Marketing Promotion: How did Starbucks cat claw cup become popular?

Personally, I think this is an interesting business case.

I have collected some information from various sources and will make an analysis from the perspectives of marketing (operation) and product. (Long article warning)

Let me first state the conclusion:

1. The popularity of the Starbucks cat claw cup incident was accidental at the marketing level , but inevitable at the product level . (This conclusion will be demonstrated below)

2. Although Starbucks did not deliberately plan and operate the marketing strategy, by reviewing the entire process of the incident, we may be able to come up with a model for marketing Internet celebrity products for reference by relevant practitioners.

First, let’s review the key timeline of the entire incident:

Review of key time nodes

The following is an analysis of the process of each node one by one:

In-store arrival stage

According to the mental journey of Starbucks partners: they had seen the cat claw cup some time before TikTok became popular, and they thought it was beautiful. And knowing that there are only a few in each store, as a store clerk I also want to get one. But Starbucks partners did not expect that this cup would become so popular. This is one of them.

Secondly, judging from Starbucks’ official poster, this cup is just an ordinary product among the many products in the Spring Sakura series and pet series. It is not in the center position in the poster, which shows that it was just an ordinary limited edition product for Starbucks at the beginning.

As for why it is limited edition, my subjective judgment is that this cup shape is relatively unusual, Starbucks rarely produces such a style, and Starbucks believes that the positioning of this cup has certain limitations (mostly caterers). Without knowing the user acceptance level, no large-scale orders are placed, and only a small amount is supplied in each store.

In fact, Starbucks has a lot of limited edition products every season, and it is obvious that "limited edition" is not a marketing strategy deliberately created for this cup.

Tik Tok’s Popular Stage

Currently, the most popular video on Douyin that shows pouring pink milk has 280,000 hits. It was released on February 19, which means there is still more than a week before it goes on the market. The publisher is an ordinary Tik Tok user with a few thousand followers. He has posted only 7 videos, most of which are selfies. The number of clicks on other videos is also in double digits. Only the video of the cat claw cup has a very abrupt number of clicks.

From this perspective, it is obvious that this is not deliberate marketing by the internet celebrity. If Starbucks wanted to deliberately create an internet celebrity hit, why would it just find a random passerby with few fans to release it?

In addition, in this video on Douyin, the background is obviously in a Starbucks store, which is consistent with the above statement that there is still more than a week before the sale, and many Starbucks partners can already get the physical product. It is very natural for Starbucks partners to record this video using the existing conditions. But if you are recording a video specifically for event marketing, you can change to more and better environments. Therefore, the video on TikTok was most likely taken for the clerk to share his fun. He thought the cup was really cute and couldn't help but show it off.

The above proves that the popularity of Tik Tok is not deliberate hype. (The author has communicated with the Douyin blogger, and according to feedback, she said that the video was not her original creation, and she did not know the original source)

Another point: Why did Douyin make this cup popular? Answer: It is determined by the product characteristics.

Although this cup looks cute, the highlight of the cup is the process of pouring pink milk into it. The contrast between the front and back and the dynamic formation process are very pleasing to the eye.

For this product, video is probably the best way to showcase it. Therefore, it is very important to choose the right channel according to the characteristics of the product when marketing the product.

Queue up to buy

The queuing phenomenon is also caused by the above-mentioned link. After the popularity of Douyin, the cup attracted a lot of attention, and many people came to the store to inquire every day. After knowing that each store has limited supply, veteran fans will definitely understand the difficulty of purchasing.

With such a good preheating effect, extremely scarce resources, and fixed release times, it is not surprising to see people queuing up all night to buy. It is also a result that scalpers saw the business opportunity and started selling online at high prices. Where there is demand, there is business opportunity. There is nothing to complain about.

In addition, counterfeit merchants on Alibaba have quickly taken action, providing a minimum order threshold of 100 for counterfeiters. It is reported that the goods can be received as early as this week, so Xianyu and Taobao have also started to pre-sell products at lower prices. Please open your eyes!

On the evening of the 26th, the counterfeit manufacturers have already started accepting orders

On the night of the 27th, the knockoff manufacturer said that the earliest delivery would be this week, which seems to have accelerated the progress.

Self-media fermentation

Self-media fermentation is an important turning point that upgrades a popular online product into a social event. On the morning of the second day of its release (the 27th), relatively authoritative and high-traffic self-media represented by The Paper integrated the incident of the cat claw cup, sparking heated discussions in society.

Of course, the self-media is not helping Starbucks hype its products. For self-media, this is a very good topic. As a practitioner with a little news sensitivity, you should learn to seize the opportunity to write a popular article: well-known brand + Internet celebrity product + social event + huge controversy, basically covering all the factors needed for a high-traffic article. Therefore, it is no surprise that the number of readers of this article from The Paper is over 100,000 (other media outlets have not counted the number of readers).

From this perspective, in addition to Starbucks, the self-media that first released the news are also winners in the Holy Grail incident. When a commercial behavior is upgraded into a social event, it will trigger the fission of huge energy. And the consequences are impossible to estimate and control.

Starbucks' official response

If the initial popularity of the cups was completely unexpected for Starbucks, Starbucks reacted quickly enough after the incident, issuing a restocking statement on the same day and a restocking and rush-buying plan on the 27th - the Tmall flagship store held a rush-buying event for four consecutive days, as well as using Star Say.

Because this article was written in a hurry, I will not analyze Starbucks' operating strategy for the time being. Although it has been criticized by users for being stingy and using hunger marketing, I personally think that there is nothing wrong with it at a glance.

As for whether there will be a better solution? Let’s see how the sales situation is this afternoon. If you are interested, I will analyze it later. If nothing goes as expected, he will be killed instantly online and then be criticized.

At this point, the entire process of the incident has been reviewed. The above has demonstrated my first conclusion: the popularity of the Cat's Paw Cup Holy Grail incident was accidental in terms of marketing. (The necessity argument at the product level will be discussed later)

Friends who read carefully may come to some key conclusions on their own. Let me summarize the above review into an event marketing model:

Step 1: Disclose product, pricing, limited quantity and other sales information internally. (It cannot be kept completely confidential nor completely public)

Step 2: Preheat the product one week before it goes on sale (select the right display method and channel based on product features) to arouse users' curiosity, and then actively seek sales information - this is when the "layout" in step 1 can be used.

Step 3: Users who obtain "inside information" feel that they have an information advantage. Under the conditions of limited time online and limited supply, it is easy to cause a situation where supply exceeds demand. (But at the same time, it may bring uncontrollable risks such as scalpers driving up prices and counterfeiters following suit)

Step 4: Spread the marketing event through the media (not all marketing events can be hyped up as social events, and social events are extremely risky, so be cautious)

Step 5: Officially release market strategies and adjust supply and sales methods in a timely manner according to market conditions. (Stand in the user's shoes and think more about the user. If you act ugly, it will damage the brand)

As mentioned above, this event was not a deliberately planned marketing, it was accidental, and this model is just a conclusion drawn based on accidental events. It does not mean that replication will definitely be successful, but I hope it can trigger some thinking among practitioners. Everyone is welcome to communicate.

Source: Louis