At the European Cup four years ago, the number of orders for milk tea doubled in the early hours of the morning, even surpassing beer and traditional energy drinks, becoming the first companion for more young people to stay up late to watch football. It is foreseeable that during the European Cup and the Olympic Games in the middle of summer this year, there will still be more sparks between milk tea and sports.
Text: Zhang Bing
Human cravings for sugar and calories are in our genes.
When a drink mixed with sugar and milk enters the stomach, neurons in specific areas of the brain are activated and begin to secrete dopamine, which brings great satisfaction to the taste buds and the body. In today's fast-paced life, drinks such as milk tea, coffee, and yogurt all play such a role.
But at the same time, the unclear calorie and high-sugar configuration of these drinks has been labeled as "fat house happy water". After ordering a glass of pleasure for a short time, these emotions add up to a heavy sense of burden, which ultimately points to young people who want to make themselves healthier.
Therefore, at a time when concepts such as "sugar control" and "low GI" are deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, major milk tea, coffee, and yogurt brands have also begun to show their abilities and make their products "lighter".
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Overlord Tea Ji and Hey Tea signed sports stars
There is more spark between milk tea and sports
Just recently, Bawang Chaji, a national tide milk tea brand that is popular among young people, announced that Zheng Qinwen, the first sister of the current Chinese women's tennis team, has become the brand's "health ambassador" and launched a low-GI health drink. And during the May Day holiday, we joined hands with Keep to carry out health activities in Hangzhou, Xiamen, Haikou and other cities across the country.
Bawang Chaji said that experienced professional coaches will be invited to take users to experience the charm of light sports such as rugby, frisbee, pickleball, cycling, etc., and at the same time feel the healthy power of oriental tea. Although I did not participate in the related activities of Overlord Tea Queen, the author also ordered a cup of "Zheng Qinwen with the same style" for the first time, and felt the healthy energy brought by a wave of Grand Slam runners-up.
In fact, Bawang Tea is not the first tea brand to focus on the sports field. In March this year, the first generation of the domestic tea brand, Heytea, officially announced that it would join hands with the Chengdu Shuanghui Marathon to provide many benefits for runners. Subsequently, it was announced that Pamela, a popular fitness blogger around the world, was signed as a "health recommendation officer", and launched 11 light burden series of healthy tea products exclusively recommended by Pamela, which also focused on "light burden, really healthy".
It can be seen that more and more milk tea brands have tried to implant milk tea products into the sports scene by signing athletes and fitness bloggers, so as to strengthen the health attributes of milk tea, so as to break people's inherent impression of milk tea as "fat house happy water".
Another interesting statistic is that at the European Cup four years ago, the number of orders for milk tea soared by two times in the early hours of the morning, even surpassing beer and traditional energy drinks, becoming the first companion for more young people to stay up late to watch football. It is foreseeable that during the European Cup and the Olympic Games in the middle of summer this year, there will still be more sparks between milk tea and sports.
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Coffee brands are betting heavily on sports marketing
Yogurt brands are not to be left behind
In the era of food shortages in the last century, people fed caffeine to livestock as a veterinary drug, and adding some caffeine to livestock feed not only makes the animals eat less and more, but also makes these animals tireless - recently, there is such a joke circulating on the Internet, which of course has a lot of self-deprecation of workers, but also shows the importance of coffee to contemporary young people.
Due to the high overlap of user groups and the refreshing effect of coffee, coffee is also one of the more closely associated with sports among many beverages. In the past few years, domestic coffee brands such as Luckin and Cudi have achieved a win-win situation between their products and contracted IPs by signing hot sports IPs.
Among them, Luckin has laid out sports marketing very early, and has successively signed top domestic sports IPs such as Gu Ailing and the Chinese women's basketball team, and launched related co-branded products in its championship hotspots, which has been in the limelight for a while. Cudi took a different approach, winning the Argentine national team at the end of 2022 and getting a piece of the competitive coffee market......
Compared to milk tea and coffee, yogurt-based drinks are another way to get closer to the sports crowd – the nutritional supplement of today's young people. Among them, the brand that has to be mentioned is Blueglass, which is known as the "Hermes of yogurt".
In the photos of netizens, this yogurt cup, which costs 50 yuan at every turn, is pasted with 4 stickers similar to the detailed explanation of drug ingredients, densely packed with words, from vitamins to iron, calcium, zinc, magnesium and sodium, from A to B12, people who know know that they are drinking yogurt, and those who don't understand think that now they can even drink the infusion bag casually.
Although it is a joke, according to the sports business, many yogurt brands represented by Blueglass really attach great importance to the combination of their own products and sports. For example, Blueglass has held a number of independent events, including marathons and cycling, and has recruited sports promotion officers to attract the attention of more sports people.
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Pilot nutrient grading system in Shanghai
Drinks have entered the era of great health
Whether it's milk tea, coffee or yogurt, how can you find the perfect cup for you in the face of a wide variety of products from major brands? This question may have puzzled many people in the past, but now, with the publication of official guidelines, consumers can easily and clearly distinguish the difference between different beverages from a health perspective based on the label alone.
It is understood that the beverage classification system launched by Singapore in 2023 has been introduced to China and began to be trialed in Shanghai in March this year. The system will conduct ABCD ratings based on the content of non-dairy sugars, non-sugar sweeteners, saturated fats and trans fats in beverages, so that consumers can understand the nutritional information in beverages according to the guidelines, and choose the most suitable beverage for themselves more directly.
At present, a number of tea brands, including Bawang Chaji and Nai Xue's tea, have taken the lead in participating in the pilot, which means that freshly made tea drinks have begun to have transparent information disclosure to consumers. In the future, ready-made beverages including Luckin and Starbucks, as well as finished beverages such as Coca-Cola, will also start with the labeling ingredients and gradually enter this system, so that consumers can drink more confidently.
In 1978, Coca-Cola returned to China after the reform and opening up, and in that year of relative material scarcity, this strange-tasting bottle of black sugar water meant that China was first connected to the international market. Half a century has passed, and now, more and more domestic brands have world-class product strength and the ability to formulate industry standards. Not only have they laid down their sweet traps, but their journey is a sea of stars.
Note: The pictures used in this article are from Bawang Chaji, Heytea, Luckin, Blueglass and the Internet