What does coffee contain, and why a fragrance giveaway caused a frenzy

Manner Coffee launched a caramel cocoa series on the evening of November 12 and announced a Jo Malone collaboration: buying a designated drink earned a perfume gift bag with a 1.5ml sample and a badge, limited to 150,000 nationwide. Demand overloaded the Manner mini-program by the morning of November 13, and delivery orders were canceled.

The system was said to be restored around 10 a.m., but gifts at nearly all stores had sold out. The promotion drew attention to what coffee drinks and add-ons contain, yet it also exposed operational gaps in system capacity, store staffing, and event planning. Many customers described the experience as poor and asked the brand to scale back scarcity-driven marketing.

On the evening of November 12, Manner Coffee launched a new caramel cocoa series and announced a collaboration with high-end perfume brand Jo Malone, where purchasing designated drinks would earn a complimentary perfume gift bag. As soon as the promotion went live, it triggered a frenzy of buying among consumers, causing the Manner mini-program to crash on the morning of the 13th, and chaos on delivery platforms with no riders accepting orders and orders being forcibly canceled. Although the company announced around 10 a.m. that the system had been restored, gifts at nearly all stores had already sold out. While this co-branded marketing campaign grabbed plenty of attention, it also exposed numerous shortcomings at Manner in terms of system capacity, store staffing, and event planning. Many consumers described the experience as terrible and called on the brand to reduce hunger marketing.

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This morning, a flood of complaints appeared on social platforms, with netizens saying the Manner mini-program was completely down and they could not even access the ordering page, urging the brand to upgrade its system quickly.

The incident began on the evening of November 12, when Manner Coffee released new products and a new promotion. The new items were the caramel cocoa series, and the brand also announced a co-branded collaboration with high-end skincare and perfume brand Jo Malone, giving away perfume gift bags. As soon as the news broke, a large number of netizens rushed to buy.

According to the promotion rules, starting November 13, consumers who purchase any cup of the new caramel cocoa latte through the Manner mini-program, offline stores, or delivery platforms will receive a Jo Malone perfume gift bag containing a 1.5ml perfume sample and a badge, limited to 150,000 nationwide.

Netizens were generally surprised and excited about this crossover collaboration, commenting: "Manner actually collaborated with Jo Malone! Double joy for fans of both, I'm rushing to try the gingerbread perfume-inspired coffee tomorrow" and "Jo Malone and Manner are both winter essentials."

Jo Malone is a high-end skincare and perfume brand from the UK, with products typically priced between 600 and 1,400 yuan. Because of this, the buy-coffee-get-perfume promotion attracted a large number of consumers rushing to buy, directly crashing the mini-program. Still, many netizens successfully bought the collaboration items and showed off their "spoils" on social platforms.

In fact, this is not the first time Manner has used a buy-coffee-get-gift marketing approach. But this campaign was far more popular than expected, and the mini-program was directly crashed. According to netizens' estimates, the system began to fail around 7:30 a.m. and only returned to normal around 10 a.m. when the company made the announcement. However, after 10 a.m., gifts at almost all stores had already been distributed.

During the mini-program's "strike," many consumers were unable to complete their purchases smoothly, which triggered a series of problems. Some netizens reported that they placed an order at 7:30 a.m., arrived at the store after 8 a.m., but because the mini-program would not open and the store could not find the order, they spent nearly an hour and still could not pick up their meal.

Other consumers also shared their bad experiences: "If you can't do it well, can you just not do it anymore? The guy waited an hour and it still wasn't ready, and now no one is delivering" and "Ordered a gift-qualifying order, received no gift at all, not even one, absolutely speechless."

Besides ordering through the mini-program, many customers also placed orders through delivery platforms. But this time even delivery was full of problems, with no riders accepting orders. Many netizens posted their orders, saying they were forced to cancel because no one accepted them, while others complained that they still could not get their meals hours after ordering.

The worst off were Manner's frontline employees. Multiple previous reports have pointed out that Manner has problems with unreasonable management and severe understaffing. Even when promotions cause order surges, stores often have only one or two employees on duty, leading to slow drink production and frequent delivery order insertions, giving consumers an extremely poor experience.

Currently, Manner Coffee is developing rapidly, with more than 1,000 stores. However, in terms of service, staffing, and event planning, it clearly cannot keep up with the pace of expansion. If this continues, it will only keep eroding consumer goodwill. As some consumers put it: "Do less hunger marketing. I'd rather you charge more than torture consumers."

Image source: Internet

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The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.