Nescafé needed to continue to be the top-of-mind ready-to-drink coffee choice amongst younger generations in China. They were looking for a new and emerging market and media partnerships catering to Gen-Z’s unique coffee-drinking lifestyle, i.e. late night studying and gaming, cultivating them to become Nescafé advocates.

Nescafé piloted a gaming collaboration in 2020 when they cooperated with KCC, then extended this to a bigger, bolder partnership in 2021.

The core audience of “Honor of Kings” (a Tencent sensational MOBA gaming IP) are the core expansion audience for Nescafé, with the additional benefit of not only attracting hard-core gamers, but also mass consumers of ready-to-drink beverages, especially from coffee/energy drinkers. The perfect partnership!

Key objectives included; creating topical buzzwords for Tin Can and exciting moments within the Gaming world, and to communicate “stimulation” and the benefits of Nescafé Tin Can with regarding to the gaming lifestyle.

509 million Chinese netizens are gamers. 60% of them are under 35 years old, 42% live in Tier 1 & 2, and spend approximately 21 hours gaming every month. With a huge player base and marketing potential, gaming is identified as a strategic platform. Honor of Kings is the NO.1 mobile game in China with over 100 million daily active users. To differentiate from other gaming communications, Nescafé concentrated on the full consumption experience, instead of just awareness.

The core idea of this collaboration is the authority the product brings. This was to ensure that we could fully communicate with the target audience via tailor made product designs, online engagement such as competitions, live broadcasts and user generated content, as well as offline exposure and word of mouth. This created an end-to-end activation campaign but we wanted to go a step further.

To solidify our communications with 18-24 year olds in China, we activated the following:

1) Influencers

Hardcore gamer Kunbao, and Rookie player Xiaobai were streamed playing key scenes and competing on split screens.

2) Esport event

Created “The Nestlé Coffee Eve Festival”, where the official Weibo team competed with an amateur team. We also gave the opportunity for casual gamers to compete against the professional team, which was live on two dominant platforms for the first time.

3) Gamification

Special levels and prizes created for Nescafé via a QR code on the can.

4) Sponsorship

We featured the game in the finale of “You Are My Glory”, where the stars competed for the title of best Honor of Kings player. The show was seen by over 3.8 billion people.

5) Displayed media matrix

Out-of-home incorporated key data from our analysis, including; favourite characters, which we integrated into our rich creative.

1) Product redesign: one can, one code

• The can was wrapped in imagery featuring 1 of the top 5 popular characters. Each character matched a different flavour.

• QR code on each can to win a prize for the game; 2X scan rate vs. LY

• Army to Attack prize in every can

2) First ever cross-over competition between Pro Players & Streamers

• Nescafé tailor made "Kings’ League" to livestream with 2 Pro & 6 Top Streamers on multiple platforms

3) TV Drama Placement and Impactful out-of-home to reach wider audience

• Ads displays & placements on No.1 show You are My Glory, adapted by Honor of Kings

• Total 7 Cities 700+ Spots exposure across key CBD areas

4) Campus deep dive to drive trial amongst core targets

• Total sponsored 2,353 Campus Kings’ League competitions

• 3,200 gaming fans shared #Nescafé Tin Can on social media

Actions:

• Total delivered 2.7bn impression & 3m engagement.

• One can one code – 2.2m cans

- PV: 4.86 Mio +93%

- UV: 2.15 Mio +158%

- Scans: 2.2 Mio +115%

- Members: 304k +1550%

• 4 out of top 10 keywords related to Nescafé Tin Can are Gaming & IP via Nestlé Social Listening.

Business:

• 24.3% online growth vs. YA (2021 summer vs. 2020 summer)

• 4% total channel sell in growth vs. YA (2021 Jul - Nov vs. 2020 Jul - Nov)