Investigation and Research on Consumer Psychology of Blind Box Consumers

: Blind box is a kind of exquisite hand-made box without any style reminder. In recent years, the blind box market has been opened, all kinds of blind boxes have entered the China market, and blind box fever has become a phenomenon. Behind blind box consumption lies the core of emotional consumption, in which selling entertainment replaces selling goods, and emotional consumption surpasses material consumption; Youth resort to consumer goods, pursue a kind of life experience and subjective well-being, and endow individual existence with more meanings such as self-identity, satisfaction, belonging and accomplishment. However, when the explosion always retreats, the popular blind box will inevitably fall into an embarrassing situation. Based on this, this paper analyzes the psychological mechanism of blind box consumers in POP MART from the angle of Internet communication and consumer psychology, and interprets the formation and development trend of blind box fever. At the same time, the psychological mechanism and market logic of blind box consumers are analyzed from the perspective of consumption psychology and investment psychology. It can provide some thoughts for the future marketing strategy of Chaowan and the operation of related derivatives.


Introduction
Blind box refers to a paper box without any style reminder, which usually contains dolls or anime peripherals [1]. Consumers can't know the contents until they open the box. Its birth reflects the new development trend of youth subculture in the post-modern subculture period [2]. It first came from Fukuda in the late Meiji period in Japan [3]. However, the blind box does not make new things appear in front of us, but only uses a new look for people to accept. Blind box players are always ridiculed as "young people who are stuck in blind box routines" [4]. Young consumers pay high attention to new things, and their curiosity and privacy are strong. The reason why the blind box bears the word "blind" is that only at the moment of opening can you know what the doll inside looks like. This game rule is in line with young people's curiosity about things.
Take POP MART as an example. When POP MART participated in the "double 11" for the first time, its sales on that day exceeded 1 million yuan. On November 11th, 2020, the sales of POP MART Tmall flagship store reached 142 million yuan, becoming the first member of the "100 million yuan club" in the category of big toys [5]. These three factors, the product itself, the consumer and the market, determine whether the product has the potential to become an explosion. The formation of "blind box fever" is naturally closely related to the characteristics of blind box itself, the uniqueness of blind box consumer groups and the development status of the trendy play market [6][7]. To treat blind box consumption rationally, we should not only affirm its many benefits to consumers themselves, the development of cultural industries and the promotion of China culture, but also be alert to its potential anomie risk [8]. Based on the hot sale of blind boxes, this paper takes "POP MART" consumers as an example, and analyzes the charm of blind boxes through the research of consumers' psychology. At the same time, the consumer psychology of blind box consumers is investigated, and how to stimulate consumers' consumption desire is studied, and the formation process of blind box fever is explained.

Blind Box Marketing
In recent years, there are more and more kinds of blind box products, and they are gradually marching into the world market. However, it takes time for a new thing to precipitate from its appearance to its acceptance, and it needs the development of a complete industrial chain [9]. In recent years, there are more and more kinds of blind box products, and they are gradually marching into the world market. However, it takes time for a new thing to precipitate from its appearance to its acceptance, and it needs the development of a complete industrial chain. Blind box is like Schrodinger's cat. Before you open it, you can only be sure that there are dolls in it, but you never know which one it is [10]. Fixed rewards are mild, variable rewards are exciting, and consumers are crazy to know what they will get. Variable interval rewards make people's brains full of dopamine, which is a physiological mechanism evolved by human beings. Whether the box is an ordinary one or an expected hidden one, this uncertainty can not only strengthen repeated decisionmaking and increase the repurchase rate of blind boxes, but also strengthen consumers' expectation of the results of blind boxes and their possible sense of surprise. Especially for young consumers, they are curious and expecting new brands and want to try new brand experiences, so blind box, a new fashion form, will also increase its appeal to young people [11].
Blind box enthusiasts spend a lot of money on the style they want. This is a very interesting consumption phenomenon. Although blind box consumption shows a certain degree of cross-age situation, it is generally dominated by young people, especially the "post-90s generation" [12]. According to Tmall's consumption data, among the five hobbies with the highest consumption in the post-95 s era, hand-made is the first, and the consumption has increased by nearly 190% yearon-year. Among them, dolls in blind boxes are favored by them. Obviously, blind box consumption has become a new phenomenon of this group's consumption mode, showing a unique image of consumer groups. Blind box, a stimulating marketing method, has gone out of the trendy market and is being used for reference and application by more and more brands. More and more things on the market become blind boxes, and people pay more and more attention to the blind boxes of cross-border brands. With the overwhelming publicity of blind box consumption, consumers learn about blind boxes from various channels, and because of their own curiosity, they begin to pay attention to blind boxes and become potential consumers.

