Exploring the Collaboration Between Mister Donut and After You: How Mass Brands Go Premium and Premium Brands Adapt to Market Challenges

I believe that many people who walk past the store Mister Donut Or scroll your social media feeds during this time. You may have seen the soft yellow image of the campaign. After You Donut – Signature x Signature Somewhat more or less

Because of the handshake between Mister Donut Donut market leader with branches all over the country with After You An iconic dessert brand that everyone loves. It's not just about the deliciousness that comes together. But if we look deeper into the financial statements and business direction This is another interesting and necessary brand move for both sides at this time.

today Thumbsup will take you to trace the strategy behind this collaboration. Why does it have to be now? And who gets what from this deal?

Interpreting “Iconic” to “Grab-and-Go”

The challenge of this campaign is to re-imagine After You's signature menu in the form of a donut. The R&D teams of both brands work closely together to decode the flavors, whether Shibuya Honey Toast Pon de Ring that brings out the uniqueness of honey toast and puts it in pond de ring dough or Butter Sod Donuts which is modeled after the popular Single Butter Bread

What's interesting is the product positioning. Mister Donut wants to improve its image to look more premium through After You's Brand Image, while After You itself has expanded Accessibility. or reaching consumers at large through Mister Donut's branch network throughout the country.

In addition to the products in the normal store There is also a marketing gimmick by opening Pop-up Store, tuk tuk style at Central World to create a new experience and attract the Gen Z group, including tourists, which has an exclusive menu sold only here. This is a play on Scarcity or rarity. To create a good Social Talk trend.

add excitement On the day the market started to calm down

If looking at Q3/2025 operating results of CENTEL, parent company of CRG It will be found that food business income was 3,233 million baht, growing only 2% from the previous year. Although overall profits look better due to cost management But revenue growth at 2% reflects that generating sales to grow leaps and bounds in the chain restaurant market is starting to be a challenge.

Mister Donut, one of the core brands of the CRG portfolio (accounting for approximately 13% of the food group's revenue), is required to have Big Campaign To stimulate traffic into the store, doing Collaboration Marketing with a brand that has high Brand Love like After You is therefore the best shortcut. Refresh Brand To look fresh and attract new customers who may have never walked into Mister Donut, try opening yourself up and walking in.

When numbers force you to mass

While Mister Donut's side wants to be cool, After You's side may be wanting it. Scale and Revenue urgently

When unfolding the financial statements for Q3/2025 After You (AU) Come out and take a look, we can see some worrying signs. Operating income decreased by 8% to 393 million baht and, shockingly, net profit dropped by 37% to only 52 million baht.

But the numbers that reflect the problem most clearly are: Same-Store Sales Growth (SSSG) was negative at 21.3%. This means same-store sales dropped precipitously. The main reason is lower customer traffic and less spending per bill. Even though After You is trying to fix the game by expanding Non-Café channels, such as selling products in Modern Trade, which has grown very well, or over 63%, it is still not enough to compensate for the lost storefront income.

Therefore, joining hands with Mister Donut is not just cool branding, but Survival Strategy To find a new channel of income through selling copyrights or raw materials and distributing products into the mass market without having to invest in opening a branch yourself to get hurt. This is in line with After You's 2025 strategy that clearly focuses on expanding distribution channels.

Thumbsup Consider that this deal is another interesting pairing in terms of business.

• Mister Donut: Get premium images, get new customers, and get Hero Products to stimulate sales in quarters that need excitement.
• After You: Gain broad awareness and, most importantly, get additional income to help support operating results during a time when the cafe business is facing serious challenges.

The next challenge is whether Mister Donut can maintain product quality to the standard that After You fans expect. Because if you do it well This will be the new norm for donuts in Thailand. But if you don't succeed, it may become a double-edged sword that can destroy the brand value of both of you as well.

This campaign will be available until March 15, 2026 This is only for anyone who wants to study sweet and fun marketing cases like this. You must hurry and try it and analyze it.

Reference: CENTEL 1, 2, After You

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