Luckin Coffee’s PR is quite self-congratulatory…

In China's Internet public relations circle, there has always been an unwritten rule, that is, if the second or third place wants to move up, they must compete with the largest company, such as JD and Alibaba , Kuaidi and Didi ( Shenzhou Special Car and Didi Special Car), ofo and Mobike ... Of course, some brands have directly targeted international brands, such as Vancl, which targeted Uniqlo at the time, and the result was terrible.

Therefore, in the industry, it is a very correct thing to find a very clear target (or opponent) so that you can see your own gap. However, be careful not to set your goals too high. To take a step back, even if the goal is a little bigger, it doesn’t matter, but you have to pursue the goal steadily, one step at a time, otherwise you will fail.

I saw such a case today.

Luckin Coffee has been quite popular recently. It can often be seen on WeChat Moments and in building advertisements. It is said that it has invested 1 billion to build its brand.

Today, Luckin Coffee issued an "open letter" accusing Starbucks of unfair competition. The main evidence is:

1. Starbucks has signed exclusive agreements with many properties;

2. Starbucks puts pressure on Luckin Coffee’s suppliers to choose between two options;

The original text is as follows:

After watching it, I felt a bit amused and helpless.

1. Who are being excluded?

Luckin Coffee also gave a detailed explanation of the content of the exclusive agreement signed between Starbucks and the property. Obviously, this is not aimed at Luckin Coffee alone, but a more conventional signing model. Different types of restaurants have an aggregating effect on consumers and can attract more traffic . As for the so-called "Food Street ", is there a "Coffee Street"?

Obviously, Luckin Coffee might not have been born yet when Starbucks signed the contract. This exclusivity is not targeted at anyone, but is just a means of signing the contract. As a result, Luckin Coffee believed that it and dozens of other coffee chain brands were being targeted. This is a typical "bumping into porcelain" style of public relations, where it clearly has nothing to do with you, but you insist on saying it is related.

2. Choose one of the two suppliers.

This operation method is very familiar, and e-commerce uses it the most. But who knows whether there is a choice between the two... Luckin Coffee actually wants to convey two core messages:

1. Product. You see, we are a supplier of Starbucks, so our coffee is as delicious as Starbucks. In response to some negative comments about the quality of coffee on the Internet;

2. Status. Look, Starbucks is getting restless and scared, so it forces suppliers to choose between the two. In fact, this is also the core appeal of Luckin Coffee’s open letter: Starbucks is finally scared, so it fights back! Haha, we are only one step away from surpassing Starbucks!

In fact, I am not surprised at all to see this "open letter". In fact, Luckin Coffee has been laying the groundwork for this for a long time.

The timeline of this wave of "drafting" is very clear:

On May 15 (today), Luckin Coffee published an open letter: We have been counterattacked by Starbucks, which is very unfair. Please compete fairly!

On May 14 (yesterday), a certain self-media published an article predicting that "Luckin Coffee's Attack: May Be Counterattacked by Starbucks" . This article, with several arguments related to "Starbucks' counterattack", is exactly the same as previous media reports.

On May 10, it was rumored that after Starbucks' global executives secretly visited Luckin Coffee stores in Beijing and Shanghai, they would reach a strategic cooperation with Meituan Dianping to launch a food delivery service in China.

On the same day, May 10, there were also rumors that Starbucks asked its suppliers to choose between the two and not to supply Luckin Coffee.

On May 8, a Beijing media reported that Luckin Coffee began poaching employees from its “friendly competitor” Starbucks at the end of 2017. It is reported that Luckin Coffee has poached about 1/7 of Starbucks’ employees in the Beijing market, and some high-end hand-brewed coffee shops have even poached 1/4 of their employees. For the same position, Luckin Coffee offered three times more salary than Starbucks to poach employees.

The most interesting thing is that there is a line of small print in the middle of this self-media article on May 14: "Note: The content of this article mainly comes from interviews with **dao reporters and public information on the Internet. The arguments are inevitably biased, but there is no deliberate misleading." Please understand the meaning of this sentence.

In fact, Luckin Coffee has clearly targeted Starbucks since its founding. I searched Baidu News and found nearly 600 articles with the title "Luckin Coffee + Starbucks", all of which were "alarming Starbucks", "aiming at Starbucks", "challenging Starbucks", "killing Starbucks"...

As for Starbucks, it has not responded to any questions about the "harassment" and "scam" from Luckin Coffee. This silence gave Luckin more room to play freely. Of course, if Starbucks really responded, it would actually be falling into the routine of "piano-style PR", because all of Luckin's actions are just to get Starbucks to come out and take a few steps so that the media can discuss and report on the two brands together openly.

It seems that this routine is progressing in an orderly manner , and today is a big explosion point! But the way it was eaten was a bit ugly, with too many signs of manipulation.

In the era of decentralized communication, everyone is a self-media. There is no truth without a picture. Even if it is a screenshot of a WeChat chat record, everyone believes their own eyes more rather than "rumors" and "hearsay."

In the entire hype routine, the only actual action, as far as we can see so far, is to poach people from Starbucks with three times the salary, and then "create" a bunch of "rumors" about Starbucks' "counterattack", the most important thing is that they cannot be confirmed yet.

Ultimately, there is only one purpose: "Mr. Media, go ask Starbucks yourself and ask for coverage." This "rumor-mongering + rumor-debunking" method of communication is also being used skillfully in the Internet circle.

Finally, let us think about a question: Who is this open letter written for?

If Luckin Coffee is trying to attract consumers who drink Starbucks, this move is clearly the opposite;

If this wave is done for investors to see, and today's investors are all like this... well, please invest in me quickly.

What I fear most is doing it for myself and my boss to see... You know, this is called self-indulgent PR.

...You can't just treat it as a joke...

Starbucks’ public relations department, listen to me, will definitely not respond.

This article was compiled and published by @万能大叔 (Qinggua Media). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!

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