Sauce Fragrant Latte sold out: Luckin won hemp, Moutai lost
Text/Wang Xinxi
On September 4, the joint coffee "Sauce Latte" launched by Kweichow Moutai and Luckin Coffee was officially put on sale, claiming that "every cup contains Kweichow Moutai wine", and the popularity of "fine wine with coffee" and "young people's first cup of Moutai" made Luckin and Luckin Coffee's wave of joint marketing related topics quickly on the hot search. On September 5, Luckin Coffee posted on social media that the sales of sauce latte exceeded 5.42 million cups on the first day, and the sales of single products exceeded 100 million yuan on the first day.
And Luckin also publicly produced pictures late at night, 30 million Maotai bottle by bottle. This cup of coffee is not directly made from Moutai, its key recipe is "baijiu flavored thick milk", supplied by Ningxia Cezanne Dairy.
The sauce-flavored latte jointly launched by Luckin and Moutai is that Moutai let Luckin rub a wave of brands and bring Luckin's brand to a higher level.
Everyone drinks this sauce-fragrant latte, the essence is to drink the taste of Moutai, the price is the usual Luckin price, to meet everyone's curiosity, the price can also be accepted, full of freshness, rapid explosion.
But in fact, this wave of joint marketing, whether it is profit or brand, Luckin won numbly, but Moutai lost miserably.
This wave of joint names may make people mistakenly believe that Moutai is in decline and needs to take advantage of new brands
According to the clerk of Luckin, the alcohol concentration of the sauce latte is between 0.2 and 0.3 degrees. If according to this ratio, the capacity of a cup of coffee 480 ml is roughly calculated, and each cup contains about 1.8~2.7 ml of Maotai wine.
The cost of liquor used in a cup of sauce latte is between 2.93 yuan and 4.38 yuan, and the raw material cost of sauce latte is between 7.43 yuan and 9.18 yuan. The retail price is 38 yuan/cup, and 19 yuan/cup after using the coupon. A bottle of Feitian Maotai may make 300 cups of sauce latte, and in terms of profit, Luckin wins numb. From the brand point of view, Luckin took Moutai, but also raised the brand premium.
Some people say that when 3,000 yuan of Maotai is added to 19 yuan of coffee, what you drink is not wine, nor coffee, but money that you usually can't afford to drink!
But this wave of operation may make Moutai's brand premium fall, the big guy on the original wine table, when drinking Moutai, thinking of Luckin, may not be a taste. Originally, in this class, drinking Moutai was a status symbol, but Moutai weakened this status symbol.
On the other hand, this is more likely to remind consumers of the decline of Moutai, as some people say, when the house can not be sold, a variety of concept packaging houses appear, there are school district rooms linked with good schools, subway entrance rooms linked with transportation stations and landscape rooms bound to specific environments, which is a sign that Moutai began to fall from the altar.
In fact, the essence of this wave of marketing in Moutai is that it needs young consumers, and Luckin's consumer group is mainly young people. But on the wine table of these young people, there has always been very little Moutai, so there is a wave of Moutai operations, Moutai hopes to bring in the distance of young people and rejuvenate the brand, but here is actually Moutai made a cognitive mistake.
Young people do not drink Moutai, not because they hate the wine table culture, but because the price is too high
A lot of analysis focuses on the strategy of Moutai hitting young people, saying that young people now dislike baijiu because they hate the wine table culture, but now baijiu can actually be consumed in cafes, which virtually adds a scene of their own consumption of baijiu, where there is no persuasion, no toast, no superiors and subordinates, but this kind of marketing guides them to pay attention to the brand of Moutai and try new products.
But this analysis makes a factual mistake, that is, young people do not drink Moutai because Moutai represents the wine table culture behind it, which makes young people hate, not the price. But the fact is that many people don't drink Moutai because they can't afford it, you let Moutai try a twist and turn marketing, how many young people do you see to grab?
As some insiders pointed out, if you still think that "Moutai is not so many people drink at all", I can clearly tell you that Feitian Moutai has never lacked sales so far. You just need to have genuine 53% 500ml Feitian Maotai. The low price of 2780 is sold casually.
If Moutai wants to hit the popularity through this type of brand marketing, it is even more unnecessary, Moutai is well-known in China, there are not many young people who do not know this brand, the key is that many young people still can't afford to drink, this is determined by the wallet, not you Moutai to do a wave of marketing, Moutai can narrow the distance with young people, young people can drink Moutai more.
An important aspect of the Moutai brand premium comes from the product itself, and sauce coffee makes Moutai products lose their advantages
And Moutai does this, more people mistakenly think that if you want to taste the sauce aroma of Moutai, you only need to order a cup of Luckin coffee.
