Mixue Ice City adds fuel to the fire of "tea literature"

Mixue Ice City has continuously innovated its online and offline marketing through the IP "Snow King", successfully attracting the attention of young users. This article takes Mixue Ice City's new animation as the starting point and deeply analyzes its marketing methods and brand building in recent years. It is recommended for all brand marketing practitioners to read.

I'm so excited to see Mixue Bingcheng filming a cartoon.

On August 13, Mixue Ice City announced on its official blog that "The Snow King Arrives", produced by Mixue Ice City and produced by Haochuan Animation, will be updated on the entire network at 10:00 on August 25. "The Snow King Arrives" tells the adventure story of Mixue Ice City's mascot "Snow King" making drinks with new friends, leveling up and fighting monsters together, and finally taking back his scepter.

In the current fiercely competitive tea beverage market, IP collaboration is not a new thing, such as Heytea and "Genshin Impact", Nayuki's Tea and "The Journey of Bell Buds", and Shanghai Auntie and "Love and Night". However, Mixue Ice City has made a big move, as netizens said:

Other milk tea: linkage with the second dimension.

Snow King: Become a second dimension.

The happiest people when Mixue Bingcheng does something lively are the netizens who are eagerly waiting for it. Since 2021, Mixue Bingcheng has not only come up with the magical brainwashing theme song "You love me, I love you", but also transformed into a blackened version of the Snow King, becoming the material for netizens to make ghost videos.

Not long ago, Mixue Ice City launched the first green store in China in cooperation with China Post. Netizens joked that "Mixue Ice City's greening" was "Snow King's inclusion in the list". One netizen joked, "Dear Rui, when you read this letter, I've already been included in the list", which attracted countless netizens to comment and interact and tease "Snow King".

After the trailer of "Here comes the Snow King" was released, a carnival of playing with memes began again.

A large number of netizens went to Mixue Bingcheng's comment section and started dancing. They teased Mixue Bingcheng, "You are really well-rounded in politics, business, and film and television." "Xiaoxue, you are getting better and better. Not only did you date someone in the system, but you are also producing animations now."

Of course, in this carnival, how can we forget Luckin Coffee, the "enemy" that has always been in a love-hate relationship with Mixue Bingcheng?

When "Mi Xue Bing Cheng was included in the compilation", the so-called "Redology" had already been extended on the Internet. In the tone of the Snow King, he said regretfully: Dear Rui, it's a pity that we didn't get ashore together. I hope you can cooperate more with my career in the days to come. Netizens commented scathingly, "The first sword after getting ashore is to kill the person you love first."

So when Mixue Bingcheng released an animation, a new wave of Versailles came: "Dear Rui, when you didn't even design your mascot, I had already won an Oscar" and "Dear Rui, when you read this letter, I will have entered the animation circle."

There were also passers-by who couldn't stand the fact that Luckin Coffee was always being treated sarcasticly, and they were angry at its lack of fighting spirit and felt sorry for its misfortune. "Xiaoxue has already released a movie, but Xiaorui is still releasing Green Tea Honey Snow."

There were also netizens with Luckin Coffee avatars saying, "How can Xiaoxue not focus on making milk tea and make animations? Unlike us, we only focus on making our own coffee."

Mixue Ice City and Luckin Coffee, which have been played badly by netizens, have become the new electronic pickles of netizens in recent times. The most advanced way to play is for the "tea" involved to personally take part:

Kudi Coffee also came to get a piece of the pie, and said in the comment section, "It's a movie with three people, but I can't even have a name. Is it because Dididi's ingredients are not enough to catch the sister's eye?"

Even the People's Postal Live Room (Jiangsu) came out to support Mixue Bingcheng, saying, "My Mimi baby is really good."

At a time when new-style tea drinks are extremely inward-looking, fraudulent marketing or group warming seems to have become an unspeakable tacit understanding.

01

As soon as the trailer came out, netizens who were more lively than Mixue Bingcheng came online again.

