Why did the Luckin coffee collaboration upset players?

Luckin Coffee's co-branded campaign with the game Genshin Impact launched this Monday alongside a Ningbo pop-up store. It introduced two drinks, a Fontain Red Wine Americano and a Fresh-Brewed Fontain Ceylon Light Milk Tea, plus 8 themed cups, 4 limited paper bags, 2 cup sleeves and merchandise. On day one, many players received cups that did not match the characters on the posters.

Customers in Guangzhou also hit a system problem that made the light milk tea products impossible to order. Fans expected the kind of character-specific cups other chains have used in game tie-ins, so the random assortment caused disappointment, while baristas faced complaints in stores. The case highlights the operational strain of large licensed drink promotions at Luckin Coffee.

On Monday of this week, Luckin Coffee's co-branded campaign with the hit game Genshin Impact officially launched, and the Ningbo-themed pop-up store opened its doors to welcome visitors at the same time. This campaign introduced two new drinks, Fontain Red Wine Americano and Fresh-Brewed Fontain Ceylon Light Milk Tea, along with 8 themed cups, 4 limited-edition paper bags, 2 cup sleeves, and merchandise such as stickers, keychains, and character standees. However, problems arose one after another on the first day of the campaign: many players found that the drink cups they received did not match the characters on the posters, and the same new drink was even paired with the same themed cup; users in Guangzhou also encountered a system issue that made the light milk tea products impossible to order. Consumers' disappointment and employees' grievances collided fiercely on social platforms. Why did a highly anticipated collaboration turn into a complaint fest?

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For the vast number of Genshin Impact players, this Monday was undoubtedly long-awaited. Luckin's co-branded set with Genshin Impact officially went on sale early that morning, and at the same time, the co-branded pop-up store in Ningbo also opened to welcome visitors, attracting a large number of fans to check in and visit.

According to information released by Luckin Coffee, this collaboration brought two drinks in total—Fontain Red Wine Americano and Fresh-Brewed Fontain Ceylon Light Milk Tea—and also launched 8 themed takeaway cups, 4 limited-edition paper bags, and 2 cup sleeves. In addition, different limited-edition sets also included merchandise such as stickers, keychains, and character standees.

Fans who are particularly fond of collecting merchandise had long done their homework, and as soon as the sets went on sale they rushed to place orders, afraid that if they acted too slowly they would miss out on the complete merchandise set. However, when they took the drinks out of the paper bags, they were instantly stunned and said they could hardly believe it.

According to player feedback, when other chain brands have collaborated with game IPs in the past, they usually designed exclusive drinks and themed paper cups separately for each game character, so consumers could choose only the limited-edition set for a certain character according to their own preferences.

Based on past consumer experience, and combined with the hints conveyed by Luckin's new product posters, many fans naturally assumed that the two new drinks this time should each correspond to one game character.

But the actual situation was not like that. Many customers reported that the takeaway cups they received did not match the characters on the promotional posters; others said that although they had ordered two different new drinks, they received completely identical themed cups. This unexpected situation led many people to conclude that the staff had not followed the corresponding relationship shown in the promotional images when packing, so they posted one after another to express their dissatisfaction.

Faced with consumers' accusations, Luckin's frontline employees felt deeply wronged. They explained that the company had always only required the use of takeaway cups of the corresponding size when making drinks, and had never stipulated that drinks must correspond one-to-one with the game characters in the promotional images. Therefore, in the actual packing process, staff usually did not deliberately pay attention to the patterns on the cups and basically distributed them randomly.

In addition, Luckin users in Guangzhou also ran into trouble. When they opened the mini program that morning, they found that the available options for the campaign set had decreased, and several light milk tea products in the official set were shown as unavailable for purchase, which left customers who did not want to drink coffee very confused.

In response, employees familiar with the matter revealed that the company was recently adjusting the formula of its light milk tea, planning to replace the tea powder that had previously been criticized by consumers with tea bags, and the adjusted new products happened to be piloted first in stores in Guangzhou. Because the new category of fresh-brewed tea had not yet been launched on the mini program, Guangzhou users were unable to place orders smoothly due to a system bug.

Since Luckin announced its co-branding cooperation with Genshin Impact, news had gradually spread online that employees were memorizing character information and taking exams for the campaign. In addition, Luckin has long had the reputation of being a "collaboration maniac," partnering across sectors with different popular IPs every year, so fans had extremely high expectations for this campaign.

Unexpectedly, accidents occurred frequently on the first day of the campaign. A large number of players could not help but post on social platforms to vent their dissatisfaction, while the workers bearing consumers' anger also helplessly cried out on the platforms, "Stop scolding us."

Some netizens pointed out that when planning this campaign, Luckin failed to fully understand fans' core demands, formulated the rules too roughly, and provided overly simple training content for employees, which made it impossible for staff to effectively respond to customers' personalized requests, ultimately greatly reducing the interactive experience for participants.

Image source: Internet

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