When IP collaboration "goes beyond tea drinks": too many brands, not enough IPs | Inventory of collaborations in August and September

In the brand marketing arena, IP co-branding is setting off a new wave of cross-border cooperation. From tea drinks to snacks, from bottled drinks to daily necessities, major brands have joined hands with popular IPs to try to break through the fierce market competition. However, when IP co-branding becomes commonplace, are consumers still enthusiastic?

“In the past, joint ventures were mainly invested by leading brands, but now many new brands that have been established for one or two years are also doing it.”

“Joint cooperation involves all categories, and the demand for various joint cooperation is relatively strong.”

"Compared with Japan, Europe and the United States, our IP industry still has a certain gap in commercialization, and the commercial value of many excellent IPs with potential has not yet been fully tapped."

After the excitement of last year, IP collaboration has become normalized, with an average of more than 50 collaboration activities launched every month.

From August to September, more than 100 IP joint ventures were launched. When passing by milk tea shops, trendy toy stores, and beauty stores in shopping malls, you can always see a variety of joint products, or come across theme stores suitable for check-in.

Some brands even collaborate three times or more in a single month, such as KFC, Pizza Hut, and Luckin Coffee.

Previously, IP co-branding was mainly normalized in the tea and fast food industries. After all, this new marketing method originated from fast food and flourished from tea. But in recent months, more and more snack brands, bottled beverages, and daily necessities have begun to frequently co-brand, such as Food People, Bestore, and Master Kong.

Unlike the tea beverage industry, these brands have been relatively cautious about IP co-branding in the past, because co-branding means the need to redesign and customize packaging, which takes longer, is more difficult, and costs more.

Previously, a relevant person in charge of a beverage brand said, "When we do IP co-branding, we need to customize cans, and the minimum order quantity is more than 100,000 cans. Therefore, after the cooperation is established, the brand, e-commerce, logistics, design and other departments need to be started simultaneously, and the preparation takes at least 2 months."

Therefore, although these industries other than tea beverages have had relevant IP joint collaborations in the past, the frequency is relatively low.

Nowadays, more and more brands are targeting IP co-branding. The entry of many snack and beverage brands not only means that the marketing method of IP co-branding has entered a new stage, but also reveals a sense of anxiety that permeates the industry: Can IP co-branding save the downward trend, bring vitality or new possibilities, just like the business stories it has created in the tea beverage field?

Because these industries that have started to co-brand are more or less in a relatively stalemate development stage with fierce competition and infinitely compressed profit margins. For example, some snack brands have encountered a serious profit crisis, and a price change of 0.5 cents or 1 yuan for a beverage brand will be regarded as a "stab in the back" by consumers.

In addition, we have to pay attention to the fact that with the growing enthusiasm for joint ventures, the frequent appearance of popular IPs is also consuming the enthusiasm of fans. Whether from IP selection to gameplay settings, the homogeneity of joint ventures is becoming more and more serious. In this context, brands are also facing new challenges in doing IP joint ventures, that is, what kind of IP can stand out? At a time when IP joint ventures are launched every day, what new ideas can be played?

1. After tea, snacks and beverages began to bet on IP co-branding

IP collaboration is no longer a new thing for tea brands, but starting from the second half of this year, more and more industries other than tea have started to regularize collaborations.

"The joint cooperation involves all categories and brands, and each IP is different. Japanese comics are mostly commercialized joint cooperation, while national trend IPs are mostly joint marketing. Taking Chinese Peking Opera as an example, we have currently cooperated with Yikaide, Intel, JD.com, Geely Automobile and a snack brand, and there is a strong demand for various joint cooperations," Ji Zeyang, head of the Chinese Peking Opera IP of Jiewai Animation, told us.

"Different brands have different needs for joint ventures, but they are mainly concentrated in two categories, namely, improving brand influence or improving product conversion rate. For national trend IPs, improving brand influence is greater than conversion rate, while Japanese comic IP conversion rate is greater than improving brand influence."

Among the many new categories, the most prominent are bottled beverage brands. In the past two months, Master Kong, Duoduo Lemon Tea, Meiji Dairy, Zhenguoli, LiKe, and Coca-Cola have successively launched joint collaborations.

