Marketing Over Coffee · [email protected] (John Wall and Christopher Penn)

Bubble Tea with Missy Maio, Vice President of Marketing at Gong Cha

·27 min·2 clips

Gong Cha intentionally partnered with Frank's Red Hot to create a controversial spicy bubble tea trend.

Gong Cha is already big. Missy Mayo describes the bubble tea chain as a global QSR player, with more than 2,200 stores worldwide and about 500 across the Americas. The Americas piece is where the marketing gets interesting. Her job is to keep countries lined up around the same promotion while leaving room for taste to vary by market. Mexico surprises John, especially once Peanuts comes up. Gong Cha has more than a hundred stores there, and Missy says the brand is a force to be reckoned with in Mexico. Peanuts gives the conversation its cleanest example. John is surprised that Charlie Brown and Snoopy land so well outside the U.S., while Missy points out that the characters are known worldwide. The campaign had already traveled. Missy says the Peanuts idea came from Australia and New Zealand, where an earlier partnership did well enough to create digital demand in other markets. That changed the next move. Gong Cha went straight to Peanuts, then built a promotion with several ways for customers to notice it. The cups mattered. Character cup toppers, scratch-off cards connected to digital assets, store-only digital assets, and themed drinks all gave the campaign more than one entry point. Missy is clear that the options are limited. Some ideas are strong, but a brand can only use them once before the novelty is gone. Scarcity helped the merch side. Snoopy tumblers sold out in record time, and the team used a gift-with-purchase Snoopy straw topper to keep the campaign going beyond the menu. The episode stays practical. John keeps pressing on market recognition and how many moving pieces a restaurant brand can reasonably manage. Missy keeps pulling the answer back to execution. For 2025, she says Gong Cha is focused on moving from good to great, and John ties the phrase to the Jim Collins business classic.

As heard by us

A practical look at how a global bubble tea brand keeps promotions fresh without wasting motion.

The episode takes a practical look at Gong Cha's growth, and it settles quickly into the mechanics that matter: a bubble tea chain with more than 2,200 stores and about 500 in the Americas, how local markets shape campaign choices, and why small promotional touches can carry…

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