For 30 years without collapse, Richie Jen strictly selects the new iced tea for the younger generation.

Written by｜Ba Rui

Strictly Control

Since his debut in 1990, Richie Jen has been active in the entertainment industry for nearly 35 years. During these decades, regardless of how quickly the waves of traffic stars rise and fall, Richie Jen has always been the one who remains firmly on the stage. As an evergreen in the entertainment industry for thirty years, Richie Jen is extremely rigorous and serious in dealing with everything in his work - before each concert, he will walk through the new venue, especially the corners, to test the sound effect of each position; he will even check whether the movement lines in and out of the venue are reasonable and whether the number of restrooms is sufficient... He hopes to ensure that every fan who arrives can get the best experience.

And if you want to cooperate with him on a commercial product, then it must first pass his personal test and investigation. He needs to taste the drink first, and only if he thinks it is good can it pass; the brand needs to be investigated, and only if it has public recognition and a good reputation can it be selected; at the same time, he also needs to go to the market to see for himself whether consumers really buy it.

The brands and products that have achieved cooperation through layers of screening are not only a commercial cooperation for Richie Jen, but also good partners that follow him in life and work, appearing in every corner of his daily life. For example, when he saw fans singing along with him at the tour and their voices became hoarse, he gave them iced tea; when he had a few minutes of free time backstage, he could easily do some fitness by picking up iced tea. Just like his high-quality music works, products that can become "Richie Jen's Strict Selection" mean that they can withstand the test of consumers and time.

In this way, the cooperation between Richie Jen and iced tea can be regarded as a two-way pursuit of quality.

Three years ago, Genki Forest decided to select a spokesperson for its new iced tea product. But unlike other categories in the past, iced black tea is not a new species, but a super category that has been tested by the market for many years and has a large customer base. Therefore, after internal discussion, Genki Forest decided to choose a once widely known iced black tea spokesperson, which is equivalent to directly getting a business card, certifying that iced tea is the flavor of iced black tea, but it is more upgraded.

When Richie Jen first received the invitation to endorse iced tea, he was a bit surprised. After all, the last time he endorsed this category was 20 years ago, and the new iced tea is a relatively young product. So, the first thing he did was to get a bottle of the drink to taste, "It's quite special, just right, not so sweet, and relatively healthy." And he is no stranger to the Genki Forest brand. The Genki Forest brand often appears in the sponsorship of various music variety shows, and Richie Jen himself is also a consumer of sparkling water. But according to Richie Jen's inspection standards, he also needs to look at the offline marketing and distribution, and then he found that "Genki Forest's counters can be seen everywhere."

Only after investigating the product, brand, and enterprise can Richie Jen feel at ease to accept this cooperation. "I have to check it first, and then when I think it's okay, I dare to recommend it to others."

In 2023, Richie Jen and Genki Forest collaborated to shoot an advertisement called "Anti-Water Strategy". The short film tells the story of the B Group, which is facing internal and external problems, facing the choice of selling old goods and replacing them with new ones. In the end, the new product promoted by Richie Jen - Genki Forest Iced Tea, successfully broke through the siege, presenting the selling point of "Each bottle contains three less sugars, and real materials are selected for iced tea".

What Richie Jen didn't expect was that "even shooting an advertisement requires martial arts", but this made him feel interesting and it was a new attempt.

Each Generation Has Its Own Iced Black Tea

To be able to stand firm on the stage of the entertainment industry for 30 years, in addition to adhering to his own inner persistence and principles, Richie Jen is also closely observing the changes in the environment and the audience, so as to continuously evolve and keep his music and film and television works in step with the times. Including himself, he also actively appears on the stage of various entertainment variety shows, using more new forms to interpret music works.

In Richie Jen's view, products, like music, should change with the times. Whether it is packaging, taste or marketing methods, they should all move forward with the changes of the times. "Just like a century-old restaurant, it has some traditional dishes, but it still needs to keep pace with the times. Whether it is in the decoration or the packaging or the launch of new dishes to attract some young new-generation groups, I think this all needs to be fine-tuned."

And Genki Forest's iced tea is also evolving. Just as the brand explains, "Each generation has its own 'iced black tea', and iced tea is the iced black tea of this generation."

After taking the first sip, Richie Jen felt the difference of iced tea - it was finally not so sweet, "Before, it was really too sweet. While we were drinking it happily, you would feel a bit complicated." As a person who has long required extremely high standards for a healthy diet and body management, Richie Jen has long started to control his sugar intake. At the same time, he also found that in recent years, the younger generation will pay more attention to health and pursue the concept of less sugar. But completely sugar-free seems to him to lack some stimulation on the taste buds, so he thinks "just right, the best."

However, for a beverage with a 200-year-old history like iced black tea, it is a great challenge to come up with something new based on the original taste - to make a taste that does not lose its soul and is more in line with the tastes of consumers in the new era.