Some netizens are even more excited than Mixue Bingcheng, and have long been looking forward to Mixue Bingcheng's animation. They have imagined the plot: Snow King helps the fruit villagers solve their problems, and finally gets inspiration to make a drink, defeat the big devil and rescue Snow Sister. (Snow Sister is the new IP image officially announced by Mixue Bingcheng this year, and is also Snow King's girlfriend.)

"What is this? Could it be that guy did all this?" This is the beginning of the trailer for "Here Comes the Snow King". The Snow King, wearing a red cape, appears on the ice sculpture and shouts "Hey, give me back my scepter!"

The netizens unanimously joked about "that guy" in the trailer, "That guy...could it be Rui?" This statement points out the love-hate relationship between Mixue Bingcheng and Luckin Coffee.

Mixue Bingcheng's activity made the comment section of Luckin Coffee very lively. A large number of netizens went to the comment section of Luckin Coffee and said sarcastically: Snow King is going to have an animation. I guess the villain is definitely a deer. Someone also asked sincerely: Are you Luckin the villain of the Snow King animation?

It is not enough to guess the villain, some people have added the "villain" Luckin Coffee into the mix, and started to associate the subsequent plot, making a big drama: in a small town in winter, everyone lives happily, led by the Snow King, and then one day Luckin Coffee intensifies the snow and adds a lot of ice, and finally the Snow King sets out to save the town.

Some people spoke for the Snow King, and naturally some people spoke for Luckin. Some netizens have already thought of a script for Luckin called "The Adventures of the Deer King":

The villain is the Yeti monster. It should have been spring but it did not come. A snowstorm swept across the grassland. At this time, a fawn was born in the deer herd. It was born different from other deer. When it grew up, the fawn discovered the whereabouts of the Yeti monster, so it embarked on a journey to defeat the Yeti monster and plead for the lives of the creatures on the grassland.

In addition to the pranks, some people praised the trailer directly after watching it, saying, "With this picture quality, Snow King, you should make anime in the future!"

It is understood that the producer of "The Snow King Arrives" is Haochuan Animation, an animation company founded in 2012. It received investment from Light Media in 2016 and has produced domestic animations such as "The Guardian" and "Dali Temple Diary". Among them, "Dali Temple Diary" has a score of 9.8 on Bilibili and has received 200 million views.

The last company to cross over into an animation IP and dominate the childhood of those born in the 1980s and 1990s was Haier Brothers, created by Haier Group.

In the mid-1990s, Haier Group produced the IP animation "Haier Brothers". It can be said that "Haier Brothers" is the brand image born in the process of Haier Group's corporate development.

It is understood that Zhang Ruimin, the founder of Haier Group, attaches great importance to corporate culture. He took the initiative to contact several animation production companies and finally cooperated with Dongfang Hongye. He invested 60 million yuan to create the Haier Brothers IP, which once became a popular domestic cartoon hero image.

Can the Snow King from Mixue Ice City dominate the youth screen of those born in the 2000s and 2010s?

02

How capable is Mixue Ice City?

Mixue Ice City's real popularity came from a magical theme song in 2021. In the summer of 2021, Mixue Ice City uploaded the magical theme song to Bilibili, and with the melody of "You love me, I love you, Mixue Ice City is sweet", it triggered secondary creation videos such as "Macho Dance Troupe" and "Mi Xue Ice City 14 Country Singing Method", and quickly swept short video platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou. A series of marketing fermentation constantly refreshed the popularity of the entire network, and the Snow King also became one of the top streamers of the year.

In the summer of 2022, "the Snow King's darkening" suddenly became one of the unsolved mysteries on the Internet. The Snow King with his usual red and white theme suddenly "turned into charcoal", and the Snow King on all the store logos also turned black, and black Snow King dolls also appeared in offline stores.

It turned out that Snow King got tanned because he went to pick mulberries in the summer. Later, Snow King launched a new series of "Mulberry" products.

Just this year, Mixue Ice City not only partnered with China Post, but also held several music festivals. Now it is also going to launch its own cartoon and is very actively providing materials for netizens for the "Annual Meme Contest".

