Yu Lina, Co-founder of Grandpa Doesn't Make Tea: Going with the trend is the traffic code for our breakthrough and growth. | WISE2024 Future Consumption Conference

On November 29, the WISE2024 Future Consumption Conference was officially held in Beijing. This conference is hosted by 36Kr Future Consumption, with the theme of "Always with You", focusing on hot topics in the consumer industry. It invites more than 20 investment institutions, platform sides, brand sides, and service provider executives to jointly explore new trends and opportunities in the consumer industry. 

In the highly competitive tea beverage track, Grandpa Doesn't Make Tea seems to be a rather special one. As a brand native to Wuhan, at the end of 2023, the number of Grandpa Doesn't Make Tea stores was only 300. Until October 31, 2024, Grandpa Doesn't Make Tea has exceeded 1,300, and it is expected to reach 2,000 by the end of this year. In the crowded tea beverage market, Grandpa Doesn't Make Tea, which focuses on "Oriental Fragrant Tea", has achieved a counter-trend growth, which is quite valuable at present.

Regarding the growth secret that people are most curious about, Yu Lina, the co-founder of Grandpa Doesn't Make Tea, shared their methodology at the 36Kr Future Consumption Conference, "To quickly summarize in four words, it is to go with the flow. What trends to follow? The trends of emotions, win-win, and product substitution." In terms of emotions, Grandpa Doesn't Make Tea is based on "flower fragrance", promotes local culture, and precisely connects with young people; in terms of win-win, it achieves the brand's large-scale goals by leveraging single-store franchises and regional cooperative management; in terms of product substitution, it takes into account the price ratio, performance ratio, and appearance ratio to achieve the user's mental ratio under the trinity combination.

Yu Lina believes that as a brand in the chain physical fast-moving consumer goods industry, it is through the three-step approach of product + business model + marketing strategy that Grandpa Doesn't Make Tea can achieve rapid, healthy and sustainable development today.

In addition, Grandpa Doesn't Make Tea also officially announced a new store growth target at this conference - to ensure the completion of at least 4,500 operating stores next year and to challenge the goal of 5,000 stores.

Yu Lina, the co-founder of Grandpa Doesn't Make Tea

The following is the speech record of Yu Lina, the co-founder of Grandpa Doesn't Make Tea, edited and sorted out by 36Kr:

Hello everyone, I'm Yu Lina from Grandpa Doesn't Make Tea. I found that the speakers and guests at the Future Consumption Conference express themselves extremely rationally, using more business data and self-data to convey. But we are in the chain physical consumer goods industry. More often, we use the daily business, every cup of milk tea, and the current emotions of each customer to convey. We care a lot about the atmosphere of the venue during the communication process.

Let me tell you about this brand. Grandpa Doesn't Make Tea sells milk tea. Is there anyone here who doesn't drink milk tea? Has anyone drunk Grandpa Doesn't Make Tea? I don't see anyone raising their hands. This shows that today is a good opportunity for everyone to see us. There is still a lot of room for the GMV growth of our 3,000 stores in 2025.

Let's talk about our brand. Whether it is inside or outside the industry, or consumers, people who know about tea beverage brands may think this brand is somewhat unique. All industries are highly competitive, especially the tea beverage industry, which seems to be so competitive that it has reached a point from dark to purple or even black - how did this brand achieve counter-trend growth in these two years?

Many people ask me what the secret behind it is and what the killer move is. Yesterday, I had a communication with an industry brand. He repeatedly asked me the same question. Although I talked about many detailed tactics and methodologies, until the end, he still repeated that sentence, how did you use what method to increase so many stores?

Our brand is from Wuhan. Before 2018, this thriving brand was born in a community-based commercial complex. In 2022, several partners jointly sorted out the brand's internal problems, industry development, and opportunity points, and carried out a brand-new upgrade of the brand in the same year.

Where is the upgrade? First, find the difference. Take the fragrant tea of old Wuhan as the entry point, emphasize the concept of new Chinese tea, use flower fragrance to enter the tea bone, based in Wuhan Central China, and march towards the whole country. Flowers bloom and tea becomes fragrant. Chinese fragrance leads Chinese tea. We propose the seasonal concept of Grandpa Doesn't Make Tea that drinks out the fragrance of cherry blossoms, osmanthus, and orchids.

Second, our business model has also changed, from a pure direct-sale model to a diversified chain franchise model. In 2023, at a beverage industry conference, I proposed that the goal for that year was to complete 300 stores, and by the end of 2023, 300 stores were achieved as scheduled. In 2024, the brand held another brand-new strategic conference. This time, we put forward a slogan, using 300 stores to leverage 2,000 stores. We began to base in Central China and continuously march towards the East China, South China, West China, and North China markets. As of October 31, 2024, Grandpa Doesn't Make Tea has exceeded 1,300 operating stores, and there are more than 300 stores under construction. It is expected that the small goal of 2,000 stores can be basically achieved by December 31.

Since the upgrade in 2022 until today in 2024, we have made several insistences in this process. One is to adhere to the concept of Oriental Fragrant Tea and always start from the origin of "fragrance". The second is to continue to promote local culture, continuously reach various regional markets across the country, and precisely connect with the target group - a group of young people who emphasize self-identity and self-consumption emotional satisfaction.

