Author|Flower Little Meng Lord
From everything can be rolled to everything can be plated, now, it is popular among young people that everything can be "pinched". In addition to the well-known buns, there are also different shapes such as eggs, chickens, rabbits, tofu balls, pumpkins, and even milk tea cups.
Pinch music has swept all major social media, and in Xiaohongshu alone, there are more than one million notes about pinch music and more than 100,000+ related products. Not to mention, the high price of 5,000 in Xianyu was sold on Taobao for pre-sale.
There is a note entitled "1w5 pinching and unboxing" in Xiaohongshu, with more than 16,000 likes, and the messages and collections will exceed 2000, from the messages of netizens, we can find that 4 pinching music costs 6000 yuan, and a doughnut (chimney cake) pinching music costs 2900 yuan. If this has already shocked you, then you will be even more surprised next.
There are netizens on Xiaohongshu who left a message, and the cost spent on pinching music has exceeded 100,000 yuan.
Source: Screenshot of Xiaohongshu
What is "Pinching Music"?
Before deciphering the magic of "pinching music", we must first understand clearly, where is the sacredness of pinching music?
Pinching music, or can be called slow rebound, the price is between 10 yuan and 2000 yuan, is a kind of memory foam as the main material of the modeling toy, the material has the ability to slowly deform, after the external force makes it deformed, it will slowly return to the original shape.
There are roughly three types of mainstream feels: the softest water feel and no resistance when pinched, and the fastest rebound, the cement feeling with a slight plasticine feel and a moderate rebound speed, and the mud feeling is the slowest rebound, which feels like plasticine.
"Pinching music" into the public eye, the beginning of the promoter is the blind box distribution bloggers, sellers according to customer requirements, in the price range of 50-1000 yuan, for them to randomly match slow rebound products. So far, there is still a topic of "slow rebound with your heart" on Weibo Chaohua, and in its heyday, many popular videos were born on major social media.
As a decompression toy, "Pinching Music" will appear widely in daily life in 2022. According to the Tmall New Life Research Institute, in 2022, the overall growth rate of decompression toys on Taobao and Tmall will be nearly 40%. Search for keywords such as "decompression toys" and "decompression artifact" on the e-commerce platform, there are more than 20,000 products, and the prices range from 5 yuan to 127 yuan, among which the first sales volume is pinching, with monthly sales of up to 10,000+.
In 2023, "Pinching Music" has become one of the fast-growing toy categories on Taobao in 2023, and this category has also attracted more attention from the IP field and has become one of the regular derivatives developed by many IPs. As a result, the kneading toys began to be divided into two categories: authorized and non-authorized, with authorized decompression toys mainly based on popular IPs such as "Egg Boy Party", "Pig Man" and "Milk Dragon";
Why are young people willing to pay for "pinching"?
The sales of Pinching Music are gradually increasing, and there are even bloggers on social platforms who have begun to develop their own IP, why are young people willing to pay for it?
1. Physiological "cuteness" and aggression
Have you ever felt the urge to pinch or even bite into something cute and soft, like a baby's face, or have you ever pinched a plastic bubble? They believe that when we are children, when we should grasp a lot with our fingers, we are often stopped by adults, and when we grow up, we form a "hunger" for the need to grasp, and grasping cute and soft things, our emotions will become positive, which in turn affects our behavior.
In the eyes of young people, "pinching" is a different and cute baby face. Whether it is "Pig Man", "Milk Dragon", or "Bun" and "Egg", taking soft and lovely things is to meet the basic needs of physiology.
Source: Internet
2. Mental needs are at a younger age
This is probably related to the "time of the day", today's employment and living environment is seriously involuted, and adults have begun to appear "psychological regression", that is, the phenomenon of young age of spiritual needs, which is a subconscious defense mechanism to resist competitive pressure.
At this time, adults have a stronger willingness to consume toys. The average price is more than ten yuan, which is not easy to break, and can share ...... "pinching music" is defined by many media as Internet celebrity toys, and its characteristics meet the needs of young psychological scenes where adults spend little and are interesting and material, and become a decompression artifact.
Source: Little Red Book
3. The appreciation space of personality premium
The cost of kneading music is not high, if you buy your own materials to do, the overall cost is about 150 yuan, you can make 20 "kneading music", and the remaining color paste mold can also be used many times. That is to say, the cost price is six or seven yuan, because of the scarcity of IP, or manual customization and personalization can lead to a tenfold premium, and even in Xianyu can be sold for 5,000 yuan.
