinema despite the increasing criticism of "Kung Fu Hustle"

An IP that has been accumulated for three decades, even if the works themselves are controversial, fans are still willing to pay for it. This precisely confirms the underlying logic of the IP business: time is a friend, and compound interest is the norm.

In this class, Mr. Saito, the lecturer, who once worked at Tokyo Disney and Sanrio, used real-life cases from the two companies to thoroughly explain how the IP industry makes money and how to make it last long.

01. How has Mickey Mouse managed to stay alive for almost a century?

The Disney empire began as an intellectual property disaster.

In 1927, after the popularity of "Lucky Rabbit Oswald" created by Walt Disney, distributors exploited loopholes in the contract to seize the copyright and poached almost all the animators. Walt conceived of Mickey Mouse on the return train, and in 1928, "Steamboat Willy" was released, making Mickey Mouse famous overnight. This painful lesson laid the foundation for Disney's highly centralized intellectual property style in the future - in 2028, Mickey Mouse will celebrate its centenary birthday.

But what makes Disney stand out is not a particular blockbuster movie, but a "synergy diagram" personally drawn by Walt in 1957. On that piece of paper, he positioned the film studio as the core creative engine, radiating outward to theme parks, television, music, publishing, merchandise licensing, and retail. Television promotes movies, movie characters enhance the attraction of theme parks, theme park experiences deepen emotional connections, and profits are reinvested in the development of new IPs - a self-accelerating flywheel. This model remains unchanged to this day. In 2025, Disney's global retail sales of licensed merchandise reached $62 billion, ranking first globally, significantly higher than the second and third places.

When it comes to amusement parks, many people assume that Walt built theme parks out of sentimentality, but in fact, it's just the opposite.

Filmmaking is a high-investment and high-risk business, while theme parks provide a steady stream of cash flow. Tokyo Disneyland serves as a prime example. Its operator, Oriental Land Company, achieved revenue of 704.5 billion yen in fiscal year 2025 and has remained profitable even during Japan's three decades of economic downturn, demonstrating operational strength far surpassing that of Universal Studios Osaka.

The lecturer also revealed a detail: Tokyo Disneyland deliberately prevents Mickey from taking the top spot in the popularity rankings, instead keeping him in second or third place throughout the year, with the top position rotating annually.

The logic is simple. Hit products are prone to causing aesthetic fatigue. It is necessary to deliberately control the popularity and support different roles in rotation to avoid any one being quickly exhausted.

What surprised us even more is that the core users of Tokyo Disneyland are not children, but wealthy women around 45 years old. Eighty percent of the park's visitors are women.

Behind this is the culture of housewives in Japan, where married salarymen hand over all their wages to their wives, who are full-time housewives with "leisure on weekdays", which perfectly balances the fluctuation of customer flow between weekdays and holidays at the park. Centered around this group of people, Tokyo Disneyland sells practical household-related merchandise, rather than toys targeted at younger age groups.

The negative lesson is Disneyland Paris, which followed the American tradition of alcohol-free and ignored the fact that wine is a necessity on the French dining table; it misjudged the European habit of bringing their own food for picnics, resulting in a large area of high-end dining being left unused; it borrowed money to build seven luxury hotels, but only 25,000 people entered the park on the opening day, and it lost nearly $1 billion in 18 months. The principle of IP going global is simple: respect the local cultural ecology and don't think about standardized replication.

02. Hello Kitty has no story and no mouth, so how can she make more money than Mickey?

If Disney represents the ultimate embodiment of "heavy assets, heavy storytelling", then Sanrio stands as the other extreme of "light assets, no story".

The founder, Shintaro Tsuji, had a unique experience. He lost his mother at the age of 13 and experienced the Pacific War at 15, where he witnessed a mother sacrificing herself to protect her baby during an air raid. This experience inspired him with a desire for "world peace and friendship among all people".

In 1960, he started his business with 1 million yen and established the belief of "small gifts, big smiles". In 1974, 28-year-old designer Yuko Shimizu drew a nameless white kitten wearing a red bow and sitting on its side for a plastic coin purse - Hello Kitty was born. Its design philosophy is counterintuitive: no mouth is drawn, and the expression is determined by the viewer's mood, "If you are happy, she is happy; if you are sad, she will accompany you in sorrow"; there is no story background, which in turn became its greatest advantage - no setting means it can freely enter any life scene, can collaborate with any brand, and is not limited by religion, nationality, or culture. She is also the first IP specifically created for women in history, filling the long-standing void of female-oriented content.

