Image source @ Visual China
Text | Hedgehog Commune, author | Zhang Zhan, Editor | Director
The blind box double-clicked "something went wrong".
Following KFC's "blind box package" in January 2022, a company in Shenzhen recently posted a recruitment position called "blind box post" on the recruitment website, which caused heated discussion among netizens.
This position is mainly aimed at job seekers who want to find a job but do not know what position they are more suitable for. The job description reads: HR can choose a relatively suitable position for job seekers, and when the intended position is full, the job seeker has multiple opportunities to "resurrect" and can be prioritized to be transferred to other recruiting positions.
As for the pros and cons of this for job seekers, the job description is very clear: the advantage is to gain a global view and "help you find potential unopened opportunities"; the disadvantage is that the processing speed is slightly slower, and you may not receive written tests and interviews for any position.
Blind box post | Graph source network
In the face of this "strange" recruitment method, some people think that this has a certain positive significance for fresh graduates who do not have much experience, which can avoid candidates from cutting enough to meet the requirements of the position and alleviating the problem of job mismatch; others think that this is an unprofessional practice of "gimmicks are greater than practical significance"; some people say that blind box positions will not only consume the professional enthusiasm of job seekers, but also make people lack the awareness of active thinking.
This incident revives an old question: Is everything really a blind box?
Blind box, blindfolded running
The earliest blind box products can be traced back to the Japanese Fukubukuro, while the relatively mature blind box products are Japanese gacha.
In the 1980s, consumers put coins into the gacha machine, and the machine would randomly drop a gacha, and the translucent plastic shell was generally a model made of anime IP. This mode was later introduced into China and derived new gameplay, such as the more common crisp noodle collection card activity.
In 2016, the head tide play brand Bubble Mart began to sell the well-known tide play IP Molly. This little girl with lips and lake blue eyes has captured the "hearts" of countless young consumers - she has not only put Bubble Mart on the fast track of growth, but also made the "blind box" game known and accepted by more people.
According to the data of the Mob Research Institute, the market size of the blind box industry in the mainland has exceeded 10 billion, and the compound annual growth rate of the industry from 2015 to 2020 will reach 35%, and it will continue to grow at a compound annual growth rate of about 30% in the short term.
In the process of the blind box running all the way, it has gradually run out of the predetermined tide play track, spilling out into the world that does not belong to it.
In May 2021, some netizens reported that a "pet blind box" appeared at a courier point in Chengdu, Sichuan. When volunteers arrived to intercept them, they saw many animals dying or dead and discarded. In June of the same year, the Institute of Multiple Intelligences environment of Changping District, Beijing, a public welfare organization, filed a civil environmental public interest lawsuit with the Chengdu Intermediate People's Court.
Pet blind box interception site | Image source "CCTV News"
This incident triggered the field of public opinion, a gray industrial chain was unveiled, and the "pet blind box" was also called "business with blood". On February 9, 2022, according to nandu reporters, the two parties to the lawsuit have reached a mediation agreement - Zhongtong Express promised to continue to implement rectification measures and donated 300,000 yuan to the Zhejiang Charity Foundation for environmental protection public welfare projects and environmental protection education projects.
In the second half of 2021, the "single blind box" swept the major social platforms - single men and women will contain personal information and contact information into the box or bottle (author's note: some information may be pasted outside the box or outside the bottle, such as height, weight, etc.), and then the box is sold in the form of a blind box, the price ranges from 1 yuan to hundreds of yuan, in order to achieve the purpose of blind box dating. From online e-commerce to roadside stalls to physical stores, various formats have begun to experiment with this blind box model.
Can the single blind box really help "harvest love"? According to the survey visit of "Shell Finance", the possibility of finding the other half through the single blind box is very small, and the average success rate is only 1%. Relevant lawyers said that if there is a phenomenon such as customer harassment and personal information being leaked, it is difficult for the relevant departments to pursue responsibility, and only the customer can bear the consequences personally.
Off-single blind box | Image source CCTV "Punctual Finance"
Pet blind boxes break through the bottom line of people's lives and ethics, single blind boxes create a crisis of personal privacy leakage, and express blind boxes are testing people's trust in the business world.
9.9 yuan 10 express, 28 yuan to split 40 express, but what is in the express, but only the moment of opening the box is known. Although these express blind boxes are called "ownerless express delivery", in fact, most of them are marketing gimmicks packaged by the merchants themselves with pressed warehouse goods - the 20 yuan express blind box may only have a nail clipper of less than 5 yuan.
Although a number of official media have appeared to remind consumers not to trust the flower heads of merchants, but now in Taobao search for "express package blind box", you can still search for many goods with more than 100 months of orders.
The most recent hot search for a blind box was in January 2022 - KFC and Bubble Mart jointly launched the "DIMOO Blind Box Package". According to the sales rules of this blind box package, you need to purchase at least 6 packages to collect the whole set of dolls.
In order to collect all the styles, many consumers have purchased a number of packages, and some consumers have chosen the online "substitute eating" service, resulting in food waste and being criticized by the China Consumer Association.
The repeated "rollover incidents" of the blind box seem to remind us that not everything can be operated with the idea of a blind box.
Blind box, can not carry a lot of sorrow
On January 14, 2022, the Shanghai Municipal Administration for Market Supervision and Administration issued the Shanghai Blind Box Business Activity Compliance Guidelines (hereinafter referred to as the "Guidelines"), which is the first guideline for the blind box industry, which regulates the business scope, value and mechanism of blind boxes.