The premium is serious, but it has not extinguished the enthusiasm of young people to buy, but has intensified this purchasing power. We often say that buying up is not buying down, that is, if an item has room for appreciation, it can attract a large number of people to buy and collect, and the same is true for "pinching music". It has become an honor to have a high-value personalized "pinching music". They believe that "pinching music" is like a work of art, which has no price in the market.
Source: Little Red Book
What are the hidden routines in the business experience of "pinching music"?
The physiological "cuteness and aggressiveness", the environmental background of the low age of spiritual needs, coupled with the appreciation space of personality premium, have become the right time and place for "Pinching Music" to become popular. Every time a product becomes a hit, we will think, how to create the next hit?
1. A sense of "grasping" based on physiology
What are the physiological needs of people?food, water, air, health...... Physiological needs are the most basic needs and the ones that are most easily overlooked. "Pinching music" is to open the market by "pinching" the sense of "touch". Therefore, grasping the needs of the five senses of the human body and looking for a breakthrough is one of the business experiences of "pinching music".
In addition to the touch of "pinching music", visually, in 2023, dopamine, which is popular all over the world, has become a happy password, when Taobao dopamine clothing search skyrocketed by 258%, and business opportunities emerged under the traffic; the auditory market, represented by the Himalayas, the "ear economy", under the olfactory economy, home fragrance is exploding in a very new way, and in the taste market, Zibo barbecue in 2023 and Tianshui Malatang in 2024 are all related to it.
In general, the familiar Starbucks, elegant space (visual), soft music (hearing), diffuse coffee aroma (smell), coffee taste (taste), comfortable tables and chairs (touch), and the differentiation of the five senses experience have created great business success and brand value.
Therefore, accurately grasping the experience of the five senses may be able to create the next popular product.
2. Scenario-based psychological pain points
As an Internet celebrity toy, "Pinching Music" is defined as a decompression and venting artifact, which will not cause damage and can quickly restore people's calm. Its use scenario is at the core of the young age, and there are two key words, that is, pressure and venting. Therefore, solving the psychological pain points of the scene is the second business experience of "pinching music".
Scenes are often accompanied by people's pain points, which can be three-dimensional, dynamic, emotional, interactive, concrete, variable, complex, and appealing. For example, when shopping, you can't be sure if your clothes are the right size, and you are hesitant to bring an umbrella before going out. In "Scene Revolution", it is believed that a certain pain point of a user can be understood as a scene, and the original intention of the product is to solve a certain pain point or scenario of a user. Just like "Pinching" is to help users decompress.
Regarding the products with scene pain points, "Fugu has emotions" snacks is also a good case, by creating different scenes including chasing dramas, exams, wine pairing, office hunger fighting, etc., to continuously provide users with emotional value and solve scene pain points. For example, the "fourth and sixth level must pass" sweet potato slices have a string of repeated words "abandon" printed on the packaging, and a line of words written next to it, "I don't know why the first word persuaded me to give up". This kind of ridiculous cold humor and self-deprecation made all those who had participated in the fourth or sixth level willing to pay for it.
3. Communication channels arouse interest in consumption
Regarding "Pinching Le", in addition to the normal shopping platform, the most discussed is in Xiaohongshu and Xianyu, Xiaohongshu-related products exceed 100,000+, and a single "Pinching Le" is more than 5,000 yuan in Xianyu...... These two platforms are exactly the ones that young people are very fond of. Xiaohongshu has 200 million+ monthly active users, 72% of which are post-90s, and in 2023, there will be 300 million Xianyu users, with 60% of the post-90s and 35% of the post-95s. Xianyu has become a paradise for young consumers of Generation Z, and it is also an important part of the sinking market. Therefore, the choice of communication channels has become the third business experience of "pinching music".
Xiaohongshu and Xianyu make it easier to ferment topics, so as to establish a circle culture and add a fire to the premium space of "pinching music". Under the trend of interest in circle culture, consumers no longer buy goods only to meet the basic needs of life, but also gradually turn to start from hobbies, pay more attention to the personalized characteristics of goods, the additional emotional value of goods, and cultural connotations.
Starting from physiology, psychology and scenes, solve the pain points, and select communication channels for customer groups, ferment topics, and follow the consumption trends in line with the general environment, such as interest consumption, premium appreciation space, etc., which can be new products, or the repackaging definition of old products, or maybe it will become the next hit like "pinching music".