Beyond the Viral Moutai Latte: Luckin Coffee’s Co-Branding Playbook and the Limits of Youth-Oriented Brand Renewal

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6239-777-4_46How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Luckin Coffee; Moutai Latte; co-branding; brand alliance; consumer brand engagement; youth-oriented brand renewal; purchase intention

Abstract

Luckin Coffee’s collaboration with Kweichow Moutai became one of the most visible co-branding events in China’s beverage market. The Moutai Latte generated strong sales, social-media discussion, and public curiosity, but the case should not be understood only as a viral marketing success. This paper uses Luckin Coffee’s co-branding strategy as a case to examine how brand alliances support consumer attention, symbolic transfer, social-media participation, purchase intention, and youth-oriented brand renewal. Based on studies of brand alliance spillover effects, co-branding strategy, consumer brand engagement, purchase intention, and Luckin Coffee’s joint-branding strategy, this paper develops a case framework for explaining Luckin’s co-branding playbook and its limitations. The analysis suggests that co-branding can create topic visibility, symbolic novelty, perceived product uniqueness, and consumer participation. However, its long-term value depends on brand fit, product quality, platform execution, price acceptance, and the ability to convert short-term curiosity into stable brand preference. The paper contributes by distinguishing viral co-branding from sustainable brand renewal and by proposing implications for partner selection, product design, social-media communication, consumer experience management, and long-term brand positioning.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Tingjun Wu
AU  - Tianhua Fu
AU  - Juan Chen
AU  - Jiaqi Liu
AU  - Mengting Xu
AU  - Zhixuan Qu
AU  - Xinyi Ding
AU  - Kai Sun
AU  - Wanqing Xu
AU  - Chenrui Yang
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/09/30
TI  - Beyond the Viral Moutai Latte: Luckin Coffee’s Co-Branding Playbook and the Limits of Youth-Oriented Brand Renewal
BT  - Proceedings of the 2026 8th International Conference on Economic Management and Cultural Industry (ICEMCI 2026)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 431
EP  - 437
SN  - 2352-5428
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6239-777-4_46
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6239-777-4_46
ID  - Wu2026
ER  -