Adopt A Cow: The Four Year Old Chinese Diary Brand That Ranked #1 on 11.11

December 23, 2020December 23, 2020 Kejie Yi

A2 milk from Adopt A Cow. Source: Tmall store 认养一头牛.

Adopt A Cow is a four-year-old Chinese diary brand that surpassed two diary giants Yili (伊利) and Mengniu Dairy (蒙牛) to become the TOP1 in the diary product category during this year’s Double 11.

How did Adopt A Cow grow so quickly in such an intensive market?

High-Quality Cows in a High-Quality Environment

The brand raises its own cows from birth because it believes that only when a cow is being raised well, its milk will be delicious.

Here’s an example, let’s name the cow “Meow”. Meow’s father comes from America. The team saved his sperm in an extremely cold environment and has it shipped to China. After artificial insemination, a female cow carries a baby, which is Meow.

After 9 months, Meow is born. Meow lives in her own room until she is weaned from her mother’s milk. At the same time, she will be marked with a series of numbers, for example, 190002, meaning she is the second cow born on this farm in 2019.

Baby cow is being fed. Source: Tmall store 认养一头牛.

After this date, Meow’s life is tracked carefully. Her profile will record when she was vaccinated, her weight, her steps (it’s like WeRun) and her times of rumination. Meow also has periodic physical examinations, massages and relaxation treatments. On average, her food costs 80 RMB per day. In hot summers, Meow can also enjoy smart spray to cool down.

Cows being checked at the farm. Source: Tmall store 认养一头牛.

A New Approach to Selling Milk

When the brand was founded in 2016, the offline market was saturated and dominated by products from either Yili or Mengniu Dairy. It would cost lots of time and energy for Adopt A Cow to break through the offline market, so the brand chose to focus on selling online. To date its Tmall store has over 6.2M followers.

To get consumers to become more loyal and to purchase larger amounts of milk, Adopt A Cow introduced its annual card or seasonal card service. Consumers who purchase a card can receive a month’s worth of milk on a date every month, and the brand makes sure that those milk are produced within 40 days before the receiving date.

A seasonal card costs 297 RMB and an annual card costs 1,188 RMB. This business model is welcomed among customers with a repurchase rate of 52%.

Building Trust With Customers

Customer Feedback Groups to Develop New Products

Adopt A Cow values customers’ opinions. Recently, it announced that it would soon launch A2 dairy products.

The health effects of milk may depend on the breed of cow it came from. Currently, A2 milk is marketed as a healthier choice than regular A1 milk. Proponents assert that A2 has several health benefits and is easier for people with milk intolerance to digest. Right now, approximately only 30% of the world’s dairy cows are A2, and most of them are located in western countries such as New Zealand.

In September, prior to this announcement, when Adopt A Cow was studying the A2 dairy industry, the brand leveraged its WeChat Official Account to invite more than 1,000 customers to express their needs and concerns. It also invited customers to offline meetings to see and test its new products.

The brand’s offline meeting with customers. Source: Tmall store 认养一头牛.

From this communication, Adopt A Cow learned what issues are bothering Chinese mothers, (who are the largest consumer group for milk). Most of them expressed concern about how to choose the right diary for their babies after ablactation and what will not cause adverse reactions in their babies.

Customers Actually “Adopt” a Cow

The brand is being fun by naming itself “Adopt A Cow”. This is easy to remember and eye-catching. And with the name, the brand is really helping customers to adopt a cow. Customers will receive images and growing information of the cow that they adopt regularly.

Livestreams and Farm Visits

Many Chinese consumers still don’t trust domestic dairy brands because of what happened in 2008 with the fake formula scandal. To gain consumers’ trust, Adopt A Cow livestreams its farm, the environment where those cows grow up and the progress of milking to its customers. It also sets the 26th of every month as an open day for customers to visit its farm, taste its products and give suggestions and feedback.