This batch of college students talks about cyber romance at Gu Ming

This article mainly discusses how the new tea beverage industry can achieve brand rejuvenation and increase sales through cooperation with otome games, as well as the psychological principles and social background behind this approach.

Last year, the new tea drinks industry was criticized for "cutting leeks" with more than 160 joint ventures. Just when everyone thought that the new tea drinks joint ventures were in a weak state, the joint ventures with B-games seemed to have become a quick-acting heart-saving pill for the entire industry, and even increasingly became a kind of "correct" marketing method.

In addition to the popular cases such as Cha Baidao x "Undetermined Incident Book", CoCo x "Love and Producer", Heytea x "Love and Night", on June 21, Gu Ming's joint "Love and Deep Space" was officially launched. The Gu Ming official mini program crashed due to too many visitors, and the joint packages in many stores were sold out as soon as they were put on the shelves.

Here is a concept. Otome games refer to love simulation games with women as the main characters and multiple men as the targets of pursuit. In 2017, Paper Games launched "Love and Producer", which opened the precedent of Chinese otome games. "Love and Deep Space" is its new otome game launched in January this year, focusing on an immersive love battle system.

What attracted Dao Fa's attention was not the gameplay of Gu Ming x "Love and Deep Space" (after all, the gameplay of buying a joint package and giving away peripherals is almost the same), but the following two facts:

Fact 1: Due to the twists and turns of the plot and the novel 3D character interactions of "Love and Deep Space", the revenue in the first week of the service opening quickly exceeded 150 million yuan. Since then, "Who will be the first co-branded tea brand of "Love and Deep Space"?" has triggered months of speculation among netizens, and finally it fell to Gu Ming. At present, Gu Ming has not yet opened a store in the core area of ​​Shanghai, but has set up a co-branded theme pop-up store in Shanghai. According to the "China Beverage Express", the store had a queue of more than 8,000 cups within one hour of opening.

Fact 2: On social platforms, some players complained that Gu Ming’s purchase-and-gift promotion was not sincere and that there were some backlashes. However, due to the good reputation of the Shanghai pop-up store, there were more calls for Gu Ming to open a store in Shanghai during the event period.

Therefore, we can't help but wonder:

What magic does the new tea drink joint venture have that can make people who originally didn’t plan to drink milk tea choose to drink it?

If there is no collaboration with B-game, how can new tea drinks keep users who can’t drink milk tea from continuing to repurchase?

This article mainly uses cases such as Gu Ming, Heytea, and Bawang Cha Ji. However, we believe that studying new tea drinks can also inspire other categories to varying degrees.

1. Milk tea is an emotional consumption, and the joint venture with B-game has magnified this "easy access"

When it comes to the prosperity of new tea drinks and erotic games, I believe the first thing that comes to everyone’s mind is the rise of the “she economy”.

Aurora Big Data once used "Love and Producer" as an example to describe the user portrait of B-games:

1. More than 90% of players are under 30 years old, and 74% are under 24 years old.
2. More than half of the players are located in first- and second-tier cities, with Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangzhou ranking in the top three. The top 10 cities are all municipalities/provincial capitals.
3. Nearly 30% of players have a DAU of 2 hours
4. The user income is relatively limited, but the number of krypton gold players (users who pay for B-games) is also astonishing, and there are many heavy krypton players (users who spend tens of thousands of dollars a month)

The main consumers of new tea drinks are also young people in high-tier cities. From this, we can conclude that the high degree of user overlap, focused attention, and enthusiasm for paying for interests are the reasons why new tea drinks are linked to erotic games. Continuing to explore the young population, when the beverage market is accelerating to focus on college students, it is obvious that these new tea drink brands can accelerate their penetration into the college population by linking with erotic games and strive to become "the first cup of milk tea for young people."

But if you look deeper, new tea drinks are not just about exploring new logic, but are in a state of "you can drink it or not".

For many years, new tea drinks have been fighting against the perception that traditional milk tea is high in calories and unhealthy. For today's consumers, whether it is traditional milk tea or new tea drinks, regardless of whether the product calories and ingredient list are open and transparent, "drinking milk tea" is essentially an "emotional consumption" with a little indulgence. It is precisely this emotional consumption that has the power to penetrate different circles.

Only when the mood is right, the option of "drinking milk tea" will appear in the list of daily life.

At the 2023 Sword Skills Summit, Daojie Doris proposed the four acceleration tracks of "emotion-fun-use-product" under the omni-domain operation, and the case of Gu Ming x "Love and Deep Space" did the right homework in the two major tracks of "emotion" and "fun", allowing both B-game players and non-players to feel a sense of "easy access" with a lower threshold.

