The archive · Marketing & Growth · Marketing decision · 2023
Heytea sells FENDI's logo for 19 yuan a cup — China's first tea–luxury tie-up sells out
China's first tea–luxury collab: a 19-yuan FENDI latte, badge merch, Weibo hot search in an hour, sellout in 20 minutes, 16M+ reads.
HEYTEA (喜茶) · FENDI (LVMH)
What it had to solve
Luxury houses were chasing young Chinese consumers, but their few drink tie-ins had been limited to single flagship cafes. Heytea — a tea chain famous for design, with over 16 notable collabs in the previous year — needed a big attention event, and FENDI needed buzz for its first 'hand in hand' Baguette craft exhibition in Beijing.
How it works
On 17 May 2023, #喜茶FENDI联名# became China's most-discussed marketing event of the week: Heytea and FENDI launched 'FENDI喜悦黄', a mango-orange-passionfruit tea in a yellow cup printed with both logos, at 19 yuan in roughly 1,000 stores nationwide — the first time a tea brand had tied up with a luxury house at national scale. Buying two cups earned a FENDI badge or coaster, and the story consumers told about the price gap — 'my first FENDI' — did the rest of the marketing.
The drink rode on FENDI's 'hand in hand' Baguette craft exhibition at Beijing's Temple东景缘 (19 May–16 June), where a tea house served a Yi-minority-inspired 木姜子 special and four FF-marked pastries. Analysts read the exhibition as FENDI's bid for young Chinese attention — some compared it to the maison's 2007 Great Wall show — while Heytea, already a serial collab brand with over 16 notable tie-ups the previous year, needed a big attention event. The 19-yuan price did not undercut the story; it was the story: consumers joked they had bought the cheapest FENDI in the world.
The announcement reached Weibo's top-10 hot search within an hour and the hashtag passed 16.6 million reads on day one; Heytea's own WeChat post passed 100,000 reads in an hour. Stores hit 478 pending orders at Sanlitun, several paused online ordering, and the mini-program buckled under traffic; at many shops the collab merch sold out within 20 minutes and resold for over 100 yuan on Xianyu. FENDI's exhibition booked out its first three days, and even 雷军 posted that he had tried one — a level of free reach analysts called a textbook 'social currency' play.
Why it lands
- It puts the whole luxury gap into one number: 19 yuan against multi-thousand-yuan handbags — the price itself is the message.
- Launching in roughly 1,000 stores turned a niche luxury exhibition into an everyday purchase millions could photograph.
- Limited badge and coaster merch made buying two cups a deliberate hunt, and the resale market kept the story running for days.
- Both brands needed attention at the same moment — Heytea for buzz, FENDI for its Beijing exhibition — so the collab had a clear job for each side.
What it did
The announcement hit Weibo's top-10 hot search within an hour and the hashtag passed 16.6 million reads on day one; Heytea's WeChat post passed 100,000 reads in an hour. Sanlitun showed 478 pending orders, several stores paused online ordering and the mini-program buckled; at many shops collab merch sold out within 20 minutes and resold for over 100 yuan on Xianyu, and FENDI's exhibition booked out its first three days.
What you can take
A collab that collapses the price gap becomes news without paid media: 'the cheapest FENDI' is a self-writing headline, and the logo on a takeaway cup gives every buyer a post to share.
Since then
Within days the collab became the benchmark for brand crossing in China: analysts credited it with free reach and sales while noting the risks — a diluted luxury image, overloaded stores and buggy ordering. The Xianyu resale market for cups and badges kept the topic alive, and the 'cheapest FENDI' line entered the standard vocabulary of Chinese co-branding write-ups. In the same period, Manner's LV cafe tie-in ran only in flagship stores in two cities, showing how unusual Heytea's 1,000-store rollout was; later tea-and-luxury pairings were measured against it.
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