"There are both Luckin and Cudi downstairs in the company, which one to drink today? ”
For quite a few young people, this question has recently been answered.
On January 5, 2024, Cudi Coffee officially announced Wang Yibo as the brand spokesperson and launched a new product of the season with the name of "Wang Yibo Recommended".
In a quick pick-up store in Chaoyang District, Beijing, Wang Yibo's image can be seen everywhere. Figure Interesting report.
In addition to Wang Yibo, who is often labeled as "cool", the three new products of raw coconut potting latte, blue coconut popping latte and pink coconut popo also have homophonic stalks, using Wang Yibo's nickname that fans are very familiar with - "Wang Yebo". With such top-notch help, many Cudi stores started a crazy order-taking mode, and some stores even closed their stores on the same day. For a few days in a row, the surroundings of many Cudi stores in Beijing or the products "recommended by Wang Yibo" will be displayed as "sold out" to varying degrees.
This coffee chain brand, which has just celebrated its first birthday and has rapidly expanded to nearly 7,000 stores, has once again come to the center of the topic.
Cudi's "Splash of Wealth" is coming?
How significant is the traffic created by the spokesperson's official announcement to the store?
Wang Zhensheng, a large associate of more than 20 Cudi Coffee in Linyi, Shandong Province, told an interesting report that the sales of his Cudi stores in different business districts increased by as much as 80%-350% month-on-month, and some fans will leave a message in the remarks column, writing words such as "support Wang Yibo to endorse Cudi Coffee".
He and his colleagues, who are good at community maintenance, brushed up Wang Yibo's coffee emojis in the welfare groups of various stores and actively interacted with fans.
Figure provided by the interviewee.
In Cudi Coffee's Douyin live broadcast room, Wang Yibo has almost become a decorative "theme". The anchor is surrounded by all kinds of Wang Yibo materials, and the standing position must be confirmed repeatedly, and Wang Yibo behind him cannot be covered; When you are resting, you will cycle ** Wang Yibo's promotional video, and you will not delay selling products at all. "'Wang Yibo Recommended' Raw Coconut Bo Series 3 Choose 1" is the No. 1 product in the live broadcast room, which currently shows that it has sold 100,000+, and the sales volume is second only to the 200,000+ of the long-term sales of any coupons for all products.
Inviting top streamers to endorse brands can be said to be one of the shortcuts to marketing popularity and getting traffic.
Wang Yibo has always been favored by many brands, according to rough statistics, in his public Weibo within half a year, he has released 16 brands including Chunzhen, Shu Uemura, Pechoin, Chanel, Bananai, Duck Duck, Swarovski, etc., about 20 promotions.
And Wang Yibo posted this Weibo for Cudi, at present, **, comments have exceeded 1 million, and the number of likes has exceeded 5 million, which is the best data in the past six months.
The power of fans has been proven over the years. They will not only do data for idols, but also support them with real money. In the content related to Cudi and Wang Yibo on social **, many fans posted their coffee cups and paper bags with Wang Yibo's cup cover, and even fans who had never drunk Cudi before said, "I will drink your house in the future".
On the day of Cudi's official announcement, Caijing.com Weibo released a poll of "Which coffee do you like to drink", 170,000 people voted, 160,000 voted for Cudi. There was a message in the comment area saying: Don't vote, hurry up and "library", it's gone if it's late.
Figure [email protected].
Hu Lin (pseudonym), a white-collar worker in Beijing, has liked Wang Yibo for several years, and once increased the price by 5,000 yuan to watch a performance with Wang Yibo, and also bought products from a series of brands such as Shu Uemura, Chanel, Xiaomi, Lenovo, and Swarovski cooperated with Wang Yibo. Today, every day at noon, she walks 10 minutes to Cudi near the company to order a drink. "During his endorsement of Cudi, I should have been buying it all the time. Hu Lin said.
How did Cudi afford to hire Wang Yibo?
What is curious is that Cudi, who has a daily 8 yuan and 8 yuan, where did he get the money to hire Wang Yibo as a spokesperson, you must know that Wang Yibo's cooperation fee is not cheap.
Lin Qian (pseudonym), a senior digital marketing director who has experienced many brand endorsement projects, speculates that for a star of Wang Yibo's magnitude, the cooperation fee for endorsement is about 25 million to 30 million yuan.
For Cudi, who has been subsidizing associates, that's another lot of money.
According to Lin Qian's analysis, the team of top stars generally does not choose a short generation that makes quick money, and brands that can reach cooperation usually have a certain fit with personal IP and have a certain brand strength; For consumer goods brands, finding a spokesperson pays great attention to the matching degree of the target group, in anticipation of the replacement of crowds and traffic.
Cudi chose Wang Yibo, more likely to attract more users and make the brand loud in order to "play **". Lin Qian said, "At least now it is worth it for Cudi to spend a little more money for Wang Yibo." ”
This is also confirmed to a certain extent by the response of the relevant person in charge of Cudi Coffee to the interesting report. "The choice of Wang Yibo is more to bring consumers a young and fashionable feeling from the brand image and impression level, Wang Yibo's fan base is very large, and the attraction to consumers is also very large, and the number of cups in the store has been significantly improved. Cudi said.
And to go deeper, Cudi, who is not rich, also wants to tighten his belt and go to Wang Yibo, or to catch up with his "predecessor".
According to the latest data from Narrow Door Restaurant, the number of existing stores in Cudi is about to exceed 7,000, which is much faster than the original Luckin. You know, Cudi's first store opened on October 22, 2022.
