This article is original
author of Rancaijing (ID: rancaijing) Author / Cai Haoshuang
Edit / Wei Jia
Starbucks Limited Cat claw cup is popular. With this cup, you are the whole street, no, the most beautiful baby in the entire Internet world.
A genuine cat claw cup is hard to come by, and the difficulty of buying is comparable to the tickets for the Lantern Festival in the Forbidden City. Some people lined up in the early morning and even fought hard.
At 3 pm yesterday, Starbucks online mall sold the last 3,000 cups. At the same time as the countdown for the start-up sales ended, "buy now" instantly became "there is still a chance" (someone placed an order but had not paid yet).
has been on sale for two days. Cat Claw Cup has created at least four hot search topics on Weibo: "Cat Claw Cup", "Cat Claw Cup Holy Grail War", "3,000 Cat Claw Cups in seconds", and "Furry Cat Claw Cup". The quotation on Taobao has also been hyped from the original price of 199 yuan to more than 2,000 yuan, and 76 people even paid.
This glass that can't contain much water and is difficult to clean, why can it be sold for this price? What do those who have a daughter begging for a cup of tea think?
Some netizens said that those who spent a lot of money to buy cat claw cups pay IQ tax, but junior high school textbooks have long told us: price does not equal value. In the commodity economy environment, prices fluctuate around supply and demand. If the supply cannot rise, the price will naturally not go down.
In addition, Ran Finance read CNKI papers and interviewed university professors, and found that behind the popularity of Cat Claw Cup, some consumer psychology theories are involved. The Beijing Third District Transportation Committee reminds you: There are tens of millions of routines, and soberness is the most important. You can buy it, but you have to "buy it clearly".
"I have you or not" relative deprivation
Just a glass cup, can it still be used to create a sense of superiority?
Psychologists tell you: It’s really OK.
There is a concept in psychology called " relative deprivation ", which was first created by American scholar S. A. Stouffer proposed that it is a theory about group behavior.
It refers to the sense of deprivation arises when people find themselves at a disadvantage by comparing their situation to a certain standard or reference. Simply put, when others have something that you don’t have but want to have and have the opportunity to have, although you have not been stolen, you feel like you have lost something, and then you feel angry, resentful or dissatisfied.
translates into human words: If everyone has no cat claw cup, then they will be peaceful. Once your plastic sister has a cat claw cup, you will feel the envy and jealousy in your heart, "Why does she have it, I don't have it?"
Starbucks "limited" cat claw cup, "limited" means scarcity.
scarcity is familiar to everyone, and you may not understand the psychological motivation of scarcity to trigger rush buying. This involves another proper noun - "effects are awesome".
Ran Finance asked for a purchase agent and found that this cat claw cup is only available in China. We continued to do our homework and found that although Starbucks also has city cups and Christmas limited cups in other countries, fancy design styles are always specially provided in East Asia, such as the Paul Joe co-branded cherry blossom model launched in Asia in 2017, the "Summer Starry Sky" limited series launched in South Korea, the "Nordic Snow Country" autumn limited series, the 2016 "Naughty Monkey" limited series, and the "You Are Here" special limited series in Japan.
cat-sucking culture is available all over the world, but why is Cat Claw Cup only released in China? Is it true as netizens said, "Chinese people love to pay IQ tax more"?
Dou Donghui, associate professor of the Department of Psychology, Central University of Finance and Economics, believes that compared with foreigners, Chinese people may indeed have a higher willingness to buy cat claw cups. Ultimately, it is because there are too many Chinese people, and it is too difficult to be different. , things like Starbucks limited edition, that are affordable and not easy to buy, are "excellent" and can reflect the difference in status. The "effects" brought about by the scarcity of
has aggravated the relative deprivation of "you have it, I don't", and further stimulated the desire to buy.The same applies to the expensive and not luxurious products such as
Canadian Goose and iPhone . As soon as the new iPhone is launched, Apple fans often rush to buy it, and once the mobile phone supply is sufficient and it is not scarce, this relative deprivation will be greatly reduced.
"babyface effect" that everyone loves
As the best company to sell cups, Starbucks launches limited-edition mugs, thermos cups and even limited-edition paper cups every year, such as last year's fish scale cups, corgi cups, goddess thermos cups that cooperated with magicians, etc. Although these cups will also be premium, they will at most double, and never have a single one as popular as a cat's claw cup.
Each limited-edge cup is scarce, why can the Cat Claw Cup rise ten times the price?
Another keyword "cat's claw" is where the root knot is.
This cherry blossom series cat claw cup directly sniping the girl's heart. The cup has double layers inside and outside, with cherry blossoms on the outer layer, and the inner layer is a pink transparent cat claw shape. After pouring it into the drink, the pink cat claws make it look softer and cute.
