What does a 20-yuan Moutai chocolate taste like? Let's get to the point: it has a slight hint of alcohol, but it's overly sweet. Not particularly tasty. On September 14, Dove and Kweichow Moutai simultaneously announced on Weibo that their co-branded Maoxiaoling chocolate would be available on September 16. The news immediately topped Weibo's hot search. The author visited the Moutai ice cream flagship store in Beijing's Chaoyang Joy City at the first moment of the chocolate's release. Compared to the fervor of the on-site queue, young people who couldn't get their hands on the Moutai chocolate online began writing jokes: "He knows I can't afford Moutai, so he's selling it to me drop by drop." For young people who don't drink baijiu, Moutai's "bulk-selling" approach is indeed getting more sophisticated. Just 12 days after the launch of the sauce-flavored latte with Luckin, Moutai has partnered again. Can the myth of the sauce-flavored latte be replicated?

Sold Out in 1 Second

"Refund my membership fee!" "Hunger marketing!" "Only 2,000 sets? Are they playing with us?" At 15:35 on September 16, just 5 minutes after the Maoxiaoling chocolate went on sale, the live stream comments on Dove's Tmall flagship store were filled with anger from those who failed to purchase. Meanwhile, the host had already left, and the screen looped the promotional video for the chocolate. Other online channels also sold out within seconds, with links on Tmall Supermarket showing as unavailable. In response, Dove stated that the current stock was sold out, and pre-sales would begin every hour from 5 PM to 8 PM, with the company rushing production. The author visited the Moutai ice cream flagship store in Beijing's Chaoyang Joy City and found that a queue had already formed 15 minutes before the sale. At 15:38, the 12-piece gift box classic version was sold out. Half an hour after the sale began, all chocolates in the store were gone.

People queuing outside the Moutai ice cream store. The anger in the live stream is understandable. Previously, the pre-sale link for Maoxiaoling chocolate on Dove's Tmall flagship store required joining the store's membership and paying a 1-yuan fee to add it to the cart, with a strict limit of 2 per person. Before the sale, Dove's Tmall flagship store live stream ranked only 12th in the Tmall brand snack hourly chart, but after the sale, the number of viewers surged to 186,800, directly topping the brand snack chart. On social media, the frenzy to grab Moutai chocolate was comparable to the recent scramble for National Day train tickets. In the Weibo topic #DidYouGetTheMoutaiChocolate#, a user said they had gathered 8 friends to help, but none succeeded. The competition offline was less intense than in the live streams, but the purchase restrictions were stricter. Staff at the Beijing Moutai ice cream flagship store said each person could only buy one item that day. Like the sauce-flavored latte, people were concerned about the exact Moutai content. At the Beijing store, staff repeatedly emphasized at checkout, "This chocolate contains alcohol; don't drive for half an hour after eating." According to public information, each piece of the co-branded chocolate contains 2% of 53% vol Kweichow Moutai. A customer who successfully purchased the 2-piece classic Maoxiaoling chocolate told the author after tasting it on-site, "It's not tasty, cloyingly sweet." Another customer said, "There's no alcohol taste; it's very mild." Most young customers came for the novelty. Compared to the busy Luckin stores on the day of the sauce-flavored latte launch two weeks ago, the Moutai ice cream flagship store wasn't particularly hectic. Staff at the Beijing store revealed to the author that on September 16, the store had only 30-40 pieces of chocolate in total across all specifications. Maoxiaoling chocolate is undoubtedly another manifestation of Moutai's ambition to attract younger consumers, but in the queue, there were many middle-aged faces, and some tried to queue repeatedly. Some customers speculated these were scalpers. The Moutai chocolate quickly sold out, while the sauce-flavored latte, which was all the rage two weeks ago and hard to get, is now losing its appeal. The author visited two Luckin stores in Haidian District on a weekday. The co-branded paper bags, which required purchasing two cups of sauce-flavored latte on launch day, are now standard, casually holding Americanos or coconut lattes. A Luckin staff member told the author that after the ingredients resumed supply this week, orders for the sauce-flavored latte plummeted. At 9:30 AM on a weekday, a peak time for Luckin's office-building stores, the author found that out of 30 orders, only 3 were for the sauce-flavored latte.

