From cooperating with Moutai to launch a sauce-flavored latte to co-branding with popular film, television and game IPs such as “Black Myth: Wukong” and “Chang’an’s Lychee”, Luckin has not only created a number of social media hotspots, but also attracted a large number of young consumers through precise emotional marketing and innovative co-branding. This article will provide an in-depth analysis of Luckin’s co-branding strategy and explore how it can achieve brand breakthrough and value co-construction by binding popular sentiments, innovating co-branding forms, and choosing appropriate IPs, providing valuable reference for other brands.
Recently, “Lychee in Chang’an” starring Lei Jiayin and Yue Yunpeng exploded on Tencent Video, and more than 30 brands joined in commercial cooperation, among which Luckin Coffee’s co-branding was once again out of the circle, setting off a wave of discussion on social media.
When Li Shande, the protagonist of the play “Lychee in Chang’an”, was overwhelmed to transport lychees, Luckin simultaneously launched the “Transfer Thousand Lychee Horse” pendant, which was sold out in seconds after it was launched, and the price of Xianyu soared by hundreds of yuan.
The picture comes from Xiaohongshu and Xianyu
On social platforms, netizens also began to play memes and create memes, and the popularity of “resign immediately” and “Lima is rich” continued to rise. This seemingly simple peripheral has become the starting point for Luckin to break the circle again, and it has also made people focus on this coffee brand that is good at “doing things”.
From the co-branded Moutai to the co-branded Black Myth Wukong’s Tengyun American style, Luckin has been engaged in co-branded IP or brands non-stop over the years.
To achieve these three challenges, product managers will only continue to appreciate
Good product managers are very scarce, and product managers who understand users, business, and data are still in demand when they go out of the Internet. On the contrary, if you only do simple communication, inefficient execution, and shallow thinking, I am afraid that you will not be able to go through the torrent of the next 3-5 years.
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Why can Luckin break through and create hot spots one after another? How should brands respond to co-branded IP marketing wars? Follow the perspective of “Crowley”, let’s take a look.
01 “Co-branded Madman” creates a marketing spectacle where everything can be connected
Luckin’s co-branded territory spans multiple fields and has always maintained a high degree of topicality in the highly competitive coffee market.
When most brands are still carefully choosing co-branding objects, Luckin has already played the co-branding to a new level, covering traditional culture, games, film and television dramas, animation, trendy toys and other fields.
The picture comes from the Luckin Coffee service number
In the field of traditional culture, Luckin joined hands with the Dunhuang Research Institute to launch a series of drinks with the theme of “Flying Sky”, and Dunhuang elements such as algae wells and lotus flowers on the cup sleeves cleverly integrate the thousand-year-old cultural heritage into the consumption scene.
The picture comes from Xiaohongshu
Co-branding in the fields of games, animation and trendy toys is Luckin’s specialty. For example, Luckin Coffee and “Black Myth: Wukong” co-branded product “Black Myth Tengyun Americano” was launched, and it also carried 3D limited poster raster cards and other peripherals.
The picture comes from the Luckin Coffee service number
In addition, Luckin’s 2024 co-branded game and animation brands include Animation LABUBU, Sesame Street, Beast Party, loopy, etc.
In terms of film and television co-branding, Luckin not only accurately captures popular dramas, but also has innovative interpretations of classic IPs. When Xie Guangkun, Liu Neng and other characters in the play appeared on the coffee cup cover, with a bath towel and a new “curiosity” product of frozen pear American, this linkage that broke the dimensional wall made the rural theme dramas that originally focused on the sinking market intersect with urban white-collar consumer groups, and successfully expanded the brand’s audience scope.
The picture comes from the Luckin Coffee service number
In cooperation with the TV series “The Story of Roses”, Luckin pays more attention to emotional resonance, and the cup set copywriting revolves around the theme of love, such as “if you are lucky enough to meet, it is also a rose”, which accurately hits the emotional needs of young female consumers.
