Is Traffic Star Marketing the New Coffee Store Battleground?

Cotti Coffee's new brand ambassador announcement drove a surge in store orders, overwhelming some locations. The same day, a Luckin Coffee livestream carried a group-buying link labeled with the star's fan nickname, leading some fans to think their idol had endorsed Luckin and buy vouchers. Luckin has issued no statement; the link is gone.

The episode shows coffee brands turning to fan groups as price wars and co-branded merchandise lose pulling power. With luckin coffee and rivals competing for the same customers, celebrity traffic can push a topic to trending without heavy spending. Whether fans stay for the coffee itself remains the open question for every coffee store chain.

Cotti Coffee's official announcement of a new brand ambassador has triggered a surge in store orders, and Luckin Coffee's livestream quickly featured a group-buying link suspected of piggybacking on the traffic. A coffee commercial war centering on a popular celebrity seems to have quietly begun. As the traffic-driving effects of price wars and co-branded merchandise gradually weaken, brands are beginning to turn their attention to fan groups willing to keep paying for their idols. Can this shift in consumption from "buying the box while returning the pearl" to "paying for love" become a new path for coffee brands to break through? Under the celebrity halo, will coffee itself be forgotten by consumers?

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This morning, Cotti Coffee officially announced a new brand ambassador and launched related merchandise, successfully attracting a large number of fans to place orders for their star, afraid that if they were one step too slow they would miss out on the merchandise. This also led to many Cotti Coffee stores being overwhelmed with orders and even having to temporarily close due to excessive order volume.

According to netizens, "Motorcycle Sisters" is what the star's fans call themselves. This afternoon, a group-buying link in Luckin Coffee's livestream used "Motorcycle Sisters Exclusive" as a prefix, causing some fans to mistakenly believe their star had endorsed Luckin and place orders for group-buying vouchers.

In response to this situation, Luckin Coffee has currently issued no statement, and the relevant link shared by netizens can no longer be found in the livestream.

Many netizens believe this was a commercial war led by Luckin, aimed at piggybacking on the celebrity's traffic and poaching customers from its rival. Some netizens also believe it may have been a self-staged stunt by fans to build momentum for their star.

But regardless of which scenario it is, this trending topic is enough to show the influence of a popular celebrity, and this is exactly what brands want—publicity that reaches trending topics without costing too much.

In 2023, various coffee chain brands all carried out co-branding activities with popular IPs, luxury brands, art museums, and so on, also using this to launch all kinds of merchandise and attract many passersby who otherwise did not drink coffee to stop and take notice. Consumption of the "buying the box while returning the pearl" type surged, and this also invisibly expanded brand influence.

However, this marketing model gives consumers a sense of fatigue—"it's co-branding activities and buying, buying, buying all year long"—so much so that by the end of the year, brands' co-branding activities could not stir up the huge waves they did at the beginning of the year, and scenes of queuing to snap up products and stores being overwhelmed with orders were not as they had been before.

As promotional methods such as price wars and co-branding activities play a weaker role in attracting traffic, while competition becomes fiercer and involution intensifies, brands are beginning to change their thinking and focus on fans who are willing to spend money for the celebrity they endorse.

Previously, K Coffee, Starbucks, Luckin, and others all successfully attracted a wave of celebrity fans to visit and spend after officially announcing brand ambassadors. Unlike the group that consumes for co-branded merchandise, before the celebrity and the brand terminate their endorsement relationship, fans will not give up spending just because there is no co-branded merchandise featuring the star.

From this perspective, compared with consumers who get carried away for a moment and engage in "buying the box while returning the pearl" consumption, fans of highly popular celebrities seem likely to continue buying the brand's products because of the celebrity endorsement, and this group also has the potential to grow because of the star—something the consumer group that chases co-branded merchandise lacks.

Perhaps in the new year , scenes of fans lining up in long queues outside a certain coffee shop and taking photos with a certain star's cardboard cutout, scrambling to buy co-branded merchandise will increase , but will this kind of brand promotion method make consumers remember only a certain celebrity while neglecting the coffee drink itself ?

Image source: Xiaohongshu

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The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.