Luckin Coffee’s 5 key marketing points

The first quarter of 2022 is about to end, and the 2021 full-year financial reports of major brands have been released one after another. Just two days ago, the news that "Luckin Coffee's number of stores surpassed Starbucks China" quickly became a hot topic, attracting attention from both inside and outside the industry. Since the last "delisting storm", Luckin Coffee has obviously "turned the tide" and fought a beautiful "comeback battle".

In fact, from its opening in 2017 to now, Luckin has experienced several glorious periods:

● Less than a year after its establishment, Luckin Coffee had more than 2,000 stores and set the fastest IPO record of 18 months;

● In May 2019, Luckin Coffee was successfully listed on the Nasdaq;

● In April 2020, Luckin Coffee, which was founded 30 months ago, had 5,256 stores in operation, exceeding the number of Starbucks stores in China during the same period;

● In 2021, in the list of top coffee chain brands published by China Business Network, Luckin Coffee ranked first in brand preference in the coffee chain category for the first time, surpassing Starbucks;

Among them, the heaviest fall was on April 2, 2020, when Luckin Coffee admitted to false transactions of 2.2 billion yuan and its stock price plummeted 80%; on June 29, Luckin Coffee officially delisted.

However, many people are still curious about what Luckin Coffee did right to “come back from the dead”?

In my opinion, the reason why Luckin Coffee gives people the feeling of "the invincible cockroach spirit" is mainly due to its steady and solid strategy and comprehensive marketing strategy along the way.

The first is product pricing.

When Luckin Coffee first entered the market, it had the momentum to become the "Chinese version of Starbucks", but its pricing was less than half of Starbucks coffee, with most of its products priced around 10-12 yuan. Even at the beginning, there was a move of "paying money". So we can always see Luckin Coffee discount coupons on many occasions. Even before it was about to be delisted, everyone was worried about whether they could use up the coupons they had saved...

Starbucks has launched a series of promotional activities. Source: Advertising Department Store

Next is product positioning.

On this point, the "Luckin Coffee Manifesto" released by Luckin Coffee after its listing in 2019 can well summarize its product positioning, and it has always adhered to these principles.

Nasdaq large screen advertisement in the United States, source network

Luckin Coffee is a cup of "daily drink" and its product concept of "affordable, healthy, Chinese people's own coffee" has since spread to the world and is imprinted in the minds of the public.

After that, it’s about “expanding” new products.

Basically, a new Luckin product appears every once in a while.

Luckin Coffee is always "waiting for opportunities" and does not miss any hot spots, such as the Sakura season series of products, "Gu Ailing Special Drink", Christmas new products, etc. According to official statistics, in 2021, Luckin Coffee launched a total of 113 new freshly made drinks, among which raw coconut latte and velvet latte are popular products and have become the number one contributor to Luckin Coffee's performance growth.

It is particularly worth mentioning that every new product of Luckin Coffee, from naming to packaging design, hiring spokespersons to adapting to various time nodes, always maintains a high degree of synchronization. So even though it comes up with many new ideas every year, it is still very focused, giving people the impression of being "abundant but not scattered", and relying on novel taste and appearance to attract consumers to pay for it.

Image source network

At the same time, in terms of store location selection, Luckin adopts the method of "surrounding the city with one floor of business buildings". According to the survey data conducted by a professional data platform, the appearance rate of "lobby", "building" and "center" in the store addresses selected by Luckin is very high, and the proportion of "streets" and "shops" is very small. The proportion of "first floor" of business office buildings reached 63%, far exceeding other brands.

Image source: DT Finance

Luckin Coffee has a high degree of store concentration, which has formed a unique competitive advantage for Luckin Coffee in terms of both cost control and shortening delivery distance.

Another thing is to focus on marketing.

In terms of choosing celebrity spokespersons, Luckin Coffee does not change its celebrity spokespersons very frequently compared to other brands. Moreover, Luckin Coffee is smart in that it can always convert celebrity traffic into its own products and private traffic pools, rather than just harvesting fan traffic.

For example, the commercial film shot by Tang Wei and Zhang Zhen at the beginning successfully exported Luckin's "young" and "stylish" brand image;

From the latte series promoted by celebrity spokesperson Liu Haoran, the Sakura series promoted by Tan Songyun, to the "YYDS" iced coffee and raw coconut latte promoted by the first signed spokesperson Lee Luxiu, it can be seen that Luckin Coffee considers the close connection between celebrity spokespersons and its own brand products.

After signing Gu Ailing as its spokesperson, Luckin not only immediately started developing "Gu Ailing Special Drink", but also on the day Gu Ailing won the championship, Luckin APP quickly launched the "Gu Ailing Recommendation" navigation bar and "Championship Ticket Package". From coffee cup sleeves to takeaway bags, Gu Ailing's image is also printed on them. It has been completely converted into its own traffic.

In terms of cross-border collaborations, Luckin Coffee has been making great strides.

Collaborated with trend artist Zhang Zhanzhan, LINE FRIENDS, Feng Tang's "Bu San" poetry collection, and NetEase Cloud Music...

Image source network

Luckin Coffee has always relied on its own products and has not become a "foil" for its cross-border partners.

As well as opening "Tang Poetry" theme stores, cherry blossom theme stores, and stores in the Forbidden City...Luckin has achieved full success from online to offline, from products to marketing, from on-site to off-site.

Image source network

Although Luckin Coffee, as a newcomer in the coffee industry, had to rely on the reputation of Starbucks, the "industry giant", to open up the market at the beginning, when we calm down and take a closer look at this brand, we find that Luckin Coffee has already formed a mature and effective path in terms of products, prices, marketing, and channels.

Its "expansion" and "number of stores far exceeding Starbucks China" are not accidental, but the result of its consistent focus on itself. In this era of prevalent traffic and the emergence of new consumer brands, I hope that Luckin Coffee can maintain its keen sense of the market and persistence in product research and development, and soon become a brand that can stand out with its own brand name, and no longer need to regard itself as "China's so-and-so."

Author: Yi An

Source: Yian