What does the Starbucks Snoopy collaboration mean for the brand?
Starbucks and Peanuts character Snoopy ran their first mainland China co-branded campaign, moved up from March 25 to March 21. Many stores did not receive the limited cup sleeves and carrier bags in time, so customers who bought the Snoopy Cocoa Latte or Frappuccino missed the packaging they expected from the american coffee brand.
The American coffee brand designed five cup sleeves and four carrier bags for the promotion, handed out at random with the drinks. Uneven distribution left some stores improvising, with staff hand-drawing Snoopy designs. Collectors who order early to complete a set were left short, raising questions about how co-branding campaigns are coordinated.
Starbucks and the classic Peanuts character Snoopy launched their first co-branded campaign in mainland China, originally scheduled to go live on March 25 but suddenly moved up to March 21, leaving many stores unable to receive the limited-edition cup sleeves and carrier bags in time. Consumers who bought the co-branded drinks but did not get the Snoopy packaging they had expected voiced their disappointment and dissatisfaction one after another. Starbucks employees explained that the materials had been distributed unevenly, and some staff even hand-drew Snoopy designs as a stopgap. This co-branded campaign exposed the brand's chaos in event coordination and material allocation, and also sparked discussion about ensuring the co-branding experience.
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Recently, Starbucks officially announced a co-branding collaboration with the American "top male star" Snoopy, launching themed limited-edition merchandise and two brand-new drinks.
It is understood that Snoopy is a classic character from the American comic strip Peanuts. Since his debut in 1950, he has accumulated countless fans worldwide. Although Starbucks had collaborated with Snoopy several times before, this was the first time in mainland China, so domestic consumers were especially excited after learning the news and kept following related updates on major platforms.
To give back to users' enthusiasm, Starbucks specially designed 5 types of cup sleeves and 4 types of carrier bags for this collaboration. Consumers only need to buy the co-branded drinks — the Snoopy Cocoa Latte or Snoopy Cocoa Frappuccino — to randomly receive these special packaging materials.
For fans, cup sleeves and carrier bags printed with limited-edition characters are the easiest merchandise to obtain in brand collaborations. Precisely because of this, merchandise collectors who want to complete the full set of packaging all place their orders early, afraid that if they are slow they will not be able to complete a whole set of cheap merchandise.
However, the first wave of consumers who tried the new drinks found after receiving their orders via Delivers that although they had clearly bought the limited-edition drinks, they did not receive the special packaging materials officially designed for the collaboration. Beyond their dashed expectations, quite a few users who did not get what they wanted were also rather dissatisfied with Starbucks' collaboration, saying, "Where's the Snoopy you promised?" and "Why do a collaboration if there are no materials?"
Faced with netizens' questions, Starbucks workers who heard about it rushed to leave comments explaining. They said the collaboration between Starbucks and Snoopy was originally set to officially launch on March 25, but the brand recently moved the event up to March 21 at the last minute, causing many stores to fail to receive this batch of newly printed packaging materials before the event, and thus unable to give them to customers who came specifically for them on the day the event opened.
In addition, employees revealed that the limited-edition carrier bags were not stipulated to apply only to the limited-edition new drinks. According to the relevant rules, during the event period, consumers only need to buy any Starbucks drink, whether for dine-in or delivery, to have a chance to receive the Snoopy-printed cup sleeves and paper bags.
However, they also added by way of explanation that the materials currently held by each store are not complete. "One store only gets one box; some are allocated for delivery, some for in-store use, some have both, and some even have different designs." The brand's chaotic material allocation also left employees quite helpless, and they suggested that merchandise collectors could communicate with store staff in advance to learn about the store's merchandise supply.
And to keep customers from going home empty-handed, some store staff began practicing how to draw a little dog in just a few strokes, manually "printing" the Snoopy that fans had been longing for onto ordinary carrier bags in the store. Some dexterous employees also drew it on the takeaway cups, giving a little surprise to users who snapped up the drinks early in the morning.
However, most netizens believe that since Starbucks intended to launch the collaboration early, it should have prepared sufficient contingency plans to ensure consumers' experience, rather than letting "the early bird get no worm" and making eagerly expectant fans experience a joy that turns out to be nothing.
Image source: Xiaohongshu
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The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