The first is "emotion", corresponding to the values ​​of the group. Which sub-groups are rising rapidly and have high demands?

The "2024 Two-Dimensional Trend Consumption" Trend Report points out that the demand for goods (goods refers to ACG peripherals such as anime/games) among ACG players is becoming a popular consumption trend that affects all ages and genders.

During this joint venture, Gu Ming launched the slogan "Meet in the sky, share tea for love", and the three drinks correspond to the three male protagonists of the game, including Shen Xinghui's Xizi Longjingchun, Qi Yu's Konggu Oolongqing, and Li Shen's Yunling Jasmine White. Users who purchase the joint package can receive joint laser tickets, stickers, badges, insulation bags and other peripherals, and can also get customized Easter egg cup sets when purchasing in the store.

According to the price calculation of mini programs/takeaway channels, players can collect all the peripherals of a male protagonist by spending an average of about 30 yuan. In contrast, the official prices of Yiyou’s products are high and the pre-sale period is long (usually starting from 120 days). New tea brands such as Gu Ming have co-branded Yiyou’s peripherals, which are limited in quantity but more cost-effective.

The second is "fun", which corresponds to interests and hobbies. The carrier here is content. For example, the short dramas that are very popular on the Douyin platform are new acceleration points.

In the field of ACG, it is common knowledge that official works often rely on fan-made secondary creations to maintain their vitality. In addition to the co-branded package purchase and gift peripherals, Gu Ming also launched a theme park flash at the Shanghai BFC Bund Financial Center and opened theme stores in 14 cities across the country. Players go there to buy designated packages and participate in interactive games, and have the opportunity to win corresponding prizes. In addition, Gu Ming has set up 2,500+ atmosphere stores and landmark screens in 16 cities across the country. All of the above provide players with a rich secondary creation space.

Therefore, a lot of memes were used to promote the long-tail content of the joint venture. Some players bought six cups of milk tea as soon as possible and got all the millet. Some players made their own peripherals and released teaching videos to recycle the joint cup sets. There were also many users with IP addresses in Shanghai who asked their relatives and friends to help buy the set meal through cross-provincial drinking, or got up early and queued for three hours in the rain just to see the male protagonist at the BFC pop-up store.

According to Qiangua data, in the past month, Gu Ming's official Xiaohongshu account had a large increase in followers, except for the paid promotion notes in May. The highest increase in followers was on June 21, the day the joint venture was launched, exceeding 3,600 in a single day. Gu Ming's increasing discussion on social platforms has also increased its brand awareness in the Shanghai market.

Gu Ming Shanghai pop-up store is booming

Are people who drink milk tea and those who play B-games the same group of people? — This question has been discussed for so many years that it is no longer necessary to distinguish it so clearly. What is important is how the cooperating brands can convey emotional value through small activities and maximize the "easy access" of users' small indulgence moments.

2. Based on identity recognition, make drinking milk tea an “action command” in specific scenarios

Recently, Joanna, global expert partner of Bain & Company and former CMO of Coca-Cola Greater China and Korea, was a guest on the "Gentle Knife" podcast. She pointed out that food and beverages mainly solve consumers' "itch points" and create consumers' "addiction points".

In the vast FMCG market, consumers often have pain points in their needs, but not always have itch points. The emotional consumption mentioned above is one of the itch points. However, if we consider repurchase, the food and beverage category actually relies more on scenario-driven consumer decision paths.

With this idea in mind, we re-examined the marketing strategies of new tea drinks in recent years and found that the consumption scenarios of new tea drink brands have already undergone profound iterations.

2016-2019: New tea brands represented by Heytea and Nayuki innovatively used ingredients such as fruits and cheese to upgrade the taste and appearance of traditional milk tea products, and frequently appeared in office afternoon teas and check-ins at Internet celebrity stores. Although the specific drinking scenes are different, milk tea plays the central role of social currency in them.

2020-2022: Constrained by the external market environment, a cup of freshly made milk tea has become an emotional carrier for "pleasing oneself".

2023 to present: Cross-border collaboration focuses on interest-based payment scenarios. For example, Heytea launched a "get a wedding certificate" event in collaboration with "Love and Night" during Valentine's Day, and Guming launched a badge-getting event in collaboration with "Love and Deep Space". This allows Heytea and Guming to stand out from the competition of afternoon tea with brands of the same price such as Nayuki's Tea/Cha Baidao and Shanghai Auntie, and directly radiate to target users, who only need to answer "drink or not drink".