To a certain extent, there is a strong correlation between bottled beverages and freshly brewed tea drinks, and the tea brands’ joint venture strategies and successful cases are of reference significance. However, as mentioned above, the differences in sales models and product cycles between the two also determine that bottled beverages have many restrictions on IP joint ventures.

However, regardless of the difficulty, it is a certain fact that bottled beverages are aiming for IP collaboration, especially the success of Luckin Coffee and "Black Myth: Wukong" in August, which once again proved to all walks of life that there are still countless possibilities for IP collaboration.

"The popularity of Luckin Coffee and Black Myth: Wukong has also stimulated many fast-moving consumer goods brands. Many brands have begun looking for suitable IP cooperation. This cooperation has indeed reached many brands and consumers who had not paid attention to joint names before," Wang Wenbin, co-founder of Guangzhou Weiwenhuaming Animation Co., Ltd. told us.

In addition to the stimulation brought by the sister industry, bottled beverages themselves are also facing greater industry challenges and are in urgent need of breakthroughs. Today, the industry competition faced by bottled beverages is no less than that of tea brands. On one hand, there are national brands that have already established their own kingdoms, and on the other hand, there are endless new brands. From taste to packaging aesthetics, to value propositions, consumers always have choices.

At the same time, after consumption downgrade, consumers have become more sensitive to the price of bottled water. Many old brands such as Yilibao and Nongfu Spring have joined the price war, and the 1L large bottle of "Diaosi drink" is very popular among young people.

Coupled with the competition from freshly brewed tea drinks, it is becoming increasingly difficult for beverage brands to stand out, and IP collaboration has become a marketing method favored by brands.

Secondly, snack brands including Bestore, Alps, and Hershey Mints have also joined the massive IP co-branding queue, which is closely related to the snack brands' growing anxiety.

The anxiety of snack brands can be seen from the financial reports of various companies. In the first half of the year, the total revenue and net profit of Bestore fell by 2.52% and 87.38% respectively; in the third quarter, although the total revenue of Haoshangni increased by 16.44% year-on-year, the net profit decreased by 98.73% year-on-year; the total revenue of Laiyifen and Lurun in the first half of the year also fell by 15.05% and 72.56% respectively. However, brands such as Yanjinpu and Three Squirrels achieved high growth by bundling mass-market snack stores.

The polarization of performance shows that the development of snack brands has reached a fork in the road. If they do not adjust their strategies in time, they are likely to be eliminated by the industry. This has, to a certain extent, prompted brands to be more proactive in exploring new marketing methods.

"Many brands are also facing the problem of aging customer base and need more new consumers. In addition, many brands need to continuously launch new products. It would be difficult to rely solely on products, but changes in packaging through IP will bring a sense of freshness to consumers," said Wang Wenbin.

In addition, more and more offline retail stores have also begun to collaborate with IPs. Although this is not a new trend, the "grain fever" is involving more offline retail brands besides trendy toys. In August, Watsons collaborated with Doraemon and launched a variety of peripheral products such as water cups, dolls, cosmetic bags, handbags, neck pillows, etc., which aroused the childhood memories and purchasing desire of many netizens.

Netizens said, "I want them all", "I watched Doraemon when I was a child, and I still watch it when I grow up", "I can't walk anymore after watching it".

Some daily necessities have also launched joint cooperation. Vinda and Line Dog have launched napkins, wet toilet paper, and handkerchiefs; Casio has launched joint cooperation with "Jujutsu Kaisen" and a charity organization; the mobile phone case brand CASEBANG has launched a joint mobile phone case with Pokémon. However, compared with the above industries, the frequency of IP joint cooperation in these industries is relatively low, and no certain rules have been formed for the time being.

Under the stimulation of many aspects, many non-tea beverage and non-head small and medium-sized brands have begun to test the waters or prepare to enter the market. The marketing method of IP co-branding has begun to spread from tea beverage brands to other industries. "However, due to the high co-branding licensing fees, many new brands will consider it, but will not use IP co-branding as a normal marketing action for the time being," Wang Wenbin mentioned.

2. Can IP collaboration save declining performance?

Combining past cases, IP collaboration does have the ability to create business stories and can still excite the nerves of the industry and consumers.

