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Leo Kwan Creating MingCha
Leo Kwan Creating MingCha
Leo Kwan
Creating
MingCha
A portfolio of
brand building
As statistic studies review, tea will
be the next international trend in
beverage consumption. The idea
of making a Chinese tea brand for
the world came to me somehow
naturally after helping companies
such as Nestl and International
Coffee Organization to enter
China. Between 1999 and 2006,
I created and developed MingCha
and its business operation. The
following are a few images that
represent some of my efforts in
this self-funded project.
MingCha window display in
Pacific Place, Hong Kong, 2003
Leo Kwan
Creating MingCha
A Portfolio of Brand Building
Contents
Mission
The Products
Points of Sales
Market Education
10
Publicity
12
Reaching Out
14
Other Projects
17
Appendixes
19
Mission
Bringing Fine Tea Into the
International Mainstream
In creating the brand and business of
MingCha, I had the personal agenda
of reviving a traditional Chinese trade.
I wanted fine Chinese tea to acquire
as much universal acceptance as
fine Bordeaux wines, and a brand as
aspiring as Ferrari is in cars, or as Apple
is in consumer IT products.
The Products
Expression of Quality
Rethinking the pack of tea
I created 6 lines of over 90 packaged
tea products for the brand. A difference
I tried to make in designing the
packaging was to make fine tea more
understandable by beginning to educate
the consumers through the information
given on the labels. This approach has
become one international trend for tea
labels since our launch in 2000.
Because of the nature of Longjin and how it is produced, I thought of the concept of Single Day
Batch retail pack. The graphics was developed around the idea to educate. To be able to deliver
such quality was a showcase of our product management capability.
Product Structure
Price range
What is a range that would allow a
point of entry and yet maintain a brand
prestige? What is easily saleable and
what needs to be pushed?
Quality range
Which are the qualities that the veteran
tea connoisseurs would be impressed?
Which are those the novice would be
attracted to try?
Taste range
Have I offered enough for different
individual preference? Have I kept
too large an inventory? Which are the
tastes that would add up to a cohesive
brand character?
Points of Sales
Points of Sales
Objectives: Transactions
& Market Share
Market Education
Quality Speaks
Creating an environment
for dialogues
To convince the market of our quality, we
first had to empower the consumers and
the trade with the knowledge and ability
to appreciate fine teas. I developed the
proprietary Interactive Tea Selection
Guide; properly structured tea
appreciation courses; and various printed
materials, including Not All Teas Are
Created Equal A MingCha Guide to
Premium Tea, which had seen its 5th
impression in early 2006.
Publicity
A customer couple
gave testimony in a
RTHK special feature
which focused on our
brand building efforts.
One of the Design in
Progress series
Reaching Out
Conclusion
Passport to the World
A brand does not strive in a vacuum.
It is through the interactions of all
elements in the operation environment
that a brand can shine. Some are under
ones control, but most are those we
can only influence. A well-designed
brand should be developed riding on
these elements, so that the operation
environment evolves to its advantage.
That is how a brand strives in its home;
that is how it could reach out to turn
the world into its market.
Appendixes
Appendix 3
Leo Kwan
e-mail: [email protected]
Tea Hong, Hong Kong