Sold out in many places, HEYTEA FENDI yellow is all over the screen, is the grand occasion of grabbing milk tea on the whole network back?

The whole circle of friends is talking about the milk tea boom, which has not been seen for a while. Tea drinks seem to have found a new way to go both ways with young people.

Highlights of this issue

As May approaches, there are more and more new things about tea drinks.

In the third week of May, the WeChat Moments were dominated by Heytea’s “Happy Yellow”. Heytea teamed up with FENDI to completely dominate the social media and sold out across the country.

The whole circle of friends is talking about the milk tea boom, which has not been seen for a while. Tea drinks seem to have found a new way to go both ways with young people.

1. The circle of friends suddenly became excited: "Everyone is rushing to buy the FENDI yellow from HEYTEA"

As tea drinks become more and more common this year, the issue of drinking milk tea has suddenly become a hot topic in the circle of friends.

On May 17, Heytea and FENDI teamed up to make young people very excited. As soon as they entered the mini program in the morning, the system crashed and the products were sold out in many places by noon.

Heytea's Weibo profile picture background changed to "joyful yellow"

Heytea’s avatars and backgrounds on various platforms have been changed to “joy yellow”, and yellow cups, cup sleeves, and handbags have become a hot topic in the WeChat Moments.

I posted a picture of the product on my Moments and was quickly asked, "How did you order it?" Many people also sent screenshots of the dozens of cups waiting in front of them.

“Thanks to Heytea for giving everyone the opportunity to buy FENDI in full,” “My entire circle of friends is drinking FENDI yellow,” and table lamps and flower arrangements made from joy yellow cups have quickly appeared on Xiaohongshu.

Lei Jun, the founder of Xiaomi, also followed this trend on Weibo.

On the same afternoon, the usually low-key Coco also got playful and released a poster that read "Go to the Cuochou ferry, drink Cuochou milk tea" .

This promotion comes from a short video: A rider, delivering a milk tea order for the first time, asked at the intersection, "Where is the Couch Ferry?" Seeing that everyone was confused, he cutely spelled "CO Couch", which made many netizens laugh.

A little over a week ago, on the 100th anniversary of Disney, 7FenTian officially announced its partnership with Disney. "Which IP will be co-branded and what products will be launched?" Netizens are looking forward to it.

In the past two years, as the tea industry has become more mature, a cup of milk tea has become more and more common. When I think about it carefully, my entire circle of friends is talking about the popularity of milk tea. I haven't seen it for a while, and I can't help but feel excited.

Is the era of excitement over a cup of milk tea back again?

2. Brands collectively evolve into a drink's "social currency"

I wonder if you have noticed that the branding strategy of tea drinks has been upgraded.

First of all, the collaboration has evolved from "I have what others don't" to "I have more/deeper than others". Cross-border collaboration seems to be the golden rule for going beyond the circle, from consumer goods to film and television, animation, games, even cars, skin care products, and even WPS.

According to incomplete statistics, Heytea has collaborated 17 times from 2022 to April this year, almost once a month; Nayuki has collaborated 23 times during this period, once a week during the peak period. Some people lament that tea beverage collaborations have quickly transitioned from "I have what others don't" to "I have more than others".

Moreover, in addition to the increase in frequency, the height and depth of the collaborations are also different. For example, the collaboration objects have expanded from popular movies and TV shows to niche animations, "breaking through" the circles of young people one by one. The collaboration between Nayuki and Lingya Zhilv at the beginning of the year made a group of post-00s run around to get a peripheral.

The collaboration between HEYTEA and FENDI is one of the few "luxury collaborations" in the tea industry, allowing countless friends to enjoy the joy of "paying in full".

In addition, the depth of the collaboration is not just a simple logo put together, adding a pun, and making a packaging material. In addition to products and peripherals, the cooperation between HEYTEA and FENDI this time also brought the "hand in hand tea room" and limited product experience with Chinese Yi characteristics to the FENDI'hand in hand' ingenuity art exhibition at Beijing Temple East Jingyuan.

