During the May Day period, the “one-day store manager” activity was in full swing in major brand stores, from celebrities to Internet celebrities, from two-dimensional cosplayers to amateurs, who have entered offline stores to help brands attract traffic. However, there are many controversies hidden behind this seemingly hot marketing model. This article will delve into the origin, development, current situation and future trends of the “one-day store manager” phenomenon, revealing the truth behind this traffic carnival.
“There is also a one-day store manager here?” This May Day, the figure of “one-day store managers” can be seen everywhere – milk tea shops, clothing stores, and even in Huawei experience stores with strong technological attributes, there is no shortage of high-value “store managers” sitting there.
“Who is this handsome clerk of Hefei Huawei” and “I am happy again when I met the store manager for a day” posts were all over social platforms such as Xiaohongshu, Weibo and Douyin, and some people in the comment area asked “Is the handsome guy still there tomorrow”? There are also many netizens who ridiculed: “I have to spend a handful of this good look.” ”
(During the May Day period, one-day store manager activities in various places are overwhelmed)
When the “business war” of offline stores has reached the stage of “seduction” of consumers through handsome men and beautiful women, the “one-day store manager” is constantly being copied.
Whether it is a celebrity Internet celebrity, a high-value KOL, or a two-dimensional COSER, whenever a one-day store manager event is held in an offline store, it can attract many fans or passers-by to take photos and check in, and be shared on social platforms such as Xiaohongshu, bringing a wider range of “out of the circle”.
However, when the “one-day store manager” activity began to proliferate, different voices began to appear. The store is full of fans who come to check in, and for passers-by like Xiaoxing who are indifferent to Internet celebrity stars, “I am a little disgusted, if you want to hold an event, you can find a new venue, and it is not a professional clerk, which affects the experience of ordinary consumers too much.”
Indeed, for these “one-day store managers” who have not received professional store training, experiencing the “one-day store manager” is not so much about serving consumers at work, but rather about “doing business” with appearance.
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Behind the “one-day store manager” activity, it is actually a routine of celebrities checking in and traffic economy. When more and more brands and Internet celebrities begin to flock to the “one-day store manager” model, and consumers’ attitudes have changed from initial curiosity to habitual or even some disgust, where should this business go?
1. Star? Internet celebrity? Who is the one-day store manager “sales champion”
“Face to face with your favorite stars” is the biggest selling point of the rise of one-day store managers.
The “one-day store manager” model, which originated in the Japanese fashion circle, was initially mainly in the form of brands inviting celebrity spokespersons to incarnate as “temporary store managers”.
Due to the vigorous Japanese animation, film and television industry, this model has also been copied to the two-dimensional circle, and the brand will invite cosplayers, voice actors, etc. to help cross-border, so that fans can meet “paper people” in the three-dimensional world, and attract fans’ attention, take photos and check in and enter the store to consume by “breaking the dimensional wall”.
In April 2016, actress Lin Chiling served as a one-day store manager at Longines Watch Shengshi Watch Company (Chongqing Beicheng Tianjie Store), standing on the platform for Longines Watches, and the one-day store manager model gradually became one of the common offline activities of celebrity endorsements in the Chinese entertainment industry. However, the one-day store manager model has been completely detonated, which is still closely related to emotional consumption and appearance consumption, which will heat up from 2023 to 2024 with the complete outbreak of two-dimensional and millet culture, and has continued to this day.
Since the popularity of the one-day store manager model, “e-commerce online” has witnessed the step-by-step expansion of the model – from celebrities, cosers to KOLs, brand executives and even amateur consumers have been introduced into it, and the form of activities is no longer limited to simple platform interaction, but has spread to taking photos and giving small cards, face-to-face interaction, etc.
Even the “Milk Tea Ancestor” Xiang Piaopiao wants to become popular again with the “beautiful man plan”, and has invited high-value Internet celebrities to serve as clerks in the milk tea pop-up stores in Hangzhou and Chengdu, attracting consumers with the gimmick of buying milk tea to take photos with handsome guys. In addition to Xiangpiaopiao, most of the new tea brands such as Bawang Chaji and Heytea have carried out one-day store manager activities, and colorists, Marumi, Yibao, Laiyifen and even Lianhua Supermarket have used “one-day store managers” to please young consumers.
“Compared with independent spokespersons, the number of celebrity bloggers that can be connected to one-day store managers will be larger, and the consumer circle that can be broken through is also wider than that of independent endorsements, and the overall cost is relatively low.” Huang Huang, a senior business officer at an MCN agency, told reporters that from the perspective of the brand, whether it is inviting actors, Internet celebrities or COSERs, it is nothing more than to attract more offline consumers.
“Brands invite celebrities to endorse mainly to establish brand tone, but the quotation for them to come to offline activities is very high, and the endorsement box of millions or even higher amounts must go through a long review cycle.” Huang Huang said that if it is just to create momentum for offline marketing, Internet celebrities are more cost-effective than celebrities, even if it is a big Internet celebrity quotation of tens of millions, it will not exceed 6 figures, and the whole event will be faster and more convenient to execute.
According to the public data of the tea brand Shuyi Shaoxiancao, in April this year, it invited two bloggers, “Summer Sister” and “Pancake Fruit Boy”, to serve as “one-day store managers”, and on the day of the event, the total number of cups produced by participating stores exceeded 1,000 cups, and the store’s GMV revenue increased by 100% month-on-month and 240% month-on-month.
