Today, when new tea drinks are flying all over the world, new coffee and freshly made yogurt products are rolling in strange directions.
In contrast to previous product launches, some yogurt and coffee brands have recently included descriptions of drug-like efficacy in their product promotions.
Recently, Blueglass, a freshly made yogurt brand, launched the "Superboy Boyfriend Power to Win Back a Game" product, which was nicknamed "aphrodisiac yogurt" by netizens because of the addition of deer whip and other ingredients in the ingredient list.
Photo/Sina Weibo
On the other hand, a coffee brand in Harbin is suspected of launching the "Zinc Wish Latte" with zinc gluconate oral liquid and has been pushed to the forefront of public opinion.
Photo/Little Red Book
For a while, drinks with effects seemed to have become a new traffic password.
The boundaries between beverages and medicines are blurred, but when they are mixed and stirred in a cup, the boundaries become more blurred.
Consumers want to drink surprises and novelties from drinks, and beverage companies want to create explosive products with "topicality", and in this way, the contents of drinks have become "more and more wild".
It is easy to add, but it is difficult to control the wind reviews, and soon some users raised questions on the grounds of "vulgar product promotion" and "OTC certified drugs are not allowed to be added to beverages".
The other side of the rapid popularity is the rapid cooling, and related products are quickly adjusted and removed from the shelves, and the discussion of the efficacy of drinks has also attracted more attention.
01
Beverages are becoming "efficacious"
The "efficacy" of beverages is coming step by step.
Whether it is the history of coffee or new tea brands, it all starts with the involution of the name.
In the early days of the rise of new tea drinks, the competition between brands was basically in the naming stage.
In order to reflect the sense of brand difference, everyone has put a lot of effort into naming, calling pearls Bobo, cheese Zhizhi, and even "Zhizhi Berryberry Peach Cheese" once appeared in such an awkward name.
Later, new tea brands began to roll up raw materials, adding duck feces incense, phoenix single bush, Da Hong Pao and other high-end sounding raw materials to the tea leaves.
In terms of fruits, it has been upgraded to seasonal fruits such as water chestnut, mulberry, bayberry, cherry, etc., creating many popular drinks.
In the following years, the trend of product naming shifted to a sense of scene, and adjectives such as "raw beating", "violent beating" and "hand peeling" made people think about it.
Then, the co-branding of Moutai and Luckin Coffee opened a new situation of cross-industry cooperation, and a similar approach attracted many brands to join together.
This year, the emergence of scratch + milk tea seems to have become a more cost-effective method, which does not require too much upfront investment to promote sales.
In the meantime, there are many co-branded drinks with major differentiations, such as wind oil essence and safflower oil, which can be associated with drinks.
Photo/Sina Weibo
All kinds of innovations can usually be accompanied by a batch of natural traffic, which may not last long, but they have also earned enough eyeballs.
It has gradually formed the status quo that no new products will be issued without co-branding.
02
The frantic temptation of the border
The experiment of making drinks more effective has never stopped, and major brands are adding various ingredients to drinks like alchemists.
Similar products have been seen in the past few years.
For example, the "hyaluronic acid water" that is more popular on the market in 2021 claims to be able to reduce skin wrinkles and participate in metabolism.
Subsequently, some brands launched "good night water" that claims to help sleep.
Diagram / Boundary Tentative
There are so many drinks with benefits that they can be categorized.
You can simply distinguish it into Chinese herbal medicine and Western medicine.
Among them, the most famous are the "ginseng water" with a whole root of ginseng in the bottle and the "stay up late water" with several goji berries added.
While bringing visual impact to consumers, it can also be regarded as the beginning of an alternative functional drink.
As early as 2019, the news that Guangzhou herbal tea shops illegally added Western medicine to enhance the "efficacy" of herbal tea caused a sensation across the country.
Photo/CCTV
There is a saying circulating on the Internet, "Women are afraid of old age, men are afraid of weakness, children are afraid of stupidity, and the elderly are afraid of getting sick", and the efficacy of the drink corresponds to these hidden worries one by one.
It's hard to say whether this is a good thing or a bad thing, but it's relatively clear that similar practices do bring new growth to the brand, and related topics will rush to the hot search and become a topic of conversation.
And their fates are similar, causing concern, causing controversy, and then quickly being taken off the shelves.
03
Where are the boundaries of beverage innovation?
The situation of "overturning co-branding" is not uncommon among new tea brands, such as the "My Buddha Holding Cup" launched by a tea brand last year, which was quickly removed from the shelves.
This year, a new tea brand publicly apologized for involving the portrait of Mr. Lu Xun in a co-branded product.
In today's cross-border co-branding of beverages, "revitalization" can indeed bring attention to the brand, but in addition to eye-catching, should we consider more?
After all, more often than not, drinks are available for all ages, and their contents can affect everyone.
Photo/Sina Weibo
In October 2021, Beijing Yuehuo Catering Management Co., Ltd., an affiliate of Blueglass yogurt, was fined 60,000 yuan by the Beijing Chaoyang District Market Supervision and Administration Bureau for publishing false advertisements.
This time, the Shanghai regulatory department has also launched an investigation into the issue of "aphrodisiac yogurt", and the relevant product advertisements have been withdrawn.
As for another coffee shop, it has also removed the relevant products from the shelves.
On social media, it can be seen that there is a follow-up explanation that the drink is only packaged with zinc gluconate oral liquid, and is not directly added.
But whether they are added or not, it is indeed easy to mislead consumers about the functional descriptions of similar promotions and drinks.
Photo/Sina Weibo
When drinks enter the gap between daily lives, everything about it becomes even more important.
Advertisements on the cups have taken over people's attention, and the packaging bags have become natural billboards, and even the contents of the cups have been swallowed by people.
But after the brand harvests traffic, it is the consumers themselves who finally drink it with their necks up.
Tips:
1. It's okay to hunt for curiosities, but please check the additives carefully before buying a drink.
2. Don't treat medicine as a drink, and don't treat a drink as medicine.
Author: Yang Yifan Proofreading: Lu Qian This article is produced by Hard Shell INK, welcome to share in the circle of friends every Monday, Wednesday, Friday update without permission, it is forbidden to reprint, copy and use
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