Shocking! HEYTEA Partners With "The Legend of Zhen Huan"!!

HEYTEA is making waves again. Recently, HEYTEA's official Weibo and public account officially announced the launch of co-branded products with the classic TV drama "The Legend of Zhen Huan," now available in all stores: the fruit tea "Zhen Fruit · Big Orange Drawing Pear" and the milk tea "Zhen Milk · Snow Brewed with Jade."

The mini-program shows both are priced at 18 yuan, in keeping with HEYTEA's product philosophy of "real quality, not expensive." Purchasing a new drink comes with a co-branded gift, and delivery is free on Mondays. Themed atmosphere decorations in and around the stores, plus a series of co-branded activities, have drawn in many consumers.

"The Legend of Zhen Huan," watched more than three times by many viewers, is a national-level TV drama. With its outstanding plot, exquisite performances and grounding in Chinese culture, it has stayed popular for over a decade. Through fan creations or simple borrowing of its popularity, it always generates considerable traffic. In recent years, the fan-creation trend around the show on various platforms has extended into interpersonal relationships, workplaces and daily life, giving rise to many internet memes.

It is understood that this is also the first time "The Legend of Zhen Huan" has crossed over to collaborate with a new tea brand. Perhaps because of the deep cultural alignment between the two sides, HEYTEA's collaboration with the drama continues to enrich the show's meaning and adds a new cultural experience to the cross-industry moves of new tea brands.

On October 21st, HEYTEA's official Weibo account posted "Work's over, stop watching (pat on the shoulder)," accompanied by a picture of HEYTEA employees watching "The Legend of Zhen Huan" holding an unseen new product with an ancient-style sticker on it. From HEYTEA's replies to netizens' comments below, one could roughly guess that another new move was coming.

So even before the official launch, when HEYTEA had announced nothing, some people already "knew" clearly. As early as two days earlier, social media platforms were spreading the news as if afraid someone might miss the "Zhen Huan" collaboration. Now it has really arrived.

Previous Successful Collaborations

This is not the first time HEYTEA has collaborated with a TV drama. On the last day of June this year, HEYTEA led the way in launching co-branded products with the popular drama "A Dream of Splendor" nationwide: Menghua Tea Xi · Dian Cha and Perilla · Pink Peach Drink. Those two also followed a low-price route, at 19 yuan and 15 yuan respectively.

On launch day, nearly 300,000 cups were sold. Because of the sheer volume of orders, the official mini-program crashed several times, and some stores ran out of ingredients and closed early. The collaboration even reached fourth place on the trending topics list. It was the first cross-industry collaboration between HEYTEA — and the new tea industry as a whole — and a hit TV drama, and it presented a very rich set of creative approaches.

Expanding to Gaming Collaborations

Beyond TV dramas, in September this year HEYTEA also collaborated with 2021's most popular game, "Genshin Impact," to launch co-branded limited-edition drinks. The activity sparked heated discussion as soon as it was announced and immediately ranked first on Weibo's recommendations that day. Two co-branded products were launched: "Ayato · Water Shadow Longan Coconut" and "Ayaka · Frost Longan Coconut."

At the same time, HEYTEA launched co-branded bottled juice tea with themed packaging as an online activity, and players responded with enormous enthusiasm. At 12:00 on September 5th, the HEYTEA x Genshin Impact co-branded juice tea officially went on sale; by 12:59 the first batch of inventory was sold out. HEYTEA's official platform HEYTEA Go and Taobao both removed the co-branded products, while other e-commerce channels opened pre-sale with shipping within 30 days.

HEYTEA's Marketing Strategy and Future Outlook

Looking at HEYTEA's past moves, the brand collaborates often, and recently it has been especially active: a "transparent window for fresh fruit peeling," limited-time "avatar changes" on social platforms when launching new products, collaborations with fans, and the first "A Xi Full Body Image Collection Contest." To date, #HEYTEALogoFullBodyImage# and #A XiFullBodyImage# have received over 500 million exposures across the internet. What results will this collaboration with a national-level TV drama bring, and what will the next move be?

Image source: Internet

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