Emotional consumption is becoming a new wave of consumption. Young people are keen on the “four-piece set of emotional consumption” such as Bubble Mart, Mixue Bingcheng, Duolingo, and SenseTime, and behind it is consumer psychology such as identity, cost performance, self-discipline and sense of control. These products meet the spiritual and emotional needs of young people through precise positioning, rapid iteration and close to their needs, and have become popular choices in the field of emotional consumption.
The pendulum of the era of the economic cycle has once again chosen consumption.
Since “promoting domestic demand” has become the main theme of the domestic economy, from the “three sisters of new consumption” with the hot national supplement and the rise of Hong Kong stocks to the outbreak of “Su Chao”, consumption has not only become a new engine of China’s economic growth, but also a mirror to understand China’s social changes.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, China’s total retail sales of consumer goods increased by 6.4% year-on-year in May, the highest value since January 2024. Under the surface of unexpected consumption data, the underlying logic of China’s consumer market is also quietly being reconstructed.
The biggest impetus for refactoring comes from the crowd.
When the main forces of the post-95s, post-00s and other new consumer markets come to the forefront, they are promoting the “emotional economy” to become a new wave of consumption – surpassing McDonald’s and Starbucks to become the world’s largest chain brand, Mixue Bingcheng; LABUBU, a bubble mart that has set off a global rush to buy, these new consumption phenomena out of the circle are out of people’s understanding of traditional consumption patterns, and also create an illusion of “not understanding young people”.
In fact, emotional consumption is not new. From Moutai, perfume aromatherapy to LABUBU, the boundaries of “emotional consumption” are expanding, integrating into the clothing, food, housing and play of this generation of young people.
Dismantling the recent hot consumption events, chatting with some young people about their “emotional consumption views”, “Caijing Wuji” found that emotional consumption is not metaphysics, Generation Z not only has a clear consumption cognition of it, but also has an exclusive “emotional consumption four-piece set”.
The popularity of emotional consumption is not accidental, behind which is not only a “rational rebellion” of young people, but also the active innovation of supply-side players.
01 The post-00s generation who is picky and trenched holds up a four-piece set of emotional consumption
Emotional consumption has become a new traffic password, which is inevitable.
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According to iiMedia Consulting’s “White Paper on Insight into China’s Interest Consumption Trends”, unlike the parents who have experienced material shortages, “practicality” has retreated from the protagonist of the past to a lower position, and contemporary Chinese youth have a certain disposable income, advocate self-pleasing consumption, and pay more attention to social and spiritual needs.
In a word, in today’s abundant basic material life, the new generation of young people is a generation that is picky and trenched – they are not only a rational generation, pursuing the ultimate cost performance, but they are willing to spend a lot of money on those products that reflect personality and identity.
If we further dismantle the specific characteristics of “emotional consumption”, it actually carries more subdivided and unique consumption motivations and psychology of young people.
According to the observation of “Caijing Wuji”, young people also have their own unique “consumption four-piece set” in emotional consumption, and these products that make young people on the top hide four real emotional consumption truths – identity consumption, cost-effective consumption, self-discipline consumption and control consumption.
Truth 1: Identity consumption: What you buy is not LABUBU, it is identity
“I don’t understand the 30 billion Bubble Mart, and I buy the 300 billion Bubble Mart in full position.” Some people say that they can’t understand that young people spend a high price to buy a LABUBU, but in fact, young people don’t buy a doll at all, but the identity behind the doll.
Coco, a post-90s office worker, told “Finance Wuji” that the reason she entered LABUBU was because of social networking. LABUBU can not only become a girlfriend photo artifact, but also let her contact many “baby friends”, and the topic of everyone’s daily discussion is LABUBU, and life has become more interesting.
The trendy blind box represented by LABUBU points to the identity consumption behind emotional consumption – not everyone will be conquered by LABUBU’s cuteness at first sight, but they will be attracted by the pictures of celebrities and the babies in the circle of friends, and borrow a LABUBU to find people like themselves.
Truth 2: Cost-effective consumption: Drinking is not cheap sweet water, but happy water to coax your own poor ghosts
“What kind of bicycle do you want for 4 yuan?” “Mixue Bingcheng doesn’t think I’m poor, why should I think he’s low.” Mixue Bingcheng, which has successfully bet on the “poor ghost economy”, is also an emotional consumer product often mentioned by young people.
The essence of the “poor ghost economy” is cost-effective consumption, and it is just the time for young people to collectively disenchant high-end milk tea.
Some netizens ridiculed that it is not that LV cannot afford it, but that Mixue Bingcheng is more cost-effective. Young people who laugh at themselves as “poor ghosts” have a more rigid demand for cost performance, Mixue Bingcheng happens to take care of the wallet and face at the same time, bid farewell to the shame of low prices, a cup of 4 yuan lemonade, a 3 yuan cone, cheap and low price, is the new placebo given by the Snow King, is the “poor ghost happy water” to make yourself happy.
