When Luckin Coffee and Moutai sell hot chocolate together

After gaining huge traffic with "Jiangxiang Latte", Kweichow Moutai and Luckin Coffee launched a new product "Jiangxiang Chocolate". Can the sweetness of Jiangxiang Latte continue?

Have you had the first cup of "Moutai" in 2024? On January 22, Luckin Coffee launched a new product with a high profile, announcing that it would join hands with Moutai again to launch the new Spring Festival product "Dragon Year Sauce-flavored Chocolate" with the selling point of "the first cup of the Year of the Dragon". The new product is priced at 38 yuan per cup in the mini program, and the actual payment after the discount is only 18 yuan.

From the choice of the co-branded partner, to the release time, to the price and related materials, it is clear that Luckin Coffee expects this cup of sauce-flavored chocolate to replicate the "miracle" of sauce-flavored latte. But reality seems to have poured cold water on this seemingly popular co-branded product.

First, the sales volume suffered a "Waterloo". When Luckin Coffee first teamed up with Moutai to launch the "Sauce Flavor Latte", according to the brand's public data, on the first day of the new product's launch, sales exceeded 5.42 million cups, and single product sales exceeded 100 million yuan, directly breaking Luckin Coffee's single product record. But this cup of sauce-flavored chocolate, on a weekday morning, iBrandi Pinchuang visited several Luckin Coffee stores in Beijing CBD, and did not see the same explosion of popularity as when the "Sauce Flavored Latte" was launched. In addition, according to some media reports in Shanghai and Guangzhou, the offline performance of sauce-flavored chocolate is also far inferior to that of sauce-flavored latte, not to mention the phenomenon of being directly sold out.

Secondly, netizens are not buying it. Before the launch of the sauce-flavored chocolate, Luckin Coffee conducted relevant preheating as usual. It is worth noting that Luckin Coffee held a related vote on "Are you looking forward to the new joint venture of Luckin Coffee and Moutai?" The results showed that more than 50% of netizens chose "not interested", and other netizens said, "The taste is hard to describe just by hearing the name" and "I won't buy it if I don't participate in the 9.9 yuan event." At the same time, on social media, compared with the previous sharing of the joy of "drinking the first cup of sauce-flavored latte", users who bought it are more likely to express their disapproval of the product. As for why the "first cup of the Year of the Dragon" failed to successfully fire the first shot, iBrandi believes that there are three reasons.

First, at the product level, the coffee brand does not sell coffee, but hot chocolate instead. As a chain coffee brand, it is understandable to launch non-coffee beverages, which is also one of the market trends. However, if a "non-mainstream" product is launched in a joint marketing with strong exposure and high expectations, it seems to be putting the cart before the horse? According to the official introduction of Luckin Coffee, the new product does not contain coffee. The main ingredients are pure milk, white wine-flavored thick milk (configured milk-containing beverages), and fragrant cocoa-flavored solid beverages. In fact, for users who choose Luckin Coffee, most of them regard coffee as a daily necessity. Compared with tasting and feeling boutique coffee, the function of "refreshing" is more important to them. Perhaps because of this, even if the joint name with Moutai is eye-catching enough, buying a cup of alcoholic hot chocolate will not be their choice.

Second, at the user level, facing the same "routine", the initial sense of freshness has disappeared. Luckin's main consumer groups are students and white-collar workers aged 20 to 35, who do not belong to Moutai's traditional consumer groups. Therefore, when the sauce-flavored latte was launched, for them, it only cost 19 yuan to drink the sauce-flavored latte with Moutai added, which was much cheaper than the previous 68 yuan Moutai ice cream. Therefore, many people call the sauce-flavored latte "the first cup of Moutai in life." This is the same reason why Heytea asked young people to mention "the first FENDI bag in life." But when Luckin "repeated the old trick" again, even if it was the same "recipe", most consumers no longer felt fresh, especially when the product was a cup of decaffeinated drink, then the possibility of it being chosen was even lower.

Third, although co-branding is good, we must return to the essence. When the product is not enough to impress users, and the consumers' "curiosity" disappears, the second marriage of "explosive product maker" Luckin Coffee and Moutai may not achieve the expected results of both brands. In fact, in the consumer market in 2023, co-branded marketing is the biggest theme, especially for some new tea and coffee brands that need to stand in the market for a long time and grab the attention of users. However, for brands, co-branding must also return to its essence. The first essence is the creation of co-branded products, and the second essence is whether the two parties of the co-branding are really compatible.

Back to Luckin Coffee and Moutai, product innovation and breaking the circle of the crowd are what the two brands need at the moment, and the first cooperation between the two parties has indeed achieved results beyond expectations. Luckin Coffee has raised its brand image and further sublimated its brand moat by leveraging the potential of Moutai, the national liquor; for Moutai, from brand, product to user, it has achieved multiple attention and effects such as breaking the circle and brand rejuvenation. In fact, the reason why most users were initially surprised by the joint name of the two parties is because some consumers believe that the brand tone of the two parties is "completely unrelated."

Although Moutai has achieved a breakthrough, its high-end positioning mainly attracts some specific consumer groups, while Luckin Coffee mainly targets young white-collar workers and students. This kind of cooperation can break the circle, but it is difficult to reach the core target market of both parties in depth and effectively. Especially for Moutai, as a representative of high-end sauce-flavored liquor, high quality is one of its necessary labels. If the co-branded products bring some negative reputation, for Moutai, some co-branding behaviors are a bit upside down.

On the 22nd, an insider of Moutai said that the Dragon Year Sauce Flavor Latte is not a new joint name, but a continuation of the Sauce Flavor series of products. In the future, Moutai and Luckin will continue to develop the Sauce Flavor Latte series of products to bring more Sauce Flavor products to consumers. After this "Waterloo", for both parties, the underlying logic of a product that can become a "hot product" is always that the product is strong enough, whether from the perspective of innovation or taste, just like the "rising star" and "enduring" raw coconut latte. "White wine +" is very hot, "coffee +" is very hot, and it is understandable that Moutai wants to be younger, but the "white wine younger" should avoid being limited to the level of marketing shows.

Author: Bale WeChat public account: IBrandi Pinchuang