China’s Luckin Coffee Partners Victoria’s Secret 

With an eye on reviving its foothold in the Chinese market, Victoria’s Secret has collaborated with Luckin Coffee, China’s version of Starbucks. 

The collaboration, which began in late August, was timed to celebrate the return of Victoria’s Secret rejigged annual fashion show after a four-year break. The new show in the form of a feature-length documentary titled “Victoria’s Secret World Tour” was launched on Prime Video in late September.  

Under the collaboration, Luckin Coffee has relaunched its Osmanthus Longjing Latte, as well as paper bags and co-branded cup sleeves in Victoria’s Secret’s iconic hue with angel wings. It has garnered countless eyeballs on social media as the popular coffee chain has over 870k Weibo followers.

Besides this collab, Victoria’s Secret has also worked with Chinese fashion designer Rui Zhou on her gender-fluid, body-inclusive brand Rui Built, to cement its reputation as a brand backing body diversity and positivity.    

According to ASN data, Victoria’s Secret (0.7%, ~US$2.5m) has been pretty much a challenger brand in the Asian sponsorship market for its category since Q121. The brand’s sponsorship focus is wholly on China, and while spends for the first half of 2023 hit US$421k, a figure almost on par with the quarterly investment of about US$214k. There was also inactivity in Q323 with a spate of celebrity endorsement withdrawals and the forecast for Q423 is tipped to be a lacklustre US$116k, far below the regular quarterly investment of about US$214k. The tie-up with Luckin Coffee—which is forecasted for a bright Q423 with investment of US$128k, a significant jump from its quarterly average of around US$86.5k—might be the impetus to restrategise in China’s bustling sponsorship landscape.