Café de Coral Xiaohongshu Marketing
As one of Hong Kong's most iconic chain fast-food brands, Café de Coral offers a rich menu with strong local character. With mainland visitor traffic to Hong Kong remaining high, the brand's goal was clear—attract mainland travellers to dine at Café de Coral, experience authentic Hong Kong flavours, and drive in-store sales.
- Total impressions
- 5,213,958+
- Total video views
- 681,207+
- Total engagements
- 24,929+
The Background
As one of Hong Kong's most iconic chain fast-food brands, Café de Coral offers a rich menu with strong local character. With mainland visitor traffic to Hong Kong remaining high, the brand's goal was clear—attract mainland travellers to dine at Café de Coral, experience authentic Hong Kong flavours, and drive in-store sales.
The Strategy
To win over mainland visitors, we centred our strategy on nostalgia. Their affection for Hong Kong culture largely stems from classic Hong Kong films, TVB dramas, and pop music. For them, cha chaan tengs are not just places to eat but carriers of Hong Kong culture. We could not simply emphasise value for money or fast service—we packaged Café de Coral through copy and visuals as a must-visit local cha chaan teng. By evoking memories of iconic scenes from films and dramas, we made Café de Coral the first stop for experiencing authentic Hong Kong lifestyle.
Must-eat, must-do cheat sheet
When planning Hong Kong trips, Xiaohongshu users often face fragmented information and time-consuming itinerary planning. We packaged the brand as a "must-eat, must-do cheat sheet" and used efficient formats such as nine-grid layouts to consolidate information. Users would actively save content for its practicality, successfully achieving seeding goals.
The Execution
Mainland visitors to Hong Kong often queue at expensive famous cha chaan tengs. We had to break the perception that Café de Coral is merely street-level chain fast food, upgrading it to a hidden gem combining value and authentic taste, and anchoring the brand to popular traffic codes. Looking back at execution, the campaign's key was moving beyond traditional fast-food hard-sell thinking. Through deep insight into Xiaohongshu's ecosystem, we uncovered compounding effects with greater long-term value for the brand. Below are the core drivers behind traffic and sales wins:
Positioning Café de Coral as a must-visit Hong Kong landmark
On Xiaohongshu, we boldly positioned Café de Coral as a "must-eat restaurant for Hong Kong travel," upgrading it from a simple fast-food chain to an unmissable Hong Kong destination. We leveraged visually striking nine-grid layouts to showcase mouth-watering Cantonese dishes from multiple angles.
Integrating Hong Kong icons
We deeply bundled Café de Coral with other famous Hong Kong attractions, landmarks, and iconic products, making it easy for users to copy and add to their shopping lists in one click. Through frequent appearances across travel guides, we maximised brand exposure and drove continuous referral traffic. When users search Hong Kong guides on Xiaohongshu, they see Café de Coral across multiple notes. This high-frequency repetition creates the impression that Café de Coral is simply one of the restaurants you must visit in Hong Kong, prompting users to copy and add it to their itineraries without hesitation.
Limited-time Chinese New Year gift boxes
Mainland visitors value social etiquette and the tradition of buying souvenirs. They need Hong Kong-authentic, beautifully packaged New Year goods for relatives and elders. During the campaign, we heavily promoted Café de Coral's Chinese New Year gift boxes as the perfect souvenir choice. Visitors could complete New Year gifts for relatives in one stop while dining at Café de Coral, without queuing at specialty shops, helping stores increase average transaction value.
The Sparkling Spots
Innovative soft-seeding sales approach
The campaign successfully used soft-seeding strategy to deeply link Café de Coral with Hong Kong nostalgia. Travellers who love cha chaan teng culture naturally developed the mindset that visiting Hong Kong means eating at Café de Coral. This not only placed Café de Coral on visitors' must-visit lists but also deepened emotional connections between users and the brand.
Refreshing brand perception with Hong Kong cultural identity
By deeply combining food with Hong Kong travel elements, the campaign successfully repositioned Café de Coral as "the soul of Hong Kong-style cuisine." This refreshed brand perception among mainland audiences and greatly enhanced the authentic Hong Kong image of the local Café de Coral brand, creating strong appeal for Hong Kong visitors.
The Result
On Xiaohongshu, we targeted three core marketing segments: high-value Hong Kong dining, benchmark cuisine for Hong Kong-Macau visitors, and everyday restaurants for local Hong Kong workers. We implemented a top-down inverted pyramid influencer matrix: KOLs for content breakout and topic ignition, radiating to mid-tier KOCs for content penetration. Content centred on Hong Kong on-site restaurant visit videos and in-depth food guide image-text notes, layered to boost platform search heat and efficiently complete user seeding and demand building.
Case study FAQ
What measurable results did the Café de Coral Xiaohongshu campaign achieve?
The campaign achieved 5,213,958+ impressions, with all video content accumulating 681,207+ views and 24,929+ total engagements.
How does Café de Coral attract mainland visitors on Xiaohongshu?
As one of Hong Kong's most iconic chain fast-food brands, Café de Coral offers a rich menu with strong local character. With mainland visitor traffic to Hong Kong remaining high, the brand's goal was clear—attract mainland travellers to dine at Café de Coral, experience authentic Hong Kong flavours, and drive in-store sales.
What is the core of Café de Coral's Xiaohongshu content strategy?
To win over mainland visitors, we centred our strategy on nostalgia. Their affection for Hong Kong culture largely stems from classic Hong Kong films, TVB dramas, and pop music. For them, cha chaan tengs are not just places to eat but carriers of Hong Kong culture.
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