Mystery box or blind box is a popular species among young Chinese consumers in recent years, even creating Pop Mart, a Hong Kong-listed company with a market capitalization of HK$102.3 billion ($13 billion).
Nio is not currently trying to compete with companies including Pop Mart, but is innovatively incorporating the concept into its own marketing campaigns to drive vehicle sales.
The Chinese electric car company recently announced a marketing campaign on its app to encourage owners to invite friends to take Nio vehicles for a test drive. The reward offered by Nio is a mystery box, which users open to receive a random gift attached.
Nio said that from July 2 to September 10, users will receive one mystery box for every friend they invite to complete their first test drive.
Nio will start pushing the mystery box to owners in the app on July 7, where the random gift amounts to varying amounts of Nio Points and, more importantly, the right to specify the battery swap station construction area by the user.
Nio is offering 10 mystery boxes that include the right to choose the battery swap station construction location, saying this is an unplanned additional addition this year and is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2022.
The specific city and address of the station will be mutually agreed upon by the user and the regional director after the user is granted the right.
Nio's goal is to have 500 battery swap stations in China by the end of this year, and that number has already reached 300.
For Nio users, having a battery swap station near their home is one of the happiest things.
In addition, Nio will give away Atlantis, Sanya experience vouchers and Nio Life merchandise to 80 people each week who are invited to complete a test drive for the first time.
Everyone can participate in this campaign and invite their friends to experience Nio products.
The invitation channel of this activity is unlimited, friends can accept the invitation through invitation links, invitation codes, invitation posters with different activity themes, and the mystery box benefits and other channel rewards can be stacked.