On Cudi's first anniversary in 2023, Qian Zhiya, chairman and CEO of Cudi Coffee, pointed out in an internal letter that Cudi has 6,061 stores worldwide, and the strategic goal of 20,000 stores worldwide will be achieved by 2025.
Compared with the "small goal" of opening 10,000 stores in 3 years, it is much more ambitious.
Cudi and Luckin's love and hate are not only hand-to-hand combat, but also face-to-face business battles.
On the day that Cudi officially announced Wang Yibo as the spokesperson, there were a lot of hot searches on various platforms, but the most interesting thing is that "Wang Yibo's endorsement business war" has also become a hot search topic.
The incident originated from the fact that on the day of Cudi's official announcement, someone found that Luckin Coffee was in the live broadcast room 9The 9 yuan popular coffee ** product was quietly added in front of the words "exclusive to motorcycle sisters".
You must know that "Sister Motorcycle" is the self-proclaimed name of many Wang Yibo fans, so there are people who don't know who got into the wrong car here in Luckin. Netizens jokingly said that the vicious and real business war is not capital operation and financial **, but the spokesperson who steals other people's homes.
If you want to say "Kurui Business War", it can be regarded as "long history".
At the beginning of his career, Cudi surrounded Luckin, and while officially announcing himself as the global sponsor of the Argentine national football team, he told the world that I was the next coffee dream of the "former founder of Luckin", and I was an "upgraded version" of Luckin.
In September last year, Luckin came up with the annual king fried "sauce fragrant latte", and the sales exceeded 100 million on the day of listing. Later, Cudi jointly launched the "Rice Milk Latte" on Wuchang Rice, and even threw out such an advertising slogan with a bit of meaning, "Late night wine hurts your liver, and early morning porridge nourishes your stomach".
Then there is the familiar ** battle link.
Cudi fired the first shot of freshly ground coffee 9 pieces 9, and it is said that Luckin was only at the Luckin store with Cudi nearby at first, sending 9 to consumers$9 coupon. But Cudi went one step further and pulled the ** to the end, 8 pieces and 8 cups.
Luckin is not scared, at the second quarter of 2023 results communication meeting, CEO Guo Jinyi simply announced that once a week "9$9 for a drink" will last at least two years. Because for Luckin, which has achieved 10,000 stores across the country, "every cup makes money".
Consumers in general are naturally happy to see it, "Thank you Cudi for letting me drink 9 pieces of 9 Luckin." "I'm here to gather wool anyway, so you roll as much as you want." ”
Wang Zhendong, a senior coffee industry analyst and chairman of Shanghai Brown Yue Investment Management, joked, "Lu Zhengyao and Qian Zhiya are still very special people for Luckin after all, just like everyone meets their ex-boyfriend and ex-girlfriend outside, they can't help but take a few more looks." ”
Kurui business war, who suffered?
However, from the perspective of investors, Wang Zhendong believes that at present, Cudi and Luckin, which are more developing and expanding in second- and third-tier cities, are not too comparable. Luckin uses Starbucks as a reference in first-tier cities to precipitate a certain brand power and tonality, but Cudi may be more like a competitor of Lucky Coffee under Michelle Bingcheng.
The data does confirm to a certain extent that Cudi is more "sinking".
According to the data of narrow door dining eyes, Luckin has an average of 17 per capita18 yuan, covering 311 cities, and nearly half of the stores in first-tier and new first-tier cities, of which the proportion of shopping mall stores is significantly higher than that of township stores.
The number of cities covered has reached 326, and the average price is 964 yuan, accounting for about 37% of stores in first-tier and new first-tier cities, especially in first-tier cities, the proportion is only 846%, and the proportion of township stores is also higher than that of shopping mall stores.
Wang Zhendong's concern about Cudi is more that coffee is not a pure functional drink after all, it still has added value, and needs more refined operation and management.
Under the premise that the current coffee market has become saturated to a certain extent, Cudi is still using subsidies and expansion in the last development cycle to engage in low prices and squeeze intermediate profits by subsidizing associates, which not only increases the risk of its own development, but also is not conducive to the virtuous cycle of the entire coffee industry.
What's more, what makes Luckin "come back from the dead" is not a "story" but a "product" after all, which is a series of explosive products such as raw coconut latte and thick milk latte.
What does Cudi have now? Wang Zhendong asked rhetorically.
In contrast, Zhang Yi, CEO and chief analyst of iiMedia Consulting, is much more optimistic. From the perspective of the consumer market, he believes that China's coffee industry is expected to maintain a growth rate of more than 20%, and the market space is still very large. As direct competitors, Luckin and Cudi are inevitable "business wars", and Luckin "still cares" about Cudi's every move.
Zhang Yi believes that in order to win consumers, it is necessary to return to innovation after all.
Therefore, even if the expansion of several major chain coffee brands will objectively squeeze other brands or independent coffee shops in the market, but more importantly, the more fierce the business war, the more likely the brand is to vigorously innovate at all levels such as products, marketing, and services, and more coffee brands can get reference and reference for innovative thinking and methods.
In this regard, Wang Zhensheng agreed. He witnessed the current situation of other local coffee chain brands in Linyi constantly closing and transferring under the battle of Luckin and Cudi**.
And he also has his own specialty coffee brand "Youka Coffee", which also runs Cudi Coffee, "Commercial chain coffee makes coffee more convenient for consumers, and independent cafes must put forward higher requirements for themselves, otherwise survival of the fittest is normal." ”