doi: 10.18178/joebm.2024.12.4.969
“No Story, Only Emotion”: The Emotional-Blankness Mechanism of Storyless IPs and Its Global Validation—A Paradigm Evolution and Multi-Case Study Based on the Emotional Materialization Full-Chain Theory (EMFC)
Junrong Ge
,
Yanjun Liu *
,
Fan Dong
,
Xin Wang
,
Xiangrong Wu
- Academy of Systems Economics, Communication University of China, Beijing, China
- Manuscript received July 21, 2024
- revised August 2, 2024
- accepted September 22, 2024
- published December 30, 2024
Abstract
Existing research, anchored in narrativocentrism, cannot explain why “storyless” designer-toy IPs travel cross-culturally. Drawing on the Emotional Materialization Full-Chain Theory (EMFC), this study proposes the Emotional Blankness Hypothesis (EBH): narrative saturation is negatively correlated with the room left for consumers’ emotional projection, turning the IP from “an object that is narrated” into “a container that can be written” and shifting narrative power to consumers. The broadcast-era paradigm—Disney’s content flywheel and its Chinese imitators (Pleasant Goat and Boonie Bears)—is reconstructed as the optimal response when attention was abundant and content scarce. Two drivers of the shift are established: attention scarcity, where a fixed 24-hour day makes an IP’s emotional reach time decisive for market share, and the AIGC production-cycle revolution, which turns “having no story” into a structural advantage. Three constructs—emotional blankness, narrative saturation, narrative power transfer—are defined and the Emotional Container Capacity (ECC) model is built with a measurement scheme and seven propositions. Using POP MART as the primary case and Yeypee, 52TOYS, TOP TOY, Bloks and Kayou as comparators, the study finds: (1) storyless design builds an emotional container via projection, zero-language-threshold communication, attention capture and low content cost; (2) POP MART membership grew from 26.004 million (2022) to 72.58 million (2025) and revenue from RMB 6.3 bn to 37.12 bn (2023–2025), with overseas share up from 16.9% to 43.8%; (3) blankness with proprietary-IP share drives valuation whereas the “IP porter” model carries a systematic discount, and a narrativization threshold exists beyond which excess narration collapses the projection space. By extending EMFC to blankness design and paradigm evolution, the study yields an operable tool for emotional-consumption product design.
Keywords
- emotional blankness
- storyless IP
- Emotional Materialization Full-Chain Theory (EMFC)
- attention economy
- AIGC
- narrative power transfer
- cultural discount
- designer toys
How to Cite
Junrong Ge, Yanjun Liu, Fan Dong, Xin Wang, and Xiangrong Wu, "“No Story, Only Emotion”: The Emotional-Blankness Mechanism of Storyless IPs and Its Global Validation—A Paradigm Evolution and Multi-Case Study Based on the Emotional Materialization Full-Chain Theory (EMFC)," Journal of Economics, Business and Management, vol. 12, no. 4, pp. 477-491, 2024. https://doi.org/10.18178/joebm.2024.12.4.969
Copyright & License
Copyright © 2024 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).