The blind box economy beyond the blind box hides the fanatical code of young people

In recent years, more and more blind box concept products and services have been created for young consumer groups. "Train ticket blind box", "airline ticket blind box", "durian blind box" and so on are emerging in endlessly. Behind the "blind box economy" that is constantly evolving in these consumer markets, it reflects the deeper changes in consumption needs and concepts of young consumers. Let's take a look.

As the 2023 college entrance examination came to an end, graduates from all over the country began to make their own "graduation travel" plans. On social media, many young users bought 28.8 yuan "train ticket blind boxes" on online travel platforms, which attracted people's attention.

The Jingzhe Research Institute found that this "train ticket blind box" is aimed at users aged 18-26, and the departure places include 22 provincial capitals and four municipalities directly under the central government, namely Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Chongqing, as well as more than 70 other second-tier and lower cities. Therefore, some people began to look forward to the upcoming surprise trip because the blind box opened popular tourist cities. Some people also expressed their resentment on social media because they won the outrageous ticket from the provincial capital to their hometown.

In fact, in recent years, there are more and more blind box products and services built around young consumer groups. In the field of travel, there are not only "train ticket blind boxes" but also "airline ticket blind boxes", and recently there is also the "durian blind box" that has triggered the hot sales of durian. Behind these "blind box economies" that are constantly evolving in the consumer market, it reflects the changes in the deeper consumption needs and concepts of young consumers.

1. The decline and evolution of the “blind box economy”

The reason why Pop Mart was able to spark a blind box craze was not only because of the attractiveness of the trendy toys themselves to young users and the acceptable price threshold, but also largely due to the "blind box" sales format and the product setting of "regular version + hidden version", which drove young people to continue to consume from the level of consumer psychology.

IP customized blind box products can induce the "collection addiction" of some consumers, and bring psychological satisfaction through the act of collecting blind boxes. At the same time, the hidden blind boxes artificially create scarcity, so the value difference between ordinary and hidden models leads to different levels of expectations for consumers about the results of opening blind boxes.

In order to obtain more scarce blind box products, consumers will develop a "gambler mentality" and interpret probability issues as luck issues. Most people expect to draw a hidden model, but if they do not draw a hidden model, they can also get a shallow psychological satisfaction by drawing an ordinary model that they have never obtained before.

In short, the core logic behind the formation of the "blind box economy" is to make consumers desire the unknown and feel mild anxiety due to the uncertainty of the results when purchasing products. Regardless of whether the result of "opening the blind box" meets consumers' expectations, it can allow consumers to obtain psychological satisfaction or relieve anxiety to a certain extent. This is also an important reason why many young consumers are easily addicted to blind boxes and continue to invest in consumption after a period of exposure.

However, from a commercial perspective, relying solely on users to obtain psychological satisfaction from opening blind boxes is not enough to support the sustainable development of the blind box market. When psychological stimulation and satisfaction reach a certain level, adaptive fatigue or even rebellious psychology will occur. For example, if some consumers cannot draw a hidden blind box, they will lower their psychological expectations of drawing a hidden box, or even lose interest in the blind box. If they draw the same blind box repeatedly, they may get tired of the act of drawing a blind box.

In order to continue to bring freshness, blind box merchants need to continuously launch new products to give consumers new stimulation. The "Pop Mart 2022 First Quarter Operating Performance Review" released by CITIC Securities mentioned that Pop Mart's new product launch speed has significantly accelerated year-on-year. In the first quarter of last year, a total of 24 blind box series, 12 non-blind box figures, 3 1000% Mega series, 9 trendy toy derivative series and 4 IP external joint ventures were launched.

However, improving the efficiency of new product launches does not necessarily lead to a significant increase in revenue, because the launch of new products will inevitably affect the sales of old products. At the same time, the rapid launch of new products will also affect the scarcity value of classic IPs. Consumers' attention to new products will outweigh their obsession with classic and hidden models, resulting in weak overall revenue growth. Financial report data shows that in 2022, Pop Mart's annual revenue was 4.617 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 2.82%, while the revenue growth in 2021 was 78.66%, a significant decline in growth rate.

The blind box mechanism, which attracts consumers to buy by creating uncertainty, has failed to work for the creators of the "blind box economy". However, the blind box mechanism has not disappeared, but has evolved into new forms in other fields besides trendy toys, and even derived an intrinsic value logic that fits the psychology of consumers.

2. Ticket blind boxes are popular: the destination is not important

The current train ticket blind box is fundamentally different from "Pop Mart", because the train ticket itself meets the consumers' clear functional needs. The train ticket blind box is more based on the train ticket function, adding the blind box mechanism as a marketing method. A similar gameplay was born in the form of air ticket blind box two years ago.

In March 2021, the tourism industry had just experienced a period of industry slump caused by the epidemic. As the weather gradually warmed up after the spring, the tourism market began to show signs of recovery. In order to seize the market growth first, Tongcheng Travel took the lead in launching the "Blind Box Air Ticket" activity at the end of March, which then fermented into a popular marketing event during the Qingming Festival, attracting 20 million participants.

