Buy a coffee and get a bunch of "plastic beads" as free gifts, young people are going crazy for this activity, this move by Luckin Coffee is absolutely brilliant.

"Every generation has their own little beloved trivial trinkets."

Yesterday, Luckin Coffee launched its new co-branded peripheral product - perler beads, which were snapped up frantically by young people, with many stores selling out as early as 10 a.m.

Heytea recently placed gashapon machines in its offline stores, which also triggered long queues of customers.

Toys that have no connection with milk tea have become the new traffic password for beverage stores?

Luckin gives out a bunch of "plastic beads" as peripheral products, which are frantically snapped up by consumers

On October 12, Luckin Coffee launched a new co-branding campaign, and the surprise peripheral product turned out to be perler bead sets.

By purchasing the designated 29.9 yuan single-cup set meal or 41.9 yuan double-cup set meal, you will get one perler bead set respectively, which comes with a full set of perler bead material kits, allowing customers to complete the assembly and ironing process by themselves.

There are two perler bead patterns for choice: the "Butter Americano Extra Ice No Water" pattern and Luckin's classic "Little Blue Cup" pattern.

This peripheral product was a hit as soon as it went online. When I searched on Luckin's official mini-program, I found that less than 3 hours after the sale started, many stores had already sold out. The view count of the "Luckin Perler Beads" topic on Xiaohongshu has surged to 899,000.

Some perler bead stores have seized the opportunity to launch customer-attracting activities: "Bring your Luckin perler beads to the store, and we will help you iron them for free." The resale price of perler bead sets on Xianyu ranges from 25 to 35 yuan, which is more expensive than the set meal itself.

"What we are assembling is not beads, but the freedom of not having to reply to messages for two hours!" This comment from a netizen has been praised thousands of times. Another netizen said: "I finish a cup of coffee in 10 minutes, but I can spend the whole day assembling perler beads."

Some people even compare perler beads to "Lego for adults": "We assembled building blocks when we were kids, and now we assemble Luckin perler beads when we grow up, there is no essential difference."

As a "senior perler bead enthusiast", I also went to the store to buy a set as soon as possible.

I was very surprised when I first opened the package - all perler bead tools such as bead pens, bead shovels, perler bead boards, and baking paper are fully prepared, and they feel very high-quality. Perler beads of different colors are packed separately, and there are basically extra spare beads.

After assembling for half an hour, the feeling of being so focused that I forgot to scroll through my phone is really quite addictive.

This is not the first time that tea brands have given out perler beads.

Diandian has launched a Shanghai-limited perler bead blind box, Hushang Ayi launched an emotional perler bead pendant for Children's Day, and ChaBaDao gave out a Chashao perler bead pendant for its 18th anniversary celebration. However, these are all regional limited or node-specific activities. Luckin's entry has made perler beads popular among consumers across the country.

Coincidentally, a new gashapon peripheral product from Heytea has also been snapped up frantically recently.

At the beginning of October, the new Heytea store at MixC, Shiqi, Zhongshan, Guangdong launched a physical gashapon machine. The first 80 customers who make a purchase every day can twist the machine once, and the gashapon balls contain 6 styles of mini drink pendants, with a 100% winning rate.

As soon as the activity was launched, long queues formed outside the store every day. A netizen posted on Xiaohongshu: "It seems that people in Zhongshan don't need to go to work, they all come to Heytea to queue up for gashapon." The comment section is full of wails of "please roll this out nationwide".

Heytea's new Cake Lab+ store at Mixc, Bai'etang, Guangzhou is also not idle. The souvenirs for the tasting event directly give out "egg fridge magnets", which have been swiped by netizens' memes: "Now it really is that every generation has their own egg to claim".

One lets you assemble, the other lets you twist. Is it popular in the beverage industry to give out "semi-finished products" now?

What really makes young people addicted is "those two hours of hands-on time"

Essentially, gashapon and perler beads are the same thing. What consumers get is not an "object", but a "process".

The joy of gashapon does not lie in the pendant itself. The sound of a plastic ball rolling out of the machine, the sense of the unknown the moment you open it, the surprise of drawing your favorite style - what is really valuable is those few seconds "before you open it".

A netizen summed it up very well on Xiaohongshu: "I spend more than ten yuan buying milk tea, and the gashapon is free, but the moment I twist the machine is more enjoyable than drinking the milk tea."

Similar examples include the claw machine in front of Mixue Bingcheng - 10 yuan for 12 coins, the clips are specially adjusted to be tighter than those in amusement parks, and if you can't catch anything after spending 10 yuan, you will get a free gift, which is designed to "never let customers leave empty-handed".

Perler beads bring a stronger sense of participation, and have become a phenomenal consumption trend.

The view count of the topic "I'm addicted to perler beads" on a certain social platform has exceeded 15 billion, with more than 40.08 million discussions.

Data from Qichacha shows that as of October 12, there are 6,277 perler bead-related enterprises in China established within one year, with 280 new enterprises added in the past 15 days. Some institutions predict that the perler bead market size is expected to exceed 1 billion yuan in 2026.

Before Luckin officially launched its perler beads, many netizens made "love-powered" efforts to create various self-designed perler bead patterns of Luckin's milk tea and coffee flavors, and shared them selflessly online. The group of perler bead lovers have already had a lot of fun with them.

Cao Weixia, a researcher at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, summarizes the experience of perler beads as "a sense of certain achievement". To put it in plain language: "Most things in life don't necessarily pay off even if you work hard, but perler beads are different, you get one more bead for every one you assemble, it's very reassuring."

A cup of milk tea or coffee is gone once you finish drinking it. But perler beads and gashapon allow users to actively create a unique experience of their own.

Moreover, both of them are very affordable, which creates extremely high social perception with extremely low material cost. It not only stimulates users' sense of participation, but also makes users feel "it's fun, I want to try it, and I want to post it online".

From passive reception to active participation, competing for more of users' time

In the past, co-branded peripheral products were "giving out an object" - fridge magnets, canvas bags, cups, you take a photo after getting it and that's the end. Now what brands give out is "a period of experience" - the sense of expectation from gashapon, the focused time of assembling perler beads, and the popular meme of "queuing up to get eggs" coming into real life.

A netizen commented quite aptly under the Luckin perler bead post: "I might forget where I put the peripheral product in a second, but the sense of achievement the moment I finish assembling the perler beads will stay with me for days."

As the taste gap gets smaller and smaller, the menu of one beverage store is getting more and more similar to that of the one next door. The real test for brands is: why should consumers think of me first when they want to drink milk tea/coffee?

"Participatory peripheral products" are exactly solving this problem: competing for users' "attention time".

The consumption time of a cup of drink is very short, but a handmade task can keep users in the brand's context for much longer. This sense of participation brings a deeper level of brand recognition.

After all, a cup of milk tea is forgotten once you finish drinking it, but a "Luckin cup" that I assembled with my own hands, I might be reluctant to throw it away.

This article is from the WeChat Official Account "Kamen" (ID: KamenClub), written by Xiya, published with authorization from 36Kr.