What went wrong with the singing-for-free coffee service?

Chagee's seventh-anniversary campaign gave away 700,000 free cups over seven days, and the singing challenge drew crowds because it required only two lines of the birthday song. In the second round, customers reported that some stores demanded two people sing together, some staff denied the promotion, and employees filmed participants without prior disclosure. Customer service said recording was the point of the campaign.

Internal notices reportedly required staff to photograph every singing customer, though employees said footage went only to internal work groups. The gap between the public offer and store-level practice has kept the privacy debate alive, and it shows how a drink promotion can raise real questions about consent, data handling and coffee service standards.

For its seventh anniversary, Chagee launched a campaign giving away 700,000 free cups over seven consecutive days, and the singing challenge stood out as the lowest-barrier option, making it a magnet for freebie hunters. Yet after the second round began, customers found the free voucher was not so easy to claim: some stores required two people to sing together and clink cups, some staff flatly denied the promotion existed, and more unexpectedly, many participants were filmed or recorded throughout by employees—something the official posts never disclosed in advance. Customer service responded that the campaign was held precisely in order to record video, and internal notices also required photographing every singing customer for records. The practice has fueled concerns over how personal footage might be used; although multiple staff said the content was only uploaded to internal work groups for superiors to review, the privacy controversy continues to simmer.

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Last week, Chagee kicked off its seventh-anniversary event, giving away 700,000 free cups over seven consecutive days, and also rolling out activities such as cup-clinking freebies, password voucher claims, and singing the birthday song for a free cup. Among them, the AR cup-clinking activity was riddled with bugs, and password vouchers were hard to snag, so many freebie hunters eager for a free milk tea set their sights on the singing freebie.

Users who joined the activity on November 17 said the singing freebie was arguably the lowest-difficulty option in the whole campaign. All you had to do was go to any Chagee store during the event and sing two lines of the birthday song to the staff to get a free drink. But because the activity was time-limited, many fans missed the chance.

So recently, Chagee launched a second round of the singing freebie, and from the official promotion it looked no different from the previous one. Freebie hunters who caught wind of it said that although singing the birthday song in person is a bit of a "social suicide" moment, for the sake of a free voucher, it is not impossible to set aside their pride.

Yet fans who had mentally prepared themselves arrived at stores only to find that the seemingly simple singing activity was not easy to complete: "Over here two people have to sing together, and at the end the two have to clink cups," "I went and the staff told me there was no such activity," "Here they require you to buy two cups before you can sing," "Some said if you sang on the 17th you are not allowed again."

Beyond those situations, what many users did not expect was that participants in this round would have their entire singing process recorded by staff. In the first round, most stores had no rule about photographing or filming participants, and the posts for the new round did not mention any filming requirement, so many people were unaware beforehand and said they never imagined their "social suicide scene" would end up on a staff member's phone.

Some netizens asked official customer service about this, and the response was, "This activity is held precisely for the purpose of recording video." An employee also shared an internal notice, saying they were required by superiors to photograph or film every customer who participated in the singing freebie, to ensure each free voucher had a corresponding claimant.

Combined with the earlier situation in which large numbers of password-based free vouchers were snatched by scalpers using technological means and resold to customers, many believe this measure was specifically set by the official side to prevent staff from privately selling free vouchers. But considering that some participants do not want to show their faces, some staff avoid capturing customers' faces head-on when actually filming, or remind customers to put on a mask before being photographed.

However, some netizens said they were willing to cooperate with employees to help them complete their work tasks, but they still questioned the ultimate use of these videos and photos. Some worry these recordings and images might be spread to public platforms without their knowledge, or maliciously edited by others.

Regarding these concerns, multiple staff members revealed that the videos and images they take are only uploaded to internal work groups to facilitate superiors' checks, and should not be widely circulated or used elsewhere.

Image source: Xiaohongshu

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