Analysis of POP MART's Marketing Strategy
Blind box originated in Japan, its predecessor was egg twisting and hand-made, and now it has developed into a popular product form with the participation of China, the United States, Japan and other countries. Moreover, the product categories are constantly expanding, with the blind box series displayed in POP MART store as the most typical one, as well as lucky boxes and beauty boxes. On December 11, 2020, POP MART, known as the "blind box first share", landed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, with an opening price increase of 100% and a total market value of over HK$ 100 billion. For a time, blind box has become a phenomenon-level tide play culture with unprecedented high turnover, and has been pushed to the cusp of public opinion. Reasonable marketing strategy has promoted the success of POP MART. Through the analysis of the brand's marketing strategy, this paper selects the following marketing strategies with remarkable effects to elaborate.
(1) POP MART takes "creating trends and delivering beauty" as its brand culture, and the company is constantly developing around this mission. At present, POP MART has become a content producer from a pure sales platform. Every blind box series in POP MART has a common model and a hidden model, both of which have the same price, but the probability of the hidden model being drawn is only 1/144. The design of POP MART blind box satisfies consumers' expectation and longing for the unknown. A box blind box is a game of probability, in which if there is a hidden money, an ordinary money will be randomly reduced.
(2) Accurately positioning the consumer groups of products is the foundation and core of the whole marketing strategy. After accurately positioning the consumer groups of products, we can get twice the result with half the effort by adopting reasonable marketing strategies for different consumer groups. POP MART has a clear market position-adult toys. According to the official data of POP MART, consumers aged 18 to 24 account for 32%, consumers aged 25 to 29 account for 26%, and about 70% of users are women. According to occupation, white-collar workers account for about 33%, and about 25% are students. It can be seen that this is a market with young people as the target consumer groups.
(3) At present, POP MART has formed a relatively complete closed-loop industrial chain. Through the transformation from marketing channels to content selfproduction, at present, POP MART has developed the blue ocean of tide play industrialization. Create numerous marketing scenes, the scene marketing model of physical stores brings social value, and creates diversified space to endow stores with social attributes; A great achievement of POP MART is attributed to the fact that the store has become a space integrating the functions of art display, user socialization and personalized experience.
(4) Understanding the needs and desires of the target audience is the foundation of successful marketing. "Toys with emotions" make Chaowan often form a stable community, in which sharing, exchange and trading are carried out, which increases the sense of identity with Chaowan. POP MART has specially built a platform of Chaowan community in order to create Chaowan social interaction. In addition, every year, POP MART will hold a fashion toy exhibition, which is a feast for a group of consumers with common interests. The establishment of online community in POP MART is tantamount to establishing social space for its important consumers, and making the product itself a social topic.