The "Guidelines" pointed out that blind box business activities should comply with the provisions of relevant laws and regulations, generally carried out in the fields of daily consumption, literature and entertainment, blind box business should adhere to the small amount attribute, and the price of a single blind box commodity is generally not higher than RMB 200. The Guidelines also encourage blind box operators to establish a guarantee mechanism to guide rational consumption by setting the upper limit of the amount of withdrawal and the upper limit of the number of times.
Under the increasingly strict regulatory situation, it is time for the blind box to look back at the "original intention" of its departure.
According to a paper published in Chinese Youth Studies by Liu Lin, a lecturer at Fuzhou University in February 2022, he believes that the blind box consumption landscape is supported by the following two subcultural characteristics of young people: first, self-congratulatory culture, paying for happiness, enjoying the visual beauty brought by the high value of the blind box, the freshness brought by the mystery and the excitement brought by the scarcity; second, the pursuit of emotional comfort, paying for emotion, the emergence of blind boxes can not only meet the consumption experience of young people. It is also a reflection of the lifestyle and emotional expectations of the current youth group.
The highly entertaining and symbolic characteristics of blind boxes naturally limit the scope of use of blind boxes, which is what the Guidelines call "life consumption, literary and artistic entertainment and other fields". When the blind box extends to the periphery, conflicts between the original attributes and the new scene are inevitably in conflict, and this is the core reason why the blind box economy has repeatedly caused controversy.
Pet blind boxes meet entertainment at the cost of life, which is not in line with business ethics; single blind boxes are results-oriented, and it is difficult to be compatible between functionality and entertainment; most of the items in the express blind box are small objects that are practical in life, and it is difficult to pin consumers' emotions and personalities; large-scale buyers of food blind boxes treat food with a relaxed and casual attitude, contrary to the fine virtues of "cherishing food".
As for pulling the blind box completely out of business logic and placing it on job and career choices, the conflict and tension here are more significant.
Career choice is a highly rational decision-making process, especially for fresh graduates, which is both difficult and critical - the difficulty is that fresh graduates lack social experience and do not have a clear understanding of their own strengths and interests; the key is that the first job after graduation is likely to set the tone for future career development.
In response to this contradiction, many enterprises have launched management trainee programs that can be rotated, such as Jingdong's management trainee program for fresh graduates, which can provide 6 months of rotation time for recruits, so that they can fully understand the core business of Jingdong, and after the end of the rotation, the entrants can choose a certain position for appointment.
There are two main differences between blind box positions and the Management Trainee Program: first, there is no pre-existing process of understanding the overall situation; second, the initial positions are designated by HR rather than selected by employees. Relevant people with many years of experience in human resource management analyzed to the Hedgehog Commune (ID: ciweigongshe) that the establishment of employment relations between enterprises and individuals should be based on adequate information exchange, and blind box jobs cannot provide sufficient information for job seekers, so they are not very responsible behavior for enterprises and job seekers.
"Although I also agree that some people say that blind box jobs can alleviate the problem of job mismatch to a certain extent, it still feels unreliable." Despite the so-called 'resurrection' opportunities, the cost of trial and error is quite large. She said.
In terms of nature, blind box posts and single blind boxes have similarities: they are both strong purpose-oriented and matched under limited information. How can a blind box, which was originally only for entertainment, carry people's double desire for efficiency and quality of matching? The 1% success rate of the single blind box seems to be telling the truth - young people's marital anxiety and job search anxiety may still have to look elsewhere for solutions.
What is the boundary of the blind box?
Shi Chuan, an internet cross-border thinking investment expert, once said in a public speech that innovation is the core quality of entrepreneurs who break through restrictive conditions, but innovation is not boundless, and it is necessary to respect the boundaries of laws and regulations, the boundaries of ethics and ethics, and the boundaries of the ecological environment.
This leads to a key proposition: the boundaries of innovation. In the new era of economy and consumption, various terms with "economy" as a suffix emerge endlessly: blind box economy, surprise economy, other economy... These terms contain both the possibility of innovation and the potential for innovation minefields.
Innovation is never the goal, but the real creation of value is. If we look at innovative forms such as blind box posts, pet blind boxes, and single blind boxes based on value, it is not difficult to find that the social value they contribute is minimal, and even has a negative impact, which is by no means the original intention of innovation.
Commentator Li Hong believes that businesses should pay attention to social responsibility, consumers should establish a correct concept of consumption, and relevant departments should assume regulatory responsibilities, only when supervision is in place, business self-discipline and consumer rationality, the blind box economy can go farther and farther.
If you look at the blind box problem in the field of human resources, employers and job seekers should have a fully responsible attitude towards themselves and each other, communicate frankly, make prudent judgments, and use rational thinking and professional ability to face the double-sided anxiety of employment and job hunting.
Resources:
[1] Modern Logistics News, Supervision in Place, Merchant Self-Discipline and Consumer Rationality, Blind Box Economy Can Develop Healthily, Li Hong, 2022.1
[2] Chinese Youth Studies, "The Man in the Box": "Generation Z" Blind Box Consumption Landscape and Its Formation Mechanism, Liu Forest, 2022.2
[3] Shell Finance, In the Blind Box, Will You Meet True Love or Be Charged IQ Tax, Li Menghan, 2021.12