Introduction:Heytea has once again grabbed headlines with a collaborative campaign—this time partnering with the popular productivity software WPS Office to launch a limited-edition series themed around “Monday,” featuring exclusive cup sleeves and badges, along with free Heytea-themed templates on the WPS Daoke Marketplace. This article takes an in-depth look at the creative design of the collaboration, WPS’s market positioning, and the online reactions that reflect how new tea brands are using cross-industry collaborations to break into new consumer scenarios. It also explores Heytea’s recent strategic moves in the coffee segment.
In recent years, Heytea has frequently engaged in brand collaborations, almost making it an industry norm. Netizens even joke that “even a donkey from a production team isn’t as hardworking as Heytea.” This time, Heytea has chosen to collaborate with the nationally recognized office software WPS Office, launching a “Monday”-themed limited edition series including cup sleeves and badges. Additionally, free Heytea-themed templates have been made available on the WPS Daoke Marketplace, allowing users to add a touch of brand fun to their presentations.
The cup sleeves and badges in this collaboration will be launched in stores nationwide on November 14 and 21, respectively. Notably, Heytea has also integrated its brand elements into the WPS Daoke Marketplace, offering various resources such as icons, no-background images, and templates to help office workers add a bit of ease and creativity to their PPT designs.
Since the second half of this year, Heytea has significantly accelerated its collaboration pace, drawing inspiration from Chinese traditional culture and art—from the hit TV drama Dream of the Red Chamber (梦华录) to the dance poetry drama Only Blue and Green (只此青绿), and even the classic palace drama Empresses in the Palace (甄嬛传)—to create products and visuals with a distinct “Chinese inspiration.” The brand has also expanded into popular culture IPs favored by younger audiences, such as 3CE and Genshin Impact, showcasing its strategy to target diverse cultural communities.
This time, choosing to collaborate with WPS Office is clearly aimed at the vast group of “office workers.” As a domestically developed office software, WPS boasts an extremely high market penetration rate and has become an indispensable tool in the daily work routines of many professionals.According to official data, WPS has surpassed 560 million monthly active devices, with 238 million on the PC version and 336 million on the mobile version.It is truly a national-level office application.
The design of this collaboration cleverly incorporates WPS’s three core functions—word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations—while integrating various office-life memes, such as resonating with the “Monday blues,” adding a touch of levity and fun to the otherwise hectic daily office routine. Upon launch, the campaign quickly sparked heated discussions among netizens, with comments like “Even WPS is involved—now you really know how to do collaborations” and “I actually drank WPS haha,” showing that this cross-industry effort successfully tapped into the shared sentiments of the target audience.
In fact, new tea brands have been actively expanding into the coffee segment, especially targeting office and commuting scenarios. Compared to coffee brands like Luckin or Manner, which directly cater to office workers as their primary customer base, Heytea’s investment portfolio—such as in minority-owned brands and Seesaw—leans more toward specialty coffee or coffee bean roasting, with less direct linkage to traditional office environments. As a result, this collaboration with WPS is also seen as part of a strategy to break out of the “user age group” boundary and further expand into new “user scenarios.”
Beyond the collaboration campaign, Heytea has recently introduced several innovative initiatives, including setting up transparent windows for fresh fruit preparation where customers can watch the fruit being peeled on-site; hosting the “Heytea Full-Body Mascot Design Contest” to invite fans to participate in brand visual creation; and adopting a flexible store model in non-tier-one cities under a business partnership approach, demonstrating the brand’s ambition and adaptability in market expansion.
For a long time, Heytea has adhered to its core values of “true quality without extravagance,” combined with a brand spirit full of inspiration and joy, continuously deepening its emotional connection with consumers. Whether through collaborations with cultural IPs or cross-industry partnerships with office software, these efforts all reflect its keen insight into market trends and its unwavering determination to seek brand connections and scenario expansions.
In an era where collaborations have become a marketing norm for new tea brands, the challenge lies in creating truly resonant and creative content—not just pursuing short-lived hype. Successful collaborations require not only a good fit between the two brands but also a consumer-centric approach, using thoughtful design and emotional connections to make each partnership an extension of the brand’s story.
The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
