Sonokong to Host 'LOOPOP 2026 The Hyundai'... First Testbed for K-IP Platform

Sonokong (066910) announced on August 4 that its wholly-owned subsidiary LOOPOP will host a pop-up event titled 'LOOPOP 2026 The Hyundai' at The Hyundai Seoul from August 6 to 18.

This event is jointly hosted and organized by Sonokong and LOOPOP, with approximately 50 domestic art toy artists associated with Sonokong Heroes participating to exhibit and directly sell their creative works on-site. The company stated that the scale of participating artists continues to expand.

This pop-up marks the first offline implementation of LOOPOP’s 'K-IP Discovery Project', which was released on July 31. At that time, LOOPOP presented a vision to expand Sonokong’s over forty years of experience in product planning, manufacturing, quality control, and distribution capabilities into a new creator-centered creative ecosystem in Korea.

Sonokong’s strategy is to go beyond the traditional overseas brand license-driven business structure and build a self-sustaining K-IP ecosystem that enables co-growth with domestic creators. The company explained that this pop-up is not just an event, but has significance as the foundation for the growth of the domestic creative ecosystem.

Industry observers note that although there are many art toy and character IP platforms, few companies are able to turn creators’ ideas into actual products and connect them to global markets. Sonokong stated it possesses the integrated capabilities—accumulated over more than forty years through direct management of planning, production control, quality control (QC), and distribution—to support creators with mass production, quality assurance, and overseas distribution, which are areas many creators find challenging.

Previously, LOOPOP operated the LOOPOP Gallery at its headquarters in Gangnam, Seoul, serving as a testbed to validate consumer responses and market potential. The upcoming The Hyundai Seoul pop-up is the first case of scaling up this model to a major distribution channel, and the company explained that it will be the starting point to fully initiate the license, exhibition, and global distribution functions that LOOPOP has proposed.

Starting with this event, Sonokong plans to gradually implement four major strategies: creators’ alliance, IP universe, retail proof-of-concept, and global branding. The network surrounding Sonokong Heroes will be expanded to include character, game, and content creators, and individual creators’ IPs will be interconnected in a unified K-IP universe. The company plans to test market responses through major retail channels before linking to overseas distribution.

Hyunil Cha, CEO of Sonokong and LOOPOP, said, "This pop-up is the first platform where the K-IP Discovery Project goes beyond a declaration and is actually tested in the market. By showcasing K-IP products created together with domestic creators rather than relying on overseas IP, we will demonstrate the capabilities of a forty-year homegrown company."

He added, "LOOPOP will continue to grow as a platform that connects the domestic creative ecosystem with the global market."

This pop-up is meaningful in that it is the first case of Sonokong leveraging more than forty years of expertise in the toy business to implement a platform strategy that builds a K-IP ecosystem with local creators and connects it to the global market.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.