Specialty coffee's new idea of "breaking the circle".
On June 18th, Seesaw's first store in Chongqing officially opened.
Someone in the industry joked that this store is like a "Three Kingdoms Killing" for coffee. In the same mall, Seesaw met Starbucks and the Japanese coffee brand %Arabica in the location selection.
In Seesaw's view, although they are both coffee brands, they represent very different styles.
Starbucks mainly focuses on deep roasting, and mainly focuses on the third space scene of business and social interaction; %Arabica is the representative of Japanese deep roasting, and the simple and exquisite store design often attracts many people to stop and take pictures.
And Seesaw is the first batch of specialty coffee brands in China. They are known for their light roasts that can highlight the flavor of coffee. They will launch different coffee drinks according to different seasons, urban culture and content themes.
● Seesaw's first store in Chongqing opened.
This undoubtedly creates an interesting situation. Three Chinese, Japanese and American coffee brands compete on the same stage, and none of them can avoid a problem: In today's blooming coffee market, why do consumers want to buy you pay?
If you asked Seesaw this question two or three years ago, the answer would be unsurprisingly coffee quality, or store service and experience. But this year, Seesaw obviously has a new answer-making a cup of creative coffee that is more suitable for the taste of Chinese people.
We have heard many examples of "popularization of specialty coffee". For example, Manner Coffee, which is currently in the limelight, has been favored by the market with its high cost performance and chain store model, and has completed four consecutive rounds in the past 6 months. raises , and the valuation turns high.
An obvious trend in the past few years is that local specialty coffee brands, including Seesaw, M Stand, and Manner, have gradually become larger-scale, expanding their influence in the "outside the coffee circle" market.
After interviewing Seesaw, Brand Planet found that Seesaw specialty coffee exploration path is very different in - it is not directly lowering the price, winning with price and , or using the model of crazy store expansion to seize the market , is trying to localize the imported coffee and become more acceptable to the Chinese.
For Seesaw, the story of their second breakout of specialty coffee started with a cup of creative coffee.
▍Second Breakthrough of Seesaw
Seesaw CEO Sally told Brand Planet that Seesaw has had the dream of "Chinese coffee" since its birth.
In 2012, Seesaw started in Shanghai and grew up under the first wave of specialty coffee in China. The brands born around 2010 include Fisheye Coffee, Mingqian Coffee and Shiguan Coffee.
Seesaw is a fast-running company under the first wave of coffee. In the early days, boutique coffee gathered together in street stores, and Seesaw seized the commercial complexes and urban landmarks with large traffic and strong customer shopping ability in . Such a strategy of expanding stores became the representative of the "breaking circle" of specialty coffee at that time, and it was also its first time breaking the circle. At that time, the coffee market was far from being as hot as it is today.
After 2018, the domestic coffee market has undergone tremendous changes.
Luckin Coffee’s lightning-fast scale expansion has injected a booster into the coffee market, and the popularization of coffee drinks has become a new business proposition in the market. In the following years, online specialty coffees such as Sandunban, Yongpu, and Sumidagawa have risen rapidly, and the entire coffee market has accelerated to maturity.
itself is willing to look for new business opportunities, coupled with the intensification of the competitive environment , Seesaw began to think: when almost all emerging coffee brands are labeling specialty coffee, Seesaw's differentiated positioning and new business growth What else could it be?
The turning point is in 2020. After the epidemic, Seesaw's future business direction has been constantly discussed internally.
Seesaw found that if the category quadrant of coffee is changed to other food and beverage fields-whether it is pure tea, specialty coffee, or pure alcoholic beverages, will face a problem in the mass market: too high-quality products, deeply loved by circles People like it, but it is difficult to become a national product.
Without considering the price factor, the key to the popularity of drinks is nothing more than a popular in taste. Consumers do not need to be experts to be able to "taste" the quality of the drink, but the product must be good enough to drink.
is like HEYTEA to pure tea, adding cheese milk cap and milk on the base of pure tea, mixing brown sugar and crushed pecan fruit, and developing the taste that young people like, so that pure tea products have New possibilities;
or the Japanese giant Suntory . In the early years, in order to rejuvenate the whisky , Suntory used whisky as the base wine, and then added soda . By pushing the low-strength but more accessible Highball in the izakaya, it was able to make the whisky category from the niche to the public.
Seesaw believes that coffee cannot escape the big logic of the food and beverage market - essentially needs to satisfy the taste buds of the public in terms of taste. But another key to the problem is how can balance good and mainstream tastes while maintaining the Seesaw brand DNA.
In the end, Seesaw found an entry point, which is also a balance between the brand's own genes and the unique coffee market demand in China: creative coffee drink .
