The archive · Content & Film · Marketing decision · 2024
Chagee's 'Cheers, Friends' bill pairs taste-mates; 5.3M vouchers in 7 days
Chagee's 2024 annual bill becomes a two-person game: members with matching tea tastes clink cups across cities, then find each other via AIGC half-line keys.
Chagee (霸王茶姬)
What it had to solve
Every tea chain releases a year-end 'annual bill' in December, so by 2024 the format had become homogeneous and easy to scroll past. Chagee, whose brand promise is 'meet the world with Eastern tea', wanted to stand out without adding paid media and to make the bill itself express a warm, companionship idea.
How it works
By late 2024 the year-end 'annual bill' had become a default ritual for Chinese consumer brands, and tea chains in particular all shipped near-identical reports of cups bought and flavors tried, so attention was scarce. Chagee wanted its December bill to break through that sameness while spending no money on hard ads, and to reinforce the brand line '以东方茶，会世界友' (meet the world's friends with Eastern tea).
The creative leap was to make the bill two-person rather than one-person. The mini-program matches each member with a real Chagee user in another city whose recorded tastes are similar; the two 'clink cups' through an LBS-anchored 360-degree panorama, and each receives half of an AIGC-generated phrase as a matching key. Users then post their half publicly to find the stranger holding the other half; when the pair reunites, both get drink vouchers, and the plush-toy visual style made the results camera-ready.
The mechanics turned a private data review into a nationwide game of finding your taste-mate. Per the agency's case entries, the campaign reached the top three of Weibo's organic hot-search list, drew more than 1.58 million interactions on its peak day, and saw over 5.3 million members claim vouchers in the seven-day window, with each 1% of voucher redemption generating roughly ¥1.23 million in GMV.
Beyond the numbers, users produced an unusual layer of UGC — 'clink code' postings, strategy guides and even attempts to game the matching — which the agency credited to the low-cost design of the campaign. The work was later awarded a Gold at the 2025 ROI Festival (金投赏) and a Bronze at the 2025 Golden Eye Awards (金瞳奖).
Why it lands
- Two-person data beats one-person data: a bill that names another real user gives people a reason to look beyond their own screen.
- AIGC half-sentences create a shareable artifact: posting your half publicly is an invitation, so promotion rides on user behavior instead of ad spend.
- LBS and 360-degree 'clinking' made the encounter feel physical and specific even though the two users were strangers in different cities.
- Vouchers on both sides removed the free-rider problem: both halves have to cooperate for either to win, which pushes pairs to spread the word.
- The fluffy plush-toy look matched young consumers' current visual taste, giving the bill an aesthetic reason to be posted.
What it did
According to the agency's award entries, the campaign ran on zero paid-media budget yet organically reached No. 3 on Weibo's overall hot-search list; peak-day interactions topped 1.58 million; more than 5.3 million members claimed vouchers within the seven-day run; and each 1% of voucher redemption drove about ¥1.23 million of GMV. Users flooded Xiaohongshu, Weibo and Douyin with 'clink codes' and guides while hunting for their matched stranger.
What you can take
Add a second person to a personal report: let one user's data point at someone worth finding, and sharing stops being vanity and becomes a search.
Since then
The campaign became a reference case for social annual-bill design in China: it won a Gold at the 2025 ROI Festival (金投赏, entry RC-W-2025-41792) under the small-program creativity category and a Bronze at the 2025 Golden Eye Awards (金瞳奖), with agency GIMC publicizing the zero-hard-ad result. Rival tea and coffee brands' year-end bills in following seasons adopted more interactive, two-user formats, and Chagee's 'clink cups' imagery continued to appear in its membership communications.
Sources
- 霸王茶姬｜史上最大规模的全国碰杯盛典 — ROI Festival 2025 Gold winner entry
- 霸王茶姬｜史上最大规模的全国碰杯盛典 — 2025 Golden Eye case entry
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