At a Luckin store in Beijing, paper bags for the sauce-flavored latte now hold Americanos or coconut lattes. While Beijing stores have achieved supply but face cold demand, other cities are still experiencing shortages, with stores in Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen showing the sauce-flavored latte as restocking. Is Moutai's name a flash in the pan among young people? Only time will tell.

Eternal Moutai Myth or Hunger Marketing?

The sauce-flavored latte sold over 5.42 million cups on its first day, with single-day sales exceeding 100 million yuan, but replicating that "myth" is not easy. Although the co-branded chocolate appears to sell out at an astonishing speed at first glance, it doesn't hold up under scrutiny. The initial sales situation inevitably raises suspicions of hunger marketing. In the pre-launch promotional information, Moutai and Dove went all out in terms of channels. Public information shows that on September 16, the chocolate was available at Moutai ice cream stores nationwide, as well as at Ole supermarkets, Zunyi China Liquor Culture City, and Sanya Haitang Bay Moutai Resort. Online, it was available on iMoutai, Moutai ice cream, and Dove's Tmall and Douyin flagship stores, as well as Tmall Supermarket. Starting September 17, it also covered hypermarket channels like RT-Mart and Lawson stores in East China. However, the stock in these channels was not sufficient. Currently, the Moutai ice cream mini-program lists 32 stores nationwide, located in first-tier cities and provincial capitals. In Beijing, for example, there is only one Moutai ice cream flagship store at Chaoyang Joy City. According to the store's inventory data provided by staff, selling 40 pieces in half an hour is hardly an impressive achievement. Based on the announced prices, the 12-piece gift box is priced at 169 yuan for the classic version and 179 yuan for the sugar-reduced version, while the 2-piece trial size is 35 yuan and 39 yuan, respectively. This puts the price per piece at around 15 yuan, with the highest-priced 2-piece sugar-reduced version costing as much as 19.5 yuan per piece. More importantly, compared to the sauce-flavored latte, the well-known chocolate with liquor is less appealing than the fresh concept of "baijiu + coffee." Consumers are willing to spend 19.9 yuan to try a "novel" coffee, but they may not be willing to buy a chocolate at nearly 20 yuan per piece. For discerning "foodies," Dove is not the most refined choice. In the long-established category of liquor-filled chocolates, professional brands like GODIVA and Anthon Berg appear more upscale, while Dove, known for its "silky smoothness," is still perceived as a ubiquitous supermarket brand. Liu Feng, who was queuing at the store, told the author that when friends learned he was buying, they asked him to grab a box, but gave up after hearing about the purchase limit. When the author reminded him that he could buy online, Liu Feng laughed, "We're just joining the fun; by the time the delivery arrives, the novelty will have worn off." With fewer distribution points than Luckin's widespread stores, the availability of the chocolate is compromised. The longer and more cumbersome the purchase process, the more likely consumers will abandon it at some point. More importantly, whether it's Dove or chocolate as a category, it's no longer popular among young Chinese people. According to CITIC Securities' "Leisure Snack Industry Deep Report," China's chocolate industry was valued at 22.1 billion yuan in 2022, only 13% of the U.S. market size. Euromonitor predicts a compound annual growth rate of 3.2% for China's chocolate market from 2022 to 2027, indicating slow growth in the next five years. The capital market is also voting with its money, just like young people. The most recent financing in the chocolate category was in July 2022, when Daily Dark Chocolate completed two rounds of financing totaling over 100 million yuan. CITIC Securities also noted in its report that new consumption scenarios like fitness and healthy snacking have shifted consumer choices in chocolate. Young people are increasingly focusing on subcategories like dark chocolate, which differ from traditional sweet chocolates. Demands for "healthy" and "clean ingredients" are becoming more common on social platforms. If the Moutai-Luckin partnership was Moutai, actively seeking rejuvenation, hitching a ride on the fast train of new consumer darling Luckin, then this co-branded chocolate is more like a "twilight romance" between two traditional consumer brands. Traditional old brands, each with their own anxieties, are joining hands to try to extract more money from young people's pockets. But the path of liquor-filled chocolate may not lead to success. In May 2022, Shanxi Fenjiu also partnered with Anthon Berg to launch "Anthon Berg Qinghua 30 Fenjiu Baijiu Chocolate," which ultimately faded away without making a splash. However, judging by Moutai's frenetic co-branding moves, this baijiu giant, which earns 200 million yuan a day, seems to be casting a wide net: ice cream, coffee, chocolate... The "Moutai + food" strategy is like a grand chess game. Whether or not the marketing myth can be continued, Moutai is determined to make money from young people.

