Cha Time launches new brand platform via Special
Cha Time has launched a new brand platform telling Aussies to ‘satisfy your strange’, in a new digital, outdoor and AR immersive campaign from Special Group.
Chatime, Australia’s leading bubble tea franchise, is inspiring and rewarding young Australians for ‘satisfying their strange’ with a new brand platform and innovative AR campaign, created with Special.
The digital, OOH and immersive AR campaign, is an ode to this truly unusual drink and brand.
“Chatime’s true superpower is its oddness. You can both drink it and chew it. It’s not a pudding but sometimes it has pudding in it. And it comes in the most deliciously bizarre flavour mashups imaginable from popping pearls, to sago and cream cheese. In a world where so much is familiar, sensible and safe, that oddness really is it’s brilliance” – says Strategy Partner Dave Hartmann.
Based on the insight that “we’re all a little odd and strange in our own ways”, this new brand platform encourages first time consumers to satisfy their need for strangeness by experiencing a Chatime drink.
The campaign features a range of seven weird characters, created in collaboration with Scottish digital artist Sam Lyon, whose squishy, shiny texture replicates the nature of the product. Each execution in the campaign invites people to ‘Satisfy their Strange’ by scanning a QR code that, when scanned, takes viewers to an immersive AR experience that shows them a strange and surprising in situ animation of the featured creature, instantly shareable on Instagram. If viewers watch for long enough, some of the characters will even reveal a promo code with a Chatime discount.
“It is not often that you get the chance to really lean into the strangest side of your brain and be completely in line with a client’s brief. Well, this was one of these opportunities.” – says Creative Director Nils Eberhardt.
“We have loved working with Special to develop this truly unique campaign that plays to the wonderfully, strange experience that our drinks represent for the consumer. Our target segment is digital native Hedonists in the 14-28 YO demographic who love interacting with technology, so this AR campaign is specifically built to resonate with and engage them.” – says CMO Joanna Robinson.
The campaign will be supported by a media strategy developed by Special, and delivered in collaboration with Love Media and Wired Digital. It launched with a teaser campaign consisting of ambient street posters and floor decals posted around Sydney and Melbourne, followed by a high impact National street furniture campaign. In-store, digital and social activity will kick off in owned channels to support the OOH, encouraging loyalists to engage with the strange characters, and will culminate with a #SatisfyYourStrange TikTok partnership and challenge in March.
Note: All QR codes in this PR release are scannable so you at home can have your own little yellow boba man float through your living room.
Credits
Client: Chatime
Chief Marketing Officer : Joanna Robinson
Head of Marketing: Claire Fabb
Creative Lead: Helen Dean
Marketing Executive: Samantha Van Prehn
Creative Agency: Special
CEO & Partners: Lindsey Evans & Cade Heyde
CCO & Partners: Julian Schreiber & Tom Martin
Strategy Partner: Dave Hartmann
Creative Directors: Nils Eberhardt & Simon Gibson
Creatives: Jeff Seeff & Joel Grunstein
Creative Technologist: Laurent Marcus
Head of Media Strategy: Georgia Thomas
Business Director: Laura Little
Business Manager: Dharsh Sundran
Executive Producer: Sonia Ebrington
Integrated Producer: Emily Willis
Head of Design: Adam Shear
Artist / animator: Sam Lyon- Jelly Gummies
AR build: Unbnd
Retouching / animation support: Electric Art
Media agency (OOH): Love Media
Managing Director : Tony Woodward
Media Agency (social): Wired Digital
Source: Special Group media release
It’s 2022 and we’re still calling food and drinks from Asia strange and odd? There has been enough conversation about how these concepts around asian cuisine are racist that campaign or client brief should have been killed immediately.
The creative executions themselves would be easily salvageable by changing the headline to something like ‘Just for fun’ – but the underpinning strategy that bubble tea is strange or odd is problematic.
Millions of people around the world drink bubble tea – it is not a niche delicacy. It is not weird.
Also – I would suggest not ending your PR release about an Asian drink by encouraging people to “have your own little yellow boba man”
I am disappointed. And to be clear – fun = good, absurd = good, but racism = bad.
Do better.
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