The collaboration with LV became popular, but Manner Coffee reached a fork in the road

Following the success of the joint venture between Heytea and FENDI, Manner Coffee and LV have joined hands to create a new wave of popularity with their joint canvas bags. However, the joint venture variable not only brings benefits, but also hidden disadvantages. This article analyzes the joint venture path of Manner Coffee, let's take a look.

The AB side of the joint variable.

Following the huge success of the collaboration between HEYTEA and FENDI, Manner Coffee teamed up with LV to bring a new wave of buying frenzy with their co-branded canvas bags.

The effect of leveraging is obvious. When luxury IP "enters the homes of ordinary people", the tea and coffee co-branded with it can be said to "win" in terms of attention and exposure.

Manner, a boutique coffee brand originated in Shanghai, has been breaking out of its circle in the past two years through various marketing collaborations and active store expansion.

However, apart from traffic, how big of an impact will the "buy the casket and return the pearl" type of joint marketing have on the brand's subsequent development?

Looking deeper, what is the key step for Manner Coffee to truly embrace the masses?

01 The double-edged effect of traffic reduction that cannot be ignored

Looking at this feast of traffic, the traffic that Manner has taken over is rare.

Although Manner has been accustomed to co-branding and has cooperated with Tesla, HR Helena, Huawei nova, China Merchants Bank and other big brands in various fields, this time the popularity is unusual. After all, LV is a truly top luxury brand.

The essence of joint venture is to get what each needs.

For LV, it can use the combination of Manner coffee and bookstores to achieve a youthful renewal that is innovative and gathers popularity.

For Manner Coffee, the benefits are more direct. The sense of conflict created by the cross-border collision with old money and the scarcity of limited-time and limited-quantity flash sales can quickly spread among mainstream customers.

If the purpose of LV's event is to "plant trees" for the brand among young consumer groups, then the direct feedback Manner Coffee received is the attention bonus brought by the reduction in traffic dimensionality.

In fact, this is not the first time that Manner has collaborated with LV, but it is the first time that it has been so popular. In September 2022, Manner collaborated with LV to launch customized coffee for the show. The two customized coffee cups are only available in some stores in Shanghai and Beijing, and are limited to two days. The influence of the small circle is more niche.

To leverage such huge traffic, it is inseparable from the supporting base of brand leverage, that is, the carrier of the joint IP fusion, the canvas bag.

The canvas bag is not free. You need to spend at least 580 yuan to buy LV books to get it. This is also jokingly called "matching goods" by netizens. As we all know, LV is officially known for its luggage products, which coincides with the functional attributes of the canvas bag. Although the canvas bag is nominally a "gift", it has become the protagonist because of LV's brand value.

The main feature is a difference in concept. The satisfaction of "easily getting an LV bag at the age of 25" and the sense of scarcity brought by the limited-time flash sale of specific products, the two are blended to become the secret code for this joint venture to become popular on the Internet.

For 20 yuan, you can buy LV co-branded coffee, and for a few hundred yuan, you can get a LV logo canvas bag. By narrowing the distance between Manner and luxury products, it also gained more concentrated exposure.

Value comes from scarcity.

The self-reduction brought about by luxury goods' sacrifice for traffic is understood as a kind of "psychological compensation". Novel joint names help contemporary young people maintain a balance between their inner selves and reality, providing a means of regulation for "carnival".

However, popularity always comes and goes quickly, and short-term consumption upgrades cannot produce lasting effects. The pouring traffic also has a "double-edged effect."

It may bring attention, but it may also bring backlash.

It is not difficult to find that most of the consumers who bought the joint brand this time yearned for the canvas bag that can become a social password. In this joint brand, LV played a stronger and more dominant role. As a coffee brand, Manner is more like an "atmosphere group" with a weak sense of participation.

