SHANGHAI, China – SOUL, a social networking app sought-after among Generation Z, has teamed up with the iconic Canadian coffee house Tim Hortons China. The platform has created the trending topic “100 Moments Where Coffee Saved Your Day”, to encourage its users to exchange their thoughts with the opportunity to win SOUL user exclusive coffee coupon codes.
The lucky winners will be able to visit Tim Hortons shops for a cup of latte. As the coffee topic goes viral, SOUL users have taken to the app in droves to share their personal stories about work, life and above all, coffee. Their experiences highlight the “can-do” spirit that defines this generation.
Since their respective launches, both brands have thrived by taking root in the minds and hearts of young people. Tim Hortons, established in 1964, made its foray into the Chinese mainland market in 2019, and its exceptional coffee and freshly baked goods have since drawn in a large number of young Chinese coffee drinkers who are unable to resist the charm of coffee culture. In tandem, SOUL, which came online in 2016, prides itself on providing an emotionally connected social platform where more than 100 million users can express themselves authentically and meet like-minded people, ushering in a Gen Z driven social networking wave.
With a vision to diversify the way people find friends, SOUL continues to keep a finger on the pulse of the Gen Z culture, and give full play to its social networking ecosystem as well as engaging content. This has allowed SOUL to launch innovative marketing campaigns to inspire original content creation and build up brand awareness, both of which will, in turn, generate more inspirations for its marketing endeavors. Harnessing the popular coffee culture, SOUL and Tim Hortons have joined forces to bring the magic of online emotional connections offline, in a bid to reach a wider audience of young people.
Focusing on more than just marketing, the popular social platform has inspired and energized young people to participate in charitable acts for the public good. On World Mental Health Day, SOUL hosted an art-for-charity exhibition entitled “Special Doesn’t Mean Lonely” featuring paintings jointly crafted by SOUL volunteers and teenagers with autism spectrum disorder. Combining aesthetic beauty and the warmth of charity, their paintings offer a glimpse into the inner world and extraordinary artistic talent of this special group of individuals. In late December, SOUL held “Different Socks Day”, a philanthropic event dedicated to raising public awareness of those with special needs, and introduced a wide range of in-app activities, attracting hundreds of thousands of young users.
Every day, SOUL is enriched with high-quality original content posted by millions of young people, who express themselves genuinely and share fascinating life moments to spark new friendships. This blossoming social content ecosystem is built on top of the app’s soul-based recommendation system – an innovation that distinguishes SOUL from its traditional peers. Taking care to diminish the importance of appearance, SOUL puts individual characteristics, such as hobbies and personalities, at the center, and recommends would-be like-minded friends to create intriguing content using big data and AI. It also features a decentralized content distribution system which gives less weight to trending topics, allowing every user a fair chance to show their interesting soul.
Such innovative designs have made possible a stress-free space for users, so that they can walk out of their existing social circles, browse varied content and enjoy heart-to-heart communication with accurately recommended friends. SOUL topped the most downloaded social networking list in the China App Store, in which it still retains a leading position, and today is home to more than 100 million users in China, with more than 30 million MAUs. Internationally, the app is also available in North America, Japan and Korea in its tailored versions. In the social media landscape, dominated by established players, a new social wonderland for Gen Z is taking shape.