“It has become an industry consensus that COSER has the strongest ability to bring goods.” According to Huang Huang, if the brand wants to link with the second dimension, compared with Internet celebrity bloggers, COSER can bring more direct product sales growth, “The emotional value behind the IP is stronger than the appearance, and the boost to customer flow and consumption flow is very obvious.” ”
2. From mutual encouragement to upside down, it is not only the brand that is anxious about traffic
Behind the seemingly lively “one-day store manager”, the only “store manager” who really makes money is the head player.
In fact, although brand organizers can get some offline consumers from the “one-day store manager” activity, for Internet celebrities and COSERs, the traffic attention they get from this errand is a bigger piece of fat.
After all, the offline attention brought by one-day store manager activities to the brand still lacks the direct “transaction” link when converted into store sales flow, but the communication brought to the “store manager” by showing his face on social media is real.
“Most of the Internet celebrity cooperation at the level of small millions of fans is based on mutual encouragement, and travel accommodation expenses and daily wages will be reimbursed, but there will be no additional pit fee.” Agent Eric told reporters that for some brands that are already very well-known, they don’t have to worry about not finding a one-day store manager candidate, and the resources behind the Internet celebrity who can be selected must be not small.
Although most of the Internet celebrities and cosplayers who can be selected by brands do not lack job opportunities on their own tracks, the direct contact with more people offline, as well as the trust and endorsement after being selected by the brand, can bind the commercial value to the brand, which can not only allow them to break the inherent fandom to attract fans, but also add a lot of color to their business resumes.
(Many good-looking Internet celebrities will go to clothing stores to be one-day store managers)
“Now there are also some coffee shops or bookstores that will open stores for bloggers to carry out one-day store manager activities.” According to Eric, some bloggers will take the initiative to choose to charter the store for a day out of the need for fans or offline fan meeting activities, entertaining guests and fans by themselves, and publicizing it as a “one-day store manager” cooperation model, but in fact, they pay thousands of dollars themselves.
Even if it is posted upside down, it is not surprising that he has to strive to be a “one-day store manager”.
As early as 2021, when the BM trend was popular, there were many assertions on social media that being a “BM clerk” was a proof of beauty. Nowadays, being a “one-day store manager” is like being a “BM clerk”, it is a wave of chasing public recognition, and becoming a “one-day store manager” has obtained a higher proof of traffic and commercial value.
On the other hand, even in the COS circle, which is most recognized in the industry for its ability to bring goods, the remuneration of ordinary COSERS to be “one-day store managers” has dropped again and again. On the Xiaohongshu platform, many COSERS complained that the daily salary of the store manager has been rolled up to more than 200 yuan a day, which means that after deducting travel costs, COS equipment such as wig clothing consumption and makeup costs, it is basically “generating electricity for love”, not only not only not making money but also providing long-term emotional value.
Obviously, the market has reached a two-tiered fork in the road.
“Once the number of fans and commercial advertisements has been significantly increased by some bloggers, the frequency of participating in one-day store manager activities will decrease.” Huang Huang told reporters that bloggers with more than 10 million fans will cherish feathers more and will be more cautious when choosing offline cooperation, while bloggers with a small number of fans will not be able to bring a particularly obvious increase in sales, and brands will also hesitate, and both sides are a process of choosing each other.
3. Controversies are frequent, will the one-day store manager craze “cool down”?
A one-day store manager is fundamentally just a collusion between traffic and capital.
As with all traffic businesses, when a certain trend begins to be “single-copied”, there will be a situation where some people carnival and some people are bitten back.
In February this year, the “one-day store manager” event held when the first store of Bubble Mart’s IP Ono brand opened caused a lot of controversy. Under the comment area of Bubble Mart’s official announcement of the event, Ono’s fans questioned the “planning of private goods”, believing that the two invited Internet celebrities had not released Ono-related content in the past and had nothing to do with Ono’s IP.
This means that when a brand blindly copies the “one-day store manager” model and ignores the brand’s own tonality, it will not only fail to attract new customers to break the circle, but even hurt the feelings of loyal fans. Especially for IP-centered brands like Bubble Mart, fans will naturally have stricter requirements for the “purity” of brand activities – they cannot tolerate anyone who “doesn’t understand IP enough” to eat this IP dividend.
“Compared to the store manager, I care more about the quality of the products I buy and whether my consumer rights are protected.” Xiaoxing, who is not very interested in Internet celebrities and celebrities, said that although emotional consumption has been very popular in recent years, not every consumer’s emotional value values a pleasing face.
“A one-day store manager can be the icing on the cake occasionally, but brands shouldn’t put the cart before the horse and ignore the consumer experience for the sake of marketing activities.” Rather than paying attention to the subdivision of appearance and emotional consumption, it is better to pay more attention to the quality and service that every consumer cares about.
In fact, this is also the reason why many Internet celebrity bloggers with large fans carefully consider offline activities – participating in offline activities will bring more fans and passers-by’s attention, lose the atmosphere under the blessing of online filters, and their own style may not be accepted by mass consumers, and may even receive doubts and negative reviews from some brand deep fans.
“When consumers begin to suffer from aesthetic fatigue, the one-day store manager model will no longer continue to expand in a disorderly manner.” In Eric’s view, as with all popular endorsement models in the past, when the public no longer has a sense of freshness, brands will naturally look for new forms to win the favor of consumers.
Looking forward to the future, although the “one-day store manager” does not seem to have been popular in every category like “Internet celebrity with goods”, “cooling” has become inevitable.
When the freshness of mass consumers passes away, in addition to thinking about how to innovate the form of marketing activities, how to improve the core competitiveness of products, improve repurchases, and increase fan stickiness, brands need to spend more thought. After all, in the stage of big waves, only really powerful brands can have the last laugh.
