BUSINESS
CHINA DAILY Thursday, August 22, 2019 | 15“To inspire spending, brands
need to create different scenarios,
bring shoppers into the embodi-
ment of a brand’s ethos and estab-
lish emotional connections,” Yu said.
Pursuing the same path is Lele-
cha, a rising player also in the milk
tea sector that has just completed
Series A funding this month. At the
end of July, the Shanghai-based bev-
erage chain opened a 1,000-square-
meter store called Bubble Tea-
Making Amusement Park.
While no actual roller coasters are
installed in what it claims to be its
largest outlet in Asia, the level of
excitement is comparable to that inan amusement park with consum-
ers lining up for three hours for a
cup of cherry milk tea, a seasonal
offering.
Lelecha’s brand motto is: Made in
Asia, enjoyable and artisanal. This
storyline was reflected in the invita-
tion to its grand opening of severaltea industry luminaries, a Michelin-
starred chef and several master bak-
ers — to show that high-quality
ingredients, innovative recipes and
cultural tales can contribute to a cup
of tea.
The shop design features 10 inde-
pendent stands decorated in differ-ent styles, each selling a unique
category including raw tea, milk tea,
coffee, alcohol, desserts, bread and
ice cream, according to a company
statement sent to China Daily.
“Food prompts emotional trig-
gers, and eating is a gateway to the
mind,” Yu said.Tiny toys prove a big hit with young collectors
By CHINA DAILY
Dolls are no longer exclusively for
children. Jiang Fan, a 22-year-old
college graduate in Shanghai,
became captivated by Molly dolls
two years ago. Now, she has a collec-
tion of more than 70, and the num-
ber is climbing.
These tiny toys, commonly
known as blind box figures, come in
sealed packaging and collectors
have no idea which specific figure
from a series they are buying. Many
series even feature rare special fig-
ures or lucky-draw figures.
“It’s kind of like buying trading
cards, except you don’t get a piece of
cardboard, you get a cool toy,” Jiang
said. “The sense of uncertainty
intrigues me!”
Molly dolls are little dolls with
curly yellow hair, big turquoise eyes
and pouting lips. Each one costs 59
yuan ($8.5), which means Jiang has
to pay at least 708 yuan for an entire
series of 12 figures. “My purse really
hurts,” she joked.
Jiang is not the only “big kid”
who is fascinated with the dolls. In
April this year, the biennial Shang-
hai Toy Show attracted more than
100,000 fans of designer toys, just
like Jiang.
The sponsor of the toy expo is
Pop Mart, a leading designer toy
company in China. Founded in
2010, the company sells eight cate-
gories of lifestyle commodities. But
it put an emphasis on designer toys
in 2017, after the company detected
the enormous potential of the new
market and launched Molly, due to
the global popularity of Sonny
Angel, another famous designer toy
brand.
The company sold about 4 mil-
lion Molly dolls in 2018 and
expects to replicate the sales vol-
ume this year, Wang Ning, founder
of Pop Mart, said in a speech at the
China Central Academy of Fine
Arts in April.
Dividends are staggering. The
annual net profit of Pop Mart in
2017 was approximately 8 million
yuan, and it reached 21 million
yuan in the first half of 2018, jump-
ing 14 times compared with a year
ago, according to the company’shalf-year report.
Most of Pop Mart’s customers are
aged between 18 and 35, and are stu-
dents and white-collar workers,
according to Guo Xiao, chief mar-
keting officer of the company.
“Young people today are better
educated and capable of earning
more money,” explained Guo.
“That’s why they crave novel and
high-quality products.”
However, that is not the only rea-
son young people have taken a fan-
cy to Molly dolls rather than other
toys.
The main purchasing forces of the
designer toy market, the post-
and post-2000 generations, were
born in an age of entertainment and
are constantly distracted by new
products, making it hard for any hit
TV series, film or star to become a
phenomenon.
“What makes intellectual prop-
erty successful? I think it’s time,”
said Wang. “With a faster pace of
life and fragmented time, we can’t
afford to hatch a popular product.
But a Molly player doesn’t have to
spend weeks watching a TV series.model toys. According to the 2019
Global Toy Market Report made by
the US Toy Association, customers
aged from 18 to 34 make up half of
the people in the United States who
buy toys for themselves.
In China, the performance of toys
for adults is also remarkable. Sta-
tistics from China Customs indi-cate that the import volume of
components of model toys
increased by 49.8 percent year-on-
year in 2017, and the turnover
soared by 95.6 percent during the
same period.Tang Yiping contributed to this
story.Basically, displaying the dolls on a
desk is enough.”
Change in value is the other main
factor, according to Wang.
“People used to reach consensus
on the preference of figures; howev-
er, today, everyone’s favorite figure is
different,” he said.
In fact, the thriving designer toy
in a blind box epitomizes the entire
toy market for adults. More and
more youngsters across the world
are changing their tastes and taking
up collecting designer toys andYoung people today
are better educated
and capable of
earning more money.
That’s why they crave
novel and high-
quality products.”
Guo Xiao, chief marketing
officer of Pop MartA singer performs at a KFC
restaurant to promote local food
in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan
province.PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILYA Lelecha milk tea shop in Shanghai.WANG GANG / FOR CHINA DAILYWinning customers’ hearts and minds
Brands are working to establish emotional connections with shoppers amid rise in experience-driven consumption
By HE WEI in Shanghai
[email protected]
Nearly everything you encounter
in life has a story to tell: be it a flight
ticket, a used wallet, or even the per-
son sitting next to you in a theater.