Compared with Heytea, which collaborated with FENDI, in addition to the joint design of the outer packaging, it also made follow-up innovations in product expression, and the co-branded purchase venue was inside Heytea stores, setting up a relatively close scene connection. As a result, Heytea gained sales, popularity and reputation, but Manner, which had a smaller flash sale with LV, did not.

Undoubtedly, apart from the exposure effect, Manner failed to demonstrate its uniqueness as a coffee brand.

The popularity that came quickly and faded even faster cannot leave people with a deeper memory of Manner. After the name quickly passed by, there was no deeper interpretation of the story.

It can only be said that Manner gained a lot in terms of traffic from this collaboration with LV, but there are still many "regrets" from the perspective of word-of-mouth.

02“H2H” marketing: high quality-price ratio and warm care

Manner Coffee is just one of the three partner stores of LV to create the Louis Vuitton pop-up bookstore, but due to its wider popularity, it has become the most popular one and has gained a larger voice on the entire network.

In fact, it can be seen as a burst of brand potential that has been continuously accumulated. Manner is also known as the hidden giant in the coffee industry. The brand received a valuation of 700 million yuan in the A round of financing with only 10 stores.

Why is it so popular?

In a nutshell, Manner Coffee is one of the first players to find the balance between quality and price in the boutique coffee market.

Any wave of coffee trends is the product of the combination of consumer demand, coffee technology and equipment, and coffee business model. What Manner has grasped is the "affordable business" under the trend of coffee boutiqueization.

Genetically, Manner has a unique texture, as evidenced by a story that has been widely circulated online.

Founder Han Yulong once refused a request to order 30 cups of coffee for delivery at one time: waiting would make the mellow coffee sour and bitter. Ignoring the taste of coffee for the sake of making money would only damage reputation and would not be worth the loss. Because of this obsession with the essence of coffee, Manner did not do delivery in its early days.

Of course , Manner’s success is not only due to its focus on quality. It has broken the industry’s “impossible triangle” – high-quality coffee, affordable prices, and quality experience. Manner has it all.

Since its launch in 2015, Manner has been described as "suicidal" in pricing, with its classic coffee priced between 10 yuan and 25 yuan. Although not as cheap as Luckin Coffee's 9.9 yuan, which is competing in price wars, its core value lies in the specialty coffee product characteristics of hand-brewed coffee.

The "addition" on the product side is talked about with great relish. Manner's production method is "semi-automatic coffee machine + manual", and it has also launched a hand-brewed coffee theme store under the idea of ​​boutique. Semi-automatic coffee machines have higher requirements for employees, and the coffee tastes more fragrant and mellow; in contrast, Starbucks and Luckin Coffee have chosen fully automatic coffee machines, which are more efficient.

How do you achieve both? The secret lies in cost control with a balanced approach, by reducing the rent. Manner’s first store is only 2 square meters in size, allowing customers to pick up and go.

The three mountains of raw materials, manpower and rent have been directly overcome through the small store model. The limited price is tilted towards raw materials, which naturally makes it more outstanding. While being small and beautiful, it also realizes the "high-efficiency single store model" that the catering industry has been pursuing.

Adhering to the boutique route, Manner only had three stores in the first three years of its establishment. In this intensive cultivation of "slow is fast", Manner has accumulated a good reputation in Shanghai with its high-quality service and experience, and has become a well-known coffee boutique in the circle.

The warmth of Manner's products can't help but remind people of the H2H (human to human) marketing that Philip Kotler, the "father of modern marketing", emphasized in his recent top 10 marketing tips. H stands for human, and H2H means human-to-human marketing.

In Kotler's view, "All marketing is about people, and we have to achieve this goal. Now that technology is updated and iterated so quickly, it is easy for us to ignore people."

Manner truly hits the real concern for people, which is also the root of high-quality and cost-effective productism. The brand's adherence to details is based on the care and respect for people. In the technological age, private domains and ChatGPT can help us communicate with users efficiently, but they cannot provide human warmth.

