Street Coffee and the Shanghai Auntie Collaboration That Ended
A co-branded launch between tea brand Shanghai Auntie and the dating game Light and Night was terminated the same day it was announced. On December 14, employees at some stores were reported to have insulted players and game characters, and the topic reached over 450 million views. About three hours later, the game side issued an urgent statement ending the partnership.
Shanghai Auntie apologized and fired the employees involved, but players were not appeased. The brand, a fresh fruit tea chain affiliated with Shanghai Zhenjing Industrial Co., had expanded through franchising, and the episode exposed gaps in franchise management. It also serves as a cautionary case for cross-industry tie-ins across the tea and street coffee business.
A highly anticipated collaboration between a tea beverage brand and a game came to an abrupt halt on the very day it was announced. On December 14, "Light and Night" announced a collaboration with Shanghai Auntie to launch a co-branded new product. However, employees at some stores were reportedly hurling insults at players and game characters, and the related topic quickly shot to the top of trending searches, with over 450 million views. Just three hours later, the game side issued an urgent statement terminating the collaboration, which netizens jokingly dubbed "the shortest collaboration in history." Shanghai Auntie subsequently apologized and fired the employees involved, but players were not appeased. This incident not only exposed the brand's loopholes in franchise management but also sounded an alarm for cross-industry collaborations.
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Yesterday, the latest collaboration incident involving Shanghai Auntie sparked widespread discussion. Earlier, Shanghai Auntie's official Weibo had already hinted through its store avatar that the collaboration would be revealed on December 14. It wasn't until around 12 noon that day that the dating mobile game "Light and Night" officially posted an announcement of its partnership with Shanghai Auntie, with the co-branded limited-edition new product series set to launch on December 17.
However, just as everyone was eagerly anticipating the release of the co-branded milk tea, Shanghai Auntie was exposed for employees at some stores making insulting remarks about "Light and Night" and its players. Once the news broke, the topic quickly soared to the top of Weibo's trending list, and by that time the related topic had garnered 450 million views.
Public information shows that Shanghai Auntie is a new-style fresh fruit tea brand. It officially applied for trademark registration with the Trademark Office in 2013 and is affiliated with Shanghai Zhenjing Industrial Co., Ltd. Its founders are Shan Weijun and Zhou Rongrong. Similar to most new-style tea beverage brands, Shanghai Auntie rapidly expanded through a chain franchise model. As of October 2022, it had opened more than 5,000 stores in over 200 cities nationwide.
"Light and Night" was created by Aurora Studio. It is a highly immersive interactive dating mobile game that officially entered open beta on June 24, 2021, and just launched a brand-new version on November 9 this year.
Screenshots of the trending topic circulating online show that a Shanghai Auntie store responded to a customer's inquiry about the co-branded product with an extremely unfriendly attitude, even lacking basic respect. The employee said, "Do you want to ask if that widow scam game is really that fun?" The customer retorted, "What do you mean by widow scam game?" The employee then explained that wasn't what they meant, it was just a hot topic online recently. Some store employees even insulted game characters. It was precisely this series of actions that pushed Shanghai Auntie directly onto the trending list.
It is reported that earlier there were rumors on social media that because Shanghai Auntie was doing a brand collaboration with "Light and Night," the co-branded products needed to be launched simultaneously, and materials needed to be delivered to each store in advance. However, employees at some stores sold these materials ahead of schedule, triggering negative news.
From 12:00 to 15:00, just three hours apart, "Light and Night" issued another statement saying that because on the day of the announcement, some Shanghai Auntie stores had insulted players and the game's male lead, it would stop collaborating with Shanghai Auntie immediately. This collaboration was called "the shortest collaboration in history" by netizens.
The official statement from "Light and Night" roughly described the collaboration process: Several months ago, Shanghai Auntie (hereinafter referred to as "the partner") proactively reached out. After multiple rounds of negotiations, both parties agreed to proceed with the collaboration and set the official announcement for December 14 and the official launch for December 17. However, starting from November 24, negative incidents repeatedly appeared on various social platforms involving the partner's employees leaking materials, spreading false information, and privately selling collaboration gifts. On the day of the official announcement, December 14, there was even a deplorable situation in which the partner's employees verbally insulted players and the game's male lead.
When the earlier incidents of material and false information leaks occurred, the "Light and Night" project team immediately demanded that the partner investigate strictly and provide a solution. After the partner provided a solution and issued a public apology, the project team accepted the apology out of respect for the collaboration. However, today's behavior of insulting players and the male lead directly crossed the project team's bottom line.
Subsequently, Shanghai Auntie issued a statement of apology, saying that regarding the situation at certain authorized stores during this collaboration, the company immediately organized various internal departments to conduct a detailed investigation, tracked and followed up on the misconduct that was verified to have actually occurred, and seriously criticized the stores involved. The stores have terminated the employees involved.
But netizens and players have said they do not accept the apology: "No matter what, I think it's very rude. Jokes should be appropriate for the occasion. Directly deleting comments on the official Weibo is also a turn-off." "This is obviously emergency PR to silence people." "This is called a forced explanation." Many netizens even said they "will not buy their products again in the future." Of course, some netizens believe this was just a problem with a few individual employees.
Now that this has happened and many gamers have been hurt, should Shanghai Auntie consider how to win back this wave of consumers, or how to adjust so that similar incidents never happen again? What do you think about this matter?
Image source: Internet
The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
