I don't know where the wind of missing you has blown to, but the wind finally blew into the new tea drink

Up to now, the topic #捏捏乐# on Douyin has reached 9.9 billion views, and various posts about Nen Neng on Xiaohongshu are also emerging in an endless stream. The trend of Nen Neng has finally reached the new tea drinks.

People have different definitions of "toys", but before most toys are labeled as "Internet celebrities", they often only shine within their respective circles.

Until one day, after these "toys" have accumulated enough audiences, the phenomenon of "products with extremely high average order value being 'snatched up'" began to appear frequently. This made those "outsiders" who were not interested in such products realize their existence for the first time, and then they made similar exclamations: "Why are young people willing to spend tens of thousands of yuan every month for XXX". Then this classic sentence will top the hot search and be widely reported. From trendy toys, millets (which can be simply understood as two-dimensional peripheral products) to plush toys, almost all have gone through this process.

Of course, Nienie, which became popular in May, is no exception. (The so-called Nienie, as the name suggests, is used for pinching. It is a slow-rebound toy made of soft silicone material. It will return to its original shape after being kneaded in the hand.)

As of now, the Douyin topic #捏捏乐# has reached 9.9 billion views, and various posts about Nien Neng on Xiaohongshu are also emerging in an endless stream. Even cities including Shenzhen, Chongqing, Nanjing, and Tianjin have already seen a number of Nien Neng Le DIY specialty stores.

Obviously, all popular "toys" will soon be used by various brands for marketing and promotion, including the popular pinching toys. Not to mention that since the pinching shape is more suitable for combination with food and beverages than other products, after pinching toppled the hot search in May, Luckin Coffee, Yihetang, Gu Ming, and Uncle Qiu also began to launch their own pinching gifts.

01 Keeping up with the fashion trend, the trend of pinching still blows into new tea drinks

The first to join the battlefield was Yihetang. As the brand with the fastest response, Yihetang collaborated with Xialibaxiong in early June. By purchasing milk tea, users could get a series of peripheral products including stickers, pinches, and key chains.

In addition to Yihetang, Uncle Qiu Lemon Tea also launched the "Peach" plan during the same period: that is, if you purchase a new product in the Xiantao series, you will get a Xiantao Decompression Squeezing Machine for free.

However, before consumers could be happy, the next to arrive was Gulugulu Coconut Water. In mid-June, the brand entered Nanjing and Guiyang. As a brand that has always been good at turning its own logo into various cultural and creative products, it launched a large white goose-shaped Nigne during the new store event and named it the "Decompression Goose Limited Peripheral".

Later, Luckin Coffee could no longer sit still. Perhaps because it failed to find a suitable factory, or because the order was placed too late, Luckin Coffee even came up with a rather abstract cyber “pinchette” - the first picture is a small blue Luckin Coffee cup wrapped in an outer layer of plastic. Just swipe the picture to the left and you can see that the pinchette is gradually deformed.

In general, the current ideas of most tea brands in developing peripheral products are mainly centered around three directions:

1. The traditional idea of ​​co-branding is to make the co-branded peripherals look like something you can pinch, which increases the playability and depth of the co-branding.

2. Use the core elements of the new product to make kneading objects, so that consumers can have fun and understand the core selling points of the new product.

3. Make the core elements of the brand into pins, whether it is the logo of a chain brand or a super hot product. You can make it into pins so that consumers can take photos and upload them to get more exposure.

02 Kneading, dolls, the core of IP peripherals is three kinds of feelings

In general, these popular toys are almost similar in that they can provide consumers with additional emotional value. Trendy toys and millets satisfy consumers' desire to collect, and plush toys represented by jELLYCAT touch and heal consumers with stories and beliefs. Similarly, pinching also uses the triple sensory experience of touch, vision, and taste to bring a sense of healing and decompression.

All these products that can form a strong emotional connection with consumers can naturally become a hub connecting brands and consumers. The most typical of these are various plush toys. However, we also need to realize that whether it is various plush toys, joint peripherals launched with major IPs, or even the popular pinching toys, in essence, they are driven by emotions, which means that consumers are paying for emotions.

1. The healing feeling brought by relieving stress

In fact, no matter what form the toys take, they are, to a large extent, the concrete manifestation of the explosive demand for decompression. This is true for these toys, as well as for the previous popular games such as "Sheep Catch a Sheep" and "Knock on the Wooden Fish". Through monotonous, repetitive, and even simple experiences, they can temporarily empty the mind and cure anxiety.

Not to mention, with the large-scale collection of this kind of "beautiful waste" that has no practical value, it can satisfy people's desire to collect to a large extent, thereby further giving people extra satisfaction.