The picture comes from the Luckin Coffee service number
The most eye-catching is the “circle-breaking” cooperation between Luckin and Moutai. Luckin launched the “Sauce Latte”, combining the flavor of Feitian Moutai’s liquor with coffee, and the sales of the product priced at 19.9 yuan exceeded 5.42 million cups on the first day, with sales reaching 100 million yuan.
The picture comes from the Luckin Coffee service number
This seemingly outrageous cross-border linkage is actually a deep insight into consumer trends. Luckin has created a new scene suitable for daily consumption through the innovative combination of “wine + coffee”, and at the same time enhances the added value of its own products with the help of Moutai’s high-end brand image.
02 Continue to break the circle and bind the brand vitality code of popular emotions
Luckin has been able to achieve good results in co-branded marketing, not simply relying on resource accumulation, but based on a deep understanding of consumer psychology, social emotions and brand positioning.
Luckin is well versed in the consumption logic of young people “paying for emotions”.
In the co-branding of “Lychee in Chang’an”, Luckin used puns to transform workplace anxiety into social talk. This emotional binding is not accidental, but a deep insight based on user data.
The picture comes from Xiaohongshu
Through the analysis of the consumption behavior of nearly 100 million members, Luckin identified core emotional labels such as “decompression”, “good luck” and “anti-involution”, and designed co-branded themes in a targeted manner.
In the comment area of Xiaohongshu, the copywriting on the cup sleeve also hit consumers and promoted further purchases.
For example, the popularity of the scribbled puppy co-branded series is to capture the dual needs of young people for “mourning culture” and “healing system”, and the cute puppy image is paired with positive copywriting such as “today is also a day of hard work”, forming a viral spread on social media, making coffee cups a carrier for young people to express themselves.
The picture comes from the Luckin Coffee service number
At the same time, the brand continues to innovate in the form of co-branding, from the initial linkage of visual elements such as cup sleeves and stickers, to the scene creation of theme stores and offline pop-up stores, and then to emerging forms such as virtual idol endorsements, always at the forefront of marketing trends.
In the face of the problems caused by the linkage, such as the complaints caused by the “Black Myth” co-branding due to short supply, Luckin quickly apologized and replenished, and the follow-up topic did not cause a negative brand impression.
Interestingly, in this “Lychee of Chang’an” linkage, Luckin spokesperson Yi Yang Qianxi made a cameo role in the play.
In addition, Luckin has also invited many celebrity artists to serve as spokespersons, including Liu Yifei, Gu Ailing, Zhang Zhen, Tang Wei, Liu Haoran, Tengger and other well-known celebrities. As of 2024, Luckin Coffee has linked a total of 32 stars.
The picture comes from the Luckin Coffee service number
Luckin not only carries out a single partial linkage on popular IPs, but also prepares the brand for continuously preparing new hot spots.
03 Brand co-branded marketing breaks the situation, from “retention” to value co-construction
At a time when co-branded marketing is becoming increasingly homogeneous, Luckin’s practice provides valuable reference for the industry, but it is also necessary to pay attention to avoiding falling into the misunderstanding of “co-branding for the sake of co-branding”.
The essence of co-branding is the superposition and complementarity of brand value, rather than simple traffic replacement. The two sides need to be intrinsically related in terms of target audience, brand tonality, cultural connotation, etc., in order to achieve the effect of 1+1>2.
For example, the cooperation between Luckin and Moutai seems to be a cross-border disparity, but in fact it shares the core demands of high quality and strong brands, and realizes the penetration of new customer groups through the innovation of consumption scenarios.
If you look at the distribution data of user interests, the difference between Luckin and Moutai is obvious. The “sense of surprise” and “sense of contrast” caused by the co-branding are also generated.
Luckin’s co-branding is not only an experiment in the consumer era, but also a test of business innovation. It interprets the sacredness of IP with the pyrotechnics of coffee. How to keep the soul of the brand up to the pace of traffic in the paradox of becoming obsolete after popularity?
Perhaps just like the post road that spans thousands of years in “Lychee in Chang’an”, the real answer is not to make faster horses, but to find emotional resonance through time and space.