Yu Lina, the co-founder of Grandpa Doesn't Make Tea

These are several new products in 2024, including both new products and upgraded versions of existing products. Starting from the Cherry Blossom Series in spring, we use Xiaohongshu, this emotional amplifier, to continuously convey the brand and product concepts to users through continuous upgraded cooperation.

We often say that details are the devil. So in fact, every precise action that everyone sees, whether it is the conveyance of product emotions, the output of marketing strategies, or the details of store operations, is the result of daily detailed iterations.

So, if you ask what the traffic secret of the brand's counter-trend growth is, I quickly summarize it in four words: go with the flow. What trends to follow? The trends of emotions, win-win, and product substitution.

First, let's talk about following the trend of emotions. This era is a time that completely abandons grand narratives, and people turn to focus on the satisfaction, expression, and output of inner emotions. Based on this logic, every time we launch a new product or even upgrade it, we will first explore the emotional pain points behind the product. In the process of exploration, if it is only relying on internal forces, it will be somewhat difficult. Under this opportunity, we found Xiaohongshu. From some shallow cooperation with IPs, we gradually reached the current deep cooperation of upgraded iterations. For example, the emotional point of our product will be based on "flower fragrance". After finding and bursting out this emotion, we will continue to form a marketing strategy.

Next, let's talk about following the trend of win-win. When Grandpa Doesn't Make Tea faced an upgrade in 2022, we knew that we wanted to be a national-scale chain brand. We definitely cannot just expand stores one by one through the direct-sale model, but we need to mobilize the strength of our partners and use their strength to amplify the brand's core advantages. Currently, we implement the win-win thinking to the end in both single-store franchises and regional cooperative management. There is a partnership mechanism within the single-store direct-sale store, and there are many detailed management mechanisms in regional management. Even between the headquarters and the regional divisions, we have conducted many discussions on the organizational management model. We need to strengthen the empowerment of the headquarters while giving full play to the regional autonomy, allowing those who hear the sounds of battle to call for support, and strengthening the headquarters' service rather than strengthening the headquarters' control, resulting in a bunch of policy bindings and constraints that ultimately lead to improper efforts at the front end.

Finally, let's follow the trend of product substitution. What is being substituted? Usually, we participate in many platform sharing sessions and find that entrepreneurs have a lot of anxiety in the current situation of consumption downgrading. But let's ask ourselves, are we really facing consumption downgrading today? At least under the appearance of consumption downgrading, where is our opportunity point? Today's product tests are no longer just about the price ratio, performance ratio, and appearance ratio, but the user's mental ratio under the multi-dimensional combination. If the brand values its brand value, it should find its own brand anchor point based on the balance of these three, and change from planting grass to watering and planting trees in the user's mind.

Let's briefly talk about our series of cooperation with Xiaohongshu. Wuhan spring is the best season for cherry blossoms to bloom beautifully. Wuhan, as the IP location of cherry blossoms, is also the biggest emotional outbreak point. We took advantage of the local situation in Wuhan and the beautiful cherry blossom season in spring, and cooperated with Xiaohongshu's "Xiaomei Says" to launch the "Cherry Blossom Tea in Spring" series. This set of marketing strategies also won relevant awards.

Tasting the sweetness of emotional resonance, in May, we once again joined hands with Xiaohongshu to continue to cooperate on the "Jade Dew with Orchid Fragrance" product series with the Treasure New Product IP. This series coincides with the Treasure New Product IP to a certain extent. The secluded orchid, which is also self-appreciating, coincides with the concept of Xiaohongshu's Treasure New Product. On May 25, we organized a fashion show of "I Am a Treasure" on Wuhan's century-old street. In July and August, we conducted a more in-depth new product co-creation with Xiaohongshu, from the taste selection, visual selection, name verification in the early stage of product upgrade process, to the selection of user emotional value in the new product tasting process, and even to the final adjustment of the entire marketing method. We have carried out a full-dimensional co-creation.

Having said so much about going with the flow and leveraging the power on the Xiaohongshu side, we have also reached today's conclusion - product + business model + marketing strategy can enable us, as a brand in the chain physical fast-moving consumer goods industry, to achieve rapid, healthy and sustainable development.

Under such a combined strategy, Grandpa Doesn't Make Tea also officially proposed at this conference that it will ensure the completion of at least 4,500 operating stores next year and challenge the goal of 5,000 stores. This is not only our confidence. In this era, every brand can see the gaps in the crowded industry from its own perspective. If we accurately identify the gaps and tear them open, and continuously insist on doing difficult but correct things and making small iterative steps, we will definitely get relatively correct results.

So many people will ask what the model of our brand's rapid growth is. In fact, Grandpa Doesn't Make Tea has come to this day step by step. We honestly make products, put the greatest effort into services, and use the greatest patience to improve the organizational capacity.

We often say a word to our internal partners, platform partners, and franchisee partners - Together, We Are Great. This is also our common confidence that the world will become better and better. Thank you all!

Yu Lina, the co-founder of Grandpa Doesn't Make Tea