Fall in love with the tea drinks of joint brands, but the joint brands are mainly "hard to drink"

Cross-border collaboration is the most popular brand marketing method at present. In a market environment where everything can be co-branded, why do co-branded tea drinks focus on being unpalatable? After the co-branding boom, where should brands go? This article analyzes the reasons why co-branded tea drinks are unpalatable, and provides a practical and feasible methodology for brand marketing after the co-branding boom. Recommended for people who are interested in brand marketing or have related needs.

“The joint product of HEYTEA and Chow Tai Fook is hard to drink.”

"The Yangmei Bobo Ice jointly launched by Cha Baidao and Guan Shan Hai is a must-try!"

“I bought the Kerry Lelecha co-branded drink, but it tastes terrible.”

With the internal competition of IP collaborations in the tea beverage industry, taste issues have become a common complaint among consumers.

According to incomplete statistics, the frequency of joint ventures in the tea beverage industry in the first half of this year was no less than 30 times, and it is getting more and more popular. Brands such as Heytea, Nayuki's Tea, COCO, Chabaidao, and Mixue Ice City have all officially announced joint ventures.

In addition to co-branding with classic animations, film and television works, popular games and other IPs, this year's tea brands have also started co-branding with luxury and jewelry brands. For example, the official announcement of Heytea and FENDI made many people say: "Thanks to Heytea, I spent a double-digit amount on FENDI." Recently, Heytea officially announced its cooperation with Chow Tai Fook. The golden packaging has once again provided new emotional value for consumers. Many people even matched the cup with a golden chain and shared it on social platforms.

In addition, Manner officially announced its collaboration with LV and launched a co-branded canvas bag. It also joined hands with luxury skincare brand Helena Rubinstein to launch a new "Matcha Ice Cream Flavored Latte".

After a long period of exploration, tea brands have formed a basic model of "launching new products + series of peripherals" for joint ventures. In this model, joint ventures can not only help brands break through the circle, but also allow new products to be chosen by more consumers, and the sale of peripherals can also bring certain revenue.

However, while the cross-border collaborations that continue to break through the circle bring freshness to consumers, they also create new problems. It is not difficult to find that on social platforms, in addition to showing off the co-branded peripheral products, many consumers also complain that the products are "unpalatable." For example, many netizens posted a warning about the co-branded product of Heytea and Chow Tai Fook, "Although it is a gold cup and a large cup, it is really not tasty." Some netizens also complained about the co-branded product of Nayuki's Tea and Cardcaptor Sakura: "How good-looking it is, how unpalatable it is."

"For the sake of peripherals" has become the main driving force for many people to buy co-branded products. For brands, the benefits of co-branding are obvious, but any marketing action actually has the limitation of "marginal effect". After the co-branding craze, how brands can retain consumers is what they should pay more attention to.

1. Tea brands love joint ventures, but it is difficult to create a "hot product"

“This may be the worst Heytea new product I have ever tasted”, “To be honest, peaches and Chow Tai Fook have nothing to do with each other. There is really no need to collaborate just for the sake of collaboration”, “It’s sweet and greasy, with very little pulp, and not as good as fleshy peaches and plums”... On social platforms, although many people share the joint products of Heytea and Chow Tai Fook that they bought, there are also many warning posts about the products.

In fact, it is not just the joint product of Heytea and Chow Tai Fook that has been complained about for being unpalatable. Many joint new products have been criticized by consumers for being mediocre. For example, the joint product of Heytea and FENDI that has been all over the WeChat Moments was complained about: "The juice is mediocre, and it feels no different from the passion fruit in other milk tea shops." The new product recently launched by Nayuki's Tea with Cardcaptor Sakura, and the joint package of Cha Baidao and Undecided Incident Book have also been avoided by many people.

As tea brands are increasingly co-branded, although many cross-border co-brandings that break through the dimensional wall have stimulated consumers' purchasing enthusiasm in a short period of time, "unpalatable" has also become a comment of many people on co-branded products. Moreover, by observing the co-branding of these tea brands, we can find that there are many cases of breaking the circle, but there are very few products that truly break the circle.

This makes people wonder, after spending so much effort designing collaborations and launching new products, why are the collaborations so unpalatable and difficult to become hits?

This is actually related to the current joint-brand model. Although the current joint-brand model basically follows the model of "launching new products + series of peripherals", the so-called new products are not really new flavors or new formulas, but more of a "new bottle with old wine" routine. For example, the "Big Bucket of Golden Peaches" recently launched by Heytea and Chow Tai Fook is not a new product in essence.

"The taste of this yellow peach is similar to another one in the store, the fleshy golden peach. If you want to taste the flavor, you can buy this one to try." The staff of the Heytea store told us that due to the shortage of materials for the joint product, the joint product was sold out at 7 or 8 o'clock in the evening. But for consumers, the product itself is not irreplaceable.

It has been observed that many co-branded products are now sold for a limited time, and will be removed from the shelves when the cooperation ends. Because in this high-density co-branded cooperation, launching new products is not the core of brand co-branding, but product packaging and peripheral design are what tea brands care more about. Some people even joked that "many tea brands are actually peripheral companies now."

Due to the popularity of joint ventures, the official announcement intervals are getting shorter and shorter. However, the development of a new product actually requires a very complex process, from product design to raw material selection, flavor comparison, stability evaluation and process considerations, etc., all need to be considered. The development time cannot keep up with the speed of joint ventures, so many brands will choose to launch joint ventures based on the original products. Therefore, many joint ventures are sold for a limited time. It can also be said that the joint ventures mainly sell peripherals, not drinks.

