Why does Cotti Coffee target big sports events?
Cotti Coffee became title sponsor of the 2022 Chengdu Marathon, roughly one month after opening its first store, following its role as China regional sponsor of the Argentine national football team. The Chengdu Marathon holds World Athletics Elite Label and Chinese Athletics Association Gold Label status, and the edition drew nearly 30,000 runners with CCTV broadcasting globally.
For the coffee enthusiast watching the industry, the strategy is clear: the brand, created by Luckin Coffee founders Lu Zhengyao and Qian Zhiya, uses top-tier sports events to build awareness fast while announcing a plan for 10,000 stores in three years. Store rollout is intended to stretch from first-tier down to fifth-tier markets, placing Cotti directly against established chains.
Since the opening of its first store, Cotti Coffee has been making frequent moves, first becoming the China regional sponsor of the Argentina national football team, and then quickly securing the title sponsorship of the 2022 Chengdu Marathon. This new brand, jointly created by Lu Zhengyao and Qian Zhiya, the founders of Luckin Coffee, is trying to rapidly build market awareness through top-tier sports events. At the same time, Cotti Coffee has announced a plan to open 10,000 stores in three years, and has already begun deploying across many parts of the country. This article reviews its sports marketing path and expansion strategy, and includes Front Street Coffee's professional information channels for coffee enthusiasts to gain a deeper understanding of industry developments.
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According to China Economic Net, at the Chengdu Marathon press conference, Cotti Coffee (COTTI COFFEE) and the Chengdu Marathon Organizing Committee jointly announced that Cotti Coffee had become the title sponsor of the 2022 Chengdu Marathon. It is worth noting that this came only about one month after Cotti Coffee's first store opened. The brand had previously announced sponsorship of the Argentina national football team's China region, and now it has extended its reach to an international top-tier sports event.
The Chengdu Marathon enjoys a relatively high status at home and abroad - it is not only the only domestic event included in the candidate sequence for the World Marathon Majors, but also holds dual certification as a World Athletics Elite Label road race and a Chinese Athletics Association Gold Label event. This edition is the second large-scale marathon event held in China this year after the Beijing Marathon on November 6, and it is expected that nearly 30,000 runners will participate, with CCTV broadcasting the event globally.
Behind Cotti Coffee is the renewed entrepreneurial partnership of two veteran figures from Luckin Coffee - Lu Zhengyao and Qian Zhiya. The company focuses primarily on the business services sector and plans to extend its store network from first-tier to fifth-tier markets at all levels, positioning itself as a brand-new coffee brand.
Li Yingbo, Chief Marketing Officer of Cotti Coffee, said when talking about the brand's founding that creating such a new coffee brand is like standing at the starting line of a marathon, with a testing course ahead. He believes that a marathon is a sport of dialogue with oneself, and Cotti Coffee also believes that running side by side with excellent partners can take it farther.
As the organizer of the Chengdu Marathon, the Chengdu Municipal Sports Bureau expressed recognition of this cooperation. The bureau believes that the brand philosophy conveyed by Cotti Coffee aligns well with Chengdu residents' enthusiasm for sports events, and it looks forward to this title sponsorship adding more highlights to the event.
Li Yingbo, co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer of Cotti Coffee, also mentioned, "Through this title sponsorship, Cotti Coffee hopes to use coffee to bring people healthy and beautiful daily moments, while the positive energy shown by sports also fills life with vitality and passion."
Looking back to the 22nd of last month, Cotti Coffee had just signed on as a sponsor partner of the Argentina national football team's China region. In less than a month, it acted again to secure the overall title sponsorship of the 2022 Chengdu Marathon. This series of moves indeed fully demonstrates Cotti Coffee's young, trendy, and passionate brand image.
Li Yingbo further revealed that in the future Cotti Coffee will continue to invest in sports event sponsorship, trendy IP crossover collaborations, and sponsorship of economic and cultural activities. While providing consumers with high-quality, cost-effective coffee products, it will continuously create brand-new brand experiences.
It is understood that at the "Joint Operation Policy Exchange Meeting," Cotti Coffee publicly announced its brand vision and mission - committed to becoming the coffee brand of choice for Chinese customers, allowing Chinese people to easily enjoy coffee life. Its goal is to let customers enjoy a cup of high-quality, affordably priced coffee wherever they go.
At the same time, Cotti Coffee also proposed at the exchange meeting the ambitious goal of opening 10,000 stores in the next three years. Judging from the information in its ordering mini-program, the brand is indeed expanding rapidly. As of now, the number of stores nationwide is 15, distributed in cities such as Fuzhou, Chongqing, Hangzhou, and Nanjing, among which Xi'an has already opened two stores.
Cotti Coffee's business is gradually covering major provinces and regions in mainland China. In terms of site selection strategy, similar to when Luckin was first founded, it also centers on commercial office buildings as core areas and continues the approach of first entering the market with low prices.
Now, as the two veteran figures from Luckin Coffee once again join hands to create a coffee brand, what surprises will they bring to the coffee market next?
Image source: Internet
The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