In other words, the new tea drink's step of co-branding a second-tier game has, on the basis of emotional boost, rolled up the "identity recognition" composed of values ​​and interests. The new tea drink's cooperation with the second-tier game constitutes a specific scenario, giving users a YES or No judgment question, rather than a multiple-choice question of N choices, and the action instructions are more simplified.

Of course, the specific scenario created by brand co-branded B-games only exists in a certain cycle. When the marketing heat has passed, the repurchase situation will still depend on the brand’s own efforts.

What’s interesting is that emotion + scenario-driven doesn’t actually require a joint game. Some brands can achieve this on their own. For example, Heytea’s new slogan “Joy Happens” proposed last year emphasizes a very broad range of scenarios, including actions such as pleasing oneself and sharing joy with friends. It is applicable to any social scenario.

So what about scenario-driven with added identity recognition?

A more appropriate example is Ba Wang Cha Ji. The brand’s mission is “to make friends around the world with oriental tea”, which gives users a psychological hint that as long as we drink Ba Wang Cha Ji, we are all fans of oriental tea culture.

"Meeting friends over tea" is a directive that applies to all scenarios and identities

Objectively speaking, through comparison, these simple eight words of Ba Wang Cha Ji are easier to understand than the slogan "Meet in the sky, share tea for love" proposed by Gu Ming x "Love and Deep Space", and the tea-drinking instructions given to users are also clearer.

We have to admit that when cross-border brand collaborations are becoming more and more tiring and more and more competitive, Bawang Tea Princess once again stands at a higher perspective and hits the essence of the problem.

3. Analyst Comments

Since the wave of domestic brand consumption began in the past few years, consumers have had a vague sense of value assessment of brands.

As the most representative category in the wave of domestic products, the fact that new tea drinks are the first to recognize eryou means that consumption concepts are becoming more and more diverse, which is an exciting phenomenon. On the other hand, the core group of eryou has amazing spending power, so even if the original intention of the FMCG brand collaboration is to boost sales in the short term, there is nothing to be ashamed of.

However, co-branding is an attitude, especially co-branding for B-games. As for the phenomenon that B-game co-branding is becoming more and more mainstream, we still have to seriously advise brands that don’t understand the situation to not easily enter the market.

The reason why a joint venture between B-game and other brands can go viral is that it is based on mutual understanding between different brands, and it is the common ground and differences in consumer culture and values. Although the main purpose is to boost sales, we cannot just look at current sales. We must take care of user emotions from the details. The joint new products, joint packages and peripheral purchase and gift mechanisms must at least meet the passing line, break the stereotype of clearing inventory and "cutting leeks", and establish brand favorability.

On the contrary, a failed collaboration with an online game is hard to be forgotten and may even become the original sin of the brand’s cultural genes. For example, the “Shanghai Auntie” was a case of some staff at a franchise store insulting online game players. Two years later, it was still used as a negative example by netizens.

After that, not only new tea drinks, but also brands from all walks of life, when they cross-border co-branded games, whether the training for franchise store employees is in place has become a potential indicator to test the brand's hard power.

The popularity of Gu Ming's joint venture with "Love and Deep Space" has also been boosted by the service quality of the staff at the Shanghai BFC theme pop-up store. A user at the site said that in order to do a good job of the Shanghai pop-up event, Gu Ming sent "elite" staff, the "Gu Ming Special Shake Milk Tea Team", who had high requirements for the speed of cup delivery and on-site interaction.

At present, the two-dimensional group represented by B-game players is no longer the non-mainstream group of more than ten years ago. They have grown into the backbone of the majority of consumers, scattered in all circles of men, women, young and old, and should not be viewed with a tinted filter.

After all, you never know whether your colleague who is very professional at work is actually an avid user of a certain B-game in private (laughs).

References:

June 2024, China Beverage Express, "Gu Ming enters Shanghai for the first time, and the rush for it is crazy! 8,000+ cups lined up within 1 hour of opening..."

May 2024, Reliable 2D, "2024 "2D Trend Consumption" Trend Report"

In March 2021, Peking University New Media Research Institute published a report titled "New Media Observation || Research on User Consumption of "Otome" Games - Taking "Love and Producer" as an Example"

Author | Chu Qing This article is written by the author of Operation Party [Knife Skills Research Institute], WeChat public account: [Knife Skills Research Institute], original/authorized to be published in Operation Party, and any reproduction without permission is prohibited.

The title image is from Unsplash, based on the CC0 protocol.