Michelle Ice City's ambitions do not stop there. It has also expanded its IP business to "castles", with the intention of becoming the Oriental Disney. Michelle Ice City built the Snow King Castle in Chengdu, officially called the "Michelle Ice City Asia Headquarters". The exterior looks like a small castle, and there are little snow guards standing guard at the door to guard the castle. The Snow King's eyes were also ridiculed by netizens as "clear stupidity in his eyes".

In the castle, there are snow country nobles preparing to dance, snow country music artists playing lemons as accompaniment, and the Snow King sitting on the throne. Netizens who saw it joked that "the Snow King Castle is very explosive in the entire milk tea industry" and "Xuezi has moved into the castle without telling us."

This is a carnival of symbols, and we have to mention Hua & Hua, the marketing company behind Mixue Ice City. Those catchy advertising slogans such as "Tired, sleepy, drink Dongpeng Special Drink" and "Little Sunflower Mom Class is open" all come from Hua & Hua. In addition to Mixue Ice City, Hua & Hua has also been behind brands such as Haidilao, Xibei Xiaomian, and Juewei Duck Neck.

In 2018, H&H created an image of a "Snow King" holding an ice cream scepter and wearing a crown for Mixue Ice City. Since then, Mixue Ice City has brought this IP to its full potential around the image of the Snow King. In fact, the birth of the Snow King image was not smooth sailing at the beginning.

In June 2021, Hua Shan, chairman of H&H, recounted the birth of Snow King on Weibo, which was opposed by the company at the time, as the image was considered "too low". However, in the end, the founder of Mixue Ice City insisted on accepting the proposal, which led to the Snow King and Mixue Ice City theme song, which became popular all over the country. So far, the topic #Mixue Ice City Theme Song has been viewed 2.9 billion times on Douyin.

Playing with memes is the reason why Mixue Ice City can break out of the circle. This kind of marketing-driven breakthrough once gave Mixue Ice City positive feedback. When a netizen asked Mixue Ice City whether the "sing the theme song in the store and get a free meal" activity was a marketing plan of Hua & Hua, Hua Shan said on his Weibo, "It's all done by netizens, the pictures are ours."

Mixue Bingcheng’s inner thoughts: I’m not afraid that you play too much, I’m just afraid that you don’t play at all.

03

Since the beginning of this year, new tea drinks have been engaging in a very new business war.

You can see some Luckin Coffee people with the "white deer" avatar being sarcastic in the official comment section of Mixue Bingcheng, and you can also see Mixue Bingcheng people with the "red and white snow king" avatar chatting in the comment section of Luckin Coffee. Sometimes you can also see these two forces confronting each other in other places.

Upon closer inspection, it turns out that it was all netizens making fun of the meme. The avatars of "White Deer" and "Red and White Snow King" were just a group of netizens who were just looking for fun.

For example, Luckin Coffee has launched a new "Black Pineapple Latte", and the top comment was from a netizen named "Mixuebing (China franchise store)" with the Snow King's avatar, who said: "This pineapple from Luckin Coffee looks so sour." Netizens also interacted below, saying "I don't like pineapples, so I'll place an order for Xiaoxue's milk tea now."

Netizens used Mixue Bingcheng’s avatar to “make enemies” everywhere, and the “Luckin Coffee Ice Cube Incident” that occurred in July this year took the sarcasm to the extreme.

The cause was that in July this year, some media reported that a customer complained on a social platform that Luckin Coffee was finished in three sips, and the remaining two-thirds were ice cubes. Luckin Coffee’s customer service also responded positively, saying that all drinks are made strictly according to the process, and you can note that you can remove the ice. Problems with too much ice and no de-icing option will be recorded and fed back to the relevant departments.

This incident triggered a unanimous ridicule of Luckin Coffee by netizens, while netizens disguised as Mixue Bingcheng were just looking for fun. A large group of Mixue Bingcheng (xx) said something sarcastic: “What’s wrong with Xiaorui? It shouldn’t be intentional.” “Why did Xiaorui put so much ice? Do you want to freeze the customers to death?”... Netizens jokingly called it “If one Rui is in trouble, eight Mixues will make things difficult.”