But we know that sauce coffee is actually far from the real pure taste of Moutai, a few drops of wine into the coffee, the taste of Moutai can not come out at all. A person who loves to drink Moutai probably won't believe that 19 yuan can drink a sip of pure Moutai. This combination makes Moutai's taste advantage lose. In some voting surveys about sauce-fragrant lattes, the good and the bad ones are equally divided, and the proportion is very low, which means that Moutai plays this way, in fact, it is smashing its own taste this signboard.
In fact, those who have really drunk Moutai know that the taste of Moutai is very good, it is the best in liquor, it has the characteristics of "outstanding sauce aroma, rich aroma, elegant and delicate, soft mouth, crisp and sweet taste, mellow and full, long aftertaste". From the taste point of view, it is a crushing existence in liquor. Moutai is expensive for a reason.
But this wave of Moutai operation, will make consumers mistakenly think that it can not be sold, the taste of Moutai is covered by the taste of coffee, can not let consumers really taste the true taste of Moutai, on the other hand, but also make everyone mistakenly think that Moutai is in a hurry, so they have to pull up Luckin to play co-branding, making people mistakenly think that Moutai needs to use Luckin, a young brand, to narrow the distance with young people.
In fact, this will take Luckin's brand to the next level, but can Moutai's brand premium go to the next level? Obviously, no, and as mentioned earlier, Moutai can firmly occupy the high-end market position of alcohol, not because of Moutai's brand value, but because the real taste has been recognized in this circle for many years, and its product value is the first.
But now, Moutai with luckin, the taste of Moutai can not come out, can not stick to consumers through the value of the product, but drink a cup of coffee more drunk driving concerns, according to the Beijing Municipal Traffic Management Bureau Legal Department staff advice, consumers after drinking alcoholic drinks do not drive again, blood alcohol content more than 20 mg / 100 ml is identified as drinking driving.
Simply put, Moutai's high-end status actually comes from the product itself, but sauce coffee makes Moutai's taste advantage lose, consumers are worried about drunk driving after drinking, and even because of channel shipment factors, whether there will be relevant merchants in the future in order to make profits and cause fake wine to flow into it, these need to be thought about and taken seriously by Moutai.
Moutai with Luckin is not like the co-branding of clothing brands, after all, wearing clothing on the body has little to do with the sense of experience, but the experience of food is really flowing in the taste buds. If young people who have drunk sauce coffee feel that the taste of Moutai is just that, it may lead to young people not being willing to spend a high premium to buy Moutai, and may not be willing to choose Moutai in the pure wine tasting scene in the future.
The logic of Yiye cooperation is that both parties create a greater brand effect, rather than one party rubbing the other
Therefore, from this point of view, Moutai's wave of marketing testing the waters, although it is a major innovation, but the essence is also a little bit of feathers.
This wave of Luckin won numbly, but Moutai lost. Moutai tried to infiltrate young users from business banquets and the crown of national wine in the minds of middle-aged uncles. But now young people do not buy Moutai, but rather drink Jiang Xiaobai, which has nothing to do with the so-called brand penetration and cognition, but because many young people cannot afford to drink.
Luckin has done co-branding with many brands, and has never been so out of the loop. One is to explain that Moutai brings its own traffic, and the brand has social attributes. On the one hand, Moutai's high-end brand attributes are still in everyone's mind. Some people think that Moutai has expanded the reach of products through Luckin's "Pinduoduo" model, but in fact, it is Luckin that expands the consumer group of products, and Moutai's brand premium may be partially eliminated in the future, from top luxury to light luxury.
For example, if LV and Baleno jointly produce a customized version of the T-shirt, if Baleno sells out, then the winner of this wave must be Baleno, no matter how much Baleno sells, it is not LV that wins, but LV loses.
Then someone asked, if this is the operation, LV also made money, why did LV lose? Why, you can know if you ask Huang Bo.
As an industry insider pointed out, the same century-old brand, Hermes Chanel will never engage in co-branding with Coca-Cola, and Patek Philippe Lijiang Stanton will never engage in co-branding with Pepsi, because the accumulation of the brand's heritage has gone through many years, but the destruction is instantaneous.
Although the times are progressing, old brands should abandon the shackles of the old era and embrace the new order. But one of the most important logics of cross-industry cooperation is: to meet the interests of both parties and create a greater brand effect together. But this wave of joint branding has a strong brand promotion effect on Luckin, but not necessarily for Moutai.
In brand co-branding, we must pay attention to the fit of brand co-branding and the reshaping and maintenance of brand value, luxury inventory is unwilling to be disposed of at a low price even if it is destroyed, and when everyone buys LV, LV is no longer LV.
This may be worth reflecting on by Moutai.
Author: Wang Xinxi TMT Senior Reviewer This article is not reprinted without permission