● Seesaw's Chengdu special
creative coffee is actually not a new category. In Shanghai, walk into a boutique coffee shop and you can probably find a creative special drink on the menu.
It is like barista 's creative expression of inspiration outside of daily life. Based on coffee, it innovates in taste, flavor and appearance, giving people new sensory stimulation, and is more popular with young people.
, like Shanghai's O.P.S., has been occupying the TOP1 of Shanghai's cafe hot list all the year round, and the limited seasonal creative special is its most praised highlight.
" Beverage coffee actually has a very big market potential , Seesaw has been digging the top of the pyramid in the past, our competitors are Starbucks, coffee brands like Tim Hortons, but the actual Today our opponents may also be new tea brands. coffee itself is also included in the beverage industry, but if we only focus on the coffee market, it will be very limited.” Seesaw said.
Now, Seesaw has begun to replicate such "small but refined" creative specialties into the store's ready-made drinks on a large scale. On the basis of respecting and retaining the original coffee bean flavor, it has added food ingredients, juice Or sparkling water , etc., to develop drinks that are more in line with the taste of the public, so that many people who do not drink coffee can also accept it.
From the second half of 2020, creative light coffee products have appeared on the menu of Seesaw one after another.
To outsiders, this is just a new product in the cafe; But to Seesaw internally, this is its most important product and marketing strategy from the past year to now, and it is also a repositioning of Seesaw's future development direction.
Focusing on the proposition of creative coffee, Seesaw has remodeled and upgraded product development, supply chain management, storefront and peripheral design, and communication content.
● On the menu of Seesaw, creative special features occupy a very conspicuous position. From September 2020 to March 2021, the sales ratio of Seesaw creative coffee has increased from 10% to 40%. By May this year, the sales ratio of Seesaw creative coffee has exceeded that of traditional coffee, and the repurchase rate is as high as 45% .
The first store in some cities, the performance of creative coffee is even more prominent. For example, Seesaw launched the Nanjing-limited Jinling Osmanthus Latte specially for Nanjing. A single SKU accounted for more than 50% of sales in some stores, and it once became the most sold in Nanjing stores. Good item.
Seesaw said that on the basis of maintaining the stability of the traditional espresso customer base and repurchase, the average single store added about 25% of the new customer base, the single store model continued to be optimized, and the efficiency was greatly improved.
At the same time, it also confirms the previous conjecture of Seesaw that creative coffee is more popular with the new generation of young consumers. After launched Creative Coffee, the proportion of Seesaw coffee consumption age groups has been significantly reduced: Z generation customer base has increased from 5% to 17%.
If it is concluded that in the past nine years, Seesaw's proposition is to let consumers drink a cup of good coffee, then the current and future proposition is - how can make a cup of creative coffee that meets the taste of Chinese people.
▍The birth of a cup of creative coffee
In order to better understand Seesaw's investment in creative coffee, Jeremy, the brand director of Seesaw, gave us a formula:
Seesaw creative coffee = professional coffee science X (food taste research + technological innovation application + experience design) X brand aesthetics
The left and right ends of the formula - professional coffee science and brand aesthetics are the two most classic components of specialty coffee, representing the specialization and quality of specialty coffee.
And Seesaw's creative coffee is to superimpose new creations on the basis of the two ends of the formula - specialty coffee, and extend new creative practices in the middle. The
changes first started with product development.
The product research and development of specialty coffee focuses on the planting environment of beans and and the process technology including roasting and grinding. Here at Seesaw, the taste research and development of creative coffee is to study the favorite flavors of the Chinese people, and occasionally it is necessary to Inspirational collision.
Sometimes, in order to cooperate with the activities of the brand department, the product department needs to do a half-proposition open-ended composition.
This time Seesaw opened its first store in Chongqing, and the creative proposition given to the product department was "Chongqing" .
To this end, the brand department and product department listed a series of words that can represent Chongqing: fog capital, mountain city, bridge capital , cable car...
"I was very surprised to find out that the original The city flower of Chongqing is the 'camellia', and it happens that our 'Inspiration Vault' has the formula camellia ," said product director Lai Lili.
In the end, this cup of "Wudu Mountain Tea Dirty" became the urban special tune of Chongqing.
● Seesaw's Chongqing special "Wudu Mountain Tea Dirty"
Lai Lili was in charge of the research and development of the milk tea brand before. In her opinion, the beverage industry, including coffee, has a common logic in the development of products - are all Following the popular trend of food and beverages, is also less rigid in the idea of specialty coffee because of her past experience and background.
