Waiting
for Heekcaa: Rejuvenation of milk tea brand
YU Jin 1155081945
There has been no new story in milk tea
industry for a long time. However, on February 11th in Shanghai, a
tea shop called "Heekcaa" made a sale record for its opening. Consumers are
willing to queue up for over 2 hours to buy a cup of milk tea, which is a
common phenomenon for this famous brand.
A new hit:
Actually, long lines waiting has already
become a part of brand image for "Heekcaa", no matter in Shanghai or its base
camp – Guangdong province. Young people are willing to wait for so long to get
the tea, and there are many recommendations in different online platforms. This
brand comes from Guangdong province, and has over 50 stores now. Mainly located
in Pearl River Delta, from 2012 to now, it has developed from second and third
class cities, to Guangzhou and Shenzhen, and then Shanghai.
Branding:
The route of "from low to high level
cities" is different from many other brands development. However, Heekcaa has
its consideration. Lack funds and opportunities, it first began the business in
Jiangmen, a very small city in Guangdong. And then experiencing a period of
accumulation and correction, it gradually makes perfect movement pattern and
finally achieve the level of handling skillfully. So when it became a hit, the
mode was mature to a certain extent. With appropriate positioning and branding,
the Heekcaa economy was booming.
Of course, the most important one, as well
as the most attractive point, is the product itself. Heekcaa uses high-quality
fresh milk and tea, rather than milk flavor or fannings. Advanced equipment
like teapresso machine is also used to improve the taste. Good raw material and
recipe guarantee the flavor, which makes the "cheese milk cover" a unique selling
point for Heekcaa. It also gives rich varieties for consumer choices. When
other milk tea stores still simply sell black tea or green tea, Heekcaa
delivers new kinds of tea like "Her tea" from Taiwan, "Ruby king" from India
and so on. They take the courage to challenge the common taste in the market,
and finally get much reward.
Heekcaa also has its innovation on the
package and service. As you can see, it has a cute design for the package, as
well as specialized tissue and bag. The decorative style for the store is wood
textures, mixed with metallic silver paint, build a fresh comfortable
atmosphere for the consumers. These visual sign and space design symbol also
attract many young people to come for leisure.
Challenges:
However, with the development of milk tea
industry, more and more milk tea stores are coming out, and homogeneous
competition can be serious and fierce. Besides Heekcaa, T plus, Yi Fong, Pu tea
are all newly developed brands. There are many similar promotions in their advertising,
like quality and health, sense of design, logo, target group, and so on. Old
brands like Coco, A little and Happy Lemon are all searching for rejuvenating
and new unique selling points.
For the consumers, the loyalty for a
certain brand of milk tea is not always high. Young people are willing to try a
new brand or product for freshness or curiosity, but they may not insist on
only one brand, and they don't need to, for there are so many choices. And for
Heekcaa, making the consumer waiting so long is a dangerous signal. Higher cost
performance need effective running operation. To be honest, compared with other
milk tea stores, Heekcaa has larger space and more servers. But producing two
thousand cups every day, with 12 hours opening time, means every minute should
make 3 cups, and rush hours will be more. So if Heekcaa wants to keep its
popularity, consumers' waiting time should be the first problem to solve.
The distinction on design and visual is
direct, but also the simplest one. It could meet the need of personalized
consumption, at the same time, consumers are paying more attention on own demands and
personal style. The generation after 80s and 90s is becoming pickier to
products and service. A typical example is that once the representative of "upper-class western food" – Pizza Hut has already become the fast food
restaurant. It is much more difficult to satisfy the youngster's taste. So if
Heekcaa wants to develop further, it should seeking increasing perfection.
Reference:
1.
从街边小店，到进驻高端商场，奶茶市场发生了什么变化？
2.
为了一杯奶茶你肯掏的钱越来越多 是什么在推动这些变化？
3.
北上广：精品奶茶大革命，在这6家！
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