Future.com, Beijing, January 30 (Reporter Xie Qing) Moutai and Luckin once again joined hands, and the Year of the Dragon Sauce Chocolate Drink (hereinafter referred to as "Long Qiao") was officially launched recently. However, a few days after the launch of the new product, the sales of the sauce latte did not continue. The reporter visited and found that this product can be ordered directly online and offline, without waiting in line, which is far from the previous large-scale out-of-stock situation of sauce-flavored latte. (Exposure email: rcaijing@163.)com News**: 010-56793767).
Luckin Coffee Shop. (Photo by a reporter from Future.com).
The first co-branded new product in 24 years was "cold".
Following the sauce latte, this "Long Qiao" is a caffeine-free drink, and it is also the first co-branded product launched by Kweichow Moutai in 2024. According to Luckin, the "Longqiao" materials include pure milk, liquor-flavored thick milk and cocoa-flavored solid drinks, containing 53-degree Kweichow Moutai, and the alcohol content of the drink is less than 05%vol。
The reporter saw on the Luckin Coffee ordering applet that the original price of a single cup of "Longqiao" was 38 yuan, and it was 18 yuan after using the new product coupon. In addition, the reporter searched a number of Luckin stores in Beijing and found that there is no need to wait in line to buy "Longqiao", and you can place an order directly on the applet.
Previously, once the sauce latte was launched, it had several stores sold out. In contrast, the reporter saw in the offline Luckin store in Beijing that the electronic screen in the store was full of advertisements related to "Long Qiao", but there were not many consumers who ordered. A staff member of a Luckin store in Haidian District, Beijing, said that since the launch of "Longqiao" on the 22nd, the recent sales of the store have been average, and most of the online orders are mainly coffee products, and "Longqiao" has not set off a buying boom.
In addition, at another Luckin Coffee shop in Changping District, Beijing, the store staff said that after the launch of "Longqiao", because of the preferential activities, customers will be given priority when ordering offline, but most customers still choose to order coffee products in the end.
According to the official news of Luckin Coffee, in order to promote the sales of "Year of the Dragon Sauce Chocolate" drinks, from January 22, 2024 to February 18, 2024, you can get the best opportunity to draw 1 time for every 1 cup you buy, unlimited times. One of the prizes is a 38 yuan sauce fragrance series drink voucher, with a total of 100,000 cups.
It is difficult to "replicate" the popularity of sauce-flavored latte.
Regarding the launch of "Long Qiao", Kweichow Moutai said that "Chocolate + Moutai" is a series of soy sauce latte products, which are new products in the Year of the Dragon jointly presented with existing cooperative brands, and have long been planned.
On September 4, 2023, with the novel combination of "liquor + coffee", the single product of the sauce-flavored latte sold as much as 5.42 million cups on the first day alone, with sales exceeding 100 million yuan, and it also set a grand occasion when stores in many places across the country closed orders due to too many online orders.
In social networking**, users share the "Long Qiao" purchase experience page.
In contrast, the popularity of "Long Qiao" has decreased significantly. On social **, whether it is sharing experience or planting grass posts, the popularity is far less than that of sauce latte. Some netizens were not satisfied with the taste of "Long Qiao", saying, "It's so sweet, I have to drink a few sips of boiled water to rinse my mouth after almost a sip." Some netizens also pointed out that the taste of wine is too strong, mentioning that "the wine flavor of the sauce-flavored chocolate is too strong, and the ice can't be covered".
At the same time, the reporter noticed that in terms of publicity and promotion, "Long Qiao" did not appear on the opening page of the Luckin Mini Program. At present, the pop-up window and display position of the Luckin Mini Program are dominated by the co-branded products of Yi Yang Qianxi, the new spokesperson of Luckin, occupying multiple exposure positions. Subsequently, the sharing of Luckin Yiyang Qianxi's endorsement co-branded card on social ** also accounted for more.
Co-branded "Belt Fly" Moutai and Luckin performance.
Although the cross-border breakthrough of "liquor +" may not all step on the "favorite" of consumers, the large-scale co-branding is conveying the active "younger" format of liquor.
According to the reporter's incomplete statistics, up to now, Moutai has cooperated with Mengniu, Zhongjie, Luckin, etc., and launched new products such as ice cream, coffee, and chocolate.
In addition, according to the data disclosure of "Mao Xiaoling", a key project of rejuvenation strategic upgrading launched by Moutai, the project will achieve a revenue of 4300 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5824%, has formed a "drink, eat, taste, drink, bring" product matrix ecological layout. In addition, according to the 2023 results disclosed by Kweichow Moutai, the cross-border Luckin and Dove launched "Sauce Latte" and "Wine Heart Chocolate" have become important annual performance cases of the group.
Luckin store in the Year of the Dragon sauce series drink advertisement. (Photo by a reporter from Future.com).
Also with a sharp rise in performance is Luckin. According to Luckin Coffee's financial report data for the third quarter of 2023, a total of 12 ready-made drinks were launched, among which, the sauce-flavored latte co-branded with Kweichow Moutai set a new record for Luckin Coffee's single product, with sales of 5.42 million cups on the first day and a single product sales exceeding 100 million yuan.
The reporter noted that the financial report showed that the average monthly trading customers of Luckin reached 58.5 million in the third quarter, more than double the 25.1 million in the same period last year.
Co-branded products are inseparable from innovation, although the "Longqiao" as a continuation of the sauce series products, but the market performance is not optimistic. Xu Xiongjun, a strategic positioning expert and founder of Jiude Positioning Consulting Company, told a reporter from Future.com that compared with the first co-branded sauce latte, the launch of "Long Qiao" weakened the novelty of consumers. At the same time, consumers who have purchased it will respond to problems such as inappropriate taste, which will also reduce the popularity of new co-branded products.
Xu Xiongjun said that Long Qiao did not reach the level of the previous hot grab of the sauce latte, and thus did not reach the expected market share of the product, which is also related to consumers' choice of liquid chocolate and coffee products, which is not the same.
At present, many coffee brands have also played co-branded marketing. Does the "coldness" of "Longqiao" mean that the liquor products have lost their freshness in the hearts of consumers? Xu Xiongjun pointed out that Moutai has launched many co-branded products, and the co-branded product with Luckin is only one of them. The main target group of liquor products is different from that of the coffee circle, and the co-branding is more about the publicity and marketing effect, which does not mean that the purchasing power of liquor products has decreased.
If product innovation can be carried out in response to consumer needs, Moutai co-branded products may still be welcomed by consumers in the future. Jiang Han, a senior researcher at Pangu Think Tank, told the reporter of Future.com that from the perspective of marketing and word-of-mouth, increasing marketing efforts and improving product quality and reputation are the keys to improving the attractiveness of Moutai's co-branded products. Therefore, it cannot simply be considered that the Moutai co-branding is not "fragrant".