Hello Kitty is a typical "growth-type IP" that grows up alongside its fans. In 1976, the standing version was introduced, and in 1981, the outer contour lines were removed to reduce the childlike appearance. Since the 1980s, Kitty has been dressed in seasonal fashion trends, transitioning from a children's toy to an adult fashion symbol. Each change is not made on a whim. The adjustment of contour lines comes from real-world feedback from theme parks - the on-site reactions of children are more authentic, and the adjustments directly drive sales.

Contrary to Disney's heavy asset approach, Sanrio focuses on light asset copyright licensing. The licensing is highly open, allowing cooperation with companies ranging from clothing and household goods to Balenciaga. However, the flexibility is accompanied by strict discipline: the contract defines a fixed version, prohibits secondary creation, pursues legal responsibility for violations, and the contract is renewed on a rolling basis for a period of three years. In the Chinese market, Sanrio has achieved omni-channel expansion through cooperation with Alibaba Fish. In fiscal year 2026, its revenue in the Chinese market was approximately 1.5 billion yuan, an increase of 84% year-on-year.

Performance is the best proof. In fiscal year 2025, Sanrio achieved a revenue of JPY 144.9 billion and an operating profit of JPY 51.8 billion, both hitting record highs. In fiscal year 2026, it further improved, with gross profit margin reaching 78% and net profit margin at 30%. The stock price has increased about five times compared to 2020.

Hello Kitty has accumulated a total revenue of approximately $88.5 billion, making it the IP with the highest revenue for a single character globally. As for Pokémon's ability to rank first in the total global IP revenue, the lecturer highlighted the key point: the difficulty lies not in the protagonist, but in mass-producing thousands of differentiated sprites - it is precisely these mass-producible supporting roles that are the core of IP commercialization and monetization.

The lecturer also gave a highly practical suggestion: theme parks and offline stores should not be treated merely as sales channels, but rather as testing grounds for IP development.

The "opinions of children" in online questionnaires often incorporate adult thoughts, and only through offline field inquiries can we obtain straightforward and genuine feedback. Even if initial sales are poor, feedback on user purchasing decisions can point the way for IP optimization.

03. What Chinese enterprises need to learn

It's not about creating a Hello Kitty

These two companies have taken completely different paths, but their essence is the same: treating IP as a long-term asset that can span economic cycles. For Chinese companies, there are several tangible insights to be gained.

Serve only a select few and provide them with the utmost attention. Tokyo Disney targets 45-year-old women, while Sanrio only serves users who deeply love their brand and does not cater to everyone. Instead of fighting a price war in the saturated market, it is better to find the group of people in the Chinese context who are "free on weekdays, have money, and have decision-making power" - the silver-haired generation, mothers with young children, and freelancers - and reconstruct products around them.

IPs never have a "completed state". Both Mickey Mouse and Hello Kitty undergo annual fine-tuning, evolving continuously in line with the aesthetic trends of the times. Chinese enterprises creating IPs should not expect a one-time solution. The assessment cycle should not be a marketing quarter, but a ten-year balance sheet. A character that is not selling well today may become popular tomorrow.

Licensing should be open, yet compliance must be rigorous. Sanrio is as flexible as water, yet it maintains strict standards for format, category boundaries, short-term contracts of three years, and accountability for violations. When Chinese IP holders grant licensing, they can replace long-term contracts with short-term rolling contracts, keeping the choice in their own hands. The speaker vividly described Sanrio's business model as "as flexible as water," but just as water can carry a boat, it can also overturn it. Rules must be firmly established.

Support high-risk content businesses with stable cash flow. The purpose of building a theme park is to inject vitality into the film industry. When enterprises plan long-cycle businesses such as IP, they must first design a "cash cow" - using stable funds to buy time for compound interest.

Be cautious when creating a boss IP. The lecturer clearly stated that the larger the company, the more important it is for public relations to step in. Once the boss is exposed in a negative light, the brand value will plummet to zero. It is much safer to invest assets in a controllable virtual character than in a real person. Similarly, turning an artist into an IP carries high risks, and the stability of anime character IPs is far higher than that of real person IPs. This is why more and more companies are turning to creating their own brand character IPs.

Finally, the lecturer said something that all IP creators should remember: "Don't think that once you've created an IP, you can just abandon it. In fact, you need to make some small modifications to it every year.". "

IP is something that can never be completed. It is not a one-time product, but a chronic operation that lasts for decades