The care for people is also reflected in the marketing details. Although there are many joint activities with various brands, Manner rarely engages in price wars to stimulate sales. The only exception is the 5 yuan discount for bringing your own cup. Manner’s new store activity is "bring your own cup for free coffee" in the first three days of opening.

It is not only environmentally friendly and warm, but also accurately captures the Shanghai consumers' pursuit of a refined yet cost-conscious lifestyle.

People-centered marketing is Manner’s breakthrough point.

03 What is more important than traffic in the red ocean?

No good business can escape the eyes of capital. Manner was also accurately captured by investors because of its leading atmosphere in the vertical field of boutique coffee.

In October 2018, Manner completed a round A financing of 80 million RMB. With the support of hot money, Manner Coffee has undergone many changes. The store has been upgraded to about 20-30 square meters, and even a 50-square-meter roastery and a 200-square-meter light restaurant have been added.

Expansion has also accelerated across the board. In 2018, Manner had only 12 stores, but by the end of 2021, the number of stores had successfully exceeded 300, and all of them were directly operated stores.

Growth problems also arise.

First of all, there is an inevitable deviation between the original intention of developing high-quality products and the large-scale expansion.

The advantages of small stores and high cost-effectiveness are facing unprecedented challenges as stores expand.

It was also a last resort. The large-store model was not only the result of capital acceleration, but also a necessary preparation for Manner's expansion and downward compatibility. After all, different customer groups have different coffee consumption needs. For example, small cities pay more attention to the strong social attributes of coffee and have higher requirements for space.

With the idea that scale is king, in order to reach more consumer groups, Manner also started doing food delivery.

Secondly, the product foundation relies on the city of Shanghai, its base.

Since the decision was made to tell a story about scale, then it should be high-profile. However, Manner showed hesitation and caution.

This is reflected in the balance of the number and distribution of stores. According to the brand monitoring data of Jihai, as of press time, Manner Coffee has a total of 759 stores in operation, of which 429 are in Shanghai, accounting for half of the total.

Manner was born in Shanghai, but was trapped in Shanghai, which became a major obstacle for Manner to increase its penetration rate. In terms of strategy, Manner is aggressive in its home base of Shanghai, but is relatively conservative in its expansion in other first-tier cities.

This is closely related to Manner's brand characteristics of being born and raised in Shanghai. Shanghai has a strong coffee culture atmosphere, and Manner, which started out here, has also become a regional brand with a deep "Shanghai style" culture.

If you want to expand the compatibility of your brand, you not only need exposure through huge traffic, but you also need to accurately express your brand attitude to create a more unique mind-set.

This is why, for Manner Coffee, which is at a crossroads in its growth, traffic is important, but more importantly, how to build a more stable and popular brand in a more targeted way. While expanding its popularity, it is also necessary to spread the depth and uniqueness of the brand.

What's more, horizontal regional expansion is not easy. The involution of the coffee industry is becoming more and more fierce. Tianyancha App shows that there are currently more than 180,000 coffee-related companies in my country, and about 14,800 new companies will be added in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 3.79%.

In addition to Starbucks, Luckin Coffee, and TIMS Coffee, there are also many close competitors in the vertical field of specialty coffee. For example, the price range of Never Sleeping Sea is 15-20 yuan, which is comparable to Manner. According to Jiemian News, many baristas at Never Sleeping Sea also come from Manner, and even the coffee machines in the store are the same as those of Manner.

When the quality-price ratio advantage of specialty coffee is weakened and the delivered value is replicated, Manner will face more challenges.

In the process of replication evolution from 1 to 10, Manner has to balance the original intention of high-quality and low-priced products while maintaining the brand tone, and also face the dimensionality reduction attack in fierce competition.

Faced with the new impossible triangle, Manner stands at the fork in the road between scale and original intention. How can it evolve to get a better solution for growth?

Author: yummy, Source: WeChat public account "Shock Copywriting"