HEYTEA is open to joining: the joining fee is less than 500,000 yuan, only open to employees

This week, the Xixiaocha store in Guangzhou Chengtou Building is about to close. This is the last Xixiaocha store left and the first in Guangzhou.

This sub-brand, which was once regarded as HEYTEA specializing in the sinking market, has never officially stepped out of the Pearl River Delta region. Now, with the price reduction and sinking of HEYTEA, it seems that it has indeed lost its differentiated positioning advantage.

As for the “broken arm” HEYTEA, at a time when the overall growth rate of the new tea industry is slowing down, it still relies on getting better IP co-branding to gain traffic. From this year’s hit “Meng Hualu” and “Canglan Jue” to “National Palace Fighting Drama” and “The Legend of Zhen Huan”, the leading brand of new tea drinks has expanded their vision of finding IP to the field of film and television.

In fact, due to the low technical threshold of the new tea beverage industry, it has been facing the problem of serious homogenization competition. For a long time in the past, finding niche fruits and developing new seasonal products has been a major inward direction of the new tea industry. However, firstly, the cost of research and development is high, and secondly, the effect is not necessarily good, so the direction of involution is gradually shifting towards the crazy joint name.

But after slashing prices and co-branding blood transfusions, the top brands of new tea drinks are still facing the encirclement and suppression of second-tier brands and even new tea brands. The direction of this war is still unknown.

A head brand without a new story needs a joint “milk bite”?

On October 31, the two leading new tea brands were put on the front and rear. HEYTEA announced the return of the popular product “Cool Black Plum Mulberry” co-branded with “Godfather of Trend” Fujiwara Hiroshi. At the same time, Nai Xue’s tea launched Nai Xue Panda Milk Tea, Panda Zhenbao Bookmark, Panda Zhenbao Tea Treasure, etc., co-branded with 52TOYS Peripheral products.

From the early cheese fruit tea series to the later innovation of niche fruit tea, to the cross-border coffee and bottled beverage tracks, the secret contest between HEYTEA and Nai Xue’s tea has never stopped. However, both are also facing the dilemma of slowing development.

HEYTEA and Nai Xue’s tea will return on the same day/new joint model

Two years ago, the two raised prices together, leading the new tea brand to enter the “30 yuan era”. Two years later, the two have cut prices one after another. Heytea said that “after accumulation and deep cultivation in the supply chain, the price can be lowered, making it possible to ‘high quality and not expensive’.” The 19 yuan new tea drink series is easy, and it promises to have at least one new product every month.

The price reduction strategy did bring a wave of benefits. After the price reduction, HEYTEA ushered in a period of bursting orders, and Nai Xue’s tea stock price continued to rise. But it also brought a lot of criticism, “doubling the pulp has become the correct way to open the tea after the price reduction, so it is said that the price has been reduced, but it has not been completely reduced.” “I used to like to drink Zhizhi Luyan, but after the price reduction A lot, I don’t want to drink it anymore.” “The taste of the relaxing series is very weak, and there is almost no fragrance and freshness of the fruit. I am very disappointed.”… Comments like this abound on social platforms. , every three to five will be criticized for “changed taste”.

Not only has the taste been controversial, but many consumers have also begun to blur the positioning of these two major new tea brands. “In the past, I basically went to buy a cup of Hey Tea when I made a meal with friends, and taking pictures and punching cards was also a set of procedures every time, but now there is no such thing as a must for Hey Tea for a long time.” “Post-00” Zheng Yiwen is a It only took a year for a senior “milk tea star” to change from a die-hard HEYTEA fan to today’s “every 100 schools”.

In Zheng Yiwen’s view, the teas of HEYTEA and Naixue in the past were made of solid ingredients, unique taste, and unique in terms of peripheral creativity, but since the price reduction, perhaps the focus of development has changed. In short, the brand image and products Power has changed. “Actually, this year’s collaboration between Heytea and “Meng Hualu” and “The Legend of Zhen Huan” is also quite popular, but it is not attractive to me. Compared with the previous joint models, the two-year joint brand has always given me a kind of innovation. The feeling of being a poor donkey, and then relying on the joint name to attract new fans.” Zheng Yiwen said about Zinc Scale.

According to Caijing Wuji report, “In the past six months, the new tea industry has collectively opened a joint invoicing. According to incomplete statistics, in the first half of 2022 alone, there will be more than 30 joint names, of which HEYTEA has occupied 13 cases, with an average of 13 cases. Two in January.”

It is a routine operation for the new tea drinking circle to quickly create explosive products by co-branding. However, as the price of top brands has dropped, its melee with mid-end brands is still facing more challenges, and the traffic brought by the joint brand is not continuous and stable.

After the price dropped, the multi-directional involution came

Judging from the dynamics of Double Eleven in the past few years, the tea pace of HEYTEA and Nai Xue is also surprisingly similar. In 2020, the two launched the Tmall Double Eleven event for the first time at the same time, and mainly sold sparkling water and bagged tea.

Although the two major brands at that time also carried out high-density and irregular IP co-branding, they also set their sights on more markets. However, in the following two years, the pace of progress has slowed down.