Some new brands have also tasted the sweetness of IP co-branding. Not long ago, Bestore started its cooperation with The King's Avatar and launched a co-branded gift package priced at 188 yuan. Currently, the sales volume on Taobao is over 700, and the total sales volume exceeds 130,000. The electrolyte beverage co-branded by Li Ke and Jujutsu Kaisen was sold out on multiple platforms as soon as it was launched, and it also topped the Douyin instant drink list.

"After the successful launch of the first PLUS electrolyte beverage in collaboration with "Jujutsu Kaisen", the total online and offline sales of the LiKe brand exceeded 5 million yuan during the first round of launch, and it has established a good reputation and brand awareness among the general public," Liu Shiyu, head of the LiKe brand, told us.

For a brand that has just been established for three years, IP co-branding has indeed brought great benefits to the brand. According to internal information, Li Ke is actively preparing for the second wave of co-branding projects with "Jujutsu Kaisen" to further expand the brand's influence.

But apart from this, there are no other achievements that are worthy of the industry's excitement, and certainly not as great as the impact brought by Luckin Coffee's collaboration with "Black Myth: Wukong".

Therefore, from the perspective of these newly-entered industries themselves, how much appeal does IP co-branding have, whether it can really bring both word-of-mouth and sales, and especially whether it can truly help brands rise in the internal competition, remains a question mark.

The most critical factor is that consumers are becoming desensitized to IP collaboration, and the marginal effect is clearly beginning to decrease.

Of course, this problem exists for all brands that do IP co-branding, including tea brands. Heytea, known as the "king of co-branding" and popularized by IP co-branding, also sparked heated discussions on social platforms last year through co-branding with FENDI, Chow Tai Fook and other brands, and was repeatedly mentioned as a success story, but this year the volume of discussion has obviously decreased.

The same goes for Luckin Coffee. Before "Black Myth: Wukong", the last time it made the whole nation excited by a collaboration was the "Soy Sauce Latte" launched in collaboration with Moutai in September last year.

However, after a long period of exploration, Heytea and Luckin have also developed their own unique strategies in IP collaboration. Heytea's IP collaboration is more to serve the new brand concept of "health", and Luckin also strongly binds IP collaboration with the launch of new products.

For these brands that have just started to collaborate, it is very important to find a strategy that suits them from the beginning, otherwise it will be a thankless task. However, observing the collaboration strategies of these brands, they mainly learn from tea brands.

The basic gameplay is product + peripheral gifts. Related products are mainly divided into limited gift boxes according to different brands, such as Alps; limited products without redesigned packaging, such as Master Kong Jasmine Honey Tea; customized products with redesigned packaging, such as Li Ke; and a few new products launched by IP co-branding, such as the co-branding of Food Clan and "Time Agent", which simultaneously launched a new flavor product "Xuzhou Flavor Meat Sauce Rice Noodles" and redesigned the packaging.

The peripheral products used in conjunction with the event are mainly barbells, standees, refrigerator magnets, stickers, transparent cards, etc. There is not much difference between industries and brands. Especially at the moment when one IP can collaborate with multiple brands at the same time, the substitutability is extremely strong.

In addition to the fact that the implementation itself is more complicated, most brands other than tea drinks and retail stores do not have offline space, and are unable to optimize theme stores and store services, and are unable to satisfy consumers' offline immersive experience, which is a major flaw.

In addition, another key point of IP co-branding is the matching degree between the brand and the IP. "Many brands do not understand it at the beginning, and the IP they choose does not overlap with their own customer base. Secondly, the brand's channel construction. If the channel itself is not well built, it is difficult to achieve results by co-branding alone," Wang Wenbin added.

"For most categories, IP is a bonus, the icing on the cake, not the foundation. Brands still need to build their own channels, which is the basic foundation for brand sales."

In short, routine and normalized IP collaborations are becoming increasingly difficult to impress consumers. Therefore, if a brand wants to stand out or sell more products through IP collaborations, it is more important to find the right IP and design innovative peripherals based on improving channel construction, gaining insight into industry changes and consumer needs, and bringing consumers a better experience.