Not only that, co-branding has also become a way for many brands to deal with stockpiles , and even the peripherals still have traces of the past. For example, when the co-branding between Heytea and Fujiwara Hiroshi was first launched, some netizens discovered that the limited edition badges launched at the same time were printed with "April Fools' Day", questioning whether Heytea was re-using the stockpiled goods from April Fools' Day to make co-branded peripherals.

In addition, many co-branded products have high social popularity and are limited to a short period of time, so they will attract many consumers to buy them after they are launched. The large demand will also increase the workload of many store staff, which will affect the taste of the product itself and even cause a product crisis. For example, Shanghai Auntie had to cancel the co-branding cooperation because of the inappropriate remarks made by the store staff, which caused a public opinion crisis of "mouthful milk tea".

In general, after co-branding became the norm, the logic of tea brands' co-branding was more to attract purchases through peripheral products and social topics, rather than to launch new products or create hot products. The neglect of products by brands led to a situation where co-branded products received many negative reviews. Although co-branded products have not yet caused more reputation crises, if more and more consumers begin to associate "unpalatable" with co-branded products, this will be a potential risk for brands.

2. After the joint-branding craze, what is left of the brand?

It is foreseeable that joint ventures will still be the focus of various tea brands in the future. The second half of the year has just begun, and various brands are eager to try, and have launched or are preparing to launch new joint products. In addition to Heytea and Nayuki's Tea, Chabaidao officially launched new joint products and peripherals with "Undetermined Event Book" on July 9. On the same day, Mixue Ice City also officially announced its joint cooperation with "Egg Party". Moreover, Yihetang also released the topic "Who do you want us to collaborate with?" on July 13.

However, it should be noted that any marketing action has the limitation of "marginal effect" . This is reflected in the joint actions of tea brands. That is to say, the higher the frequency of joint actions and the richer the joint actions, the higher the threshold for attracting consumers' attention will be, and it will be more difficult to leverage topics and sales. The final result is a decrease in the input-output ratio of the brand.

Therefore, in the second half of the joint competition, brands need to draw consumers' attention back to the products and the brands themselves.

In the long run, brands should focus more on using marketing events such as joint ventures to build product reputation and creating classic drinks by polishing the taste. Especially for tea brands, the product itself, not the content of the joint venture, ultimately determines the brand's user group's perception. If you don't pay attention to the taste of the product and its binding relationship with new products, it is difficult to bring long-term growth to the brand by simply rolling in joint ventures.

Judging from the current joint ventures, joint ventures with IPs that are highly recognized by the public, as well as creative ideas with certain "social attributes", can still effectively attract traffic. For example, the joint venture between Heytea and Chow Tai Fook is still popular even though the product is not competitive. "Most people who come to the store these days are here to buy this, so the cups are basically used up early every day," the staff of the Heytea store told us. However, since the product itself has no differentiation, its joint model "A Big Bucket of Golden Peaches" cannot become a long-term product of Heytea.

Of course, not all brands are like this. Some brands have created hits through co-branding. Here is an example of Luckin's co-branding logic, which is more about marketing to promote new products rather than limiting sales. For example, the "Raw Coconut Latte" co-branded by Luckin and Coco Tree Coconut Juice not only triggered heated discussions on social topics, but the co-branded product also became a hit product. Many coffee shops have subsequently launched a combination of coconut and coffee. Today, "Raw Coconut Latte" has become a classic product of Luckin.

On the other hand, from a brand perspective, in today’s joint events, the attention and popularity are more on the IP rather than the tea brand itself. This is also the reason why the joint products are still hot-selling even though the taste is not outstanding. The reason why consumers are crazy about the joint products of Nayuki’s Tea and Cardcaptor Sakura is not the product or Nayuki, but Cardcaptor Sakura. Heytea, which has become popular with multiple joint cases, has not actually precipitated a unique brand tone for Heytea.

However, many co-branded IPs can bring new people and new stories to tea brands because of their own cultural genes. Therefore , brands also need to pay attention to using co-branding to enhance brand power and continuously expand their fan base. Compared with other brands, Mixue Ice City will pay more attention to the creation of its own brand IP in co-branding. For example, in this co-branding with "Egg Party", the peripherals launched include Snow King Ton Ton Buckets, Snow King Straws, Snow King Dolls, etc.

In addition, what needs to be paid attention to at the brand level is that co-branding not only has the limitation of marginal effect, but also some brands have caused brand reputation risks due to blindly following the trend of co-branding. The Shanghai Auntie mentioned above was urgently stopped three hours after the official announcement of the co-branding with "Love and Night". Because the store clerks insulted the co-branded game, sold materials secretly, and made inappropriate remarks, many consumers not only boycotted the co-branding, but also distrusted the brand.

This time, in addition to being criticized by consumers for the taste of Nayuki's Tea and Cardcaptor Sakura, consumers also questioned whether it was a deliberate hunger marketing due to the lack of peripheral materials, and shouted to Nayuki: "If you can't afford it, don't play it." In addition, some consumers said, "I spent 350 yuan, and the stickers were either the same or too little. Since there are different styles, they should consider the ratio." In fact, the tea brands themselves paid for these negative reviews caused by the joint venture.

As a model with obvious effects, not only tea drinks, but many brands are actively co-branding. But for brands, finding growth through co-branding is more important. For example, MINISO recently launched a co-branding with Barbie, but MINISO can attract users through high-quality IP toys and derive other consumption through theme stores. Even though Holiland is constantly promoting co-branding, it is also based on ensuring the taste. For example, the previous co-branding with Harry Potter was well received, and fans said that "it has achieved a win-win situation of appearance and deliciousness."

In such a competitive joint venture, tea brands should calmly evaluate the impact of joint ventures on their brands and pay attention to consumer feedback and changes in attitudes. Otherwise, they will only be able to compete for joint IPs and fail to bring long-term growth to their brands.

Author: Awai

Source: WeChat official account: "Dou Jiao TMT"