2. Resonance + sense of participation brought by social interaction

If these products rely solely on healing, it would be difficult for them to be as popular as they are today. The reason for this is largely due to the widespread dissemination of niche hobbies on various social media, which has led to the formation of a unique cultural circle. Young people often call this looking for "like-minded people", or to put it more bluntly, for consumers of this type of toys, most of them have the same idea: "People who like JELLYCAT are probably not bad people."

This sentence seems to be affirming a person's character through a hobby, but the reality may be closer to people with the same hobbies, who are more likely to have the same topics. The similar positioning and target audience of these products are essentially a social label, which can greatly reduce the cost of screening social objects. After all, people are "lazy" in most cases, and using a simpler way to screen social objects can greatly reduce the energy people spend on socializing, which is why the psychology community generally believes that first impressions are very important.

Furthermore, having the same hobbies can also greatly reduce the possibility of conflicts, which is what young people often call "not spoiling the fun". After all, most people may have experienced the situation of enthusiastically recommending their hobbies to others (hoping that others will like them), and then only getting cold feedback. For example, how can you still play such childish things when you are so old?

The formation of this circle also provides strong internal communication capabilities to a large extent. For brands, if they take advantage of the marketing and the related products are relatively outstanding, it is easy to spread within the circle. After all, no one can resist showing off the newly acquired social currency. This is why, whether it is Nie Nie or IP co-branding, although it rarely creates a highly popular communication effect on a large scale, there are still queues in stores.

3. The sense of difference brought by unique products

If we look back at the development history of Nieneng, we will find a very critical factor: a sense of difference.

Although the popularity of pinching has only increased in recent years, it is not a new thing in essence. As early as the 1990s, the Japanese iBloom company found that the popular toys in Japan at that time were almost all hard modeling toys and plush toys. Therefore, the company chose to make a toy that can be squeezed and has an extremely soft touch, and pinching was born.

As time goes by, the pinching, which originated from the differences, has also become further popular because of the differences, whether it is the endless limited editions, or the various pendants that can be made. Even now, even the pinching has been subdivided into many different feels.

Furthermore, this sense of difference is not only reflected in the product experience itself, the differentiation of consumer experience is equally important. For brands that hope to use this for marketing, whether they can find a shopping process that brings consumers a unique experience becomes a key factor in whether they can further expand the collaboration or launch related limited peripherals.

For example, this year on May 20, Jellycat and The Beast collaborated to create the world's first joint pop-up flower shop in Beijing's Sanlitun Taikoo Li. The shop assistants provided consumers with immersive packaging experiences such as "weeding" and "spraying water" for the dolls they purchased, just like raising real flowers. Or all kinds of handmade kneading shops almost always shoot short videos of the production process while making, and whether they succeed or fail, they can gain considerable attention.

03 Although Nienie is popular, brand linkage still needs to be cautious

Having said so much, we can actually easily draw a conclusion - for a brand, using kneading to make peripherals is just a form, and the important thing is to form an emotional connection with consumers.

Therefore, for brands, whether to really try to make pinch-nose peripherals may need further consideration. First of all, although pinch-nose already has a relatively mature factory production process, they still produce more traditional pinch-nose with a harder texture. The popular pinch-nose is actually closer to the "cyber pinch-nose" released by Luckin Coffee in terms of product form, or in the words of the industry, it is a water-based pinch-nose that can only be used in PVC bags.

Although they are all pinch-and-pinch products, it is undeniable that these products, which are mostly made by individuals, have no clear indicators and guarantees in terms of production capacity, quality control or safety. In particular, at present, it is a general consensus in the pinch-and-pinch circle that silicone "pinch-and-pinch" may release harmful gases during the production process, but whether the formed "pinch-and-pinch" also contains harmful substances, and whether PVC bags are toxic and harmful under normal conditions are issues to be solved.

This has led to a rather polarized reputation for Niene. People who like it don't care much about these issues, but there are also many consumers who are concerned about whether this type of product will have health and safety risks such as excessive formaldehyde.

Perhaps for manufacturers, it is just as Jonah Berger said in the book "Contagious": "Any product or service can actually focus on emotions, even those that do not seem to have emotional inducements." And brands may not necessarily have to worry about it. Consumers' emotional needs always exist. It is necessary to truly understand consumers instead of simply riding on the popularity.

Just like the cat meme that went viral before, if the first person who came up with the copy "After working for three years as a 00s, my boss finally let me take over the official account." coupled with a few twisting cat memes and gained a lot of traffic was a genius, then the brands that followed suit were almost all labeled "idiots" by consumers, which may not be so unfair.

Author: Innocent Roland

Source: WeChat official account: "iBrandi Pinchuang (ID: ibrandi)"