In 2021, iced tea was tested and sold in Southeast Asia and North America: The product idea is to continue the functional points of being sweet and sour, relieving greasiness and heat, targeting young people who have an understanding of tea flavor, benchmarking against competing products, using real materials + reducing sugar without reducing flavor, and using better raw materials to make young people choose iced tea.

It is understood that in the selection of sweetness for the sugar-reduced iced tea, the search is for "pleasure" and "comfort". But how to ensure a good taste while reducing sugar, that is, painless sugar reduction, needs to be solved from the formula, rather than directly reducing the amount of sugar. Reducing sugar without reducing flavor means achieving the same taste curve with different formulas. This part requires the researchers to conduct experiments again and again. And in one version, when doing the "55-degree Celsius Destructive Experiment" (similar to the impact experiment that car manufacturers need to do, simulating the taste of the finished product for 3 months, 5 months, 10 months, and the end of the shelf life respectively), a bitter medicinal taste appeared when simulating 5 months, and it failed and was eliminated.

In addition, low-sugar beverages are much more expensive than high-sugar beverages. To achieve a good taste while reducing sugar, good raw materials are necessary. Therefore, the sugar-reduced iced tea uses the liquid nitrogen -196°C frozen lemon technology - that is, after the whole fruit is quickly frozen and freshness-locked by -196°C liquid nitrogen, it is made into fruit juice by low-temperature cold pressing, retaining the aroma of "freshly picked from the tree", and can reduce the loss of nutrients in food; effectively control the growth of microorganisms.

Therefore, after upgrading with good raw materials and new technologies, and after a long and repeated experiment, iced tea finally debuted with a better taste, healthier raw materials, even a larger bottle (900ml) and a more cost-effective new look. In the summer of 2024, Richie Jen was in the desert, thirsty and hot, and he drank a large bottle of iced tea in one gulp, "Because I sweated a lot, I had to replenish water, and iced tea relieves the heat, so I think it's just right."

Doing What Is Right

There is a video of Richie Jen "gulp gulp" drinking iced tea in the desert on social media with a high click rate. He told us that this was filmed when he was cycling in Zhongwei last year. Undoubtedly, iced tea is the most suitable heat-relieving artifact in the hot desert. When drinking freely, his colleagues recorded this real moment for him.

Leaving the desert and returning from a rider to a singer, Richie Jen's tour "Miracle 2024" traveled all over the country, and iced tea also accompanied him all the way. In the song-request interaction session, when Richie Jen saw that the fans' voices became hoarse due to the excited chorus, he immediately sent them iced tea. Together with music, iced tea links the closed loop of love and being loved between Richie Jen and his fans at the scene.

What is even more coincidental is that the audience group of iced tea highly overlaps with Richie Jen's fan group. In Richie Jen's words, they are both "family-friendly" types, suitable for all ages. At his concert, there were three generations of a family, from the elderly to the young, who came to watch. And whether in first-tier cities or second-tier cities, his concerts are extremely popular. And iced tea also has a broad audience in these places. The "new iced tea" that is more in line with the user's pricing system is a 900ml large package that only costs 5 yuan, and in May 2024, the "new iced tea" product series has achieved a monthly sales performance of over 100 million yuan.

Tang Binsen, the founder of Genki Forest, once described iced tea in the company's 8th anniversary open letter as follows: "A good product is not simply about competing on parameters and concepts; nor is it simply about having a good-looking package; nor is it a product that only exists within the Fourth Ring Road and is self-considered liked in the office. Instead, it is a product that can serve the majority of Chinese users, maintaining cost performance while being of high quality; it should be delicious while having a clean ingredient list; it should also allow our distributors and store owners to reduce inventory and improve turnover rate while being innovative." In addition, a truly good product is one that can serve a wider range of users, and "high quality and low price" is also one of the important criteria for testing a good product.

For good things, Richie Jen has always been generous in promoting them. "I think if the product is good and we promote it, I will be confident, and then the audience trusts us. They try it and think it's good, and I also gain value. Then I may also earn the endorsement fee, and I can do more good things, which becomes a win-win situation."

He will never exchange his reputation for money, which is an overdraft that he cannot accept. "Before, people often laughed at us for being stupid, saying that someone sent a lot of money to us and asked me to endorse, but I refused. If the product is bad and you give me a lot of money, after everyone eats and drinks it, they will think that this guy is unreliable and the endorsed product is not good enough, then my reputation will be discounted, and that would be bad."

Richie Jen has always paid attention to the feelings of the audience. Because when he first started his career and held a concert, the organizer failed to keep their promise. They said they would prepare a 1 million yuan lighting and sound system, but only gave him a 500,000 yuan one. So later, as long as it was his own concert, he would participate from beginning to end, and even specially set up a company to handle the entire process of the concert. "I won't just go up and sing. Under my control, I want to get the best things out, and then I can earn this money with a clear conscience. Otherwise, wouldn't it be very boring to just muddle through this life?"

Making money is no longer Richie Jen's main pursuit, and it can even be said that it is the thing he cares