Too Many Collaborations, Can't Keep Up

Whether or not they actually make money from it, cross-industry collaborations have become an undeniable "fashion item" for brands in recent years. In 1966, Harvard Business School professor Lee Alder elaborated on the theory of symbiotic marketing in the Harvard Business Review, referring to alliances between two or more enterprises or brands in areas such as channels, sales, R&D, and production to enhance market competitiveness. However, cross-industry collaborations in the business world appeared as early as 1934, when canvas shoe giant Converse partnered with Disney to launch the world's first Mickey Mouse canvas shoes. Luckin x Coconut Tree, Heytea x FENDI, sauce-flavored latte—consumer brands are constantly breaking through their circles through collaborations. This seemingly lucrative pie attracts everyone, and collaboration operations reached a peak in 2023. According to the author's incomplete statistics, within the two weeks since Luckin's sauce-flavored latte went viral, there have been as many as 6 collaboration events in the food and beverage sector. Among them, coffee brand Manner partnered with Winona to launch a wine-scented osmanthus latte, Lelecha partnered with the Maritime Silk Road Museum, Heytea continued its collaboration with Genshin Impact, and Naixue Tea launched collaborations with Fantasi Music World and Pop Mart. Among these, Heytea and Naixue Tea have fully normalized their collaboration operations, launching new products with different IPs almost every month. Fang Ning ordered the wine-scented osmanthus latte as soon as Manner announced the Winona collaboration, admitting she was after the freebies. Manner's ordering mini-program showed that the 20-yuan latte came with three Winona samples. Xu Wei has been ordering Heytea's Genshin Impact collaboration drink, Shenhe·Double Pomelo Nectar, every day for a week. Besides being a Genshin player, he genuinely finds the drink "a bit addictive." However, Xu Wei also told the author that although he is a heavy milk tea user and has become a Heytea black card member, the increasingly frequent collaborations have left him exhausted. Around 2020-2021, brand collaborations weren't as rampant as they are today. Xu Wei, as a young person who loves to join the fun, would spend real money on these trends, but now he's "a bit numb." "It's not new anymore. Even if I really like the IP, if it doesn't taste good, I won't buy it." In fact, brand collaborations that achieve long-term profitability and sustained momentum are rare. Most consumer product collaborations are a passing fad, ending after harvesting the fans of the partnered IP. It's worth noting that young people like Xu Wei are losing their novelty for collaborations, and the threshold for stimulation from brand collaborations is rising. In young people's purchasing decisions, the value of the product itself is making a comeback. Even for evergreen IPs like Moutai, replicating the myth of the sauce-flavored latte is no easy task. The wealth code of collaboration is gradually failing. After all, Fang Ning and Xu Wei both said, "There are too many collaborations; I can't keep up."

(At the request of the interviewees, all names are pseudonyms.)