3. How to stand out from the crowd with high-frequency collaborations?

Although it is true that it is difficult for IP collaborations to break out of the circle, it does not mean that success is impossible without traces and depends solely on fate. Looking at the recent cases that have gone viral, they have actually found a breakthrough, either in the choice of IP or in the innovation of gameplay.

From the perspective of IP selection, although the large-scale demand for joint ventures has brought huge commercial space, it is also obvious that IP joint ventures are becoming homogenized. The mass launch of cooperation is silently diluting the popularity of joint ventures, including the value of the IP itself. For example, on September 26, the female-oriented immersive story card mobile game "Ru Yuan" started public beta, and "Ru Yuan" also announced 28 brands to join.

This trend has become the norm in the industry. Looking at the brand co-branding cases in the past three months, IPs such as "Time Agent", "Love and Deep Space", and "Line Puppy" have frequently appeared.

The high frequency of joint ventures has also caused dissatisfaction among fans. Many people commented, "Agent of Time, are you going to run away with the money? You are doing joint ventures every day, one after another." "The experience of each joint venture is not good. I have gradually gone from doting to being disenchanted." This kind of feedback is not beneficial to either the brand or the IP.

Based on this, popular IPs may bring certain guarantees, but only by choosing truly scarce and well-known IPs can you leverage large traffic.

In addition to Luckin Coffee and Black Myth: Wukong, Nayuki's Tea and Harry Potter's collaboration at the end of August also went viral. On the day of its launch, a large number of fans rushed to place orders, sparking controversy over which hospital-related products sold more. On Xiaohongshu, #奈雪哈渤渤牌合名 has over 10 million views, and many netizens on Weibo have posted their orders and discussed it.

The reason why these collaborations stand out is the scarcity of the IP itself. Although Harry Potter has launched joint collaborations one after another, compared with the current high frequency of joint launches, the rhythm is still very restrained.

"The current domestic joint-branded market seems to have entered a stage of fierce competition, but most of them still adopt the agency model. Compared with Japan, Europe and the United States, our IP industry still has a certain gap in the degree of commercialization, and the commercial value of many excellent IPs with potential has not yet been fully tapped," said Ji Zeyang.

In fact, there are still many IPs waiting to be developed in China. "First, there is the cultural and tourism category. The degree of IPization of this type is still shallow and has broad development space. Secondly, there is domestic animation, especially domestic animation based on traditional culture, which has a vast worldview and impressive images. We can learn from Disney's model, build theme parks, and further promote commercialization development. In addition, there are many personal and celebrity IPs."

From the perspective of gameplay, one problem with current IP co-branding is that the gameplay is very routine. Although the materials and interactions are much richer than when IP co-branding first emerged, in contrast, many of them are just copies of industry routines. Whether the characteristics of the two IPs can be deeply integrated to highlight the freshness and stimulate consumers' curiosity is something that IP co-branding must consider.

In September, the collaboration between Coca-Cola and Oreo was a positive example of deep integration. Although at first glance, the collaboration between the two brands was confusing to many people, the two parties jointly launched "Oreo cookies with Coca-Cola flavor" and "Oreo-flavored Coca-Cola". The brain hole and new products immediately raised consumers' expectations. It was truly a "once-in-a-century" event.

After the limited edition product was launched, the strange taste also attracted extreme comments. Some netizens said that "Oreo lovers and Coke lovers are silent", but some netizens gave positive comments, saying that "there is no disappointment and everything is just right."

Coca-Cola and Oreo also jointly launched black and red colored walkie-talkies, flying chess and other peripherals.

Although controversial, the collaboration between Coca-Cola and Oreo still caught the attention of consumers, and it also provided some reference ideas for other brands to avoid falling into clichés.

In addition, for many brands that simultaneously launch themed stores, a good offline experience is also a way to attract consumers.

Overall, the trend of IP co-branding has not only not stopped, but has spread to all walks of life. This is a good thing for consumers, which means that there are more abundant content and products to choose from, and it has also become a way to "get high emotional value at a low price." However, from a commercial perspective, IP co-branding cannot be done by copying and pasting. It is necessary to create uniqueness in all aspects, from IP selection to peripherals, gameplay, products, etc., in order to achieve fame and fortune in the average of 50+ co-branding activities per month.