Vitasoy keeps moving forward, exploring innovative ways to provide the public with better products, and we want to bring health and inspiration to everyone, everywhere.
Public Relations Department of Vitasoy
Recently, the old local brand has innovated itself and became an Internet celebrity in China’s social media. The Chinese youth even made memes about it, describing its taste as “cooler than smoking marijuana”.
Whether the company agrees with the trend or not, Vitasoy’s annual profit in 2018 has soared for more than 30% in 2018. On Nov. 11, the Chinese shopping festival, Vitasoy sold more than one million products within the first hour.
The upsurge on the Internet has also brought up copy-right concerns. Some Chinese netizens changed its package into a real marijuana tea package. Vitasoy’s official Weibo also played with trend and customised new packages of its lemon tea.
In other aspects, Vitasoy is innovating itself to cater to youngsters. It changed lemon tea’s product name into its initials “VLT” to make it easier to memorize and refer to. It also sponsored racing competitions in Macau to promote its lemon tea with the breath-taking competitions.
As it is rapidly expanding its market share in the mainland Chinese market and overseas, it also lost part of its identity of being a Hong Kong brand that values the original Hong Kong taste. In fact, many Chinese netizens purchasing several cartons of lemon tea online don’t even know that it comes from Hong Kong. Some naturally assumed that it belongs to Nestlé or other multinationals.
In the age of globalisation and commercialisation, it seems inevitably that the brand needs to make some compromises as part of its expansion. But Vitasoy’s prompt adaptation to trends also raises a question: is Vitasoy still the Hong Kong brand as it used to be?
Many elderly remember its soy milk’s taste as the taste of their childhood. It is the food map that reminds them of their youth and brings them back to the old Hong Kong. But now part of the identity is lost to cater to youngster’s pursuit of freshness and being cool.
It’s still questionable whether Vitasoy can maintain the market it has opened up when the trend dies away. Should it continue to create other hotspots or should it stick to its original Hong Kong taste. It is more than a question of marketing strategies.
Drink memory 