I got up early on the weekend morning, drank a glass of iced milk, and found that the topic of #Why young people are keen to chase milk tea co-branding# suddenly rushed to the hot search, and I actually felt a lot.
According to the data, the scale of the mainland's new tea beverage market has skyrocketed from 29.1 billion yuan in 2016 to 333.38 billion yuan in 2023, an increase of more than ten times. In recent years, co-branded tea drinks have become popular, making people say "drinking a cup of milk tea also depends on grabbing", and some reports show that there will be new co-branded milk tea almost every day in 2023, and the main audience of co-branded drinks is young people aged 18-30. For me, a young man on the verge of 30 years old, I have actually witnessed the listing of many co-branded milk teas in the past few years, which is indeed more likely to be robbed like crazy, and even frequently appears on the hot search, causing many people to resonate with milk tea.
If you want to ask me which milk tea co-branding is the most profound, what I can think of may be Luckin Coffee and Moutai (let's be regarded as a milk tea co-brand), which set off a very crazy rush to buy at that time, although there was no 9.9, but the Luckin with Moutai still made many people rush to it, in fact, including me. In terms of taste, although the co-branded milk tea will not have any qualitative improvement, it does inspire countless young people to hunt for curiosity, especially the IP of the milk tea itself plus the co-branded IP, which will make their respective audience groups intersect, and at the same time, it will also attract a large number of people who eat melons to join in.
In fact, in the digital industry, co-branding is already a very common thing, especially with the development of smartphone technology, the circle of co-branding is also constantly breaking, some are technology-oriented, and some are emotional-oriented, and they are also quite out of the circle. Today, I'll take you to see a few typical collaborations.
There is a specialization in the art industry, so that the technology is co-branded
This kind of co-branding phenomenon is actually very common at present, and it has also been recognized by the majority of consumers, and has also brought corresponding technological improvements.
Taking the original Huawei and Leica co-branding as an example, Huawei wants to hit the high-end market, and while polishing the Kirin chip, it has also chosen the direction of imaging. Huawei also jumped out of the shackles of the mobile phone itself and found the Leica brand to do co-branding. Leica is known for its excellent optical performance, exquisite craftsmanship and unique design style. The cooperation between Huawei and Leica began in 2016, when the two parties jointly developed a mobile phone camera system and used "Leica Certified" lenses on Huawei mobile phones.
Of course, co-branding is only an option for Huawei in the early days, and Huawei's independent research and development capabilities in mobile imaging technology are gradually increasing. Through continuous investment and innovation, Huawei has made great breakthroughs in optical, mechanical, electrical, and computing aspects, and it believes that co-branding can no longer promote the development of mobile phone imaging, so it began to develop its own road - Huawei Image XMAGE came into being, and has been used on multiple generations of flagship phones so far, winning a good reputation.
After Huawei,Xiaomi is choosing to co-brand with Leica,With Xiaomi's technical accumulation in imaging,As well as Leica's special image style,Xiaomi has also gradually stabilized the positioning of the image in the high-end market,Whether it is a digital series or a higher-end Ultra series, the response in the market is not bad,Coupled with Xiaomi's careful management,Launched attached image sets and other accessories for mobile phone images,Captured the love of a group of young people。
In addition, we can also see that OPPO and vivo have also chosen Hasselblad and Zeiss, two old companies, to create their own moats in terms of imaging. On the one hand, it is shown in the product, the image quality has been improved, and on the other hand, it is shown in the technical team, so that the entire mobile phone image team has learned more things in the process of co-branding.
It can be said that there are basically two image paths at present, one is the self-developed image represented by Huawei and Apple, which has to go out of a more challenging road; the other is the joint road represented by Huawei and the current Xiaomi, OPPO, and vivo, and the two sides learn from each other's strengths and achieve each other, which is an effective choice for domestic brands in the high-end market. As for Glory, Zhao Ming also responded before, there are no camera manufacturers left for Glory to co-brand, so we must take a road of self-development, and it has been effective in a few years, and the Eagle Eye camera has become a label in the minds of many consumers.
Cross-border popularity, let feelings co-brand
Under this kind of co-branding, in fact, the most typical is the recent Redmi Turbo 3 Harry Potter Edition, the mobile phone brand will choose a very popular IP for co-branding, it may be anime or other, through a wave of in-depth customization, the core elements of the IP are designed on the mobile phone, from the packaging to the fuselage and UI, etc., will be re-customized, so that the overall style looks more full of sci-fi and feelings, so as to impress the corresponding consumer groups.
Another typical one is OnePlus, after in-depth cooperation with "Genshin Impact", it has been launching corresponding co-branded products, the latest is OnePlus Ace 3 Genshin Impact Keqing Customization Machine, which will also be customized in an all-round way, which is not very attractive to both two-dimensional users and Genshin Impact players. Of course, for mobile phone brands, it is not easy to do a good job of co-branded products, and the key is to change from generation to generation, otherwise it is easy to damage the brand's own image in a flash in the pan. In this regard, at present, Redmi, OnePlus, realme and other brands are doing well.
In addition to mobile phones, domestic brands are also constantly exploring the fun of co-branding in other products. For example, the same Redmi, this time not only co-branded the mobile phone, but also launched the world's first Harry Potter tablet, which gave users a full sense of ritual from the beginning of unpacking, and the design of the fuselage itself will also have corresponding style changes, and the sense of immersion and substitution is very strong.
Write at the end
In fact, whether it is for the brand itself or consumers, cross-border co-branding will burst out of mysterious chemical reactions, some are very related to the strong combination, so that the depth of technology is deeper, and some are due to feelings, so that the sense of design and feelings of the product is stronger. Undoubtedly, either way, we like to hear about it. Of course, for the brand itself, co-branding may only be a phased choice, and there will be different decisions in the continuous stage, when you become a brand that others want to co-brand, it also means that the brand has ushered in a new stage of development.