On 10 March, Chinese coffee chain Cotti launched the pre-order for its collab merch with the blockbuster animated film Ne Zha 2. While there’s still one week to go until we actually see the beverages and merch in real life, Cotti is already creating a lot of buzz for the first “non-blind box” Ne Zha 2 merch.
From fridge magnets to pin badges and collectible cards, Cotti Coffee brings a variety of merch for pre-order. These are also going to be limited in number due to supply chain challenges. On Weibo, China’s Twitter-like equivalent, the topic “Cotti Ne Zha collaboration” (#库迪哪吒联名#) reached number 15 on the Hot Search list with 28.84 million views.
However, Cotti is not the only tea and coffee brand that has plans to partner with the internet-breaking film. On 27 February, the same day Cotti announced the team-up, tea chain CHAGEE also announced theirs with key visuals. However, the launch date for the CHAGEE co-branding has not yet been announced. The topic “CHAGEE Ne Zha 2 collab” (#霸王茶姬哪吒2联名#) topped the Hot Search list on Weibo with 100 million views. On 28 February, a day after the two announcements, it was reported that the now Hong Kong-listed company Goodme also has a Ne Zha 2 collab in the pipeline.
Ne Zha 2, with its over 14.9 billion RMB (2.06 billion USD) box office revenue, is now the highest-ranked Chinese film and highest-grossing animated film ever. The film has launched several partnerships since its release in late January, including with POP MART and Mengniu Dairy. Many commentators find that all three tea and coffee partners missed the best timing when the film was at its hottest, but with the long-tail effect of its popularity and the penetration rate of these chains, there is still success to be found in the Ne Zha 2 collabs.
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