When 7fentian announced its collaboration with Disney this month, its brand manager revealed that future new co-branded products will be deeply compatible in many aspects, including spiritual connotation, product ingredients, and theme design.

Secondly, the activities have evolved from sponsoring music festivals to "self-organizing music festivals". After talking about cross-border collaborations, let's talk about offline activities. Consumers who have been holding back for three years are in urgent need of a warm gathering, and the music festival is the most popular way for young people to meet in person.

In previous years, tea brands would usually appear at major music festivals by participating in sponsorships, opening pop-up stores, etc. But this year, hosting a music festival and inviting singers has become a more hardcore approach. For example, during the May Day holiday this year, Mixue Ice City held an "Ice Cream Music Festival" in Wuhan. It started to warm up online in April and also solicited netizens' "what they hope the Snow King will do at the music festival."

In addition to Mixue Ice City, other brands that held music festivals around May Day include Yuanqi Forest, Sumida River Coffee and Jiang Xiaobai. On ticketing platforms, each music festival attracted tens of thousands of followers. Tea brands are no longer just event sponsors, but have taken the center stage, turning music festivals into their own large-scale brand campaigns.

According to the data from the "2022 China Performance Market Annual Report", the main consumers in the current performance market are young people aged 18-34, which almost completely overlaps with the tea drinking customer group. When a brand turns a music festival into a brand-exclusive event and changes from a participant to a planner, it can better unleash the brand's influence. Just like the 8-meter-tall Snow King at the Ice Cream Music Festival, he was directly called "Tai Cool" by young people. When the Snow King went on stage to play drums and went off stage to dance, the atmosphere was extremely exciting, and the young people's desire to be surprised and share was stimulated to a climax.

Third, the most "cute" thing about tea drinks is that while the marketing dimension is getting higher and higher, the style is becoming more and more down-to-earth, and can resonate with netizens at any time.

For example, a brand in Wuxi called "Tanma Tea House" quickly posted its own posters and officially announced its fruit and vegetable products on the day of the collaboration with Heytea with the theme of "I can't afford to compete, but I can afford vegetables" , and won a wave of goodwill with an attitude of "admitting weakness but refusing to be mediocre".

It has to be said that tea drinks, which used to rely on new fruits, niche fruits, and novel ingredients, have switched to a new track and entered an era where they rely on brand value propositions to win. Through joint ventures, offline activities, theme stores, etc. that match their own brands, brands allow consumers to gain multiple experiences such as social interaction, companionship, and sharing, helping brands and young people to play together and continuously increase the social currency value of a cup of milk tea.

Today’s businesses and brands will fall behind the times if they don’t understand information exchange and the social monetization attributes of business itself.

3. A cup of milk tea can always inspire young people's most natural enthusiasm

In the past two years, many new consumer brands have emerged and died quickly. They made a stunning debut and expanded rapidly in just one or two years. Before many people could fully understand their strategies, the brands were out of business. News of bankruptcies, running away, and wage arrears are common. There are also some voices in the media that are pessimistic about new consumption, and some of them have even affected the tea beverage industry.

In fact, as an industry that never stops improving, changing all kinds of postures, and constantly iterating, tea brands are really "competing". From products to marketing, from hygiene to services, from operations to digitalization, everyone is "rolling again and again" to make every aspect as perfect as possible. This is also the reason why tea drinks can still arouse the enthusiasm of the whole people and trigger phenomenal discussions today. ‍‍‍

On the consumer side, a cup of milk tea can always inspire young people's most natural consumption enthusiasm . A cup of milk tea is what they need to return to their inner peace, and it is also a shining ritual prop for them. Tea is destined to accompany generations of young people.

Author: Guojun

Source: Public Account: Kamen (ID: KamenClub), penetrate the fog of business and return to the essence of value.