People

Brands spend big on IPs. Consumers spend for instant joy. The result? A market hooked on microbursts of emotional value. Dr. Tingting Fan at HKU Business School told Bloomberg Businessweek: “The business of happiness never lacks buyers; what it lacks is the innovation to refresh our minds.”

Dr. Tingting Fan of HKU Business School told CNA that young consumers spend differently from older generations, willingly paying for merchandise and celebrity encounters—consumption that greatly benefits the local economy.

The 2026 World Cup is set to kick off next month, and this quadrennial event will once again tug at the heartstrings of hundreds of millions of viewers worldwide. Co-hosted for the first time by the US, Canada, and Mexico, the tournament will see the number of matches increase by over 62% from 64 in the previous edition to 104 this time, while its duration will be extended from 29 to 40 days.

Night King, a Lunar New Year film that opened in Hong Kong on 17 February 2026—the first day of the Chinese New Year (CNY)—achieved strong popularity and financial success within just a month. With over $90 million in local box-office takings alone, the film became not only the opening box-office champion among CNY films in Hong Kong history but also the fifth highest-grossing Hong Kong-produced film.

At 2:51 p.m. on 26 November 2025, seven blocks of the Wang Fuk Court residential complex in Tai Po were devastated by a massive fire. Raging non-stop for 43 hours, the blaze claimed at least 160 lives, robbed over 1,000 families of everything, and took away the smiles from everyone in Hong Kong.

Dr. Tingting Fan, Principal Lecturer in Marketing at HKU Business School, emphasizes that self-owned IP will be a critical battleground of the future. She notes that the IP industry is characterized by high risk, high investment, and a winner-takes-all dynamic.

Starting in 2024, a doll named Labubu—with pointy little ears, devil-like large eyes, and a grin revealing nine sharp fangs—took the world by storm. In the first half of 2025, Labubu’s sales reached 4.8 billion RMB. What amazed the market about Labubu was not only its formidable money-making power, but also its unstoppable momentum in overseas markets.

Just as Labubu, a hot item in short supply not long ago, is losing steam, a new darling―the Japanese anime sensation Chiikawa―is taking centre stage, bearing witness to a typical star succession in action. Trend-following consumers have struggled to get their hands on the Labubu they crave, only to find that fashion now seems to be shifting to Chiikawa. Last Saturday marked the official opening in Hong Kong of a Chiikawa ramen restaurant, the first of its kind outside Japan. Reservations at the Mong Kok diner are already fully booked for the coming weeks, testifying to the popularity of the eponymous manga series.

Further to the 12.2 million visitor arrivals in Hong Kong registered in the first quarter of 2025, a new quarterly high since the coronavirus pandemic, Mainland’s Labour Day Golden Week ushered in another 1.1 million visitors, representing a 22% increase year-on-year. Of course, a rise in visitor numbers alone does not necessarily indicate that all is well. With a slackening global economy and consumption downgrade, many visitors come and go in a single day, while some have even “invented” a new money-saving travel strategy―spending the night at 24-hour fast-food restaurants.