Truth 3: Self-disciplined consumption: Checking in is not a course, it is a kind of self-improvement
In addition to identity and cost-effective consumption, among many young people’s emotional consumption products, knowledge learning tools represented by Duolingo have also become the object of frequent mention.
In the subway, elevator, and even at music festivals and bars, young people holding their mobile phones to complete Duolingo’s check-in are not only easily handled by this little green bird, but on mainstream social platforms, the number of fans of Duolingo’s official account is even comparable to that of many Internet celebrities.
Like sports and health preservation in the past, young people are keen to spend money on learning and personal improvement, and gaining a sense of accomplishment by learning new knowledge is another standard for contemporary young people to meet emotional value.
In essence, this is a kind of self-disciplined consumption of young people, after all, there is nothing wrong with spending money on studying.
Duolingo, on the other hand, has an accurate insight into the psychology of users’ pursuit of self-discipline, and has taken advantage of the wave of “self-discipline consumption” to become one of the “four-piece sets” of young people’s emotional consumption.
Truth 4: Controlling consumption: What is recorded is not the bill, but the ritual of life
Among the Gen Z users we have come into contact with, there is also an interesting phenomenon of emotional consumption, they enjoy the life of “saving and spending”, ridiculing themselves for re-studying “mathematical flowers” (saving money, managing money, spending money) after entering the society, and are keen on using emerging AI tools at high frequency.
Post-00s Huihui just entered the workplace this year, she will use an AI financial assistant called “Kapi Bookkeeping” every day, while recording her every consumption, while adjusting her spending plan, in addition to “figuring out where her money is spent”, Huihui told “Finance Wuji”, she also takes a fancy to the sense of ritual in addition to bookkeeping, and even regards AI as her financial electronic girlfriend.
For example, this AI application called “Kapi Bookkeeping” will not only send a letter to Huihui every week to encourage her to live a good life from her consumption records, but also can use AI chat dialogue to prompt her to plan her budget reasonably, and can also generate a beautiful notebook and share it with the circle of friends to check in every day, full of ritual.
“Caijing Wuji” learned that the trader behind “Kapi Bookkeeping” is SenseTime, a leading AI company in China. Less than half a year after its launch, “Kapi Bookkeeping” has ranked among the top 1 in the AI accounting track, with a total of more than one million new users, and has been selected as one of the “100 most popular AI products in China” by Qubit.
As a leading AI company in China that has been established for ten years, SenseTime has gone from the B-end business that was prevalent in the CV era to now choosing to cut into C-end applications from the vertical track of bookkeeping and quickly achieve the first place in subdivision.
Conservatives who dare to spend a lot of money on experience, but are also stable in their bones, this slightly “counter-common sense” phenomenon reflects the truth of the emotional consumption of contemporary young people. They love bookkeeping, not seeking great wealth, only micro-profits, and the out-of-the-circle of AI life assistant tools such as “Clicky Bookkeeping” is essentially the embodiment of controlling consumption – Generation Z also pursues a more secure sense of security in emotional consumption, hoping to gain a sense of certainty and a sense of ritual in all aspects of consumption.
02 Make emotions into business, the common yardstick of traders
Needs can be quickly measured, but emotions are often difficult to capture. It seems that everything can be done into an emotional business, but not everyone can catch the wave of emotional wealth.
Why is this “emotional four-piece set” favored by young people?
“Caijing Wuji” dug up the information and found that these emotional business traders have a common set of business standards.
First, the scarcity of manufacturing product positioning seems to be selling emotions, but it has its own unique moat.
Behind the parity business of Mixue Bingcheng, it is the efficiency business of the supply chain; Bubble Mart seems to be doing a blind box business, but in essence it is selling IP, borrowing the strong sociality and interactivity of IP to let the toys go out of the office and become LABUBUs hanging on bags and everywhere.
The same is true for Duolingo and Kapi Bookkeeping, which seem to sell software, but actually sell a set of “emotional solutions”.
Duolingo focuses on using gamification to allow users to “learn language painlessly”, which is different from other bookkeeping products, and “Clicky Bookkeeping” positions itself as an “AI native personal life assistant”. Zhang Yang, the product leader, mentioned that they actually regard bookkeeping as a new way of life for young people today.
Behind the “bookkeeping fever” of young people, it is not only about “where my money is spent”, but also about the life and mood behind each money. Therefore, starting from “emotional solutions”, it is natural to gain the preference of young people.
But Duolingo and Kapi Bookkeeping both face the same problem – whether it is learning or bookkeeping, it is inherently anti-human, and the first thing they need to do is to make users stick to it.
Huihui had used many accounting tools before, but most of them lasted less than two weeks. She told Caijing Wuji that the biggest problem with traditional tools is that they are too cumbersome and inaccurate. The former is mainly because the consumption records are scattered in various APPs, and multiple APPs need to be switched to integrate and record bills, while the latter is because many tools have relatively single functions, such as poor classification accuracy, do not support asset information identification and management, etc., which cannot meet the personalized needs of bookkeeping.