The same is true of the food and
beverages that people consume.
Business owners in China are
waking up to the fact that as dispos-
able incomes rise, widely used terms
such as “freshly made” or “locally
sourced” are no longer enough to
appeal to the palates of a younger
generation of diners, who are
increasingly drawn to personalized
products.
It therefore comes as no surprise
that brands are deciding to become
storytellers — setting the scene and
fleshing out a plot from product
invention and storefront design to
social marketing campaigns — all
in a bid to trigger an emotional
investment that resonates with
customers.
So when Heytea, a milk tea brand
known for its rich cheese-foam top-
ping, introduced its first Heytea Lab
in Shanghai’s glitzy Grand Gateway
66 mall in June, the idea was to cre-
ate a multisensory drinking and
culinary experience through a
string of experimental installments.
Heytea has reinvented the retail
concept by introducing novel
menus that are updated on a weekly
basis. Apart from the regular portfo-
lio, the newly opened Shanghai flag-
ship store allows customers to mix
cocktails with their tea drinks.
It has taken inspiration from the
local culture, selling ice creams fea-
turing flavors like Shikumen Shang-
hai Rice Wine, a local liquor brand.
Neo Nie, founder and CEO of
Heytea, said he sees Heytea not only
as a cheese-topped tea store, but a
cool brand that has multiple possi-
bilities.
The seven-year-old brand, which
originated in Guangdong province,
now has more than 250 stores
nationwide and Nie is looking to
expand to 400 by the end of this year.
But he believes the winning reci-
pe isn’t always about physical
expansion, but “the occupation of
consumers’ mental accounts”. Rec-
ognizing the importance of immer-
sion and occasion in consumption,
Heytea rolls out seasonal delicacies
and co-branded side-items with spe-
cific themes, such as a Hong Kong-
styled vintage eatery.
Such innovative moves are neces-
sary as the growth of the traditional
food and beverage segment in China
faces stronger headwinds than the
overall fast-moving consumer
goods. According to consultancy
Kantar Worldpanel, the F&B seg-
ment maintained a conspicuously
slower pace of growth (about 2 to 3
percent) than personal care catego-
ries (over 10 percent) in the last
quarter of 2018.
“It’s a necessary approach as food
and beverage consumption has
inevitably shifted from function-
driven to emotion and experience-
driven,” said Jason Yu, general
manager of consultancy Kantar
Worldpanel in China.
Experience-driven and new prod-
uct trials are the defining character-
istics of China’s post-
population, whose desire for instant
gratification is shaping up to be the
new norm of consumption, said
Michelle Huang, industry analyst of
Food and Agribusiness Research at
Rabobank’s Shanghai branch.
“It’s not just quality that custom-
ers are paying attention to, it’s also
product innovation and the speed of
new rollouts,” she said. “Hence, it’s
imperative for brands to populate
menus with original ingredients
and ideas — and they need to do it
quickly and frequently.”
Huang said unique storefront
design and customer experience
help stores gain cultural clout.
“It’s an investment. For instance,
in the case of Heytea, a big chunk of
traffic still comes from online
orders,” she said. “The online order-
ing app helps streamline business
but it is the storytelling that gets the
tea brand into people’s heads in the
first place.”
Even established brands are
investing in good stories in the
hope of triggering emotional
responses from customers. KFC
China recently added skewers and
hotpot to their long list of Chinese
menu items, wishing to cash in on
the burgeoning midnight snacks
market that even the government
is encouraging in a bid to spur
spending.
Rather than simply placing ads
promoting the new offering, KFC
used social media to create a buzz.
By soliciting and sharing stories
related to late-night treats, the firm
attracted an emotional response
from prospective diners.
“Your curated story needs to grab
the attention of your ideal guests
and activate their emotions — and
that goes for storytelling across all
media,” Yu from Kantar Worldpanel
said.
Co-branding is another effective
tool. Coffee chain S.Engine teamed
up with e-commerce site Tmall for a
brick-and-mortar store to attract
attention, while Happy Lemon’s tie-
up with domestic candy brand
White Rabbit has generated online
discussions on Weibo, China’s most-
used microblogging service, which
is also a gauge of trending topics
online.
Heytea’s Nie, however, said
co-branded products are not a
major revenue generator but an ave-
nue to convey and reinforce brand
image. “Content does not necessari-
ly trigger consumption or even dis-
play any products, the purpose is to
convey the style of the brand.”
Yu from Kantar Worldpanel
agreed and cautioned brands not to
let the hype slide into a “one-off
sensation”.
“Many brands fail to sustain their
sales hike once the flash mob or
co-branded campaigns cease,” Yu
said. “So the real differentiator is not
to link consumers with a temporary
promotional incident organized by
the brand, but to establish a long-
standing emotional tie with the
brand itself, and that requires a con-
sistent branding strategy.”Customers queue at a Heytea milk tea shop in Wuhan, capital of Hubei province.PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILYCustomers buy toys from a Pop Mart automatic vending machine in
Shanghai. YAN DAMING / FOR CHINA DAILY