Public reports show that the "blind box" set up by Tongcheng Travel was initially a one-way domestic air ticket with a unit price of less than 1,000 yuan, and users only need to pay 98 yuan to experience a "surprise trip" from a designated departure point to a random destination across the country. Moreover, if consumers are not satisfied with the randomly issued air tickets, they can also get a full refund.

For consumers with potential travel needs, the blind box of air tickets not only meets basic needs, but also provides additional psychological value through the blind box mechanism. People will expect to get air tickets that exceed the event price, and will also be surprised and delighted by getting air tickets to random destinations.

It should be noted that if consumers purchase tickets with a higher price than the event price in the blind box, it does not mean that the interests of online travel platforms or airlines are damaged. Under normal circumstances, there will be empty seats when selling tickets for flights, so airlines can use some of the empty seats to participate in the event based on actual operating conditions.

Although the displayed prices of some promotional tickets are far higher than the promotional prices, the marginal cost of such empty seats is actually less than 100 yuan. As for train ticket blind boxes, there are also empty seats. Therefore, from a commercial perspective, the railway department, online travel platforms and consumers will not suffer actual losses due to the activities.

In addition, the train ticket blind box activity has targeted the young people aged 18-26 from the beginning. In recent years, the young people's demand for destination travel has shifted from checking in at well-known attractions to experience-oriented, light-itinerary vacation-style travel and "CityWalk".

This market trend not only reflects young people's attention to life itself, but also reflects their preference to find unknown surprises in uncertainty. The common choice barriers and "gambler mentality" of young consumers also make them more willing to try to use train ticket blind boxes to start an unknown journey.

Therefore, products such as air ticket blind boxes and train ticket blind boxes have well combined consumer psychology while ensuring costs, created marketing hotspots with the blind box mechanism, and also made product innovations from a commercial perspective. This is the result of the evolution of the "blind box economy".

3. Harvesting hope amid uncertainty

The "blind box economy" has not only evolved in the field of travel, but also in the field of daily consumption, it can take advantage of consumers' "gambler mentality" and their psychological preference to discover unknown surprises in uncertainty, so that existing products can give birth to new value.

Since May this year, the number of topics and views on social media related to "durian blind box" has skyrocketed. However, "durian blind box" is not a new Internet celebrity product, but because the process of buying a whole durian and then opening it to see how much flesh can be harvested is like opening a blind box, so netizens call a whole durian "durian blind box".

Slightly different from the blind boxes for air tickets and train tickets, it is not common to buy a whole durian in daily life. The act of opening the "durian blind box" gives durian psychological value beyond its functional value as a food, and even entertainment value, which has led to the consumption of opening "durian blind boxes" becoming a new trend. On the Internet, netizens call durian with thin skin and lots of flesh "grateful durian" and durian with thick skin and small flesh "durian candy". Every time you open a durian, it is like opening a blind box continuously, with the experience of revealing the final harvest step by step.

On Douyin, Bilibili and Xiaohongshu, "blind durian boxes" have become a new trend, and netizens have followed suit and shared their "unboxing" experiences after buying a whole durian. As of June 13, the Douyin topic #barehandedlypeelingdurian'ssurprise" has been viewed 740 million times, and the official Xiaohongshu campaign #OpeningDurianBlindBoxTogether has been viewed over 18 million times.

Analyzing the reasons for the popularity of the "Durian Blind Box", we can see that compared with other common fruits, the price of durian is relatively high, and the price to buy a whole durian is not low. However, the result of opening a durian may not match its price. Therefore, under the concept of blind boxes, the goods are packaged into "mysterious boxes" with unknown surprises. Although consumers have certain expectations for the purchased goods, there is also the possibility of deviation between the process of "opening the blind box" and the actual goods obtained and expectations, which adds excitement to the product consumption experience.

From the product perspective, the excitement consumers get from the "durian blind box" is basically similar to the psychological experience caused by the blind box mechanism of "first creating mild anxiety, and then relieving anxiety with results". Combined with the popularity of these "blind boxes", it can be seen that while consumers develop a "gambler mentality", they are also getting abnormal satisfaction through the blind box mechanism.

The figures opened from the low-threshold trendy blind boxes may not have much actual value, but achieving the goals of collecting a whole set of blind box products, drawing hidden models, etc., can bring great surprises; the background of the air ticket blind box is that people who have experienced the cold winter are eager to go out and regain their original life experience. Therefore, regardless of whether it is a famous tourist city or not, young people are willing to embark on an unknown journey and look forward to surprises during the journey; and in the "durian blind box", consumers are not simply tasting durian, but in the process of peeling the durian, to capture the surprise brought by the "gratitude durian".

People never reject surprises, but nowadays people have a special desire for surprises.

In the past few years, young people have encountered the most difficult situation. The pressure from study, work and life has brought them great challenges. In the darkest moment of life, it is inevitable to lose expectations for the future. The random rewards under the blind box mechanism have brought some comfort to young people.

The blind box mechanism can certainly make people addicted, but the obsession with the "blind box economy" has made more and more people continue to be curious about the future and look forward to potential surprises in all the uncertainties in life. From this point of view, the value of the "blind box economy" has long exceeded the blind box products themselves.

Author: Cheng Yu; Official Account: Jingzhe Research Institute