According to the Intelligence Financial APP, on November 27th, Keep (03650) experienced a substantial increase during trading hours, closing at a 7.79% rise by midday, now trading at 6.62 Hong Kong dollars, with a total market value of 3.435 billion Hong Kong dollars and a turnover of 0.135 billion. Recently, Keep has been active in trading, showing a good upward trend over the past three trading days.

Recently, the capital markets have welcomed a new investment craze known as 'Gu Zi Economy.' 'Gu Zi' is transliterated from the English word 'Goods,' referring to ACGN content-derived peripherals. These peripheral products are centered around character images, emphasizing collection and display, with a wide variety of categories including but not limited to badges, action figures, cards, dolls, and more.

As a growing consumer culture and economic form centered around IP peripherals, offline 'Gu' stores have been increasing in number over the past two years. The market size is getting larger, and 'eating Gu' has become a popular fashion item.

The rise of the 'Gu Zi Economy' is not accidental. Since 2007, the second-dimensional 'Gu Zi' culture has gradually risen and become popular. In 2021, it officially formed a unique culture entering people's field of vision. Today, the TikTok platform has reached 6.7 billion views related to #GuZi, and the topic views related to #GuZi on Xiaohongshu platform have also reached 1.92 billion.

From the perspective of consumer trends, more and more young people are starting to collect peripheral products related to animation, games, novels, and more. As the new generation of consumer main force, they have strong self-value expression and emotional satisfaction points. 'Eating Gu' not only has tangible collection value but has also become an important medium for young people to communicate, share, and express their personalities.

In a typical case, the 'first stock of trendy play' Pop Mart has been on a continuous upward trend in recent years. The online events and physical rewards 'Keep Medals' launched by the sports technology platform Keep have also gained popularity due to rich themes, high aesthetics, and accurate emotional expressions. At the same time, the medals have brought explosive performance growth to Keep.

Different from ordinary medals, and different from directly selling sports peripherals, Keep's approach is to collaborate with popular IPs to launch a variety of themed events - users who want to get a medal they like, first need to choose the event associated with the medal, sign up and complete the race to receive it.

From the first Big Ear Dog IP medal launched in 2021, to later collaborations with cute and sweet IPs such as Hello Kitty, Kumamon, Line Dog, and Crayon Shin-chan, to now collaborating with gaming IPs like Genshin Impact and Honkai Impact, Keep medals have gradually become a new social currency for young people to show themselves, express emotions, and connect with like-minded individuals, and even IP fans can bring many gameplay ideas to Keep.

Recently, Keep's Conan Series online events have been warmly welcomed by users, especially the second event in the series, 'Moonlit Encounter | Detective Conan Series Online Run vol.2', once launched, attracted many users to sign up and became a popular event. As of now, the total number of registered users for this event has exceeded 0.6 million.

Whether it is the Conan medal with over 0.6 million users registered for a single event, or the Genshin Impact medal with over a million registrations for a single event, these successful collaborative medal cases from Keep's sales reflect that more and more users view medals as a cost-effective 'must-have' or 'good bargain'.

Indeed, when Keep collaborates with various well-known IPs, medals naturally gain a 'must-have' property, relying on the combination of 'anime IPs + creative gameplay + cost-effectiveness', perfectly hitting the attention of 'must-have' consumers. They already have the habit of buying peripherals, are sensitive to prices, easily influenced by this type of 'must-have', and are willing to make purchases.

This unique approach of combining 'sports motivation' and 'trendy play culture' is exactly the core value advocated by Keep medals, which also possess a unique innovative significance for the industry's development.

It is understood that the Keep medal business department is currently named 'Keep Goods Business Department' within the company's organizational structure, indicating the positioning and determination to serve the 'must-have' consumers group. By meeting the emotional needs brought by the medals, igniting the enthusiasm of anime users for sports, it will also open up greater commercial space for Keep itself.

From an investment perspective, the continuous rise of 'must-have economy' concept stocks such as Pop Mart and Keep is also a positive response from the market to their fundamentals and future development prospects. It is expected that this upward trend will continue for a certain period, bringing substantial returns to investors.