This is not the first time that "cat economics" has "showed its power". Cat elements can always capture the hearts of modern young people.
How many cat slaves would rather eat braised vegetables yourself than let their master eat and drink well. When drinking tap water you burn directly, you should let the cat drink imported pure water; you may not drink milk every day, but remember to make goat milk powder for the cat regularly; even if you are 996 a week, you should sing a sentence during overtime, "As long as the cat owner lives well."
The late Chanel artistic director and "God of Lafayette" Carl said in an interview before his death that he hoped that half of his ashes would be sprinkled with his mother's ashes and half would be sprinkled with his beloved cat "Puff".
Even the literary tough guy Hemingway wrote such a domineering sentence in "The Old Man and the Sea", "A person can be destroyed, but cannot be defeated", but turned around and added: A person cannot be defeated, but can be destroyed by a cat.
Many young people working hard in the city regard cats as a pure land in the complex world. When they are so busy that they look at the cat owner who is lying on their backs, they are more motivated to work overtime.
But why do you have to be a cat?
Dou Donghui explained that the "cute design" of the cat claw cup and the mentality of urban young people being willing to be cat slaves are all related to the "Teddy bear effect" or the "babyface effect".
1943, biologist Lorenz found through observation that babies can trigger strong positive reactions in human individuals, manifested as spontaneous smiles or words. Lorenz pointed out a famous hypothesis based on this: the typical appearance of newborns in all species (round face, big eyes, small nose, towering forehead) can be used as a key visual stimulus that triggers people's positive emotions and thus promotes related behavioral responses.
For this phenomenon, Caroline Keating, a non-verbal communication expert at Colgate University, once had an interesting statement: "Big eyes, long eyelashes, plump lips, small chin, round face, small nose - if I were not describing a baby, I must be describing a supermodel." People, animals or non-organisms with baby face characteristics (such as cat claw cups) are always pitying, and it is no wonder that female celebrities are keen on maintaining their childhood faces.
There was a set of controlled experiments that when humans were tired, looking at pictures of babies or cats can effectively relieve fatigue and improve work efficiency. So bosses, have you got the lowest price and efficient office decoration plan?
The "lipstick effect" of the new era
To a certain extent, "cat economics" can be regarded as the "lipstick effect" of the new era.
In the United States, whenever the economy is in a downturn, the sales of lipsticks will rise sharply. This is because even in the economic downturn, people still have a strong desire to consume, and lipstick, as a "cheap, non-essential thing", can play a "comfort" role in consumers.
is used in modern "social animals". When I paint my Armani, Givenchy, and Dior in front of the mirror, I feel that life in a group rental house is not too miserable.
And "cat economics" is a new word invented by Japanese economists in 2015, which means that no matter how difficult the economy is, the public's enthusiasm for cats and their related products will always rise.
Starbucks Cat Claw Cup is no different from the contemporary Armani Red Tube 405.
In addition to the well-known lipstick effect, there are many interesting theories in economics related to similar consumption phenomena. For example, skirt index : The length of women skirts is inversely proportional to the rise and fall of the stock market. The shorter the skirt, the stronger the stock market. This is because economic prosperity will bring about a wealthy material environment and a tolerant social mentality. Therefore, short skirts are popular, and long skirts are popular; Poker Index : Where the unemployment rate is high, poker sales are often better; taxi driver conversation index : When you often encounter taxi drivers with extraordinary conversation, you can infer that the local economy has fallen into or is about to fall into recession without checking GDP.
Perhaps the "Cat Claw Cup Index" can also become a new economic vane.
Whether it is Heytea, dirty bags, or the recent tickets for the Forbidden City's Yuan Night, Cat Claw Cup, all Internet celebrity products have to go through a life cycle of trendy people selling goods, public followers, and hot media discussions. Today's "Starbucks" is replaced by "supreme", "Muji", or "Coca-Cola" and "KFC", as long as they take into account both scarcity and cute design, they have the opportunity to become "Internet celebrity".
As for the so-called "IQ tax" and "consumerist trap", in Dou Donghui's view, there is no need to be so exaggerated. "Merchants have obtained high profits, and consumers have also obtained high-quality psychological experiences, clearly marked prices, and voluntary transactions. There are no deceptions or traps - everyone buys a cup they like and is expensive."
Finally, should we spend 199 yuan or even higher to buy a glass with low cost?
Ran Finance’s friend talked about something she was in elementary school: At that time, the ordinary pencil case was less than 10 yuan, and she rolled to her parents for a pencil case worth 30 yuan. The inner side of the lid is divided into several three-dimensional small grids, which are miniature versions of the bedroom, kitchen and bathroom. There are two active villains in the pencil case that can play house. During the break, the whole class came to watch her pencil case, and she still remembered the joy. Whether you buy
or not, the truth is all above.
