Coffee heart of the campaign: Nayuki's Hatsune Miku cosplay backlash

Nayuki partnered with virtual singer Hatsune Miku on a New Year theme song, a limited drink called Berry Good Future Little Red Bottle and merchandise. Some employees cosplayed as Miku in exaggerated masked outfits, which netizens called a meeting of realist and abstract schools. The brand then issued an urgent notice banning staff cosplay.

Hatsune Miku debuted in 2007, developed by Crypton Future Media using Yamaha's Vocaloid engine, and has a large global fan base. Many fans said the costumes did not offend them and were funny, while Nayuki treated them as a brand image risk. The episode shows how ACG tie-ins can raise the coffee heart of a campaign but also expose gaps between staff expression and corporate control.

Nayuki teamed up with Japanese virtual singer Hatsune Miku for a collaboration, launching a theme song, limited-edition drinks, and merchandise, drawing a large number of fans to visit stores and take photos. However, some store employees dressed up as Hatsune Miku in exaggerated ways, such as wearing masked headgear, and were jokingly called by netizens a "meeting of the centuries between the realist school and the abstract school," sparking heated discussion. The brand subsequently issued an urgent notice strictly prohibiting employees from cosplaying as Hatsune Miku again, believing such behavior damages the brand image and could invite complaints. But many fans said they were not offended and actually found it amusing. This collaboration controversy reflects the delicate balance between employees' individual expression and brand management when tea beverage brands partner with ACG IPs.

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Recently, Nayuki officially announced a collaboration with the well-known Japanese virtual singer Hatsune Miku, launching the New Year theme song "Future teatime," the collaborative drink "Berry Good Future Little Red Bottle," and multiple limited-edition merchandise items.

It is understood that Hatsune Miku was born in 2007, developed by the Japanese company Crypton Future Media based on Yamaha's Vocaloid voice synthesis engine, and is a virtual idol with lake-green twin tails and a uniform. Since her debut, she has not only been extremely popular in Japan but has also accumulated a massive fan base worldwide.

As soon as the collaboration was announced, it immediately attracted widespread attention among domestic users. After the campaign launched, a large number of consumers quickly placed orders and snapped up the full set of merchandise released by the brand. Some loyal fans even specially dressed up as Hatsune Miku and went to the official collaboration-themed stores to check in and take photos.

However, at one store, a scene appeared that surprised netizens: when a Hatsune Miku cosplayer came to pick up a drink, they found that an employee behind the counter was also cosplaying as Hatsune Miku.

This scene was photographed by a passerby and posted online, and was teased by many fans as "the meeting of the centuries between a realist cosplayer and an abstract cosplayer." Onlookers in the comments section speculated about what the two Hatsune Miku cosplayers staring at each other were thinking at that moment, saying the frozen frame exuded a "calm sense of madness and deadness."

When some tea beverage brands collaborate with ACG IPs, store employees wear small decorations that reflect anime characters, such as badges and small plush toys, to close the distance with consumers and also show the brand's and employees' emphasis on the campaign.

In Nayuki's collaboration with Hatsune Miku this time, some staff wore cute plush character decorations, which surprised many fans and made them say they wanted to visit the stores to check in. But some employees chose an ugly-cute masked headgear, using a funny stunt to promote the campaign.

Some netizens believed that although this highly visually impactful promotional method by Nayuki employees could make people remember it at a glance, it might also trigger user dissatisfaction. After all, in fans' hearts, Hatsune Miku is a pure and cute popular idol, while an employee wearing masked headgear looks like a frightening "Hatsune bandit," and might be seen as vilifying the character's image.

Therefore, not long after the collaboration campaign began, Nayuki issued an internal urgent notice "strictly prohibiting store employees from cosplaying as Hatsune Miku," believing that this abstract-style cosplay behavior by staff damages the brand image and would invite dissatisfaction from fan users and complaints against the stores.

In response, many Hatsune Miku fans said that although seeing employees wearing headgear at first was unavoidably shocking, they mostly found it funny and did not feel offended. Some said bluntly that seeing employees enjoying themselves made them feel that happiness too, and they did not dislike the stunts by Nayuki workers, but instead found them interesting.

Image source: Xiaohongshu

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