At this point, “clicky bookkeeping” first makes bookkeeping lighter and more convenient through various recognition methods such as voice, natural language, and multi-modality. For example, many users mentioned that Kapi is based on multi-modal “knock accounting”, which is very suitable for lazy people, and can use a variety of shortcuts to trigger automatic accounting without the need for manual filling and automatic conversion in the past.
In addition to solving the pain points of traditional products, it is more important to provide emotional value. On social media, many users recalled their lives according to the bills recorded by “Kapi Bookkeeping”, “The hot pot on Thursday was a lively dinner with friends”; There are also post-00s users who share their records of saving money after losing their jobs, using Kapi to relieve the anxiety of saving money, and even Kapi can read a small fortune of a piece of summer ice cream, and some users commented that “it can actually understand my ice cream and say a mouthful of coolness”.
Second, they are all brands that listen to persuasion and can quickly iterate products based on consumer feedback.
Listening to persuasion is essentially a keen insight into market changes and consumer demand, and it is also a response to the real needs of young people.
Taking Mixue Bingcheng as an example, Snow King has optimized the product formula many times according to the suggestions of consumers, focusing on a pet persuasion fan. Although it has only been half a year since its birth, the “little Kapi” in Huihui’s mouth is also a very persuasive brand.
We learned that the product managers and operations of Kapi Accounting will not only squat in the community and quickly iterate functions according to user suggestions, but also surf the front line on social media and directly “listen to the apology” under the user’s real “complaint post”. By listening to user needs and quickly optimizing the product experience, it can not only improve user stickiness, but also feed back product barriers.
The third is to understand the “abstraction” of young people and make brand IP with a sense of life.
Observing the above-mentioned “four-piece set of emotional consumption”, we find that in terms of user communication methods and marketing strategies, they all focus on a “sense of life”.
Whether it is the warm healing of LABUBU, the funny and people-friendly Snow King of Mixue Bingcheng – a pure white fat man, or the abstract crazy literature of the little green bird of Duolingo, the unique relaxation of the lazy Capybara in “Kapi Bookkeeping”, the above products are all doing brand content in a way that meets the emotional characteristics of young people, creating an IP image with young people’s temperament.
This “young native” marketing method naturally shortens the distance with young people.
Fourth, grasp the promising track in emotional consumption and build a business model that can be quickly implemented.
Bubble Mart’s trendy toys, Mixue Bingcheng’s new tea drinks, Duolingo’s AI education and Kapi’s AI life tools are all relatively prosperous tracks in the current pan-consumer field.
On the other hand, the business model and monetization method are also relatively clear. Bubble Mart is to do three things around IP, earning money from “IP creation + IP commercialization + IP operation”, and Mixue Bingcheng mainly makes money from the supply chain by selling materials to franchisees.
Although the current “Kapi bookkeeping” has not yet started commercialization, it is predictable that similar to Duolingo, AI can be used to reduce marginal costs and improve user experience in the future, and on the other hand, it can be monetized with the strategy of “basic functions are free + advanced functions are paid”.
03 Emotional consumption has a lot to do
Wang Ning, the founder of Bubble Mart, once said that consumption is nothing more than two things – satisfaction and presence.
Mixue Bingcheng, Bubble Mart, Duolingo, and Kapi can become a four-piece set of emotional consumption, which essentially meets the two fundamental needs of young people.
First, directly hit the rigid needs and solve the biggest pain points of young people. Mixue Bingcheng solves the problem that young people want a cup of “delicious and inexpensive” sweet water, Bubble Mart solves the problem that adults can also have an adult toy, and Duolingo uses games to make learning not boring; Kapi bookkeeping also solves the core problem of cumbersome and boring bookkeeping products in the past.
The second is to create new value, so that young people can find a sense of existence and meaning in the lonely atomic society. Mixue Bingcheng uses the Snow King Empire to make the poor ghost life of young people happier, Bubble Mart uses IP to let young people gain a sense of identity in toys, Duolingo’s little green bird allows young people to experience the sense of accomplishment of learning in social interaction, and “Clicky Bookkeeping” uses financial agents in addition to bookkeeping, so that more young people can manage their lives, record the bits and pieces of life, and find meaning in the daily orderly life.
Anthropologist Xiang Biao once put forward the concept of “disappearing neighborhood” in the talk show “Thirteen Invitations”, people living in atomized modern cities seem to lack more and less energy to manage intimate relationships, and the relationship with “neighborhood” is becoming weaker and weaker.
In essence, emotional consumption is also a kind of “nearby reconstruction”, and the “four-piece set of emotional consumption” is not only a carrier of young people’s needs, but also a new business blue ocean containing opportunities.
