Have you stocked up on bags? Creative paper bags become the "new social currency"

Nowadays, as long as you go shopping, you will unknowingly have a lot more packaging bags. From milk tea, stationery, accessories, to electrical appliances and clothes, well-designed packaging bags have become a part of our lives.

In addition to daily needs, these high-value packaging bags often appear in Moments and Xiaohongshu, and have gained a lot of attention with their unique designs.

These creative paper bags have their own design ingenuity. Some are co-branded with classic film and television dramas, animation games, and IP images. Some are co-branded with luxury goods that people think are not very down-to-earth. New packaging, and some are combined with the most popular Internet celebrities at the fastest speed, which makes people shine.

Unlike the patterns printed on milk tea cups, milk tea cups are thrown away after drinking, and it is difficult to collect and preserve. However, creative paper bags can be used again or collected. They are both unique and environmentally friendly, so the cost-effectiveness of collecting paper bags is very high. More importantly, in the era of cultural fast-moving consumer goods where "appearance is justice", it is also the darling of social platforms and has become a new "social currency", bringing real topics and traffic.

[1] Cultural and creative paper bags become "new social currency"

Some media pointed out that cultural and creative paper bags can be a new type of "peripheral product". What is rare is that this simple "facelift" of product packaging can continue to give people a sense of freshness. It is leading a new concept of product display, which is to pay attention to visual and symbolic elements.

For young people who are willing to pay for feelings, cultural and creative paper bags are beautiful and textured, and co-branded peripherals are emotional and refreshing. These creative consumer products that combine emotional value, social attributes, and cultural heritage are becoming one of the new consumption trends for young people.

Buy a co-branded drink, gain a unique aesthetic and drinking experience, and then take a beautiful picture and post it to the social account to show your taste and preferences, attracting praise and discussion from friends. After all, no matter how many exclamations are written, they are not as direct as pictures and emoticons.

It would be even more pleasant if we could meet people with the same frequency and exchange ideas about the uniqueness of this cultural and creative IP design, or the subsequent transformation ideas of cultural and creative paper bags.

[2] Contemporary young people love "collecting rags"

Collecting paper bags is affectionately called the rag collecting behavior of contemporary young people by netizens on the Internet. The paper bag collector and the beautiful paper head represent the people who collect paper bags.

Each generation has its own collection preferences, from candy wrappers and stamps, Ultraman cards, neutral pen refills, paper bags, to emoticons and red envelope covers.

We will collect what we like, what we want to keep, and what we need. For young people who like to express themselves with pictures, collecting cultural and creative paper bags that suit their aesthetics and preferences is also a way to love life.

For those who have spare time, recording and modifying peripherals is even more fun.

On social platforms, many people shared their experiences of “saving bags”. Some people simply felt that throwing away was a waste, so they kept them to “make the most of them”; some people did it because they loved packaging design; some people did it because they had a pair of deft hands and wanted to keep them for “re-creation”; and some people did it to collect special co-branded paper bags for secondary sales.

For example, Luckin Coffee’s co-branding with Tom and Jerry has received a lot of attention, and how to transform paper bags has once become the traffic code of Xiaohongshu.

[3] Changes in young people’s consumption habits and concepts seen in paper bags

On February 29, the Shanghai Consumer Protection Committee released the report “New Insights: Consumption Concepts and Consumption Propositions of Post-00s”, which mentioned that post-00s are not stingy about paying for consumption that can provide emotional value. They like to follow hot topics and trends and share their lives and consumption experiences through social media. At the same time, they also hope to show their personality and taste through unique consumption choices.

"This seemingly contradictory behavior reflects the post-00s' dual pursuit of self-identity and social identity. They want to integrate into the group while maintaining their own uniqueness. Herd consumption satisfies their social needs, sense of security and belonging, but they also show their personal growth through personalization." said Tang Jiansheng, deputy secretary-general of the Shanghai Consumer Protection Committee.

And cultural and creative paper bags are a microcosm of young people's consumption.

Cultural and creative products have always been popular consumer goods, and cultural and creative derivatives are also the track for various brands to "roll". KFC's blind box toys, 3CE's scarves, Adidas's pots, Tiffany's playing cards and LV's jigsaw puzzles have all been out of the circle.

From a small paper bag, we can see the pursuit of individuality by young people today. Cute, fashionable, luxury, simple, ancient, all styles have a large audience base, and behind each style is an expression of a lifestyle and attitude.

Behind each "traffic password" are hidden changes and evolutions in social concepts. If cultural and creative products want to go viral, they need to consider the big picture and start from the small.

Just the cultural and creative paper bags alone can show the posture of "Eight Immortals crossing the sea and showing their magical powers". In the future, whether it can provide consumers with a novel and wonderful experience that meets their imagination, and whether it can meet people's current aesthetic tendencies and consumption habits, will inevitably become a hurdle that consumer products must pass, and it is a problem that merchants will continue to think about in the future.