Introduction:Luckin Coffee has sparked strong dissatisfaction among fans due to multiple instances where its system and customer service misspelled its celebrity endorser Yi Yangqianxi’s name. The related topics quickly topped the trending lists on Weibo and Xiaohongshu. Although the brand swiftly issued an apology and corrected the errors, fans still felt the move was disrespectful—especially given the repeated mistakes during the contract period—which significantly undermined the brand’s sincerity. How exactly did these errors occur? Why were fan reactions so intense? This article takes you through the full story of the incident.
Recently, the well-known coffee brand Luckin Coffee has drawn strong backlash from fans after its online customer service and backend systems repeatedly misspelled its celebrity endorser Yi Yangqianxi’s name. The issue quickly climbed to the top of Weibo’s trending list and ranked second on Xiaohongshu’s hot topics. Although Luckin subsequently published an apology letter on Weibo, acknowledging the mistakes and correcting them immediately, many fans found the official response unacceptable, considering such basic and disrespectful errors occurred repeatedly during the endorsement contract period.
The incident began when a netizen publicly shared screenshots of customer service chats showing that Luckin’s online support had repeatedly misspelled the brand endorser Yi Yangqianxi’s name as “Yi Yangganxi.” This mistake quickly upset fans. When they contacted human customer service for clarification, the human representative also misspelled the name with the character “Gan,” leaving fans astonished.
Not only that, fans also discovered that besides the automated replies, similar misspellings appeared in guided questions involving the endorser’s name. Although this feature has since been hidden, it did little to appease the fans’ anger. Even more questionable, among the three endorsers—Yi Yangqianxi, Tan Jianci, and Liu Yifei—the automated response system set up by Luckin only failed to display normal content when “Yi Yangqianxi” was entered, responding instead with: “Sorry, we couldn’t understand your meaning…”, further fueling fan dissatisfaction.
Under public pressure, Luckin’s official account swiftly issued an apology on Weibo, stating that they had immediately apologized to Mr. Yi Yangqianxi and his management team, and promised to correct all the related misspellings without delay. Luckin emphasized that after receiving feedback, the team had taken the matter very seriously and promptly addressed the relevant issues in both the system and customer service training.
However, fans were unconvinced. Many pointed out that Yi Yangqianxi, as the brand’s endorser, not only helped the Roasted Coconut Latte achieve10.04 million cupsin first-week sales, but also sparked a social media check-in craze, significantly boosting overall brand sales. During such a crucial contract period, the fact that the system couldn’t even correctly display the endorser’s name was disheartening and led fans to question whether Luckin truly values this partnership.
Recalling November 27th of last year, Luckin simultaneously announced on various platforms that Yi Yangqianxi had become the brand’s endorser and launched the seasonal new product “Roasted Coconut Latte.” To support their idol, many fans not only queued up early each day to buy the drink but also shared their “coffee achievements” on social media—even those who don’t usually drink coffee were willing to check in multiple times for “Si Zi Di Di” (a nickname for Yi). According to official Luckin data, the new product achieved astonishing sales performance, and overall brand revenue also surged, highlighting the direct impact of fan power on brand performance.
Now, however, the frequent misspellings of the endorser’s name in the system have deeply disappointed many fans who support both the brand and their idol. For fans, this isn’t just a simple typing error—it’s a direct reflection of how the brand views the endorser and its fans.
The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
