Text / Craig
On May 13, almost all of China's Spartan veteran players became Luckin's "tap water". Because on this day, Luckin officially announced that it will become the exclusive coffee supplier of the 2024 Spartan Warrior Race, and will provide drinks for the contestants at the next two stops in Beijing and Hangzhou.
As a chain coffee brand, Luckin has long aimed its marketing goals at event IP, such as the Beijing Marathon in 2018, the Beijing FIS Snowboard Big Air World Cup, and later with the Australian Open, Xiamen Marathon, etc.
But unlike the above events, Sparta is not a nationally recognized event IP - on Weibo, Sparta has 254,000 followers, which is only a quarter of Luckin's.
So, for Luckin, a fast-moving consumer goods brand that almost has national recognition, why did it choose a niche event IP that is far less popular than itself to carry out marketing?
The answer is inseparable from the word "stickiness".
Source: Luckin
The limited awareness of Sparta at the public level is actually largely due to its participation threshold. The hard-core link setting requires participants to maintain long-term exercise in their daily lives in order to truly enjoy the fun, which also creates the extremely high stickiness and circle attributes of the Spartan group.
On the other hand, unlike many traditional sports events, Sparta does not have much attribute, and most of the people who pay attention to Spartan events in their daily lives have also participated in it. Everything is set around the competition, and athletes from all over the world overcome many obstacles to challenge and surpass themselves to win Sparta's iconic mask medal.
Therefore, the first action after Luckin "got on the bus" was aimed at the unique sense of honor of Spartan players - an hour after the official announcement of the cooperation, the same badge of the Spartan medal was immediately launched in the badge of the Luckin Mini Program, and many Spartan players who received the badge also posted their Moments and social media accounts for the first time, and completed the first wave of communication before the game began.
On the day of the competition, when Luckin brought its iconic blue color to Sparta, the handsome men and women with good bodies and the extremely outstanding stadium environment will also complete high-quality publicity on social media.
At the same time, the cooperation with SPARTA has once again deepened Luckin's emphasis on a healthy image.
In the past month's tweet on Luckin's official Weibo, the word "health" has been mentioned as many as 13 times, and the "C position" in the promotional materials of the cooperation between the two parties has also been occupied by drinks with low-burden attributes such as Lemon C American, Orange C American, and Coconut Green Ice Extract.
Source: Luckin
In fact, the creation of health concepts has become a trend and commonality that cannot be ignored in the entire beverage FMCG industry.
Since the beginning of this year, several waves of linkages, including "Hey Tea x Pamela" and "Tea Yan Yue Se x Zheng Qinwen", have extended their marketing attention to healthy people, aiming to break the traditional impression of the sub-healthy boundary of such products and expand the consumer group.
Health has become the most important attribute in people's daily life, and in order to drink better milk and less sugar, consumers do not hesitate to pay a higher price, while enjoying the satisfaction brought by the drink, reduce the burden of high sugar and high fat - milk tea, coffee is the same.
Back to Luckin's collaboration with Sparta.
It is undeniable that this is a brilliant attempt at event sponsorship, but in fact, the reason why Luckin's sports marketing DNA is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people is also due to their precise "bet" on athletes during the tournament in the past.
Whenever a Chinese athlete gets a good result in a major tournament cycle, a poster of them holding a small blue cup and calling you for coffee will always appear on Luckin's official social media for the first time - from Gu Ailing at the beginning, to Wang Shun at the Asian Games, to Shang Juncheng at the Australian Open.
Therefore, when people's pursuit of health is constantly changing and upgrading, Luckin's sports marketing thinking is also deepening.
Bet on athletes in a lightweight cooperation model and set up promotional materials in advance, and immediately spread out the publicity after their achievements or topics, so as to get instant traffic and sales conversion; On the other hand, with the sponsorship of major events and the new products of the season, the brand is constantly exposed to the vision of various target groups with the "combination punch" style of play, consolidating the healthy brand image from multiple angles, and continuing to break through the inherent circle to attract more coffee lovers.
In this sports competition year, the ideas provided by Luckin's sports marketing gameplay are worthy of attention and consideration by brands.