Zinc scale observed from the tea WeChat public accounts of Heytea and Naixue that this year’s Double Eleven, the two leading new tea brands do not seem to have a strong sense of participation. Compared with its debut two years ago, not only the product categories have not been updated, but there are not many preferential packages participating in the Double Eleven promotion. Specifically, HEYTEA mainly promotes bottled beverages such as lemon tea, juice tea, and light milk tea, while Nai Xue’s tea mainly promotes tea bags such as one-week good tea and cold-brewed fruit tea.

Although in these limited categories, there are also some packages that can sell more than 10,000 on a single platform, but for leading brands, they may not reflect their strong R&D innovation level. In contrast to other new tea brands, two years have become a good time for them to catch up.

In the past two years, the tea Yanyuese, who once lived in a corner and “cannot stay in Hunan”, has successively entered Wuhan, Chongqing, and Nanjing, and launched a new coffee brand “Yangyang Coffee”. However, these two steps are still lagging behind compared to HEYTEA and Nai Xue’s tea. What’s really worth mentioning is that, because Chayan Yuese still has few stores across the country, there are countless consumers who are curious about it. In order to capture these consumers, Chayan Yuese has developed a series of self-shaking milk tea, allowing consumers to make a cup of tea Yanyose with freeze-dried tea powder, milk, syrup, sprayed cream, and crushed nuts.

Chayan Yuese said that “affected by factors such as time, storage, techniques, etc., it is difficult to continue to leap forward on the ’80-point taste’ in a short period of time”, but this research and development breakthrough has brought offline stores to Chayan Yuese. more consumers. And compared with the bottled beverages, tea bags and other products that HEYTEA and Nai Xue’s tea online mainly focus on, the self-shaking milk tea series with the color and color of the tea is more differentiated and more attractive.

Let’s talk about the waist milk tea brand that has been developing rapidly in the past two years. After the price reduction of the top brand, the new tea industry seems to have entered another price involution. There are more choices of milk tea within 15 yuan, and 9.9 yuan spike products are often launched in the self-broadcasting live broadcast rooms of the top new tea brands.

However, as mentioned above, after the price cut, the head brand has been criticized by consumers and the taste has changed, and the low-priced series did not steal the business of the waist milk tea brand as expected. In addition, brands such as Gu Ming, Shu Yi Shao Xian Cao, and Tea Bai Dao have achieved rapid expansion across the country through joining, covering a wider sinking market. From this level, it has more advantages than head brands.

There are also regional milk tea brands that are also making breakthroughs. For example, Bawang Teaji went out of Yunnan, Shanghai Auntie went out of Shanghai, Chahuanong went out of Xi’an, and Xilin girl who “comes from Xinjiang for you and me”, “Spice Making” Tea, the national style as a matchmaker” Zhengzhou Juan Tea…

In the past two years when the growth rate of top brands has slowed down, other brands have become more and more stable in their respective fields. It is difficult to say what the new tea market will become in the future.

The future battle is not limited to the new tea drinking track

On the one hand, the decline of new tea brands in the head is related to the general environment. According to the “China Catering Category and Brand Development Report”, the growth rate of new tea drinks will slow down periodically in the next 2 to 3 years, and be adjusted to 10%-15%. Throughout the first half of 2022, there were 16 financings in the new tea track within 6 months, with a financing amount of nearly 1.4 billion yuan. Compared with the first and second half of 2021, the financing amount and number decreased.

Based on this, the competition between new tea brands has become more and more intense. The number of stores opened, the speed of research and development, the level of creativity, quality control, and price all need to be better. Recently, the new tea drink top brands have successively launched new products or returned to the market, which also reflects the increasing frequency and pattern of joint names of top brands. The joint model comes with a “BUFF” bonus of 1+1 greater than 2, so it has also become a shortcut for the development of new consumer brands.

However, PricewaterhouseCoopers also mentioned in the “Tea Drink Market Insight Report” that compared with the rapid growth period of the first stage, the new tea drink track has entered the stage of competition in the red sea, and consumers are less sensitive to new products, including the head of the market. The speed and volume of new tea brands including players to create explosive products is far less than before.

As for the waist brand, it relies more on financing or franchise to expand rapidly, occupying the mountain as the king as soon as possible, and then attracting consumers with frequent new products and preferential prices. In other words, the gap between brands still exists, but it is difficult to have an absolute powerhouse when it comes to grabbing the minds of consumers.

On the other hand, the world outside the new tea drinking track is equally exciting, and it is also pressing inward. The first is the new coffee drinking track. Nowadays, there are more and more coffee-flavored milk tea and milk-tea-flavored coffee, and the boundary between milk tea and coffee is becoming more and more blurred. No longer limited to the new tea drinking track.

Luckin Coffee, which is also happy to co-brand activities, has sold more than 1.31 million cups of the new product “Cheese Latte” with “JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Sea of ​​Stone” this year. From the past and Sad Frog, LINEFRIENDS, “Craig & Karl” to this year’s coconut palm juice, “JOJO’s Bizarre Adventure: Sea of ​​Stone”, Ruixing’s joint name can be said to be out of the circle again and again.

The reshuffle of the new tea market is still accelerating. Only by doing a good job of supply chain and digital brands can we have the opportunity to overtake in the involution period. At the same time, the boundaries of the main categories of catering brands are gradually weakening, and it is difficult to generate absolute technical barriers. Therefore, how to build brand influence and efficiently complete activation and retention after acquiring traffic is still to maintain the brand after commercial development. important factor in long-term viability.