This phenomenon quickly fermented on Weibo, and #蜜雪冰城陰陰怪氣瑞幸# once ranked first on Weibo's hot search. As of now, it has been read 540 million times and discussed 11,000 times.

The main point of contemporary netizens' memes is to be impartial, so when a Douyin user named @福桃 posted a video to complain about Mixue Bingcheng, saying "Mi Xue is so icy after one mouthful", several accounts with Luckin Coffee's avatar and nickname quickly appeared in the comment section, hitting back at Mixue Bingcheng: "Xiao Mi didn't mean it, did she?" and "What's wrong with Xiao Xue?"

This debate also attracted other tea brands to participate. Accounts disguised as tea brands such as "Gu Ming" and "Yihetang" appeared in the comment section, saying "Xiaoxue, you can't do this. We can't learn from A Rui" and "If there is a first time, there will be a second time."

Some lesser-known tea brands have also personally intervened, such as Xianguoshijian, which has 24,000 followers on Douyin. In the comment section, they said, "Wow~ Why is Xiaomi like this? Unlike me, I just feel sorry for the baby"; Shanchajian (Xinshang Tiandi store in Wenjiang District, Chengdu) with 36 followers also said, "Mimi, what's going on? We at Shanchajian wouldn't be like this."

Why do netizens enjoy making memes so much?

The main reason is because of Mixue Ice City's image as a street kid on the Internet. Snow King not only challenged Luckin Coffee, but also Coodi Coffee, Chabaidao, and Shanghai Auntie. In the videos of passers-by, you can see Snow King picking fights with his peers, jumping and running to the door of Coodi Coffee, and dancing in front of other people's doors with his fat body; or provoking Yihetang stores, and then dancing in front of Shanghai Auntie, and even holding a flag in front of Chabaidao, and having a martial arts competition with Chabaidao's mascot "Dingding Cat".

Don’t be fooled by the fun of playing with memes. Behind the memes is the dilemma of new tea drinks, which are facing extreme internal competition. According to the data of the "2021 New Tea Drinks Research Report of the China Chain Store Association", the growth rate of the new tea drink track will be 10%-15% in the next 2-3 years. Before 2021, the growth rate of this industry was over 20%.

Competition is becoming more and more intense, and the prices of coffee and tea are getting lower and lower. Lu Zhengyao, a former founder of Luckin Coffee, founded Kudi Coffee and used the killer offer of 9.9 yuan for all coffees to attract customers; Luckin Coffee also used 9.9 yuan coffee to attract customers, and low-end tea drinks have rushed to seize the sinking market.

The new tea beverage market is crowded, and high-end tea beverages are reducing prices to invade the mid- and low-end markets. High-end tea beverages represented by Heytea and Nayuki have begun to reduce prices frequently, targeting the mid- and low-end markets. Heytea has lowered prices many times, with some coffees directly reduced to single-digit 9 yuan, while Nayuki directly launched products with a minimum price of 9 yuan per cup.

There is no shortage of players in this field. According to a report by Meituan, new brands in the market of freshly brewed tea drinks are expanding faster, and the market is becoming increasingly saturated. However, low-end and mid-end tea drinks have price advantages. They can no longer attract customers by drastically reducing prices like high-end brands. What they can rely on is marketing capabilities, which can not only attract consumers, but also enhance corporate culture and inject vitality.

In the current situation of extreme internal competition, whether it is brands taking the initiative to fight or netizens fighting to protect their brands, this collective behavior of playing with memes may also be welcomed by brands, which not only brings huge traffic, but also brings them closer to consumers. In short, netizens have played with memes, with new electronic mustard tubers, and brands have also achieved the effect of communication, which is a two-way race.

Written by Xue Yaping; Edited by Wang Jing

Source: Hefan Finance (ID: daxiongfan), the most insightful business ideas.