Gong cha
The World’s Premier Bubble Tea Expands to the U.S.
National
SERVICES
Messaging Development
Public Relations
Social Media
Meta Advertising
Art Direction
Content Development
Founded in Taiwan in 2006, Gong cha is the world’s premier bubble tea brand. With its premium product, simple and scalable operational model, and strong corporate support, Gong cha is one of the fastest-growing bubble tea brands in the U.S and internationally, with over 2,000 locations in 20+ countries worldwide. Gong cha retained Carbonate to expand its brand awareness in the U.S. Its goals included attracting master franchisees to open new territories across the country, highlighting Gong cha’s growth trajectory, positioning bubble tea as a trending category, and driving sales to existing locations.
Franchise Development Support
Carbonate supports Gong cha’s franchise development and corporate communications by highlighting the expertise of their key executives, their unique master franchise model, and the compelling business opportunity the brand offers in a rapidly growing segment. Through strategic communications and relationship building with top writers and outlets, Gong cha has been recognized in numerous trade and business publications as a category leader and the authentic brand in the space.
Consumer Media Outreach
Carbonate supports brand awareness and sales for Gong cha’s 190 U.S. stores, engaging national, regional and local media in eight focus markets. We work closely with the U.S. marketing team to ideate creative, revenue-driving, and brand building promotions around flavor releases, LTOs, store openings and overall cultural trends.
Organic Social Media
With a social media presence spread across multiple international and local social media accounts, Gong cha’s goal was to create a national account for the United States to highlight key consumer messaging and support overall brand affinity in the U.S. In order to achieve this, Carbonate developed a plan that shifted content to speak to Gong cha’s target audience—Gen Z and young millennials—while increasing the US-based follower count, specifically within Gong cha’s markets.
Our social media and creative teams partner to develop brand-relevant content—identifying a distinct brand voice, look and feel through strategic copywriting, custom designed graphics, and art direction of photo shoots.
We then create content calendars on a monthly basis, identifying key posts to be boosted in order to amplify organic messaging. Within the first two months of managing Gong cha’s Instagram and Facebook channels, they collectively garnered over 3.5M impressions resulting in 2.8K new followers. Organic engagements alone surpassed 60K, ranging from comments on Instagram reels, to store-related inquiries through DMs. Understanding that nurturing existing and new online communities is critical to social media success, our team actively engages with Gong cha’s social media community, customers, and followers to ensure their social media experience is as seamless as possible with their brand experience.
Influencer Marketing
As influencer marketing continues to become increasingly relevant with Gen Z and millennial audiences, we identified influencer pilot opportunities on both TikTok and Instagram to gauge messaging strategies within their target audience, measure efficacy of each platform, and understand the advertising and creator nuances between the platforms and audiences. Carbonate handled all aspects of influencer partnerships, including campaign strategy, scouting and outreach, negotiation and briefing, and finalizing content deliverables. Because Gong cha did not have an active TikTok channel, utilizing influencer partnerships allowed the brand to spread key messages and have a larger TikTok footprint without creating a brand channel. Working with 19 local nano/micro influencers, we were able to determine which types of messaging and creative resonated most with bubble tea lovers on TikTok, resulting in over 300k video views and 14k engagements. Carbonate continues to manage Gong cha’s influencer program, focusing primarily on Instagram influencers.
Paid Social Media Advertising
In order to ensure content reaches Gong cha's target audience, Carbonate developed a plan that included a boosted post campaign to amplify key messages. We also developed a full-funnel ad campaign catered to those within zip codes affiliated with Gong cha locations, focused on increasing brand awareness, traffic to their online store locator, and increasing social media following on Instagram and Facebook. For each campaign, Carbonate developed monthly/quarterly creative content and copy to keep the content fresh and seasonal. Within the 45 days of advertising on Meta platforms, awareness ads garnered 1.8M impressions, retargeting ads saw 6K+ online store locator landing page views, and the boosting campaign cost per engagement averaged $0.03. In order to continuously optimize the paid campaign, consistent A/B tests are run to garner insights on creative, messaging, and targeting, ensuring we are speaking to Gen Z and millennial audiences authentically.
Photography: Jayna Kropas