"Today's consumers are increasingly pursuing a variety of senses, such as chewiness and layering. So you can see our lychee frozen brew, based on SOE cold brew coffee , in addition to the aroma of coffee, It will increase the taste of sweetness , and the pulp will increase the chewiness,” Lai Lili explained. In addition to
, health and local characteristics are also the elements of concern in the development of Seesaw products.
Such as Seesaw will use the popular oat milk to replace milk , to meet the needs of many healthy people and most lactose intolerant users in China, or to extract raw materials with Chinese characteristics, such as brown sugar and warm Ginger is added to coffee to awaken consumers' local taste memory, or to develop urban special notes, such as Hangzhou's Xizi Longjing American style, Chengdu's Sichuan pepper and Baiguo cold brew, not only suitable for Chinese people in terms of taste, but also from the product concept. Chinese elements.
● Hangzhou's special "Xizi Longjing American Style"
has new product innovation research and development, and the back-end supply chain and technology development will naturally follow. The big difference between and caffeinated drinks is that Seesaw still needs to maintain the quality of specialty coffee. The advantage of
is that since its establishment, Seesaw has penetrated into Yunnan, China, Ethiopia, Costa Rica, Jamaica Blue Mountain and other coffee origins, and controls the quality of beans from the planting side, which is also called "Global Origin" internally. custom plan".
The last cup of creative coffee is presented to consumers, is the experience design - the consumption experience is also an important link.
Seesaw has always been known for coffee space and specialty coffee, but the experience of creative coffee falling on a drink, the link of thinking is not only sitting in cafe and tasting a drink, but also its consumption scene and product expression .
Unlike Starbucks, which is more business-friendly and social, the space atmosphere of Seesaw is more relaxed and lively. As for the consumption of creative coffee, most of the scenes are not about rushing to work in the morning and urgently needing a cup of coffee to refresh the mind.
So with the drinks, Seesaw will also add some content interactive in the space, such as attaching a special card and lottery with drinks to create an interesting experience.
● Seesaw will make special presentation cards for creative specials.
Seesaw also plans to add a self-service DIY session in some stores, where consumers can experience the making process of a cup of creative coffee on the spot.
▍From creative coffee to the creative-focused Chinese coffee brand
, no business strategy and link are isolated.
When we talk about Seesaw's creative coffee, it is the core product, but it is also the "center" of the brand's repositioning. takes the product as the source to drive the company's product development, market strategy, consumer communication, etc. Changes in branding.
In 2020, after proposing the repositioning of "creative specialty coffee", in 2021, Seesaw carried out a brand upgrade: from a cup of good coffee to a cup of good coffee, the core concept of the brand became "A cup of good idea (a good cup of good coffee"). creativity)".
is enough to see that "creative" not only refers to the practice of a cup of coffee, but also must become part of the core of the brand, and also includes the upgrade of consumer communication methods and experience. The most typical example of
is the first Campaign after the upgrade of Seesaw - "Coffee is a fruit".
In order to let consumers abandon the prejudice that coffee has only bitter taste, and realize that coffee can also have various flavors such as citrus , pineapple , coconut , pomegranate and so on, Seesaw came up with this sentence - Coffee is a fruit (Coffee itself is a fruit, and coffee beans are actually the seeds in the coffee fruit. When translated into the brand copy, it becomes a playful saying "If there is a cause, there must be a fruit").
● Seesaw's joint gift box of "there must be fruit"
Fruits are in a variety of flavors, and coffee beans from different producing areas actually have different flavors. Fruit-flavored coffee beans, coffee liquor and their derivatives.
The same fruit coffee product, Seesaw did not choose the commonly used origin and flavor story ideas, but gave birth to a young and lively communication method such as "cause there must be fruit".
● Seesaw's new cold extract, featuring rose, mint and other flavors
At the same time, in the "Cause and Fruit" Campaign, Seesaw aimed at the precise fitness circle and cooperated with super orangutan to turn the gym into a Temporary cafe. In the future, Seesaw also plans to launch stores such as "day coffee + night wine" and the concept of environmentally friendly life to create more diverse creative coffee experiences.
With the rise of the coffee wave in China, Seesaw believes that coffee is not only a consumer product, but also leads and participates in the lifestyle of a new generation of young people.The areas that
coffee can cover and talk about are not only food and beverages, so after the brand upgrade, Seesaw has been advocating the integration of coffee culture and the life trend of contemporary Chinese youth to carry out "coffee +" brand marketing.
Like a collaboration with the Japanese trendy lifestyle brand niko and... and the cultural IP "Sanxingdui Wuzu World", Seesaw has made a new creative expression of Chinese coffee culture.