The Influence of Blind Box
Marketing on Consumers' Purchase Intention

Consumer psychology of "POP MART" consumers
In addition to the use value of the goods themselves, consumers generally pay more attention to the psychological satisfaction and sense of achievement brought by purchasing goods, including the psychological satisfaction of keeping up with the joneses, showing off, the envy of friends, the fun brought by collection, etc. With the development of social economy, the irrational consumption proportion driven by comparison psychology and conspicuous psychology has been greatly improved. POP MART often gives some hidden money to stimulate consumers' psychology of keeping up with the joneses. When friends around him have more styles, they will increase the frequency of repeated purchases to satisfy their sense of accomplishment. Consumption advocates conspicuous consumption and hedonic consumption.
Modern people are facing a faster-paced and more intense life, especially the younger generation. The blind box, which combines consumer demand, emotional demand and social demand, undoubtedly takes on the role of accompanying comfort and relieving stress. In the process of consumption, the material use value of POP MART blind box is put aside, and they are more willing to discover its spiritual value and find their own belonging. Generally, consumers will open the blind box when they want it. The application of this psychological model makes the product more mysterious, easy to obtain user viscosity and sustained and stable income. Merchants firmly grasp the gambling consumption psychology of users, and consumers expect to get goods with better value for money and consume them, and merchants profit from them.

Consumer psychology of blind box consumers is influenced by the differences of individual characteristics and social environment.
In this paper, the value perception of consumers in blind box marketing in POP MART is regarded as the external latent variable, the consumer's willingness to buy continuously is regarded as the internal latent variable, and the consumer's loyalty and satisfaction and consumer's emotion are regarded as the intermediary variables. In order to explore the relationship between blind box marketing and consumers' purchase intention. As shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Model diagram of the influence relationship between blind box marketing mode and consumers' purchase intention
According to this model, we can see that as long as they conform to this image of psychological driving force, they are basically potential consumers of blind boxes. Blind box follows a gambling pattern of "stimulation-pleasure-pleasure enhancement-addiction". The ecstatic people want to continue this kind of happiness, while the disappointed people want to turn the tables. It is found that the consumption psychology of blind box consumers is influenced by the differences of individual characteristics and social environment. Blind box has good social attributes, moderate price and unique shape, which is a daily social gift for young people. In addition, in the process of getting along with the blind box, you can discuss and communicate with each other in the "blind box communication group" established by the second-hand platform to form your own circle of friends. In the process of consumption, the material use value of blind boxes is put aside, and they are more willing to discover their spiritual value and find their own belonging. Figure 2 shows the age difference of psychological elements of blind box purchase.

Figure 2. Age differences of psychological factors in buying blind boxes
At present, the secondary culture, as a symbol of youth subculture, has become the spiritual home of young people's own sense of independence. Blind box, as the main derivative of secondary culture, conforms to the emotional consumption trend of youth groups-in the era of emotional consumption, adults hope to achieve emotional needs and comfort their body and mind with toys. At the same time, there are age differences of psychological factors in buying blind boxes. To some extent, blind box consumers' psychological factors of buying blind boxes in 24-year-olds and 25-34-year-olds show the new generation of consumption psychology of "post-90s" and "post-00s": the experience psychology plays the first role in consumption behavior. "I like" consumption concept will or will become the primary consumption concept of consumers; However, the psychology of "speculating blind box" and conformity, which have similar values, illustrate the pursuit of value appreciation in the current consumer market, and consumers pay more attention to the possible premium goods in the trend.

Conclusions
Blind box is no longer a single commodity, but has evolved into a unique consumption pattern. The visible or invisible influence brought by the blind box image is constantly shaping its charm and bringing a steady stream of benefits to enterprises. This paper analyzes the psychological mechanism of blind box consumers in POP MART from the angle of Internet communication and consumer psychology, and interprets the formation and development trend of blind box fever. At the same time, the psychological mechanism and market logic of blind box consumers are analyzed from the perspective of consumption psychology and investment psychology. Through the consumption psychology of young consumers behind the blind box economy, we can see that young people are increasingly expecting to publicize their individuality and express themselves through consumption, and pay more attention to experience and emotional satisfaction in the process of consumption. The emotional value of the blind box exceeds the use value, and the dolls in it bring psychological comfort and social group recognition to the younger generation, and are adult toys with positive energy. Adults buy blind boxes simply because they love them, and they get joy and satisfaction. In the future, with its rich and vivid IP image and huge fan base, Blind Box may be able to break through the boundary between retail and social, integrate the value of business and entertainment, and become a major starting point for China's cultural and economic development.