When Coffee Merchandise Misses the Mark: Luckin's Fourth Anniversary Collaboration

Luckin Coffee's fourth anniversary celebration for its Raw Coconut Latte featured a collaboration with comedian Fu Hang. The campaign included a new Jelly Raw Coconut Latte and collectible stickers. However, many customers returned the stickers on the spot, citing unfamiliarity with Fu Hang or lack of interest. A store clerk joked that he was probably the drink's founder. The promotion failed to connect with the usual audience, leading to unexpected backlash and creative inventory clearance by staff.

The new drink was essentially the original recipe with added coconut jelly, offering little novelty beyond texture. Because the jelly melts in heat, it was only available cold. With temperatures dropping in southern China, the iced beverage discouraged cold-sensitive customers. Unlike past collaborations with celebrities or cartoon characters that sold out quickly, this campaign struggled. The incident highlights the challenges of aligning coffee culture with merchandise promotions and the importance of understanding customer preferences in specialty coffee.

On the fourth anniversary of the Raw Coconut Latte, Luckin chose to collaborate with stand-up comedy champion Fu Hang for a co-branded campaign and launched a new product, "Jelly Raw Coconut Latte." However, the co-branded stickers that had been highly anticipated unexpectedly fell flat—many customers returned them on the spot because they didn't recognize him, didn't like him, or didn't know how to use them. When asked "Who is he?", a store clerk even had a quick-witted response: "Probably the founder of the Raw Coconut Latte." Why exactly did this collaboration fail? And how did the distribution of merchandise turn into store clerks' "creative ways to clear inventory"? This article will take you through the details.

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As the Raw Coconut Latte reached its fourth anniversary, Luckin announced a collaboration with stand-up comedian Fu Hang, releasing not only a promotional short film but also simultaneously launching a new product called "Jelly Raw Coconut Latte." According to the campaign rules, purchasing a single cup would earn a co-branded sticker.

Based on the official introduction and actual feedback from netizens, this new product is essentially the original classic recipe with added coconut jelly topping, making it a cup of coffee "you can drink with a straw." Therefore, the flavor is no different from the old Raw Coconut Latte—aside from a bit of extra slippery texture, it doesn't bring much novelty.

In addition, because the coconut jelly tends to melt into the coffee at higher temperatures, the new product is only available as a cold drink. But recently, even the felt temperature in the South China F3 region has dropped to single digits, so this iced coffee naturally discouraged some cold-sensitive consumers from ordering, and the overall response fell short of expectations.

Anyone familiar with Luckin's merchandise playbook knows that in the past, its collaborations always hit the public's sweet spot—whether actors and celebrities, cartoon characters, or popular games, as long as the freebies carried the corresponding elements, fans would rush to place orders. Although various cup sleeves, paper bags, stickers, and small items all had acquisition thresholds, thanks to their high popularity, they would sell out within days of launch, and at high-traffic stores they were even harder to get than gold.

However, in this collaboration, the stickers featuring Fu Hang's real-life image that came with the coffee were returned on the spot by many customers for reasons such as "I don't know him," "he's not good-looking," and "I have no idea where to stick it"—they even became slow-moving inventory in stores.

It is understood that Luckin's collaborator this time, Fu Hang, is a stand-up comedian who came to public attention half a year ago after winning the annual championship on the variety show "The King of Comedy Stand-Up Season." His unique and exaggerated "passion-style performance" is what leaves the deepest impression. Among this batch of merchandise stickers, Luckin also deliberately turned Fu Hang's signature style into absurdist meme faces and printed them out.

But judging from the actual response to this merchandise giveaway, this champion's fan base is actually not that large. Coupled with his comedic route, both his popularity and name recognition are hard to compare with Luckin's previous collaborators, so stickers printed with his face are naturally not as popular as before. (Perhaps he himself had already foreseen this situation—when designing the meme faces, he came up with copy like "Oh coconut, who uses Fu Hang as a sticker?" which quite aptly pokes fun at himself.)

For people who normally don't follow the stand-up comedy scene, they had never heard of the name Fu Hang before, so what was printed on the sticker was simply a "stranger." Sure enough, yesterday someone asked a store clerk "Who is he?" the moment they got the sticker, only to find that Luckin's own employee was also baffled. Looking at the freshly made Jelly Raw Coconut Latte, the clerk suddenly had a flash of inspiration and told the customer: "Probably the founder of the Raw Coconut Latte."

Many ordinary netizens admitted that they had no intention of being offensive, but receiving such an abstract sticker really left them with no use for it. Moreover, it had someone else's image printed on it, and throwing it directly into the trash would seem very disrespectful, so they had no choice but to return it on the spot to the Luckin clerk, perhaps leaving it for fans who truly needed it.

However, as more and more people "refused to accept" them, the clerks also found that the stickers on hand were becoming harder and harder to give away. But in order to clear the inventory as quickly as possible, everyone had to think of other ways.

Faced with the slow-selling stickers, some stuffed them forcefully into bags, some simply tucked them into the most conspicuous positions possible, and others directly laid out a stack for anyone to take.

Image source: online screenshots

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