● Seesaw's "Coffee+" marketing combines coffee with youth cultural life (swipe left to see more)
After the Japan Earth Art Festival entered China for the first time this year, Seesaw was the only coffee brand to settle in.
Different from general art exhibitions, the exhibition venue of the Dadi Art Festival is not indoors, but uses the natural fields and forests as a real stage, and uses the local architecture and natural features to display the works of artists.
"Actually it's very remote. It was the first time I knew there was such a village in Fuliang, Jiangxi, but we decided to cooperate after going there to collect folklore. I think there must be a story to tell here." Brand Director of Seesaw Jeremy said in an interview.
finally fell into the pen of Seesaw, this time the temporary coffee village "support" was transformed into a Chinese version of the "Little Forest" cafe.
You can't help but admire Seesaw's associative power, it is indeed like the picture depicted in the Japanese movie "Little Forest" series - away from the hustle and bustle of the city, in the green mountains and green waters, creating delicious food in the gift of nature.
● Seesaw at the Earth Art Festival
Jeremy believes that this type of cooperation allows brands to have stories to tell and content to create, and it will also become a source of creative inspiration for Seesaw. "With a story and content, a brand can become a symbol" , Jeremy said.The story and content are also the words that were repeatedly mentioned in this interview.
In fact, since 2019, Seesaw has continued to create and output such cultural symbols :
first started the "Take Tigers in the Mountains" sharing session , each issue focuses on people and stories, inviting creativity in different fields This has also become the community IP of the Seesaw brand, and then Seesaw has launched another content-centric IP - "Three Cups Don't Post" , with a textured physical newspaper as the content carrier, Observe and record the changes of life in the times.
● Seesaw's physical newspaper "Three Cups Don't Work"
expresses brand inspiration by creating stories and builds a brand community through output content. This is the cultural symbol characteristic summed up by Seesaw and its specialty.
Next, Seesaw plans to incubate its third brand IP, SEESAW PARK, which focuses on experience, connecting young people in the form of a market.
"Being a coffee brand requires the courage to express the brand and the ambition to become a cultural symbol," Seesaw said.
From the first to nurture China's specialty coffee culture nearly ten years ago, to the creation of a new Chinese creative coffee experience ten years later, "creativity" has always been the spiritual core of Seesaw. "A cup of good idea" was refined in this brand upgrade as the core expression of the brand.
"You don't need to mention a lot of ideas that change the world. There are many good ideas in life that are good ideas. These are things that can help you live your life more interestingly, and that's what we want to express", Jeremy Speaking of. After extracting the word, he tried to search in WeChat chat records to see in what context people would use the word.
is sometimes a collision of inspiration, or a good idea praised by friends around me, or a heartfelt sigh after discovering a surprise.
For Seesaw, "creativity (good idea)" is not a grand and unattainable proposition, it is embedded in the bits and pieces of daily life, hoping to inspire consumers and make you always have in life Enthusiasm, perception and creativity.
▍View
From the proposition of Slogan, we can clearly find that behind "A cup of good idea (a cup of good idea)" is not simply a product concept, but involves product development, business strategy and Brand positioning, etc.
For many coffee brands, creative specialties are only part of their product system, and have not been enlarged to the level of market strategy, or even brand strategy .
Perhaps because it is mostly linked to the scene of independent cafes, creative coffee is rarely discussed in the context of commercialization.
In reading many coffee reports, Brand Planet found that because of the blurring of the boundaries between coffee and beverages, the sub-category of creative coffee has received little attention, and the market is more focused on caffeinated beverages (mostly new teas). coffee products in drinking shops), or coffee itself (mainly coffee beans, fresh coffee and instant coffee ).
But after visiting various C-end-oriented coffee festivals, it is not difficult to find that for a consumer from a non-coffee industry, a cup of creative coffee is often more attractive in terms of taste, creativity and consumer experience. The market for creative coffee still needs to be tapped.
We believe that this is a great advantage of Seesaw in the current environment - before the creative coffee market is fully fermented, it takes the lead in the layout and captures the cognition of consumers. At present, more people on the market know about creative coffee, but few people know about the "creative coffee brand".
It can be said that the significance of creative coffee to Seesaw is not only a commercial breakthrough, expanding to more popular and mainstream categories, but also a brand renewal. The term "creative" refers to both product, content, experience and brand.
When today's coffee brands are becoming more and more similar, Seesaw chose to jump out and anchor the positioning of creative coffee, which is courage and its uniqueness.
And coffee, an exotic product, can also become more Chinese and localized. Perhaps as Seesaw said, it has now reached a stage of creating a coffee that belongs to the taste of the Chinese people.
Source: Brand Planet
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