The archive · Marketing & Growth · Marketing decision · 2022
Luckin Coffee × Coconut Tree sells a 'tacky' collab latte — 660K cups on day one
Luckin x Coconut Tree's Coconut Cloud Latte borrows the legacy brand's loud retro packaging; day-one sales top 660,000 cups, its strongest debut ever
Luckin Coffee (瑞幸咖啡) · Coconut Tree Group (椰树集团)
What it had to solve
Luckin's 2021 Coconut Latte (生椰拿铁) sold 100M cups in its first year, so the follow-up had a high bar. Coconut Tree (椰树), a 34-year-old brand known for dense, colorful 'PPT-style' packaging, had never done a crossover.
How it works
On April 11, 2022 Luckin Coffee and 34-year-old Coconut Tree Group announced Coconut Cloud Latte (椰云拿铁), Luckin's first coconut sequel after its Coconut Latte passed 100M cups in a year. The product swapped the cheese cap for a coconut 'cloud' foam, but the real hook was packaging: cup sleeves and bags printed in Coconut Tree's famously dense, colorful style, with its slogan remixed to 'drinking from childhood all the way to the atmosphere' (从小喝到大气层).
Before launch, the two brands ran a three-day teaser of abstract posters, letting fans guess and 'ship' the unlikely couple ('tree brother × rui sister'), then held a vote on which bag design was tackier. The topic accumulated 5M+ views on Xiaohongshu (小红书) and over 600K reads on Weibo (微博), with the most repeated comment being 'so tacky, I can't refuse it'.
Luckin's announcement on April 12 put day-one sales above 660,000 cups — over 130 cups per store, its strongest first-day single-product record. The Douyin push generated ¥22M+ livestream GMV and 730,000+ orders, four times the internal target, while the official Douyin account grew by 247,000 followers. The launch also marked Luckin's return to normal operations after completing its Chapter 15 debt restructuring.
Why it lands
- The contrast between sleek Luckin and proudly tacky Coconut Tree made the collab inherently shareable.
- Reusing Coconut Tree's packaging language made the product itself the ad, with no extra media spend for awareness.
- The three-day guessing game turned fans into co-conspirators before the product existed.
- It extended an already-proven coconut drink line while pulling a legacy brand into a younger audience.
What it did
Day-one sales exceeded 660,000 cups (130+ per store), Luckin's strongest first-day product record. On Douyin the launch delivered ¥22M+ livestream GMV and 730,000+ orders — 4x target — and the official account gained 247,000 followers; the topic drew 5M+ views on Xiaohongshu.
What you can take
Contrast is a distribution strategy: pairing a sleek chain with a proudly 'tacky' legacy brand made a product people wanted to share, and the teaser game gave the audience a role in the reveal.
Since then
Coconut Cloud Latte stayed on Luckin's menu and the coconut line kept producing hits; Luckin's next landmark crossover, the Moutai (茅台) sauce latte in September 2023, sold 5.42M cups on day one. The Coconut Cloud Latte (椰云拿铁) launch won a 2022 ROI Festival (金投赏) bronze for digital brand-performance integration and is regularly cited in Chinese marketing writing as the template for 'tacky-chic' collaborations.
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